none proofreading team. a mind that found itself _an autobiography_ by clifford whittingham beers _first edition, march, second edition, with additions, june, reprinted, november, third edition revised, march, reprinted, september, reprinted, july, fourth edition revised, march, reprinted, february, fifth edition revised, october, _ dedicated to the memory of my uncle samuel edwin merwin whose timely generosity i believe saved my life and whose death has forever robbed me of a satisfying opportunity to prove my gratitude a mind that found itself i this story is derived from as human a document as ever existed; and, because of its uncommon nature, perhaps no one thing contributes so much to its value as its authenticity. it is an autobiography, and more: in part it is a biography; for, in telling the story of my life, i must relate the history of another self--a self which was dominant from my twenty-fourth to my twenty-sixth year. during that period i was unlike what i had been, or what i have been since. the biographical part of my autobiography might be called the history of a mental civil war, which i fought single-handed on a battlefield that lay within the compass of my skull. an army of unreason, composed of the cunning and treacherous thoughts of an unfair foe, attacked my bewildered consciousness with cruel persistency, and would have destroyed me, had not a triumphant reason finally interposed a superior strategy that saved me from my unnatural self. i am not telling the story of my life just to write a book. i tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. a narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: for what purpose was my life spared? that question i have asked myself, and this book is, in part, an answer. i was born shortly after sunset about thirty years ago. my ancestors, natives of england, settled in this country not long after the _mayflower_ first sailed into plymouth harbor. and the blood of these ancestors, by time and the happy union of a northern man and a southern woman--my parents--has perforce been blended into blood truly american. the first years of my life were, in most ways, not unlike those of other american boys, except as a tendency to worry made them so. though the fact is now difficult for me to believe, i was painfully shy. when first i put on short trousers, i felt that the eyes of the world were on me; and to escape them i hid behind convenient pieces of furniture while in the house and, so i am told, even sidled close to fences when i walked along the street. with my shyness there was a degree of self-consciousness which put me at a disadvantage in any family or social gathering. i talked little and was ill at ease when others spoke to me. like many other sensitive and somewhat introspective children, i passed through a brief period of morbid righteousness. in a game of "one-old-cat," the side on which i played was defeated. on a piece of scantling which lay in the lot where the contest took place, i scratched the score. afterwards it occurred to me that my inscription was perhaps misleading and would make my side appear to be the winner. i went back and corrected the ambiguity. on finding in an old tool chest at home a coin or medal, on which there appeared the text, "put away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light," my sense of religious propriety was offended. it seemed a sacrilege to use in this way such a high sentiment, so i destroyed the coin. i early took upon myself, mentally at least, many of the cares and worries of those about me. whether in this i was different from other youngsters who develop a ludicrous, though pathetic, sense of responsibility for the universe, i do not know. but in my case the most extreme instance occurred during a business depression, when the family resources were endangered. i began to fear that my father (than whom a more hopeful man never lived) might commit suicide. after all, i am not sure that the other side of my nature--the natural, healthy, boyish side--did not develop equally with these timid and morbid tendencies, which are not so very uncommon in childhood. certainly the natural, boyish side was more in evidence on the surface. i was as good a sport as any of my playfellows in such games as appealed to me, and i went a-fishing when the chance offered. none of my associates thought of me as being shy or morose. but this was because i masked my troubles, though quite unconsciously, under a camouflage of sarcasm and sallies of wit, or, at least, what seemed to pass for wit among my immature acquaintances. with grown-ups, i was at times inclined to be pert, my degree of impudence depending no doubt upon how ill at ease i was and how perfectly at ease i wished to appear. because of the constant need for appearing happier than i really was, i developed a knack for saying things in an amusing, sometimes an epigrammatic, way. i recall one remark made long before i could possibly have heard of malthus or have understood his theory regarding birth rate and food supply. ours being a large family of limited means and, among the five boys of the family, unlimited appetites, we often used the cheaper, though equally nutritious, cuts of meat. on one occasion when the steak was tougher than usual, i epitomized the malthusian theory by remarking: "i believe in fewer children and better beefsteak!" one more incident of my boyhood days may assist the reader to make my acquaintance. in my early teens i was, for one year, a member of a boy choir. barring my voice, i was a good chorister, and, like all good choir-boys, i was distinguished by that seraphic passiveness from which a reaction of some kind is to be expected immediately after a service or rehearsal. on one occasion this reaction in me manifested itself in a fist fight with a fellow choir-boy. though i cannot recall the time when i have not relished verbal encounters, physical encounters had never been to my taste, and i did not seek this fight. my assailant really goaded me into it. if the honors were not mine, at least i must have acquitted myself creditably, for an interested passer-by made a remark which i have never forgotten. "that boy is all right after he gets started," he said. about twelve years later i did get started, and could that passer-by have seen me on any one of several occasions, he would have had the satisfaction of knowing that his was a prophetic eye. at the usual age, i entered a public grammar school in new haven, connecticut, where i graduated in . in the fall of that year i entered the high school of the same city. my school courses were completed with as little trouble as scholastic distinction. i always managed to gain promotion, however, when it was due; and, though few of my teachers credited me with real ability, they were always able to detect a certain latent capacity, which they evidently believed would one day develop sufficiently to prevent me from disgracing them. upon entering the high school i had such ambitions as any schoolboy is apt to have. i wished to secure an election to a given secret society; that gained, i wished to become business manager of a monthly magazine published by that society. in these ambitions i succeeded. for one of my age i had more than an average love of business. indeed, i deliberately set about learning to play the guitar well enough to become eligible for membership in the banjo club--and this for no more aesthetic purpose than to place myself in line for the position of manager, to which i was later elected. in athletics there was but one game, tennis, in which i was actively interested. its quick give-and-take suited my temperament, and so fond was i of it that during one summer i played not fewer than four thousand games. as i had an aptitude for tennis and devoted more time to it than did any of my schoolmates, it was not surprising that i acquired skill enough to win the school championship during my senior year. but that success was not due entirely to my superiority as a player. it was due in part to what i considered unfair treatment; and the fact well illustrates a certain trait of character which has often stood me in good stead. among the spectators at the final match of the tournament were several girls. these schoolmates, who lived in my neighborhood, had mistaken for snobbishness a certain boyish diffidence for which few people gave me credit. when we passed each other, almost daily, this group of girls and i, our mutual sign of recognition was a look in an opposite direction. now my opponent was well liked by these same girls and was entitled to their support. accordingly they applauded his good plays, which was fair. they did not applaud my good plays, which was also fair. but what was not fair was that they should applaud my bad plays. their doing so roiled my blood, and thanks to those who would have had me lose, i won. in june, , i received a high school diploma. shortly afterwards i took my examinations for yale, and the following september entered the sheffield scientific school, in a non-technical course. the last week of june, , was an important one in my life. an event then occurred which undoubtedly changed my career completely. it was the direct cause of my mental collapse six years later, and of the distressing and, in some instances, strange and delightful experiences on which this book is based. the event was the illness of an older brother, who, late in june, , was stricken with what was thought to be epilepsy. few diseases can so disorganize a household and distress its members. my brother had enjoyed perfect health up to the time he was stricken; and, as there had never been a suggestion of epilepsy, or any like disease, in either branch of the family, the affliction came as a bolt from a clear sky. everything possible was done to effect a cure, but without avail. on july th, , he died, after a six years' illness, two years of which were spent at home, one year in a trip around the world in a sailing vessel, and most of the remainder on a farm near hartford. the doctors finally decided that a tumor at the base of the brain had caused his malady and his death. as i was in college when my brother was first stricken, i had more time at my disposal than the other members of the family, and for that reason spent much of it with him. though his attacks during the first year occurred only at night, the fear that they might occur during the day, in public, affected my nerves from the beginning. now, if a brother who had enjoyed perfect health all his life could be stricken with epilepsy, what was to prevent my being similarly afflicted? this was the thought that soon got possession of my mind. the more i considered it and him, the more nervous i became; and the more nervous, the more convinced that my own breakdown was only a matter of time. doomed to what i then considered a living death, i thought of epilepsy, i dreamed epilepsy, until thousands of times during the six years that this disquieting idea persisted, my over-wrought imagination seemed to drag me to the very verge of an attack. yet at no time during my life have these early fears been realized. for the fourteen months succeeding the time my brother was first stricken, i was greatly harassed with fear; but not until later did my nerves really conquer me. i remember distinctly when the break came. it happened in november, , during a recitation in german. that hour in the class room was one of the most disagreeable i ever experienced. it seemed as if my nerves had snapped, like so many minute bands of rubber stretched beyond their elastic limit. had i had the courage to leave the room, i should have done so; but i sat as if paralyzed until the class was dismissed. that term i did not again attend recitations. continuing my studies at home, i passed satisfactory examinations, which enabled me to resume my place in the class room the following january. during the remainder of my college years i seldom entered a recitation room with any other feeling than that of dread, though the absolute assurance that i should not be called upon to recite did somewhat relieve my anxiety in some classes. the professors, whom i had told about my state of health and the cause of it, invariably treated me with consideration; but, though i believe they never doubted the genuineness of my excuse, it was easy matter to keep them convinced for almost two-thirds of my college course. my inability to recite was not due usually to any lack of preparation. however well prepared i might be, the moment i was called upon, a mingling of a thousand disconcerting sensations, and the distinct thought that at last the dread attack was at hand, would suddenly intervene and deprive me of all but the power to say, "not prepared." weeks would pass without any other record being placed opposite my name than a zero, or a blank indicating that i had not been called upon at all. occasionally, however, a professor, in justice to himself and to the other students, would insist that i recite, and at such times i managed to make enough of a recitation to hold my place in the class. when i entered yale, i had four definite ambitions: first, to secure an election to a coveted secret society; second, to become one of the editors of the _yale record_, an illustrated humorous bi-weekly; third (granting that i should succeed in this latter ambition), to convince my associates that i should have the position of business manager--an office which i sought, not for the honor, but because i believed it would enable me to earn an amount of money at least equal to the cost of tuition for my years at yale; fourth (and this was my chief ambition), to win my diploma within the prescribed time. these four ambitions i fortunately achieved. a man's college days, collectively, are usually his happiest. most of mine were not happy. yet i look back upon them with great satisfaction, for i feel that i was fortunate enough to absorb some of that intangible, but very real, element known as the "yale spirit." this has helped to keep hope alive within me during my most discouraged moments, and has ever since made the accomplishment of my purposes seem easy and sure. ii on the thirtieth day of june, , i graduated at yale. had i then realized that i was a sick man, i could and would have taken a rest. but, in a way, i had become accustomed to the ups and downs of a nervous existence, and, as i could not really afford a rest, six days after my graduation i entered upon the duties of a clerk in the office of the collector of taxes in the city of new haven. i was fortunate in securing such a position at that time, for the hours were comparatively short and the work as congenial as any could have been under the circumstances. i entered the tax office with the intention of staying only until such time as i might secure a position in new york. about a year later i secured the desired position. after remaining in it for eight months i left it, in order to take a position which seemed to offer a field of endeavor more to my taste. from may, , till the middle of june, , i was a clerk in one of the smaller life-insurance companies, whose home office was within a stone's throw of what some men consider the center of the universe. to be in the very heart of the financial district of new york appealed strongly to my imagination. as a result of the contagious ideals of wall street, the making of money was then a passion with me. i wished to taste the bitter-sweet of power based on wealth. for the first eighteen months of my life in new york my health seemed no worse than it had been during the preceding three years. but the old dread still possessed me. i continued to have my more and less nervous days, weeks, and months. in march, , however, there came a change for the worse. at that time i had a severe attack of grippe which incapacitated me for two weeks. as was to be expected in my case, this illness seriously depleted my vitality, and left me in a frightfully depressed condition--a depression which continued to grow upon me until the final crash came, on june rd, . the events of that day, seemingly disastrous as then viewed, but evidently all for the best as the issue proved, forced me along paths traveled by thousands, but comprehended by few. i had continued to perform my clerical duties until june th. on that day i was compelled to stop, and that at once. i had reached a point where my will had to capitulate to unreason--that unscrupulous usurper. my previous five years as a neurasthenic had led me to believe that i had experienced all the disagreeable sensations an overworked and unstrung nervous system could suffer. but on this day several new and terrifying sensations seized me and rendered me all but helpless. my condition, however, was not apparent even to those who worked with me at the same desk. i remember trying to speak and at times finding myself unable to give utterance to my thoughts. though i was able to answer questions, that fact hardly diminished my feeling of apprehension, for a single failure in an attempt to speak will stagger any man, no matter what his state of health. i tried to copy certain records in the day's work, but my hand was too unsteady, and i found it difficult to read the words and figures presented to my tired vision in blurred confusion. that afternoon, conscious that some terrible calamity was impending, but not knowing what would be its nature, i performed a very curious act. certain early literary efforts which had failed of publication in the college paper, but which i had jealously cherished for several years, i utterly destroyed. then, after a hurried arrangement of my affairs, i took an early afternoon train, and was soon in new haven. home life did not make me better, and, except for three or four short walks, i did not go out of the house at all until june d, when i went in a most unusual way. to relatives i said little about my state of health, beyond the general statement that i had never felt worse--a statement which, when made by a neurasthenic, means much, but proves little. for five years i had had my ups and downs, and both my relatives and myself had begun to look upon these as things which would probably be corrected in and by time. the day after my home-coming i made up my mind, or that part of it which was still within my control, that the time had come to quit business entirely and take a rest of months. i even arranged with a younger brother to set out at once for some quiet place in the white mountains, where i hoped to steady my shattered nerves. at this time i felt as though in a tremor from head to foot, and the thought that i was about to have an epileptic attack constantly recurred. on more than one occasion i said to friends that i would rather die than live an epileptic; yet, if i rightly remember, i never declared the actual fear that i was doomed to bear such an affliction. though i held the mad belief that i should suffer epilepsy, i held the sane hope, amounting to belief, that i should escape it. this fact may account, in a measure, for my six years of endurance. on the th of june i felt so much worse that i went to my bed and stayed there until the d. during the night of the th my persistent dread became a false belief--a delusion. what i had long expected i now became convinced had at last occurred. i believed myself to be a confirmed epileptic, and that conviction was stronger than any ever held by a sound intellect. the half-resolve, made before my mind was actually impaired, namely, that i would kill myself rather than live the life i dreaded, now divided my attention with the belief that the stroke had fallen. from that time my one thought was to hasten the end, for i felt that i should lose the chance to die should relatives find me in an attack of epilepsy. considering the state of my mind and my inability at that time to appreciate the enormity of such an end as i half contemplated, my suicidal purpose was not entirely selfish. that i had never seriously contemplated suicide is proved by the fact that i had not provided myself with the means of accomplishing it, despite my habit, has long been remarked by my friends, of preparing even for unlikely contingencies. so far as i had the control of my faculties, it must be admitted that i deliberated; but, strictly speaking, the rash act which followed cannot correctly be called an attempt at suicide--for how can a man who is not himself kill himself? soon my disordered brain was busy with schemes for death. i distinctly remember one which included a row on lake whitney, near new haven. this i intended to take in the most unstable boat obtainable. such a craft could be easily upset, and i should so bequeath to relatives and friends a sufficient number of reasonable doubts to rob my death of the usual stigma. i also remember searching for some deadly drug which i hoped to find about the house. but the quantity and quality of what i found were not such as i dared to trust. i then thought of severing my jugular vein, even going so far as to test against my throat the edge of a razor which, after the deadly impulse first asserted itself, i had secreted in a convenient place. i really wished to die, but so uncertain and ghastly a method did not appeal to me. nevertheless, had i felt sure that in my tremulous frenzy i could accomplish the act with skilful dispatch, i should at once have ended my troubles. my imaginary attacks were now recurring with distracting frequency, and i was in constant fear of discovery. during these three or four days i slept scarcely at all--even the medicine given to induce sleep having little effect. though inwardly frenzied, i gave no outward sign of my condition. most of the time i remained quietly in bed. i spoke but seldom. i had practically, though not entirely, lost the power of speech; but my almost unbroken silence aroused no suspicions as to the seriousness of my condition. by a process of elimination, all suicidal methods but one had at last been put aside. on that one my mind now centred. my room was on the fourth floor of the house--one of a block of five--in which my parents lived. the house stood several feet back from the street. the sills of my windows were a little more than thirty feet above the ground. under one was a flag pavement, extending from the house to the front gate. under the other was a rectangular coal-hole covered with an iron grating. this was surrounded by flagging over a foot in width; and connecting it and the pavement proper was another flag. so that all along the front of the house, stone or iron filled a space at no point less than two feet in width. it required little calculation to determine how slight the chance of surviving a fall from either of those windows. about dawn i arose. stealthily i approached a window, pushed open the blinds, and looked out--and down. then i closed the blinds as noiselessly as possible and crept back to bed: i had not yet become so irresponsible that i dared to take the leap. scarcely had i pulled up the covering when a watchful relative entered my room, drawn thither perhaps by that protecting prescience which love inspires. i thought her words revealed a suspicion that she had heard me at the window, but speechless as i was i had enough speech to deceive her. for of what account are truth and love when life itself has ceased to seem desirable? the dawn soon hid itself in the brilliancy of a perfect june day. never had i seen a brighter--to look at; never a darker--to live through--or a better to die upon. its very perfection and the songs of the robins, which at that season were plentiful in the neighborhood, served but to increase my despair and make me the more willing to die. as the day wore on, my anguish became more intense, but i managed to mislead those about me by uttering a word now and then, and feigning to read a newspaper, which to me, however, appeared an unintelligible jumble of type. my brain was in a ferment. it felt as if pricked by a million needles at white heat. my whole body felt as though it would be torn apart by the terrific nervous strain under which i labored. shortly after noon, dinner having been served, my mother entered the room and asked me if she should bring me some dessert. i assented. it was not that i cared for the dessert; i had no appetite. i wished to get her out of the room, for i believed myself to be on the verge of another attack. she left at once. i knew that in two or three minutes she would return. the crisis seemed at hand. it was now or never for liberation. she had probably descended one of three flights of stairs when, with the mad desire to dash my brains out on the pavement below, i rushed to that window which was directly over the flag walk. providence must have guided my movements, for in some otherwise unaccountable way, on the very point of hurling myself out bodily, i chose to drop feet foremost instead. with my fingers i clung for a moment to the sill. then i let go. in falling my body turned so as to bring my right side toward the building. i struck the ground a little more than two feet from the foundation of the house, and at least three to the left of the point from which i started. missing the stone pavement by not more than three or four inches, i struck on comparatively soft earth. my position must have been almost upright, for both heels struck the ground squarely. the concussion slightly crushed one heel bone and broke most of the small bones in the arch of each foot, but there was no mutilation of the flesh. as my feet struck the ground my right hand struck hard against the front of the house, and it is probable that these three points of contact, dividing the force of the shock, prevented my back from being broken. as it was, it narrowly escaped a fracture and, for several weeks afterward, it felt as if powdered glass had been substituted for cartilage between the vertebrae. i did not lose consciousness even for a second, and the demoniacal dread, which had possessed me from june, , until this fall to earth just six years later, was dispelled the instant i struck the ground. at no time since have i experienced one of my imaginary attacks; nor has my mind even for a moment entertained such an idea. the little demon which had tortured me relentlessly for so many years evidently lacked the stamina which i must have had to survive the shock of my suddenly arrested flight through space. that the very delusion which drove me to a death-loving desperation should so suddenly vanish would seem to indicate that many a suicide might be averted if the person contemplating it could find the proper assistance when such a crisis impends. iii it was squarely in front of the dining-room window that i fell, and those at dinner were, of course, startled. it took them a second or two to realize what had happened. then my younger brother rushed out, and with others carried me into the house. naturally that dinner was permanently interrupted. a mattress was placed on the floor of the dining room and i on that, suffering intensely. i said little, but what i said was significant. "i thought i had epilepsy!" was my first remark; and several times i said, "i wish it was over!" for i believed that my death was only a question of hours. to the doctors, who soon arrived, i said, "my back is broken!"--raising myself slightly, however, as i said so. an ambulance was summoned and i was placed in it. because of the nature of my injuries it had to proceed slowly. the trip of a mile and a half seemed interminable, but finally i arrived at grace hospital and was placed in a room which soon became a chamber of torture. it was on the second floor; and the first object to engage my attention and stir my imagination was a man who appeared outside my window and placed in position several heavy iron bars. these were, it seems, thought necessary for my protection, but at that time no such idea occurred to me. my mind was in a delusional state, ready and eager to seize upon any external stimulus as a pretext for its wild inventions, and that barred window started a terrible train of delusions which persisted for seven hundred and ninety-eight days. during that period my mind imprisoned both mind and body in a dungeon than which none was ever more secure. knowing that those who attempt suicide are usually placed under arrest, i believed myself under legal restraint. i imagined that at any moment i might be taken to court to face some charge lodged against me by the local police. every act of those about me seemed to be a part of what, in police parlance, is commonly called the "third degree." the hot poultices placed upon my feet and ankles threw me into a profuse perspiration, and my very active association of mad ideas convinced me that i was being "sweated"--another police term which i had often seen in the newspapers. i inferred that this third-degree sweating process was being inflicted in order to extort some kind of a confession, though what my captors wished me to confess i could not for my life imagine. as i was really in a state of delirium, with high fever, i had an insatiable thirst. the only liquids given me were hot saline solutions. though there was good reason for administering these, i believed they were designed for no other purpose than to increase my sufferings, as part of the same inquisitorial process. but had a confession been due, i could hardly have made it, for that part of my brain which controls the power of speech was seriously affected, and was soon to be further disabled by my ungovernable thoughts. only an occasional word did i utter. certain hallucinations of hearing, or "false voices," added to my torture. within my range of hearing, but beyond the reach of my understanding, there was a hellish vocal hum. now and then i would recognize the subdued voice of a friend; now and then i would hear the voices of some i believed were not friends. all these referred to me and uttered what i could not clearly distinguish, but knew must be imprecations. ghostly rappings on the walls and ceiling of my room punctuated unintelligible mumblings of invisible persecutors. i remember distinctly my delusion of the following day--sunday. i seemed to be no longer in the hospital. in some mysterious way i had been spirited aboard a huge ocean liner. i first discovered this when the ship was in mid-ocean. the day was clear, the sea apparently calm, but for all that the ship was slowly sinking. and it was i, of course, who had created the situation which must turn out fatally for all, unless the coast of europe could be reached before the water in the hold should extinguish the fires. how had this peril overtaken us? simply enough: during the night i had in some way--a way still unknown to me--opened a porthole below the water-line; and those in charge of the vessel seemed powerless to close it. every now and then i could hear parts of the ship give way under the strain. i could hear the air hiss and whistle spitefully under the resistless impact of the invading waters; i could hear the crashing of timbers as partitions were wrecked; and as the water rushed in at one place i could see, at another, scores of helpless passengers swept overboard into the sea--my unintended victims. i believed that i, too, might at any moment be swept away. that i was not thrown into the sea by vengeful fellow-passengers was, i thought, due to their desire to keep me alive until, if possible, land should be reached, when a more painful death could be inflicted upon me. while aboard my phantom ship i managed in some way to establish an electric railway system; and the trolley cars which passed the hospital were soon running along the deck of my ocean liner, carrying passengers from the places of peril to what seemed places of comparative safety at the bow. every time i heard a car pass the hospital, one of mine went clanging along the ship's deck. my feverish imaginings were no less remarkable than the external stimuli which excited them. as i have since ascertained, there were just outside my room an elevator and near it a speaking-tube. whenever the speaking-tube was used from another part of the building, the summoning whistle conveyed to my mind the idea of the exhaustion of air in a ship-compartment, and the opening and shutting of the elevator door completed the illusion of a ship fast going to pieces. but the ship my mind was on never reached any shore, nor did she sink. like a mirage she vanished, and again i found myself safe in my bed at the hospital. "safe," did i say? scarcely that--for deliverance from one impending disaster simply meant immediate precipitation into another. my delirium gradually subsided, and four or five days after the d the doctors were able to set my broken bones. the operation suggested new delusions. shortly before the adjustment of the plaster casts, my legs, for obvious reasons, were shaved from shin to calf. this unusual tonsorial operation i read for a sign of degradation--associating it with what i had heard of the treatment of murderers and with similar customs in barbarous countries. it was about this time also that strips of court-plaster, in the form of a cross, were placed on my forehead, which had been slightly scratched in my fall, and this, of course, i interpreted as a brand of infamy. had my health been good, i should at this time have been participating in the triennial of my class at yale. indeed, i was a member of the triennial committee and though, when i left new york on june th, i had been feeling terribly ill, i had then hoped to take part in the celebration. the class reunions were held on tuesday, june th--three days after my collapse. those familiar with yale customs know that the harvard baseball game is one of the chief events of the commencement season. headed by brass bands, all the classes whose reunions fall in the same year march to the yale athletic field to see the game and renew their youth--using up as much vigor in one delirious day as would insure a ripe old age if less prodigally expended. these classes, with their bands and cheering, accompanied by thousands of other vociferating enthusiasts, march through west chapel street--the most direct route from the campus to the field. it is upon this line of march that grace hospital is situated, and i knew that on the day of the game the yale thousands would pass the scene of my incarceration. i have endured so many days of the most exquisite torture that i hesitate to distinguish among them by degrees; each deserves its own unique place, even as a saint's day in the calendar of an olden spanish inquisitor. but, if the palm is to be awarded to any, june th, , perhaps has the first claim. my state of mind at that time might be pictured thus: the criminal charge of attempted suicide stood against me on june rd. by the th many other and worse charges had accumulated. the public believed me the most despicable member of my race. the papers were filled with accounts of my misdeeds. the thousands of collegians gathered in the city, many of whom i knew personally, loathed the very thought that a yale man should so disgrace his alma mater. and when they approached the hospital on their way to the athletic field, i concluded that it was their intention to take me from my bed, drag me to the lawn, and there tear me limb from limb. few incidents during my unhappiest years are more vividly or circumstantially impressed upon my memory. the fear, to be sure, was absurd, but in the lurid lexicon of unreason there is no such word as "absurd." believing, as i did, that i had dishonored yale and forfeited the privilege of being numbered among her sons, it was not surprising that the college cheers which filled the air that afternoon, and in which only a few days earlier i had hoped to join, struck terror to my heart. iv naturally i was suspicious of all about me, and became more so each day. but not until about a month later did i refuse to recognize my relatives. while i was at grace hospital, my father and eldest brother called almost every day to see me, and, though i said little, i still accepted them in their proper characters. i remember well a conversation one morning with my father. the words i uttered were few, but full of meaning. shortly before this time my death had been momentarily expected. i still believed that i was surely about to die as a result of my injuries, and i wished in some way to let my father know that, despite my apparently ignominious end, i appreciated all that he had done for me during my life. few men, i believe, ever had a more painful time in expressing their feelings than i had on that occasion. i had but little control over my mind, and my power of speech was impaired. my father sat beside my bed. looking up at him, i said, "you have been a good father to me." "i have always tried to be," was his characteristic reply. after the broken bones had been set, and the full effects of the severe shock i had sustained had worn off, i began to gain strength. about the third week i was able to sit up and was occasionally taken out of doors but each day, and especially during the hours of the night, my delusions increased in force and variety. the world was fast becoming to me a stage on which every human being within the range of my senses seemed to be playing a part, and that a part which would lead not only to my destruction (for which i cared little), but also to the ruin of all with whom i had ever come in contact. in the month of july several thunder-storms occurred. to me the thunder was "stage" thunder, the lightning man-made, and the accompanying rain due to some clever contrivance of my persecutors. there was a chapel connected with the hospital--or at least a room where religious services were held every sunday. to me the hymns were funeral dirges; and the mumbled prayers, faintly audible, were in behalf of every sufferer in the world but one. it was my eldest brother who looked after my care and interests during my entire illness. toward the end of july, he informed me that i was to be taken home again. i must have given him an incredulous look, for he said, "don't you think we can take you home? well, we can and will." believing myself in the hands of the police, i did not see how that was possible. nor did i have any desire to return. that a man who had disgraced his family should again enter his old home and expect his relatives to treat him as though nothing were changed, was a thought against which my soul rebelled; and, when the day came for my return, i fought my brother and the doctor feebly as they lifted me from the bed. but i soon submitted, was placed in a carriage, and driven to the house i had left a month earlier. for a few hours my mind was calmer than it had been. but my new-found ease was soon dispelled by the appearance of a nurse--one of several who had attended me at the hospital. though at home and surrounded by relatives, i jumped to the conclusion that i was still under police surveillance. at my request my brother had promised not to engage any nurse who had been in attendance at the hospital. the difficulty of procuring any other led him to disregard my request, which at the time he held simply as a whim. but he did not disregard it entirely, for the nurse selected had merely acted as a substitute on one occasion, and then only for about an hour. that was long enough, though, for my memory to record her image. finding myself still under surveillance, i soon jumped to a second conclusion, namely, that this was no brother of mine at all. he instantly appeared in the light of a sinister double, acting as a detective. after that i refused absolutely to speak to him again, and this repudiation i extended to all other relatives, friends and acquaintances. if the man i had accepted as my brother was spurious, so was everybody--that was my deduction. for more than two years i was without relatives or friends, in fact, without a world, except that one created by my own mind from the chaos that reigned within it. while i was at grace hospital, it was my sense of hearing which was the most disturbed. but soon after i was placed in my room at home, _all_ of my senses became perverted. i still heard the "false voices"--which were doubly false, for truth no longer existed. the tricks played upon me by my senses of taste, touch, smell, and sight were the source of great mental anguish. none of my food had its usual flavor. this soon led to that common delusion that some of it contained poison--not deadly poison, for i knew that my enemies hated me too much to allow me the boon of death, but poison sufficient to aggravate my discomfort. at breakfast i had cantaloupe, liberally sprinkled with salt. the salt seemed to pucker my mouth, and i believed it to be powdered alum. usually, with my supper, sliced peaches were served. though there was sugar on the peaches, salt would have done as well. salt, sugar, and powdered alum had become the same to me. familiar materials had acquired a different "feel." in the dark, the bed sheets at times seemed like silk. as i had not been born with a golden spoon in my mouth, or other accessories of a useless luxury, i believed the detectives had provided these silken sheets for some hostile purpose of their own. what that purpose was i could not divine, and my very inability to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion stimulated my brain to the assembling of disturbing thoughts in an almost endless train. imaginary breezes struck my face, gentle, but not welcome, most of them from parts of the room where currents of air could not possibly originate. they seemed to come from cracks in the walls and ceiling and annoyed me exceedingly. i thought them in some way related to that ancient method of torture by which water is allowed to strike the victim's forehead, a drop at a time, until death releases him. for a while my sense of smell added to my troubles. the odor of burning human flesh and other pestilential fumes seemed to assail me. my sense of sight was subjected to many weird and uncanny effects. phantasmagoric visions made their visitations throughout the night, for a time with such regularity that i used to await their coming with a certain restrained curiosity. i was not entirely unaware that something was ailing with my mind. yet these illusions of sight i took for the work of detectives, who sat up nights racking their brains in order to rack and utterly wreck my own with a cruel and unfair third degree. handwriting on the wall has ever struck terror to the hearts of even sane men. i remember as one of my most unpleasant experiences that i began to see handwriting on the sheets of my bed staring me in the face, and not me alone, but also the spurious relatives who often stood or sat near me. on each fresh sheet placed over me i would soon begin to see words, sentences, and signatures, all in my own handwriting. yet i could not decipher any of the words, and this fact dismayed me, for i firmly believed that those who stood about could read them all and found them to be incriminating evidence. i imagined that these visionlike effects, with few exceptions, were produced by a magic lantern controlled by some of my myriad persecutors. the lantern was rather a cinematographic contrivance. moving pictures, often brilliantly colored, were thrown on the ceiling of my room and sometimes on the sheets of my bed. human bodies, dismembered and gory, were one of the most common of these. all this may have been due to the fact that, as a boy, i had fed my imagination on the sensational news of the day as presented in the public press. despite the heavy penalty which i now paid for thus loading my mind, i believe this unwise indulgence gave a breadth and variety to my peculiar psychological experience which it otherwise would have lacked. for with an insane ingenuity i managed to connect myself with almost every crime of importance of which i had ever read. dismembered human bodies were not alone my bedfellows at this time. i remember one vision of vivid beauty. swarms of butterflies and large and gorgeous moths appeared on the sheets. i wished that the usually unkind operator would continue to show these pretty creatures. another pleasing vision appeared about twilight several days in succession. i can trace it directly to impressions gained in early childhood. the quaint pictures by kate greenaway--little children in attractive dress, playing in old-fashioned gardens--would float through space just outside my windows. the pictures were always accompanied by the gleeful shouts of real children in the neighborhood, who, before being sent to bed by watchful parents, devoted the last hour of the day to play. it doubtless was their shouts that stirred my memories of childhood and brought forth these pictures. in my chamber of intermittent horrors and momentary delights, uncanny occurrences were frequent. i believed there was some one who at fall of night secreted himself under my bed. that in itself was not peculiar, as sane persons at one time or another are troubled by that same notion. but _my_ bed-fellow--under the bed--was a detective; and he spent most of his time during the night pressing pieces of ice against my injured heels, to precipitate, as i thought, my overdue confession. the piece of ice in the pitcher of water which usually stood on the table sometimes clinked against the pitcher's side as its center of gravity shifted through melting. it was many days before i reasoned out the cause of this sound; and until i did i supposed it was produced by some mechanical device resorted to by the detectives for a purpose. thus the most trifling occurrence assumed for me vast significance. v after remaining at home for about a month, during which time i showed no improvement mentally, though i did gain physically, i was taken to a private sanatorium. my destination was frankly disclosed to me. but my habit of disbelief had now become fixed, and i thought myself on the way to a trial in new york city, for some one of the many crimes with which i stood charged. my emotions on leaving new haven were, i imagine, much the same as those of a condemned but penitent criminal who looks upon the world for the last time. the day was hot, and, as we drove to the railway station, the blinds on most of the houses in the streets through which we passed were seen to be closed. the reason for this was not then apparent to me. i thought i saw an unbroken line of deserted houses, and i imagined that their desertion had been deliberately planned as a sign of displeasure on the part of their former occupants. as citizens of new haven, i supposed them bitterly ashamed of such a despicable townsman as myself. because of the early hour, the streets were practically deserted. this fact, too, i interpreted to my own disadvantage. as the carriage crossed the main business thoroughfare, i took what i believed to be my last look at that part of my native city. from the carriage i was carried to the train and placed in the smoking car in the last seat on the right-hand side. the back of the seat next in front was reversed so that my legs might be placed in a comfortable position, and one of the boards used by card-playing travelers was placed beneath them as a support. with a consistent degree of suspicion i paid particular attention to a blue mark on the face of the railroad ticket held by my custodian. i took it to be a means of identification for use in court. that one's memory may perform its function in the grip of unreason itself is proved by the fact that my memory retains an impression, and an accurate one, of virtually everything that befell me, except when under the influence of an anaesthetic or in the unconscious hours of undisturbed sleep. important events, trifling conversations, and more trifling thoughts of my own are now recalled with ease and accuracy; whereas, prior to my illness and until a strange experience to be recorded later, mine was an ordinary memory when it was not noticeably poor. at school and in college i stood lowest in those studies in which success depended largely upon this faculty. psychiatrists inform me that it is not unusual for those suffering as i did to retain accurate impressions of their experiences while ill. to laymen this may seem almost miraculous, yet it is not so; nor is it even remarkable. assuming that an insane person's memory is capable of recording impressions at all, remembrance for one in the torturing grip of delusions of persecution should be doubly easy. this deduction is in accord with the accepted psychological law that the retention of an impression in the memory depends largely upon the intensity of the impression itself, and the frequency of its repetition. fear to speak, lest i should incriminate myself and others, gave to my impressions the requisite intensity, and the daily recurrence of the same general line of thought served to fix all impressions in my then supersensitive memory. shortly before seven in the morning, on the way to the sanatorium, the train passed through a manufacturing center. many workmen were lounging in front of a factory, most of them reading newspapers. i believed these papers contained an account of me and my crimes, and i thought everyone along the route knew who i was and what i was, and that i was on that train. few seemed to pay any attention to me, yet this very fact looked to be a part of some well-laid plan of the detectives. the sanatorium to which i was going was in the country. when a certain station was reached, i was carried from the train to a carriage. at that moment i caught sight of a former college acquaintance, whose appearance i thought was designed to let me know that yale, which i believed i had disgraced, was one of the powers behind my throne of torture. soon after i reached my room in the sanatorium, the supervisor entered. drawing a table close to the bed, he placed upon it a slip of paper which he asked me to sign. i looked upon this as a trick of the detectives to get a specimen of my handwriting. i now know that the signing of the slip is a legal requirement, with which every patient is supposed to comply upon entering such an institution--private in character--unless he has been committed by some court. the exact wording of this "voluntary commitment" i do not now recall; but, it was, in substance, an agreement to abide by the rules of the institution--whatever _they_ were--and to submit to such restraint as might be deemed necessary. had i not felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, i believe my sense of humor would have caused me to laugh outright; for the signing of such an agreement by one so situated was, even to my mind, a farce. after much coaxing i was induced to go so far as to take the pen in my hand. there i again hesitated. the supervisor apparently thought i might write with more ease if the paper were placed on a book. and so i might, had he selected a book of a different title. one more likely to arouse suspicions in my mind could not have been found in a search of the congressional library. i had left new york on june th, and it was in the direction of that city that my present trip had taken me. i considered this but the first step of my return under the auspices of its police department. "called back" was the title of the book that stared me in the face. after refusing for a long time i finally weakened and signed the slip; but i did not place it on the book. to have done that would, in my mind, have been tantamount to giving consent to extradition; and i was in no mood to assist the detectives in their mean work. at what cost had i signed that commitment slip? to me it was the act of signing my own death-warrant. vi during the entire time that my delusions of persecution, as they are called, persisted, i could not but respect the mind that had laid out so comprehensive and devilishly ingenious and, at times, artistic a third degree as i was called upon to bear. and an innate modesty (more or less fugitive since these peculiar experiences) does not forbid my mentioning the fact that i still respect that mind. suffering such as i endured during the month of august in my own home continued with gradually diminishing force during the eight months i remained in this sanatorium. nevertheless my sufferings during the first four of these eight months was intense. all my senses were still perverted. my sense of sight was the first to right itself--nearly enough, at least, to rob the detectives of their moving pictures. but before the last fitful film had run through my mind, i beheld one which i shall now describe. i can trace it directly to an impression made on my memory about two years earlier, before my breakdown. shortly after going to new york to live, i had explored the eden musée. one of the most gruesome of the spectacles which i had seen in its famed chamber of horrors was a representation of a gorilla, holding in its arms the gory body of a woman. it was that impression which now revived in my mind. but by a process strictly in accordance with darwin's theory, the eden musée gorilla had become a man--in appearance not unlike the beast that had inspired my distorted thought. this man held a bloody dagger which he repeatedly plunged into the woman's breast. the apparition did not terrify me at all. in fact i found it interesting, for i looked upon it as a contrivance of the detectives. its purpose i could not divine, but this fact did not trouble me, as i reasoned that no additional criminal charges could make my situation worse than it already was. for a month or two, "false voices" continued to annoy me. and if there is a hell conducted on the principles of my temporary hell, gossippers will one day wish they had attended strictly to their own business. this is not a confession. i am no gossipper, though i cannot deny that i have occasionally gossipped--a little. and this was my punishment: persons in an adjoining room seemed to be repeating the very same things which i had said of others on these communicative occasions. i supposed that those whom i had talked about had in some way found me out, and intended now to take their revenge. my sense of smell, too, became normal; but my sense of taste was slow in recovering. at each meal, poison was still the _pièce de résistance_, and it was not surprising that i sometimes dallied one, two, or three hours over a meal, and often ended by not eating it at all. there was, however, another reason for my frequent refusal to take food, in my belief that the detectives had resorted to a more subtle method of detection. they now intended by each article of food to suggest a certain idea, and i was expected to recognize the idea thus suggested. conviction or acquittal depended upon my correct interpretation of their symbols, and my interpretation was to be signified by my eating, or not eating, the several kinds of food placed before me. to have eaten a burnt crust of bread would have been a confession of arson. why? simply because the charred crust suggested fire; and, as bread is the staff of life, would it not be an inevitable deduction that life had been destroyed--destroyed by fire--and that i was the destroyer? on one day to eat a given article of food meant confession. the next day, or the next meal, a refusal to eat it meant confession. this complication of logic made it doubly difficult for me to keep from incriminating myself and others. it can easily be seen that i was between several devils and the deep sea. to eat or not to eat perplexed me more than the problem conveyed by a few shorter words perplexed a certain prince, who, had he lived a few centuries later (out of a book), might have been forced to enter a kingdom where kings and princes are made and unmade on short notice. indeed, he might have lost his principality entirely--or, at least, his subjects; for, as i later had occasion to observe, the frequency with which a dethroned reason mounts a throne and rules a world is such that self-crowned royalty receives but scant homage from the less elated members of the court. for several weeks i ate but little. though the desire for food was not wanting, my mind (that dog-in-the-manger) refused to let me satisfy my hunger. coaxing by the attendants was of little avail; force was usually of less. but the threat that liquid nourishment would be administered through my nostrils sometimes prevailed for the attribute of shrewdness was not so utterly lost that i could not choose the less of two evils. what i looked upon as a gastronomic ruse of the detectives sometimes overcame my fear of eating. every sunday ice cream was served with dinner. at the beginning of the meal a large pyramid of it would be placed before me in a saucer several sizes too small. i believed that it was never to be mine unless i first partook of the more substantial fare. as i dallied over the meal, that delicious pyramid would gradually melt, slowly filling the small saucer, which i knew could not long continue to hold all of its original contents. as the melting of the ice cream progressed, i became more indifferent to my eventual fate; and, invariably, before a drop of that precious reward had dripped from the saucer, i had eaten enough of the dinner to prove my title to the seductive dessert. moreover, during its enjoyment, i no longer cared a whit for charges or convictions of all the crimes in the calendar. this fact is less trifling than it seems; for it proves the value of strategy as opposed to brute and sometimes brutal force, of which i shall presently give some illuminating examples. vii choice of a sanatorium by people of limited means is, unfortunately, very restricted. though my relatives believed the one in which i was placed was at least fairly well conducted, events proved otherwise. from a modest beginning made not many years previously, it had enjoyed a mushroom growth. about two hundred and fifty patients were harbored in a dozen or more small frame buildings, suggestive of a mill settlement. outside the limits of a city and in a state where there was lax official supervision, owing in part to faulty laws, the owner of this little settlement of woe had erected a nest of veritable fire-traps in which helpless sick people were forced to risk their lives. this was a necessary procedure if the owner was to grind out an exorbitant income on his investment. the same spirit of economy and commercialism pervaded the entire institution. its worst manifestation was in the employment of the meanest type of attendant--men willing to work for the paltry wage of eighteen dollars a month. very seldom did competent attendants consent to work there, and then usually because of a scarcity of profitable employment elsewhere. providentially for me, such an attendant came upon the scene. this young man, so long as he remained in the good graces of the owner-superintendent, was admittedly one of the best attendants he had ever had. yet aside from a five-dollar bill which a relative had sent me at christmas and which i had refused to accept because of my belief that it, like my relatives, was counterfeit--aside from that bill, which was turned over to the attendant by my brother, he received no additional pecuniary rewards. his chief reward lay in his consciousness of the fact that he was protecting me against injustices which surely would have been visited upon me had he quitted his position and left me to the mercies of the owner and his ignorant assistants. to-day, with deep appreciation, i contrast the treatment i received at his hands with that which i suffered during the three weeks preceding his appearance on the scene. during that period, no fewer than seven attendants contributed to my misery. though some of them were perhaps decent enough fellows outside a sickroom, not one had the right to minister to a patient in my condition. the two who were first put in charge of me did not strike me with their fists or even threaten to do so; but their unconscious lack of consideration for my comfort and peace of mind was torture. they were typical eighteen-dollar-a-month attendants. another of the same sort, on one occasion, cursed me with a degree of brutality which i prefer not to recall, much less record. and a few days later the climax was appropriately capped when still another attendant perpetrated an outrage which a sane man would have resented to the point of homicide. he was a man of the coarsest type. his hands would have done credit to a longshoreman--fingers knotted and nearly twice the normal size. because i refused to obey a peremptory command, and this at a time when i habitually refused even on pain of imagined torture to obey or to speak, this brute not only cursed me with abandon, he deliberately spat upon me. i was a mental incompetent, but like many others in a similar position i was both by antecedents and by training a gentleman. vitriol could not have seared my flesh more deeply than the venom of this human viper stung my soul! yet, as i was rendered speechless by delusions, i could offer not so much as a word of protest. i trust that it is not now too late, however, to protest in behalf of the thousands of outraged patients in private and state hospitals whose mute submission to such indignities has never been recorded. of the readiness of an unscrupulous owner to employ inferior attendants, i shall offer a striking illustration. the capable attendant who acted as my protector at this sanatorium has given me an affidavit embodying certain facts which, of course, i could not have known at the time of their occurrence. the gist of this sworn statement is as follows: one day a man--seemingly a tramp--approached the main building of the sanatorium and inquired for the owner. he soon found him, talked with him a few minutes, and an hour or so later he was sitting at the bedside of an old and infirm man. this aged patient had recently been committed to the institution by relatives who had labored under the common delusion that the payment of a considerable sum of money each week would insure kindly treatment. when this tramp-attendant first appeared, all his visible worldly possessions were contained in a small bundle which he carried under his arm. so filthy were his person and his clothes that he received a compulsory bath and another suit before being assigned to duty. he then began to earn his four dollars and fifty cents a week by sitting several hours a day in the room with the aged man, sick unto death. my informant soon engaged him in conversation. what did he learn? first, that the uncouth stranger had never before so much as crossed the threshold of a hospital. his last job had been as a member of a section-gang on a railroad. from the roadbed of a railway to the bedside of a man about to die was indeed a change which might have taxed the adaptability of a more versatile being. but coarse as he was, this unkempt novice did not abuse his charge--except in so far as his inability to interpret or anticipate wants contributed to the sick man's distress. my own attendant, realizing that the patient was suffering for the want of skilled attention, spent a part of his time in this unhappy room, which was but across the hall from my own. the end soon came. my attendant, who had had training as a nurse, detected the unmistakable signs of impending death. he forthwith informed the owner of the sanatorium that the patient was in a dying condition, and urged him (a doctor) to go at once to the bedside. the doctor refused to comply with the request on the plea that he was at the time "too busy." when at last he did visit the room, the patient was dead. then came the supervisor, who took charge of the body. as it was being carried from the room the supervisor, the "handy man" of the owner, said: "there goes the best paying patient the institution had; the doctor" (meaning the owner) "was getting eighty-five dollars a week out of him." of this sum not more than twenty dollars at most, at the time this happened, could be considered as "cost of maintenance." the remaining sixty-five dollars went into the pocket of the owner. had the man lived for one year, the owner might have pocketed (so far as this one case was concerned) the neat but wicked profit of thirty-three hundred and eighty dollars. and what would the patient have received? the same privilege of living in neglect and dying neglected. viii for the first few weeks after my arrival at the sanatorium, i was cared for by two attendants, one by day and one by night. i was still helpless, being unable to put my feet out of bed, much less upon the floor, and it was necessary that i be continually watched lest an impulse to walk should seize me. after a month or six weeks, however, i grew stronger, and from that time only one person was assigned to care for me. he was with me all day, and slept at night in the same room. the earliest possible dismissal of one of my two attendants was expedient for the family purse; but such are the deficiencies in the prevailing treatment of the insane that relief in one direction often occasions evil in another. no sooner was the expense thus reduced than i was subjected to a detestable form of restraint which amounted to torture. to guard me at night while the remaining attendant slept, my hands were imprisoned in what is known as a "muff." a muff, innocent enough to the eyes of those who have never worn one, is in reality a relic of the inquisition. it is an instrument of restraint which has been in use for centuries and even in many of our public and private institutions is still in use. the muff i wore was made of canvas, and differed in construction from a muff designed for the hands of fashion only in the inner partition, also of canvas, which separated my hands, but allowed them to overlap. at either end was a strap which buckled tightly around the wrist and was locked. the assistant physician, when he announced to me that i was to be subjected at night to this restraint, broke the news gently--so gently that i did not then know, nor did i guess for several months, why this thing was done to me. and thus it was that i drew deductions of my own which added not a little to my torture. the gas jet in my room was situated at a distance, and stronger light was needed to find the keyholes and lock the muff when adjusted. hence, an attendant was standing by with a lighted candle. seating himself on the side of the bed, the physician said: "you won't try again to do what you did in new haven, will you?" now one may have done many things in a city where he has lived for a score of years, and it is not surprising that i failed to catch the meaning of the doctor's question. it was only after months of secret puzzling that i at last did discover his reference to my attempted suicide. but now the burning candle in the hands of the attendant, and a certain similarity between the doctor's name and the name of a man whose trial for arson i once attended out of idle curiosity, led me to imagine that in some way i had been connected with that crime. for months i firmly believed i stood charged as an accomplice. the putting on of the muff was the most humiliating incident of my life. the shaving of my legs and the wearing of the court-plaster brand of infamy had been humiliating, but those experiences had not overwhelmed my very heart as did this bitter ordeal. i resisted weakly, and, after the muff was adjusted and locked, for the first time since my mental collapse i wept. and i remember distinctly why i wept. the key that locked the muff unlocked in imagination the door of the home in new haven which i believed i had disgraced--and seemed for a time to unlock my heart. anguish beat my mind into a momentary sanity, and with a wholly sane emotion i keenly felt my imagined disgrace. my thoughts centred on my mother. her (and other members of the family) i could plainly see at home in a state of dejection and despair over her imprisoned and heartless son. i wore the muff each night for several weeks, and for the first few nights the unhappy glimpses of a ruined home recurred and increased my sufferings. it was not always as an instrument of restraint that the muff was employed. frequently it was used as a means of discipline on account of supposed stubborn disobedience. many times was i roughly overpowered by two attendants who locked my hands and coerced me to do whatever i had refused to do. my arms and hands were my only weapons of defence. my feet were still in plaster casts, and my back had been so severely injured as to necessitate my lying flat upon it most of the time. it was thus that these unequal fights were fought. and i had not even the satisfaction of tongue-lashing my oppressors, for i was practically speechless. my attendants, like most others in such institutions, were incapable of understanding the operations of my mind, and what they could not understand they would seldom tolerate. yet they were not entirely to blame. they were simply carrying out to the letter orders received from the doctors. to ask a patient in my condition to take a little medicated sugar seemed reasonable. but from my point of view my refusal was justifiable. that innocuous sugar disc to me seemed saturated with the blood of loved ones; and so much as to touch it was to shed their blood--perhaps on the very scaffold on which i was destined to die. for myself i cared little. i was anxious to die, and eagerly would i have taken the sugar disc had i had any reason to believe that it was deadly poison. the sooner i could die and be forgotten, the better for all with whom i had ever come in contact. to continue to live was simply to be the treacherous tool of unscrupulous detectives, eager to exterminate my innocent relatives and friends, if so their fame could be made secure in the annals of their craft. but the thoughts associated with the taking of the medicine were seldom twice alike. if before taking it something happened to remind me of mother, father, some other relative, or a friend, i imagined that compliance would compromise, if not eventually destroy, that particular person. who would not resist when meek acceptance would be a confession which would doom his own mother or father to prison, or ignominy, or death? it was for this that i was reviled, for this, subjected to cruel restraint. they thought i was stubborn. in the strict sense of the word there is no such thing as a stubborn insane person. the truly stubborn men and women in the world are sane; and the fortunate prevalence of sanity may be approximately estimated by the preponderance of stubbornness in society at large. when one possessed of the power of recognizing his own errors continues to hold an unreasonable belief--that is stubbornness. but for a man bereft of reason to adhere to an idea which to him seems absolutely correct and true because he has been deprived of the means of detecting his error--that is not stubbornness. it is a symptom of his disease, and merits the indulgence of forbearance, if not genuine sympathy. certainly the afflicted one deserves no punishment. as well punish with a blow the cheek that is disfigured by the mumps. the attendant who was with me most of the time while i remained at the sanatorium was the kindly one already mentioned. him i regarded, however, as a detective, or, rather, as two detectives, one of whom watched me by day, and the other--a perfect double--by night. he was an enemy, and his professed sympathy--which i now know was genuine--only made me hate him the more. as he was ignorant of the methods of treatment in vogue in hospitals for the insane, it was several weeks before he dared put in jeopardy his position by presuming to shield me against unwise orders of the doctors. but when at last he awoke to the situation, he repeatedly intervened in my behalf. more than once the doctor who was both owner and superintendent threatened to discharge him for alleged officiousness. but better judgment usually held the doctor's wrath in check, for he realized that not one attendant in a hundred was so competent. not only did the friendly attendant frequently exhibit more wisdom than the superintendent, but he also obeyed the dictates of a better conscience than that of his nominal superior, the assistant physician. on three occasions this man treated me with a signal lack of consideration, and in at least one instance he was vicious. when this latter incident occurred, i was both physically and mentally helpless. my feet were swollen and still in plaster bandages. i was all but mute, uttering only an occasional expletive when forced to perform acts against my will. one morning doctor no-name (he represents a type) entered my room. "good morning! how are you feeling?" he asked. no answer. "aren't you feeling well?" no answer. "why don't you talk?" he asked with irritation. still no answer, except perhaps a contemptuous look such as is so often the essence of eloquence. suddenly, and without the slightest warning, as a petulant child locked in a room for disobedience might treat a pillow, he seized me by an arm and jerked me from the bed. it was fortunate that the bones of my ankles and feet, not yet thoroughly knitted, were not again injured. and this was the performance of the very man who had locked my hands in the muff, that i might not injure myself! "why don't you talk?" he again asked. though rather slow in replying, i will take pleasure in doing so by sending that doctor a copy of this book--my answer--if he will but send me his address. it is not a pleasant duty to brand any physician for cruelty and incompetence, for the worst that ever lived has undoubtedly done many good deeds. but here is the type of man that has wrought havoc among the helpless insane. and the owner represented a type that has too long profited through the misfortunes of others. "pay the price or put your relative in a public institution!" is the burden of his discordant song before commitment. "pay or get out!" is his jarring refrain when satisfied that the family's resources are exhausted. i later learned that this grasping owner had bragged of making a profit of $ , in a single year. about twenty years later he left an estate of approximately $ , , . some of the money, however, wrung from patients and their relatives in the past may yet benefit similar sufferers in the future, for, under the will of the owner, several hundred thousand dollars will eventually be available as an endowment for the institution. ix it was at the sanatorium that my ankles were finally restored to a semblance of their former utility. they were there subjected to a course of heroic treatment; but as to-day they permit me to walk, run, dance, and play tennis and golf, as do those who have never been crippled, my hours of torture endured under my first attempts to walk are almost pleasant to recall. about five months from the date of my injury i was allowed, or rather compelled, to place my feet on the floor and attempt to walk. my ankles were still swollen, absolutely without action, and acutely sensitive to the slightest pressure. from the time they were hurt until i again began to talk--two years later--i asked not one question as to the probability of my ever regaining the use of them. the fact was, i never expected to walk naturally again. the desire of the doctors to have me walk i believed to be inspired by the detectives, of whom, indeed, i supposed the doctor himself to be one. had there been any confession to make, i am sure it would have been yielded under the stress of this ultimate torture. the million needle points which, just prior to my mental collapse, seemed to goad my brain, now centred their unwelcome attention on the soles of my feet. had the floor been studded with minute stilettos my sufferings could hardly have been more intense. for several weeks assistance was necessary with each attempt to walk, and each attempt was an ordeal. sweat stood in beads on either foot, wrung from my blood by agony. believing that it would be only a question of time when i should be tried, condemned, and executed for some one of my countless felonies, i thought that the attempt to prevent my continuing a cripple for the brief remainder of my days was prompted by anything but benevolence. the superintendent would have proved himself more humane had he not peremptorily ordered my attendant to discontinue the use of a support which, until the plaster bandages were removed, had enabled me to keep my legs in a horizontal position when i sat up. his order was that i should put my legs down and keep them down, whether it hurt or not. the pain was of course intense when the blood again began to circulate freely through tissues long unused to its full pressure, and so evident was my distress that the attendant ignored the doctor's command and secretly favored me. he would remove the forbidden support for only a few minutes at a time, gradually lengthening the intervals until at last i was able to do without the support entirely. before long and each day for several weeks i was forced at first to stagger and finally to walk across the room and back to the bed. the distance was increased as the pain diminished, until i was able to walk without more discomfort than a comparatively pleasant sensation of lameness. for at least two months after my feet first touched the floor i had to be carried up and downstairs, and for several months longer i went flat-footed. delusions of persecution--which include "delusions of self-reference"--though a source of annoyance while i was in an inactive state, annoyed and distressed me even more when i began to move about and was obliged to associate with other patients. to my mind, not only were the doctors and attendants detectives; each patient was a detective and the whole institution was a part of the third degree. scarcely any remark was made in my presence that i could not twist into a cleverly veiled reference to myself. in each person i could see a resemblance to persons i had known, or to the principals or victims of the crimes with which i imagined myself charged. i refused to read; for to read veiled charges and fail to assert my innocence was to incriminate both myself and others. but i looked with longing glances upon all printed matter and, as my curiosity was continually piqued, this enforced abstinence grew to be well-nigh intolerable. it became again necessary to the family purse that every possible saving be made. accordingly, i was transferred from the main building, where i had a private room and a special attendant, to a ward where i was to mingle, under an aggregate sort of supervision, with fifteen or twenty other patients. here i had no special attendant by day, though one slept in my room at night. of this ward i had heard alarming reports--and these from the lips of several attendants. i was, therefore, greatly disturbed at the proposed change. but, the transfer once accomplished, after a few days i really liked my new quarters better than the old. during the entire time i remained at the sanatorium i was more alert mentally than i gave evidence of being. but not until after my removal to this ward, where i was left alone for hours every day, did i dare to show my alertness. here i even went so far on one occasion as to joke with the attendant in charge. he had been trying to persuade me to take a bath. i refused, mainly because i did not like the looks of the bath room, which, with its cement floor and central drain, resembled the room in which vehicles are washed in a modern stable. after all else had failed, the attendant tried the rôle of sympathizer. "now i know just how you feel," he said, "i can put myself in your place." "well, if you can, do it and take the bath yourself," was my retort. the remark is brilliant by contrast with the dismal source from which it escaped. "escaped" is the word; for the fear that i should hasten my trial by exhibiting too great a gain in health, mental or physical, was already upon me; and it controlled much of my conduct during the succeeding months of depression. having now no special attendant, i spent many hours in my room, alone, but not absolutely alone, for somewhere the eye of a detective was evermore upon me. comparative solitude, however, gave me courage; and soon i began to read, regardless of consequences. during the entire period of my depression, every publication seemed to have been written and printed for me, and me alone. books, magazines, and newspapers seemed to be special editions. the fact that i well knew how inordinate would be the cost of such a procedure in no way shook my belief in it. indeed, that i was costing my persecutors fabulous amounts of money was a source of secret satisfaction. my belief in special editions of newspapers was strengthened by items which seemed too trivial to warrant publication in any except editions issued for a special purpose. i recall a seemingly absurd advertisement, in which the phrase, "green bluefish," appeared. at the time i did not know that "green" was a term used to denote "fresh" or "unsalted." during the earliest stages of my illness i had lost count of time, and the calendar did not right itself until the day when i largely regained my reason. meanwhile, the date on each newspaper was, according to my reckoning, two weeks out of the way. this confirmed my belief in the special editions as a part of the third degree. most sane people think that no insane person can reason logically. but this is not so. upon unreasonable premises i made most reasonable deductions, and that at the time when my mind was in its most disturbed condition. had the newspapers which i read on the day which i supposed to be february st borne a january date, i might not then, for so long a time, have believed in special editions. probably i should have inferred that the regular editions had been held back. but the newspapers i had were dated about two weeks _ahead_. now if a sane person on february st receives a newspaper dated february th, be will be fully justified in thinking something wrong, either with the publication or with himself. but the shifted calendar which had planted itself in my mind meant as much to me as the true calendar does to any sane business man. during the seven hundred and ninety-eight days of depression i drew countless incorrect deductions. but, such as they were, they were deductions, and essentially the mental process was not other than that which takes place in a well-ordered mind. my gradually increasing vitality, although it increased my fear of trial, impelled me to take new risks. i began to read not only newspapers, but also such books as were placed within my reach. yet had they not been placed there, i should have gone without them, for i would never ask even for what i greatly desired and knew i could have for the asking. whatever love of literature i now have dates from this time, when i was a mental incompetent and confined in an institution. lying on a shelf in my room was a book by george eliot. for several days i cast longing glances at it and finally plucked up the courage to take little nibbles now and then. these were so good that i grew bold and at last began openly to read the book. its contents at the time made but little impression on my mind, but i enjoyed it. i read also some of addison's essays; and had i been fortunate enough to have made myself familiar with these earlier in life, i might have been spared the delusion that i could detect, in many passages, the altering hand of my persecutors. the friendly attendant, from whom i was now separated, tried to send his favors after me into my new quarters. at first he came in person to see me, but the superintendent soon forbade that, and also ordered him not to communicate with me in any way. it was this disagreement, and others naturally arising between such a doctor and such an attendant, that soon brought about the discharge of the latter. but "discharge" is hardly the word, for he had become disgusted with the institution, and had remained so long only because of his interest in me. upon leaving, he informed the owner that he would soon cause my removal from the institution. this he did. i left the sanatorium in march, , and remained for three months in the home of this kindly fellow, who lived with a grandmother and an aunt in wallingford, a town not far from new haven. it is not to be inferred that i entertained any affection for my friendly keeper. i continued to regard him as an enemy; and my life at his home became a monotonous round of displeasure. i took my three meals a day. i would sit listlessly for hours at a time in the house. daily i went out--accompanied, of course--for short walks about the town. these were not enjoyable. i believed everybody was familiar with my black record and expected me to be put to death. indeed, i wondered why passers-by did not revile or even stone me. once i was sure i heard a little girl call me "traitor!" that, i believe, was my last "false voice," but it made such an impression that i can even now recall vividly the appearance of that dreadful child. it was not surprising that a piece of rope, old and frayed, which someone had carelessly thrown on a hedge by a cemetery that i sometimes passed, had for me great significance. during these three months i again refused to read books, though within my reach, but i sometimes read newspapers. still i would not speak, except under some unusual stress of emotion. the only time i took the initiative in this regard while living in the home of my attendant was on a bitterly cold and snowy day when i had the temerity to tell him that the wind had blown the blanket from a horse that had been standing for a long time in front of the house. the owner had come inside to transact some business with my attendant's relatives. in appearance he reminded me of the uncle to whom this book is dedicated. i imagined the mysterious caller was impersonating him and, by one of my curious mental processes, i deduced that it was incumbent on me to do for the dumb beast outside what i knew my uncle would have done had he been aware of its plight. my reputation for decency of feeling i believed to be gone forever; but i could not bear, in this situation, to be unworthy of my uncle, who, among those who knew him, was famous for his kindliness and humanity. my attendant and his relatives were very kind and very patient, for i was still intractable. but their efforts to make me comfortable, so far as they had any effect, made keener my desire to kill myself. i shrank from death; but i preferred to die by my own hand and take the blame for it, rather than to be executed and bring lasting disgrace on my family, friends, and, i may add with truth, on yale. for i reasoned that parents throughout the country would withhold their sons from a university which numbered among its graduates such a despicable being. but from any tragic act i was providentially restrained by the very delusion which gave birth to the desire--in a way which signally appeared on a later and, to me, a memorable day. x i am in a position not unlike that of a man whose obituary notice has appeared prematurely. few have ever had a better opportunity than i to test the affection of their relatives and friends. that mine did their duty and did it willingly is naturally a constant source of satisfaction to me. indeed, i believe that this unbroken record of devotion is one of the factors which eventually made it possible for me to take up again my duties in the social and business world, with a comfortable feeling of continuity. i can, indeed, now view my past in as matter-of-fact a way as do those whose lives have been uniformly uneventful. as i have seen scores of patients neglected by their relatives--a neglect which they resent and often brood upon--my sense of gratitude is the livelier, and especially so because of the difficulty with which friendly intercourse with me was maintained during two of the three years i was ill. relatives and friends frequently called to see me. true, these calls were trying for all concerned. i spoke to none, not even to my mother and father. for, though they all appeared about as they used to do, i was able to detect some slight difference in look or gesture or intonation of voice, and this was enough to confirm my belief that they were impersonators, engaged in a conspiracy, not merely to entrap me, but to incriminate those whom they impersonated. it is not strange, then, that i refused to say anything to them, or to permit them to come near me. to have kissed the woman who was my mother, but whom i believed to be a federal conspirator, would have been an act of betrayal. these interviews were much harder for my relatives and friends than for me. but even for me they were ordeals; and though i suffered less at these moments than my callers, my sum of suffering was greater, for i was constantly anticipating these unwelcome, but eventually beneficial, visitations. suppose my relatives and friends had held aloof during this apparently hopeless period, what to-day would be my feelings toward them? let others answer. for over two years i considered all letters forgeries. yet the day came when i convinced myself of their genuineness and the genuineness of the love of those who sent them. perhaps persons who have relatives among the more than a quarter of a million patients in institutions in this country to-day will find some comfort in this fact. to be on the safe and humane side, let every relative and friend of persons so afflicted remember the golden rule, which has never been suspended with respect to the insane. go to see them, treat them sanely, write to them, keep them informed about the home circle; let not your devotion flag, nor accept any repulse. the consensus now was that my condition was unlikely ever to improve, and the question of my commitment to some institution where incurable cases could be cared for came up for decision. while it was being considered, my attendant kept assuring me that it would be unnecessary to commit me to an institution if i would but show some improvement. so he repeatedly suggested that i go to new haven and spend a day at home. at this time, it will be recalled, i was all but mute, so, being unable to beguile me into speech, the attendant one morning laid out for my use a more fashionable shirt than i usually wore, telling me to put it on if i wished to make the visit. that day it took me an unusually long time to dress, but in the end i put on the designated garment. thus did one part of my brain outwit another. i simply chose the less of two evils. the greater was to find myself again committed to an institution. nothing else would have induced me to go to new haven. i did not wish to go. to my best knowledge and belief, i had no home there, nor did i have any relatives or friends who would greet me upon my return. how could they, if still free, even approach me while i was surrounded by detectives? then, too, i had a lurking suspicion that my attendant's offer was made in the belief that i would not dare accept it. by taking him at his word, i knew that i should at least have an opportunity to test the truth of many of his statements regarding my old home. life had become insupportable; and back of my consent to make this experimental visit was a willingness to beard the detectives in their own den, regardless of consequences. with these and many other reflections i started for the train. the events of the journey which followed are of no moment. we soon reached the new haven station; and, as i had expected, no relative or friend was there to greet us. this apparent indifference seemed to support my suspicion that my attendant had not told me the truth; but i found little satisfaction in uncovering his deceit, for the more of a liar i proved him to be, the worse would be my plight. we walked to the front of the station and stood there for almost half an hour. the unfortunate, but perfectly natural, wording of a question caused the delay. "well, shall we go home?" my attendant said. how could i say, "yes"? i had no home. i feel sure i should finally have said, "no", had he continued to put the question in that form. consciously or unconsciously, however, he altered it. "shall we go to trumbull street?" that was what i had been waiting for. certainly i would go to the house designated by that number. i had come to new haven to see that house; and i had just a faint hope that its appearance and the appearance of its occupants might prove convincing. at home my visit came as a complete surprise. i could not believe that my relatives--if they were relatives--had not been informed of my presence in the city, and their words and actions upon my arrival confirmed my suspicion and extinguished the faint hope i had briefly cherished. my hosts were simply the same old persecutors with whom i had already had too much to do. soon after my arrival, dinner was served. i sat at my old place at the table, and secretly admired the skill with which he who asked the blessing imitated the language and the well-remembered intonation of my father's voice. but alas for the family!--i imagined my relatives banished and languishing in prison, and the old home confiscated by the government! xi though my few hours at home failed to prove that i did not belong in an institution, it served one good purpose. certain relatives who had objected to my commitment now agreed that there was no alternative, and, accordingly, my eldest brother caused himself to be appointed my conservator. he had long favored taking such action, but other relatives had counseled delay. they had been deterred by that inbred dread of seeing a member of the family branded by law as a mental incompetent, and, to a degree, stigmatized by the prevailing unwarranted attitude of the public toward mental illness and the institutions in which mental cases are treated. the very thought was repellent; and a mistaken sense of duty--and perhaps a suggestion of pride--led them to wish me out of such an institution as long as possible. though at the time i dreaded commitment, it was the best possible thing that could befall me. to be, as i was, in the world but not of it, was exasperating. the constant friction that is inevitable under such conditions--conditions such as existed for me in the home of my attendant--can only aggravate the mental disturbance. especially is this true of those laboring under delusions of persecution. such delusions multiply with the complexity of the life led. it is the even-going routine of institutional life which affords the indispensable quieting effect--provided that routine is well ordered, and not defeated by annoyances imposed by ignorant or indifferent doctors and attendants. my commitment occurred on june th, . the institution to which i was committed was a chartered, private institution, but not run for personal profit. it was considered one of the best of its kind in the country and was pleasantly situated. though the view was a restricted one, a vast expanse of lawn, surrounded by groups of trees, like patches of primeval forest, gave the place an atmosphere which was not without its remedial effect. my quarters were comfortable, and after a little time i adjusted myself to my new environment. breakfast was served about half-past seven, though the hour varied somewhat according to the season--earlier in summer and later in winter. in the spring, summer, and autumn, when the weather was favorable, those able to go out of doors were taken after breakfast for walks within the grounds, or were allowed to roam about the lawn and sit under the trees, where they remained for an hour or two at a time. dinner was usually served shortly after noon, and then the active patients were again taken out of doors, where they remained an hour or two doing much as they pleased, but under watchful eyes. about half-past three they returned to their respective wards, there to remain until the next day--except those who cared to attend the religious service which was held almost every afternoon in an endowed chapel. in all institutions those confined in different kinds of wards go to bed at different hours. the patients in the best wards retire at nine or ten o'clock. those in the wards where more troublesome cases are treated go to bed usually at seven or eight o'clock. i, while undergoing treatment, have retired at all hours, so that i am in the better position to describe the mysteries of what is, in a way, one of the greatest secret societies in the world. i soon became accustomed to the rather agreeable routine, and had i not been burdened with the delusions which held me a prisoner of the police, and kept me a stranger to my old world, i should have been able to enjoy a comparatively happy existence in spite of all. this new feeling of comparative contentment had not been brought about by any marked improvement in health. it was due directly and entirely to an environment more nearly in tune with my ill-tuned mind. while surrounded by sane people my mental inferiority had been painfully apparent to me, as well as to others. here a feeling of superiority easily asserted itself, for many of my associates were, to my mind, vastly inferior to myself. but this stimulus did not affect me at once. for several weeks i believed the institution to be peopled by detectives, feigning insanity. the government was still operating the third degree, only on a grander scale. nevertheless, i did soon come to the conclusion that the institution was what it purported to be--still cherishing the idea, however, that certain patients and attachés were detectives. for a while after my arrival i again abandoned my new-found reading habit. but as i became accustomed to my surroundings i grew bolder and resumed the reading of newspapers and such books as were at hand. there was a bookcase in the ward, filled with old numbers of standard english periodicals; among them: _westminster review, edinburgh review, london quarterly_, and _blackwood's_. there were also copies of _harper's_ and _the atlantic monthly_, dated a generation or more before my first reading days. indeed, some of the reviews were over fifty years old. but i had to read their heavy contents or go without reading, for i would not yet ask even for a thing i ardently desired. in the room of one of the patients were thirty or forty books belonging to him. time and again i walked by his door and cast longing glances at those books, which at first i had not the courage to ask for or to take. but during the summer, about the time i was getting desperate, i finally managed to summon enough courage to take them surreptitiously. it was usually while the owner of these books was attending the daily service in the chapel that his library became a circulating one. the contents of the books i read made perhaps a deeper impression on my memory than most books make on the minds of normal readers. to assure myself of the fact, i have since reread "the scarlet letter," and i recognize it as an old friend. the first part of the story, however, wherein hawthorne describes his work as a custom house official and portrays his literary personality, seems to have made scarcely any impression. this i attribute to my utter lack of interest at that time in writers and their methods. i then had no desire to write a book, nor any thought of ever doing so. letters i looked upon with suspicion. i never read them at the time they were received. i would not even open them; but generally, after a week or sometimes a month, i would secretly open and read them--forgeries of the detectives. i still refused to speak, and exhibited physical activity only when the patients were taken out of doors. for hours i would sit reading books or newspapers, or apparently doing nothing. but my mind was in an active state and very sensitive. as the event proved, almost everything done or said within the range of my senses was making indelible impressions, though these at the time were frequently of such a character that i experienced great difficulty in trying to recall incidents which i thought i might find useful at the time of my appearance in court. my ankles had not regained anything like their former strength. it hurt to walk. for months i continued to go flat-footed. i could not sustain my weight with heels lifted from the floor. in going downstairs i had to place my insteps on the edge of each step, or go one step at a time, like a child. believing that the detectives were pampering me into prime condition, as a butcher fattens a beast for slaughter, i deliberately made myself out much weaker than i really was; and not a little of my inactivity was due to a desire to prolong my fairly comfortable existence, by deferring as long as possible the day of trial and conspicuous disgrace. but each day still had its distressing incidents. whenever the attendants were wanted at the office, an electric bell was rung. during the fourteen months that i remained in this hospital in a depressed condition, the bell in my ward rang several hundred times. never did it fail to send through me a mild shock of terror, for i imagined that at last the hour had struck for my transportation to the scene of trial. relatives and friends would be brought to the ward--heralded, of course, by a warning bell--and short interviews would be held in my room, during which the visitors had to do all the talking. my eldest brother, whom i shall refer to hereafter as my conservator, called often. he seldom failed to use one phrase which worried me. "you are looking better and getting stronger," he would say. "we shall straighten you out yet." to be "straightened out" was an ambiguous phrase which might refer to the end of the hangman's rope or to a fatal electric shock. i preferred to be let alone, and the assistant physician in charge of my case, after several ineffectual attempts to engage me in conversation, humored my persistent taciturnity. for more than a year his only remarks to me were occasional conventional salutations. subsequent events have led me to doubt the wisdom of his policy. for one year no further attention was paid to me than to see that i had three meals a day, the requisite number of baths, and a sufficient amount of exercise. i was, however, occasionally urged by an attendant to write a letter to some relative, but that, of course, i refused to do. as i shall have many hard things to say about attendants in general, i take pleasure in testifying that, so long as i remained in a passive condition, those at this institution were kind, and at times even thoughtful. but there came a time when diplomatic relations with doctors and attendants became so strained that war promptly ensued. it was no doubt upon the gradual, but sure improvement in my physical condition that the doctors were relying for my eventual return to normality. they were not without some warrant for this. in a way i had become less suspicious, but my increased confidence was due as much to an increasing indifference to my fate as to an improvement in health. and there were other signs of improved mental vigor. i was still watchful, however, for a chance to end my life, and, but for a series of fortunate circumstances, i do not doubt that my choice of evils would have found tragic expression in an overt act. having convinced myself that most of my associates were really insane, and therefore (as i believed) disqualified as competent witnesses in a court of law, i would occasionally engage in conversation with a few whose evident incompetency seemed to make them safe confidants. one, a man who during his life had more than once been committed to an institution, took a very evident interest in me and persisted in talking to me, often much against my will. his persistent inquisitiveness seemed to support his own statement that he had formerly been a successful life-insurance agent. he finally gained my confidence to such a degree that months before i finally began to talk to others i permitted myself to converse frequently with him--but only when we were so situated as to escape observation. i would talk to him on almost any subject, but would not speak about myself. at length, however, his admirable persistence overcame my reticence. during a conversation held in june, , he abruptly said, "why you are kept here i cannot understand. apparently you are as sane as anyone. you have never made any but sensible remarks to me." now for weeks i had been waiting for a chance to tell this man my very thoughts. i had come to believe him a true friend who would not betray me. "if i should tell you things which you apparently don't know, you would understand why i am held here," i said. "well, tell me," he urged. "will you promise not to repeat my statements to any one else?" "i promise not to say a word." "well," i remarked, "you have seen certain persons who have come here, professing to be relatives of mine." "yes, and they are your relatives, aren't they?" "they look like my relatives, but they're not," was my reply. my inquisitive friend burst into laughter and said, "well, if you mean _that_, i shall have to take back what i just said. you are really the craziest person i have ever met, and i have met several." "you will think differently some day," i replied; for i believed that when my trial should occur, he would appreciate the significance of my remark. i did not tell him that i believed these callers to be detectives; nor did i hint that i thought myself in the hands of the police. meanwhile, during july and august, , i redoubled my activity in devising suicidal schemes; for i now thought my physical condition satisfactory to my enemies, and was sure that my trial could not be postponed beyond the next opening of the courts in september. i even went so far as to talk to one of the attendants, a medical student, who during the summer worked as an attendant at the hospital. i approached him artfully. first i asked him to procure from the library for me "the scarlet letter," "the house of the seven gables," and other books; then i talked medicine and finally asked him to lend me a textbook on anatomy which i knew he had in his possession. this he did, cautioning me not to let anyone know that he had done so. the book once secured, i lost no time in examining that part which described the heart, its functions, and especially its exact position in the body. i had scarcely begun to read when the young man returned and took the book from me, giving as his reason that an attendant had no right to let a patient read a medical work. maybe his change of heart was providential. as is usual in these institutions, all knives, forks, and other articles that might be used by a patient for a dangerous purpose were counted by the attendants after each meal. this i knew, and the knowledge had a deterrent effect. i dared not take one. though i might at any time during the night have hanged myself, that method did not appeal to me, and i kept it in mind only as a last resort. to get possession of some sharp dagger-like instrument which i could plunge into my heart at a moment's notice--this was my consuming desire. with such a weapon i felt that i could, when the crisis came, rob the detectives of their victory. during the summer months an employé spent his entire time mowing the lawn with a large horse-drawn machine. this, when not in use, was often left outdoors. upon it was a square wooden box, containing certain necessary tools, among them a sharp, spike-like instrument, used to clean the oil-holes when they became clogged. this bit of steel was five or six inches long, and was shaped like a pencil. for at least three months, i seldom went out of doors that i did not go with the intention of purloining that steel spike. i intended then to keep it in my room against the day of my anticipated transfer to jail. it was now that my delusions protected me from the very fate they had induced me to court. for had i not believed that the eye of a detective was on me every moment, i could have taken that spike a score of times. often, when it was not in use, i walked to the lawnmower and even laid my hand upon the tool-box. but i dared not open it. my feelings were much like those of pandora about a certain other box. in my case, however, the box upon which i looked with longing had hope without, and not within. instinctively, perhaps, i realized this, for i did not lift the lid. one day, as the patients were returning to their wards, i saw, lying directly in my path (i could even now point out the spot), the coveted weapon. never have i seen anything that i wanted more. to have stooped and picked it up without detection would have been easy; and had i known, as i know now, that it had been carelessly dropped there, nothing could have prevented me from doing so and perhaps using it with fatal effect. but i believed it had been placed there deliberately and as a test, by those who had divined my suicidal purpose. the eye of the imagined detective, which, i am inclined to believe, and like to believe, was the eye of the real god, was upon me; and though i stepped directly over it, i did not pick up that thing of death. xii when i had decided that my chance for securing the little stiletto spike was very uncertain, i at once busied myself with plans which were designed to bring about my death by drowning. there was in the ward a large bath tub. access to it could be had at any time, except from the hour of nine (when the patients were locked in their rooms for the night) until the following morning. how to reach it during the night was the problem which confronted me. the attendant in charge was supposed to see that each patient was in his room before his door was locked. as it rarely happened that the patients were not in their rooms at the appointed time, the attendants naturally grew careless, and often locked a door without looking in. "good night"--a salutation usually devoid of sentiment--might, or might not, elicit a response, and the absence of a response would not tend to arouse suspicion--especially in a case like mine, for i would sometimes say "good night," but more often not. my simple and easy plan was to hide behind a piece of furniture in the corridor and there remain until the attendant had locked the doors of the rooms and gone to bed. i had even advanced so far in my plan as to select a convenient nook within twenty feet of my own room. should the attendant, when about to lock the door, discover my absence, i should, of course, immediately reveal my hiding-place by leaving it; and it would have been an easy matter to convince him that i had done the thing as a test of his own vigilance. on the other hand, if i escaped discovery, i should then have nine hours at my disposal with little fear of interruption. true, the night watch passed through the ward once every hour. but death by drowning requires a time no longer than that necessary to boil an egg. i had even calculated how long it would take to fill the tub with water. to make sure of a fatal result, i had secreted a piece of wire which i intended so to use that my head, once under water, could by no possibility be raised above the surface in the inevitable death struggle. i have said that i did not desire death; nor did i. had the supposed detectives been able to convince me that they would keep their word, i would willingly have signed an agreement stipulating on my side that i must live the rest of my life in confinement, and on theirs that i should never undergo a trial for crime. fortunately, during these dismal preparations, i had not lost interest in other schemes which probably saved my life. in these the fellow-patient who had won my confidence played the role of my own private detective. that he and i could defeat the combined forces arrayed against me hardly seemed probable, but the seeming impossibility of so doing only lent zest to the undertaking. my friend, who, of course, did not realize that he was engaged in combat with the secret service, was allowed to go where he pleased within the limits of the city where the hospital was situated. accordingly i determined to enlist his services. it was during july that, at my suggestion, he tried to procure copies of certain new haven newspapers, of the date of my attempted suicide and the several dates immediately following. my purpose was to learn what motive had been ascribed to my suicidal act. i felt sure that the papers would contain at least hints as to the nature of the criminal charges against me. but my purpose i did not disclose to my friend. in due time he reported that no copies for the given dates were to be had. so _that_ quest proved fruitless, and i attributed the failure to the superior strategy of the enemy. meanwhile, my friend had not stopped trying to convince me that my apparent relatives were not spurious; so one day i said to him: "if my relatives still live in new haven, their addresses must be in the latest new haven directory. here is a list containing the names and former addresses of my father, brother, and uncle. these were their addresses in . to-morrow, when you go out, please see whether they appear in the new haven directory for . these persons who present themselves to me as relatives pretend to live at these addresses. if they speak the truth, the directory will corroborate them. i shall then have hope that a letter sent to any one of these addresses will reach relatives--and surely some attention will be paid to it." the next day, my own good detective went to a local publishing house where directories of important cities throughout the country could be consulted. shortly after he went upon this errand, my conservator appeared. he found me walking about the lawn. at his suggestion we sat down. bold in the assurance that i could kill myself before the crisis came, i talked with him freely, replying to many of his questions and asking several. my conservator, who did not know that i doubted his identity, commented with manifest pleasure on my new-found readiness to talk. he would have been less pleased, however, had he been able to read my mind. shortly after my conservator's departure, my fellow-patient returned and informed me that the latest new haven directory contained the names and addresses i had given him. this information, though it did not prove that my morning caller was no detective, did convince me that my real brother still lived where he did when i left new haven, two years earlier. now that my delusions were growing weaker, my returning reason enabled me to construct the ingenious scheme which, i believe, saved my life; for, had i not largely regained my reason _when i did_, i am inclined to believe that my distraught mind would have destroyed itself and me, before it could have been restored by the slow process of returning health. a few hours after my own private detective had given me the information i so much desired, i wrote the first letter i had written in twenty-six months. as letters go, it is in a class by itself. i dared not ask for ink, so i wrote with a lead pencil. another fellow-patient in whom i had confidence, at my request, addressed the envelope; but he was not in the secret of its contents. this was an added precaution, for i thought the secret service men might have found out that i had a detective of my own and would confiscate any letters addressed by him or me. the next morning, _my_ "detective" mailed the letter. that letter i still have, and i treasure it as any innocent man condemned to death would treasure a pardon. it should convince the reader that sometimes a mentally disordered person, even one suffering from many delusions, can think and write clearly. an exact copy of this--the most important letter i ever expect to be called upon to write--is here presented: august , . dear george: on last wednesday morning a person who claimed to be george m. beers of new haven, ct., clerk in the director's office of the sheffield scientific school and a brother of mine, called to see me. perhaps what he said was true, but after the events of the last two years i find myself inclined to doubt the truth of everything that is told me. he said that he would come and see me again sometime next week, and i am sending you this letter in order that you may bring it with you as a passport, provided you are the one who was here on wednesday. if you did not call as stated please say nothing about this letter to anyone, and when your double arrives, i'll tell him what i think of him. would send other messages, but while things seem as they do at present it is impossible. have had someone else address envelope for fear letter might be held up on the way. yours, clifford w.b. though i felt reasonably confident that this message would reach my brother, i was by no means certain. i was sure, however, that, should he receive it, under no circumstances would he turn it over to anyone hostile to myself. when i wrote the words: "dear george," my feeling was much like that of a child who sends a letter to santa claus after his childish faith has been shaken. like the skeptical child, i felt there was nothing to lose, but everything to gain. "yours" fully expressed such affection for relatives as i was then capable of--for the belief that i had disgraced, perhaps destroyed, my family prompted me to forbear to use the family name in the signature. the thought that i might soon get in touch with my old world did not excite me. i had not much faith anyway that i was to re-establish former relations with it, and what little faith i had was all but destroyed on the morning of august th, , when a short message, written on a slip of paper, reached me by the hand of an attendant. it informed me that my conservator would call that afternoon. i thought it a lie. i felt that any brother of mine would have taken the pains to send a letter in reply to the first i had written him in over two years. the thought that there had not been time for him to do so and that this message must have arrived by telephone did not then occur to me. what i believed was that my own letter had been confiscated. i asked one of the doctors to swear on his honor that it really was my own brother who was coming to see me. this he did. but abnormal suspicion robbed all men in my sight of whatever honor they may have had, and i was not fully reassured. in the afternoon, as usual, the patients were taken out of doors, i among them. i wandered about the lawn and cast frequent and expectant glances toward the gate, through which i believed my anticipated visitor would soon pass. in less than an hour he appeared. i first caught sight of him about three hundred feet away, and, impelled more by curiosity than hope, i advanced to meet him. "i wonder what the lie will be this time," was the gist of my thoughts. the person approaching me was indeed the counterpart of my brother as i remembered him. yet he was no more my brother than he had been at any time during the preceding two years. he was still a detective. such he was when i shook his hand. as soon as that ceremony was over, he drew forth a leather pocketbook. i instantly recognized it as one i myself had carried for several years prior to the time i was taken ill in . it was from this that he took my recent letter. "here's my passport," he said. "it's a good thing you brought it," i replied, as i glanced at it and again shook his hand--this time the hand of my own brother. "don't you want to read it?" he asked. "there is no need of that. i am convinced." after my long journey of exploration in the jungle of a tangled imagination, a journey which finally ended in my finding the person for whom i had long searched, my behavior differed very little from that of a great explorer who, full of doubt after a long and perilous trip through real jungles, found the man he sought and, grasping his hand, greeted him with the simple and historic words, "dr. livingstone, i presume?" the very instant i caught sight of my letter in the hands of my brother, all was changed. the thousands of false impressions recorded during the seven hundred and ninety-eight days of my depression seemed at once to correct themselves. untruth became truth. a large part of what was once my old world was again mine. to me, at last my mind seemed to have found itself, for the gigantic web of false beliefs in which it had been all but hopelessly enmeshed i now immediately recognized as a snare of delusions. that the gordian knot of mental torture should be cut and swept away by the mere glance of a willing eye is like a miracle. not a few patients, however, suffering from certain forms of mental disorder, regain a high degree of insight into their mental condition in what might be termed a flash of divine enlightenment. though insight regained seemingly in an instant is a most encouraging symptom, power to reason normally on all subjects cannot, of course, be so promptly recovered. my new power to reason correctly on some subjects simply marked the transition from depression, one phase of my disorder, to elation, another phase of it. medically speaking, i was as mentally disordered as before--yet i was happy! my memory during depression may be likened to a photographic film, seven hundred and ninety-eight days long. each impression seems to have been made in a negative way and then, in a fraction of a second, miraculously developed and made positive. of hundreds of impressions made during that depressed period i had not before been conscious, but from the moment my mind, if not my full reason, found itself, they stood out vividly. not only so, but other impressions registered during earlier years became clearer. since that august th, which i regard as my second birthday (my first was on the th of another month), my mind has exhibited qualities which, prior to that time, were so latent as to be scarcely distinguishable. as a result, i find myself able to do desirable things i never before dreamed of doing--the writing of this book is one of them. yet had i failed to convince myself on august th, when my brother came to see me, that he was no spy, i am almost sure that i should have compassed my own destruction within the following ten days, for the next month, i believed, was the fatal one of opening courts. you will recall that it was death by drowning that impended. i liken my salvation itself to a prolonged process of drowning. thousands of minutes of the seven hundred and ninety-eight days--and there were over one million of them, during which i had been borne down by intolerably burdensome delusions--were, i imagine, much like the last minutes of consciousness experienced by persons who drown. many who have narrowly escaped that fate can testify to the vividness with which good and bad impressions of their entire life rush through their confused minds, and hold them in a grip of terror until a kind unconsciousness envelops them. such had been many of my moments. but the only unconsciousness which had deadened my sensibilities during these two despondent years was that of sleep itself. though i slept fairly well most of the time, mine was seldom a dreamless sleep. many of my dreams were, if anything, harder to bear than my delusions of the day, for what little reason i had was absolutely suspended in sleep. almost every night my brain was at battledore and shuttlecock with weird thoughts. and if not all my dreams were terrifying, this fact seemed to be only because a perverted and perverse reason, in order that its possessor might not lose the capacity for suffering, knew how to keep hope alive with visions which supplied the contrast necessary for keen appreciation. no man can be born again, but i believe i came as near it as ever a man did. to leave behind what was in reality a hell, and immediately have this good green earth revealed in more glory than most men ever see it, was one of the compensating privileges which make me feel that my suffering was worth while. i have already described the peculiar sensation which assailed me when, in june, , i lost my reason. at that time my brain felt as though pricked by a million needles at white heat. on this august th, , shortly after largely regaining my reason, i had another most distinct sensation in the brain. it started under my brow and gradually spread until the entire surface was affected. the throes of a dying reason had been torture. the sensations felt as my dead reason was reborn were delightful. it seemed as though the refreshing breath of some kind goddess of wisdom were being gently blown against the surface of my brain. it was a sensation not unlike that produced by a menthol pencil rubbed ever so gently over a fevered brow. so delicate, so crisp and exhilarating was it that words fail me in my attempt to describe it. few, if any, experiences can be more delightful. if the exaltation produced by some drugs is anything like it, i can easily understand how and why certain pernicious habits enslave those who contract them. for me, however, this experience was liberation, not enslavement. xiii after two years of silence i found it no easy matter to carry on with my brother a sustained conversation. so weak were my vocal cords from lack of use that every few minutes i must either rest or whisper. and upon pursing my lips i found myself unable to whistle, notwithstanding the popular belief, drawn from vague memories of small-boyhood, that this art is instinctive. those who all their lives have talked at will cannot possibly appreciate the enjoyment i found in using my regained power of speech. reluctantly i returned to the ward; but not until my brother had left for home, laden with so much of my conversation that it took most of his leisure for the next two days to tell the family what i had said in two hours. during the first few hours i seemed virtually normal. i had none of the delusions which had previously oppressed me; nor had i yet developed any of the expansive ideas, or delusions of grandeur, which soon began to crowd in upon me. so normal did i appear while talking to my brother that he thought i should be able to return home in a few weeks; and, needless to say, i agreed with him. but the pendulum, as it were, had swung too far. the human brain is too complex a mechanism to admit of any such complete readjustment in an instant. it is said to be composed of several million cells; and, that fact granted, it seems safe to say that every day, perhaps every hour, hundreds of thousands of the cells of my brain were now being brought into a state of renewed activity. comparatively sane and able to recognize the important truths of life, i was yet insane as to many of its practical details. judgment being king of the realm of thought, it was not surprising that my judgment failed often to decide correctly the many questions presented to it by its abnormally communicative subjects. at first i seemed to live a second childhood. i did with delight many things which i had first learned to do as a child--the more so as it had been necessary for me to learn again to eat and walk, and now to talk. i had much lost time to make up; and for a while my sole ambition seemed to be to utter as many thousand words a day as possible. my fellow-patients who for fourteen months had seen me walk about in silence--a silence so profound and inexorable that i would seldom heed their friendly salutations--were naturally surprised to see me in my new mood of unrestrained loquacity and irrepressible good humor. in short, i had come into that abnormal condition which is known to psychiatrists as elation. for several weeks i believe i did not sleep more than two or three hours a night. such was my state of elation, however, that all signs of fatigue were entirely absent and the sustained and abnormal mental and physical activity in which i then indulged has left on my memory no other than a series of very pleasant impressions. though based on fancy, the delights of some forms of mental disorder are real. few, if any, sane persons would care to test the matter at so great a price; but those familiar with the "letters of charles lamb" must know that lamb, himself, underwent treatment for mental disease. in a letter to coleridge, dated june th, , he says: "at some future time i will amuse you with an account, as full as my memory will permit, of the strange turns my frenzy took. i look back upon it at times with a gloomy kind of envy; for, while it lasted, i had many, many hours of pure happiness. dream not, coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad! all now seems to me vapid, comparatively so!" as for me, the very first night vast but vague humanitarian projects began joyously to shape themselves in my mind. my garden of thoughts seemed filled with flowers which might properly be likened to the quick-blowing night-blooming cereus--that delusion of grandeur of all flowering plants that thinks itself prodigal enough if it but unmask its beauty to the moon! few of my bold fancies, however, were of so fugitive and chaste a splendor. the religious instinct is found in primitive man. it is not strange, therefore, that at this time the religious side of my nature was the first to display compelling activity. whether or not this was due to my rescue from a living death, and my immediate appreciation of god's goodness, both to me and to those faithful relatives who had done all the praying during the preceding two years--this i cannot say. but the fact stands out, that, whereas i had, while depressed, attached a sinister significance to everything done or said in my presence, i now interpreted the most trifling incidents as messages from god. the day after this transition i attended church. it was the first service in over two years which i had not attended against my will. the reading of a psalm--the th--made a lasting impression upon me, and the interpretation which i placed upon it furnishes the key to my attitude during the first weeks of elation. it seemed to me a direct message from heaven. the minister began: "my heart is inditing a good matter: i speak of the things which i have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer."--whose heart but mine? and the things indited--what were they but the humanitarian projects which had blossomed in my garden of thoughts over night? when, a few days later, i found myself writing very long letters with unwonted facility, i became convinced that my tongue was to prove itself "the pen of a ready writer." indeed, to these prophetic words i trace the inception of an irresistible desire, of which this book is the first fruit. "thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into thy lips:" was the verse next read (by myself and the congregation), to which the minister responded, "therefore god hath blessed thee for ever."--"surely, i have been selected as the instrument wherewith great reforms shall be effected," was my thought. (all is grist that comes to the mill of a mind in elation--then even divine encomiums seem not undeserved.) "gird thy sword upon thy thigh, o most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty"--a command to fight. "and in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness;" replied the minister. "and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things,"--was another response. that i could speak the truth, i knew. "meekness" i could not associate with myself, except that during the preceding two years i had suffered many indignities without open resentment. that my right hand with a pen should teach me terrible things--how to fight for reform--i firmly believed. "thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee," quoth the minister. yes, my tongue could be as sharp as an arrow, and i should be able to stand up against those who should stand in the way of reform. again: "thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness. therefore god, thy god, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." the first sentence i did not apply to myself; but being then, as i supposed, a man restored to himself, it was easy to feel that i had been anointed with the oil of gladness above my fellows. "oil of gladness" is, in truth, an apt phrase wherewith to describe elation. the last two verses of the psalm corroborated the messages found in the preceding verses: "i will make thy name to be remembered in all generations:"--thus the minister. "therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever," was the response i read. that spelled immortal fame for me, but only on condition that i should carry to a successful conclusion the mission of reform--an obligation placed upon me by god when he restored my reason. when i set out upon a career of reform, i was impelled to do so by motives in part like those which seem to have possessed don quixote when he set forth, as cervantes says, with the intention "of righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger, from which in the issue he would obtain eternal renown and fame." in likening myself to cervantes' mad hero my purpose is quite other than to push myself within the charmed circle of the chivalrous. what i wish to do is to make plain that a man abnormally elated may be swayed irresistably by his best instincts, and that while under the spell of an exaltation, idealistic in degree, he may not only be willing, but eager to assume risks and endure hardships which under normal conditions he would assume reluctantly, if at all. in justice to myself, however, i may remark that my plans for reform have never assumed quixotic, and therefore, impracticable proportions. at no time have i gone a-tilting at windmills. a pen rather than a lance has been my weapon of offence and defence; for with its point i have felt sure that i should one day prick the civic conscience into a compassionate activity, and thus bring into a neglected field earnest men and women who should act as champions for those afflicted thousands least able to fight for themselves. xiv after being without relatives and friends for over two years i naturally lost no time in trying again to get in touch with them; though i did heed my conservator's request that i first give him two or three days in which to acquaint intimates with the new turn my affairs had taken. during the latter part of that first week i wrote many letters, so many, indeed, that i soon exhausted a liberal supply of stationery. this had been placed at my disposal at the suggestion of my conservator, who had wisely arranged that i should have whatever i wanted, if expedient. it was now at my own suggestion that the supervisor gave me large sheets of manila wrapping paper. these i proceeded to cut into strips a foot wide. one such strip, four feet long, would suffice for a mere _billet-doux_; but a real letter usually required several such strips pasted together. more than once letters twenty or thirty feet long were written; and on one occasion the accumulation of two or three days of excessive productivity, when spread upon the floor, reached from one end of the corridor to the other--a distance of about one hundred feet. my hourly output was something like twelve feet, with an average of one hundred and fifty words to the foot. under the pressure of elation one takes pride in doing everything in record time. despite my speed my letters were not incoherent. they were simply digressive, which was to be expected, as elation befogs one's "goal idea." though these epistolary monstrosities were launched, few reached those to whom they were addressed; for my conservator had wisely ordered that my literary output be sent in bulk to him. his action was exasperating, but later i realized that he had done me a great favor when he interposed his judgment between my red-hot mentality and the cool minds of the workaday world. yet this interference with what i deemed my rights proved to be the first step in the general overruling of them by tactless attendants and, in particular, by a certain assistant physician. i had always shown a strong inclination to superintend. in consequence, in my elated condition it was but natural that i should have an excess of executive impulses. in order to decrease this executive pressure i proceeded to assume entire charge of that portion of the hospital in which i happened at the moment to be confined. what i eventually issued as imperative orders were often presented at first as polite suggestions. but, if my suggestions were not accorded a respectful hearing, and my demands acted upon at once, i invariably supplemented them with vituperative ultimatums. these were double-edged, and involved me in trouble quite as often as they gained the ends i sought. the assistant physician in charge of my case, realizing that he could not grant all of my requests, unwisely decided to deny most of them. had he been tactful, he could have taken the same stand without arousing my animosity. as it was, he treated me with a contemptuous sort of indifference which finally developed into spite, and led to much trouble for us both. during the two wild months that followed, the superintendent and the steward could induce me to do almost anything by simply requesting it. if two men out of three could control me easily during such a period of mental excitement, is it not reasonable to suppose that the third man, the assistant physician, could likewise have controlled me had he treated me with consideration? it was his undisguised superciliousness that gave birth to my contempt for him. in a letter written during my second week of elation, i expressed the opinion that he and i should get along well together. but that was before i had become troublesome enough to try the man's patience. nevertheless, it indicates that he could have saved himself hours of time and subsequent worry, had he met my friendly advances in the proper spirit, for it is the quality of heart quite as much as the quantity of mind that cures or makes happy the insane. the literary impulse took such a hold on me that, when i first sat down to compose a letter, i bluntly refused to stop writing and go to bed when the attendant ordered me to do so. for over one year this man had seen me mute and meek, and the sudden and startling change from passive obedience to uncompromising independence naturally puzzled him. he threatened to drag me to my room, but strangely enough decided not to do so. after half an hour's futile coaxing, during which time an unwonted supply of blood was drawn to his brain, that surprised organ proved its gratitude by giving birth to a timely and sensible idea. with an unaccustomed resourcefulness, by cutting off the supply of light at the electric switch, he put the entire ward in darkness. secretly i admired the stratagem, but my words on that occasion probably conveyed no idea of the approbation that lurked within me. i then went to bed, but not to sleep. the ecstasy of elation made each conscious hour one of rapturous happiness, and my memory knows no day of brighter sunlight than those nights. the floodgates of thought wide open. so jealous of each other were the thoughts that they seemed to stumble over one another in their mad rush to present themselves to my re-enthroned ego. i naturally craved companionship, but there were not many patients whom i cared to talk with. i did, however, greatly desire to engage the assistant physician in conversation, as he was a man of some education and familiar with the history of my case. but this man, who had tried to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when i was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to whet my desire to detain him whenever possible. it was about the second week that my reformative turn of mind became acute. the ward in which i was confined was well furnished and as homelike as such a place could be, though in justice to my own home i must observe that the resemblance was not great. about the so-called violent ward i had far less favorable ideas. though i had not been subjected to physical abuse during the first fourteen months of my stay here, i had seen unnecessary and often brutal force used by the attendants in managing several so-called violent patients, who, upon their arrival, had been placed in the ward where i was. i had also heard convincing rumors of rough treatment of irresponsible patients in the violent ward. at once i determined to conduct a thorough investigation of the institution. in order that i might have proof that my intended action was deliberate, my first move was to tell one or two fellow-patients that i should soon transgress some rule in such a way as to necessitate my removal to the violent ward. at first i thought of breaking a few panes of glass; but my purpose was accomplished in another way--and, indeed, sooner than i had anticipated. my conservator, in my presence, had told the assistant physician that the doctors could permit me to telephone him whenever they should see fit. it was rather with the wish to test the unfriendly physician than to satisfy any desire to speak with my conservator that one morning i asked permission to call up the latter. that very morning i had received a letter from him. this the doctor knew, for i showed him the letter--but not its contents. it was on the letter that i based my demand, though in it my brother did not even intimate that he wished to speak to me. the doctor, however, had no way of knowing that my statement was not true. to deny my request was simply one of his ill-advised whims, and his refusal was given with customary curtness and contempt. i met his refusal in kind, and presented him with a trenchant critique of his character. he said, "unless you stop talking in that way i shall have you transferred to the fourth ward." (this was the violent ward.) "put me where you please," was my reply. "i'll put you in the gutter before i get through with you." with that the doctor made good his threat, and the attendant escorted me to the violent ward--a willing, in fact, eager prisoner. the ward in which i was now placed (september th, ) was furnished in the plainest manner. the floors were of hard wood and the walls were bare. except when at meals or out of doors taking their accustomed exercise, the patients usually lounged about in one large room, in which heavy benches were used, it being thought that in the hands of violent patients, chairs might become a menace to others. in the dining room, however, there were chairs of a substantial type, for patients seldom run amuck at meal time. nevertheless, one of these dining-room chairs soon acquired a history. as my banishment had come on short notice, i had failed to provide myself with many things i now desired. my first request was that i be supplied with stationery. the attendants, acting no doubt on the doctor's orders, refused to grant my request; nor would they give me a lead pencil--which, luckily, i did not need, for i happened to have one. despite their refusal i managed to get some scraps of paper, on which i was soon busily engaged in writing notes to those in authority. some of these (as i learned later) were delivered, but no attention was paid to them. no doctor came near me until evening, when the one who had banished me made his regular round of inspection. when he appeared, the interrupted conversation of the morning was resumed--that is, by me--and in a similar vein. i again asked leave to telephone my conservator. the doctor again refused, and, of course, again i told him what i thought of him. my imprisonment pleased me. i was where i most wished to be, and i busied myself investigating conditions and making mental notes. as the assistant physician could grant favors to the attendants, and had authority to discharge them, they did his bidding and continued to refuse most of my requests. in spite of their unfriendly attitude, however, i did manage to persuade the supervisor, a kindly man, well along in years, to deliver a note to the steward. in it i asked him to come at once, as i wished to talk with him. the steward, whom i looked upon as a friend, returned no answer and made no visit. i supposed he, too, had purposely ignored me. as i learned afterwards, both he and the superintendent were absent, else perhaps i should have been treated in a less high-handed manner by the assistant physician, who was not absent. the next morning, after a renewal of my request and a repeated refusal, i asked the doctor to send me the "book of psalms" which i had left in my former room. with this request he complied, believing, perhaps, that some religion would at least do me no harm. i probably read my favorite psalm, the th; but most of my time i spent writing, on the flyleaves, psalms of my own. and if the value of a psalm is to be measured by the intensity of feeling portrayed, my compositions of that day rightly belonged beside the writings of david. my psalms were indited to those in authority at the hospital, and later in the day the supervisor--who proved himself a friend on many occasions--took the book to headquarters. the assistant physician, who had mistaken my malevolent tongue for a violent mind, had placed me in an exile which precluded my attending the service which was held in the chapel that sunday afternoon. time which might better have been spent in church i therefore spent in perfecting a somewhat ingenious scheme for getting in touch with the steward. that evening, when the doctor again appeared, i approached him in a friendly way and politely repeated my request. he again refused to grant it. with an air of resignation i said, "well, as it seems useless to argue the point with you and as the notes sent to others have thus far been ignored, i should like, with your kind permission, to kick a hole in your damned old building and to-morrow present myself to the steward in his office." "kick away!" he said with a sneer. he then entered an adjoining ward, where he remained for about ten minutes. if you will draw in your mind, or on paper, a letter "l," and let the vertical part represent a room forty feet in length, and the horizontal part one of twenty, and if you will then picture me as standing in a doorway at the intersection of these two lines--the door to the dining room--and the doctor behind another door at the top of the perpendicular, forty feet away, you will have represented graphically the opposing armies just prior to the first real assault in what proved to be a siege of seven weeks. the moment the doctor re-entered the ward, as he had to do to return to the office, i disappeared through my door--into the dining room. i then walked the length of that room and picked up one of the heavy wooden chairs, selected for my purpose while the doctor and his tame charges were at church. using the chair as a battering-ram, without malice--joy being in my heart--i deliberately thrust two of its legs through an upper and a lower pane of a four-paned plate glass window. the only miscalculation i made was in failing to place myself directly in front of that window, and at a proper distance, so that i might have broken every one of the four panes. this was a source of regret to me, for i was always loath to leave a well-thought-out piece of work unfinished. the crash of shattered and falling glass startled every one but me. especially did it frighten one patient who happened to be in the dining room at the time. he fled. the doctor and the attendant who were in the adjoining room could not see me, or know what the trouble was; but they lost no time in finding out. like the proverbial cold-blooded murderer who stands over his victim, weapon in hand, calmly awaiting arrest, i stood my ground, and, with a fair degree of composure, awaited the onrush of doctor and attendant. they soon had me in hand. each taking an arm, they marched me to my room. this took not more than half a minute, but the time was not so short as to prevent my delivering myself of one more thumb-nail characterization of the doctor. my inability to recall that delineation, verbatim, entails no loss on literature. but one remark made as the doctor seized hold of me was apt, though not impromptu. "well, doctor," i said, "knowing you to be a truthful man, i just took you at your word." senseless as this act appears it was the result of logical thinking. the steward had entire charge of the building and ordered all necessary repairs. it was he whom i desired above all others to see, and i reasoned that the breaking of several dollars' worth of plate glass (for which later, to my surprise, i had to pay) would compel his attention on grounds of economy, if not those of the friendly interest which i now believed he had abandoned. early the next morning, as i had hoped, the steward appeared. he approached me in a friendly way (as had been his wont) and i met him in a like manner. "i wish you would leave a little bit of the building," he said good-naturedly. "i will leave it all, and gladly, if you will pay some attention to my messages," was my rejoinder. "had i not been out of town," he replied, "i would have come to see you sooner." and this honest explanation i accepted. i made known to the steward the assistant physician's behavior in balking my desire to telephone my conservator. he agreed to place the matter before the superintendent, who had that morning returned. as proof of gratitude, i promised to suspend hostilities until i had had a talk with the superintendent. i made it quite plain, however, that should he fail to keep his word, i would further facilitate the ventilation of the violent ward. my faith in mankind was not yet wholly restored. xv a few hours later, without having witnessed anything of particular significance, except as it befell myself, i was transferred to my old ward. the superintendent, who had ordered this rehabilitation, soon appeared, and he and i had a satisfactory talk. he gave me to understand that he himself would in future look after my case, as he realized that his assistant lacked the requisite tact and judgment to cope with one of my temperament--and with that, my desire to telephone my conservator vanished. now no physician would like to have his wings clipped by a patient, even indirectly, and without doubt the man's pride was piqued as his incompetence was thus made plain. thereafter, when he passed through the ward, he and i had frequent tilts. not only did i lose no opportunity to belittle him in the presence of attendants and patients, but i even created such opportunities; so that before long he tried to avoid me whenever possible. but it seldom was possible. one of my chief amusements consisted in what were really one-sided interviews with him. occasionally he was so unwise as to stand his ground for several minutes, and his arguments on such occasions served only to keep my temper at a vituperative heat. if there were any epithets which i failed to apply to him during the succeeding weeks of my association with him, they must have been coined since. the uncanny admixture of sanity displayed by me, despite my insane condition, was something this doctor could not comprehend. remarks of mine, which he should have discounted or ignored, rankled as the insults of a sane and free man would have done. and his blunt and indiscriminate refusal of most of my requests prolonged my period of mental excitement. after my return to my old ward i remained there for a period of three weeks. at that time i was a very self-centred individual. my large and varied assortment of delusions of grandeur made everything seem possible. there were few problems i hesitated to attack. with sufficient provocation i even attacked attendants--problems in themselves; but such fights as i subsequently engaged in were fights either for my own rights or the rights of others. though for a while i got along fairly well with the attendants and as well as could be expected with the assistant physician, it soon became evident that these men felt that to know me more was to love me less. owing to their lack of capacity for the work required of them, i was able to cause them endless annoyance. many times a day i would tell the attendants what to do and what not to do, and tell them what i should do if my requests, suggestions, or orders were not immediately complied with. for over one year they had seen me in a passive, almost speechless condition, and they were, therefore, unable to understand my unwonted aggressions. the threat that i would chastise them for any disobedience of my orders they looked upon as a huge joke. so it was, until one day i incontinently cracked that joke against the head of one of them. it began in this wise: early in october there was placed in the ward a man whose abnormality for the most part consisted of an inordinate thirst for liquor. he was over fifty years of age, well educated, traveled, refined and of an artistic temperament. congenial companions were scarce where i was, and he and i were soon drawn together in friendship. this man had been trapped into the institution by the subterfuge of relatives. as is common in such cases, many "white" lies had been resorted to in order to save trouble for all concerned--that is, all except the patient. to be taken without notice from one's home and by a deceitful, though under the circumstances perhaps justifiable strategy, placed in a ward with fifteen other men, all exhibiting insanity in varying degrees, is as heartbreaking an ordeal as one can well imagine. yet such was this man's experience. a free man one day, he found himself deprived of his liberty the next, and branded with what he considered an unbearable disgrace. mr. blank (as i shall call him) was completely unnerved. as he was a stranger in what i well knew was a strange world, i took him under my protecting and commodious wing. i did all i could to cheer him up, and tried to secure for him that consideration which to me seemed indispensable to his well-being. patients in his condition had never been forced, when taking their exercise, to walk about the grounds with the other patients. at no time during the preceding fourteen months had i seen a newly committed patient forced to exercise against his will. one who objected was invariably left in the ward, or his refusal was reported to the doctor before further action was taken. no sane person need stretch his imagination in order to realize how humiliating it would be for this man to walk with a crowd which greatly resembled a "chain gang." two by two, under guard, these hostages of misfortune get the only long walks their restricted liberty allows them. after the one or two occasions when this man did walk with the gang, i was impressed with the not wholly unreasonable thought that the physical exercise in no way compensated for the mental distress which the sense of humiliation and disgrace caused him to suffer. it was delightfully easy for me to interfere in his behalf; and when he came to my room, wrought up over the prospect of another such humiliation and weeping bitterly, i assured him that he should take his exercise that day when i did. my first move to accomplish the desired result was to approach, in a friendly way, the attendant in charge, and ask him to permit my new friend to walk about the grounds with me when next i went. he said he would do nothing of the kind--that he intended to take this man when he took the others. i said, "for over a year i have been in this ward and so have you, and i have never yet seen a man in mr. blank's condition forced to go out of doors." "it makes no difference whether you have or not," said the attendant, "he's going." "will you ask the doctor whether mr. blank can or cannot walk about the grounds with my special attendant when i go?" "no, i won't. furthermore, it's none of your business." "if you resort to physical force and attempt to take mr. blank with the other patients, you'll wish you hadn't," i said, as i walked away. at this threat the fellow scornfully laughed. to him it meant nothing. he believed i could fight only with my tongue, and i confess that i myself was in doubt as to my power of fighting otherwise. returning to my room, where mr. blank was in waiting, i supported his drooping courage and again assured him that he should be spared the dreaded ordeal. i ordered him to go to a certain room at the farther end of the hall and there await developments--so that, should there be a fight, the line of battle might be a long one. he obeyed. in a minute or two the attendant was headed for that room. i followed closely at his heels, still threatening to attack him if he dared so much as lay a finger on my friend. though i was not then aware of it, i was followed by another patient, a man who, though a mental case, had his lucid intervals and always a loyal heart. he seemed to realize that trouble was brewing and that very likely i should need help. once in the room, the war of words was renewed, my sensitive and unnerved friend standing by and anxiously looking on. "i warn you once more," i said, "if you touch mr. blank, i'll punch you so hard you'll wish you hadn't." the attendant's answer was an immediate attempt to eject mr. blank from the room by force. nothing could be more automatic than my action at that time; indeed, to this day i do not remember performing the act itself. what i remember is the determination to perform it and the subsequent evidence of its having been performed. at all events i had already made up my mind to do a certain thing if the attendant did a certain thing. he did the one and i did the other. almost before he had touched mr. blank's person, my right fist struck him with great force in, on, or about the left eye. it was then that i became the object of the attendant's attention--but not his undivided attention--for as he was choking me, my unsuspected ally stepped up and paid the attendant a sincere compliment by likewise choking him. in the scuffle i was forced to the floor. the attendant had a grip upon my throat. my wardmate had a double grip upon the attendant's throat. thus was formed a chain with a weak, if not a missing, link in the middle. picture, if you will, an insane man being choked by a supposedly sane one, and he in turn being choked by a temporarily sane insane friend of the assaulted one, and you will have nemesis as nearly in a nutshell as any mere rhetorician has yet been able to put her. that i was well choked is proved by the fact that my throat bore the crescent-shaped mark of my assailant's thumb nail. and i am inclined to believe that my rescuer, who was a very powerful man, made a decided impression on my assailant's throat. had not the superintendent opportunely appeared at that moment, the man might soon have lapsed into unconsciousness, for i am sure my ally would never have released him until he had released me. the moment the attendant with his one good eye caught sight of the superintendent the scrimmage ended. this was but natural, for it is against the code of honor generally obtaining among attendants, that one should so far forget himself as to abuse patients in the presence of sane and competent witnesses. the choking which i had just received served only to limber my vocal cords. i told the doctor all about the preliminary verbal skirmish and the needlessness of the fight. the superintendent had graduated at yale over fifty years prior to my own graduation, and because of this common interest and his consummate tact we got along well together. but his friendly interest did not keep him from speaking his mind upon occasion, as his words at this time proved. "you don't know," he said, "how it grieves me to see you--a yale man--act so like a rowdy." "if fighting for the rights of a much older man, unable to protect his own interests, is the act of a rowdy, i'm quite willing to be thought one," was my reply. need i add that the attendant did not take mr. blank for a walk that morning? nor, so far as i know, was the latter ever forced again to take his exercise against his will. xvi the superintendent now realized that i was altogether too energetic a humanitarian to remain in a ward with so many other patients. my actions had a demoralizing effect upon them; so i was forthwith transferred to a private room, one of two situated in a small one-story annex. these new quarters were rather attractive, not unlike a bachelor apartment. as there was no one here with whom i could interfere i got along without making any disturbance--that is, so long as i had a certain special attendant, a man suited to my temperament. he who was now placed over me understood human nature. he never resorted to force if argument failed to move me; and trifling transgressions, which would have led to a fight had he behaved like a typical attendant, he either ignored or privately reported to the doctor. for the whole period of my intense excitement there were certain persons who could control me, and certain others whose presence threw me into a state bordering on rage, and frequently into passions which led to distressing results. unfortunately for me, my good attendant soon left the institution to accept a more attractive business offer. he left without even a good-bye to me. nothing proves more conclusively how important to me would have been his retention than this abrupt leave-taking which the doctor had evidently ordered, thinking perhaps that the prospect of such a change would excite me. however, i caused no trouble when the substitution was made, though i did dislike having placed over me a man with whom i had previously had misunderstandings. he was about my own age and it was by no means so easy to take orders from him as it had been to obey his predecessor, who was considerably older than myself. then, too, this younger attendant disliked me because of the many disagreeable things i had said to him while we were together in a general ward. he weighed about one hundred and ninety pounds to my one hundred and thirty, and had evidently been selected to attend me because of his great strength. a choice based on mental rather than physical considerations would have been wiser. the superintendent, because of his advanced age and ill health, had been obliged again to place my case in the hands of the assistant physician, and the latter gave this new attendant certain orders. what i was to be permitted to do, and what not, was carefully specified. these orders, many of them unreasonable, were carried out to the letter. for this i cannot justly blame the attendant. the doctor had deprived him of the right to exercise what judgment he had. at this period i required but little sleep. i usually spent part of the night drawing; for it was in september, , while i was at the height of my wave of self-centred confidence, that i decided that i was destined to become a writer of books--or at least of one book; and now i thought i might as well be an artist, too, and illustrate my own works. in school i had never cared for drawing; nor at college either. but now my awakened artistic impulse was irresistible. my first self-imposed lesson was a free-hand copy of an illustration on a cover of _life_. considering the circumstances, that first drawing was creditable, though i cannot now prove the assertion; for inconsiderate attendants destroyed it, with many more of my drawings and manuscripts. from the very moment i completed that first drawing, honors were divided between my literary and artistic impulses; and a letter which, in due time, i felt impelled to write to the governor of the state, incorporated art with literature. i wrote and read several hours a day and i spent as many more in drawing. but the assistant physician, instead of making it easy for me to rid myself of an excess of energy along literary and artistic lines, balked me at every turn, and seemed to delight in displaying as little interest as possible in my newly awakened ambitions. when everything should have been done to calm my abnormally active mind, a studied indifference and failure to protect my interests kept me in a state of exasperation. but circumstances now arose which brought about the untimely stifling--i might better say strangulation--of my artistic impulses. the doctors were led--unwisely, i believe--to decide that absolute seclusion was the only thing that would calm my over-active brain. in consequence, all writing and drawing materials and all books were taken from me. and from october th until the first of the following january, except for one fortnight, i was confined in one or another small, barred room, hardly better than a cell in a prison and in some instances far worse. a corn cob was the determining factor at this crisis. seeing in myself an embryonic raphael, i had a habit of preserving all kinds of odds and ends as souvenirs of my development. these, i believed, sanctified by my midas-like touch, would one day be of great value. if the public can tolerate, as it does, thousands of souvenir hunters, surely one with a sick mind should be indulged in the whim for collecting such souvenirs as come within his reach. among the odds and ends that i had gathered were several corn cobs. these i intended to gild and some day make useful by attaching to them small thermometers. but on the morning of october th, the young man in charge of me, finding the corn cobs, forthwith informed me that he would throw them away. i as promptly informed him that any such action on his part would lead to a fight. and so it did. when this fight began, there were two attendants at hand. i fought them both to a standstill, and told them i should continue to fight until the assistant physician came to the ward. thereupon, my special attendant, realizing that i meant what i said, held me while the other went for assistance. he soon returned, not with the assistant physician, but with a third attendant, and the fight was renewed. the one who had acted as messenger, being of finer fibre than the other two, stood at a safe distance. it was, of course, against the rules of the institution for an attendant to strike a patient, and, as i was sane enough to report with a fair chance of belief any forbidden blows, each captor had to content himself with holding me by an arm and attempting to choke me into submission. however, i was able to prevent them from getting a good grip on my throat, and for almost ten minutes i continued to fight, telling them all the time that i would not stop until a doctor should come. an assistant physician, but not the one in charge of my case, finally appeared. he gave orders that i be placed in the violent ward, which adjoined the private apartment i was then occupying, and no time was lost in locking me in a small room in that ward. friends have said to me: "well, what is to be done when a patient runs amuck?" the best answer i can make is: "do nothing to make him run amuck." psychiatrists have since told me that had i had an attendant with the wisdom and ability to humor me and permit me to keep my priceless corn cobs, the fight in question, and the worse events that followed, would probably not have occurred--not that day, nor ever, had i at all times been properly treated by those in charge of me. so again i found myself in the violent ward--but this time not because of any desire to investigate it. art and literature being now more engrossing than my plans for reform, i became, in truth, an unwilling occupant of a room and a ward devoid of even a suggestion of the aesthetic. the room itself was clean, and under other circumstances might have been cheerful. it was twelve feet long, seven feet wide, and twelve high. a cluster of incandescent lights, enclosed in a semi-spherical glass globe, was attached to the ceiling. the walls were bare and plainly wainscotted, and one large window, barred outside, gave light. at one side of the door was an opening a foot square with a door of its own which could be unlocked only from without, and through which food could be passed to a supposedly dangerous patient. aside from a single bed, the legs of which were screwed to the floor, the room had no furniture. the attendant, before locking me in, searched me and took from me several lead pencils; but the stub of one escaped his vigilance. naturally, to be taken from a handsomely furnished apartment and thrust into such a bare and unattractive room as this caused my already heated blood to approach the boiling point. consequently, my first act was to send a note to the physician who regularly had charge of my case, requesting him to visit me as soon as he should arrive, and i have every reason to believe that the note was delivered. whether or not this was so, a report of the morning's fight and my transfer must have reached him by some one of several witnesses. while waiting for an answer, i busied myself writing, and as i had no stationery i wrote on the walls. beginning as high as i could reach, i wrote in columns, each about three feet wide. soon the pencil became dull. but dull pencils are easily sharpened on the whetstone of wit. stifling acquired traits, i permitted myself to revert momentarily to a primitive expedient. i gnawed the wood quite from the pencil, leaving only the graphite core. with a bit of graphite a hand guided by the unerring insolence of elation may artistically damn all men and things. that i am inclined to believe i did; and i question whether raphael or michael angelo--upon whom i then looked as mere predecessors--ever put more feeling per square foot into their mural masterpieces. every little while, as if to punctuate my composition, and in an endeavor to get attention, i viciously kicked the door. this first fight of the day occurred about a.m. for the three hours following i was left to thrash about the room and work myself into a frenzy. i made up my mind to compel attention. a month earlier, shattered glass had enabled me to accomplish a certain sane purpose. again this day it served me. the opalescent half-globe on the ceiling seemed to be the most vulnerable point for attack. how to reach and smash it was the next question--and soon answered. taking off my shoes, i threw one with great force at my glass target and succeeded in striking it a destructive blow. the attendants charged upon my room. their entrance was momentarily delayed by the door which stuck fast. i was standing near it, and when it gave way, its edge struck me on the forehead with force enough to have fractured my skull had it struck a weaker part. once in the room, the two attendants threw me on the bed and one choked me so severely that i could feel my eyes starting from their sockets. the attendants then put the room in order; removed the glass--that is, all except one small and apparently innocent, but as the event proved well-nigh fatal, piece--took my shoes and again locked me in my room--not forgetting, however, to curse me well for making them work for their living. when the assistant physician finally appeared, i met him with a blast of invective which, in view of the events which quickly followed, must have blown out whatever spark of kindly feeling toward me he may ever have had. i demanded that he permit me to send word to my conservator asking him to come at once and look after my interests, for i was being unfairly treated. i also demanded that he request the superintendent to visit me at once, as i intended to have nothing more to do with the assistant physicians or attendants who were neglecting and abusing me. he granted neither demand. the bit of glass which the attendants had overlooked was about the size of my thumb nail. if i remember rightly, it was not a part of the broken globe. it was a piece that had probably been hidden by a former occupant, in a corner of the square opening at the side of the door. at all events, if the pen is the tongue of a ready writer, so may a piece of glass be, under given conditions. as the thought i had in mind seemed an immortal one i decided to etch, rather than write with fugitive graphite. on the topmost panel of the door, which a few minutes before had dealt me so vicious a blow, i scratched a seven-word sentiment--sincere, if not classic: "god bless our home, which is hell." the violent exercise of the morning had given me a good appetite and i ate my dinner with relish, though with some difficulty, for the choking had lamed my throat. on serving this dinner, the attendants again left me to my own devices. the early part of the afternoon i spent in vain endeavors to summon them and induce them to take notes to the superintendent and his assistant. they continued to ignore me. by sundown the furious excitement of the morning had given place to what might be called a deliberative excitement, which, if anything, was more effective. it was but a few days earlier that i had discussed my case with the assistant physician and told him all about the suicidal impulse which had been so strong during my entire period of depression. i now reasoned that a seeming attempt at suicide, a "fake" suicide, would frighten the attendants into calling this doctor whose presence i now desired--and desired the more because of his studied indifference. no man that ever lived, loved life more than i did on that day, and the mock tragedy which i successfully staged about dusk was, i believe, as good a farce as was ever perpetrated. if i had any one ambition it was to live long enough to regain my freedom and put behind prison bars this doctor and his burly henchmen. to compel attention that was my object. at that season the sun set by half-past five and supper was usually served about that time. so dark was my room then that objects in it could scarcely be discerned. about a quarter of an hour before the attendant was due to appear with my evening meal i made my preparations. that the stage setting might be in keeping with the plot, i tore up such papers as i had with me, and also destroyed other articles in the room--as one might in a frenzy; and to complete the illusion of desperation, deliberately broke my watch. i then took off my suspenders, and tying one end to the head of the bedstead, made a noose of the other. this i adjusted comfortably about my throat. at the crucial moment i placed my pillow on the floor beside the head of the bed and sat on it--for this was to be an easy death. i then bore just enough weight on the improvised noose to give all a plausible look. and a last lifelike (or rather deathlike) touch i added by gurgling as in infancy's happy days. no schoolboy ever enjoyed a prank more than i enjoyed this one. soon i heard the step of the attendant, bringing my supper. when he opened the door, he had no idea that anything unusual was happening within. coming as he did from a well-lighted room into one that was dark, it took him several seconds to grasp the situation--and then he failed really to take it in, for he at once supposed me to be in a semi-unconscious condition from strangulation. in a state of great excitement this brute of the morning called to his brute partner and i was soon released from what was nothing more than an amusing position, though they believed it one of torture or death. the vile curses with which they had addressed me in the morning were now silenced. they spoke kindly and expressed regret that i should have seen fit to resort to such an act. their sympathy was as genuine as such men can feel, but a poor kind at best, for it was undoubtedly excited by the thought of what might be the consequences to them of their own neglect. while this unwonted stress of emotion threatened their peace of mind, i continued to play my part, pretending to be all but unconscious. shortly after my rescue from a very living death, the attendants picked me up and carried my limp body and laughing soul to an adjoining room, where i was tenderly placed upon a bed. i seemed gradually to revive. "what did you do it for?" asked one. "what's the use of living in a place like this, to be abused as i've been to-day?" i asked. "you and the doctor ignore me and all my requests. even a cup of water between meals is denied me, and other requests which you have no right to refuse. had i killed myself, both of you would have been discharged. and if my relatives and friends had ever found out how you had abused and neglected me, it is likely you would have been arrested and prosecuted." word had already been sent to the physician. he hurried to the ward, his almost breathless condition showing how my farce had been mistaken for a real tragedy. the moment he entered i abandoned the part i had been playing. "now that i have you three brutes where i want you, i'll tell you a few things you don't know," i said. "you probably think i've just tried to kill myself. it was simply a ruse to make you give me some attention. when i make threats and tell you that my one object in life is to live long enough to regain my freedom and lay bare the abuses which abound in places like this, you simply laugh at me, don't you? but the fact is, that's my ambition, and if you knew anything at all, you'd know that abuse won't drive me to suicide. you can continue to abuse me and deprive me of my rights, and keep me in exile from relatives and friends, but the time will come when i'll make you sweat for all this. i'll put you in prison where you belong. or if i fail to do that, i can at least bring about your discharge from this institution. what's more, i will." the doctor and attendants took my threats with characteristic nonchalance. such threats, often enough heard in such places, make little or no impression, for they are seldom made good. when i made these threats, i really wished to put these men in prison. to-day i have no such desire, for were they not victims of the same vicious system of treatment to which i was subjected? in every institution where the discredited principles of "restraint" are used or tolerated, the very atmosphere is brutalizing. place a bludgeon in the hand of any man, with instructions to use it when necessary, and the gentler and more humane methods of persuasion will naturally be forgotten or deliberately abandoned. throughout my period of elation, especially the first months of it when i was doing the work of several normal men, i required an increased amount of fuel to generate the abnormal energy my activity demanded. i had a voracious appetite, and i insisted that the attendant give me the supper he was about to serve when he discovered me in the simulated throes of death. at first he refused, but finally relented and brought me a cup of tea and some buttered bread. because of the severe choking administered earlier in the day it was with difficulty that i swallowed any food. i _had_ to eat slowly. the attendant, however, ordered me to hurry, and threatened otherwise to take what little supper i had. i told him that i thought he would not--that i was entitled to my supper and intended to eat it with as much comfort as possible. this nettled him, and by a sudden and unexpected move he managed to take from me all but a crust of bread. even that he tried to snatch. i resisted and the third fight of the day was soon on--and that within five minutes of the time the doctor had left the ward. i was seated on the bed. the attendant, true to his vicious instincts, grasped my throat and choked me with the full power of a hand accustomed to that unmanly work. his partner, in the meantime, had rendered me helpless by holding me flat on my back while the attacking party choked me into breathless submission. the first fight of the day was caused by a corn cob; this of the evening by a crust of bread. were i to close the record of events of that october day with an account of the assault just described, few, if any, would imagine that i had failed to mention all the abuse to which i was that day subjected. the fact is that not the half has been told. as the handling of me within the twenty-four hours typifies the worst, but, nevertheless, the not unusual treatment of many patients in a like condition, i feel constrained to describe minutely the torture which was my portion that night. there are several methods of restraint in use to this day in various institutions, chief among them "mechanical restraint" and so-called "chemical restraint." the former consists in the use of instruments of restraint, namely, strait-jackets or camisoles, muffs, straps, mittens, restraint or strong sheets, etc.--all of them, except on the rarest of occasions, instruments of neglect and torture. chemical restraint (sometimes called medical restraint) consists in the use of temporarily paralyzing drugs--hyoscine being the popular "dose." by the use of such drugs a troublesome patient may be rendered unconscious and kept so for hours at a time. indeed, very troublesome patients (especially when attendants are scarce) are not infrequently kept in a stupefied condition for days, or even for weeks--but only in institutions where the welfare of the patients is lightly regarded. after the supper fight i was left alone in my room for about an hour. then the assistant physician entered with three attendants, including the two who had figured in my farce. one carried a canvas contrivance known as a camisole. a camisole is a type of straitjacket; and a very convenient type it is for those who resort to such methods of restraint, for it enables them to deny the use of strait-jackets at all. a strait-jacket, indeed, is not a camisole, just as electrocution is not hanging. a camisole, or, as i prefer to stigmatize it, a straitjacket, is really a tight-fitting coat of heavy canvas, reaching from neck to waist, constructed, however, on no ordinary pattern. there is not a button on it. the sleeves are closed at the ends, and the jacket, having no opening in front, is adjusted and tightly laced behind. to the end of each blind sleeve is attached a strong cord. the cord on the right sleeve is carried to the left of the body, and the cord on the left sleeve is carried to the right of the body. both are then drawn tightly behind, thus bringing the arms of the victim into a folded position across his chest. these cords are then securely tied. when i planned my ruse of the afternoon, i knew perfectly that i should soon find myself in a strait-jacket. the thought rather took my fancy, for i was resolved to know the inner workings of the violent ward. the piece of glass with which i had that morning written the motto already quoted, i had appropriated for a purpose. knowing that i should soon be put in the uncomfortable, but not necessarily intolerable embrace of a strait-jacket, my thought was that i might during the night, in some way or other, use this piece of glass to advantage--perhaps cut my way to a limited freedom. to make sure that i should retain possession of it, i placed it in my mouth and held it snugly against my cheek. its presence there did not interfere with my speech; nor did it invite visual detection. but had i known as much about strait-jackets and their adjustment as i learned later, i should have resorted to no such futile expedient. after many nights of torture, this jacket, at my urgent and repeated request, was finally adjusted in such manner that, had it been so adjusted at first, i need not have suffered any _torture_ at all. this i knew at the time, for i had not failed to discuss the matter with a patient who on several occasions had been restrained in this same jacket. on this occasion the element of personal spite entered into the assistant physician's treatment of me. the man's personality was apparently dual. his "jekyll" personality was the one most in evidence, but it was the "hyde" personality that seemed to control his actions when a crisis arose. it was "doctor jekyll" who approached my room that night, accompanied by the attendants. the moment he entered my room he became "mr. hyde." he was, indeed, no longer a doctor, or the semblance of one. his first move was to take the straitjacket in his own hands and order me to stand. knowing that those in authority really believed i had that day attempted to kill myself, i found no fault with their wish to put me in restraint; but i did object to having this done by jekyll-hyde. though a straitjacket should always be adjusted by the physician in charge, i knew that as a matter of fact the disagreeable duty was invariably assigned to the attendants. consequently jekyll-hyde's eagerness to assume an obligation he usually shirked gave me the feeling that his motives were spiteful. for that reason i preferred to entrust myself to the uncertain mercies of a regular attendant; and i said so, but in vain. "if you will keep your mouth shut, i'll be able to do this job quicker," said jekyll-hyde. "i'll shut my mouth as soon as you get out of this room and not before," i remarked. nor did i. my abusive language was, of course, interlarded with the inevitable epithets. the more i talked, the more vindictive he became. he said nothing, but, unhappily for me, he expressed his pent-up feelings in something more effectual than words. after he had laced the jacket, and drawn my arms across my chest so snugly that i could not move them a fraction of an inch, i asked him to loosen the strait-jacket enough to enable me at least to take a full breath. i also requested him to give me a chance to adjust my fingers, which had been caught in an unnatural and uncomfortable position. "if you will keep still a minute, i will," said jekyll-hyde. i obeyed, and willingly too, for i did not care to suffer more than was necessary. instead of loosening the appliance as agreed, this doctor, now livid with rage, drew the cords in such a way that i found myself more securely and cruelly held than before. this breach of faith threw me into a frenzy. though it was because his continued presence served to increase my excitement that jekyll-hyde at last withdrew, it will be observed that he did not do so until he had satisfied an unmanly desire which an apparently lurking hatred had engendered. the attendants soon withdrew and locked me up for the night. no incidents of my life have ever impressed themselves more indelibly on my memory than those of my first night in a strait-jacket. within one hour of the time i was placed in it i was suffering pain as intense as any i ever endured, and before the night had passed it had become almost unbearable. my right hand was so held that the tip of one of my fingers was all but cut by the nail of another, and soon knifelike pains began to shoot through my right arm as far as the shoulder. after four or five hours the excess of pain rendered me partially insensible to it. but for fifteen consecutive hours i remained in that instrument of torture; and not until the twelfth hour, about breakfast time the next morning, did an attendant so much as loosen a cord. during the first seven or eight hours, excruciating pains racked not only my arms, but half of my body. though i cried and moaned, in fact, screamed so loudly that the attendants must have heard me, little attention was paid to me--possibly because of orders from mr. hyde after he had again assumed the role of doctor jekyll. i even begged the attendants to loosen the jacket enough to ease me a little. this they refused to do, and they even seemed to enjoy being in a position to add their considerable mite to my torture. before midnight i really believed that i should be unable to endure the torture and retain my reason. a peculiar pricking sensation which i now felt in my brain, a sensation exactly like that of june, , led me to believe that i might again be thrown out of touch with the world i had so lately regained. realizing the awfulness of that fate, i redoubled my efforts to effect my rescue. shortly after midnight i did succeed in gaining the attention of the night watch. upon entering my room he found me flat on the floor. i had fallen from the bed and perforce remained absolutely helpless where i lay. i could not so much as lift my head. this, however, was not the fault of the straitjacket. it was because i could not control the muscles of my neck which that day had been so mauled. i could scarcely swallow the water the night watch was good enough to give me. he was not a bad sort; yet even he refused to let out the cords of the strait-jacket. as he seemed sympathetic, i can attribute his refusal to nothing but strict orders issued by the doctor. it will be recalled that i placed a piece of glass in my mouth before the strait-jacket was adjusted. at midnight the glass was still there. after the refusal of the night watch, i said to him: "then i want you to go to doctor jekyll" (i, of course, called him by his right name; but to do so now would be to prove myself as brutal as mr. hyde himself). "tell him to come here at once and loosen this jacket. i can't endure the torture much longer. after fighting two years to regain my reason, i believe i'll lose it again. you have always treated me kindly. for god's sake, get the doctor!" "i can't leave the main building at this time," the night watch said. (jekyll-hyde lived in a house about one-eighth of a mile distant, but within the hospital grounds.) "then will you take a message to the assistant physician who stays here?" (a colleague of jekyll-hyde had apartments in the main building.) "i'll do that," he replied. "tell him how i'm suffering. ask him to please come here at once and ease this strait-jacket. if he doesn't, i'll be as crazy by morning as i ever was. also tell him i'll kill myself unless he comes, and i can do it, too. i have a piece of glass in this room and i know just what i'll do with it." the night watch was as good as his word. he afterwards told me that he had delivered my message. the doctor ignored it. he did not come near me that night, nor the next day, nor did jekyll-hyde appear until his usual round of inspection about eleven o'clock the next morning. "i understand that you have a piece of glass which you threatened to use for a suicidal purpose last night," he said, when he appeared. "yes, i have, and it's not your fault or the other doctor's that i am not dead. had i gone mad, in my frenzy i might have swallowed that glass." "where is it?" asked the doctor, incredulously. as my strait-jacket rendered me armless, i presented the glass to jekyll-hyde on the tip of a tongue he had often heard, but never before seen. xvii after fifteen interminable hours the strait-jacket was removed. whereas just prior to its putting on i had been in a vigorous enough condition to offer stout resistance when wantonly assaulted, now, on coming out of it, i was helpless. when my arms were released from their constricted position, the pain was intense. every joint had been racked. i had no control over the fingers of either hand, and could not have dressed myself had i been promised my freedom for doing so. for more than the following week i suffered as already described, though of course with gradually decreasing intensity as my racked body became accustomed to the unnatural positions it was forced to take. this first experience occurred on the night of october th, . i was subjected to the same unfair, unnecessary, and unscientific ordeal for twenty-one consecutive nights and parts of each of the corresponding twenty-one days. on more than one occasion, indeed, the attendant placed me in the strait-jacket during the day for refusing to obey some trivial command. this, too, without an explicit order from the doctor in charge, though perhaps he acted under a general order. during most of this time i was held also in seclusion in a padded cell. a padded cell is a vile hole. the side walls are padded as high as a man can reach, as is also the inside of the door. one of the worst features of such cells is the lack of ventilation, which deficiency of course aggravates their general unsanitary condition. the cell which i was forced to occupy was practically without heat, and as winter was coming on, i suffered intensely from the cold. frequently it was so cold i could see my breath. though my canvas jacket served to protect part of that body which it was at the same time racking, i was seldom comfortably warm; for, once uncovered, my arms being pinioned, i had no way of rearranging the blankets. what little sleep i managed to get i took lying on a hard mattress placed on the bare floor. the condition of the mattress i found in the cell was such that i objected to its further use, and the fact that another was supplied, at a time when few of my requests were being granted, proves its disgusting condition. for this period of three weeks--from october th until november th, , when i left this institution and was transferred to a state hospital--i was continuously either under lock and key (in the padded cell or some other room) or under the eye of an attendant. over half the time i was in the snug, but cruel embrace of a strait-jacket--about three hundred hours in all. while being subjected to this terrific abuse i was held in exile. i was cut off from all direct and all _honest_ indirect communication with my legally appointed conservator--my own brother--and also with all other relatives and friends. i was even cut off from satisfactory communication with the superintendent. i saw him but twice, and then for so short a time that i was unable to give him any convincing idea of my plight. these interviews occurred on two sundays that fell within my period of exile, for it was on sunday that the superintendent usually made his weekly round of inspection. what chance had i of successfully pleading my case, while my pulpit was a padded cell, and the congregation--with the exception of the superintendent--the very ones who had been abusing me? at such times my pent-up indignation poured itself forth in such a disconnected way that my protests were robbed of their right ring of truth. i was not incoherent in speech. i was simply voluble and digressive--a natural incident of elation. such notes as i managed to write on scraps of paper were presumably confiscated by jekyll-hyde. at all events, it was not until some months later that the superintendent was informed of my treatment, when, at my request (though i was then elsewhere), the governor of the state discussed the subject with him. how i brought about that discussion while still virtually a prisoner in another place will be narrated in due time. and not until several days after i had left this institution and had been placed in another, when for the first time in six weeks i saw my conservator, did _he_ learn of the treatment to which i had been subjected. from his office in new haven he had telephoned several times to the assistant physician and inquired about my condition. though jekyll-hyde did tell him that i was highly excited and difficult to control, he did not even hint that i was being subjected to any unusual restraint. doctor jekyll deceived everyone, and--as things turned out--deceived himself; for had he realized then that i should one day be able to do what i have since done, his brutality would surely have been held in check by his discretion. how helpless, how at the mercy of his keepers, a patient may be is further illustrated by the conduct of this same man. once, during the third week of my nights in a strait-jacket, i refused to take certain medicine which an attendant offered me. for some time i had been regularly taking this innocuous concoction without protest; but i now decided that, as the attendant refused most of my requests, i should no longer comply with all of his. he did not argue the point with me. he simply reported my refusal to doctor jekyll. a few minutes later doctor jekyll--or rather mr. hyde--accompanied by three attendants, entered the padded cell. i was robed for the night--in a strait-jacket. mr. hyde held in his hand a rubber tube. an attendant stood near with the medicine. for over two years, the common threat had been made that the "tube" would be resorted to if i refused medicine or food. i had begun to look upon it as a myth; but its presence in the hands of an oppressor now convinced me of its reality. i saw that the doctor and his bravos meant business; and as i had already endured torture enough, i determined to make every concession this time and escape what seemed to be in store for me. "what are you going to do with that?" i asked, eyeing the tube. "the attendant says you refuse to take your medicine. we are going to make you take it." "i'll take your old medicine," was my reply. "you have had your chance." "all right," i said. "put that medicine into me any way you think best. but the time will come when you'll wish you hadn't. when that time does come it won't be easy to prove that you had the right to force a patient to take medicine he had offered to take. i know something about the ethics of your profession. you have no right to do anything to a patient except what's good for him. you know that. all you are trying to do is to punish me, and i give you fair warning i'm going to camp on your trail till you are not only discharged from this institution, but expelled from the state medical society as well. you are a disgrace to your profession, and that society will attend to your case fast enough when certain members of it, who are friends of mine, hear about this. furthermore, i shall report your conduct to the governor of the state. he can take some action even if this is _not_ a state institution. now, damn you, do your worst!" coming from one in my condition, this was rather straight talk. the doctor was visibly disconcerted. had he not feared to lose caste with the attendants who stood by, i think he would have given me another chance. but he had too much pride and too little manhood to recede from a false position already taken. i no longer resisted, even verbally, for i no longer wanted the doctor to desist. though i did not anticipate the operation with pleasure, i was eager to take the man's measure. he and the attendants knew that i usually kept a trick or two even up the sleeve of a strait-jacket, so they took added precautions. i was flat on my back, with simply a mattress between me and the floor. one attendant held me. another stood by with the medicine and with a funnel through which, as soon as mr. hyde should insert the tube in one of my nostrils, the dose was to be poured. the third attendant stood near as a reserve force. though the insertion of the tube, when skilfully done, need not cause suffering, the operation as conducted by mr. hyde was painful. try as he would, he was unable to insert the tube properly, though in no way did i attempt to balk him. his embarrassment seemed to rob his hand of whatever cunning it may have possessed. after what seemed ten minutes of bungling, though it was probably not half that, he gave up the attempt, but not until my nose had begun to bleed. he was plainly chagrined when he and his bravos retired. intuitively i felt that they would soon return. that they did, armed with a new implement of war. this time the doctor inserted between my teeth a large wooden peg--to keep open a mouth which he usually wanted shut. he then forced down my throat a rubber tube, the attendant adjusted the funnel, and the medicine, or rather liquid--for its medicinal properties were without effect upon me--was poured in. as the scant reports sent to my conservator during these three weeks indicated that i was not improving as he had hoped, he made a special trip to the institution, to investigate in person. on his arrival he was met by none other than doctor jekyll, who told him that i was in a highly excited condition, which, he intimated, would be aggravated by a personal interview. now for a man to see his brother in such a plight as mine would be a distressing ordeal, and, though my conservator came within a few hundred feet of my prison cell, it naturally took but a suggestion to dissuade him from coming nearer. doctor jekyll did tell him that it had been found necessary to place me in "restraint" and "seclusion" (the professional euphemisms for "strait-jacket," "padded cell," etc.), but no hint was given that i had been roughly handled. doctor jekyll's politic dissuasion was no doubt inspired by the knowledge that if ever i got within speaking distance of my conservator, nothing could prevent my giving him a circumstantial account of my sufferings--which account would have been corroborated by the blackened eye i happened to have at the time. indeed, in dealing with my conservator the assistant physician showed a degree of tact which, had it been directed toward myself, would have sufficed to keep me tolerably comfortable. my conservator, though temporarily stayed, was not convinced. he felt that i was not improving where i was, and he wisely decided that the best course would be to have me transferred to a public institution--the state hospital. a few days later the judge who had originally committed me ordered my transfer. nothing was said to me about the proposed change until the moment of departure, and then i could scarcely believe my ears. in fact i did not believe my informant; for three weeks of abuse, together with my continued inability to get in touch with my conservator, had so shaken my reason that there was a partial recurrence of old delusions. i imagined myself on the way to the state prison, a few miles distant; and not until the train had passed the prison station did i believe that i was really on my way to the state hospital. xviii the state hospital in which i now found myself, the third institution to which i had been committed, though in many respects above the average of such institutions, was typical. it commanded a wide view of a beautiful river and valley. this view i was permitted to enjoy--at first. those in charge of the institution which i had just left did not give my new custodians any detailed account of my case. their reticence was, i believe, occasioned by chagrin rather than charity. tamers of wild men have as much pride as tamers of wild animals (but unfortunately less skill) and to admit defeat is a thing not to be thought of. though private institutions are prone to shift their troublesome cases to state institutions, there is too often a deplorable lack of sympathy and co-operation between them, which, in this instance, however, proved fortunate for me. from october th until the early afternoon of november th, at the private institution, i had been classed as a raving maniac. the _name_ i had brought upon myself by experimental conduct; the _condition_ had been aggravated and perpetuated by the stupidity of those in authority over me. and it was the same experimental conduct on my part, and stupidity on the part of my new custodians, which gave rise, two weeks later, to a similar situation. on friday, november th, i was in a strait-jacket. on november th and th i was apparently as tractable as any of the twenty-three hundred patients in the state hospital--conventionally clothed, mild mannered, and, seemingly, right minded. on the th, the day after my arrival, i attended a church service held at the hospital. my behavior was not other than that of the most pious worshipper in the land. the next evening, with most exemplary deportment, i attended one of the dances which are held every fortnight during the winter. had i been a raving maniac, such activities would have led to a disturbance; for maniacs, of necessity, disregard the conventions of both pious and polite society. yet, on either of these days, had i been in the private institution which i had recently left, i should have occupied a cell and worn a strait-jacket. the assistant superintendent, who received me upon my arrival, judged me by my behavior. he assigned me to one of two connecting wards--the best in the hospital--where about seventy patients led a fairly agreeable life. though no official account of my case had accompanied my transfer, the attendant who had acted as escort and guard had already given an attendant at the state hospital a brief account of my recent experiences. yet when this report finally reached the ears of those in authority, they wisely decided not to transfer me to another ward so long as i caused no trouble where i was. finding myself at last among friends, i lost no time in asking for writing and drawing materials, which had so rudely been taken from me three weeks earlier. my request was promptly granted. the doctors and attendants treated me kindly and i again began to enjoy life. my desire to write and draw had not abated. however, i did not devote my entire time to those pursuits, for there were plenty of congenial companions about. i found pleasure in talking--more pleasure by far than others did in listening. in fact i talked incessantly, and soon made known, in a general way, my scheme for reforming institutions, not only in my native state, but, of course, throughout the world, for my grandiose perspective made the earth look small. the attendants had to bear the brunt of my loquacity, and they soon grew weary. one of them, wishing to induce silence, ventured to remark that i was so "crazy" i could not possibly keep my mouth shut for even one minute. it was a challenge which aroused my fighting spirit. "i'll show you that i can stop talking for a whole day," i said. he laughed, knowing that of all difficult tasks this which i had imposed upon myself was, for one in my condition, least likely of accomplishment. but i was as good as my boast. until the same hour the next day i refused to speak to anyone. i did not even reply to civil questions; and, though my silence was deliberate and good-natured, the assistant physician seemed to consider it of a contumacious variety, for he threatened to transfer me to a less desirable ward unless i should again begin to talk. that day of self-imposed silence was about the longest i have ever lived, for i was under a word pressure sufficient to have filled a book. any psychiatrist will admit that my performance was remarkable, and he will further agree that it was, at least, an indication of a high degree of self-control. though i have no desire to prove that at this period i was not in an abnormal condition, i do wish to show that i had a degree of self-control that probably would have enabled me to remain in the best ward at this institution had i not been intent --abnormally intent, of course, and yet with a high degree of deliberation--upon a reformative investigation. the crest of my wave of elation had been reached early in october. it was now (november) that the curve representing my return to normality should have been continuous and diminishing. instead, it was kept violently fluctuating--or at least its fluctuations were aggravated--by the impositions of those in charge of me, induced sometimes, i freely admit, by deliberate and purposeful transgressions of my own. my condition during my three weeks of exile just ended, had been, if anything, one of milder excitement than that which had obtained previously during the first seven weeks of my period of elation. and my condition during the two weeks i now remained in the best ward in the state hospital was not different from my condition during the preceding three weeks of torture, or the succeeding three weeks of abuse and privation, except in so far as a difference was occasioned by the torture and privation themselves. though i had long intended to effect reforms in existing methods of treatment, my reckless desire to investigate violent wards did not possess me until i myself had experienced the torture of continued confinement in one such ward before coming to this state institution. it was simple to deduce that if one could suffer such abuses as i had while a patient in a private institution--nay, in two private institutions--brutality must exist in a state hospital also. thus it was that i entered the state hospital with a firm resolve to inspect personally every type of ward, good and bad. but i was in no hurry to begin. my recent experience had exhausted me, and i wished to regain strength before subjecting myself to another such ordeal. this desire to recuperate controlled my conduct for a while, but its influence gradually diminished as life became more and more monotonous. i soon found the good ward entirely too polite. i craved excitement--action. and i determined to get it regardless of consequences; though i am free to confess i should not have had the courage to proceed with my plan had i known what was in store for me. about this time my conservator called to see me. of course, i told him all about my cruel experiences at the private institution. my account surprised and distressed him. i also told him that i knew for a fact that similar conditions existed at the state hospital, as i had heard convincing rumors to that effect. he urged me to behave myself and remain in the ward where i was, which ward, as i admitted, was all that one could desire--provided one had schooled himself to desire that sort of thing. the fact that i was under lock and key and behind what were virtually prison bars in no way gave me a sense of helplessness. i firmly believed that i should find it easy to effect my escape and reach home for the thanksgiving day celebration. and, furthermore, i knew that, should i reach home, i should not be denied my portion of the good things to eat before being returned to the hospital. being under the spell of an intense desire to investigate the violent ward, i concluded that the time for action had come. i reasoned, too, that it would be easier and safer to escape from that ward--which was on a level with the ground--than from a ward three stories above it. the next thing i did was to inform the attendants (not to mention several of the patients) that within a day or two i should do something to cause my removal to it. they of course did not believe that i had any idea of deliberately inviting such a transfer. my very frankness disarmed them. on the evening of november st, i went from room to room collecting all sorts of odds and ends belonging to other patients. these i secreted in my room. i also collected a small library of books, magazines and newspapers. after securing all the booty i dared, i mingled with the other patients until the time came for going to bed. the attendants soon locked me in my junk shop and i spent the rest of the night setting it in disorder. my original plan had been to barricade the door during the night, and thus hold the doctors and attendants at bay until those in authority had accepted my ultimatum, which was to include a thanksgiving visit at home. but before morning i had slightly altered my plan. my sleepless night of activity had made me ravenously hungry, and i decided that it would be wiser not only to fill my stomach, but to lay by other supplies of food before submitting to a siege. accordingly i set things to rights and went about my business the next morning as usual. at breakfast i ate enough for two men, and put in my pockets bread enough to last for twenty-four hours at least. then i returned to my room and at once barricaded the door. my barricade consisted of a wardrobe, several drawers which i had removed from the bureau, and a number of books--among them "paradise lost" and the bible. these, with conscious satisfaction, i placed in position as a keystone. thus the floor space between the door and the opposite wall of the room was completely filled. my roommate, a young fellow in the speechless condition in which i had been during my period of depression, was in the room with me. this was accidental. it was no part of my plan to hold him as a hostage, though i might finally have used him as a pawn in the negotiations, had my barricade resisted the impending attack longer than it did. it was not long before the attendants realized that something was wrong. they came to my door and asked me to open it. i refused, and told them that to argue the point would be a waste of time. they tried to force an entrance. failing in that, they reported to the assistant physician, who soon appeared. at first he parleyed with me. i good-naturedly, but emphatically, told him that i could not be talked out of the position i had taken; nor could i be taken out of it until i was ready to surrender, for my barricade was one that would surely hold. i also announced that i had carefully planned my line of action and knew what i was about. i complimented him on his hitherto tactful treatment of me, and grandiloquently--yet sincerely--thanked him for his many courtesies. i also expressed entire satisfaction with the past conduct of the attendants. in fact, on part of the institution i put the stamp of my approval. "but," i said, "i know there are wards in this hospital where helpless patients are brutally treated; and i intend to put a stop to these abuses at once. not until the governor of the state, the judge who committed me, and my conservator come to this door will i open it. when they arrive, we'll see whether or not patients are to be robbed of their rights and abused." my speech was made through a screen transom over the door. for a few minutes the doctor continued his persuasive methods, but that he should even imagine that i would basely recede from my high and mighty position only irritated me the more. "you can stand outside that door all day if you choose," i said. "i won't open it until the three men i have named appear. i have prepared for a siege; and i have enough food in this room to keep me going for a day anyway." realizing at last that no argument would move me, he set about forcing an entrance. first he tried to remove the transom by striking it with a stout stick. i gave blow for blow and the transom remained in place. a carpenter was then sent for, but before he could go about his work one of the attendants managed to open the door enough to thrust in his arm and shove aside my barricade. i did not realize what was being done until it was too late to interfere. the door once open, in rushed the doctor and four attendants. without ceremony i was thrown upon the bed, with two or three of the attacking force on top of me. again i was choked, this time by the doctor. the operation was a matter of only a moment. but before it was over i had the good fortune to deal the doctor a stinging blow on the jaw, for which (as he was about my own age and the odds were five to one) i have never felt called upon to apologize. once i was subdued, each of the four attendants attached himself to a leg or an arm and, under the direction and leadership of the doctor, i was carried bodily through two corridors, down two flights of stairs, and to the violent ward. my dramatic exit startled my fellow-patients, for so much action in so short a time is seldom seen in a quiet ward. and few patients placed in the violent ward are introduced with so impressive an array of camp-followers as i had that day. all this to me was a huge joke, with a good purpose behind it. though excited i was good-natured and, on the way to my new quarters, i said to the doctor: "whether you believe it or not, it's a fact that i'm going to reform these institutions before i'm done. i raised this rumpus to make you transfer me to the violent ward. what i want you to do now is to show me the worst you've got." "you needn't worry," the doctor said. "you'll get it." he spoke the truth. xix even for a violent ward my entrance was spectacular--if not dramatic. the three attendants regularly in charge naturally jumped to the conclusion that, in me, a troublesome patient had been foisted upon them. they noted my arrival with an unpleasant curiosity, which in turn aroused _my_ curiosity, for it took but a glance to convince me that my burly keepers were typical attendants of the brute-force type. acting on the order of the doctor in charge, one of them stripped me of my outer garments; and, clad in nothing but underclothes, i was thrust into a cell. few, if any, prisons in this country contain worse holes than this cell proved to be. it was one of five, situated in a short corridor adjoining the main ward. it was about six feet wide by ten long and of a good height. a heavily screened and barred window admitted light and a negligible quantity of air, for the ventilation scarcely deserved the name. the walls and floor were bare, and there was no furniture. a patient confined here must lie on the floor with no substitute for a bed but one or two felt druggets. sleeping under such conditions becomes tolerable after a time, but not until one has become accustomed to lying on a surface nearly as hard as a stone. here (as well, indeed, as in other parts of the ward) for a period of three weeks i was again forced to breathe and rebreathe air so vitiated that even when i occupied a larger room in the same ward, doctors and attendants seldom entered without remarking its quality. my first meal increased my distaste for my semi-sociological experiment. for over a month i was kept in a half-starved condition. at each meal, to be sure, i was given as much food as was served to other patients, but an average portion was not adequate to the needs of a patient as active as i was at this time. worst of all, winter was approaching and these, my first quarters, were without heat. as my olfactory nerves soon became uncommunicative, the breathing of foul air was not a hardship. on the other hand, to be famished the greater part of the time was a very conscious hardship. but to be half-frozen, day in and day out for a long period, was exquisite torture. of all the suffering i endured, that occasioned by confinement in cold cells seems to have made the most lasting impression. hunger is a local disturbance, but when one is cold, every nerve in the body registers its call for help. long before reading a certain passage of de quincey's i had decided that cold could cause greater suffering than hunger; consequently, it was with great satisfaction that i read the following sentences from his "confessions": "o ancient women, daughters of toil and suffering, among all the hardships and bitter inheritances of flesh that ye are called upon to face, not one--not even hunger--seems in my eyes comparable to that of nightly cold.... a more killing curse there does not exist for man or woman than the bitter combat between the weariness that prompts sleep and the keen, searching cold that forces you from that first access of sleep to start up horror-stricken, and to seek warmth vainly in renewed exercise, though long since fainting under fatigue." the hardness of the bed and the coldness of the room were not all that interfered with sleep. the short corridor in which i was placed was known as the "bull pen"--a phrase eschewed by the doctors. it was usually in an uproar, especially during the dark hours of the early morning. patients in a state of excitement may sleep during the first hours of the night, but seldom all night; and even should one have the capacity to do so, his companions in durance would wake him with a shout or a song or a curse or the kicking of a door. a noisy and chaotic medley frequently continued without interruption for hours at a time. noise, unearthly noise, was the poetic license allowed the occupants of these cells. i spent several days and nights in one or another of them, and i question whether i averaged more than two or three hours' sleep a night during that time. seldom did the regular attendants pay any attention to the noise, though even they must at times have been disturbed by it. in fact the only person likely to attempt to stop it was the night watch, who, when he did enter a cell for that purpose, almost invariably kicked or choked the noisy patient into a state of temporary quiet. i noted this and scented trouble. drawing and writing materials having been again taken from me, i cast about for some new occupation. i found one in the problem of warmth. though i gave repeated expression to the benumbed messages of my tortured nerves, the doctor refused to return my clothes. for a semblance of warmth i was forced to depend upon ordinary undergarments and an extraordinary imagination. the heavy felt druggets were about as plastic as blotting paper and i derived little comfort from them until i hit upon the idea of rending them into strips. these strips i would weave into a crude rip van winkle kind of suit; and so intricate was the warp and woof that on several occasions an attendant had to cut me out of these sartorial improvisations. at first, until i acquired the destructive knack, the tearing of one drugget into strips was a task of four or five hours. but in time i became so proficient that i could completely destroy more than one of these six-by-eight-foot druggets in a single night. during the following weeks of my close confinement i destroyed at least twenty of them, each worth, as i found out later, about four dollars; and i confess i found a peculiar satisfaction in the destruction of property belonging to a state which had deprived me of all my effects except underclothes. but my destructiveness was due to a variety of causes. it was occasioned primarily by a "pressure of activity," for which the tearing of druggets served as a vent. i was in a state of mind aptly described in a letter written during my first month of elation, in which i said, "i'm as busy as a nest of ants." though the habit of tearing druggets was the outgrowth of an abnormal impulse, the habit itself lasted longer than it could have done had i not, for so long a time, been deprived of suitable clothes and been held a prisoner in cold cells. but another motive soon asserted itself. being deprived of all the luxuries of life and most of the necessities, my mother wit, always conspiring with a wild imagination for something to occupy my tune, led me at last to invade the field of invention. with appropriate contrariety, an unfamiliar and hitherto almost detested line of investigation now attracted me. abstruse mathematical problems which had defied solution for centuries began to appear easy. to defy the state and its puny representatives had become mere child's play. so i forthwith decided to overcome no less a force than gravity itself. my conquering imagination soon tricked me into believing that i could lift myself by my boot-straps--or rather that i could do so when my laboratory should contain footgear that lent itself to the experiment. but what of the strips of felt torn from the druggets? why, these i used as the straps of my missing boots; and having no boots to stand in, i used my bed as boots. i reasoned that for my scientific purpose a man in bed was as favorably situated as a man in boots. therefore, attaching a sufficient number of my felt strips to the head and foot of the bed (which happened not to be screwed to the floor), and, in turn, attaching the free ends to the transom and the window guard, i found the problem very simple. for i next joined these cloth cables in such manner that by pulling downward i effected a readjustment of stress and strain, and my bed, _with me in it_, was soon dangling in space. my sensations at this momentous instant must have been much like those which thrilled newton when he solved one of the riddles of the universe. indeed, they must have been more intense, for newton, knowing, had his doubts; i, not knowing, had no doubts at all. so epoch-making did this discovery appear to me that i noted the exact position of the bed so that a wondering posterity might ever afterward view and revere the exact spot on the earth's surface whence one of man's greatest thoughts had winged its way to immortality. for weeks i believed i had uncovered a mechanical principle which would enable man to defy gravity. and i talked freely and confidently about it. that is, i proclaimed the impending results. the intermediate steps in the solution of my problem i ignored, for good reasons. a blind man may harness a horse. so long as the horse is harnessed, one need not know the office of each strap and buckle. gravity was harnessed--that was all. meanwhile i felt sure that another sublime moment of inspiration would intervene and clear the atmosphere, thus rendering flight of the body as easy as a flight of imagination. xx while my inventive operations were in progress, i was chafing under the unjust and certainly unscientific treatment to which i was being subjected. in spite of my close confinement in vile cells, for a period of over three weeks i was denied a bath. i do not regret this deprivation, for the attendants, who at the beginning were unfriendly, might have forced me to bathe in water which had first served for several other patients. though such an unsanitary and disgusting practice was contrary to rules, it was often indulged in by the lazy brutes who controlled the ward. i continued to object to the inadequate portions of food served me. on thanksgiving day (for i had not succeeded in escaping and joining in the celebration at home) an attendant, in the unaccustomed rôle of a ministering angel, brought me the usual turkey and cranberry dinner which, on two days a year, is provided by an intermittently generous state. turkey being the _rara avis_ the imprisoned, it was but natural that i should desire to gratify a palate long insulted. i wished not only to satisfy my appetite, but to impress indelibly a memory which for months had not responded to so agreeable a stimulus. while lingering over the delights of this experience i forgot all about the ministering angel. but not for long. he soon returned. observing that i had scarcely touched my feast, he said, "if you don't eat that dinner in a hurry, i'll take it from you." "i don't see what difference it makes to you whether i eat it in a hurry or take my time about it," i said. "it's the best i've had in many a day, and i have a right to get as much pleasure out of it as i can." "we'll see about that," he replied, and, snatching it away, he stalked out of the room, leaving me to satisfy my hunger on the memory of vanished luxuries. thus did a feast become a fast. under this treatment i soon learned to be more noisy than my neighbors. i was never without a certain humor in contemplating not only my surroundings, but myself; and the demonstrations in which i began to indulge were partly in fun and partly by way of protest. in these outbursts i was assisted, and at times inspired, by a young man in the room next mine. he was about my own age and was enjoying the same phase of exuberance as myself. we talked and sang at all hours of the night. at the time we believed that the other patients enjoyed the spice which we added to the restricted variety of their lives, but later i learned that a majority of them looked upon us as the worst of nuisances. we gave the doctors and attendants no rest--at least not intentionally. whenever the assistant physician appeared, we upbraided him for the neglect which was then our portion. at one time or another we were banished to the bull pen for these indiscretions. and had there been a viler place of confinement still, our performances in the bull pen undoubtedly would have brought us to it. at last the doctor hit upon the expedient of transferring me to a room more remote from my inspiring, and, i may say, conspiring, companion. talking to each other ceased to be the easy pastime it had been; so we gradually lapsed into a comparative silence which must have proved a boon to our ward-mates. the megaphonic bull pen, however, continued with irregularity, but annoying certainty to furnish its quota of noise. on several occasions i concocted plans to escape, and not only that, but also to liberate others. that i did not make the attempt was the fault--or merit, perhaps--of a certain night watch, whose timidity, rather than sagacity, impelled him to refuse to unlock my door early one morning, although i gave him a plausible reason for the request. this night watch, i learned later, admitted that he feared to encounter me single-handed. and on this particular occasion well might he, for, during the night, i had woven a spider-web net in which i intended to enmesh him. had i succeeded, there would have been a lively hour for him in the violent ward--had i failed, there would have been a lively hour for me. there were several comparatively sane patients (especially my elated neighbor) whose willing assistance i could have secured. then the regular attendants could have been held prisoners in their own room, if, indeed, we had not in turn overpowered them and transferred them to the bull pen, where the several victims of their abuse might have given them a deserved dose of their own medicine. this scheme of mine was a prank rather than a plot. i had an inordinate desire to prove that one _could_ escape if he had a mind to do so. later i boasted to the assistant physician of my unsuccessful attempt. this boast he evidently tucked away in his memory. my punishment for harmless antics of this sort was prompt in coming. the attendants seemed to think their whole duty to their closely confined charges consisted in delivering three meals a day. between meals he was a rash patient who interfered with their leisure. now one of my greatest crosses was their continued refusal to give me a drink when i asked for it. except at meal time, or on those rare occasions when i was permitted to go to the wash room, i had to get along as best i might with no water to drink, and that too at a time when i was in a fever of excitement. my polite requests were ignored; impolite demands were answered with threats and curses. and this war of requests, demands, threats, and curses continued until the night of the fourth day of my banishment. then the attendants made good their threats of assault. that they had been trying to goad me into a fighting mood i well knew, and often accused them of their mean purpose. they brazenly admitted that they were simply waiting for a chance to "slug" me, and promised to punish me well as soon as i should give them a slight excuse for doing so. on the night of november th, , the head attendant and one of his assistants passed my door. they were returning from one of the dances which, at intervals during the winter, the management provides for the nurses and attendants. while they were within hearing, i asked for a drink of water. it was a carefully worded request. but they were in a hurry to get to bed, and refused me with curses. then i replied in kind. "if i come there i'll kill you," one of them said. "well, you won't get in if i can help it," i replied, as i braced my iron bedstead against the door. my defiance and defences gave the attendants the excuse for which they had said they were waiting; and my success in keeping them out for two or three minutes only served to enrage them. by the time they had gained entrance they had become furies. one was a young man of twenty-seven. physically he was a fine specimen of manhood; morally he was deficient--thanks to the dehumanizing effect of several years in the employ of different institutions whose officials countenanced improper methods of care and treatment. it was he who now attacked me in the dark of my prison room. the head attendant stood by, holding a lantern which shed a dim light. the door once open, i offered no further resistance. first i was knocked down. then for several minutes i was kicked about the room--struck, kneed and choked. my assailant even attempted to grind his heel into my cheek. in this he failed, for i was there protected by a heavy beard which i wore at that time. but my shins, elbows, and back were cut by his heavy shoes; and had i not instinctively drawn up my knees to my elbows for the protection of my body, i might have been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured. as it was, i was severely cut and bruised. when my strength was nearly gone, i feigned unconsciousness. this ruse alone saved me from further punishment, for usually a premeditated assault is not ended until the patient is mute and helpless. when they had accomplished their purpose, they left me huddled in a corner to wear out the night as best i might--to live or die for all they cared. strange as it may seem, i slept well. but not at once. within five minutes i was busily engaged writing an account of the assault. a trained war correspondent could not have pulled himself together in less time. as usual i had recourse to my bit of contraband lead pencil, this time a pencil which had been smuggled to me the very first day of my confinement in the bull pen by a sympathetic fellow-patient. when he had pushed under my cell door that little implement of war, it had loomed as large in my mind as a battering-ram. paper i had none; but i had previously found walls to be a fair substitute. i therefore now selected and wrote upon a rectangular spot--about three feet by two--which marked the reflection of a light in the corridor just outside my transom. the next morning, when the assistant physician appeared, he was accompanied as usual by the guilty head attendant who, on the previous night, had held the lantern. "doctor," i said, "i have something to tell you,"--and i glanced significantly at the attendant. "last night i had a most unusual experience. i have had many imaginary experiences during the past two years and a half, and it may be that last night's was not real. perhaps the whole thing was phantasmagoric--like what i used to see during the first months of my illness. whether it was so or not i shall leave you to judge. it just happens to be my impression that i was brutally assaulted last night. if it was a dream, it is the first thing of the kind that ever left visible evidence on my body." with that i uncovered to the doctor a score of bruises and lacerations. i knew these would be more impressive than any words of mine. the doctor put on a knowing look, but said nothing and soon left the room. his guilty subordinate tried to appear unconcerned, and i really believe he thought me not absolutely sure of the events of the previous night, or at least unaware of his share in them. xxi neither of the attendants involved in the assault upon me was discharged. this fact made me more eager to gain wider knowledge of conditions. the self-control which had enabled me to suspend speech for a whole day now stood me in good stead. it enabled me to avert much suffering that would have been my portion had i been like the majority of my ward-mates. time and again i surrendered when an attendant was about to chastise me. but at least a score of patients in the ward were not so well equipped mentally, and these were viciously assaulted again and again by the very men who had so thoroughly initiated me into the mysteries of their black art. i soon observed that the only patients who were not likely to be subjected to abuse were the very ones least in need of care and treatment. the violent, noisy, and troublesome patient was abused because he was violent, noisy, and troublesome. the patient too weak, physically or mentally, to attend to his own wants was frequently abused because of that very helplessness which made it necessary for the attendants to wait upon him. usually a restless or troublesome patient placed in the violent ward was assaulted the very first day. this procedure seemed to be a part of the established code of dishonor. the attendants imagined that the best way to gain control of a patient was to cow him from the first. in fact, these fellows--nearly all of them ignorant and untrained--seemed to believe that "violent cases" could not be handled in any other way. one attendant, on the very day he had been discharged for choking a patient into an insensibility so profound that it had been necessary to call a physician to restore him, said to me, "they are getting pretty damned strict these days, discharging a man simply for _choking_ a patient." this illustrates the attitude of many attendants. on the other hand, that the discharged employé soon secured a position in a similar institution not twenty miles distant illustrates the attitude of some hospital managements. i recall the advent of a new attendant--a young man studying to become a physician. at first he seemed inclined to treat patients kindly, but he soon fell into brutal ways. his change of heart was due partly to the brutalizing environment, but more directly to the attitude of the three hardened attendants who mistook his consideration for cowardice and taunted him for it. just to prove his mettle he began to assault patients, and one day knocked me down simply for refusing to stop my prattle at his command. that the environment in some institutions is brutalizing, was strikingly shown in the testimony of an attendant at a public investigation in kentucky, who said, "when i came here, if anyone had told me i would be guilty of striking patients i would have called him crazy himself, but now i take delight in punching hell out of them." i found also that an unnecessary and continued lack of out-door exercise tended to multiply deeds of violence. patients were supposed to be taken for a walk at least once a day, and twice, when the weather permitted. yet those in the violent ward (and it is they who most need the exercise) usually got out of doors only when the attendants saw fit to take them. for weeks a ward-mate--a man sane enough to enjoy freedom, had he had a home to go to--kept a record of the number of our walks. it showed that we averaged not more than one or two a week for a period of two months. this, too, in the face of many pleasant days, which made the close confinement doubly irksome. the lazy fellows on whose leisure we waited preferred to remain in the ward, playing cards, smoking, and telling their kind of stories. the attendants needed regular exercise quite as much as the patients and when they failed to employ their energy in this healthful way, they were likely to use it at the expense of the bodily comfort of their helpless charges. if lack of exercise produced a need of discipline, each disciplinary move, on the other hand, served only to inflame us the more. some wild animals can be clubbed into a semblance of obedience, yet it is a treacherous obedience at best, and justly so. and that is the only kind of obedience into which a _man_ can be clubbed. to imagine otherwise of a human being, sane or insane, is the very essence of insanity itself. a temporary leisure may be won for the aggressor, but in the long run he will be put to greater inconvenience than he would be by a more humane method. it was repression and wilful frustration of reasonable desires which kept me a seeming maniac and made seeming maniacs of others. whenever i was released from lock and key and permitted to mingle with the so-called violent patients, i was surprised to find that comparatively few were by nature troublesome or noisy. a patient, calm in mind and passive in behavior three hundred and sixty days in the year, may, on one of the remaining days, commit some slight transgression, or, more likely, be goaded into one by an attendant or needlessly led into one by a tactless physician. his indiscretion may consist merely in an unmannerly announcement to the doctor of how lightly the latter is regarded by the patient. at once he is banished to the violent ward, there to remain for weeks, perhaps indefinitely. xxii like fires and railroad disasters, assaults seemed to come in groups. days would pass without a single outbreak. then would come a veritable carnival of abuse--due almost invariably to the attendants' state of mind, not to an unwonted aggressiveness on the part of the patients. i can recall as especially noteworthy several instances of atrocious abuse. five patients were chronic victims. three of them, peculiarly irresponsible, suffered with especial regularity, scarcely a day passing without bringing to them its quota of punishment. one of these, almost an idiot, and quite too inarticulate to tell a convincing story even under the most favorable conditions, became so cowed that, whenever an attendant passed, he would circle his oppressor as a whipped cur circles a cruel master. if this avoidance became too marked, the attendant would then and there chastise him for the implied, but unconscious insult. there was a young man, occupying a cell next to mine in the bull pen, who was so far out of his mind as to be absolutely irresponsible. his offence was that he could not comprehend and obey. day after day i could hear the blows and kicks as they fell upon his body, and his incoherent cries for mercy were as painful to hear as they are impossible to forget. that he survived is surprising. what wonder that this man, who was "violent," or who was made violent, would not permit the attendants to dress him! but he had a half-witted friend, a ward-mate, who could coax him into his clothes when his oppressors found him most intractable. of all the patients known to me, the one who was assaulted with the greatest frequency was an incoherent and irresponsible man of sixty years. this patient was restless and forever talking or shouting, as any man might if oppressed by such delusions as his. he was profoundly convinced that one of the patients had stolen his stomach--an idea inspired perhaps by the remarkable corpulency of the person he accused. his loss he would woefully voice even while eating. of course, argument to the contrary had no effect; and his monotonous recital of his imaginary troubles made him unpopular with those whose business it was to care for him. they showed him no mercy. each day--including the hours of the night, when the night watch took a hand--he was belabored with fists, broom handles, and frequently with the heavy bunch of keys which attendants usually carry on a long chain. he was also kicked and choked, and his suffering was aggravated by his almost continuous confinement in the bull pen. an exception to the general rule (for such continued abuse often causes death), this man lived a long time--five years, as i learned later. another victim, forty-five years of age, was one who had formerly been a successful man of affairs. his was a forceful personality, and the traits of his sane days influenced his conduct when he broke down mentally. he was in the expansive phase of paresis, a phase distinguished by an exaggerated sense of well-being, and by delusions of grandeur which are symptoms of this form as well as of several other forms of mental disease. paresis, as everyone knows, is considered incurable and victims of it seldom live more than three or four years. in this instance, instead of trying to make the patient's last days comfortable, the attendants subjected him to a course of treatment severe enough to have sent even a sound man to an early grave. i endured privations and severe abuse for one month at the state hospital. this man suffered in all ways worse treatment for many months. i became well acquainted with two jovial and witty irishmen. they were common laborers. one was a hodcarrier, and a strapping fellow. when he arrived at the institution, he was at once placed in the violent ward, though his "violence" consisted of nothing more than an annoying sort of irresponsibility. he irritated the attendants by persistently doing certain trivial things after they had been forbidden. the attendants made no allowance for his condition of mind. his repetition of a forbidden act was interpreted as deliberate disobedience. he was physically powerful, and they determined to cow him. of the master assault by which they attempted to do this i was not an eyewitness. but i was an ear witness. it was committed behind a closed door; and i heard the dull thuds of the blows, and i heard the cries for mercy until there was no breath left in the man with which he could beg even for his life. for days, that wrecked hercules dragged himself about the ward moaning pitifully. he complained of pain in his side and had difficulty in breathing, which would seem to indicate that some of his ribs had been fractured. this man was often punished, frequently for complaining of the torture already inflicted. but later, when he began to return to the normal, his good-humor and native wit won for him an increasing degree of good treatment. the other patient's arch offence--a symptom of his disease--was that he gabbled incessantly. he could no more stop talking than he could right his reason on command. yet his failure to become silent at a word was the signal for punishment. on one occasion an attendant ordered him to stop talking and take a seat at the further end of the corridor, about forty feet distant. he was doing his best to obey, even running to keep ahead of the attendant at his heels. as they passed the spot where i was sitting, the attendant felled him with a blow behind the ear; and, in falling, the patient's head barely missed the wall. addressing me, the attendant said, "did you see that?" "yes," i replied, "and i'll not forget it." "be sure to report it to the doctor," he said, which remark showed his contempt, not only for me, but for those in authority. the man who had so terribly beaten me was particularly flagrant in ignoring the claims of age. on more than one occasion he viciously attacked a man of over fifty, who, however, seemed much older. he was a yankee sailing-master, who in his prime could have thrashed his tormentor with ease. but now he was helpless and could only submit. however, he was not utterly abandoned by his old world. his wife called often to see him; and, because of his condition, she was permitted to visit him in his room. once she arrived a few hours after he had been cruelly beaten. naturally she asked the attendants how he had come by the hurts--the blackened eye and bruised head. true to the code, they lied. the good wife, perhaps herself a yankee, was not thus to be fooled; and her growing belief that her husband had been assaulted was confirmed by a sight she saw before her visit was ended. another patient, a foreigner who was a target for abuse, was knocked flat two or three times as he was roughly forced along the corridor. i saw this little affair and i saw that the good wife saw it. the next day she called again and took her husband home. the result was that after a few (probably sleepless) nights, she had to return him to the hospital and trust to god rather than the state to protect him. another victim was a man sixty years of age. he was quite inoffensive, and no patient in the ward seemed to attend more strictly to his own business. shortly after my transfer from the violent ward this man was so viciously attacked that his arm was broken. the attendant (the man who had so viciously assaulted me) was summarily discharged. unfortunately, however, the relief afforded the insane was slight and brief, for this same brute, like another whom i have mentioned, soon secured a position in another institution--this one, however, a thousand miles distant. death by violence in a violent ward is after all not an unnatural death--for a violent ward. the patient of whom i am about to speak was also an old man--over sixty. both physically and mentally he was a wreck. on being brought to the institution he was at once placed in a cell in the bull pen, probably because of his previous history for violence while at his own home. but his violence (if it ever existed) had already spent itself, and had come to be nothing more than an utter incapacity to obey. his offence was that he was too weak to attend to his common wants. the day after his arrival, shortly before noon, he lay stark naked and helpless upon the bed in his cell. this i know, for i went to investigate immediately after a ward-mate had informed me of the vicious way in which the head attendant had assaulted the sick man. my informant was a man whose word regarding an incident of this character i would take as readily as that of any man i know. he came to me, knowing that i had taken upon myself the duty of reporting such abominations. my informant feared to take the initiative, for, like many other patients who believe themselves doomed to continued confinement, he feared to invite abuse at the hands of vengeful attendants. i therefore promised him that i would report the case as soon as i had an opportunity. all day long this victim of an attendant's unmanly passion lay in his cell in what seemed to be a semi-conscious condition. i took particular pains to observe his condition, for i felt that the assault of the morning might result in death. that night, after the doctor's regular tour of inspection, the patient in question was transferred to a room next my own. the mode of transfer impressed itself upon my memory. two attendants--one of them being he who had so brutally beaten the patient--placed the man in a sheet and, each taking an end, carried the hammocklike contrivance, with its inert contents, to what proved to be its last resting-place above ground. the bearers seemed as much concerned about their burden as one might be about a dead dog, weighted and ready for the river. that night the patient died. whether he was murdered none can ever know. but it is my honest opinion that he was. though he might never have recovered, it is plain that he would have lived days, perhaps months. and had he been humanely, nay, scientifically, treated, who can say that he might not have been restored to health and home? the young man who had been my companion in mischief in the violent ward was also terribly abused. i am sure i do not exaggerate when i say that on ten occasions, within a period of two months, this man was cruelly assaulted, and i do not know how many times he suffered assaults of less severity. after one of these chastisements, i asked him why he persisted in his petty transgressions when he knew that he thereby invited such body-racking abuse. "oh," he said, laconically, "i need the exercise." to my mind, the man who, with such gracious humor, could refer to what was in reality torture deserved to live a century. but an unkind fate decreed that he should die young. ten months after his commitment to the state hospital he was discharged as improved--but not cured. this was not an unusual procedure; nor was it in his case apparently an unwise one, for he seemed fit for freedom. during the first month of regained liberty, he hanged himself. he left no message of excuse. in my opinion, none was necessary. for aught any man knows, the memories of the abuse, torture, and injustice which were so long his portion may have proved to be the last straw which overbalanced the desire to live. patients with less stamina than mine often submitted with meekness; and none so aroused my sympathy as those whose submission was due to the consciousness that they had no relatives or friends to support them in a fight for their rights. on behalf of these, with my usual piece of smuggled lead pencil, i soon began to indite and submit to the officers of the institution, letters in which i described the cruel practices which came under my notice. my reports were perfunctorily accepted and at once forgotten or ignored. yet these letters, so far as they related to overt acts witnessed, were lucid and should have been convincing. furthermore, my allegations were frequently corroborated by bruises on the bodies of the patients. my usual custom was to write an account of each assault and hand it to the doctor in authority. frequently i would submit these reports to the attendants with instructions first to read and then deliver them to the superintendent or the assistant physician. the men whose cruelty i thus laid bare read with evident but perverted pleasure my accounts of assaults, and laughed and joked about my ineffectual attempts to bring them to book. xxxiii i refused to be a martyr. rebellion was my watchword. the only difference between the doctor's opinion of me and mine of him was that he could refuse utterance to his thoughts. yes--there was another difference. mine could be expressed only in words--his in grim acts. i repeatedly made demands for those privileges to which i knew i was entitled. when he saw fit to grant them, i gave him perfunctory thanks. when he refused--as he usually did--i at once poured upon his head the vials of my wrath. one day i would be on the friendliest terms with the doctor, the next i would upbraid him for some denial of my rights--or, as frequently happened, for not intervening in behalf of the rights of others. it was after one of these wrangles that i was placed in a cold cell in the bull pen at eleven o'clock one morning. still without shoes and with no more covering than underclothes, i was forced to stand, sit, or lie upon a bare floor as hard and cold as the pavement outside. not until sundown was i provided even with a drugget, and this did little good, for already i had become thoroughly chilled. in consequence i contracted a severe cold which added greatly to my discomfort and might have led to serious results had i been of less sturdy fibre. this day was the thirteenth of december and the twenty-second of my exile in the violent ward. i remember it distinctly for it was the seventy-seventh birthday of my father, to whom i wished to write a congratulatory letter. this had been my custom for years when absent from home on that anniversary. and well do i remember when, and under what conditions, i asked the doctor for permission. it was night. i was flat on my drugget-bed. my cell was lighted only by the feeble rays of a lantern held by an attendant to the doctor on this his regular visit. at first i couched my request in polite language. the doctor merely refused to grant it. i then put forth my plea in a way calculated to arouse sympathy. he remained unmoved. i then pointed out that he was defying the law of the state which provided that a patient should have stationery--a statute, the spirit of which at least meant that he should be permitted to communicate with his conservator. it was now three weeks since i had been permitted to write or send a letter to anyone. contrary to my custom, therefore, i made my final demand in the form of a concession. i promised that i would write only a conventional note of congratulation, making no mention whatever of my plight. it was a fair offer; but to accept it would have been an implied admission that there was something to conceal, and for this, if for no other reason, it was refused. thus, day after day, i was repressed in a manner which probably would have driven many a sane man to violence. yet the doctor would frequently exhort me to play the gentleman. were good manners and sweet submission ever the product of such treatment? deprived of my clothes, of sufficient food, of warmth, of all sane companionship and of my liberty, i told those in authority that so long as they should continue to treat me as the vilest of criminals, i should do my best to complete the illusion. the burden of proving my sanity was placed upon me. i was told that so soon as i became polite and meek and lowly i should find myself in possession of my clothes and of certain privileges. in every instance i must earn my reward before being entrusted with it. if the doctor, instead of demanding of me all the negative virtues in the catalogue of spineless saints, had given me my clothes on the condition that they would be taken from me again if i so much as removed a button, his course would doubtless have been productive of good results. thus i might have had my clothes three weeks earlier than i did, and so been spared much suffering from the cold. i clamored daily for a lead pencil. this little luxury represents the margin of happiness for hundreds of the patients, just as a plug or package of tobacco represents the margin of happiness for thousands of others; but for seven weeks no doctor or attendant gave me one. to be sure, by reason of my somewhat exceptional persistence and ingenuity, i managed to be always in possession of some substitute for a pencil, surreptitiously obtained, a fact which no doubt had something to do with the doctor's indifference to my request. but my inability to secure a pencil in a legitimate way was a needless source of annoyance to me, and many of my verbal indiscretions were directly inspired by the doctor's continued refusal. it was an assistant physician, other than the one regularly in charge of my case, who at last relented and presented me with a good, whole lead pencil. by so doing he placed himself high on my list of benefactors; for that little shaftlike implement, magnified by my lively appreciation, became as the very axis of the earth. xxiv a few days before christmas my most galling deprivation was at last removed. that is, my clothes were restored. these i treated with great respect. not so much as a thread did i destroy. clothes, as is known, have a sobering and civilizing effect, and from the very moment i was again provided with presentable outer garments my conduct rapidly improved. the assistant physician with whom i had been on such variable terms of friendship and enmity even took me for a sleigh-ride. with this improvement came other privileges or, rather, the granting of my rights. late in december i was permitted to send letters to my conservator. though some of my blood-curdling letters were confiscated, a few detailing my experiences were forwarded. the account of my sufferings naturally distressed my conservator, but, as he said when he next visited me: "what could i have done to help you? if the men in this state whose business it is to run these institutions cannot manage you, i am at a loss to know what to do." true, he could have done little or nothing, for he did not then know the ins and outs of the baffling situation into which the ties of blood had drawn him. about the middle of january the doctor in charge of my case went for a two weeks' vacation. during his absence an older member of the staff took charge of the violent ward. a man of wider experience and more liberal ideas than his predecessor, he at once granted me several real privileges. one day he permitted me to pay a brief visit to the best ward--the one from which i had been transferred two months earlier. i thus was able again to mingle with many seemingly normal men, and though i enjoyed this privilege upon but one occasion, and then only for a few hours, it gave me intense satisfaction. altogether the last six weeks of the fourteen during which i was confined in the violent ward were comfortable and relatively happy. i was no longer subjected to physical abuse, though this exemption was largely due to my own skill in avoiding trouble. i was no longer cold and hungry. i was allowed a fair amount of outdoor exercise which, after my close confinement, proved to be a delightful shock. but, above all, i was again given an adequate supply of stationery and drawing materials, which became as tinder under the focussed rays of my artistic eagerness. my mechanical investigations were gradually set aside. art and literature again held sway. except when out of doors taking my allotted exercise, i remained in my room reading, writing, or drawing. this room of mine soon became a mecca for the most irrepressible and loquacious characters in the ward. but i soon schooled myself to shut my ears to the incoherent prattle of my unwelcome visitors. occasionally, some of them would become obstreperous--perhaps because of my lordly order to leave the room. often did they threaten to throttle me; but i ignored the threats, and they were never carried out. nor was i afraid that they would be. invariably i induced them to obey. the drawings i produced at this time were crude. for the most part they consisted of copies of illustrations which i had cut from magazines that had miraculously found their way into the violent ward. the heads of men and women interested me most, for i had decided to take up portraiture. at first i was content to draw in black and white, but i soon procured some colors and from that time on devoted my attention to mastering pastel. in the world of letters i had made little progress. my compositions were for the most part epistles addressed to relatives and friends and to those in authority at the hospital. frequently the letters addressed to the doctors were sent in sets of three--this to save time, for i was very busy. the first letter of such a series would contain my request, couched in friendly and polite terms. to this i would add a postscript, worded about as follows: "if, after reading this letter, you feel inclined to refuse my request, please read letter number two." letter number two would be severely formal--a business-like repetition of the request made in letter number one. again a postscript would advise the reader to consult letter number three, if the reading of number two had failed to move him. letter number three was invariably a brief philippic in which i would consign the unaccommodating doctor to oblivion. in this way i expended part of my prodigious supply of feeling and energy. but i had also another way of reducing my creative pressure. occasionally, from sheer excess of emotion, i would burst into verse, of a quality not to be doubted. of that quality the reader shall judge, for i am going to quote a "creation" written under circumstances which, to say the least, were adverse. before writing these lines i had never attempted verse in my life--barring intentionally inane doggerel. and, as i now judge these lines, it is probably true that even yet i have never written a poem. nevertheless, my involuntary, almost automatic outburst is at least suggestive of the fervor that was in me. these fourteen lines were written within thirty minutes of the time i first conceived the idea; and i present them substantially as they first took form. from a psychological standpoint at least, i am told, they are not without interest. light man's darkest hour is the hour before he's born, another is the hour just before the dawn; from darkness unto life and light he leaps, to life but once,--to light as oft as god wills he should. 'tis god's own secret, why some live long, and others early die; for life depends on light, and light on god, who hath given to man the perfect knowledge that grim despair and sorrow end in light and life everlasting, in realms where darkest darkness becomes light; but not the light man knows, which only is light because god told man so. these verses, which breathe religion, were written in an environment which was anything but religious. with curses of ward-mates ringing in my ears, some subconscious part of me seemed to force me to write at its dictation. i was far from being in a pious frame of mind myself, and the quality of my thought surprised me then--as it does now. xxv though i continued to respect my clothes, i did not at once cease to tear such material as would serve me in my scientific investigations. gravity being conquered, it was inevitable that i should devote some of my time to the invention of a flying-machine. this was soon perfected--in my mind; and all i needed, that i might test the device, was my liberty. as usual i was unable to explain how i should produce the result which i so confidently foretold. but i believed and proclaimed that i should, erelong, fly to st. louis and claim and receive the one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward offered by the commission of the louisiana purchase exposition for the most efficient airship to be exhibited. the moment the thought winged its way through my mind, i had not only a flying-machine, but a fortune in the bank. being where i could not dissipate my riches, i became a lavish verbal spender. i was in a mood to buy anything, and i whiled away many an hour planning what i should do with my fortune. the st. louis prize was a paltry trifle. i reasoned that the man who could harness gravity had at his beck and call the world and all that therein is. this sudden accession of wealth made my vast humanitarian projects seem only the more feasible. what could be more delightful, i thought, than the furnishing and financing of ideas of a magnitude to stagger humanity. my condition was one of ecstatic suspense. give me my liberty and i would show a sleepy old world what could be done to improve conditions, not only among the insane, but along every line of beneficent endeavor. the city of my birth was to be made a garden-spot. all defiling, smoke-begriming factories were to be banished to an innocuous distance. churches were to give way to cathedrals; the city itself was to become a paradise of mansions. yale university was to be transformed into the most magnificent--yet efficient--seat of learning in the world. for once, college professors were to be paid adequate salaries, and alluring provision for their declining years was to be made. new haven should become a very hotbed of culture. art galleries, libraries, museums and theatres of a dreamlike splendor were to rise whenever and wherever i should will. why absurd? was it not i who would defray the cost? the famous buildings of the old world were to be reproduced, if, indeed, the originals could not be purchased, brought to this country and reassembled. not far from new haven there is a sandy plain, once the bed of the connecticut river, but now a kind of miniature desert. i often smile as i pass it on the train; for it was here, for the edification of those who might never be able to visit the valley of the nile, that i planned to erect a pyramid that should out-cheops the original. my harnessed gravity, i believed, would not only enable me to overcome existing mechanical difficulties, but it would make the quarrying of immense monoliths as easy as the slicing of bread, and the placing of them in position as easy as the laying of bricks. after all, delusions of grandeur are the most entertaining of toys. the assortment which my imagination provided was a comprehensive one. i had tossed aside the blocks of childhood days. instead of laboriously piling small squares of wood one upon another in an endeavor to build the tiny semblance of a house, i now, in this second childhood of mine, projected against thin air phantom edifices planned and completed in the twinkling of an eye. to be sure, such houses of cards almost immediately superseded one another, but the vanishing of one could not disturb a mind that had ever another interesting bauble to take its place. and therein lies part of the secret of the happiness peculiar to that stage of elation which is distinguished by delusions of grandeur--always provided that he who is possessed by them be not subjected to privation and abuse. the sane man who can prove that he is rich in material wealth is not nearly so happy as the mentally disordered man whose delusions trick him into believing himself a modern croesus. a wealth of midaslike delusions is no burden. such a fortune, though a misfortune in itself, bathes the world in a golden glow. no clouds obscure the vision. optimism reigns supreme. "failure" and "impossible" are as words from an unknown tongue. and the unique satisfaction about a fortune of this fugitive type is that its loss occasions no regret. one by one the phantom ships of treasure sail away for parts unknown; until, when the last ship has become but a speck on the mental horizon, the observer makes the happy discovery that his pirate fleet has left behind it a priceless wake of reason! xxvi early in march, , having lived in a violent ward for nearly four months, i was transferred to another--a ward quite as orderly as the best in the institution, though less attractively furnished than the one in which i had first been placed. here also i had a room to myself; in this instance, however, the room had not only a bed, but a chair and a wardrobe. with this elaborate equipment i was soon able to convert my room into a veritable studio. whereas in the violent ward it had been necessary for me to hide my writing and drawing materials to keep other patients from taking them, in my new abode i was able to conduct my literary and artistic pursuits without the annoyances which had been inevitable during the preceding months. soon after my transfer to this ward i was permitted to go out of doors and walk to the business section of the city, two miles distant. but on these walks i was always accompanied. to one who has never surrendered any part of his liberty such surveillance would no doubt seem irksome; yet, to me, after being so closely confined, the ever-present attendant seemed a companion rather than a guard. these excursions into the sane and free world were not only a great pleasure, they were almost a tonic. to rub elbows with normal people tended to restore my mental poise. that the casual passer-by had no way of knowing that i was a patient, out for a walk about the city, helped me gain that self-confidence so essential to the success of one about to re-enter a world from which he had long been cut off. my first trips to the city were made primarily for the purpose of supplying myself with writing and drawing materials. while enjoying these welcome tastes of liberty, on more than one occasion i surreptitiously mailed certain letters which i did not dare entrust to the doctor. under ordinary circumstances such an act on the part of one enjoying a special privilege would be dishonorable. but the circumstances that then obtained were not ordinary. i was simply protecting myself against what i believed to be unjust and illegal confiscation of letters. i have already described how an assistant physician arbitrarily denied my request that i be permitted to send a birthday letter to my father, thereby not merely exceeding his authority and ignoring decency, but, consciously or unconsciously, stifling a sane impulse. that this should occur while i was confined in the bull pen was, perhaps, not so surprising. but about four months later, while i was in one of the best wards, a similar, though less open, interference occurred. at this time i was so nearly normal that my discharge was a question of but a very few months. anticipating my return to my old world, i decided to renew former relationships. accordingly, my brother, at my suggestion, informed certain friends that i should be pleased to receive letters from them. they soon wrote. in the meantime the doctor had been instructed to deliver to me any and all letters that might arrive. he did so for a time, and that without censoring. as was to be expected, after nearly three almost letterless years, i found rare delight in replying to my reawakened correspondents. yet some of these letters, written for the deliberate purpose of re-establishing myself in the sane world, were destroyed by the doctor in authority. at the time, not one word did he say to me about the matter. i had handed him for mailing certain letters, unsealed. he did not mail them, nor did he forward them to my conservator as he should have done, and had earlier agreed to do with all letters which he could not see his way clear to approve. it was fully a month before i learned that my friends had not received my replies to their letters. then i accused the doctor of destroying them, and he, with belated frankness, admitted that he had done so. he offered no better excuse than the mere statement that he did not approve of the sentiments i had expressed. another flagrant instance was that of a letter addressed to me in reply to one of those which i had posted surreptitiously. the person to whom i wrote, a friend of years' standing, later informed me that he had sent the reply. i never received it. neither did my conservator. were it not that i feel absolutely sure that the letter in question was received at the hospital and destroyed, i should not now raise this point. but such a point, if raised at all, must of course be made without that direct proof which can come only from the man guilty of an act which in the sane world is regarded as odious and criminal. i therefore need not dilate on the reasons which made it necessary for me to smuggle, as it were, to the governor of the state, a letter of complaint and instruction. this letter was written shortly after my transfer from the violent ward. the abuses of that ward were still fresh in my mind, and the memory of distressing scenes was kept vivid by reports reaching me from friends who were still confined there. these private sleuths of mine i talked with at the evening entertainments or at other gatherings. from them i learned that brutality had become more rife, if anything, since i had left the ward. realizing that my crusade against the physical abuse of patients thus far had proved of no avail, i determined to go over the heads of the doctors and appeal to the ex-officio head of the institution, the governor of the state. on march th, , i wrote a letter which so disturbed the governor that he immediately set about an informal investigation of some of my charges. despite its prolixity, its unconventional form and what, under other circumstances, would be characterized as almost diabolic impudence and familiarity, my letter, as he said months later when i talked with him, "rang true." the writing of it was an easy matter; in fact, so easy, because of the pressure of truth under which i was laboring at the time, that it embodied a compelling spontaneity. the mailing of it was not so easy. i knew that the only sure way of getting my thoughts before the governor was to do my own mailing. naturally no doctor could be trusted to send an indictment against himself and his colleagues to the one man in the state who had the power to institute such an investigation as might make it necessary for all to seek employment elsewhere. in my frame of mind, to wish to mail my letter was to know how to accomplish the wish. the letter was in reality a booklet. i had thoughtfully used waterproof india drawing ink in writing it, in order, perhaps, that a remote posterity might not be deprived of the document. the booklet consisted of thirty-two eight-by-ten-inch pages of heavy white drawing paper. these i sewed together. in planning the form of my letter i had forgotten to consider the slot of a letter-box of average size. therefore i had to adopt an unusual method of getting the letter into the mails. my expedient was simple. there was in the town a certain shop where i traded. at my request the doctor gave me permission to go there for supplies. i was of course accompanied by an attendant, who little suspected what was under my vest. to conceal and carry my letter in that place had been easy; but to get rid of it after reaching my goal was another matter. watching my opportunity, i slipped the missive between the leaves of a copy of the _saturday evening post_. this i did, believing that some purchaser would soon discover the letter and mail it. then i left the shop. on the back of the wrapper i had endorsed the following words: "mr. postmaster: this package is unsealed. nevertheless it is first-class matter. everything i write is necessarily first class. i have affixed two two-cent stamps. if extra postage is needed you will do the governor a favor if you will put the extra postage on. or affix 'due' stamps, and let the governor pay his own bills, as he can well afford to. if you want to know who i am, just ask his excellency, and oblige, yours truly, ?" flanking this notice, i had arrayed other forceful sentiments, as follows--taken from statutes which i had framed for the occasion: "any person finding letter or package--duly stamped and addressed--_must_ mail same as said letter or package is really in hands of the government the moment the stamp is affixed." and again: "failure to comply with federal statute which forbids any one except addressee to open a letter renders one liable to imprisonment in state prison." my letter reached the governor. one of the clerks at the shop in which i left the missive found and mailed it. from him i afterwards learned that my unique instructions had piqued his curiosity, as well as compelled my wished-for action. assuming that the reader's curiosity may likewise have been piqued, i shall quote certain passages from this four-thousand-word epistle of protest. the opening sentence read as follows: "if you have had the courage to read the above" (referring to an unconventional heading) "i hope you will read on to the end of this epistle--thereby displaying real christian fortitude and learning a few facts which i think should be brought to your attention." i then introduced myself, mentioning a few common friends, by way of indicating that i was not without influential political connections, and proceeded as follows: "i take pleasure in informing you that i am in the crazy business and am holding my job down with ease and a fair degree of grace. being in the crazy business, i understand certain phases of the business about which you know nothing. you as governor are at present 'head devil' in this 'hell,' though i know you are unconsciously acting as 'his majesty's' st lieutenant." i then launched into my arraignment of the treatment of the insane. the method, i declared, was "wrong from start to finish. the abuses existing here exist in every other institution of the kind in the country. they are all alike--though some of them are of course worse than others. hell is hell the world over, and i might also add that hell is only a great big bunch of disagreeable details anyway. that's all an insane asylum is. if you don't believe it, just go crazy and take up your abode here. in writing this letter i am laboring under no mental excitement. i am no longer subjected to the abuses about which i complain. i am well and happy. in fact i never was so happy as i am now. whether i am in perfect mental health or not, i shall leave for you to decide. if i am insane to-day i hope i may never recover my reason." first i assailed the management of the private institution where i had been strait-jacketed and referred to "jekyll-hyde" as "dr.----, m.d. (mentally deranged)." then followed an account of the strait-jacket experience; then an account of abuses at the state hospital. i described in detail the most brutal assault that fell to my lot. in summing up i said, "the attendants claimed next day that i had called them certain names. maybe i did--though i don't believe i did at all. what of it? this is no young ladies' boarding school. should a man be nearly killed because he swears at attendants who swear like pirates? i have seen at least fifteen men, many of them mental and physical wrecks, assaulted just as brutally as i was, and usually without a cause. i know that men's lives have been shortened by these brutal assaults. and that is only a polite way of saying that murder has been committed here." turning next to the matter of the women's wards, i said: "a patient in this ward--a man in his right mind, who leaves here on tuesday next--told me that a woman patient told him that she had seen many a helpless woman dragged along the floor by her hair, and had also seen them choked by attendants who used a wet towel as a sort of garrote. i have been through the mill and believe every word of the abuse. you will perhaps doubt it, as it seems impossible. bear in mind, though, that everything bad and disagreeable is possible in an insane asylum." it will be observed that i was shrewd enough to qualify a charge i could not prove. when i came to the matter of the bull pen, i wasted no words: "the bull pen," i wrote, "is a pocket edition of the new york stock exchange during a panic." i next pointed out the difficulties a patient must overcome in mailing letters: "it is impossible for any one to send a letter to you _via_ the office. the letter would be consigned to the waste-basket--unless it was a particularly crazy letter--in which case it might reach you, as you would then pay no attention to it. but a sane letter and a _true_ letter, telling about the abuses which exist here would stand no show of being mailed. the way in which mail is tampered with by the medical staff is contemptible." i then described my stratagem in mailing my letter to the governor. discovering that i had left a page of my epistolary booklet blank, i drew upon it a copy of rembrandt's anatomy lesson, and under it wrote: "this page was skipped by mistake. had to fight fifty-three days to get writing paper and i hate to waste any space--hence the masterpiece--drawn in five minutes. never drew a line till september (last) and never took lessons in my life. i think you will readily believe my statement." continuing in the same half-bantering vein, i said: "i intend to immortalize all members of medical staff of state hospital for insane--when i illustrate my inferno, which, when written, will make dante's divine comedy look like a french farce." i then outlined my plans for reform: "whether my suggestions meet with approval or not," i wrote, "will not affect the result--though opposition on your part would perhaps delay reforms. i have decided to devote the next few years of my life to correcting abuses now in existence in every asylum in this country. i know how these abuses can be corrected and i intend--later on, when i understand the subject better--to draw up a bill of rights for the insane. every state in the union will pass it, because it will be founded on the golden rule. i am desirous of having the co-operation of the governor of connecticut, but if my plans do not appeal to him i shall deal directly with his only superior, the president of the united states. when theodore roosevelt hears my story his blood will boil. i would write to him now, but i am afraid he would jump in and correct abuses too quickly. and by doing it too quickly too little good would be accomplished." waxing crafty, yet, as i believed, writing truth, i continued: "i need money badly, and if i cared to, i could sell my information and services to the _new york world_ or _new york journal_ for a large amount. but i do not intend to advertise connecticut as a hell-hole of iniquity, insanity, and injustice. if the facts appeared in the public press at this time, connecticut would lose caste with her sister states. and they would profit by connecticut's disgrace and correct the abuses before they could be put on the rack. as these conditions prevail throughout the country, there is no reason why connecticut should get all the abuse and criticism which would follow any such revelation of disgusting abuse; such inhuman treatment of human wrecks. if publicity is necessary to force you to act--and i am sure it will not be necessary--i shall apply for a writ of habeas corpus, and, in proving my sanity to a jury, i shall incidentally prove your own incompetence. permitting such a whirl-wind reformer to drag connecticut's disgrace into open court would prove your incompetence." for several obvious reasons it is well that i did not at that time attempt to convince a jury that i was mentally sound. the mere outlining of my ambitious scheme for reform would have caused my immediate return to the hospital. that scheme, however, was a sound and feasible one, as later events have proved. but, taking hold of me, as it did, while my imagination was at white heat, i was impelled to attack my problem with compromising energy and, for a time, in a manner so unconvincing as to obscure the essential sanity of my cherished purpose. i closed my letter as follows: "no doubt you will consider certain parts of this letter rather 'fresh.' i apologize for any such passages now, but, as i have an insane license, i do not hesitate to say what i think. what's the use when one is caged like a criminal? "p.s. this letter is a confidential one--and is to be returned to the writer upon demand." the letter was eventually forwarded to my conservator and is now in my possession. as a result of my protest the governor immediately interrogated the superintendent of the institution where "jekyll-hyde" had tortured me. until he laid before the superintendent my charges against his assistant, the doctor in authority had not even suspected that i had been tortured. this superintendent took pride in his institution. he was sensitive to criticism and it was natural that he should strive to palliate the offence of his subordinate. he said that i was a most troublesome patient, which was, indeed, the truth; for i had always a way of my own for doing the things that worried those in charge of me. in a word, i brought to bear upon the situation what i have previously referred to as "an uncanny admixture of sanity." the governor did not meet the assistant physician who had maltreated me. the reprimand, if there was to be any, was left to the superintendent to administer. in my letter to the governor i had laid more stress upon the abuses to which i had been subjected at this private institution than i had upon conditions at the state hospital where i was when i wrote to him. this may have had some effect on the action he took, or rather failed to take. at any rate, as to the state hospital, no action was taken. not even a word of warning was sent to the officials, as i later learned; for before leaving the institution i asked them. though my letter did not bring about an investigation, it was not altogether without results. naturally, it was with considerable satisfaction that i informed the doctors that i had outwitted them, and it was with even greater satisfaction that i now saw those in authority make a determined, if temporary, effort to protect helpless patients against the cruelties of attendants. the moment the doctors were convinced that i had gone over their heads and had sent a characteristic letter of protest to the governor of the state, that moment they began to protect themselves with an energy born of a realization of their former shortcomings. whether or not the management in question ever admitted that their unwonted activity was due to my successful stratagem, the fact remains that the summary discharge of several attendants accused and proved guilty of brutality immediately followed and for a while put a stop to wanton assaults against which for a period of four months i had protested in vain. patients who still lived in the violent ward told me that comparative peace reigned about this time. xxvii my failure to force the governor to investigate conditions at the state hospital convinced me that i could not hope to prosecute my reforms until i should regain my liberty and re-establish myself in my old world. i therefore quitted the role of reformer-militant; and, but for an occasional outburst of righteous indignation at some flagrant abuse which obtruded itself upon my notice, my demeanor was that of one quite content with his lot in life. i was indeed content--i was happy. knowing that i should soon regain my freedom, i found it easy to forgive--taking great pains not to forget--any injustice which had been done me. liberty is sweet, even to one whose appreciation of it has never been augmented by its temporary loss. the pleasurable emotions which my impending liberation aroused within me served to soften my speech and render me more tractable. this change the assistant physician was not slow to note, though he was rather slow in placing in me the degree of confidence which i felt i deserved. so justifiable, however, was his suspicion that even at the time i forgave him for it. i had on so many prior occasions "played possum" that the doctor naturally attributed complex and unfathomable motives to my most innocent acts. for a long time he seemed to think that i was trying to capture his confidence, win the privilege of an unlimited parole, and so effect my escape. doubtless he had not forgotten the several plans for escape which i had dallied with and bragged about while in the violent ward. though i was granted considerable liberty during the months of april, may, and june, , not until july did i enjoy a so-called unlimited parole which enabled me to walk about the neighboring city unattended. my privileges were granted so gradually that these first tastes of regained freedom, though delightful, were not so thrilling as one might imagine. i took everything as a matter of course, and, except when i deliberately analyzed my feelings, was scarcely conscious of my former deprivations. this power to forget the past--or recall it only at will--has contributed much to my happiness. some of those who have suffered experiences such as mine are prone to brood upon them, and i cannot but attribute my happy immunity from unpleasant memories to the fact that i have viewed my own case much as a physician might view that of a patient. my past is a thing apart. i can examine this or that phase of it in the clarifying and comforting light of reason, under a memory rendered somewhat microscopic. and i am further compensated by the belief that i have a distinct mission in life--a chance for usefulness that might never have been mine had i enjoyed unbroken health and uninterrupted liberty. the last few months of my life in the hospital were much alike, save that each succeeding one brought with it an increased amount of liberty. my hours now passed pleasantly. time did not drag, for i was engaged upon some enterprise every minute. i would draw, read, write, or talk. if any feeling was dominant, it was my feeling for art; and i read with avidity books on the technique of that subject. strange as it may seem, however, the moment i again found myself in the world of business my desire to become an artist died almost as suddenly as it had been born. though my artistic ambition was clearly an outgrowth of my abnormal condition, and languished when normality asserted itself, i am inclined to believe i should even now take a lively interest in the study of art if i were so situated as to be deprived of a free choice of my activities. the use of words later enthralled me because so eminently suited to my purposes. during the summer of , friends and relatives often called to see me. the talks we had were of great and lasting benefit to me. though i had rid myself of my more extravagant and impossible delusions of grandeur--flying-machines and the like--i still discussed with intense earnestness other schemes, which, though allied to delusions of grandeur, were, in truth, still more closely allied to sanity itself. my talk was of that high, but perhaps suspicious type in which imagination overrules common sense. lingering delusions, as it were, made great projects seem easy. that they were at least feasible under certain conditions, my mentors admitted. only i was in an abnormal hurry to produce results. work that i later realized could not be accomplished in less than five or ten years, if, indeed, in a lifetime, i then believed could be accomplished in a year or two, and by me single-handed. had i had none but mentally unbalanced people to talk with, i might have continued to cherish a distorted perspective. it was the unanimity of sane opinions that helped me to correct my own views; and i am confident that each talk with relatives and friends hastened my return to normality. though i was not discharged from the state hospital until september th, , during the preceding month i visited my home several times, once for three days. these trips were not only interesting, but steadying in effect. i willingly returned to the hospital when my parole expired. though several friends expressed surprise at this willingness to enter again an institution where i had experienced so many hardships, to me my temporary return was not in the least irksome. as i had penetrated and conquered the mysteries of that dark side of life, it no longer held any terrors for me. nor does it to this day. i can contemplate the future with a greater degree of complacency than can some of those whose lot in life has been uniformly fortunate. in fact, i said at that time that, should my condition ever demand it, i would again enter a hospital for the insane, quite as willingly as the average person now enters a hospital for the treatment of bodily ailments. it was in this complacent and confident mood, and without any sharp line of transition, that i again began life in my old world of companionship and of business. xxviii for the first month of regained freedom i remained at home. these weeks were interesting. scarcely a day passed that i did not meet several former friends and acquaintances who greeted me as one risen from the dead. and well they might, for my three-year trip among the worlds--rather than around the world--was suggestive of complete separation from the everyday life of the multitude. one profound impression which i received at this time was of the uniform delicacy of feeling exhibited by my well-wishers. in no instance that i can recall was a direct reference made to the nature of my recent illness, until i had first made some remark indicating that i was not averse to discussing it. there was an evident effort on the part of friends and acquaintances to avoid a subject which they naturally supposed i wished to forget. knowing that their studied avoidance of a delicate subject was inspired by a thoughtful consideration, rather than a lack of interest, i invariably forced the conversation along a line calculated to satisfy a suppressed, but perfectly proper, curiosity which i seldom failed to detect. my decision to stand on my past and look the future in the face has, i believe, contributed much to my own happiness, and, more than anything else, enabled my friends to view my past as i myself do. by frankly referring to my illness, i put my friends and acquaintances at ease, and at a stroke rid them of that constraint which one must feel in the presence of a person constantly in danger of being hurt by a chance allusion to an unhappy occurrence. i have said much about the obligation of the sane in reference to easing the burdens of those committed to institutions. i might say almost as much about the attitude of the public toward those who survive such a period of exile, restored, but branded with a suspicion which only time can efface. though a former patient receives personal consideration, he finds it difficult to obtain employment. no fair-minded man can find fault with this condition of affairs, for an inherent dread of insanity leads to distrust of one who has had a mental breakdown. nevertheless, the attitude is mistaken. perhaps one reason for this lack of confidence is to be found in the lack of confidence which a former patient often feels in himself. confidence begets confidence, and those men and women who survive mental illness should attack their problem as though their absence had been occasioned by any one of the many circumstances which may interrupt the career of a person whose mind has never been other than sound. i can testify to the efficacy of this course, for it is the one i pursued. and i think that i have thus far met with as great a degree of success as i might have reasonably expected had my career never been all but fatally interrupted. discharged from the state hospital in september, , late in october of that same year i went to new york. primarily my purpose was to study art. i even went so far as to gather information regarding the several schools; and had not my artistic ambition taken wing, i might have worked for recognition in a field where so many strive in vain. but my business instinct, revivified by the commercially surcharged atmosphere of new york, soon gained sway, and within three months i had secured a position with the same firm for which i had worked when i first went to new york six years earlier. it was by the merest chance that i made this most fortunate business connection. by no stretch of my rather elastic imagination can i even now picture a situation that would, at one and the same time, have so perfectly afforded a means of livelihood, leisure in which to indulge my longing to write the story of my experiences, and an opportunity to further my humanitarian project. though persons discharged from mental hospitals are usually able to secure, without much difficulty, work as unskilled laborers, or positions where the responsibility is slight, it is often next to impossible for them to secure positions of trust. during the negotiations which led to my employment, i was in no suppliant mood. if anything, i was quite the reverse; and as i have since learned, i imposed terms with an assurance so sublime that any less degree of audacity might have put an end to the negotiations then and there. but the man with whom i was dealing was not only broad-minded, he was sagacious. he recognized immediately such an ability to take care of my own interests as argued an ability to protect those of his firm. but this alone would not have induced the average business man to employ me under the circumstances. it was the common-sense and rational attitude of my employer toward mental illness which determined the issue. this view, which is, indeed, exceptional to-day, will one day (within a few generations, i believe) be too commonplace to deserve special mention. as this man tersely expressed it: "when an employé is ill, he's ill, and it makes no difference to me whether he goes to a general hospital or a hospital for the insane. should you ever find yourself in need of treatment or rest, i want you to feel that you can take it when and where you please, and work for us again when you are able." dealing almost exclusively with bankers, for that was the nature of my work, i enjoyed almost as much leisure for reading and trying to learn how to write as i should have enjoyed had i had an assured income that would have enabled me to devote my entire time to these pursuits. and so congenial did my work prove, and so many places of interest did i visit, that i might rather have been classed as a "commercial tourist" than as a commercial traveler. to view almost all of the natural wonders and places of historic interest east of the mississippi, and many west of it; to meet and know representative men and women; to enjoy an almost uninterrupted leisure, and at the same time earn a livelihood--these advantages bear me out in the feeling that in securing the position i did, at the time i did, i enjoyed one of those rare compensations which fate sometimes bestows upon those who survive unusual adversity. xxix after again becoming a free man, my mind would not abandon the miserable ones whom i had left behind. i thought with horror that my reason had been threatened and baffled at every turn. without malice toward those who had had me in charge, i yet looked with abhorrence upon the system by which i had been treated. but i realized that i could not successfully advocate reforms in hospital management until i had first proved to relatives and friends my ability to earn a living. and i knew that, after securing a position in the business world, i must first satisfy my employers before i could hope to persuade others to join me in prosecuting the reforms i had at heart. consequently, during the first year of my renewed business activity (the year ), i held my humanitarian project in abeyance and gave all my executive energy to my business duties. during the first half of that year i gave but little time to reading and writing, and none at all to drawing. in a tentative way, however, i did occasionally discuss my project with intimate friends; but i spoke of its consummation as a thing of the uncertain future. at that time, though confident of accomplishing my set purpose, i believed i should be fortunate if my projected book were published before my fortieth year. that i was able to publish it eight years earlier was due to one of those unlooked for combinations of circumstances which sometimes cause a hurried change of plans. late in the autumn of , a slight illness detained me for two weeks in a city several hundred miles from home. the illness itself amounted to little, and, so far as i know, had no direct bearing on later results, except that, in giving me an enforced vacation, it afforded me an opportunity to read several of the world's great books. one of these was "les misérables." it made a deep impression on me, and i am inclined to believe it started a train of thought which gradually grew into a purpose so all-absorbing that i might have been overwhelmed by it, had not my over-active imagination been brought to bay by another's common sense. hugo's plea for suffering humanity--for the world's miserable--struck a responsive chord within me. not only did it revive my latent desire to help the afflicted; it did more. it aroused a consuming desire to emulate hugo himself, by writing a book which should arouse sympathy for and interest in that class of unfortunates in whose behalf i felt it my peculiar right and duty to speak. i question whether any one ever read "les misérables" with keener feeling. by day i read the story until my head ached; by night i dreamed of it. to resolve to write a book is one thing; to write it--fortunately for the public--is quite another. though i wrote letters with ease, i soon discovered that i knew nothing of the vigils or methods of writing a book. even then i did not attempt to predict just when i should begin to commit my story to paper. but, a month later, a member of the firm in whose employ i was made a remark which acted as a sudden spur. one day, while discussing the business situation with me, he informed me that my work had convinced him that he had made no mistake in re-employing me when he did. naturally i was pleased. i had vindicated his judgment sooner than i had hoped. aside from appreciating and remembering his compliment, at the time i paid no more attention to it. not until a fortnight later did the force of his remark exert any peculiar influence on my plans. during that time it apparently penetrated to some subconscious part of me--a part which, on prior occasions, had assumed such authority as to dominate my whole being. but, in this instance, the part that became dominant did not exert an unruly or even unwelcome influence. full of interest in my business affairs one week, the next i not only had no interest in them, but i had begun even to dislike them. from a matter-of-fact man of business i was transformed into a man whose all-absorbing thought was the amelioration of suffering among the afflicted insane. travelling on this high plane of ideal humanitarianism, i could get none but a distorted and dissatisfying view of the life i must lead if i should continue to devote my time to the comparatively deadening routine of commercial affairs. thus it was inevitable that i should focus my attention on my humanitarian project. during the last week of december i sought ammunition by making a visit to two of the institutions where i had once been a patient. i went there to discuss certain phases of the subject of reform with the doctors in authority. i was politely received and listened to with a degree of deference which was, indeed, gratifying. though i realized that i was rather intense on the subject of reform, i did not have that clear insight into my state of mind which the doctors had. indeed, i believe that only those expert in the detection of symptoms of a slightly disturbed mental condition could possibly have observed anything abnormal about me at that time. only when i discussed my fond project of reform did i betray an abnormal stress of feeling. i could talk as convincingly about business as i had at any time in my life; for even at the height of this wave of enthusiasm i dealt at length with a certain banker who finally placed with my employers a large contract. after conferring with the doctors, or rather--as it proved--exhibiting myself to them, i returned to new haven and discussed my project with the president of yale university. he listened patiently--he could scarcely do otherwise--and did me the great favor of interposing his judgment at a time when i might have made a false move. i told him that i intended to visit washington at once, to enlist the aid of president roosevelt; also that of mr. hay, secretary of state. mr. hadley tactfully advised me not to approach them until i had more thoroughly crystallized my ideas. his wise suggestion i had the wisdom to adopt. the next day i went to new york, and on january st, , i began to write. within two days i had written about fifteen thousand words--for the most part on the subject of reforms and how to effect them. one of the documents prepared at that time contained grandiloquent passages that were a portent of coming events--though i was ignorant of the fact. in writing about my project i said, "whether i am a tool of god or a toy of the devil, time alone will tell; but there will be no misunderstanding time's answer if i succeed in doing one-tenth of the good things i hope to accomplish.... anything which is feasible in this philanthropic age can easily be put into practice.... a listener gets the impression that i hope to do a hundred years' work in a day. they are wrong there, for i'm not so in love with work--as such. i would like though to interest so many people in the accomplishment of my purpose that one hundred years' work might be done in a fraction of that time. hearty co-operation brings quick results, and once you start a wave of enthusiasm in a sea of humanity, and have for the base of that wave a humanitarian project of great breadth, it will travel with irresistible and ever-increasing impulse to the ends of the earth--which is far enough. according to dr. ----, many of my ideas regarding the solution of the problem under consideration are years and years in advance of the times. i agree with him, but that is no reason why we should not put 'the times' on board the express train of progress and give civilization a boost to a higher level, until it finally lands on a plateau where performance and perfection will be synonymous terms." referring to the betterment of conditions, i said, "and this improvement can never be brought about without some central organization by means of which the best ideas in the world may be crystallized and passed along to those in charge of this army of afflicted ones. the methods to be used to bring about these results must be placed on the same high level as the idea itself. no yellow journalism or other sensational means should be resorted to. let the thing be worked up secretly and confidentially by a small number of men who know their business. then when the very best plan has been formulated for the accomplishment of the desired results, and men of money have been found to support the movement until it can take care of itself, announce to the world in a dignified and effective manner the organization and aims of the society, the name of which shall be--, decided later.... to start the movement will not require a whole lot of money. it will be started modestly and as financial resources of the society increase, the field will be broadened." ... "the abuses and correction of same is a mere detail in the general scheme." ... "it is too early to try to interest anyone in this scheme of preventing breakdowns, as there are other things of more importance to be brought about first--but it will surely come in time." "'uncle tom's cabin,'" i continued, "had a very decided effect on the question of slavery of the negro race. why cannot a book be written which will free the helpless slaves of all creeds and colors confined to-day in the asylums and sanitariums throughout the world? that is, free them from unnecessary abuses to which they are now subjected. such a book, i believe, can be written and i trust that i may be permitted to live till i am wise enough to write it. such a book might change the attitude of the public towards those who are unfortunate enough to have the stigma of mental incompetency put upon them. of course, an insane man is an insane man and while insane should be placed in an institution for treatment, but when that man comes out he should be as free from all taint as the man is who recovers from a contagious disease and again takes his place in society." in conclusion, i said, "from a scientific point of view there is a great field for research.... cannot some of the causes be discovered and perhaps done away with, thereby saving the lives of many--and millions in money? it may come about that some day something will be found which will prevent a complete and incurable mental breakdown...." thus did i, as revealed by these rather crude, unrevised quotations, somewhat prophetically, if extravagantly, box the compass that later guided the ship of my hopes (not one of my phantom ships) into a safe channel, and later into a safe harbor. by way of mental diversion during these creative days at the yale club, i wrote personal letters to intimate friends. one of these produced a result unlooked for. there were about it compromising earmarks which the friend to whom it was sent recognized. in it i said that i intended to approach a certain man of wealth and influence who lived in new york, with a view to securing some action that would lead to reform. that was enough. my friend showed the letter to my brother--the one who had acted as my conservator. he knew at once that i was in an excited mental condition. but he could not very well judge the degree of the excitement; for when i had last talked with him a week earlier, i had not discussed my larger plans. business affairs and my hope for business advancement had then alone interested me. i talked with president hadley on friday; saturday i went to new york; sunday and monday i spent at the yale club, writing; tuesday, this telltale letter fell under the prescient eye of my brother. on that day he at once got in touch with me by telephone. we briefly discussed the situation. he did not intimate that he believed me to be in elation. he simply urged me not to attempt to interest anyone in my project until i had first returned to new haven and talked with him. now i had already gone so far as to invite my employers to dine with me that very night at the yale club for the purpose of informing them of my plans. this i did, believing it to be only fair that they should know what i intended to do, so that they might dispense with my services should they feel that my plans would in any way impair my usefulness as an employé. of this dinner engagement, therefore, i told my brother. but so insistently did he urge me to defer any such conference as i proposed until i had talked with him that, although it was too late to break the dinner engagement, i agreed to avoid, if possible, any reference to my project. i also agreed to return home the next day. that night my guests honored me as agreed. for an hour or two we discussed business conditions and affairs in general. then, one of them referred pointedly to my implied promise to unburden myself on a certain subject, the nature of which he did not at the time know. i immediately decided that it would be best to "take the bull by the horns," submit my plans, and, if necessary, sever my connection with the firm, should its members force me to choose (as i put it) between themselves and humanity. i then proceeded to unfold my scheme; and, though i may have exhibited a decided intensity of feeling during my discourse, at no time, i believe, did i overstep the bounds of what appeared to be sane enthusiasm. my employers agreed that my purpose was commendable--that no doubt i could and would eventually be able to do much for those i had left behind in a durance i so well knew to be vile. their one warning was that i seemed in too great a hurry. they expressed the opinion that i had not been long enough re-established in business to be able to persuade people of wealth and influence to take hold of my project. and one of my guests very aptly observed that i could not afford to be a philanthropist, which objection i met by saying that all i intended to do was to supply ideas for those who could afford to apply them. the conference ended satisfactorily. my employers disclaimed any personal objection to my proceeding with my project, if i would, and yet remaining in their employ. they simply urged me to "go slow." "wait until you're forty," one of them said. i then thought that i might do so. and perhaps i should have waited so long, had not the events of the next two days put me on the right road to an earlier execution of my cherished plans. the next day, january th, true to my word, i went home. that night i had a long talk with my brother. i did not suspect that a man like myself, capable of dealing with bankers and talking for several consecutive hours with his employers without arousing their suspicion as to his mental condition, was to be suspected by his own relatives. nor, indeed, with the exception of my brother, who had read my suspiciously excellent letter, were any of my relatives disturbed; and he did nothing to disabuse my assurance. after our night conference he left for his own home, casually mentioning that he would see me again the next morning. that pleased me, for i was in a talkative mood and craved an interested listener. when my brother returned the next morning, i willingly accepted his invitation to go with him to his office, where we could talk without fear of interruption. arrived there, i calmly sat down and prepared to prove my whole case. i had scarcely "opened fire" when in walked a stranger--a strapping fellow, to whom my brother immediately introduced me. i instinctively felt that it was by no mere chance that this third party had so suddenly appeared. my eyes at once took in the dark blue trousers worn by the otherwise conventionally dressed stranger. that was enough. the situation became so clear that the explanations which followed were superfluous. in a word, i was under arrest, or in imminent danger of being arrested. to say that i was not in the least disconcerted would scarcely be true, for i had not divined my brother's clever purpose in luring me to his office. but i can say, with truth, that i was the coolest person in the room. i knew what i should do next, but my brother and the officer of the law could only guess. the fact is i did nothing. i calmly remained seated, awaiting the verdict which i well knew my brother, with characteristic decision, had already prepared. with considerable effort--for the situation, he has since told me, was the most trying one of his life--he informed me that on the preceding day he had talked with the doctors to whom i had so opportunely exhibited myself a week earlier. all agreed that i was in a state of elation which might or might not become more pronounced. they had advised that i be persuaded to submit voluntarily to treatment in a hospital, or that i be, if necessary, forcibly committed. on this advice my brother had proceeded to act. and it was well so; for, though i appreciated the fact that i was by no means in a normal state of mind, i had not a clear enough insight into my condition to realize that treatment and a restricted degree of liberty were what i needed, since continued freedom might further inflame an imagination already overwrought. a few simple statements by my brother convinced me that it was for my own good and the peace of mind of my relatives that i should temporarily surrender my freedom. this i agreed to do. perhaps the presence of two hundred pounds of brawn and muscle, representing the law, lent persuasiveness to my brother's words. in fact, i did assent the more readily because i admired the thorough, sane, fair, almost artistic manner in which my brother had brought me to bay. i am inclined to believe that, had i suspected that a recommitment was imminent, i should have fled to a neighboring state during the preceding night. fortunately, however, the right thing was done in the right way at the right time. though i had been the victim of a clever stratagem, not for one moment thereafter, in any particular, was i deceived. i was frankly told that several doctors had pronounced me elated, and that for my own good i _must_ submit to treatment. i was allowed to choose between a probate court commitment which would have "admitted me" to the state hospital, or a "voluntary commitment" which would enable me to enter the large private hospital where i had previously passed from depression to elation, and had later suffered tortures. i naturally chose the more desirable of the two disguised blessings, and agreed to start at once for the private hospital, the one in which i had been when depression gave way to elation. it was not that i feared again to enter the state hospital. i simply wished to avoid the publicity which necessarily would have followed, for at that time the statutes of connecticut did not provide for voluntary commitment to the state hospitals. then, too, there were certain privileges which i knew i could not enjoy in a public institution. having re-established myself in society and business i did not wish to forfeit that gain; and as the doctors believed that my period of elation would be short, it would have been sheer folly to advertise the fact that my mental health had again fallen under suspicion. but before starting for the hospital i imposed certain conditions. one was that the man with the authoritative trousers should walk behind at such a distance that no friend or acquaintance who might see my brother and myself would suspect that i was under guard; the other was that the doctors at the institution should agree to grant my every request, no matter how trivial, so long as doing so could in no way work to my own injury. my privileges were to include that of reading and writing to my heart's content, and the procuring of such books and supplies as my fancy might dictate. all this was agreed to. in return i agreed to submit to the surveillance of an attendant when i went outside the hospital grounds. this i knew would contribute to the peace of mind of my relatives, who naturally could not rid themselves of the fear that one so nearly normal as myself might take it into his head to leave the state and resist further attempts at control. as i felt that i could easily elude my keeper, should i care to escape, his presence also contributed to _my_ peace of mind, for i argued that the ability to outwit my guard would atone for the offence itself. i then started for the hospital; and i went with a willingness surprising even to myself. a cheerful philosophy enabled me to turn an apparently disagreeable situation into one that was positively pleasing to me. i convinced myself that i could extract more real enjoyment from life during the ensuing weeks within the walls of a "retreat" than i could in the world outside. my one desire was to write, write, write. my fingers itched for a pen. my desire to write was, i imagine, as irresistible as is the desire of a drunkard for his dram. and the act of writing resulted in an intoxicating pleasure composed of a mingling of emotions that defies analysis. that i should so calmly, almost eagerly, enter where devils might fear to tread may surprise the reader who already has been informed of the cruel treatment i had formerly received there. i feared nothing, for i knew all. having seen the worst, i knew how to avoid the pitfalls into which, during my first experience at that hospital, i had fallen or deliberately walked. i was confident that i should suffer no abuse or injustice so long as the doctors in charge should live up to their agreement and treat me with unvarying fairness. this they did, and my quick recovery and subsequent discharge may be attributed partly to this cause. the assistant physicians who had come in contact with me during my first experience in this hospital were no longer there. they had resigned some months earlier, shortly after the death of the former superintendent. thus it was that i started with a clean record, free from those prejudices which so often affect the judgment of a hospital physician who has treated a mental patient at his worst. xxx on more than one occasion my chameleonlike temperament has enabled me to adjust myself to new conditions, but never has it served me better than it did at the time of which i write. a free man on new year's day, enjoying the pleasures of a congenial club life, four days later i found myself again under the lock and key of an institution for the insane. never had i enjoyed life in new york more than during those first days of that new year. to suffer so rude a change was, indeed, enough to arouse a feeling of discontent, if not despair; yet, aside from the momentary initial shock, my contentment was in no degree diminished. i can say with truth that i was as complacent the very moment i recrossed the threshold of that "retreat" as i had been when crossing and recrossing at will the threshold of my club. of everything i thought and did during the interesting weeks which followed, i have a complete record. the moment i accepted the inevitable, i determined to spend my time to good advantage. knowing from experience that i must observe my own case, if i was to have any detailed record of it, i provided myself in advance with notebooks. in these i recorded, i might almost say, my every thought and action. the sane part of me, which fortunately was dominant, subjected its temporarily unruly part to a sort of scientific scrutiny and surveillance. from morning till night i dogged the steps of my restless body and my more restless imagination. i observed the physical and mental symptoms which i knew were characteristic of elation. an exquisite light-heartedness, an exalted sense of wellbeing, my pulse, my weight, my appetite--all these i observed and recorded with a care that would have put to the blush a majority of the doctors in charge of mental cases in institutions. but this record of symptoms, though minute, was vague compared to my reckless analysis of my emotions. with a lack of reserve characteristic of my mood, i described the joy of living, which, for the most part, then consisted in the joy of writing. and even now, when i reread my record, i feel that i cannot overstate the pleasure i found in surrendering myself completely to that controlling impulse. the excellence of my composition seemed to me beyond criticism. and, as to one in a state of elation, things are pretty much as they seem, i was able to experience the subtle delights which, i fancy, thrill the soul of a master. during this month of elation i wrote words enough to fill a book nearly as large as this one. having found that each filling of my fountain pen was sufficient for the writing of about twenty-eight hundred words, i kept a record of the number of times i filled it. this minute calculation i carried to an extreme. if i wrote for fifty-nine minutes, and then read for seventeen, those facts i recorded. thus, in my diary and out of it, i wrote and wrote until the tips of my thumb and forefinger grew numb. as this numbness increased and general weariness of the hand set in, there came a gradual flagging of my creative impulse until a very normal unproductivity supervened. the reader may well wonder in what my so-called insanity at this time consisted. had i any of those impracticable delusions which had characterized my former period of elation? no, not one--unless an unreasonable haste to achieve my ambitions may be counted a delusion. my attention simply focussed itself on my project. all other considerations seemed of little moment. my interest in business waned to the vanishing point. yet one thing should be noted: i did deliberately devote many hours to the consideration of business affairs. realizing that one way to overcome an absorbing impulse is to divide the attention, i wrote a brief of the arguments i had often used when talking with bankers. in this way i was able to convince the doctors that my intense interest in literature and reform would soon spend itself. a consuming desire to effect reforms had been the determining factor when i calmly weighed the situation with a view to making the best possible use of my impulse to write. the events of the immediate past had convinced me that i could not hope to interest people of wealth and influence in my humanitarian project until i had some definite plan to submit for their leisurely consideration. further, i had discovered that an attempt to approach them directly disturbed my relatives and friends, who had not yet learned to dissociate! present intentions from past performances. i had, therefore, determined to drill myself in the art of composition to the end that i might write a story of my life which would merit publication. i felt that such a book, once written, would do its own work, regardless of my subsequent fortunes. other books had spoken even from the grave; why should not my book so speak--if necessary? with this thought in mind i began not only to read and write, but to test my impulse in order that i might discover if it were a part of my very being, an abnormal impulse, or a mere whim. i reasoned that to compare my own feelings toward literature, and my emotions experienced in the heat of composition, with the recorded feelings of successful men of letters, would give me a clue to the truth on this question. at this time i read several books that could have served as a basis for my deductions, but only one of them did i have time to analyze and note in my diary. that one was, "wit and wisdom of the earl of beaconsfield." the following passages from the pen of disraeli i transcribed in my diary with occasional comment. "remember who you are, and also that it is your duty to excel. providence has given you a great lot. think ever that you are born to perform great duties." this i interpreted in much the same spirit that i had interpreted the th psalm on an earlier occasion. "it was that noble ambition, the highest and best, that must be born in the heart, and organized in the brain, which will not let a man be content unless his intellectual power is recognized by his race, and desires that it should contribute to their welfare." "authors--the creators of opinion." "what appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune." "change is inevitable in a progressive country. change is constant." ("then why," was my recorded comment, "cannot the changes i propose to bring about, be brought about?") "the author is, as we must ever remember, of peculiar organization. he is a being born with a predisposition which with him is irresistible, the bent of which he cannot in any way avoid, whether it directs him to the abstruse researches of erudition or induces him to mount into the fervid and turbulent atmosphere of imagination." "this," i wrote (the day after arriving at the hospital) "is a fair diagnosis of my case as it stands to-day, assuming, of course, that an author is one who loves to write, and can write with ease, even though what he says may have no literary value. my past proves that my organization is a peculiar one. i have for years (two and a half) had a desire to achieve success along literary lines. i believe that, feeling as i do to-day, nothing can prevent my writing. if i had to make a choice at once between a sure success in the business career ahead of me and doubtful success in the field of literature, i would willingly, yes confidently, choose the latter. i have read many a time about successful writers who learned how to write, and by dint of hard work ground out their ideas. if these men could succeed, why should not a man who is in danger of being ground up by an excess of ideas and imagination succeed, when he seems able to put those ideas into fairly intelligible english? he should and will succeed." therefore, without delay, i began the course of experiment and practice which culminated within a few months in the first draft of my story. wise enough to realize the advantages of a situation free from the annoying interruptions of the workaday world, i enjoyed a degree of liberty seldom experienced by those in possession of complete legal liberty and its attendant obligations. when i wished to read, write, talk, walk, sleep, or eat, i did the thing i wished. i went to the theatre when the spirit moved me to do so, accompanied, of course, by an attendant, who on such occasions played the rôle of chum. friends called to see me and, at their suggestion or mine, invited me to dinner outside the walls of my "cloister." at one of these dinners an incident occurred which throws a clear light on my condition at the time. the friend, whose willing prisoner i was, had invited a common friend to join the party. the latter had not heard of my recent commitment. at my suggestion, he who shared my secret had agreed not to refer to it unless i first broached the subject. there was nothing strange in the fact that we three should meet. just such impromptu celebrations had before occurred among us. we dined, and, as friends will, indulged in that exchange of thoughts which bespeaks intimacy. during our talk, i so shaped the conversation that the possibility of a recurrence of my mental illness was discussed. the uninformed friend derided the idea. "then, if i were to tell you," i remarked, "that i am at this moment supposedly insane--at least not normal--and that when i leave you to-night i shall go direct to the very hospital where i was formerly confined, there to remain until the doctors pronounce me fit for freedom, what would you say?" "i should say that you are a choice sort of liar," he retorted. this genial insult i swallowed with gratification. it was, in truth, a timely and encouraging compliment, the force of which its author failed to appreciate until my host had corroborated my statements. if i could so favorably impress an intimate friend at a time when i was elated, it is not surprising that i should subsequently hold an interview with a comparative stranger--the cashier of a local bank--without betraying my state of mind. as business interviews go, this was in a class by itself. while my attendant stood guard at the door, i, an enrolled inmate of a hospital for the insane, entered the banking room and talked with a level-headed banker. and that interview was not without effect in subsequent negotiations which led to the closing of a contract amounting to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. the very day i re-entered the hospital i stopped on the way at a local hotel and procured some of the hostelry's stationery. by using this in the writing of personal and business letters i managed to conceal my condition and my whereabouts from all except near relatives and a few intimate friends who shared the secret. i quite enjoyed leading this legitimate double life. the situation appealed (not in vain) to my sense of humor. many a smile did i indulge in when i closed a letter with such ambiguous phrases as the following: "matters of importance necessitate my remaining where i am for an indefinite period." ... "a situation has recently arisen which will delay my intended trip south. as soon as i have closed a certain contract (having in mind my contract to re-establish my sanity) i shall again take to the road." to this day few friends or acquaintances know that i was in semi-exile during the month of january, . my desire to suppress the fact was not due, as already intimated, to any sensitiveness regarding the subject of insanity. what afterwards justified my course was that on regaining my freedom i was able, without embarrassment, again to take up my work. within a month of my voluntary commitment, that is, in february, i started on a business trip through the central west and south, where i remained until the following july. during those months i felt perfectly well, and have remained in excellent health ever since. this second interruption of my career came at a time and in a manner to furnish me with strong arguments wherewith to support my contention that so-called madmen are too often man-made, and that he who is potentially mad may keep a saving grip on his own reason if he be fortunate enough to receive that kindly and intelligent treatment to which one on the brink of mental chaos is entitled. though during this second period of elation i was never in a mood so reckless as that which obtained immediately after my recovery from depression in august, , i was at least so excitable that, had those in authority attempted to impose upon me, i should have thrown discretion to the winds. to them, indeed, i frankly reiterated a terse dictum which i had coined during my first period of elation. "just press the button of injustice," i said, "and i'll do the rest!" this i meant, for fear of punishment does not restrain a man in the dare-devil grip of elation. what fostered my self-control was a sense of gratitude. the doctors and attendants treated me as a gentleman. therefore it was not difficult to prove myself one. my every whim was at least considered with a politeness which enabled me to accept a denial with a highly sane equanimity. aside from mild tonics i took no other medicine than that most beneficial sort which inheres in kindness. the feeling that, though a prisoner, i could still command obligations from others led me to recognize my own reciprocal obligations, and was a constant source of delight. the doctors, by proving their title to that confidence which i tentatively gave them upon re-entering the institution, had no difficulty in convincing me that a temporary curtailment of some privileges was for my own good. they all evinced a consistent desire to trust me. in return i trusted them. xxxi on leaving the hospital and resuming my travels, i felt sure that any one of several magazines or newspapers would willingly have had me conduct my campaign under its nervously commercial auspices; but a flash-in-the-pan method did not appeal to me. those noxious growths, incompetence, abuse, and injustice, had not only to be cut down, but rooted out. therefore, i clung to my determination to write a book--an instrument of attack which, if it cuts and sears at all, does so as long as the need exists. inasmuch as i knew that i still had to learn how to write, i approached my task with deliberation. i planned to do two things: first, to crystallize my thoughts by discussion--telling the story of my life whenever in my travels i should meet any person who inspired my confidence; second, while the subject matter of my book was shaping itself in my mind, to drill myself by carrying on a letter-writing campaign. both these things i did--as certain indulgent friends who bore the brunt of my spoken and written discourse can certify. i feared the less to be dubbed a bore, and i hesitated the less, perhaps, to impose upon good-nature, because of my firm conviction that one in a position to help the many was himself entitled to the help of the few. i wrote scores of letters of great length. i cared little if some of my friends should conclude that i had been born a century too late; for, without them as confidants, i must write with no more inspiring object in view than the wastebasket. indeed, i found it difficult to compose without keeping before me the image of a friend. having stipulated that every letter should be returned upon demand, i wrote without reserve--my imagination had free rein. i wrote as i thought, and i thought as i pleased. the result was that within six months i found myself writing with a facility which hitherto had obtained only during elation. at first i was suspicious of this new-found and apparently permanent ease of expression--so suspicious that i set about diagnosing my symptoms. my self-examination convinced me that i was, in fact, quite normal. i had no irresistible desire to write, nor was there any suggestion of that exalted, or (technically speaking) euphoric, light-heartedness which characterizes elation. further, after a prolonged period of composition, i experienced a comforting sense of exhaustion which i had not known while elated. i therefore concluded--and rightly--that my unwonted facility was the product of practice. at last i found myself able to conceive an idea and immediately transfer it to paper effectively. in july, , i came to the conclusion that the time for beginning my book was at hand. nevertheless, i found it difficult to set a definite date. about this time i so arranged my itinerary that i was able to enjoy two summer--though stormy--nights and a day at the summit house on mount washington. what better, thought i, than to begin my book on a plane so high as to be appropriate to this noble summit? i therefore began to compose a dedication. "to humanity" was as far as i got. there the muse forsook me. but, returning to earth and going about my business, i soon again found myself in the midst of inspiring natural surroundings--the berkshire hills. at this juncture man came to the assistance of nature, and perhaps with an unconsciousness equal to her own. it was a chance remark made by an eminent man that aroused my subconscious literary personality to irresistible action. i had long wished to discuss my project with a man of great reputation, and if the reputation were international, so much the better. i desired the unbiased opinion of a judicial mind. opportunely, i learned that the hon. joseph h. choate was then at his summer residence at stockbridge, massachusetts. mr. choate had never heard of me and i had no letter of introduction. the exigencies of the occasion, however, demanded that i conjure one up, so i wrote my own letter of introduction and sent it: red lion inn, stockbridge, mass. august , . hon. joseph h. choate, stockbridge, massachusetts. dear sir: though i might present myself at your door, armed with one of society's unfair skeleton-keys--a letter of introduction--i prefer to approach you as i now do: simply as a young man who honestly feels entitled to at least five minutes of your time, and as many minutes more as you care to grant because of your interest in the subject to be discussed. i look to you at this time for your opinion as to the value of some ideas of mine, and the feasibility of certain schemes based on them. a few months ago i talked with president hadley of yale, and briefly outlined my plans. he admitted that many of them seemed feasible and would, if carried out, add much to the sum-total of human happiness. his only criticism was that they were "too comprehensive." not until i have staggered an imagination of the highest type will i admit that i am trying to do too much. should you refuse to see me, believe me when i tell you that you will still be, as you are at this moment, the unconscious possessor of my sincere respect. business engagements necessitate my leaving here early on monday next. should you care to communicate with me, word sent in care of this hotel will reach me promptly. yours very truly, clifford w. beers. within an hour i had received a reply, in which mr. choate said that he would see me at his home at ten o'clock the next morning. at the appointed time, the door, whose lock i had picked with a pen, opened before me and i was ushered into the presence of mr. choate. he was graciousness itself--but pointed significantly at a heap of unanswered letters lying before him. i took the hint and within ten minutes briefly outlined my plans. after pronouncing my project a "commendable one," mr. choate offered the suggestion that produced results. "if you will submit your ideas in writing," he said, "i shall be glad to read your manuscript and assist you in any way i can. to consider fully your scheme would require several hours, and busy men cannot very well give you so much time. what they can do is to read your manuscript during their leisure moments." thus it was that mr. choate, by granting the interview, contributed to an earlier realization of my purposes. one week later i began the composition of this book. my action was unpremeditated, as my quitting boston for less attractive worcester proves. that very day, finding myself with a day and a half of leisure before me, i decided to tempt the muse and compel myself to prove that my pen was, in truth, "the tongue of a ready writer." a stranger in the city, i went to a school of stenography and there secured the services of a young man who, though inexperienced in his art, was more skilled in catching thoughts as they took wing than i was at that time in the art of setting them free. except in the writing of one or two conventional business letters, never before had i dictated to a stenographer. after i had startled him into an attentive mood by briefly outlining my past career and present purpose, i worked without any definite plan or brief, or reference to data. my narrative was therefore digressive and only roughly chronological. but it served to get my material in front of me for future shaping. at this task i hammered away three or four hours a day for a period of five weeks. it so happened that mr. choate arrived at the same hotel on the day i took up my abode there, so that some of the toil he had inspired went on in his proximity, if not in his presence. i carefully kept out of his sight, however, lest he should think me a "crank" on the subject of reform, bent on persecuting his leisure. as the work progressed my facility increased. in fact, i soon called in an additional stenographer to help in the snaring of my thoughts. this excessive productivity caused me to pause and again diagnose my condition. i could not fail now to recognize in myself symptoms hardly distinguishable from those which had obtained eight months earlier when it had been deemed expedient temporarily to restrict my freedom. but i had grown wise in adversity. rather than interrupt my manuscript short of completion i decided to avail myself of a vacation that was due, and remain outside my native state--this, so that well-meaning but perhaps overzealous relatives might be spared unnecessary anxiety, and i myself be spared possible unwarranted restrictions. i was by no means certain as to the degree of mental excitement that would result from such continuous mental application; nor did i much care, so long as i accomplished my task. however, as i knew that "possession is nine points of the law," i decided to maintain my advantage by remaining in my literary fortress. and my resolve was further strengthened by certain cherished sentiments expressed by john stuart mill in his essay "on liberty," which i had read and reread with an interest born of experience. at last the first draft of the greater part of my story was completed. after a timely remittance (for, in strict accordance with the traditions of the craft, i had exhausted my financial resources) i started for home with a sigh of relief. for months i had been under the burden of a conscious obligation. my memory, stored with information which, if rightly used, could, i believed, brighten and even save unhappy lives, was to me as a basket of eggs which it was my duty to balance on a head whose poise was supposed to be none too certain. one by one, during the preceding five weeks, i had gently lifted my thoughts from their resting-place, until a large part of my burden had been so shifted as to admit of its being imposed upon the public conscience. after i had lived over again the trials and the tortures of my unhappiest years--which was of course necessary in ploughing and harrowing a memory happily retentive--the completion of this first draft left me exhausted. but after a trip to new york, whither i went to convince my employers that i should be granted a further leave-of-absence, i resumed work. the ground for this added favor was that my manuscript was too crude to submit to any but intimate acquaintances. knowing, perhaps, that a business man with a literary bee buzzing in his ear is, for the time, no business man at all, my employers readily agreed that i should do as i pleased during the month of october. they also believed me entitled to the favor, recognizing the force of my belief that i had a high obligation to discharge. it was under the family rooftree that i now set up my literary shop. nine months earlier an unwonted interest in literature and reform had sent me to an institution. that i should now in my own home be able to work out my destiny without unduly disturbing the peace of mind of relatives was a considerable satisfaction. in the very room where, during june, , my reason had set out for an unknown goal, i redictated my account of that reason's experiences. my leave-of-absence ended, i resumed my travels eagerly; for i wished to cool my brain by daily contact with the more prosaic minds of men of business. i went south. for a time i banished all thoughts of my book and project. but after some months of this change of occupation, which i thoroughly enjoyed, i found leisure in the course of wide travels to take up the work of elaboration and revision. a presentable draft of my story being finally prepared, i began to submit it to all sorts and conditions of minds (in accordance with mill's dictum that only in that way can the truth be obtained). in my quest for criticism and advice, i fortunately decided to submit my manuscript to professor william james of harvard university, the most eminent of american psychologists and a masterful writer, who was then living. he expressed interest in my project; put my manuscript with others on his desk--but was somewhat reserved when it came to promising to read my story. he said it might be months before he could find time to do so. within a fortnight, however, i received from him a characteristic letter. to me it came as a rescuing sun, after a period of groping about for an authoritative opinion that should put scoffers to flight. the letter read as follows: irving st., cambridge, mass. july , . dear mr. beers: having at last "got round" to your ms., i have read it with very great interest and admiration for both its style and its temper. i hope you will finish it and publish it. it is the best written out "case" that i have seen; and you no doubt have put your finger on the weak spots of our treatment of the insane, and suggested the right line of remedy. i have long thought that if i were a millionaire, with money to leave for public purposes, i should endow "insanity" exclusively. you were doubtless a pretty intolerable character when the maniacal condition came on and you were bossing the universe. not only ordinary "tact," but a genius for diplomacy must have been needed for avoiding rows with you; but you certainly were wrongly treated nevertheless; and the spiteful assistant m.d. at ---- deserves to have his name published. your report is full of instructiveness for doctors and attendants alike. the most striking thing in it to my mind is the sudden conversion of you from a delusional subject to a maniacal one--how the whole delusional system disintegrated the moment one pin was drawn out by your proving your brother to be genuine. i never heard of so rapid a change in a mental system. you speak of rewriting. don't you do it. you can hardly improve your book. i shall keep the ms. a week longer as i wish to impart it to a friend. sincerely yours, wm. james. though mr. james paid me the compliment of advising me not to rewrite my original manuscript, i did revise it quite thoroughly before publication. when my book was about to go to press for the first time and since its reception by the public was problematical, i asked permission to publish the letter already quoted. in reply, mr. james sent the following letter, also for publication. irving st., cambridge, mass. november , . dear mr. beers: you are welcome to use the letter i wrote to you (on july , ) after reading the first part of your ms. in any way your judgment prompts, whether as preface, advertisement, or anything else. reading the rest of it only heightens its importance in my eyes. in style, in temper, in good taste, it is irreproachable. as for contents, it is fit to remain in literature as a classic account "from within" of an insane person's psychology. the book ought to go far toward helping along that terribly needed reform, the amelioration of the lot of the insane of our country, for the auxiliary society which you propose is feasible (as numerous examples in other fields show), and ought to work important effects on the whole situation. you have handled a difficult theme with great skill, and produced a narrative of absorbing interest to scientist as well as layman. it reads like fiction, but it is not fiction; and this i state emphatically, knowing how prone the uninitiated are to doubt the truthfulness of descriptions of abnormal mental processes. with best wishes for the success of the book and the plan, both of which, i hope, will prove epoch-making, i remain, sincerely yours, wm. james. several times in my narrative, i have said that the seemingly unkind fate that robbed me of several probably happy and healthful years had hidden within it compensations which have offset the sufferings and the loss of those years. not the least of the compensations has been the many letters sent to me by eminent men and women, who, having achieved results in their own work, are ever responsive to the efforts of anyone trying to reach a difficult objective. of all the encouraging opinions i have ever received, one has its own niche in my memory. it came from william james a few months before his death, and will ever be an inspiration to me. let my excuse for revealing so complimentary a letter be that it justifies the hopes and aspirations expressed in the course of my narrative, and shows them to be well on the way to accomplishment. irving street, cambridge, january , . dear beers: your exegesis of my farewell in my last note to you was erroneous, but i am glad it occurred, because it brought me the extreme gratification of your letter of yesterday. you are the most responsive and recognizant of human beings, my dear beers, and it "sets me up immensely" to be treated by a practical man on practical grounds as you treat me. i inhabit such a realm of abstractions that i only get credit for what i do in that spectral empire; but you are not only a moral idealist and philanthropic enthusiast (and good fellow!), but a tip-top man of business in addition; and to have actually done anything that the like of you can regard as having helped him is an unwonted ground with me for self-gratulation. i think that your tenacity of purpose, foresight, tact, temper, discretion and patience, are beyond all praise, and i esteem it an honor to have been in any degree associated with you. your name will loom big hereafter, for your movement must prosper, but mine will not survive unless some other kind of effort of mine saves it. i am exceedingly glad of what you say of the connecticut society. may it prosper abundantly! i thank you for your affectionate words which i return with interest and remain, for i trust many years of this life, yours faithfully, wm. james. at this point, rather than in the dusty corners of the usual preface, i wish to express my obligation to herbert wescott fisher, whom i knew at school. it was he who led me to see my need of technical training, neglected in earlier years. to be exact, however, i must confess that i read rather than studied rhetoric. close application to its rules served only to discourage me, so i but lazily skimmed the pages of the works which he recommended. but my friend did more than direct me to sources. he proved to be the kindly mean between the two extremes of stranger and intimate. i was a prophet not without honor in his eyes. upon an embarrassing wealth of material he brought to bear his practical knowledge of the workmanship of writing; and my drafting of the later parts and subsequent revisions has been so improved by the practice received under his scrupulous direction that he has had little fault to find with them. my debt to him is almost beyond repayment. nothing would please me more than to express specifically my indebtedness to many others who have assisted me in the preparation of my work. but, aside from calling attention to the fact that physicians connected with the state hospital and with the private institution referred to--the one not run for profit--exhibited rare magnanimity (even going so far as to write letters which helped me in my work), and, further, acknowledging anonymously (the list is too long for explicit mention) the invaluable advice given me by psychiatrists who have enabled me to make my work authoritative, i must be content to indite an all-embracing acknowledgment. therefore, and with distinct pleasure, i wish to say that the active encouragement of casual, but trusted acquaintances, the inspiring indifference of unconvinced intimates, and the kindly scepticism of indulgent relatives, who, perforce, could do naught but obey an immutable law of blood-related minds--all these influences have conspired to render more sure the accomplishment of my heart's desire. xxxii "my heart's desire" is a true phrase. since , when my own breakdown occurred, not fewer than one million men and women in the united states alone have for like causes had to seek treatment in institutions, thousands of others have been treated outside of institutions, while other thousands have received no treatment at all. yet, to use the words of one of our most conservative and best informed psychiatrists, "no less than half of the enormous toll which mental disease takes from the youth of this country can be prevented by the application, largely in childhood, of information and practical resources now available." elsewhere is an account of how my plan broadened from reform to cure, from cure to prevention--how far, with the co-operation of some of this country's ablest specialists and most generous philanthropists, it has been realized, nationally and internationally, through the new form of social mechanism known as societies, committees, leagues or associations for mental hygiene. more fundamental, however, than any technical reform, cure, or prevention--indeed, a condition precedent to all these--is a changed spiritual attitude toward the insane. they are still human: they love and hate, and have a sense of humor. the worst are usually responsive to kindness. in not a few cases their gratitude is livelier than that of normal men and women. any person who has worked among the insane, and done his duty by them, can testify to cases in point; and even casual observers have noted the fact that the insane are oftentimes appreciative. consider the experience of thackeray, as related by himself in "vanity fair" (chapter lvii). "i recollect," he writes, "seeing, years ago, at the prison for idiots and madmen, at bicêtre, near paris, a poor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpennyworth of snuff in a cornet or 'screw' of paper. the kindness was too much ... he cried in an anguish of delight and gratitude; if anybody gave you and me a thousand a year, or saved our lives, we could not be so affected." a striking exhibition of fine feeling on the part of a patient was brought to my attention by an assistant physician whom i met while visiting a state hospital in massachusetts. it seems that the woman in question had, at her worst, caused an endless amount of annoyance by indulging in mischievous acts which seemed to verge on malice. at that time, therefore, no observer would have credited her with the exquisite sensibility she so signally displayed when she had become convalescent and was granted a parole which permitted her to walk at will about the hospital grounds. after one of these walks, taken in the early spring, she rushed up to my informant and, with childlike simplicity, told him of the thrill of delight she had experienced in discovering the first flower of the year in full bloom--a dandelion, which, with characteristic audacity, had risked its life by braving the elements of an uncertain season. "did you pick it?" asked the doctor. "i stooped to do so," said the patient; "then i thought of the pleasure the sight of it had given me--so i left it, hoping that someone else would discover it and enjoy its beauty as i did." thus it was that a woman, while still insane, unconsciously exhibited perhaps finer feeling than did ruskin, tennyson, and patmore on an occasion the occurrence of which is vouched for by mr. julian hawthorne. these three masters, out for a walk one chilly afternoon in late autumn, discovered a belated violet bravely putting forth from the shelter of a mossy stone. not until these worthies had got down on all fours and done ceremonious homage to the flower did they resume their walk. suddenly ruskin halted and, planting his cane in the ground, exclaimed, "i don't believe, alfred--coventry, i don't believe that there are in all england three men besides ourselves who, after finding a violet at this time of year, would have had forbearance and fine feeling enough to refrain from plucking it." the reader may judge whether the unconscious display of feeling by the obscure inmate of a hospital for the insane was not finer than the self-conscious raptures of these three men of world-wide reputation. is it not, then, an atrocious anomaly that the treatment often meted out to insane persons is the very treatment which would deprive some sane persons of their reason? miners and shepherds who penetrate the mountain fastnesses sometimes become mentally unbalanced as a result of prolonged loneliness. but they usually know enough to return to civilization when they find themselves beginning to be affected with hallucinations. delay means death. contact with sane people, if not too long postponed, means an almost immediate restoration to normality. this is an illuminating fact. inasmuch as patients cannot usually be set free to absorb, as it were, sanity in the community, it is the duty of those entrusted with their care to treat them with the utmost tenderness and consideration. "after all," said a psychiatrist who had devoted a long life to work among the insane, both as an assistant physician and later as superintendent at various private and public hospitals, "what the insane most need is a _friend_!" these words, spoken to me, came with a certain startling freshness. and yet it was the sublime and healing power of this same love which received its most signal demonstration two thousand years ago at the hands of one who restored to reason and his home that man of scripture "who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces; neither could any man tame him. and always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. but when he saw jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, what have i to do with thee, jesus, thou son of the most high god? i adjure thee by god, that thou torment me not." trenck*** transcribed from the cassell & co. edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org, proofed by kenyon, uzma g., marie gilham, l. f. smith and david. the life and adventures of baron trenck translated by thomas holcroft. vol. ii. cassell & company, limited: _london_, _paris, new york & melbourne_. . introduction. thomas holcroft, the translator of these memoirs of baron trenck, was the author of about thirty plays, among which one, _the road to ruin_, produced in , has kept its place upon the stage. he was born in december, , the son of a shoemaker who did also a little business in horse-dealing. after early struggles, during which he contrived to learn french, german, and italian, holcroft contributed to a newspaper, turned actor, and wrote plays, which appeared between the years and . he produced also four novels, the first in , the last in . he was three times married, and lost his first wife in . in , his sympathy with ideals of the french revolutionists caused him to be involved with hardy, horne tooke, and thelwall, in a charge of high treason; but when these were acquitted, holcroft and eight others were discharged without trial. holcroft earned also by translation. he translated, besides these memoirs of baron trenck, mirabeau's _secret history of the court of berlin_, _les veillees du chateau_ of madame de genlis, and the posthumous works of frederick ii., king of prussia, in thirteen volumes. the memoirs of baron trenck were first published at berlin as his _merkwurdige lebensbeschreibung_, in three volumes octavo, in and . they were first translated into french by baron bock (metz, ); more fully by letourneur (paris, ); and again by himself (strasbourg, ), with considerable additions. holcroft translated from the french versions. h.m. chapter i. blessed shade of a beloved sister! the sacrifice of my adverse and dreadful fate! thee could i never avenge! thee could the blood of weingarten never appease! no asylum, however sacred, should have secured him, had he not sought that last of asylums for human wickedness and human woes--the grave! to thee do i dedicate these few pages, a tribute of thankfulness; and, if future rewards there are, may the brightest of these rewards be thine. for us, and not for ours, may rewards be expected from monarchs who, in apathy, have beheld our mortal sufferings. rest, noble soul, murdered though thou wert by the enemies of thy brother. again my blood boils, again my tears roll down my cheeks, when i remember thee, thy sufferings in my cause, and thy untimely end! i knew it not; i sought to thank thee; i found thee in the grave; i would have made retribution to thy children, but unjust, iron-hearted princes had deprived me of the power. can the virtuous heart conceive affliction more cruel? my own ills i would have endured with magnanimity; but thine are wrongs i have neither the power to forget nor heal. enough of this.-- the worthy emperor, francis i., shed tears when i afterwards had the honour of relating to him in person my past miseries; i beheld them flow, and gratitude threw me at his feet. his emotion was so great that he tore himself away. i left the palace with all the enthusiasm of soul which such a scene must inspire. he probably would have done more than pitied me, but his death soon followed. i relate this incident to convince posterity that francis i. possessed a heart worthy an emperor, worthy a man. in the knowledge i have had of monarchs he stands alone. frederic and theresa both died without doing me justice; i am now too old, too proud, have too much apathy, to expect it from their successors. petition i will not, knowing my rights; and justice from courts of law, however evident my claims, were in these courts vain indeed to expect. lawyers and advocates i know but too well, and an army to support my rights i have not. what heart that can feel but will pardon me these digressions! at the exact and simple recital of facts like these, the whole man must be roused, and the philosopher himself shudder. once more:--i heard nothing of what had happened for some days; at length, however, it was the honest gelfhardt's turn to mount guard; but the ports being doubled, and two additional grenadiers placed before my door, explanation was exceedingly difficult. he, however, in spite of precaution, found means to inform me of what had happened to his two unfortunate comrades. the king came to a review at magdeburg, when he visited star-fort, and commanded a new cell to be immediately made, prescribing himself the kind of irons by which i was to be secured. the honest gelfhardt heard the officer say this cell was meant for me, and gave me notice of it, but assured me it could not be ready in less than a month. i therefore determined, as soon as possible, to complete my breach in the wall, and escape without the aid of any one. the thing was possible; for i had twisted the hair of my mattress into a rope, which i meant to tie to a cannon, and descend the rampart, after which i might endeavour to swim across the elbe, gain the saxon frontiers, and thus safely escape. on the th of may i had determined to break into the next casemate; but when i came to work at the bricks, i found them so hard and strongly cemented that i was obliged to defer the labour till the following day. i left off, weary and spent, at daybreak, and should any one enter my dungeon, they must infallibly discover the breach. how dreadful is the destiny by which, through life, i have been persecuted, and which has continually plunged me headlong into calamity, when i imagined happiness was at hand! the th of may was a cruel day in the history of my life. my cell in the star-fort had been finished sooner than gelfhardt had supposed; and at night, when i was preparing to fly, i heard a carriage stop before my prison. o god! what was my terror, what were the horrors of this moment of despair! the locks and bolts resounded, the doors flew open, and the last of my poor remaining resources was to conceal my knife. the town- major, the major of the day, and a captain entered; i saw them by the light of their two lanterns. the only words they spoke were, "dress yourself," which was immediately done. i still wore the uniform of the regiment of cordova. irons were given me, which i was obliged myself to fasten on my wrists and ankles; the town-major tied a bandage over my eyes, and, taking me under the arm, they thus conducted me to the carriage. it was necessary to pass through the city to arrive at the star-fort; all was silent, except the noise of the escort; but when we entered magdeburg i heard the people running, who were crowding together to obtain a sight of me. their curiosity was raised by the report that i was going to be beheaded. that i was executed on this occasion in the star-fort, after having been conducted blindfold through the city, has since been both affirmed and written; and the officers had then orders to propagate this error that the world might remain in utter ignorance concerning me. i, indeed, knew otherwise, though i affected not to have this knowledge; and, as i was not gagged, i behaved as if i expected death, reproached my conductors in language that even made them shudder, and painted their king in his true colours, as one who, unheard, had condemned an innocent subject by a despotic exertion of power. my fortitude was admired, at the moment when it was supposed i thought myself leading to execution. no one replied, but their sighs intimated their compassion; certain it is, few prussians willingly execute such commands. the carriage at length stopped, and i was brought into my new cell. the bandage was taken from my eyes. the dungeon was lighted by a few torches. god of heaven! what were my feelings when i beheld the whole floor covered with chains, a fire-pan, and two grim men standing with their smiths' hammers! * * * * * to work went these engines of despotism! enormous chains were fixed to my ankle at one end, and at the other to a ring which was incorporated in the wall. this ring was three feet from the ground, and only allowed me to move about two or three feet to the right and left. they next riveted another huge iron ring, of a hand's breadth, round my naked body, to which hung a chain, fixed into an iron bar as thick as a man's arm. this bar was two feet in length, and at each end of it was a handcuff. the iron collar round my neck was not added till the year . * * * * * no soul bade me good night. all retired in dreadful silence; and i heard the horrible grating of four doors, that were successively locked and bolted upon me! thus does man act by his fellow, knowing him to be innocent, having received the commands of another man so to act. o god! thou alone knowest how my heart, void as it was of guilt, beat at this moment. there sat i, destitute, alone, in thick darkness, upon the bare earth, with a weight of fetters insupportable to nature, thanking thee that these cruel men had not discovered my knife, by which my miseries might yet find an end. death is a last certain refuge that can indeed bid defiance to the rage of tyranny. what shall i say? how shall i make the reader feel as i then felt? how describe my despondency, and yet account for that latent impulse that withheld my hand on this fatal, this miserable night? this misery i foresaw was not of short duration; i had heard of the wars that were lately broken out between austria and prussia. patiently to wait their termination, amid sufferings and wretchedness such as mine, appeared impossible, and freedom even then was doubtful. sad experience had i had of vienna, and well i knew that those who had despoiled me of my property most anxiously would endeavour to prevent my return. such were my meditations! such my night thoughts! day at length returned; but where was its splendour? fled! i beheld it not; yet was its glimmering obscurity sufficient to show me what was my dungeon. in breadth it was about eight feet; in length, ten. near me once more stood a night-table; in a corner was a seat, four bricks broad, on which i might sit, and recline against the wall. opposite the ring to which i was fastened, the light was admitted through a semi-circular aperture, one foot high, and two in diameter. this aperture ascended to the centre of the wall, which was six feet thick, and at this central part was a close iron grating, from which, outward, the aperture descended, and its two extremities were again secured by strong iron bars. my dungeon was built in the ditch of the fortification, and the aperture by which the light entered was so covered by the wall of the rampart that, instead of finding immediate passage, the light only gained admission by reflection. this, considering the smallness of the aperture, and the impediments of grating and iron bars, must needs make the obscurity great; yet my eyes, in time, became so accustomed to this glimmering that i could see a mouse run. in winter, however, when the sun did not shine into the ditch, it was eternal night with me. between the bars and the grating was a glass window, most curiously formed, with a small central casement, which might be opened to admit the air. my night-table was daily removed, and beside me stood a jug of water. the name of trenck was built in the wall, in red brick, and under my feet was a tombstone with the name of trenck also cut on it, and carved with a death's head. the doors to my dungeon were double, of oak, two inches thick; without these was an open space or front cell, in which was a window, and this space was likewise shut in by double doors. the ditch, in which this dreadful den was built, was enclosed on both sides by palisades, twelve feet high, the key of the door of which was entrusted to the officer of the guard, it being the king's intention to prevent all possibility of speech or communication with the sentinels. the only motion i had the power to make was that of jumping upward, or swinging my arms to procure myself warmth. when more accustomed to these fetters, i became capable of moving from side to side, about four feet; but this pained my shin-bones. the cell had been finished with lime and plaster but eleven days, and everybody supposed it would be impossible i should exist in these damps above a fortnight. i remained six months, continually immersed in very cold water, that trickled upon me from the thick arches under which i was; and i can safely affirm that, for the first three months, i was never dry; yet did i continue in health. i was visited daily, at noon, after relieving guard, and the doors were then obliged to be left open for some minutes, otherwise the dampness of the air put out their candles. this was my situation, and here i sat, destitute of friends, helplessly wretched, preyed on by all the torture of thought that continually suggested the most gloomy, the most horrid, the most dreadful of images. my heart was not yet wholly turned to stone; my fortitude was sunken to despondency; my dungeon was the very cave of despair; yet was my arm restrained, and this excess of misery endured. how then may hope be wholly eradicated from the heart of man? my fortitude, after some time, began to revive; i glowed with the desire of convincing the world i was capable of suffering what man had never suffered before; perhaps of at last emerging from this load of wretchedness triumphant over my enemies. so long and ardently did my fancy dwell on this picture, that my mind at length acquired a heroism which socrates himself certainly never possessed. age had benumbed his sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool indifference; but i was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding deliverance impossible, or at an immense, a dreadful distance. such, too, were the other sufferings of soul and body, i could not hope they might be supported and live. about noon my den was opened. sorrow and compassion were painted on the countenances of my keepers. no one spoke; no one bade me good morrow. dreadful indeed was their arrival; for, unaccustomed to the monstrous bolts and bars, they were kept resounding for a full half-hour before such soul-chilling, such hope-murdering impediments were removed. it was the voice of tyranny that thundered. my night-table was taken out, a camp-bed, mattress, and blankets were brought me; a jug of water set down, and beside it an ammunition loaf of six pounds' weight. "that you may no more complain of hunger," said the town-major, "you shall have as much bread as you can eat." the door was shut, and i again left to my thoughts. what a strange thing is that called happiness! how shall i express my extreme joy when, after eleven months of intolerable hunger, i was again indulged with a full feast of coarse ammunition bread? the fond lover never rushed more eagerly to the arias of his expecting bride, the famished tiger more ravenously on his prey, than i upon this loaf. i ate, rested; surveyed the precious morsel; ate again; and absolutely shed tears of pleasure. breaking bit after bit, i had by evening devoured all my loaf. oh, nature! what delight hast thou combined with the gratification of thy wants! remember this, ye who gorge, ye who rack invention to excite appetite, and yet which you cannot procure! remember how simple are the means that will give a crust of mouldy bread a flavour more exquisite than all the spices of the east, or all the profusion of land or sea! remember this, grow hungry, and indulge your sensuality. alas! my enjoyment was of short duration. i soon found that excess is followed by pain and repentance. my fasting had weakened digestion, and rendered it inactive. my body swelled, my water-jug was emptied; cramps, colics, and at length inordinate thirst racked me all the night. i began to pour curses on those who seemed to refine on torture, and, after starving me so long, to invite me to gluttony. could i not have reclined on my bed, i should indeed have been driven, this night, to desperation; yet even this was but a partial relief; for, not yet accustomed to my enormous fetters, i could not extend myself in the same manner i was afterwards taught to do by habit. i dragged them, however, so together as to enable me to sit down on the bare mattress. this, of all my nights of suffering, stands foremost. when they opened my dungeon next day they found me in a truly pitiable situation, wondered at my appetite, brought me another loaf; i refused to accept it, believing i nevermore should have occasion for bread; they, however, left me one, gave me water, shrugged up their shoulders, wished me farewell, as, according to all appearance, they never expected to find me alive, and shut all the doors, without asking whether i wished or needed further assistance. three days had passed before i could again eat a morsel of bread; and my mind, brave in health, now in a sick body became pusillanimous, so that i determined on death. the irons, everywhere round my body, and their weight, were insupportable; nor could i imagine it was possible i should habituate myself to them, or endure them long enough to expect deliverance. peace was a very distant prospect. the king had commanded that such a prison should be built as should exclude all necessity of a sentinel, in order that i might not converse with and seduce them from what is called their duty: and, in the first days of despair, deliverance appeared impossible; and the fetters, the war, the pain i felt, the place, the length of time, each circumstance seemed equally impossible to support. a thousand reasons convinced me it was necessary to end my sufferings. i shall not enter into theological disputes: let those who blame me imagine themselves in my situation; or rather let them first actually endure my miseries, and then let them reason. i had often braved death in prosperity, and at this moment it seemed a blessing. full of these meditations, every minute's patience appeared absurdity, and resolution meanness of soul; yet i wished my mind should be satisfied that reason, and not rashness, had induced the act. i therefore determined, that i might examine the question coolly, to wait a week longer, and die on the fourth of july. in the meantime i revolved in my mind what possible means there were of escape, not fearing, naked and chained, to rush and expire on the bayonets of my enemies. the next day i observed, as the four doors were opened, that they were only of wood, therefore questioned whether i might not even cut off the locks with the knife that i had so fortunately concealed: and should this and every other means fail, then would be the time to die. i likewise determined to make an attempt to free myself of my chains. i happily forced my right hand through the handcuff, though the blood trickled from my nails. my attempts on the left were long ineffectual; but by rubbing with a brick, which i got from my seat, on the rivet that had been negligently closed, i effected this also. the chain was fastened to the run round my body by a hook, one end of which was not inserted in the rim; therefore, by setting my foot against the wall, i had strength enough so far to bend this hook back, and open it, as to force out the link of the chain. the remaining difficulty was the chain that attached my foot to the wall: the links of this i took, doubled, twisted, and wrenched, till at length, nature having bestowed on me great strength, i made a desperate effort, sprang forcibly up, and two links at once flew off. fortunate, indeed, did i think myself: i hastened to the door, groped in the dark to find the clinkings of the nails by which the lock was fastened, and discovered no very large piece of wood need be cut. immediately i went to work with my knife, and cut through the oak door to find its thickness, which proved to be only one inch, therefore it was possible to open all the four doors in four-and-twenty hours. again hope revived in my heart. to prevent detection i hastened to put on my chains; but, o god! what difficulties had i to surmount! after much groping about, i at length found the link that had flown off; this i hid: it being my good fortune hitherto to escape examination, as the possibility of ridding myself of such chains was in nowise suspected. the separated iron links i tied together with my hair ribbon; but when i again endeavoured to force my hand into the ring, it was so swelled that every effort was fruitless. the whole might was employed upon the rivet, but all labour was in vain. noon was the hour of visitation, and necessity and danger again obliged me to attempt forcing my hand in, which at length, after excruciating torture, i effected. my visitors came, and everything had the appearance of order. i found it, however, impossible to force out my right hand while it continued swelled. i therefore remained quiet till the day fixed, and on the determined fourth of july, immediately as my visitors had closed the doors upon me, i disencumbered myself of my irons, took my knife, and began my herculean labour on the door. the first of the double doors that opened inwards was conquered in less than an hour; the other was a very different task. the lock was soon cut round, but it opened outwards; there was therefore no other means left but to cut the whole door away above the bar. incessant and incredible labour made this possible, though it was the more difficult as everything was to be done by feeling, i being totally in the dark; the sweat dropped, or rather flowed, from my body; my fingers were clotted in my own blood, and my lacerated hands were one continued wound. daylight appeared: i clambered over the door that was half cut away, and got up to the window in the space or cell that was between the double doors, as before described. here i saw my dungeon was in the ditch of the first rampart: before me i beheld the road from the rampart, the guard but fifty paces distant, and the high palisades that were in the ditch, and must be scaled before i could reach the rampart. hope grew stronger; my efforts were redoubled. the first of the next double doors was attacked, which likewise opened inward, and was soon conquered. the sun set before i had ended this, and the fourth was to be cut away as the second had been. my strength failed; both my hands were raw; i rested awhile, began again, and had made a cut of a foot long, when my knife snapped, and the broken blade dropped to the ground! god of omnipotence! what was i at this moment? was there, god of mercies! was there ever creature of thine more justified than i in despair? the moon shone very clear; i cast a wild and distracted look up to heaven, fell on my knees, and in the agony of my soul sought comfort: but no comfort could be found; nor religion nor philosophy had any to give. i cursed not providence, i feared not annihilation, i dared not almighty vengeance; god the creator was the disposer of my fate; and if he heaped afflictions upon me he had not given me strength to support, his justice would not therefore punish me. to him, the judge of the quick and dead, i committed my soul, seized the broken knife, gashed through the veins of my left arm and foot, sat myself tranquilly down, and saw the blood flow. nature, overpowered fainted, and i know not how long i remained, slumbering, in this state. suddenly i heard my own name, awoke, and again heard the words, "baron trenck!" my answer was, "who calls?" and who indeed was it--who but my honest grenadier gelfhardt--my former faithful friend in the citadel! the good, the kind fellow had got upon the rampart, that he might comfort me. "how do you do?" said gelfhardt. "weltering in my blood," answered i; "to-morrow you will find me dead."--"why should you die?" replied he. "it is much easier for you to escape here than from the citadel! here is no sentinel, and i shall soon find means to provide you with tools; if you can only break out, leave the rest to me. as often as i am on guard, i will seek opportunity to speak to you. in the whole star-fort, there are but two sentinels: the one at the entrance, and the other at the guard- house. do not despair; god will succour you; trust to me." the good man's kindness and discourse revived my hopes: i saw the possibility of an escape. a secret joy diffused itself through my soul. i immediately tore my shirt, bound up my wounds, and waited the approach of day; and the sun soon after shone through the window, to me, with unaccustomed brightness. let the reader judge how far it was chance, or the effect of divine providence, that in this dreadful hour my heart again received hope. who was it sent the honest gelfhardt, at such a moment, to my prison? for, had it not been for him, i had certainly, when i awoke from my slumbers, cut more effectually through my arteries. till noon i had time to consider what might further be done: yet what could be done, what expected, but that i should now be much more cruelly treated, and even more insupportably ironed than before--finding, as they must, the doors cut through and my fetters shaken off? after mature consideration, i therefore made the following resolution, which succeeded happily, and even beyond my hopes. before i proceed, however, i will speak a few words concerning my situation at this moment. it is impossible to describe how much i was exhausted. the prison swam with blood; and certainly but little was left in my body. with painful wounds, swelled and torn hands, i there stood shirtless, felt an inclination to sleep almost irresistible, and scarcely had strength to keep my legs, yet was i obliged to rouse myself, that i might execute my plan. with the bar that separated my hands, i loosened the bricks of my seat, which, being newly laid, was easily done, and heaped them up in the middle of my prison. the inner door was quite open, and with my chains i so barricaded the upper half of the second as to prevent any one climbing over it. when noon came and the first of the doors was unlocked, all were astonished to find the second open. there i stood, besmeared with blood, the picture of horror, with a brick in one hand, and in the other my broken knife, crying, as they approached, "keep off, mr. major, keep off! tell the governor i will live no longer in chains, and that here i stand, if so he pleases, to be shot; for so only will i be conquered. here no man shall enter--i will destroy all that approach; here are my weapons; lucre will i die in despite of tyranny." the major was terrified, wanted resolution, and made his report to the governor. i meantime sat down on my bricks, to wait what might happen: my secret intent, however, was not so desperate as it appeared. i sought only to obtain a favourable capitulation. the governor, general borck, presently came, attended by the town-major and some officers, and entered the outward cell, but sprang back the moment he beheld a figure like me, standing with a brick and uplifted arm. i repeated what i had told the major, and he immediately ordered six grenadiers to force the door. the front cell was scarcely six feet broad, so that no more than two at a time could attack my intrenchment, and when they saw my threatening bricks ready to descend, they leaped terrified back. a short pause ensued, and the old town-major, with the chaplain, advanced towards the door to soothe me: the conversation continued some time: whose reasons were most satisfactory, and whose cause was the most just, i leave to the reader. the governor grew angry, and ordered a fresh attack. the first grenadier was knocked down, and the rest ran back to avoid my missiles. the town-major again began a parley. "for god's sake, my dear trenck," said he, "in what have i injured you, that you endeavour to effect my ruin? i must answer for your having, through my negligence, concealed a knife. be persuaded, i entreat you. be appeased. you are not without hope, nor without friends." my answer was--"but will you not load me with heavier irons than before?" he went out, spoke with the governor, and gave me his word of honour that the affair should be no further noticed, and that everything should be exactly reinstated as formerly. here ended the capitulation, and my wretched citadel was taken. the condition i was in was viewed with pity; my wounds were examined, a surgeon sent to dress them, another shirt was given me, and the bricks, clotted with blood, removed. i, meantime, lay half dead on my mattress; my thirst was excessive. the surgeon ordered me some wine. two sentinels were stationed in the front cell, and i was thus left four days in peace, unironed. broth also was given me daily, and how delicious this was to taste, how much it revived and strengthened me, is wholly impossible to describe. two days i lay in a slumbering kind of trance, forced by unquenchable thirst to drink whenever i awoke. my feet and hands were swelled; the pains in my back and limbs were excessive. on the fifth day the doors were ready; the inner was entirely plated with iron, and i was fettered as before: perhaps they found further cruelty unnecessary. the principal chain, however, which fastened me to the wall, like that i had before broken, was thicker than the first. except this, the capitulation was strictly kept. they deeply regretted that, without the king's express commands, they could not lighten my afflictions, wished me fortitude and patience, and barred up my doors. it is necessary i should here describe my dress. my hands being fixed and kept asunder by an iron bar, and my feet chained to the wall, i could neither put on shirt nor stockings in the usual mode; the shirt was therefore tied, and changed once a fortnight; the coarse ammunition stockings were buttoned on the sides; a blue garment, of soldier's cloth, was likewise tied round me, and i had a pair of slippers for my feet. the shirt was of the army linen; and when i contemplated myself in this dress of a malefactor, chained thus to the wall in such a dungeon, vainly imploring mercy or justice, my conscience void of reproach, my heart of guilt--when i reflected on my former splendour in berlin and moscow, and compared it with this sad, this dreadful reverse of destiny, i was sunk in grief, or roused to indignation, that might have hurried the greatest hero or philosopher to madness or despair. i felt what can only be imagined by him who has suffered like me, after having like me flourished, if such can be found. pride, the justness of my cause, the unbounded confidence i had in my own resolution, and the labours of an inventive head and iron body--these only could have preserved my life. these bodily labours, these continued inventions, and projected plans to obtain my freedom, preserved my health. who would suppose that a man fettered as i was could find means of exercising himself? by swinging my arms, acting with the upper part of my body, and leaping upwards, i frequently put myself in a strong perspiration. after thus wearying myself i slept soundly, and often thought how many generals, obliged to support the inclemencies of weather, and all the dangers of the field--how many of those who had plunged me into this den of misery, would have been most glad could they, like me, have slept with a quiet conscience. often did i reflect how much happier i was than those tortured on the bed of sickness by gout, stone, and other terrible diseases. how much happier was i in innocence than the malefactor doomed to suffer the pangs of death, the ignominy of men, and the horrors of internal guilt! chapter ii. in the following part of my history it will appear i often had much money concealed under the ground and in the walls of my den, yet would i have given a hundred ducats for a morsel of bread, it could not have been procured. money was to me useless. in this i resembled the miser, who hoards, yet hives in wretchedness, having no joy in gentle acts of benevolence. as proudly might i delight myself with my hidden treasure as such misers; nay, more, for i was secure from robbers. had fastidious pomp been my pleasure, i might have imagined myself some old field-marshal bedridden, who hears two grenadier sentinels at his door call, "who goes there?" my honour, indeed, was still greater; for, during my last year's imprisonment, my door was guarded by no less than four. my vanity also might have been flattered: i might hence conclude how high was the value set upon my head, since all this trouble was taken to hold me in security. certain it is that in my chains i thought more rationally, more nobly, reasoned more philosophically on man, his nature, his zeal, his imaginary wants, the effects of his ambition, his passions, and saw more distinctly his dream of earthly good, than those who had imprisoned, or those who guarded me. i was void of the fears that haunt the parasite who servilely wears the fetters of a court, and daily trembles for the loss of what vice and cunning have acquired. those who had usurped the sclavonian estates, and feasted sumptuously from the service of plate i had been robbed of, never ate their dainties with so sweet an appetite as i my ammunition bread, nor did their high-flavoured wines flow so limpid as my cold water. thus, the man who thinks, being pure of heart, will find consolation when under the most dreadful calamities, convinced, as he must be, that those apparently most are frequently least happy, insensible as they are of the pleasures they might enjoy. evil is never so great as it appears. "sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head." _as you like it_. happy he who, like me, having suffered, can become an example to his suffering brethren! youth, prosperous, and imagining eternal prosperity, read my history attentively, though i should be in my grave! read feelingly, and bless my sleeping dust, if it has taught thee wisdom or fortitude! father, reading this, say to thy children, i felt thus like them, in blooming youth, little prophesied of misfortune, which after fell so heavy on me, and by which i am even still persecuted! say that i had virtue, ambition, was educated in noble principles; that i laboured with all the zeal of enthusiastic youth to become wiser, better, greater than other men; that i was guilty of no crimes, was the friend of men, was no deceiver of man or woman; that i first served my own country faithfully, and after, every other in which i found bread; that i was never, during life, once intoxicated; was no gamester, no night rambler, no contemptible idler; that yet, through envy and arbitrary power, i have fallen to misery such as none but the worst of criminals ought to feel. brother, fly those countries where the lawgiver himself knows no law, where truth and virtue are punished as crimes; and, if fly you cannot, be it your endeavour to remain unknown, unnoticed; in such countries, seek not favour or honourable employ, else will you become, when your merits are known, as i have been, the victim of slander and treachery: the behests of power will persecute you, and innocence will not shield you from the shafts of wicked men who are envious, or who wish to obtain the favour of princes, though by the worst of means. sire, imagine not that thou readest a romance. my head is grey, like thine. read, yet despise not the world, though it has treated me thus unthankfully. good men have i also found, who have befriended me in misfortunes, and there, where i had least claim, have i found them most. may my book assist thee in noble thoughts; mayest thou die as tranquilly as i shall render up my soul to appear before the judge of me and my persecutors. be death but thought a transition from motion to rest. few are the delights of this world for him who, like me, has learned to know it. murmur not, despair not of providence. me, through storms, it has brought to haven; through many griefs to self-knowledge; and through prisons to philosophy. he only can tranquilly descend to annihilation who finds reason not to repent he has once existed. my rudder broke not amid the rocks and quicksands, but my bark was cast upon the strand of knowledge. yet, even on these clear shores are impenetrable clouds. i have seen more distinctly than it is supposed men ought to see. age will decay the faculties, and mental, like bodily sight, must then decrease. i even grew weary of science, and envied the blind-born, or those who, till death, have been wilfully hoodwinked. how often have i been asked, "what didst thou see?" and when i answered with sincerity and truth, how often have i been derided as a liar, and been persecuted by those who determined not to see themselves, as an innovator singular and rash! sire, i further say to thee, teach thy descendants to seek the golden mean, and say with gellert--"the boy fritz needs nothing;--his stupidity will insure his success, examine our wealthy and titled lords, what are their abilities and honours, then inquire how they were attained, and, if thou canst, discover in what true happiness consists." once more to my prison. the failure of my escape, and the recovery of life from this state of despair, led me to moralise deeper than i had ever done before; and in this depth of thought i found unexpected consolation and fortitude, and a firm persuasion i yet should accomplish my deliverance. gelfhardt, my honest grenadier, had infused fresh hope, and my mind now busily began to meditate new plans. a sentinel was placed before my door, that i might be more narrowly watched, and the married men of the prussian states were appointed to this duty, who, as i will hereafter show, were more easy to persuade in aiding my flight than foreign fugitives. the pomeranian will listen, and is by nature kind, therefore may easily be moved, and induced to succour distress. i began to be more accustomed to my irons, which i had before found so insupportable; i could comb out my long hair, and could tie it at last with one hand. my beard, which had so long remained unshaven, gave me a grim appearance, and i began to pluck it up by the roots. the pain at first was considerable, especially about the lips; but this also custom conquered, and i performed this operation in the following years, once in six weeks, or two months, as the hair thus plucked up required that length of time before the nails could again get hold. vermin did not molest me; the dampness of my den was inimical to them. my limbs never swelled, because of the exercise i gave myself, as before described. the greatest pain i found was in the continued unvivifying dimness in which i lived. i had read much, had lived in, and seen much of the world. vacuity of thought, therefore, i was little troubled with; the former transactions of my life, and the remembrance of the persons i had known, i revolved so often in my mind, that they became as familiar and connected as if the events had each been written in the order it occurred. habit made this mental exercise so perfect to me, that i could compose speeches, fables, odes, satires, all of which i repeated aloud, and had so stored my memory with them that i was enabled, after i had obtained my freedom, to commit to writing two volumes of my prison labours. accustomed to this exercise, days that would otherwise have been days of misery appeared but as a moment. the following narrative will show how munch esteem, how many friends, these compositions procured me, even in my dungeon; insomuch that i obtained light, paper, and finally freedom itself. for these i have to thank the industrious acquirements of my youth; therefore do i counsel all my readers so to employ their time. riches, honours, the favours of fortune, may be showered by monarchs upon the most worthless; but monarchs can give and take, say and unsay, raise and pull down. monarchs, however, can neither give wisdom nor virtue. arbitrary power itself, in the presence of these, is foiled. how wisely has providence ordained that the endowments of industry, learning, and science, given by ourselves, cannot be taken from us; while, on the contrary, what others bestow is a fantastical dream, from which any accident may awaken us! the wrath of frederic could destroy legions, and defeat armies; but it could not take from me the sense of honour, of innocence, and their sweet concomitant, peace of mind--could not deprive me of fortitude and magnanimity. i defied his power, rested on the justice of my cause, found in myself expedients wherewith to oppose him, was at length crowned with conquest, and came forth to the world the martyr of suffering virtue. some of my oppressors now rot in dishonourable graves. others, alas! in vienna, remain immured in houses of correction, as krugel and zeto, or beg their bread, like gravenitz and doo. nor are the wealthy possessors of my estates more fortunate, but look down with shame wherever i and my children appear. we stand erect, esteemed, and honoured, while their injustice is manifest to the whole world. young man, be industrious: for without industry can none of the treasures i have described be purchased. thy labour will reward itself; then, when assaulted by misfortune, or even misery, learn of me and smile; or, shouldst thou escape such trials, still labour to acquire wisdom, that in old age thou mayest find content and happiness. the years in my dungeon passed away as days, those moments excepted when, thinking on the great world, and the deeds of great men, my ambition was roused: except when, contemplating the vileness of my chains, and the wretchedness of my situation, i laboured for liberty, and found my labours endless and ineffectual; except while i remembered the triumph of my enemies, and the splendour in which those lived by whom i had been plundered. then, indeed, did i experience intervals that approached madness, despair, and horror: beholding myself destitute of friend or protector, the empress herself, for whose sake i suffered, deserting me; reflecting on past times and past prosperity; remembering how the good and virtuous, from the cruel nature of my punishment, must be obliged to conclude me a wretch and a villain, and that all means of justification were cut off: o god! how did my heart beat! with what violence! what would i not have undertaken, in these suffering moments, to have put my enemies to shame! vengeance and rage then rose rebellious against patience; long-suffering philosophy vanished, and the poisoned cup of socrates would have been the nectar of the gods. man deprived of hope is man destroyed. i found but little probability in all my plans and projects; yet did i trust that some of them should succeed, yet did i confide in them and my honest gelfhardt, and that i should still free myself from my chains. the greatest of all my incitements to patient endurance was love. i had left behind me, in vienna, a lady for whom the world still was dear to me; her would i neither desert nor afflict. to her and my sister was my existence still necessary. for their sakes, who had lost and suffered so much for mine, would i preserve my life; for them no difficulty, no suffering was too great; yet, alas! when long-desired liberty was restored, i found them both in their graves. the joy, for which i had borne so much, was no more to be tasted. about three weeks after my attempt to escape, the good gelfhardt first came to stand sentinel over me; and the sentinel they had so carefully set was indeed the only hope i could have of escape; for help must be had from without, or this was impossible. the effort i had made had excited too munch surprise and alarm for me to pass without strict examination; since, on the ninth day after i was confined, i had, in eighteen hours, so far broken through a prison built purposely for myself, by a combination of so many projectors, and with such extreme precaution, that it had been universally declared impenetrable. gelfhardt scarcely had taken his post before we had free opportunity of conversing together; for, when i stood with one foot on my bedstead, i could reach the aperture through which light was admitted. gelfhardt described the situation of my dungeon, and our first plan was to break under the foundation which he had seen laid, and which he affirmed to be only two feet deep. money was the first thing necessary. gelfhardt was relieved during his guard, and returned bringing within him a sheet of paper rolled on a wire, which he passed through my grating; as he also did a piece of small wax candle, some burning amadone (a kind of tinder), a match, and a pen. i now had light, and i pricked my finger, and wrote with my blood to my faithful friend, captain ruckhardt, at vienna, described my situation in a few words, sent him an acquittance for three thousand florins on my revenues, and requested he would dispose of a thousand florins to defray the expenses of his journey to gummern, only two miles from magdeburg. here he was positively to be on the th of august. about noon, on this same day, he was to walk with a letter in his hand; and a man was there to meet him, carrying a roll of smoking tobacco, to whom he must remit the two thousand florins, and return to vienna. i returned the written paper to gelfhardt by the same means it had been received, gave him my instructions, and he sent his wife with it to gummern, by whom it was safely put in the post. my hopes daily rose, and as often as gelfhardt mounted guard, so often did we continue our projects. the th of august came, but it was some days before gelfhardt was again on guard; and oh! how did my heart palpitate when he came and exclaimed, "all is right! we have succeeded." he returned in the evening, and we began to consider by what means he could convey the money to me. i could not, with my hands chained to an iron bar, reach the aperture of the window that admitted air--besides that it was too small. it was therefore agreed that gelfhardt should, on the next guard, perform the office of cleaning my dungeon, and that he then should convey the money to me in the water-jug. this luckily was done. how great was my astonishment when, instead of one, i found two thousand florins! for i had permitted him to reserve half to himself, as a reward for his fidelity; he, however, had kept but five pistoles, which he persisted was enough. worthy gelfhardt! this was the act of a pomeranian grenadier! how rare are such examples! be thy name and mine ever united! live thou while the memory of me shall live! never did my acquaintance with the great bring to my knowledge a soul so noble, so disinterested! it is true, i afterwards prevailed on him to accept the whole thousand; but we shall soon see he never had them, and that his foolish wife, three years after, suffered by their means; however, she suffered alone, for he soon marched to the field, and therefore was unpunished. having money to carry on my designs, i began to put my plan of burrowing under the foundation into execution. the first thing necessary was to free myself from my fetters. to accomplish this, gelfhardt supplied me with two small files, and by the aid of these, this labour, though great, was effected. the cap, or staple, of the foot ring was made so wide that i could draw it forward a quarter of an inch. i filed the iron which passed through it on the inside; the more i filed this away, the farther i could draw the cap down, till at last the whole inside iron, through which the chains passed, was cut quite through! by this means i could slip off the ring, while the cap on the outside continued whole, and it was impossible to discover any cut, as only the outside could be examined. my hands, by continued efforts, i so compressed as to be able to draw them out of the handcuffs. i then filed the hinge, and made a screw-driver of one of the foot-long flooring nails, by which i could take out the screw at pleasure, so that at the time of examination no proofs could appear. the rim round my body was but a small impediment, except the chain, which passed from my hand-bar: and this i removed, by filing an aperture in one of the links, which, at the necessary hour, i closed with bread, rubbed over with rusty-iron, first drying it by the heat of my body; and would wager any sum that, without striking the chain link by link, with a hammer, no one not in the secret would have discovered the fracture. the window was never strictly examined; i therefore drew the two staples by which the iron bars were fixed to the wall, and which i daily replaced, carefully plastering them over. i procured wire from gelfhardt, and tried how well i could imitate the inner grating: finding i succeeded tolerably, i cut the real grating totally away, and substituted an artificial one of my own fabricating, by which i obtained a free communication with the outside, additional fresh air, together with all necessary implements, tinder, and candles. that the light might not be seen, i hung the coverlid of my bed before the window, so that i could work fearless and undetected. every thing prepared, i went to work. the floor of my dungeon was not of stone, but oak plank, three inches thick; three beds of which were laid crossways, and were fastened to each other by nails half an inch in diameter, and a foot long. raving worked round the head of a nail, i made use of the hole at the end of the bar, which separated my hands, to draw it out, and this nail, sharpened upon my tombstone, made an excellent chisel. i now cut through the board more than an inch in width, that i might work downwards, and having drawn away a piece of board which was inserted two inches under the wall, i cut this so as exactly to fit; the small crevice it occasioned i stopped up with bread and strewed over with dust, so as to prevent all suspicious appearance. my labour under this was continued with less precaution, and i had soon worked through my nine-inch planks. under them i came to a fine white sand, on which the star fort was built. my chips i carefully distributed beneath the boards. if i had not help from without, i could proceed no farther; for to dig were useless, unless i could rid myself of my rubbish. gelfhardt supplied me with some ells of cloth, of which i made long narrow bags, stuffed them with earth, and passed them between the iron bars, to gelfhardt, who, as he was on guard, scattered or conveyed away their contents. furnished with room to secrete them under the floor, i obtained more instruments, together with a pair of pistols, powder, ball, and a bayonet. i now discovered that the foundation of my prison, instead of two, was sunken four feet deep. time, labour, and patience were all necessary to break out unheard and undiscovered; but few things are impossible, where resolution is not wanting. the hole i made was obliged to be four feet deep, corresponding with the foundation, and wide enough to kneel and stoop in: the lying down on the floor to work, the continual stooping to throw out the earth, the narrow space in which all must be performed, these made the labour incredible: and, after this daily labour, all things were to be replaced, and my chains again resumed, which alone required some hours to effect. my greatest aid was in the wax candles, and light i had procured; but as gelfhardt stood sentinel only once a fortnight, my work was much delayed; the sentinels were forbidden to speak to me under pain of death: and i was too fearful of being betrayed to dare to seek new assistance. being without a stove, i suffered much this winter from cold; yet my heart was cheerful as i saw the probability of freedom; and all were astonished to find me in such good spirits. gelfhardt also brought me supplies of provisions, chiefly consisting of sausages and salt meats, ready dressed, which increased my strength, and when i was not digging, i wrote satires and verses: thus time was employed, and i contented even in prison. lulled into security, an accident happened that will appear almost incredible, and by which every hope was nearly frustrated. gelfhardt had been working with me, and was relieved in the morning. as i was replacing the window, which i was obliged to remove on these occasions, it fell out of my hand, and three of the glass panes were broken. gelfhardt was not to return till guard was again relieved: i had therefore no opportunity of speaking with him, or concerting any mode of repair. i remained nearly an hour conjecturing and hesitating; for certainly had the broken window been seen, as it was impossible i should reach it when fettered, i should immediately have been more rigidly examined, and the false grating must have been discovered. i therefore came to a resolution, and spoke to the sentinel (who was amusing himself with whistling), thus: "my good fellow, have pity, not upon me, but upon your comrades, who, should you refuse, will certainly be executed: i will throw you thirty pistoles through the window, if you will do me a small favour." he remained some moments silent, and at last answered in a low voice, "what, have you money, then?"--i immediately counted thirty pistoles, and threw them through the window. he asked what he was to do: i told him my difficulty, and gave him the size of the panes in paper. the man fortunately was bold and prudent. the door of the pallisadoes, through the negligence of the officer, had not been shut that day: he prevailed on one of his comrades to stand sentinel for him, during half an hour, while he meantime ran into the town, and procured the glass, on the receipt of which i instantly threw him out ten more pistoles. before the hour of noon and visitation came, everything was once more reinstated, my glaziery performed to a miracle, and the life of my worthy gelfhardt preserved!--such is the power of money in this world! this is a very remarkable incident, for i never spoke after to the man who did me this signal service. gelfhardt's alarm may easily be imagined; he some days after returned to his post, and was the more astonished as he knew the sentinel who had done me this good office; that he had five children, and a man most to be depended on by his officers, of any one in the whole grenadier company. i now continued my labour, and found it very possible to break out under the foundation; but gelfhardt had been so terrified by the late accident, that he started a thousand difficulties, in proportion as my end was more nearly accomplished; and at the moment when i wished to concert with him the means of flight, he persisted it was necessary to find additional help, to escape in safety, and not bring both him and myself to destruction. at length we came to the following determination, which, however, after eight months' incessant labour, rendered my whole project abortive. i wrote once more to ruckhardt, at vienna; sent him a new assignment for money, and desired he would again repair to gummern, where he should wait six several nights, with two spare horses, on the glacis of klosterbergen, at the time appointed, everything being prepared for flight. within these six days gelfhardt would have found means, either in rotation, or by exchanging the guard, to have been with me. alas! the sweet hope of again beholding the face of the sun, of once more obtaining my freedom, endured but three days: providence thought proper otherwise to ordain. gelfhardt sent his wife to gummern with the letter, and this silly woman told the post-master her husband had a lawsuit at vienna, that therefore she begged he would take particular care of the letter, for which purpose she slipped ten rix-dollars into his hand. this unexpected liberality raised the suspicions of the saxon post-master, who therefore opened the letter, read the contents, and instead of sending it to vienna, or at least to the general post-master at dresden, he preferred the traitorous act of taking it himself to the governor of magdeburg, who then, as at present, was prince ferdinand of brunswick. what were my terrors, what my despair, when i beheld the prince himself, about three o'clock in the afternoon, enter my prison with his attendants, present my letter, and ask, in an authoritative voice, who had carried it to gummern. my answer was, "i know not." strict search was immediately made by smiths, carpenters, and masons, and after half an hour's examination, they discovered neither my hole nor the manner in which i disencumbered myself of my chains; they only saw that the middle grating, in the aperture where the light was admitted, had been removed. this was boarded up the next day, only a small air-hole left, of about six inches diameter. the prince began to threaten; i persisted i had never seen the sentinel who had rendered me this service, nor asked his name. seeing his attempts all ineffectual, the governor, in a milder tone, said, "you have ever complained, baron trenck, of not having been legally sentenced, or heard in your own defence; i give you my word of honour, this you shall be, and also that you shall be released from your fetters, if you will only tell me who took your letter." to this i replied, with all the fortitude of innocence, "everybody knows, my lord, i have never deserved the treatment i have met with in my country. my heart is irreproachable. i seek to recover my liberty by every means in my power: but were i capable of betraying the man whose compassion has induced him to succour my distress; were i the coward that could purchase happiness at his expense, i then should, indeed, deserve to wear those chains with which i am loaded. for myself, do with me what you please: yet remember i am not wholly destitute: i am still a captain in the imperial service, and a descendant of the house of trenck." prince ferdinand stood for a moment unable to answer; then renewed his threats, and left my dungeon. i have since been told that, when he was out of hearing, he said to those around him, "i pity his hard fate, and cannot but admire his strength of mind!" i must here remark that, when we remember the usual circumspection of this great man, we are obliged to wonder at his imprudence in holding a conversation of such a kind with me, which lasted a considerable time, in the presence of the guard. the soldiers of the whole garrison had afterwards the utmost confidence, as they were convinced i would not meanly devote others to destruction, that i might benefit myself. this was the way to gain me esteem and intercourse among the men, especially as the duke had said he knew i must have money concealed, for that i had distributed some to the sentinels. he had scarcely been gone an hour, before i heard a noise near my prison. i listened--what could it be? i heard talking, and learned a grenadier had hanged himself to the pallisadoes of my prison. the officer of the town-guard, and the town-major again entered my dungeon to fetch a lanthorn they had forgotten, and the officer at going out, told me in a whisper, "one of your associates has just hanged himself." it was impossible to imagine my terror or sensations; i believed it could be only my kind, my honest gelfhardt. after many gloomy thoughts, and lamenting the unhappy end of so worthy a fellow, i began to recollect what the prince had promised me, if i would discover the accomplice. i knocked at the door, and desired to speak to the officer; he came to the window and asked me what i wanted; i requested he would inform the governor that if he would send me light, pen, ink, and paper, i would discover my whole secret. these were accordingly sent, an hour's time was granted; the door was shut, and i was left alone. i sat myself down, began to write on my night-table, and was about to insert the name of gelfhardt, but my blood thrilled, and shrank back to my heart. i shuddered, rose, went to the aperture of the window and called, "is there no man who in compassion will tell me the name of him who has hanged himself, that i may deliver many others from destruction?" the window was not nailed up till the next day; i therefore wrapped five pistoles in a paper, threw them out, called to the sentinel, and said, "friend, take these, and save thy comrades; or go and betray me, and bring down innocent blood upon thy head!" the paper was taken up; a pause of silence ensued: i heard sighs, and presently after a low voice said, "his name is schutz; he belonged to the company of ripps." i had never heard the name before, or known the man, but i however immediately wrote schutz, instead of gelfhardt. having finished the letter i called the lieutenant, who took that and the light away, and again barred up the door of my dungeon. the duke, however, suspected there must be some evasion, and everything remained in the same state: i obtained neither hearing nor court-martial. i learned, in the sequel, the following circumstances, which will display the truth of this apparently incredible story. while i was imprisoned in the citadel, a sentinel came to the post under my window, cursed and blasphemed, exclaiming aloud against the prussian service, and saying, if trenck only knew my mind, he would not long continue in his hole! i entered into discourse with him, and he told me, if i could give him money to purchase a boat, in which he might cross the elbe, he would soon make my doors fly open, and set me free. money at that time i had none; but i gave him a diamond shirt-buckle, worth five hundred ferns, which i had concealed. i never heard more from this man; he spoke to me no more. he often stood sentinel over me, which i knew by his westphalian dialect, and i as often addressed myself to him, but ineffectually; he would make no answer. this schutz must have sold my buckle, and let his riches be seen; for, when the duke left me, the lieutenant on guard said to him--"you must certainly be the rascal who carried trenck's letter; you have, for some time past, spent much money, and we have seen you with louis-d'ors. how came you by them?" schutz was terrified, his conscience accused him, he imagined i should betray him, knowing he had deceived me. he, therefore, in the first agonies of despair, came to the pallisadoes, and hung himself before the door of my dungeon. chapter iii. how wonderful is the hand of providence! the wicked man fell a sacrifice to his crime, after having escaped a whole year, and the faithful, the benevolent-hearted gelfhardt was thereby saved. the sentinels were now doubled, that any intercourse with them might be rendered more difficult. gelfhardt again stood guard, but he had scarcely opportunity, without danger, to speak a few words: he thanked me for having preserved him, wished me better fortune, and told me the garrison, in a few days, would take the field. this was dreadful news: my whole plan was destroyed at a breath. i, however, soon recovered fresh hopes. the hole i had sunken was not discovered: i had five hundred florins, candles, and implements. the seven years' war broke out about a week after, and the regiment took the field. major weyner came, for the last time, and committed me to the care of the new major of the militia, bruckhausen, who was one of the most surly and stupid of men. i shall often have occasion to mention this man. all the majors and lieutenants of the guard, who had treated me with compassion and esteem, now departed, and i became an old prisoner in a new world. i acquired greater confidence, however, by remembering that both officers and men in the militia were much easier to gain over than in the regulars; the truth of which opinion was soon confirmed. four lieutenants were appointed, with their men, to mount guard at the star fort in turn, and before a year had passed, three of them were in my interest. the regiments had scarcely taken the field ere the new governor, general borck, entered my prison, like what he was, an imperious, cruel tyrant. the king, in giving him the command, had informed him he must answer for my person with his head: he therefore had full power to treat me with whatever severity he pleased. borck was a stupid man, of an unfeeling heart, the slave of despotic orders; and as often as he thought it possible i might rid myself of my fetters and escape, his heart palpitated with fear. in addition to this, he considered me as the vilest of men and traitors, seeing his king had condemned me to imprisonment so cruel, and his barbarity towards me was thus the effect of character and meanness of soul. he entered my dungeon not as an officer, to visit a brother officer in misery, but as an executioner to a felon. smiths then made their appearance, and a monstrous iron collar, of a hand's breadth, was put round my neck, and connected with the chains of the feet by additional heavy links. my window was walled up, except a small air-hole. he even at length took away my bed, gave me no straw, and quitted me with a thousand revilings on the empress-queen, her whole army, and myself. in words, however, i was little in his debt, and he was enraged even to madness. what my situation was under this additional load of tyranny, and the command of a man so void of human pity, the reader may imagine. my greatest good fortune consisted in the ability i still had to disencumber myself of all the irons that were connected with the ankle-rims, and the provision i had of light, paper, and implements; and though it was apparently impossible i should break out undiscovered by both sentinels, yet had i the remaining hope of gaining some officer, by money, who, as in glatz, should assist my escape. had the commands of the king been literally obeyed escape would have been wholly impossible; for, by this, all communication would have been totally cut off with the sentinels. to this effect the four keys of the four doors were each to be kept by different persons; one with the governor, another with the town-major, the third with the major of the day, and the fourth with the lieutenant of the guard. i never could have found opportunity to have spoken with any one of them singly. these commands at first were rigidly observed, with this exception, that the governor made his appearance only every week. magdeburg became so full of prisoners that the town-major was obliged to deliver up his key to the major of the day, and the governor's visitations wholly subsided, the citadel being an english mile and a half distant from the star fort. general walrabe, who had been a prisoner ever since the year , was also at the star fort, but he had apartments, and three thousand rix-dollars a year. the major of the day and officer of the guard dined with him daily, and generally stayed till evening. either from compassion, or a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, these gentlemen entrusted the keys to the lieutenant on guard, by which means i could speak with each of them alone when they made their visits, and they themselves at length sought these opportunities. my consequent undertakings i shall relate, with all the arts and inventions of a wretched prisoner endeavouring to escape. borck had selected three majors and four lieutenants for this service as those he could best trust. my situation was truly deplorable. the enormous iron round my neck pained me, and prevented motion; and i durst not attempt to disengage myself from the pendant chains till i had, for some months, carefully observed the mode of their examination, and which parts they supposed were perfectly secure. the cruelty of depriving me of my bed was still greater: i was obliged to sit upon the bare ground, and lean with my head against the damp wall. the chains that descended from the neck collar were obliged to be supported first with one band, and then with the other; for, if thrown behind, they would have strangled me, and if hanging forward occasioned most excessive headaches. the bar between my hands held one down, while leaning on my elbow; i supported with the other my chains; and this so benumbed the muscles and prevented circulation, that i could perceive my arms sensibly waste away. the little sleep i could have in such a situation may easily be supposed, and, at length, body and mind sank under this accumulation of miserable suffering, and i fell ill of a burning fever. the tyrant borck was inexorable; he wished to expedite my death, and rid himself of his troubles and his terrors. here did i experience what was the lamentable condition of a sick prisoner, without bed, refreshment, or aid from human being. reason, fortitude, heroism, all the noble qualities of the mind, decay when the corporal faculties are diseased; and the remembrance of my sufferings, at this dreadful moment, still agitates, still inflames my blood, so as almost to prevent an attempt to describe what they were. yet hope had not totally forsaken me. deliverance seemed possible, especially should peace ensue; and i sustained, perhaps, what mortal man never bore, except myself, being, as i was, provided with pistols, or any such immediate mode of despatch. i continued ill about two months, and was so reduced at last that i had scarcely strength to lift the water-jug to my mouth. what must the sufferings of that man be who sits two months on the bare ground in a dungeon so damp, so dark, so horrible, without bed or straw, his limbs loaded as mine were, with no refreshment but dry ammunition bread, without so much as a drop of broth, without physic, without consoling friend, and who, under all these afflictions, must trust, for his recovery, to the efforts of nature alone! sickness itself is sufficient to humble the mightiest mind; what, then, is sickness, with such an addition of torment? the burning fever, the violent headaches, my neck swelled and inflamed with the irons, enraged me almost to madness. the fever and the fetters together flayed my body so that it appeared like one continued wound--enough! enough! the malefactor extended living on the wheel, to whom the cruel executioner refuses the last stroke--the blow of death--must yet, in some short period, expire: he suffers nothing i did not then suffer; and these, my excruciating pangs, continued two dreadful months--yet, can it be supposed? there came a day! a day of horror, when these mortal pangs were beyond imagination increased. i sat scorched with this intolerable fever, in which nature and death were contending; and when attempting to quench my burning entrails with cold water, the jug dropped from my feeble hands, and broke! i had four-and-twenty hours to remain without water. so intolerable, so devouring was my thirst, i could have drank human blood! ay, in my madness, had it been the blood of my father! * * * * * * willingly would i have seized my pistols, but strength had forsaken me, i could not open the place i was obliged to render so secure. my visitors next day supposed me gone at last. i lay motionless, with my tongue out of my mouth. they poured water down my throat, and i revived. oh, god! oh, god! how pure, how delicious, how exquisite was this water! my insatiable thirst soon emptied the jug; they filled it anew, bade me farewell, hoped death would soon relieve my mortal sufferings, and departed. the lamentable state in which i lay at length became the subject of general conversation, that all the ladies of the town united with the officers, and prevailed on the tyrant, borck, to restore me my bed. oh, nature, what are thy operations? from the day i drank water in such excess i gathered strength, and to the astonishment of every one, soon recovered. i had moved the heart of the officer who inspected my prison; and after six months, six cruel months of intense misery, the day of hope again began to dawn. one of the majors of the day entrusted his key to lieutenant sonntag, who came alone, spoke in confidence, and related his own situation, complained of his debts, his poverty, his necessities; and i made him a present of twenty-five louis-d'ors, for which he was so grateful that our friendship became unshaken. the three lieutenants all commiserated me, and would sit hours with me, when a certain major had the inspection; and he himself, after a time, would even pass half the day with me. he, too, was poor: and i gave him a draft for three thousand florins; hence new projects took birth. money became necessary; i had disbursed all i possessed, a hundred florins excepted, among the officers. the eldest son of captain k---, who officiated as major, had been cashiered: his father complained to me of his distress, and i sent him to my sister, not far from berlin, from whom he received a hundred ducats. he returned and related her joy at hearing from me. he found her exceedingly ill; and she informed me, in a few lines, that my misfortunes, and the treachery of weingarten, had entailed poverty upon her, and an illness which had endured more than two years. she wished me a happy deliverance from my chains, and, in expectation of death, committed her children to my protection. she, however, grew better, and married a second time, colonel pape; but died in the year . i shall forbear to relate her history: it indeed does no honour to the ashes of frederic, and would but less dispose my own heart to forgiveness, by reviving the memory of her oppressions and griefs. k---n returned happy with the money: all things were concerted with the father. i wrote to the countess bestuchef, also to the grand duke, afterwards peter iii., recommended the young soldier, and entreated every possible succour for myself. k---n departed through hamburg, for petersburg, where, in consequence of my recommendation, he became a captain, and in a short time major. he took his measures so well that i, by the intervention of his father, and a hamburg merchant, received two thousand rubles from the countess, while the service he rendered me made his own fortune in russia. to old k---, who was as poor as he was honest, i gave three hundred ducats; and he, till death, continued my grateful friend. i distributed nearly as much to the other officers; and matters proceeded so far that lieutenant glotin gave back the keys to the major without locking my prison, himself passing half the night with me. money was given to the guard to drink; and thus everything succeeded to my wish, and the tyrant borck was deceived. i had a supply of light; had books, newspapers, and my days passed swiftly away. i read, i wrote, i busied myself so thoroughly that i almost forgot i was a prisoner. when, indeed, the surly, dull blockhead, major bruckhausen, had the inspection, everything had to be carefully reinstated. major z---, the second of the three, was also wholly mine. he was particularly attached to me; for i had promised to marry his daughter, and, should i die in prison, to bequeath him a legacy of ten thousand florins. lieutenant sonntag got false handcuffs made for me, that were so wide i could easily draw my hands out; the lieutenants only examined my irons, the new handcuffs were made perfectly similar to the old, and bruckhausen had too much stupidity to remark any difference. the remainder of my chains i could disencumber myself of at pleasure. when i exercised myself, i held them in my hands, that the sentinel might be deceived by their clanking. the neck-iron was the only one i durst not remove; it was likewise too strongly riveted. i filed through the upper link of the pendant chain, however, by which means i could take it off, and this i concealed with bread in the manner before mentioned. so i could disencumber myself of most of my fetters, and sleep in ease. i again obtained sausages and cold meat, and thus my situation, bad as it still was, became less miserable. liberty, however, was most desirable: but, alas! not one of the three lieutenants had the courage of a schell: saxony, too, was in the hands of the prussians, and flight, therefore, more dangerous. persuasion was in vain with men determined to risk nothing, but, if they went, to go in safety. will, indeed, was not wanting in glotin and sonntag; but the first was a poltroon, and the latter a man of scruples, who thought this step might likewise be the ruin of his brother at berlin. the sentinels were doubled, therefore my escape through my hole, which had been two years dug, could not, unperceived by them, be effected: still less could i, in the face of the guard, clamber the twelve feet high pallisadoes. the following labour, therefore, though herculean, was undertaken. lieutenant sonntag, measuring the interval between the hole i had dug and the entrance in the gallery in the principal rampart, found it to be thirty-seven feet. into this it was possible i might, by mining, penetrate. the difficulty of the enterprise was lessened by the nature of the ground, a fine white sand. could i reach the gallery my freedom was certain. i had been informed how many steps to the right or left must be taken, to find the door that led to the second rampart: and, on the day when i should be ready for flight, the officer was secretly to leave this door open. i had light, and mining tools, and was further to rely on money and my own discretion. i began and continued this labour about six months. i have already noticed the difficulty of scraping out the earth with my hands, as the noise of instruments would have been heard by the sentinels. i had scarcely mined beyond my dungeon wall before i discovered the foundation of the rampart was not more than a foot deep; a capital error certainly in so important a fortress. my labour became the lighter, as i could remove the foundation stones of my dungeon, and was not obliged to mine so deep. my work at first proceeded so rapidly, that, while i had room to throw back my sand, i was able in one night to gain three feet; but ere i had proceeded ten feet i discovered all my difficulties. before i could continue my work i was obliged to make room for myself, by emptying the sand out of my hole upon the floor of the prison, and this itself was an employment of some hours. the sand was obliged to be thrown out by the hand, and after it thus lay heaped in my prison, must again be returned into the hole; and i have calculated that after i had proceeded twenty feet, i was obliged to creep under ground, in my hole, from fifteen hundred to two thousand fathoms, within twenty-four hours, in the removal and replacing of the sand. this labour ended, care was to be taken that in none of the crevices of the floor there might be any appearance of this fine white sand. the flooring was the next to be exactly replaced, and my chains to be resumed. so severe was the fatigue of one day, in this mode, that i was always obliged to rest the three following. to reduce my labour as much as possible, i was constrained to make the passage so small that my body only had space to pass, and i had not room to draw my arm back to my head. the work, too, must all be done naked, otherwise the dirtiness of my shirt must have been remarked; the sand was wet, water being found at the depth of four feet, where the stratum of the gravel began. at length the expedient of sand-bags occurred to me, by which it might be removed out and in more expeditiously. i obtained linen from the officers, but not in sufficient quantities; suspicions would have been excited at observing so much linen brought into the prison. at last i took my sheets and the ticking that enclosed my straw, and cut them up for sand-bags, taking care to lie down on my bed, as if ill, when bruckhausen paid his visit. the labour, towards the conclusion, became so intolerable as to incite despondency. i frequently sat contemplating the heaps of sand, during a momentary respite from work; and thinking it impossible i could have strength or time again to replace all things as they were, resolved patiently to wait the consequence, and leave everything in its present disorder. yes! i can assure the reader that, to effect concealment, i have scarcely had time in twenty-four hours to sit down and eat a morsel of bread. recollecting, however, the efforts, and all the progress i had made, hope would again revive, and exhausted strength return: again would i begin my labours, that i might preserve my secret and my expectations: yet has it frequently happened that my visitors have entered a few minutes after i had reinstated everything in its place. when my work was within six or seven feet of being accomplished, a new misfortune happened that at once frustrated all further attempts. i worked, as i have said, under the foundation of the rampart near where the sentinels stood. i could disencumber myself of my fetters, except my neck collar and its pendent chain. this, as i worked, though it was fastened, got loose, and the clanking was heard by one of the sentinels about fifteen feet from my dungeon. the officer was called, they laid their ears to the ground, and heard me as i went backward and forward to bring my earth bags. this was reported the next day; and the major, who was my best friend, with the town-major, and a smith and mason, entered my prison. i was terrified. the lieutenant by a sign gave me to understand i was discovered. an examination was begun, but the officers would not see, and the smith and mason found all, as they thought, safe. had they examined my bed, they would have seen the ticking and sheets were gone. the town-major, who was a dull man, was persuaded the thing was impossible, and said to the sentinel, "blockhead! you have heard some mole underground, and not trenck. how, indeed, could it be, that lee should work underground, at such a distance from his dungeon?" here the scrutiny ended. there was now no time for delay. had they altered their hour of coming, they must have found me at work: but this, during ten years, never happened: for the governor and town-major were stupid men, and the others, poor fellows, wishing me all success, were willingly blind. in a few days i could have broken out, but, when ready, i was desirous to wait for the visitation of the man who had treated me so tyranically, bruckhausen, that his own negligence might be evident. but this man, though he wanted understanding, did not want good fortune. he was ill for some time, and his duty devolved on k---. he recovered; and the visitation being over, the doors were no sooner barred than i began my supposed last labour. i had only three feet farther to proceed, and it was no longer necessary i should bring out the sand, i having room to throw it behind me. what my anxiety was, what my exertions were, may well be imagined. my evil genius, however, had decreed that the same sentinel, who had heard me before, should be that day on guard. he was piqued by vanity, to prove he was not the blockhead he had been called; he therefore again laid his ear to the ground, and again heard me burrowing. ho called his comrades first, next thee major; lee came, and heard me likewise; they then went without the pallisadoes, and heard me working near the door, at which place i was to break into the gallery. this door they immediately opened, entered the gallery with lanthorns, and waited to catch the hunted fox when unearthed. through the first small breach i made i perceived a light, and saw the heads of those who were expecting me. this was indeed a thunder-stroke! i crept back, made my way through the sand i had cast behind me, and awaited my fate with shuddering! i had the presence of mind to conceal my pistols, candles, paper, and some money, under the floor which i could remove. the money was disposed of in various holes, well concealed also between the panels of the doors; and under different cracks in the floor i hid my small files and knives. scarcely were these disposed of before the doors resounded: the floor was covered with sand and sand-bags: my handcuffs, however, and the separating bar, i had hastily resumed that they might suppose i had worked with them on, which they were silly enough to credit, highly to my future advantage. no man was more busy on this occasion than the brutal and stupid bruckhausen, who put many interrogatories, to which i made no reply, except assuring him that i should have completed my work some days sooner, had it not been his good fortune to fall sick, and that this only had been the cause of my failure. the man was absolutely terrified with apprehension; he began to fear me, grew more polite, and even supposed nothing was impossible to me. it was too late to remove the sand; therefore the lieutenant and guard continued with me, so that this night at least i did not want company. when the morning came, the hole was first filled up; the planking was renewed. the tyrant borck was ill, and could not come, otherwise my treatment would have been still more lamentable. the smiths had ended before the evening, and the irons were heavier than ever. the foot chains, instead of being fastened as before, were screwed and riveted; all else remained as formerly. they were employed in the flooring till the next day, so that i could not sleep, and at last i sank down with weariness. the greatest of my misfortunes was they again deprived me of my bed, because i had cut it up for sand-bags. before the doors were barred bruckhausen and another major examined my body very narrowly. they often had asked me where i concealed all my implements? my answer was, "gentlemen, beelzebub is my best and most intimate friend; he brings me everything i want, supplies me with light: we play whole nights at piquet, and, guard me as you please, he will finally deliver me out of your power." some were astonished, others laughed. at length, as they were barring the last door, i called, "come back, gentlemen! you have forgotten something of great importance." in the interim i had taken up one of my hidden files. when they returned, "look ye, gentlemen," said i, "here is a proof of the friendship beelzebub has for me, he has brought me this in a twinkling." again they examined, and again they shut their doors. while they were so doing, i took out a knife, and ten louis-d'ors, called, and they re turned, grumbling curses; i then shewed the knife and the louis-d'ors. their consternation was excessive; and i diverted my misfortunes by jesting at such blundering, short-sighted keepers. it was soon rumoured through magdeburg, especially among the simple and vulgar, that i was a magician to whom the devil brought all i asked. one major holtzkammer, a very selfish man, profited by this report. a foolish citizen had offered him fifty dollars if he might only be permitted to see me through the door, being very desirous to see a wizard. holtzkammer told me, and we jointly determined to sport with his credulity. the major gave me a mask with a monstrous nose, which i put on when the doors were opening, and threw myself in an heroic attitude. the affrighted burger drew back; but holtzkammer stopped him, and said, "have patience for some quarter of an hour, and you shall see he will assume quite a different countenance." the burger waited, my mask was thrown by, and my face appeared whitened with chalk, and made ghastly. the burger again shrank back; holtzkammer kept him in conversation, and i assumed a third farcical form. i tied my hair under my nose, and a pewter dish to my breast, and when the door a third time opened, i thundered, "begone, rascals, or i'll set your necks--awry!" they both ran: and the silly burger, eased of his fifty dollars, scampered first. the major, in vain, laid his injunctions on the burger never to reveal what he had beheld, it being a breach of duty in him to admit any persons whatever to the sight of me. in a few days, the necromancer trenck was the theme of every alehouse in magdeburg, and the person was named who had seen me change my form thrice in the space of one hour. many false and ridiculous circumstances were added, and at last the story reached the governor's ears. the citizen was cited, and offered to take his oath of what himself and the major had seen. holtzkammer accordingly suffered a severe reprimand, and was some days under arrest. we frequently laughed, however, at this adventure, which had rendered me so much the subject of conversation. miraculous reports were the more easily credited, because no one could comprehend how, in despite of the load of irons i carried, and all the vigilance of my guards, i should be continually able to make new attempts, while those appointed to examine my dungeon seemed, as it were, blinded and bewildered. a proof this, how easy it is to deceive the credulous, and whence have originated witchcraft, prophecies, and miracles. chapter iv. my last undertaking had employed me more than twelve months, and so weakened me that i appeared little better than a skeleton. notwithstanding the greatness of my spirit, i should have sunk into despondency, at seeing an end like this to all my labours, had i not still cherished a secret hope of escaping, founded on the friends i had gained among the officers. i soon felt the effects of the loss of my bed, and was a second time attacked by a violent fever, which would this time certainly have consumed me had not the officers, unknown to the governor, treated me with all possible compassion. bruckhausen alone continued my enemy, and the slave of his orders; on his day of examination rules and commands in all their rigour were observed, nor durst i free myself from my irons, till i had for some weeks remarked those parts on which he invariably fixed his attention. i then cut through the link, and closed up the vacancy with bread. my hands i could always draw out, especially after illness had consumed the flesh off my bones. half a year had elapsed before i had recovered sufficient strength to undertake, anew, labours like the past. necessity at length taught me the means of driving bruckhausen from my dungeon, and of inducing him to commit his office to another. i learnt his olfactory nerves were somewhat delicate, and whenever i heard the doors unbar, i took care to make a stir in my night-table. this made him give back, and at length he would come no farther than the door. such are the hard expedients of a poor unhappy prisoner! one day he came, bloated with pride, just after a courier had brought the news of victory, and spoke of the austrians, and the august person of the empress-queen with so much virulence, that, at last, enraged almost to madness, i snatched the sword of an officer from its sheath, and should certainly have ended him, had he not made a hasty retreat. from that day forward he durst no more come without guards to examine the dungeon. two men always preceded him, with their bayonets fixed, and their pieces presented, behind whom he stood at the door. this was another fortunate incident, as i dreaded only his examination. the following anecdote will afford a specimen of this man's understanding. while digging in the earth i found a cannon-ball, and laid it in the middle of my prison. when he came to examine--"what in the name of god is that?" said he. "it is a part of the ammunition," answered i, "that my familiar brings me. the cannon will be here anon, and you will then see fine sport!" he was astonished, told this to others, nor could conceive such a ball might by any natural means enter my prison. i wrote a satire on him, when the late landgrave of hesse-cassel was governor of magdeburg; and i had permission to write as will hereafter appear: the landgrave gave it to him to read himself; and so gross was his conception, that though his own phraseology was introduced, part of his history and his character painted, yet he did not perceive the jest, but laughed heartily with the hearers. the landgrave was highly diverted, and after i obtained my freedom, restored me the manuscript written in my own blood. about the time that my last attempt at escaping failed, general krusemarck came to my prison, whom i had formerly lived with in habits of intimacy, when cornet of the body guard. without testifying friendship, esteem, or compassion, he asked, among other things, in an authoritative tone, how i could employ my time to prevent tediousness? i answered in as haughty a mood as he interrogated: for never could misfortune bend my mind. i told him, "i always could find sources of entertainment in my own thoughts; and that, as for my dreams, i imagined they would at least be as peaceful and pleasant as those of my oppressors." "had you in time," replied he, "curbed this fervour of yours, had you asked pardon of the king, perhaps you would have been in very different circumstances; but he who has committed an offence in which he obstinately persists, endeavouring only to obtain freedom by seducing men from their duty, deserves no better fate." justly was my anger roused! "sir," answered i, "you are a general of the king of prussia, i am an austrian captain. my royal mistress will protect, perhaps deliver me, or, at least, revenge my death; i have a conscience void of reproach. you, yourself, well know i have not deserved these chains. i place my hope in time, and the justness of my cause, calumniated and condemned, as i have been, without legal sentence or hearing. in such a situation, the philosopher will always be able to brave and despise the tyrant." he departed with threats, and his last words were, "the bird shall soon be taught to sing another tune." the effects of this courteous visit were soon felt. an order came that i should be prevented sleeping, and that the sentinels should call, and wake me every quarter of an hour; which dreadful order was immediately executed. this was indeed a punishment intolerable to nature! yet did custom at length teach me to answer in my sleep. four years did this unheard of cruelty continue! the noble landgrave of hesse-cassel at length put an end to it a year before i was released from my dungeon, and once again, in mercy, suffered me to sleep in peace. under this new affliction, i wrote an elegy which may be found in the second volume of my works, a few lines of which i shall cite. wake me, ye guards, for hark, the quarter strikes! sport with my woes, laugh loud at my miseries hearken if you hear my chains clank! knock! beat! of an inexorable tyrant be ye th' inexorable instruments! wake me, ye slaves; ye do but as you're bade. soon shall he lie sleepless, or dreaming, the spectres of conscience behold and shriek, who me deprives of rest. wake me: again the quarter strikes! call loud rip up all my bleeding wounds, and shrink not! yet think 'tis i that answer, god that hears! to every wretch in chains sleep is permitted: i, i alone, am robb'd of this last refuge of sinking nature! hark! again they thunder! again they iterate yells of trenck and death. peace to thy anger, peace, thou suffering heart! nor indignant beat, adding tenfold pangs to pain. ye burthened limbs, arise from momentary slumbers! shake your chains! murmur not, but rise! and ye! watch-dogs of power! let loose your rage: fear not, for i am helpless, unprotected. and yet, not so--the noble mind, within itself, resources finds innumerable. thou, oh god, thought'st good me t' imprison thus: thou, oh god, in thy good time, wilt me deliver. wake me then, nor fear! my soul slumbers not. and who can say but those who fetter me, may, ere to-morrow, groan themselves in fetters! wake me! for lo! their sleep's less sweet than mine. call! call! from night to morn, from twilight to dawn, incessant! yea, in god's name, call! call! call! amen! amen! thy will, oh god, be done! yet surely thou at length shalt hear my sighs! shalt burst my prison doors! shalt shew me fair creation! yea, the very heav'n of heav'ns! with whom these orders originated, unexampled in the history even of tyranny, i shall not venture to say. the major, who was my friend, advised me to persist in not answering. i followed his advice; and it produced this good effect that we mutually forced each other to a capitulation: they restored me my bed, and i was obliged to reply. immediately after this regulation, the sub-governor, general borck, my bitter enemy, became insane, was dispossessed of his post, and lieutenant- general reichmann, the benevolent friend of humanity, was made sub-governor. about the same time the court fled from berlin, and the queen, the prince of prussia, the princess amelia, and the margrave henry, chose magdeburg for their residence. bruckhausen grew more polite, probably perceiving i was not wholly deserted, and that it was yet possible i might obtain my freedom. the cruel are usually cowards, and there is reason to suppose bruckhausen was actuated by his fears to treat me with greater respect. the worthy new governor had not indeed the power to lighten my chains, or alter the general regulations; what he could, he did. if he did not command, he connived at the doors being occasionally at first, and at length, daily, kept open some hours, to admit daylight and fresh air. after a time, they were open the whole day, and only closed by the officers when they returned from their visit to walrabe. having light, i began to carve, with a nail, on the pewter cup in which i drank, satirical verses and various figures, and attained so much perfection that my cups, at last, were considered as master-pieces, both of engraving and invention, and were sold dear, as rare curiosities. my first attempts were rude, as may well be imagined. my cup was carried to town, and shown to visitors by the governor, who sent me another. i improved, and each of the inspecting officers wished to possess one. i grew more expert, and spent a whole year in this employment, which thus passed swiftly away. the perfection i had now acquired obtained me the permission of candle-light, and this continued till i was restored to freedom. the king gave orders these cups should all be inspected by government, because i wished, by my verses and devices, to inform the world of my fate. but this command was not obeyed; the officers made merchandise of my cups, and sold them at last for twelve ducats each. their value increased so much, when i was released from prison, that they are now to be found in various museums throughout europe. twelve years ago the late landgrave of hesse-cassel presented one of them to my wife; and another came, in a very unaccountable manner, from the queen-dowager of prussia to paris. i have given prints of both these, with the verses they contained, in my works; whence it may be seen how artificially they were engraved. a third fell into the hands of prince augustus lobkowitz, then a prisoner of war at magdeburg, who, on his return to vienna, presented it to the emperor, who placed it in his museum. among other devices on this cup, was a landscape, representing a vineyard and husbandmen, and under it the following words:--_by my labours my vineyard flourished_, _and i hoped to have gathered the fruit_; _but ahab came_. _alas_! _for naboth_. the allusion was so pointed, both to the wrongs done me in vienna, and my sufferings in prussia, that it made a very strong impression on the empress-queen, who immediately commanded her minister to make every exertion for my deliverance. she would probably at last have even restored me to my estates, had not the possessors of them been so powerful, or had she herself lived one year longer. to these my engraved cups was i indebted for being once more remembered at vienna. on the same cup, also, was another engraving of a bird in a cage, held by a turk, with the following inscription:--_the bird sings even in the storm_; _open his cage_, _break his fetters_, _ye friends of virtue_, _and his songs shall be the delight of your abodes_! there is another remarkable circumstance attending these cups. all were forbidden under pain of death to hold conversation with me, or to supply me with pen and ink; yet by this open permission of writing what i pleased on pewter, was i enabled to inform the world of all i wished, and to prove a man of merit was oppressed. the difficulties of this engraving will be conceived, when it is remembered that i worked by candle-light on shining pewter, attained the art of giving light and shade, and by practice could divide a cup into two-and-thirty compartments as regularly with a stroke of the hand as with a pair of compasses. the writing was so minute that it could only be read with glasses. i could use but one hand, both, being separated by the bar, and therefore held the cup between my knees. my sole instrument was a sharpened nail, yet did i write two lines on the rim only. my labour became so excessive, that i was in danger of distraction or blindness. everybody wished for cups, and i wished to oblige everybody, so that i worked eighteen hours a day. the reflection of the light from the pewter was injurious to my eyes, and the labour of invention for apposite subjects and verses was most fatiguing. i had learnt only architectural drawing. enough of these cups, which procured me so much honour, so many advantages, and helped to shorten so many mournful hours. my greatest encumbrance was the huge iron collar, with its enormous appendages, which, when suffered to press the arteries in the back of my neck, occasioned intolerable headaches. i sat too much, and a third time fell sick. a brunswick sausage, secretly given me by a friend, occasioned an indigestion, which endangered my life; a putrid fever followed, and my body was reduced to a skeleton. medicines, however, were conveyed to me by the officers, and, now and then, warm food. after my recovery, i again thought it necessary to endeavour to regain my liberty. i had but forty louis-d'ors remaining, and these i could not get till i had first broken up the flooring. lieutenant sonntag was consumptive, and obtained his discharge. i supplied bins with money to defray the expenses of his journey, and with an order that four hundred florins should be annually paid him from my effects till his death or my release. i commissioned him to seek an audience from the empress, endeavour to excite her compassion in my behalf, and to remit me four thousand florins, for which i gave a proper acquittance, by the way of hamburgh. the money-draft was addressed to my administrators, counsellors kempf and huttner. but no one, alas! in vienna, wished my return; they had already begun to share my property, of which they never rendered me an account. poor sonntag was arrested as a spy, imprisoned, ill treated for some weeks, and, at last, when naked and destitute, received a hundred florins, and was escorted beyond the austrian confines. the worthy man fell a shameful sacrifice to his honesty, could never obtain an audience of the empress, and returned poor and miserable on foot to berlin, where he was twelve months secretly maintained by his brother, and with whom he died. he wrote an account of all this to the good knoblauch, my hamburgh agent, and i, from my small store, sent him a hundred ducats. how much must i despair of finding any place of refuge on earth, hearing accounts like these from vienna. a friend, whom i will never name, by the aid of one of the lieutenants, secretly visited me, and supplied me with six hundred ducats. the same friend, in the year , paid four thousand florins to the imperial envoy, baron reidt, at berlin, for the furthering of my freedom, as i shall presently more fully show. thus i had once more money. about this time the french army advanced to within five miles of magdeburg. this important fortress was, at that time, the key of the whole prussian power. it required a garrison of sixteen thousand men, and contained not more than fifteen hundred. the french might have marched in unopposed, and at once have put an end to the war. the officers brought me all the news, and my hopes rose as they approached. what was my astonishment when the major informed me that three waggons had entered the town in the night, had been sent back loaded with money, and that the french were retreating. this, i can assure my readers, on my honour, is literally truth, to the eternal disgrace of the french general. the major, who informed me, was himself an eye-witness of the fact. it was pretended the money was for the army of the king, but everybody could guess whither it was going; it left the town without a convoy, and the french were then in the neighbourhood. such were the allies of maria theresa; the receivers of this money are known in paris. not only were my hopes this way frustrated, but in russia likewise, where the countess of bestuchef and the chancellor had fallen into disgrace. i now imagined another, and, indeed, a fearful and dangerous project. the garrison of magdeburg at this moment consisted but of nine hundred militia, who were discontented men. two majors and two lieutenants were in my interest. the guard of the star fort amounted but to a hundred and fifteen men. fronting the gate of this fort was the town gate, guarded only by twelve men and an inferior officer; beside these lay the casemates, in which were seven thousand croat prisoners. baron k---y, a captain, and prisoner of war, also was in our interest, and would hold his comrades ready at a certain place and time to support my undertaking. another friend was, under some pretence, to hold his company ready, with their muskets loaded, and the plan was such that i should have had four hundred men in arms ready to carry it into execution. the officer was to have placed the two men we most suspected and feared, as sentinels over me; he was to command them to take away my bed, and when encumbered, i was to spring out, and shut them in the prison. clothing and arms were to have been procured, and brought me into my prison; the town-gate was to have been surprised; i was to have run to the casemate, and called to the croats, "trenck to arms!" my friends, at the same instant, were to break forth, and the plan was so well concerted that it could not have failed. magdeburg, the magazine of the army, the royal treasury, arsenal, all would have been mine; and sixteen thousand men, who were then prisoners of war, would have enabled me to keep possession. the most essential secret, by which all this was to have been effected, i dare not reveal; suffice it to say, everything was provided for, everything made secure; i shall only add that the garrison, in the harvest months, was exceedingly weakened, because the farmers paid the captains a florin per man each day, and the men for their labour likewise, to obtain hands. the sub-governor connived at the practice. one lieutenant g--- procured a furlough to visit his friends; but, supplied by me with money, he went to vienna. i furnished him with a letter, addressed to counsellors kempf and huttner, including a draft for two thousand ducats; wherein i said that, by these means, i should not only soon be at liberty, but in possession of the fortress of magdeburg; and that the bearer was entrusted with the rest. the lieutenant came safe to vienna, underwent a thousand interrogatories, and his name was repeatedly asked. this, fortunately, he concealed. they advised him not to be concerned in so dangerous an undertaking; told him i had not so much money due to me, and gave him, instead of two thousand ducats, one thousand florins. with these he left vienna, but with very prudent suspicions which prevented him ever returning to magdeburg. a month had scarcely passed before the late landgrave of hesse-cassel, then chief governor, entered my prison, showed me my letter, and demanded to know who had carried the letter, and who were to free me and betray magdeburg. whether the letter was sent immediately to the king or the governor i know not; it is sufficient that i was once more betrayed at vienna. the truth was, the administrators of my effects had acted as if i were deceased, and did not choose to refund two thousand ducats. they wished not i should obtain my freedom, in a manner that would have obliged the government to have rewarded me, and restore the effects they had embezzled and the estates they had seized. what happened afterwards at vienna, which will be related in its place, will incontestably prove this surmise to be well founded. these bad men did not, it is true, die in the manner they ought, but they are all dead, and i am still living, an honest, though poor man: they did not die so. be this read and remembered by their luxurious heirs, who refuse to restore my children to their rights. chapter v. my consternation on the appearance of the landgrave, with my letter in his hand, may well be supposed; i had the presence of mind, however, to deny my handwriting, and affect astonishment at so crafty a trick. the landgrave endeavoured to convict me, told me what lieutenant kemnitz had repeated at vienna concerning my possessing myself of magdeburg, and thereby showed me how fully i had been betrayed. but as no such person existed as lieutenant kemnitz, and as my friend had fortunately concealed his name, the mystery remained impenetrable, especially as no one could conceive how a prisoner, in my situation, could seduce or subdue the whole garrison. the worthy prince left my prison, apparently satisfied with my defence; his heart felt no satisfaction in the misfortunes of others. the next day a formal examination was taken, at which the sub-governor reichmann presided. i was accused as a traitor to my country; but i obstinately denied my handwriting. proofs or witnesses there were none, and in answer to the principal charge, i said, "i was no criminal, but a man calumniated, illegally imprisoned, and loaded with irons; that the king, in the year , had cashiered me, and confiscated my parental inheritance; that therefore the laws of nature enforced me to seek honour and bread in a foreign service; and that, finding these in austria, i became an officer and a faithful subject of the empress-queen; that i had been a second time unoffendingly imprisoned; that here i was treated as the worst of malefactors, and my only resource was to seek my liberty by such means as i could; were i therefore in this attempt to destroy magdeburg, and occasion the loss of a thousand lives, i should still be guiltless. had i been heard and legally sentenced, previous to my imprisonment at glatz, i should have been, and still continued, a criminal; but not having been guilty of any small, much less of any great crime, equal to my punishment, if such crime could be, i was therefore not accountable for consequences; i owed neither fidelity nor duty to the king of prussia; for by the word of his power he had deprived me of bread, honour, country, and freedom." here the examination ended, without further discovery; the officers, however, falling under suspicion, were all removed, and thus i lost my best friends; yet it was not long before i had gained two others, which was no difficult matter, as i knew the national character, and that none but poor men were made militia officers. thus was the governor's precaution fruitless, and almost everybody secretly wished i might obtain my freedom. i shall never forget the noble manner in which i was treated on this occasion by the landgrave. this i personally acknowledged, some years afterwards, in the city of cassel, when i heard many things which confirmed all my surmises concerning vienna. the landgrave received me with all grace, favour, and distinction. i revere his memory, and seek to honour his name. he was the friend of misfortune. when i not long afterwards fell ill, he sent me his own physician, and meat from his table, nor would he suffer me, during two months, to be wakened by the sentinels. he likewise removed the dreadful collar from my neck; for which he was severely reprimanded by the king, as he himself has since assured me. i might fill a volume with incidents attending two other efforts to escape, but i will not weary the reader's patience with too much repetition. i shall merely give an abstract of both. when i had once more gained the officers, i made a new attempt at mining my way out. not wanting for implements, my chains and the flooring were soon cut through, and all was so carefully replaced that i was under no fear of examination. i here found my concealed money, pistols, and other necessaries, but till i had rid myself of some hundredweight of sand, it was impossible to proceed. for this purpose i made two different openings in the floor: out of the real hole i threw a great quantity of sand into my prison; after which i closed it with all possible care. i then worked at the second with so much noise, that i was certain they must hear me without. about midnight the doors began to thunder, and in they came, detecting me, as i intended they should. none of them could conceive why i should wish to break out under the door, where there was a triple guard to pass. the sentinels remained, and in the morning prisoners were sent to wheel away the sand. the hole was walled up and boarded, and my fetters were renewed. they laughed at the ridiculousness of my undertaking, but punished me by depriving me of my light and bed, which, however, in a fortnight were both restored. of the other hole, out of which most of the earth had been thrown, no one was aware. the major and lieutenant were too much my friends to remark that they had removed thrice the quantity of sand the false opening could contain. they supposed this strange attempt having failed, it would be my last, and bruckhausen grew negligent. the governor and sub-governor both visited me after some weeks, but far from imitating the brutality of borck, the landgrave spoke to me with mildness, promised me his interest to regain my freedom, when peace should be concluded; told me i had more friends than i supposed, and assured me i had not been forgotten by the court at vienna. he promised me every alleviation, and i gave him my word i would no more attempt to escape while he remained governor. my manner enforced conviction and he ordered my neck-collar to be taken off, my window to be unclosed, my doors to be left open two hours every day, a stove to be put in my dungeon, finer linen for my shirts, and paper to amuse myself by writing my thoughts. the sheets were to be numbered when given, and then returned, by the town-major, that i might not abuse this liberty. ink was not allowed me, i therefore pricked my fingers, suffered the blood to trickle into a pot; by these means i procured a substitute for ink, both to write and draw. i now engraved my cups, and versified. i had opportunity to display my abilities to awaken compassion. my emulation was increased by knowing that my works were seen at courts, that the princess amelia and the queen herself testified their satisfaction. i had subjects to engrave from sent me; and the wretch whom the king intended to bury alive, whose name no man was to mention, never was more famous than while he vented his groans in his dungeon. my writings produced their effect, and really regained my freedom. to my cultivation of the sciences and presence of mind i am indebted for all; these all the power of frederic could not deprive me of. yes! this liberty i procured, though he answered all petitions in my behalf--"he is a dangerous man: and so long as i live he shall never see the light!" yet have i seen it during his life: after his death i have seen it without revenging myself, otherwise than by proving my virtue to a monarch who oppressed because he knew me not, because he would not recall the hasty sentence of anger, or own he might be mistaken. he died convinced of my integrity, yet without affording me retribution! man is formed by misfortune; virtue is active in adversity. it is indifferent to me that the companions of my youth have their ears gratified, delighted with the titles of general! field-marshal i have learned to live without such additions; i am known in my works. i returned to my dungeon. here, after my last conference with the landgrave, i waited my fate with a mind more at ease than that of a prince in a palace. the newspapers they brought me bespoke approaching peace, on which my dependence was placed, and i passed eighteen months calmly, and without further attempt to escape. the father of the landgrave died; and magdeburg now lost its governor. the worthy reichmann, however, testified for me all compassion and esteem; i had books, and my time was employed. imprisonment and chains to me were become habitual, and freedom in hope approached. about this time i wrote the poems, "the macedonian hero," "the dream realised," and some fables. the best of my poems are now lost to me. the mind's sensibility when the body is imprisoned is strongly roused, nor can all the aids of the library equal this advantage. perhaps i may recover some in berlin; if so, the world may learn what my thoughts then were. when i was at liberty, i had none but such as i remembered, and these i committed to writing. on my first visit to the landgrave of hesse-cassel i received a volume of them written in my own blood; but there were eight of these which i shall never regain. the death of elizabeth, the deposing of peter iii., and the accession of catherine ii. produced peace. on the receipt of this intelligence i tried to provide for all contingencies. the worthy captain k--- had opened me a correspondence with vienna: i was assured of support; but was assured the administrators and those who possessed my estates would throw every impediment in the way of freedom. i tried to persuade another officer to aid my escape, but in vain. i therefore opened my old hole, and my friends assisted me to disembarrass myself of sand. my money melted away, but they provided me with tools, gunpowder, and a good sword. i had remained so long quiet that my flooring was not examined. my intent was to wait the peace; and should i continue in chains, then would i have my subterranean passage to the rampart ready for escape. for my further security, an old lieutenant had purchased a house in the suburbs, where i might lie concealed. gummern, in saxony, is two miles from magdeburg; here a friend, with two good horses, was to wait a year, to ride on the glacis of klosterbergen on the first and fifteenth of each month, and at a given signal to hasten to my assistance. my passage had to be ready in case of emergency; i removed the upper planking, broke up the two beds, cut the boards into chips, and burnt them in my stove. by this i obtained so much additional room as to proceed half way with my mine. linen again was brought me, sand-bags made, and thus i successfully proceeded to all but the last operation. everything was so well concealed that i had nothing to fear from inspection, especially as the new come garrison could not know what was the original length of the planks. i must here relate a dreadful accident, which i cannot remember without shuddering, and the terror of which has often haunted my very dreams. while mining under the rampart, as i was carrying out the sand-bag, i struck my foot against a stone which fell down and closed up the passage. what was my horror to find myself buried alive! after a short reflection, i began to work the sand away from the side, that i might turn round. there were some feet of empty space, into which i threw the sand as i worked it away; but the small quantity of air soon made it so foul that i a thousand times wished myself dead, and made several attempts to strangle myself. thirst almost deprived me of my senses, but as often as i put my mouth to the sand i inhaled fresh air. my sufferings were incredible, and i imagine i passed eight hours in this situation. my spirits fainted; again i recovered and began to labour, but the earth was as high as my chin, and i had no more space where i might throw the sand. i made a more desperate effort, drew my body into a ball, and turned round; i now faced the stone; there being an opening at the top, i respired fresher air. i rooted away the sand under the stone, and let it sink so that i might creep over; at length i once more arrived in my dungeon! the morning was advanced; i sat down so exhausted that i supposed it was impossible i had strength to conceal my hole. after half an hour's rest, my fortitude returned: again i went to work, and scarcely had i ended before my visitors approached. they found me pale: i complained of headache, and continued some days affected by the fatigue i had sustained. after a time strength returned; but perhaps of all my nights of horror this was the most horrible. i repeatedly dreamt i was buried in the centre of the earth; and now, though three and twenty years are elapsed, my sleep is still haunted by this vision. after this accident, when i worked in my cavity, i hung a knife round my neck, that if i should be enclosed i might shorten my miseries. over the stone that had fallen several others hung tottering, under which i was obliged to creep. nothing, however, could deter me from trying to obtain my liberty. when my passage was ready, i wrote letters to my friends at vienna, and also a memorial to my sovereign. when the militia left magdeburg and the regulars returned, i took leave of my friends who had behaved so benevolently. several weeks elapsed before they departed and i learnt that general reidt was appointed ambassador from vienna to berlin. i had seen the world; i knew this general was not averse to a bribe: i wrote him a letter, conjuring him to act with ardour in my behalf. i enclosed a draft for six thousand florins on my effects at vienna, and he received four thousand from one of my relations. i have to thank these ten thousand florins for my freedom, which i obtained nine months after. my vouchers show the six thousand florins were paid in april, , to the order of general reidt. the other four thousand i repaid, when at liberty, to my friend. i received intelligence before the garrison departed that no stipulation had been made on my behalf at the peace of hubertsberg. the vienna plenipotentiaries, after the articles were signed, mentioned my name to hertzberg, with but few assurances of every effort being made to move frederic, a promise on which i could much better rely than on my protectors at vienna, who had left me in misfortune. i determined to wait three months longer, and should i still find myself neglected, to owe my escape to myself. on the change of the garrison, the officers were more difficult to gain than the former. the majors obeyed their orders; their help was unnecessary; but still i sighed for my old friends. i had only ammunition-bread again for food. my time hung very heavy; everything was examined on the change of the garrison. a stricter scrutiny might occur, and my projects be discovered. this had nearly been effected, as i shall here relate. i had so tamed a mouse that it would eat from my mouth; in this small animal i discovered proofs of intelligence. this mouse had nearly been my ruin. i had diverted myself with it one night; it had been nibbling at my door and capering on a trencher. the sentinels hearing our amusement, called the officers: they heard also, and thought all was not right. at daybreak the town-major, a smith, and mason entered; strict search was begun; flooring, walls, chains, and my own person were all scrutinised, but in vain. they asked what was the noise they had heard; i mentioned the mouse, whistled, and it came and jumped upon my shoulder. orders were given i should be deprived of its society; i entreated they would spare its life. the officer on guard gave me his word he would present it to a lady, who would treat it with tenderness. he took it away and turned it loose in the guardroom, but it was tame to me alone, and sought a hiding place. it had fled to my prison door, and, at the hour of visitation, ran into my dungeon, testifying its joy by leaping between my legs. it is worthy of remark that it had been taken away blindfold, that is to say, wrapped in a handkerchief. the guard- room was a hundred paces from the dungeon. all were desirous of obtaining this mouse, but the major carried it off for his lady; she put it into a cage, where it pined, and in a few days died. the loss of this companion made me quite melancholy, yet, on the last examination, i perceived it had so eaten the bread by which i had concealed the crevices i had made in cutting the floor, that the examiners must be blind not to discover them. i was convinced my faithful little friend had fallen a necessary victim to its master's safety. this accident determined me not to wait the three months. i have related that horses were to be kept ready, on the first and fifteenth, and i only suffered the first of august to pass, because i would not injure major pfuhl, who had treated me with more compassion than his comrades, and whose day of visitation it was. on the fifteenth i determined to fly. this resolution formed, i waited in expectation of the day, when a new and remarkable succession of accidents happened. an alarm of fire had obliged the major to repair to the town; he committed the keys to the lieutenant. the latter, coming to visit me, asked--"dear trenck, have you never, during seven years that you have been under the guard of the militia, found a man like schell?" "alas! sir," answered i, "such friends are rare; the will of many has been good; each knew i could make his fortune, but none had courage enough for so desperate an attempt! money i have distributed freely, but have received little help." "how do you obtain money in this dungeon?" "from a correspondent at vienna, by whom i am still supplied." "if i can serve you, command me: i will do it without asking any return." so saying, i took fifty ducats from between the panels, and gave them to the lieutenant. at first he refused, but at length accepted them with fear. he left me, promised to return, pretended to shut the door, and kept his word. he now said debt obliged him to desert; that this had long been his determination, and that, desirous to assist me at the same time if he could find the means, i had only to show how this might be effected. we continued two hours in conference: a plan was formed, approved, and a certainty of success demonstrated; especially when i told him i had two horses waiting. we vowed eternal friendship; i gave him fifty ducats, and his debts, not amounting to more than two hundred rix-dollars, which he never could have discharged out of his pay. he was to prepare four keys to resemble those of my dungeon; the latter were to be exchanged on the day of flight, being kept in the guard-room while the major was with general walrabe. he was to give the grenadiers on guard leave of absence, or send them into the town on various pretences. the sentinels he was to call from their duty, and those placed over me were to be sent into my dungeon to take away my bed; while encumbered with this, i was to spring out and lock them in, after which we were to mount our horses, which were kept ready, and ride to gummern. every thing was to be prepared within a week, when he was to mount guard. we had scarcely formed our project before the sentinels called the major was coming; he accordingly barred the door, and the major passed to general walrabe. no man was happier than myself; my hopes of escape were triple; the mediation at berlin, the mine i had made, and my friend the lieutenant. when most my mind ought to have been clear, i seemed to have lost my understanding. i came to a resolution which will appear extravagant and pitiable. i was stupid enough, mad enough, to form the design of casting myself on the magnanimity of the great frederic! should this fail, i still thought my lieutenant a saviour. having heated my imagination with this scheme, i waited the visitation with anxiety. the major entered, i bespoke him thus: "i know, sir, the great prince ferdinand is again in magdeburg. inform him that he may examine my prison, double the sentinels, and give me his commands, stating what hour will please him i should make my appearance on the glacis of klosterbergen. if i prove myself capable of this, i then hope for the protection of prince ferdinand: and that he will relate my proceeding to the king, who may he convinced of my innocence." the major was astonished; the proposal he held to be ridiculous, and the performance impossible. i persisted; he returned with the sub-governor, reichmann, the town-major, riding, and the major of inspection. the answer they delivered was, that the prince promised me his protection, the king's favour, and a release from my chains, should i prove my assertion. i required they would appoint a time; they ridiculed the thing as impossible, and said that it would be sufficient could i prove the practicability of such a scheme; but should i refuse, they would break up the flooring, and place sentinels in my dungeon, adding, the governor would not admit of any breaking out. after promises of good faith, i disencumbered myself of my chains, raised my flooring, gave them my implements, and two keys, my friends had procured me, to the doors of the subterranean gallery. this gallery i desired them to sound with their sword hilts, at the place through which i was to break, which might be done in a few minutes. i described the road i was to take through the gallery, informed them that two of the doors had not been shut for six months, and to the others they had the keys; adding, i had horses waiting at the glacis, that would be now ready; the stables for which were unknown to them. they went, examined, returned, put questions, which i answered with precision. they left me with seeming friendship, came back, told me the prince was astonished at what he had heard, that he wished me all happiness, and then took me unfettered, to the guard-house. the major came in the evening, treated us with a supper, assured me everything would happen to my wishes, and that prince ferdinand had written to berlin. the guard was reinforced next day. the whole guard loaded with ball before my eyes, the drawbridges were raised in open day, and precautions were taken as if i intended to make attempts as desperate as those i had made at glatz. i now saw workmen employed on my dungeon, and carts bringing quarry-stones. the officers on guard behaved with kindness, kept a good table, at which i ate; but two sentinels, and an under-officer, never quitted the guard-room. conversation was cautious, and this continued five or six days; at length, it was the lieutenant's turn to mount guard; he appeared to be as friendly as formerly, but conference was difficult; he found an opportunity to express his astonishment at my ill-timed discovery, told me the prince knew nothing of the affair, and that the report through the garrison was, i had been surprised in making a new attempt. my dungeon was completed in a week. the town-major re-conducted me to it. my foot was chained to the wall with links twice as strong as formerly; the remainder of my irons were never after added. the dungeon was paved with flag-stones. that part of my money only was saved which i had concealed in the panels of the door, and the chimney of my stove; some thirty louis-d'ors, hidden about my clothes, were taken from me. while the smith was riveting my chains, i addressed the sub-governor. "is this the fulfilment of the pledge of the prince? think not you deceive me, i am acquainted with the false reports that have been spread; the truth will soon come to light, and the unworthy be put to shame. nay, i forewarn you that trenck shall not be much longer in your power; for were you to build your dungeon of steel, it would be insufficient to contain me." they smiled at me. reichmann told me i might soon obtain my freedom in a proper manner. my firm reliance on my friend, the lieutenant, gave me a degree of confidence that amazed them all. it is necessary to explain this affair. when i obtained my liberty, i visited prince ferdinand. he informed me the majors had not made a true report. their story was, they had caught me at work, and, had it not been for their diligence, i should have made my escape. prince ferdinand heard the truth, and informed the king, who only waited an opportunity to restore me to liberty. once more i was immured. i waited in hope for the day when my deliverer was to mount guard. what again was my despair when i saw another lieutenant! i buoyed myself up with the hope that accident was the occasion of this; but i remained three weeks, and saw him no more. i heard at length that he had left the corps of grenadiers, and was no longer to mount guard at the star fort. he has my forgiveness, and i applaud myself for never having said anything by which he might be injured. he might have repented his promise, he might have trusted another friend with the enterprise, and have been himself betrayed; but, be it as it may, his absence cut off all hope. i now repented my folly and vanity; i had brought my misfortunes on myself. i had myself rendered my dungeon impenetrable. death would have followed but for the dependence i placed in the court of vienna. the officers remarked the loss of my fortitude and thoughtfulness; the verses i wrote were desponding. the only comfort they could give was--"patience, dear trenck; your condition cannot be worse; the king may not live for ever." were i sick, they told me i might hope my sufferings would soon have an end. if i recovered they pitied me, and lamented their continuance. what man of my rank and expectations ever endured what i did, ever was treated as i have been treated! chapter vi. peace had been concluded nine months. i was forgotten. at last, when i supposed all hope lost, the th of december, and the day of freedom, came. at the hour of parade, count schlieben, lieutenant of the guards, brought orders for my release! the sub-governor supposed me weaker in intellect than i was, and would not too suddenly tell me these tidings. he knew not the presence of mind, the fortitude, which the dangers i had seen had made habitual. my doors for the last time resounded! several people entered; their countenances were cheerful, and the sub-governor at their head at length said, "this time, my dear trenck, i am the messenger of good news. prince ferdinand has prevailed on the king to let your irons be taken off." accordingly, to work went the smith. "you shall also," continued he, "have a better apartment." "i am free, then," said i. "speak! fear not! i can moderate my transports." "then you are free!" was the reply. the sub-governor first embraced me, and afterwards his attendants. he asked me what clothes i would wish. i answered, the uniform of my regiment. the tailor took my measure. reichmann told him it must be made by the morning. the man excused himself because it was christmas eve. "so, then, this gentleman must remain in his dungeon because it is holiday with you." the tailor promised to be ready. i was taken to the guard-room, congratulations were universal, and the town-major administered the oath customary to all state prisoners. st. that i should avenge myself on no man. nd. that i should neither enter the prussian nor saxon states. rd. that i should never relate by speech or in writing what had happened to me. th. and that, so long as the king lived, i should neither serve in a civil nor military capacity. count schlieben delivered me a letter from the imperial minister, general reidt, to the following purport:--that he rejoiced at having found an opportunity of obtaining my liberty from the king, and that i must obey the requisitions of count schlieben, whose orders were to accompany me to prague. "yes, dear trenck," said schlieben, "i am to conduct you through dresden to prague, with orders not to suffer you to speak to any one on the road. i have received three hundred ducats, to defray the expenses of travelling. as all things cannot be prepared today, the, sub-governor has determined we shall depart to-morrow night." i acquiesced, and count schlieben remained with me; the others returned to town, and i dined with the major and officers on guard, with general walrabe in his prison. once at liberty, i walked about the fortifications, to collect the money i had concealed in my dungeon. to every man on guard i gave a ducat, to the sentinels, each three, and ten ducats to be divided among the relief- guard. i sent the officer on guard a present from prague, and the remainder of my money i bestowed on the widow of the worthy gelfhardt. he was no more, and she had entrusted the thousand florins to a young soldier, who, spending them too freely, was suspected, betrayed her, and she passed two years in prison. gelfhardt never received any punishment; he was in the field. had he left any children, i should have provided for them. to the widow of the man who hung himself before my prison door, in the year , i gave thirty ducats, lent me by schlieben. the night was riotous, the guard made merry, and i passed most of it in their company. i was visited by all the generals of the garrison on christmas morning, for i was not allowed to enter the town. i dressed, viewed myself in the glass, and found pleasure; but the tumult of my passions, the congratulations i received, and the vivacity round me, prevented my remembering incidents minutely. yet how wonderful an alteration in the countenances of those by whom i had been guarded! i was treated with friendship, attention, and flattery. and why? because these fetters had dropped off which i had never justly borne. evening came, and with it count schlieben, a waggon, and four post-horses. after an affecting farewell, we departed. i shed tears at leaving magdeburg. it seems strange that i lived here ten years, yet never saw the town. the duration of my imprisonment at magdeburg was nearly ten years, and with the term of my imprisonment at glatz, the time is eleven years. thus was i robbed of time, my body weakened, my health impaired, so that in my decline of life, a second time, i suffer the gloom and chains of the dungeon at magdeburg. the reader would now hope that my calamities were at an end; yet, upon my honour, i would prefer the suffering of the star fort to those i have since endured in austria, especially while krugel and zetto were my referendaries and curators. at this moment i am obliged to be guarded in my expressions. i have put my enemies to shame; but the hope of justice or reward is vain. no rewards are bestowed on him who, with the consciousness of integrity, demands, and does not deplore. the facts i shall relate will seem incredible, yet i have, in my own hands, the vouchers of their veracity. "if my right hand is guilty of writing untruths in this book, may the executioner sever it from my body, and, in the memory of posterity, may i live a villain!" i will proceed with my history. on the nd of january i arrived, with count schlieben, at prague; the same day he delivered me to the governor, the duke of deuxponts. he received me with kindness; we dined with him two days, and all prague were anxious to see a man who had surmounted ten years of suffering so unheard of as mine. here i received three thousand florins, and paid general reidt his three hundred ducats, which he had advanced count schlieben, for my journey, the repayment of which he demanded in his letter, although he had received ten thousand florins. the expense of returning i also paid to schlieben, made him a present, and provided myself with some necessaries. after remaining a few days at prague, a courier arrived from vienna, to whom i was obliged to pay forty florins, with an order from government to bring me from prague to vienna. my sword was demanded; captain count wela, and two inferior officers, entered the carriage, which i was obliged to purchase, in company with me, and brought me to vienna. i took up a thousand florins more, in prague, to defray these expenses, and was obliged, in vienna, to pay the captain fifty ducats for travelling charges back. i was brought back like a criminal, was sent as a prisoner to the barracks, there kept in the chamber of lieutenant blonket, with orders that i should be suffered to write to no one, speak to no one, without a ticket from the counsellors kempt or huttner. thus i remained six weeks; at length, the colonel of the regiment of poniatowsky, the present field-marshal, count alton, spoke to me. i related what i supposed were the reasons of my being kept a prisoner in vienna; and to the exertions of this man am i indebted that the intentions of my enemies were frustrated, which were to have me imprisoned as insane in the fortress of glatz. had they once removed me from vienna, i should certainly have pined away my life in a madhouse. yet i could never obtain justice against these men. the empress was persuaded that my brain was affected, and that i uttered threats against the king of prussia. the election of a king of the romans was then in agitation, and the court was apprehensive lest i should offend the prussian envoy. general reidt had been obliged to promise frederic that i should not appear in vienna, and that they should hold a wary eye over me. the empress-queen felt compassion for my supposed disease, and asked if no assistance could be afforded me; to which they answered, i had several times let blood, but that i still was a dangerous man. they added, that i had squandered four thousand florins in six days at prague; that it would be proper to appoint guardians to impede such extravagancies. count alton spoke of me and my hard destiny to the countess parr, mistress of the ceremonies to the empress-queen. the late emperor entered the chamber, and asked whether i ever had any lucid intervals. "may it please your majesty," answered alton, "he has been seven weeks in my barracks, and i never met a more reasonable man. there is mystery in this affair, or he could not be treated as a madman. that he is not so in anywise i pledge my honour." the next day the emperor sent count thurn, grand-master of the archduke leopold, to speak to me. in him i found an enlightened philosopher, and a lover of his country. to him i related how i had twice been betrayed, twice sold at vienna, during my imprisonment; to him showed that my administrators had acted in this vile manner that i might be imprisoned for life, and they remain in possession of my effects. we conversed for two hours, during which many things were said that prudence will not permit me to repeat. i gained his confidence, and he continued my friend till death. he promised me protection, and procured me an audience of the emperor. i spoke with freedom; the audience lasted an hour. at length the emperor retired into the next apartment. i saw the tears drop from his eyes. i fell at his feet, and wished for the presence of a rubens or apelles, to preserve a scene so honourable to the memory of the monarch, and paint the sensations of an innocent man, imploring the protection of a compassionate prince. the emperor tore himself from me, and i departed with sensations such as only those can know who, themselves being virtuous, have met with wicked men. i returned to the barracks with joy, and an order the next day came for my release. i went with count alton to the countess parr, and by her mediation i obtained an audience with the empress. i cannot describe how much she pitied my sufferings and admired my fortitude. she told me she was informed of the artifices practised against me in vienna; she required me to forgive my enemies, and pass all the accounts of my administrators. "do not complain of anything," said she, "but act as i desire--i know all--you shall be recompensed by me; you deserve reward and repose, and these you shall enjoy." i must either sign whatever was given to sign, or be sent to a madhouse. i received orders to accompany m. pistrich to counsellor ziegler; thither i went, and the next day was obliged to sign, in their presence, the following conditions:-- first--that i acknowledged the will of trenck to be valid. secondly--that i renounced all claim to the sclavonian estates, relying alone on her majesty's favour. thirdly--that i solemnly acquitted my accountants and curators. and, lastly--that i would not continue in vienna. this i must sign, or languish in prison. how did my blood boil while i signed! this confidence i had in myself assured me i could obtain employment in any country of europe, by the labours of my mind, and the recital of all my woes. at that time i had no children; i little regretted what i had lost, or the poor portion that remained. i determined to avoid austria eternally. my pride would never suffer me, by insidious arts, to approach the throne. i knew no such mode of soliciting for justice, hence i was not a match for my enemies; hence my misfortunes. appeals to justice were represented as the splenetic effusions of a man never to be satisfied. my too sensitive heart was corroded by the treatment i met at vienna. i, who with so much fortitude had suffered so much in the cause of vienna, i, on whom the eyes of germany were fixed, to behold what should be the reward of these sufferings, i was again, in this country, kept a prisoner, and delivered to those by whom i had been plundered as a man insane! before my intended departure to seek my fortune, i fell ill, and sickness almost brought me to the grave. the empress, in her great clemency, sent one of her physicians and a friar to my assistance, both of whom i was obliged to pay. at this time i refused a major's commission, for which i was obliged to pay the fees. being excluded from actual service, to me the title was of little value; my rank in the army had been equal ten years before in other service. the following words, inserted in my commission, are not unworthy of remark:--"her majesty, in consequence of my fidelity for her service, demonstrated during a long imprisonment, my endowments and virtues, had been graciously pleased to grant me, in the imperial service, the rank of major."--the rank of major!--from this preamble who would not have expected either the rank of general, or the restoration of my great sclavonian estates? i had been fifteen years a captain of cavalry, and then was i made an invalid major three-and-twenty years ago, and an invalid major i still remain! let all that has been related be called to mind, the manner in which i had been pillaged and betrayed; let vienna, dantzic, and magdeburg he remembered; and be this my promotion remembered also! let it be known that the commission of major might be bought for a few thousand florins! thirty thousand florins only of the money i had been robbed of would have purchased a colonel's commission. i should then have been a companion for generals. during the thirty-six years that i have been in the service of austria, i never had any man of rank, any great general, my enemy, except count grassalkowitz, and he was only my enemy because he had conceived a friendship for my estates. my character was never calumniated, nor did any worthy man ever speak of me but with respect. who were, who are, my enemies?--jesuits, monks, unprincipled advocates, wishing to become my curators, referendaries, who died despicable, or now live in houses of correction. such as live, live in dread of a similar end, for the emperor joseph is able to discover the truth. alas! the truth is discovered so late; age has now nearly rendered me an invalid. men with hearts so base ought, indeed, to become the scavengers of society, that, terrified by their example, succeeding judges may not rack the heart of an honest man, seize on the possessions of the orphan and the widow, and expel virtue out of austria. i attended the levee of prince kaunitz. not personally known to him, he viewed in me a crawling insect. i thought somewhat more proudly; my actions were upright, and so should my body be. i quitted the apartment, and was congratulated by the mercenary swiss porter on my good fortune of having obtained an audience! i applied to the field-marshal, from whom i received this answer--"if you cannot purchase, my dear trenck, it will be impossible to admit you into service; besides, you are too old to learn our manoeuvres." i was then thirty-seven. i briefly replied, "your excellency mistakes my character. i did not come to vienna to serve as an invalid major. my curators have taken good care i should have no money to purchase; but had i millions, i would never obtain rank in the army by that mode." i quitted the room with a shrug. the next day i addressed a memorial to the empress. i did not re-demand my sclavonian estates, i only petitioned. first--that those who had carried off quintals of silver and gold from the premises, and had rendered no account to me or the treasury, should refund at least a part. secondly--that they should be obliged to return the thirty-six thousand florins taken from my inheritance, and applied to a hospital. thirdly--that the thirty-six thousand florins might be repaid, which count grassalkowitz had deducted from the allodial estates, for three thousand six hundred pandours who had fallen in the service of the empress; i not being bound to pay for the lives of men who had died in defence of the empress. fourthly--i required that fifteen thousand florins, which had been deducted from my capital, and applied to the bohemian fortifications, should likewise be restored, together with the fifteen thousand which had been unduly paid to the regiment of trenck. fifthly--i reclaimed the twelve thousand florins which i had been robbed of at dantzic by the treachery of the imperial resident, abramson; and public satisfaction from the magistracy of dantzic, who had delivered me up, so contrary to the laws of nations, to the prussian power. i likewise claimed the interest of six per cent, for seventy-six thousand florins, detained by the hungarian chamber, which amounted to twenty thousand florins; i having been allowed five per cent., and at last four. i insisted on the restoration of my sclavonian estates, and a proper allowance for improvements, which the very sentence of the court had granted, and which amounted to eighty thousand florins. i petitioned for an arbitrator; i solicited justice concerning rights, but received no answer to this and a hundred other petitions! i must here speak of transactions during my imprisonment. i had bought a house in vienna in the year ; the price was sixteen thousand florins, thirteen thousand of which i had paid by instalments. the receipts were among my writings; these writings, with my other effects, were taken from me at dantzic, in the year ; nor have i, to this hour, been able to learn more than that my writings were sent to the administrators of my affairs at vienna. with respect to my houses and property in dantzic, in what manner these were disposed of no one could or would say. after being released at magdeburg, i inquired concerning my house, but no longer found it mine. those who had got possession of my writings must have restored the acquittances to the seller, consequently he could re- demand the whole sum. my house was in other hands, and i was brought in debtor six thousand florins for interest and costs of suit. thus were house and money gone. whom can i accuse? again, i had maintained, at my own expense lieutenant schroeder, who had deserted from glatz, and for whom i obtained a captain's commission in the guard of prince esterhazy, at eisenstadt. his misconduct caused him to be cashiered. in my administrator's accounts i found the following "to captain schroeder, for capital, interest, and costs of suit, sixteen hundred florins." it was certain i was not a penny indebted to this person; i had no redress, having been obliged to pass and sign all their accounts. i, four years afterwards, obtained information concerning this affair: i met schroeder, knew him, and inquired whether he had received these sixteen hundred florins. he answered in the affirmative. "no one believed you would ever more see the light. i knew you would serve me, and that you would relieve my necessities. i went and spoke to dr. berger; he agreed we should halve the sum, and his contrivance was, i should make oath i had lent you a thousand florins, without having received your note. the money was paid me by m. frauenberger, to whom i agreed to send a present of tokay, for madam huttner." this was the manner in which my curators took care of my property! many instances i could produce, but i am too much agitated by the recollection. i must speak a word concerning who and what my curators were. the court counsellor, kempf, was my administrator, and counsellor huttner my referendary. the substitute of kempf was frauenberger, who, being obliged to act as a clerk at prague during the war, appointed one krebs as a sub-substitute; whether m. krebs had also a sub-substitute is more than i am able to say. dr. bertracker was _fidei commiss-curator_, though there was no _fidei commissum_ existing. dr. berger, as fidei commiss-advocate, was superintendent, and to them all salaries were to be paid. let us see what was the business this company had to transact. i had seventy-six thousand florins in the hungarian chamber, the interest of which was to be yearly received, and added to the capital: this was their employment, and was certainly so trifling that any man would have performed it gratis. the war made money scarce, and the discounting of bills with my ducats was a profitable trade to my curators. had it been honestly employed, i should have found my capital increased, after my imprisonment, full sixty thousand florins. instead of these i received three thousand florins at prague, and found my capital diminished seven thousand florins. frauenberger and berger died rich; and i must be confined as a madman, lest this deputy should have been proved a rogue. this is the clue to the acquittal i was obliged to sign:--madam k--- was a lady of the bedchamber at court; she could approach the throne: her chamber employments, indeed, procured her the keys of doors that to me were eternally locked. not satisfied with this, kempf applied to the empress, informed her they were acquitted, not recompensed, and that frauenberger required four thousand florins for remuneration. the empress laid an interdict on the half of my income and pension. thus was i obliged to live in poverty; banished the austrian dominions, where my seventy-six thousand florins were reduced to sixty-three, the interest of which i could only receive; and that burthened by the above interdict, the _fidei commissum_, and administratorship. the empress during my sickness ordered that my captain's pay, during my ten years' imprisonment, should be given me, amounting to eight thousand florins; which pay she also settled on me as a pension. by this pension i never profited; for, during twenty-three years, that and more was swallowed by journeys to vienna, chicanery of courtiers and agents, and costs of suits. of the eight thousand florins three were stolen; the court physician must be paid thrice as much as another, and what remained after my recovery was sunk in the preparations i had made to seek my fortune elsewhere. how far my captain's pay was matter of right or favour, let the world judge, being told i went in the service of vienna to the city of dantzic. neither did this restitution of pay equal the sum i had sent the imperial minister to obtain my freedom. i remained nine months in my dungeon after the articles were signed, unthought of; and, when mentioned by the austrians, the king had twice rejected the proposal of my being set free. the affair happened as follows, as i received it from prince henry, prince ferdinand of brunswick, and the minister, count hertzberg:--general reidt had received my ten thousand florins full six months, and seemed to remember me no more. one gala day, on the st of december, the king happened to be in good humour; and her majesty the queen, the princess amelia, and the present monarch, said to the imperial minister, "this is a fit opportunity for you to speak in behalf of trenck." he accordingly waited his time, did speak, and the king replied, "yes." the joy of the whole company appeared so great that frederic _the great_ was offended! other circumstances which contributed to promote this affair, the reader will collect from my history. that there were persons in vienna who desired to detain me in prison is indubitable, from their proceedings after my return. my friends in berlin and my money were my deliverers. walking round vienna, having recovered from my sickness, the broad expanse of heaven inspired a consciousness of freedom and pleasure indescribable. i heard the song of the lark. my heart palpitated, my pulse quickened, for i recollected i was not in chains. "happen," said i, "what may, my will and heart are free." an incident happened which furthered my project of getting away from austria. marshal laudohn was going to aix-la-chapelle to take the waters. he went to take his leave of the countess parr; i was present the empress entered the chamber, and the conversation turning upon laudohn's journey, she said to me, "the baths are necessary to the re- establishment of your health, trenck." i was ready, and followed him in two days, where we remained about three months. the mode of life at aix-la-chapelle and spa pleased me, where men of all nations meet, and where princes mingle with persons of all ranks. one day here procured me more pleasure than a whole life in vienna. i had scarcely remained a month before the countess parr wrote to me that the empress had provided for me, and would make my fortune as soon as i returned to vienna. i tried to discover in what it consisted, but in vain. the death of the emperor francis at innsbruck occasioned the return of general laudohn, and i followed him, on foot, to vienna. by means of the countess parr i obtained an audience. the empress said to me, "i will prove to you, trenck, that i keep my word. i have insured your fortune; i will give you a rich and prudent wife." i replied, "most gracious sovereign, i cannot determine to marry, and, if i could, my choice is already made at aix-la-chapelle."--"how! are you married, then?"--"not yet, please your majesty."--"are you promised?" "yes."--"well, well, no matter for that; i will take care of that affair; i am determined on marrying you to the rich widow of m---, and she approves my choice. she is a good, kind woman, and has fifty thousand florins a year. you are in want of such a wife." i was thunderstruck. this bride was a canting hypocrite of sixty-three, covetous, and a termagant. i answered, "i must speak the truth to your majesty; i could not consent did she possess the treasures of the whole earth. i have made my choice, which, as an honest man, i must not break." the empress said, "your unhappiness is your own work. act as you think proper; i have done." here my audience ended. i was not actually affianced at that time to my present wife, but love had determined my choice. marshal laudohn promoted the match. he was acquainted with my heart and the warmth of my passion, and perceived that i could not conquer the desire of vengeance on men by whom i had been so cruelly treated. he and professor gellert advised me to take this mode of calming passions that often inspired projects too vast, and that i should fly the company of the great. this counsel was seconded by my own wishes. i returned to aix-la-chapelle in december, , and married the youngest daughter of the former burgomaster de broe. he was dead; he had lived on his own estate in brussels, where my wife was born and educated. my wife's mother was sister to the vice-chancellor of dusseldorf, baron robert, lord of roland. my wife was with me in most parts of europe. she was then young, handsome, worthy, and virtuous, has borne me eleven children, all of whom she has nursed herself; eight of them are still living and have been properly educated. twenty-two years she has borne a part of all my sufferings, and well deserves reward. during my abode in vienna i made one effort more. i sought an audience with the present emperor joseph, related all that had happened to me, and remarked such defects as i had observed in the regulations of the country. he heard me, and commanded me to commit my thoughts to writing. my memorial was graciously received. i also gave a full account of what had happened to me in various countries, which prudence has occasioned me to express more cautiously in these pages. my memorial produced no effect, and i hastened back to aix-la-chapelle. chapter vii. for some years i lived in peace; my house was the rendezvous of the first people, who came to take the waters. i began to be more known among the very first and best people. i visited professor gellert at leipzig, and asked his advice concerning what branch of literature he thought it was probable i might succeed in. he most approved my fables and tales, and blamed the excessive freedom with which i spoke in political writings. i neglected his advice, and many of the ensuing calamities were the consequence. i received orders to correspond with his majesty's private secretary, baron roder; suffice it to say, my attempts to serve my country were frustrated; i saw defects too clearly, spoke my thoughts too frankly, and wanted sufficient humility ever to obtain favour. in the year i wrote "the macedonian hero," which became famous throughout all germany. the poem did me honour, but entailed new persecutions; yet i never could repent: i have had the honour of presenting it to five reigning princes, by none of whom it has been burnt. the empress alone was highly enraged. i had spoken as nathan did to david, and the jesuits now openly became my enemies. the following trick was played me in . a friend in brussels was commissioned to receive my pay, from whom i learnt an interdict had been laid upon it by the court called hofkriegsrath, in vienna, in which i was condemned to pay seven hundred florins to one bussy, with fourteen years' interest. bussy was a known swindler. i therefore journeyed, post-haste, to vienna. no hearing; no satisfactory account was to be obtained. the answer was, "sentence is passed, therefore all attempts are too late." i applied to the emperor joseph, pledged my head to prove the falsification of this note; and entreated a revision of the cause. my request was granted and my attorney, weyhrauch, was an upright man. when he requested a day of revision to be appointed, he was threatened to be committed by the referendary. zetto, should he interfere and defend the affairs of trenck. he answered firmly, "his defence is my business: i know my cause to be good." four months did i continue in vienna before the day was appointed to revise this cause. it now appeared there were erasures and holes through the paper in three places; all in court were convinced the claim ought to be annulled, and the claimant punished. zetto ordered the parties to withdraw, and then so managed that the judges resolved that the case must be laid before the court with formal and written proofs. this gave time for new knavery; i was obliged to return to aix-la-chapelle, and four years elapsed before this affair was decided. two priests, in the interim, took false oaths that they had seen me receive money. at length, however, i proved that the note was dated a year after i had been imprisoned at magdeburg. further, my attorney proved the writs of the court had been falsified. zetto, referendary, and bussy, were the forgers; but i happened to be too active, and my attorney too honest, to lose this case. i was obliged to make three very expensive journeys from aix-la-chapelle to vienna, lest judgement should go by default. sentence at last was pronounced. i gained my cause, and the note was declared a forgery, but the costs, amounting to three thousand five hundred florins, i was obliged to pay, for bussy could not: nor was he punished, though driven from vienna for his villainous acts. zetto, however, still continued for eleven years my persecutor, till he was deprived of his office, and condemned to the house of correction. my knowledge of the world increased at aix-la-chapelle, where men of all characters met. in the morning i conversed with a lord in opposition, in the afternoon with an orator of the king's party, and in the evening with an honest man of no party. i sent hungarian wine into england, france, holland, and the empire. this occasioned me to undertake long journeys, and as my increased acquaintance gave me opportunities of receiving foreigners with politeness an my own house, i was also well received wherever i went. the income i should have had from vienna was engulfed by law-suits, attorneys, and the journeys i undertook; having been thrice cited to appear, in person, before the hofkriegsrath. no hope remained. i was described as a dangerous malcontent, who had deserted his native land. i nevertheless remained an honest man; one who could provide for his necessities without the favour of courts; one whose acquaintance was esteemed. in vienna alone was i unsought, unemployed, and obscure. one day an accident happened which made me renowned as a magician, as one who had power over fogs and clouds. i had a quarrel with the palatine president, baron blankart, concerning a hunting district. i wrote to him that he should repair to the spot in dispute, whither i would attend with sword and pistol, hoping he would there give me satisfaction for the affront i had received. thither i went, with two huntsmen and two friends, but instead of the baron i found two hundred armed peasants assembled. i sent one of my huntsmen to the army of the enemy, informing them that, if they did not retreat, i should fire. the day was fine, but a thick and impenetrable fog arose. my huntsman returned, with intelligence that, having delivered his message just as the fog came on, these heroes had all run away with fright. i advanced, fired my piece, as did my followers, and marched to the mansion of my adversary, where my hunting-horn was blown in triumph in his courtyard. the runaway peasants fired, but the fog prevented their taking aim. i returned home, where many false reports had preceded me. my wife expected i should be brought home dead; however, not the least mischief had happened. it soon was propagated through the country that i had raised a fog to render myself invisible, and that the truth of this could be justified by two hundred witnesses. all the monks of aix-la-chapelle, juliers, and cologne, preached concerning me, reviled me, and warned the people to beware of the arch-magician and lutheran, trenck. on a future occasion, this belief i turned to merriment. i went to hunt the wolf in the forests of montjoie, and invited the townsmen to the chase. towards evening i, and some forty of my followers, retired to rest in the charcoal huts, provided with wine and brandy. "my lads," said i, "it is necessary you should discharge your pieces, and load them anew; that to-morrow no wolf may escape, and that none of you excuse yourselves on your pieces missing fire." the guns were reloaded, and placed in a separate chamber. while they were merry-making, my huntsman drew the balls, and charged the pieces with powder, several of which he loaded with double charges. some of their notched balls i put into my pocket. in the morning away went i and my fellows to the chase. their conversation turned on my necromancy, and the manner in which i could envelope myself in a cloud, or make myself bullet-proof. "what is that you are talking about?" said i.--"some of these unbelieving folks," answered my huntsman, "affirm your honour is unable to ward off balls."--"well, then," said i, "fire away, and try." my huntsman fired. i pretended to parry with my hand, and called, "let any man that is so inclined fire, but only one at a time." accordingly they began, and, pretending to twist and turn about, i suffered them all to discharge their pieces. my people had carefully noticed that no man had reloaded his gun. some of them received such blows from the guns that were doubly charged that they fell, terrified at the powers of magic. i advanced, holding in my hand some of the marked balls. "let every one choose his own," called i. all stood motionless, and many of them slunk home with their guns on their shoulders; some remained, and our sport was excellent. on sunday the monks of aix-la-chapelle again began to preach. my black art became the theme of the whole country, and to this day many of the people make oath that they fired upon me, and that, after catching them, i returned the balls. my invulnerable qualities were published throughout juliers, aix-la-chapelle, maestricht, and cologne, and perhaps this belief saved my life; the priests having propagated it from their pulpits, in a country which swarms with highway robbers, and where, for a single ducat, any man may hire an assassin. it is no small surprise that i should have preserved my life, in a town where there are twenty-three monasteries and churches, and where the monks are adored as deities. the catholic clergy had been enraged against me by my poem of "the macedonian hero;" and in i published a newspaper at aix-la-chapelle, and another work entitled, "the friend of men," in which i unmasked hypocrisy. a major of the apostolic maria theresa, writing thus in a town swarming with friars, and in a tone so undaunted, was unexampled. at present, now that freedom of opinion is encouraged by the emperor, many essayists encounter bigotry and deceit with ridicule; or, wanting invention themselves, publish extracts from writings of the age of luther. but i have the honour of having attacked the pillars of the romish hierarchy in days more dangerous. i may boast of being the first german who raised a fermentation on the upper rhine and in austria, so advantageous to truth, the progress of the understanding, and the happiness of futurity. my writings contain nothing inimical to the morality taught by christ. i attacked the sale of indulgences, the avarice of rome, the laziness, deceit, gluttony, robbery, and blood-sucking of the monks of aix-la-chapelle. the arch-priest, and nine of his coadjutors, declared every sunday that i was a freethinker, a wizard, one whom every man, wishing well to god and the church, ought to assassinate. father zunder declared me an outlaw, and a day was appointed on which my writings were to be burnt before my house, and its inhabitants massacred. my wife received letters warning her to fly for safety, which warning she obeyed. i and two of my huntsmen remained, provided with eighty-four loaded muskets. these i displayed before the window, that all might be convinced that i would make a defence. the appointed day came, and father zunder, with my writings in his hand, appeared ready for the attack; the other monks had incited the townspeople to a storm. thus passed the day and night in suspense. in the morning a fire broke out in the town. i hastened, with my two huntsmen, well armed, to give assistance; we dashed the water from our buckets, and all obeyed my directions. father zunder and his students were there likewise. i struck his anointed ear with my leathern bucket, which no man thought proper to notice. i passed undaunted through the crowd; the people smiled, pulled off their hats, and wished me a good- morning. the people of aix-la-chapelle were bigots, but too cowardly to murder a man who was prepared for his own defence. as i was riding to maestricht, a ball whistled by my ears, which, no doubt, was a messenger sent after me by these persecuting priests. when hunting near the convent of schwartzenbruck, three dominicans lay in ambush behind a hedge. one of their colleagues pointed out the place. i was on my guard with my gun, drew near, and called out, "shoot, scoundrels! but do not kill me, for the devil stands ready for you at your elbow." one fired, and all ran: the ball hit my hat. i fired and wounded one desperately, whom the others carried off. in , journeying from spa to limbourg, i was attacked by eight banditti. the weather was rainy, and my musket was in its case; my sabre was entangled in my belt, so that i was obliged to defend myself as with a club. i sprang from the carriage, and fought in defence of my life, striking down all before me, while my faithful huntsman protected me behind. i dispersed my assailants, hastened to my carriage, and drove away. one of these fellows was soon after hanged, and owned that the confessor of the banditti had promised absolution could they but despatch me, but that no man could shoot me, because lucifer had rendered me invulnerable. my agility, fighting, too, for life, was superior to theirs, and they buried two of their gang, whom with my heavy sabre i had killed. to such excess of cruelty may the violence of priests be carried! i attacked only gross abuses--the deceit of the monks of aix-la-chapelle, cologne, and liege, where they are worse than cannibals. i wished to inculcate true christian duties among my fellow-citizens, and the attempt was sufficient to irritate the selfish church of rome. from my empress i had nothing to hope. her confessor had painted me as a persecutor of the blessed mother church. nor was this all. opinions were propagated throughout vienna that i was a dangerous man to the community. hence i was always wronged in courts of judicature, where there are ever to be found wicked men. they thought they were serving the cause of god by injuring me. yet they were unable to prevent my writings from producing me much money, or from being circulated through all germany. the _aix-la-chapelle journal_ became so famous, that in the second year i had four thousand subscribers, by each of whom i gained a ducat. the postmasters, who gained considerably by circulating newspapers, were envious, because the _aix-la-chapelle journal_ destroyed several of the others, and they therefore formed a combination. prince charles of sweden placed confidence in me during his residence at aix-la-chapelle and spa, and i accompanied him into holland. when i took my leave of him at maestricht, he said to me, "when my father dies, either my brother shall be king, or we will lose our heads." the king died, and prince charles soon after said, in the postscript of one of his letters, "what we spoke of at maestricht will soon be fully accomplished, and you may then come to stockholm." on this, i inserted an article in my journal declaring a revolution had taken place in sweden, that the king had made himself absolute. the other papers expressed their doubts, and i offered to wager a thousand ducats on the truth of the article published in my journal under the title of "aix-la-chapelle." the news of the revolution in sweden was confirmed. my journal foretold the polish partition six weeks sooner than any other; but how i obtained this news must not be mentioned. i was active in the defence of queen matilda of denmark. the french ministry were offended at the following pasquinade:--"the three eagles have rent the polish bear, without losing a feather with which any man in the cabinet of versailles can write. since the death of mazarin, they write only with goose-quills." by desire of the king of poland, i wrote a narrative of the attempt made to assassinate him, and named the nuncio who had given absolution to the conspirators in the chapel of the holy virgin. the house was now in flames. rome insisted i should recall my words. her nuncio, at cologne, vented poison, daggers, and excommunication; the empress-queen herself thought proper to interfere. i obtained, for my justification, from warsaw a copy of the examination of the conspirators. this i threatened to publish, and stood unmoved in the defence of truth. the empress wrote to the postmaster-general of the empire, and commanded him to lay an interdict on the _aix-la-chapelle journal_. informed of this, i ended its publication with the year, but wrote an essay on the partition of poland, which also did but increase my enemies. the magistracy of aix-la-chapelle is elected from the people, and the burghers' court consists of an ignorant rabble. i know no exceptions but baron lamberte and de witte; and this people assume titles of dignity, for which they are amenable to the court at vienna. knowing i should find little protection at vienna, they imagined they might drive me from their town. i was a spy on their evil deeds, of whom they would have rid themselves. i knew that the two sheriffs, kloss and furth, and the recorder, geyer, had robbed the town-chamber of forty thousand dollars, and divided the spoil. to these i was a dangerous man. for such reasons they sought a quarrel with me, pretending i had committed a trespass by breaking down a hedge, and cited me to appear at the town-house. the postmaster, heinsberg, of aix-la-chapelle, although he had two thousand three hundred rix-dollars of mine in his possession, instituted false suits against me, obtained verdicts against me, seized on a cargo of wine at cologne, and i incurred losses to the amount of eighteen thousand florins, which devoured the fortune of my wife, and by which she, with myself and my children, were reduced to poverty. the gravenitz himself, in , acknowledged how much he had injured me, affirmed he had been deceived, and promised he would try to obtain restitution. i forgave him, and he attempted to keep his promise; but his power declined; the bribes he had received became too public. he was dispossessed of his post, but, alas! too late for me. two other of my judges are at this time obliged to sweep the streets of vienna, where they are condemned to the house of correction. had this been their employment instead of being seated on the seat of judgment twenty years ago, i might have been more fortunate. it is a remarkable circumstance that i should so continually have been despoiled by unjust judges. who would have had the temerity to affirm that their evil deeds should bring them to attend on the city scavenger? i indeed knew them but too well, and fearlessly spoke what i knew. it was my misfortune that i was acquainted with their malpractices sooner than gracious sovereign. let the scene close on my litigations at aix-la-chapelle and vienna. may god preserve every honest man from the like! they have swallowed up my property, and that of my wife. enough! chapter viii. from the year to , i journeyed through england and france. i was intimate with dr. franklin, the american minister, and with the counts st. germain and de vergennes, who made me proposals to go to america; but i was prevented by my affection for my wife and children. my friend the landgrave of hesse-cassel, who had been governor of magdeburg during my imprisonment, offered me a commission among the troops going to america, but i answered--"gracious prince, my heart beats in the cause of freedom only; i will never assist in enslaving men. were i at the head of your brave grenadiers. i should revolt to the americans." during i continued at aix-la-chapelle my essays, entitled, "the friend of men." my writings had made some impression; the people began to read; the monks were ridiculed, but my partisans increased, and their leader got himself cudgelled. they did not now mention my name publicly, but catechised their penitents at confession. during this year people came to me from cologne, bonn, and dusseldorf, to speak with me privately. when i inquired their business, they told me their clergy had informed them i was propagating a new religion, in which every man must sign himself to the devil, who then would supply them with money. they were willing to become converts to my faith, would beelzebub but give them money, and revenge them on their priests. "my good friends," answered i, "your teachers have deceived you; i know of no devils but themselves. were it true that i was founding a new religion, the converts to whom the devil would supply money, your priests, would be the first of my apostles, and the most catholic. i am an honest, moral man, as a christian ought to be. go home, in god's name, and do your duty." i forgot to mention that the recorder of the sheriff's court at aix-la- chapelle, who is called baron geyer, had associated himself in with a jew convert, and that this noble company swindled a dutch merchant out of eighty thousand florins, by assuming the arms of elector palatine, and producing forged receipts and contracts. geyer was taken in amsterdam, and would have been hanged, but, by the aid of a servant, he escaped. he returned to aix-la-chapelle, where he enjoys his office. three years ago he robbed the town-chamber. his wife was, at that time, _generis communis_, and procured him friends at court. the assertions of this gentleman found greater credit at vienna than those of the injured trenck! oh, shame! oh, world! world! my wine trade was so successful that i had correspondents and stores in london, paris, brussels, hamburg, and the hague, and had gained forty thousand florins. one unfortunate day destroyed all my hopes in the success of this traffic. in london i was defrauded of eighteen hundred guineas by a swindler. the fault was my brother-in-law's, who parted with the wine before he had received the money. when i had been wronged, and asked my friends' assistance, i was only laughed at, as if they were happy that an englishman had the wit to cheat a german. finding myself defrauded, i hastened to sir john fielding. he told me he knew i had been swindled, and that his friendship would make him active in my behalf; that he also knew the houses where my wine was deposited, and that a party of his runners should go with me, sufficiently strong for its recovery. i was little aware that he had, at that time, two hundred bottles of my best tokay in his cellar. his pretended kindness was a snare; he was in partnership with robbers, only the stupid among whom he hanged, and preserved the most adroit for the promotion of trade. he sent a constable and six of his runners with me, commanding them to act under my orders. by good fortune i had a violent headache, and sent my brother-in-law, who spoke better english than i. him they brought to the house of a jew, and told him, "your wine, sir, is here concealed." though it was broad day, the door was locked, that he might be induced to act illegally. the constable desired him to break the door open, which he did; the jews came running, and asked--"what do you want, gentlemen?"--"i want my wine," answered my brother.--"take what is your own," replied a jew; "but beware of touching my property. i have bought the wine." my brother attended the constable and runners into a cellar, and found a great part of my wine. he wrote to sir john fielding that he had found the wine, and desired to know how to act. fielding answered: "it must be taken by the owner." my brother accordingly sent me the wine. next day came a constable with a warrant, saying, "he wanted to speak with my brother, and that he was to go to sir john fielding." when he was in the street, he told him--"sir, you are my prisoner." i went to sir john fielding, and asked him what it meant. this justice answered that my brother had been accused of felony. the jews and swindlers had sworn the wine was a legal purchase. if i had not been paid, or was ignorant of the english laws, that was my fault. six swindlers had sworn the wine was paid for, which circumstance he had not known, or he should not have granted me a warrant. my brother had also broken open the doors, and forcibly taken away wine which was not his own. they made oath of this, and he was charged with burglary and robbery. he desired me to give bail in a thousand guineas for my brother for his appearance in the court of king's bench; otherwise his trial would immediately come on, and in a few days he would be hanged. i hastened to a lawyer, who confirmed what had been told me, advised me to give bail, and he would then defend my cause. i applied to lord mansfield, and received the same answer. i told my story to all my friends, who laughed at me for attempting to trade in london without understanding the laws. my friend lord grosvenor said, "send more wine to london, and we will pay you so well that you will soon recover your loss." i went to my wine-merchants, who had a stock of mine worth upwards of a thousand guineas. they gave bail for my brother, and he was released. fielding, in the interim, sent his runners to my house, took back the wine, and restored it to the jews. they threatened to prosecute me as a receiver of stolen goods. i fled from london to paris, where i sold off my stock at half-price, honoured my bills, and so ended my merchandise. my brother returned to london in november, to defend his cause in the court of king's bench; but the swindlers had disappeared, and the lawyer required a hundred pounds to proceed. the conclusion was that my brother returned with seventy pounds less in his pocket, spent as travelling expenses, and the stock in the hands of my wine-merchants was detained on pretence of paying the bail. they brought me an apothecary's bill, and all was lost. the swedish general sprengporten came to aix-la-chapelle in . he had planned and carried into execution the revolution so favourable to the king, but had left sweden in discontent, and came to take the waters with a rooted hypochondria. he was the most dangerous man in sweden, and had told the king himself, after the revolution, in the presence of his guards, "while sprengporten can hold a sword, the king has nothing to command." it was feared he would go to russia, and prince charles wrote to me in the name of the monarch, desiring i would exert myself to persuade him to return to sweden. he was a man of pride, which rendered him either a fool or a madman. he despised everything that was not swedish. the prussian minister, count hertzberg, the same year came to aix-la-chapelle. i enjoyed his society for three months, and accompanied this great man. to his liberality am i indebted that i can return to my country with honour. the time i had to spare was not spent in idleness; i attacked, in my weekly writings, those sharpers who attend at aix-la-chapelle and spa to plunder both inhabitants and visitants, under the connivance of the magistracy; nor are there wanting foreign noblemen who become the associates of these pests of society. the publication of such truths endangered my life from the desperadoes, who, when detected, had nothing more to lose. how powerful is an innocent life, nothing can more fully prove than that i still exist, in despite of all the attempts of wicked monks and despicable sharpers. though my life was much disturbed, yet i do not repent of my manner of acting; many a youth, many a brave man, have i detained from the gaming- table, and pointed out to them the most notorious sharpers. this was so injurious to spa, that the bishop of liege himself, who enjoys a tax on all their winnings, and therefore protects such villains, offered me an annual pension of five hundred guineas if i would not come to spa; or three per cent. on the winnings, would i but associate myself with colonel n---t, and raise recruits for the gaming-table. my answer may easily be imagined; yet for this was i threatened to be excommunicated by the holy catholic church! i and my family passed sixteen summers in spa. my house became the rendezvous of the most respectable part of the company, and i was known to some of the most respectable characters in europe. a contest arose between the town of aix-la-chapelle and baron blankart, the master of the hounds to the elector palatine: it originated in a dispute concerning precedence between the before-mentioned wife of the recorder geyer and the sister of the burgomaster of aix-la-chapelle, kahr, who governed that town with despotism. this quarrel was detrimental to the town and to the elector palatine, but profitable to kahr, whose office it was to protect the rights of the town, and those persons who defended the claims of the elector; the latter kept a faro bank, the plunder of which had enriched the town; and the former kahr, under pretence of defending their cause, embezzled the money of the people; so that both parties endeavoured with all their power to prolong the litigation. it vexed me to see their proceedings. those who suffered on each side were deceived; and i conceived the project of exposing the truth. for this purpose i journeyed to the court at mannheim, related the facts to the elector, produced a plan of accommodation, which he approved, and obtained power to act as arbitrator. the minister of the elector, bekkers, pretended to approve my zeal, conducted me to an _auberge_, made me dine at his house, and said a commission was made out for my son, and forwarded to aix-la-chapelle--which was false; the moment he quitted me he sent to aix-la-chapelle to frustrate the attempt he pretended to applaud. he was himself in league with the parties. in fine, this silly interference brought me only trouble, expense, and chagrin. i made five journeys to mannheim, till i became so dissatisfied that i determined to quit aix-la-chapelle, and purchase an estate in austria. the bavarian contest was at this time in agitation; my own affairs brought me to paris, and here i learned intelligence of great consequence; this i communicated to the grand duke of florence, on my return to vienna. the duke departed to join the army in bohemia, and i again wrote to him, and thought it my duty to send a courier. the duke showed my letter to the emperor; but i remained unnoticed. i did not think myself safe in foreign countries during this time of war, and purchased the lordship of zwerbach, with appurtenances, which, with the expenses, cost me sixty thousand florins. to conclude this purchase, i was obliged to solicit the referendary, zetto, and his friend whom he had appointed as my curator, for my new estate was likewise made a _fidei commissum_, as my referendaries and curators would not let me escape contribution. the six thousand florins of which they emptied my purse would have done my family much service. in may, , i went to aix-la-chapelle, where my wife's mother died in july; and in september my wife, myself, and family, all came to vienna. my wife solicited the mistress of the ceremonies to obtain an audience. her request was granted, and she gained the favour of the empress. her kindness was beyond expression: she introduced my wife to the archduchess, and commanded her mistress of the ceremonies to present her everywhere. "you were unwilling," said she, "to accompany your husband into my country, but i hope to convince you that you may live happier in austria than at aix-la-chapelle." she next day sent me her decree, assuring me of a pension of four hundred florins. my wife petitioned the empress to grant me an audience: her request was complied with: and the empress said to me: "this is the third time in which i would have made your fortune, had you been so disposed." she desired to see my children, and spoke of my writings. "how much good might you do," said she, "would you but write in the cause of religion!" we departed for zwerbach, where we lived contentedly, but when we were preparing to return to vienna, and solicited the restitution of part of my lost fortune, during this favour of the court, theresa died, and all my hopes were overcast. i forgot to relate that the archduchess, maria anna, desired me to translate a religious work, written in french by the abbe baudrand, into german. i replied i would obey her majesty's commands. i began my work, took passages from baudrand, but inserted more of my own. the first volume was finished in six weeks; the empress thought it admirable. the second soon followed, and i presented this myself. she asked me if it equalled the first; i answered, i hoped it would be found more excellent. "no," said she; "i never in my life read a better book:" and added, "she wondered how i could write so well and so quickly." i promised another volume within a month. before the third was ready, theresa died. she gave orders on her death-bed to have the writings of baron trenck read to her; and though her confessor well knew the injustice that had been done me, yet in her last moments he kept silence, though he had given me his sacred promise to speak in my behalf. after her death the censor commanded that i should print what i have stated in the preface to that third volume, and this was my only satisfaction. for one-and-thirty years had i been soliciting my rights, which i never could obtain, because the empress was deceived by wicked men, and believed me a heretic. in the thirty-second, my wife had the good fortune to convince her this was false; she had determined to make me restitution; just at this moment she died. the pension granted my wife by the empress in consequence of my misfortunes and our numerous family, we only enjoyed nine months. of this she was deprived by the new monarch. he perhaps knew nothing of the affair, as i never solicited. yet much has it grieved me. perhaps i may find relief when the sighs wrung from me shall reach the heart of the father of his people in this my last writing. at present, nothing for me remains but to live unknown in zwerbach. the emperor thought proper to collect the moneys bestowed on hospitals into one fund. the system was a wise one. my cousin trenck had bequeathed thirty-six thousand florins to a hospital for the poor of bavaria. this act he had no right to do, having deducted the sum from the family estate. i petitioned the emperor that these thirty-six thousand florins might be restored to me and my children, who were the people whom trenck had indeed made poor, nothing of the property of his acquiring having been left to pay this legacy, but, on the contrary, the money having been exacted from mine. in a few days it was determined i should be answered in the same tone in which, for six-and-thirty years past, all my petitions had been answered:-- "the request of the petitioner cannot be granted." fortune persecuted me in my retreat. within six years two hailstorms swept away my crops; one year was a misgrowth; there were seven floods; a rot among my sheep: all possible calamities befell me and my manor. the estate had been ruined, the ponds were to drain, three farms were to be put into proper condition, and the whole newly stocked. this rendered me poor, especially as my wife's fortune had been sunk in lawsuits at aix- la-chapelle and cologne. the miserable peasants had nothing, therefore could not pay: i was obliged to advance them money. my sons assisted me, and we laboured with our own hands: my wife took care of eight children, without so much as the help of a maid. we lived in poverty, obliged to earn our daily bread. the greatest of my misfortunes was my treatment in the military court, when zetto and krugel were my referendaries. zetto had clogged me with a curator and when the cow had no more milk to give, they began to torture me with deputations, sequestrations, administrations, and executions. nineteen times was i obliged to attend in vienna within two years, at my own expense. every six years must i pay an attorney to dispute and quarrel with the curator. i, in conclusion, was obliged to pay. if any affair was to be expedited, i, by a third hand, was obliged to send the referendary some ducats. did he give judgment, still that judgment lay fourteen months inefficient, and, when it then appeared, the copy was false, and so was sent to the upper courts, the high referendary of which said i "must be dislodged from zwerbach." they obliged me at last to purchase my naturalisation. i sent to prussia for my pedigree; the attestation of this was sent me by count hertzberg. although the family of trenck had a hundred years been landholders in hungary, yet was my attorney obliged to solicit the instrument called ritter-diploma, for which, under pain of execution, i must pay two thousand florins. by decree a prussian nobleman is not noble in austria, where every lackey can purchase a diploma, making him a knight of the empire, for twelve hundred wretched florins!--where such men as p--- and grassalkowitz have purchased the dignity of a prince! tortured by the courts, terrified by hailstorms, i determined to publish my works, in eight volumes, and this history of my life. fourteen months accomplished this purpose. my labours found a favourable reception through all germany, procured me money, esteem, and honour. by my writings only will i seek the means of existence, and by trying to obtain the approbation and the love of men. chapter ix. on the nd of august, , the news arrived that frederic the great had left this world! * * * * * the present monarch, the witness of my sufferings in my native country, sent me a royal passport to berlin. the confiscation of my estates was annulled, and my deceased brother, in prussia, had left my children his heirs. * * * * * i journey, within the imperial permission, back to my country, from which i have been two-and-forty years expelled! i journey--not as a pardoned malefactor, but as a man whose innocence has been established by his actions, has been proved in his writings, and who is journeying to receive his reward. here i shall once more encounter my old friends my relations, and those who have known me in the days of my affliction. here shall i appear, not as my country's traitor, but as my country's martyr! possible, though little probable, are still future storms. for these also i am prepared. long had i reason daily to curse the rising sun, and, setting, to behold it with horror. death to me appears a great benefit: a certain passage from agitation to peace, from motion to rest. as for my children, they, jocund in youth, delight in present existence. when i have fulfilled the duties of a father, to live or die will then be as i shall please. thou, o god! my righteous judge, didst ordain that i should be an example of suffering to the world; thou madest me what i am, gavest me these strong passions, these quick nerves, this thrilling of the blood, when i behold injustice. strong was my mind, that deeply it might meditate on deep subjects; strong my memory, that these meditations i might retain; strong my body, that proudly it might support all it has pleased thee to inflict. should i continue to exist, should identity go with me, and should i know what i was then, when i was called trenck; when that combination of particles which nature commanded should compose this body shall be decomposed, scattered, or in other bodies united; when i have no muscles to act, no brain to think, no retina on which pictures can mechanically be painted, my eyes wasted, and no tongue remaining to pronounce the creator's name, should i still behold a creator--then, oh then, will my spirit mount, and indubitably associate with spirits of the just who expectant wait for their golden harps and glorious crowns from the most high god. for human weaknesses, human failings, arising from our nature, springing from our temperament, which the creator has ordained, shall be even thus, and not otherwise; for these have i suffered enough on earth. such is my confession of faith; in this have i lived, in this will i die. the duties of a man and of a christian i have fulfilled; nay, often have exceeded, often have been too benevolent, too generous; perhaps also too proud, too vain. i could not bend, although liable to be broken. that i have not served the world, in acts and employments where best i might, is perhaps my own fault: the fault of my manner, which is now too radical to be corrected in this, my sixtieth year. yes, i acknowledge my failing, acknowledge it unblushingly; nay, glory in the pride of a noble nature. for myself, i ask nothing of those who have read my history; to them do i commit my wife and children. my eldest son is a lieutenant in the tuscan regiment of cavalry, under general lasey, and does honour to his father's principles. the second serves his present prussian majesty, as ensign in the posadowsky dragoons, with equal promise. the third is still a child. my daughters will make worthy men happy, for they have imbibed virtue and gentleness with their mother's milk. monarchs may hereafter remember what i have suffered, what i have lost, and what is due to my ashes. here do i declare--i will seek no other revenge against my enemies than that of despising their evil deeds. it is my wish, and shall be my endeavour, to forget the past; and having committed no offence, neither will i solicit monarchs for posts of honour; as i have ever lived a free man, a free man will i die. i conclude this part of my history on the evening preceding my journey to berlin. god grant i may encounter no new afflictions, to be inserted in the remainder of this history. this journey i prepared to undertake, but my ever-envious fate threw me on the bed of sickness, insomuch that small hope remained that i ever should again behold the country of my forefathers. i seemed following the great frederic to the mansions of the dead; then should i never have concluded the history of my life, or obtained the victory by which i am now crowned. a variety of obstacles being overcome, i found it necessary to make a journey into hungary, which was one of the most pleasant of my whole life. i have no words to express my ardent wishes for the welfare of a nation where i met with so many proofs of friendship. wherever i appeared i was welcomed with that love and enthusiasm which only await the fathers of their country. the valour of my cousin trenck, who died ingloriously in the spielberg, the loss of my great hungarian estates, the fame of my writings, and the cruelty of my sufferings, had gone before me. the officers of the army, the nobles of the land, alike testified the warmth of their esteem. such is the reward of the upright; such too are the proofs that this nation knows the just value of fortitude and virtue. have i not reason to publish my gratitude, and to recommend my children to those who, when i am no more, shall dare uprightly to determine concerning the rights which have unjustly been snatched from me in hungary? not a man in hungary but will proclaim i have been unjustly dealt by; yet i have good reason to suspect i never shall find redress. sentence had been already given; judges, more honest, cannot, without difficulty, reverse old decrees; and the present possessors of my estates are too powerful, too intimate with the governors of the earth, for me to hope i shall hereafter be more happy. god knows my heart; i wish the present possessors may render services to the state equal to those rendered by the family of the trencks. there is little probability i shall ever behold my noble friends in hungary more. here i bid them adieu, promising them to pass the remainder of any life so as still to merit the approbation of a people with whose ashes i would most willingly have mingled my own. may the god of heaven preserve every hungarian from a fate similar to mine! the croats have ever been reckoned uncultivated; yet, among this uncultivated people i found more subscribers to my writings than among all the learned men of vienna; and in hungary, more than in all the austrian dominions. the hungarians, the unlettered croats, seek information. the people of vienna ask their confessors' permission to read instructive books. various subscribers, having read the first volume of my work, brought it back, and re-demanded their money, because some monk had told them it was a book dangerous to be read. the judges of their courts have re-sold them to the booksellers for a few pence or given them to those who had the care of their consciences to burn. in vienna alone was my life described as a romance; in hungary i found the compassion of men, their friendship, and effectual aid. had my book been the production of an englishman, good wishes would not have been his only reward. we german writers have interested critics to encounter if we would unmask injustice; and if a book finds a rapid sale, dishonest printers issue spurious editions, defrauding the author of his labours. the encouragement of the learned produces able teachers, and from their seminaries men of genius occasionally come forth. the world is inundated with books and pamphlets; the undiscerning reader knows not which to select; the more intelligent are disgusted, or do not read at all, and thus a work of merit becomes as little profitable to the author as to the state. i left vienna on the th of january, and came to prague. here i found nearly the same reception as in hungary; my writings were read. citizens, noblemen, and ladies treated me with like favour. may the monarch know how to value men of generous feelings and enlarged understandings! i bade adieu to prague, and continued my journey to berlin. in bohemia, i took leave of my son, who saw his father and his two brothers, destined for the prussian service, depart. he felt the weight of this separation; i reminded him of his duty to the state he served; i spoke of the fearful fate of his uncle and father in austria, and of the possessors of our vast estates in hungary. he shrank back--a look from his father pierced him to the soul--tears stood in his eyes--his youthful blood flowed quick, and the following expression burst suddenly from his lips:--"i call god to witness that i will prove myself worthy of my father's name; and that, while i live, his enemies shall be mine!" at peterswald, on the road to dresden, my carriage broke down: my life was endangered; and my son received a contusion in the arm. the erysipelas broke out on him at berlin, and i could not present him to the king for a month after. i had been but a short time at berlin before the well-known minister, count hertzberg, received me with kindness. every man to whom his private worth is known will congratulate the state that has the wisdom to bestow on him so high an office. his scholastic and practical learning, his knowledge of languages, his acquaintance with sciences, are indeed wonderful. his zeal for his country is ardent, his love of his king unprejudiced, his industry admirable, his firmness that of a man. he is the most experienced man in the prussian states. the enemies of his country may rely on his word. the artful he can encounter with art; those who menace, with fortitude; and with wise foresight can avert the rising storm. he seeks not splendour in sumptuous and ostentatious retinue; but if he can only enrich the state, and behold the poor happy, he is himself willing to remain poor. his estate, briess, near berlin, is no chanteloup, but a model to those patriots who would study economy. here he, every wednesday, enjoys recreation. the services he renders the kingdom cost it only five thousand rix-dollars yearly; he, therefore, lives without ostentation, yet becoming his state, and with splendour when splendour is necessary. he does not plunder the public treasury that he may preserve his own private property. this man will live in the annals of prussia: who was employed under the great frederic; had so much influence in the cabinets of europe; and was a witness of the last actions, the last sensations, of his dying king; yet who never asked, nor ever received, the least gratuity. this is the minister whose conversation i had the happiness to partake at aix-la-chapelle and spa, whose welfare is the wish of my heart, and whose memory i shall ever revere. i was received with distinction at his table, and became acquainted with those whose science had benefited the prussian states; nor was anything more flattering to my self-love than that men like these should think me worthy their friendship. not many days after i was presented to the court by the prussian chamberlain, prince sacken, as it is not customary at berlin for a foreign subject to be presented by the minister of his own court. though a prussian subject, i wore the imperial uniform. the king received me with condescension; all eyes were directed towards me, each welcomed me to my country. this moved me the more as it was remarked by the foreign ministers, who asked who that austrian officer could be who was received with so much affection and such evident joy in berlin. the gracious monarch himself gave tokens of pleasure at beholding me thus surrounded. among the rest came the worthy general prittwitz, who said aloud-- "this is the gentleman who might have ruined me to effect his own deliverance." confused at so public a declaration, i desired him to expound this riddle; and he added-- "i was obliged to be one of your guards on your unfortunate journey from dantzic to magdeburg, in , when i was a lieutenant. on the road i continued alone with you in an open carriage. this gave you an opportunity to escape, but you forbore. i afterwards saw the danger to which i had exposed myself. had you been less noble-minded, had such a prisoner escaped through my negligence, i had certainly been ruined. the king believed you alike dangerous and deserving of punishment. i here acknowledge you as my saviour, and am in gratitude your friend." i knew not that the generous man, who wished me so well, was the present general prittwitz. that he should himself remind me of this incident does him the greater honour. having been introduced at court, i thought it necessary to observe ceremonies, and was presented by the imperial ambassador, prince reuss, to all foreign ministers, and such families as are in the habit of admitting such visits. i was received by the prince royal, the reigning queen, the queen-dowager, and the royal family in their various places, with favour never to be forgotten. his royal highness prince henry invited me to a private audience, continued long in conversation with me, promised me his future protection, admitted me to his private concerts, and sometimes made me sup at court. a like reception i experienced in the palace of prince ferdinand of brunswick, where i frequently dined and supped. his princess took delight in hearing my narratives, and loaded me with favour. prince ferdinand's mode of educating children is exemplary. the sons are instructed in the soldier's duties, their bodies are inured to the inclemencies of weather; they are taught to ride, to swim, and are steeled to all the fatigue of war. their hearts are formed for friendship, which they cannot fail to attain. happy the nation in defence of which they are to act! how ridiculous these their _royal highnesses_ appear who, though born to rule, are not deserving to be the lackeys to the least of those whom they treat with contempt; and yet who swell, strut, stride, and contemplate themselves as creatures essentially different by nature, and of a superior rank in the scale of beings, though, in reality, their minds are of the lowest, the meanest class. happy the state whose prince is impressed with a sense that the people are not his property, but he the property of the people! a prince beloved by his people will ever render a nation more happy those he whose only wish is to inspire fear. the pleasure i received at berlin was great indeed. when i went to court, the citizens crowded to see me, and when anyone among them said, "that is trenck," the rest would cry, "welcome once more to your country," while many would reach me their hands, with the tears standing in their eyes. frequent were the scenes i experienced of this kind. no malefactor would have been so received. it was the reward of innocence; this reward was bestowed throughout the prussian territories. oh world, ill-judging world, deceived by show! dost thou not blindly follow the opinion of the prince, be he severe, arbitrary, or just? thy censure and thy praise equally originate in common report. in magdeburg i lay, chained to the wall, ten years, sighing in wretchedness, every calamity of hunger, cold, nakedness, and contempt. and wherefore? because the king, deceived by slanderers, pronounced me worthy of punishment. because a wise king mistook me, and treated me with barbarity. because a prudent king knew he had done wrong, yet would not have it so supposed. so was his heart turned to stone; nay, opposed by manly fortitude, was enraged to cruelty. most men were convinced i was an innocent sufferer; "yet did they all cry out the more, saying, let him be crucified!" my relations were ashamed to hear my name. my sister was barbarously treated because she assisted me in my misfortunes. no man durst avow himself my friend, durst own i merited compassion; or, much less, that the infallible king had erred. i was the most despised, forlorn man on earth; and when thus put on the rack, had i there expired, my epitaph would have been, "here lies the traitor, trenck." frederic is dead, and the scene is changed; another monarch has ascended the throne, and the grub has changed to a beautiful butterfly! the witnesses to all i have asserted are still living, loudly now proclaim the truth, and embrace me with heart-felt affection. does the worth of a man depend upon his actions? his reward or punishment upon his virtue? in arbitrary states, certainly not. they depend on the breath of a king! frederic was the most penetrating prince of his age, but the most obstinate also. a vice dreadful to those whom he selected as victims, who must be sacrificed to the promoting of his arbitrary views. how many perished, the sin offerings of frederic's obstinate self-will, whose orphan children now cry to god for vengeance! the dead, alas! cannot plead. trial began and ended with execution. the few words--it is the king's command--were words of horror to the poor condemned wretch denied to plead his innocence! yet what is the ukase (imperial order) in russia, _tel est notre bon plaisir_ (such is our pleasure) in france, or the allergnadigste hofresolution (the all-gracious sentence of the court), pronounced with the sweet tone of a vienna matron? in what do these differ from the arbitrary order of a military despot? every prayer of man should be consecrated to man's general good; for him to obtain freedom and universal justice! together should we cry with one voice, and, if unable to shackle arbitrary power, still should we endeavour to show how dangerous it is! the priests of liberty should offer up their thanks to the monarch who declares "the word of power" a nullity, and "the sentence" of justice omnipotent. who can name the court in europe where louis, peter, or frederic, each and all surnamed the great, have not been, and are not, imitated as models of perfection? lettres-de-cachet, the knout, and cabinet-orders, superseding all right, are become law! no reasoning, says the corporal to the poor grenadier, whom he canes!--no reasoning! exclaim judges; the court has decided.--no reasoning, rash and pertinacious trenck, will the prudent reader echo. throw thy pen in the fire, and expose not thyself to become the martyr of a state inquisition. my fate is, and must remain, critical and undecided. i have six-and-thirty years been in the service of austria, unrewarded, and beholding the repeated and generous efforts i made effectually to serve that state, unnoticed. the emperor joseph supposes me old, that the fruit is wasted, and that the husk only remains. it is also supposed i should not be satisfied with a little. to continue to oppress him who has once been oppressed, and who possess qualities that may make injustice manifest, is the policy of states. my journey to berlin has given the slanderer further opportunity of painting me as a suspicious character: i smile at the ineffectual attempt. i appeared in the imperial uniform and belied such insinuations. to this purpose it was written to court, in november, when i went into hungary, "the motions of trenck ought to be observed in hungary." ye poor malicious blood-suckers of the virtuous! ye shall not be able to hurt a hair of my head. ye cannot injure the man who has sixty years lived in honour. i will not, in my old age, bring upon myself the reproach of inconstancy, treachery, or desire of revenge. i will betray no political secrets: i wish not to injure those by whom i have been injured.--such acts i will never commit. i never yet descended to the office of spy, nor will i die a rewarded villain. yes, i appeared in berlin among the upright and the just. instead of being its supposed enemy, i was declared an honour to my country. i appeared in the imperial uniform and fulfilled the duties of my station: and now must the prussian trenck return to austria, there to perform a father's duty. yet more of what happened in berlin. some days after i had been presented to the king, i entreated a private audience, and on the th of february received the following letter:-- "in answer to your letter of the th of this month, i inform you that, if you will come to me to-morrow, at five o'clock in the afternoon, i shall have the pleasure to speak with you; meantime, i pray god to take you into his holy keeping. "frederic william. "berlin, feb. , ." "p.s.--after signing the above, i find it more convenient to appoint to-morrow, at nine in the morning, about which time you will come into the apartment named the marmor kammer (marble chamber)." the anxiety with which i expected this wished-for interview may well be conceived. i found the prussian titus alone, and he continued in conversation with me more than an hour. how kind was the monarch! how great! how nobly did he console me for the past! how entirely did his assurance of favour overpower my whole soul! he had read the history of my life. when prince of prussia, he had been an eyewitness, in magdeburg, of my martyrdom, and my attempts to escape. his majesty parted from me with tokens of esteem and condescension.--my eyes bade adieu, but my heart remained in the marble chamber, in company with a prince capable of sensations so dignified; and my wishes for his welfare are eternal. i have since travelled through the greater part of the prussian states. where is the country in which the people are all satisfied? many complained of hard times, or industry unrewarded. my answer was:-- "friends, kneel with the rising sun, and thank the god of heaven that you are prussians. i have seen and known much of this world, and i assure you, you are among the happiest people of europe. causes of complaint everywhere exist; but you have a king, neither obstinate, ambitious, covetous, nor cruel: his will is that his people should have cause of content, and should he err by chance, his heart is not to blame if the subject suffers." prussia is neither wanting in able nor learned men. the warmth of patriots glows in their veins. everything remains with equal stability, as under the reign of frederic; and should the thunder burst, the ready conductors will render the shock ineffectual. hertzberg still labours in the cabinet, still thinks, writes, and acts as he has done for years. the king is desirous that justice shall be done to his subjects, and will punish, perhaps, with more severity, whenever he finds himself deceived, than from the goodness of his disposition, might be supposed. the treasury is full, the army continues the same, and there is little reason to doubt but that industry, population, and wealth will increase. none but the vile and the wicked would leave the kingdom; while the oppressed and best subjects of other states would fly from their native country, certain of finding encouragement and security in prussia. the personal qualities of fredric william merit description. he is tall and handsome, his mien is majestic, and his accomplishments of mind and body would procure him the love of men, were he not a king. he is affable without deceit, friendly and kind in conversation, and stately when stateliness is necessary. he is bountiful, but not profuse; he knows that without economy the prussian must sink. he is not tormented by the spirit of conquest, he wishes harm to no nation, yet he will certainly not suffer other nations to make encroachments, nor will he be terrified by menaces. the wise frederic, when living, though himself learned, and a lover of the sciences, never encouraged them in his kingdom. germany, under his reign, might have forgotten her language: he preferred the literature of france. konigsberg, once the seminary of the north, contains, at present, few professors, or students; the former are fallen into disrepute, and are ill paid; the latter repair to leipsic and gottingen. we have every reason to suppose the present monarch, though no studious man himself, will encourage the academies of the literati, that men learned in jurisprudence and the sciences may not be wanting: which want is the more to be apprehended as the nobility must, without exception, serve in the army, so that learning has but few adherents, and these are deprived of the means of improvement. frederic william is also too much the friend of men to suffer them to pine in prisons. he abhors the barbarity with which the soldiers are beaten: his officers will not be fettered hand and foot; slavish subordination will be banished, and the noble in heart will be the noble of the land. may he, in his people, find perfect content! may his people be ever worthy of such a prince! long may he reign, and may his ministers be ever enlightened and honourable men! he sent for me a second time, conversed much with me, and confirmed those ideas which my first interview had inspired. on the th of march i presented my son at another audience, whom i intended for the prussian service. the king bestowed a commission on him in the posadowsky dragoons, at my request. i saw him at the review at velau, and his superior officers formed great expectations from his zeal. time will discover whether he who is in the austrian, or this in the prussian service, will first obtain the rewards due to their father. should they both remain unnoticed, i will bestow him on the grand turk, rather than on european courts, whence equity to me and mine is banished. to austria i owe no thanks; all that could be taken from me was taken. i was a captain before i entered those territories, and, after six-and-thirty years' service, i find myself in the rank of invalid major. the proof of all i have asserted, and of how little i am indebted to this state is most incontestable, since the history of my life is allowed by the royal censor to be publicly sold in vienna. it is remarkable that one only of all the eight officers, with whom i served, in the body guard, in , is dead. lieutenant-colonel count blumenthal lives in berlin; pannewitz is commander of the knights of malta: both gave me a friendly reception. wagnitz is lieutenant-general in the service of hesse-cassel; he was my tent comrade, and was acquainted with all that happened. kalkreuter and grethusen live on their estates, and jaschinsky is now alive at konigsberg, but superannuated, and tortured by sickness, and remorse. he, instead of punishment, has forty years enjoyed a pension of a thousand rix-dollars. i have seen my lands confiscated, of the income of which i have been forty-two years deprived, and never yet received retribution. time must decide; the king is generous, and i have too much pride to become a beggar. the name of trenck shall be found in the history of the acts of frederic. a tyrant himself, he was the slave of his passions; and even did not think an inquiry into my innocence worth the trouble. to be ashamed of doing right, because he has done wrong, or to persist in error, that fools, and fools only, can think him infallible, is a dreadful principle in a ruler. since i have been at berlin, and was received there with so many testimonies of friendship, the newspapers of germany have published various articles concerning me, intending to contribute to my honour or ease. they said my eldest daughter is appointed the governess of the young princess. this has been the joke of some witty correspondent; for my eldest daughter is but fifteen, and stands in need of a governess herself. perhaps they may suppose me mean enough to circulate falsehood. i daily receive letters from all parts of germany, wherein the sensations of the feeling heart are evident. among these letters was one which i received from bahrdt, professor at halle, dated april , wherein he says, "receive, noble german, the thanks of one who, like you, has encountered difficulties; yet, far inferior to those you have encountered. you, with gigantic strength, have met a host of foes, and conquered. the pests of men attacked me also. from town to town, from land to land, i was pursued by priestcraft and persecution; yet i acquired fame. i fled for refuge and repose to the states of frederic, but found them not. i have eight years laboured under affliction with perseverance, but have found no reward. by industry have i made myself what i am; by ministerial favour, never. worn out and weak, the history of your life, worthy sir, fell into my hands, and poured balsam into my wounds. there i saw sufferings immeasurably greater; there, indeed, beheld fortitude most worthy of admiration. compared to you, of what could i complain? receive, noble german, my warmest thanks; while i live they shall flow. and should you find a fortunate moment, in the presence of your king, speak of me as one consigned to poverty; as one whose talents are buried in oblivion. say to him--'mighty king! stretch forth thy hand, and dry up his tears.' i know the nobleness of your mind, and doubt not your good wishes." to the professor's letter i returned the following answer:-- "i was affected, sir, by your letter. i never yet was unmoved, when the pen was obedient to the dictates of the heart. i feel for your situation; and if my example can teach wisdom even to the wise, i have cause to triumph. this is the sweetest of rewards. at berlin i have received much honour, but little more. men are deaf to him who confides only in his right. what have i gained? shadowy fame for myself, and the vapour of hope for my heirs! "truth and trenck, my good friend, flourish not in courts. you complain of priestcraft. he who would disturb their covetousness, he who speaks against the false opinions they scatter, considers not priests, and their aim, which is to dazzle the stupid and stupefy the wise. deprecate their wrath! avoid their poisoned shafts, or they will infect tiny peace: will blast thy honour. and wherefore should we incur this danger. to cure ignorance of error is impossible. let us then silently steal to our graves, and thus small we escape the breath of envy. he who should enjoy all even thought could grasp, should yet have but little. having acquired this knowledge, the passions of the soul are lulled to apathy. i behold error, and i laugh; do thou, my friend, laugh also. if that can comfort us, men will do our memory justice--when we are dead! fame plants her laurels over the grave, and there they flourish best. "baron trenck "_schangulach_, _near konigsberg_, _april_ _th_, ." "p.s--i have spoken, worthy professor, the feelings of my heart, in answer to your kind panegyric. you will but do me justice, when you believe i think and act as i write with respect to my influence at court, it is as insignificant at berlin as at vienna or at constantinople" among the various letters i have received, as it may answer a good purpose, i hope the reader will not think the insertion of the following improper. in a letter from an unknown correspondent, who desired me to speak for this person at berlin, eight others were enclosed. they came from the above person in distress, to this correspondent: and i was requested to let them appear in the berlin journal. i selected two of them, and here present them to the world, as it can do me injury, while they describe an unhappy victim of an extraordinary kind: and may perhaps obtain him some relief. should this hope be verified, i am acquainted with him who wishes to remain concealed, can introduce him to the knowledge of such as might wish to interfere in his behalf. should they not, the reader will still find them well-written and affecting letters; such as may inspire compassion. the following is the first of those i selected. letter i "_neuland_, _feb_ _th_, . "i thought i had so satisfactorily answered you by my last, that you would have left me in peaceful possession of my sorrows! but your remarks, entreaties, and remonstrances, succeed each other with such rapidity, that i am induced to renew the contest. cowardice, i believe, you are convinced, is not a native in my heart, and should i now yield, you might suppose that age and the miseries i have suffered, had weakened my powers of mind as well as body; and that i ought to have been classed among the unhappy multitudes whose sufferings have sunk them to despondency. "baron trenck, that man of many woes, once so despised, but who now is held in admiration, where he was before so much the object of hatred; who now speaks so loudly in his own defence, where, formerly, the man who had but whispered his name would have lived suspected; baron trenck you propose as an example of salvation for me. you are wrong. have you considered how dissimilar our past lives have been; how different, too, are our circumstances? or, omitting these, have you considered to whom you would have me appeal? "in , i became acquainted, in vienna, with this sufferer of fortitude, this agreeable companion. we are taught that a noble aspect bespeaks a corresponding mind; this i believe him to possess. but what expectations can i form from baron trenck? "i will briefly answer the questions you have put. baron trenck was a man born to inherit great estates; this and the fire of his youth, fanned by flattering hopes from his famous kinsman, rendered him too haughty to his king; and this alone was the origin of all his future sufferings. i, on the contrary, though the son of a silesian nobleman of property, did not inherit so much as the pay of a common soldier; the family having been robbed by the hand of power, after being accused by wickedness under the mask of virtue. you know my father's fate, the esteem in which he was held by the empress theresa; and that a pretended miracle was the occasion of his fall. suddenly was he plunged from the height to which industry, talents, and virtue had raised him, to the depth of poverty. at length, at the beginning of the seven years' war, one of the king of prussia's subjects represented him to the austrian court as a dangerous correspondent of marshal schwerin's. then at sixty years of age, my father was seized at jagerndorf, and imprisoned in the fortress of gratz, in styria. he had an allowance just sufficient to keep him alive in his dungeon; but, for the space of seven years, never beheld the sun rise or set. i was a boy when this happened, however, i was not heard. i only received some pecuniary relief from the empress, with permission to shed my blood in her defence. in this situation we first vowed eternal friendship; but from this i soon was snatched by my father's enemies. what the empress had bestowed, her ministers tore from me. i was seized at midnight, and was brought, in company with two other officers, to the fortress of gratz. here i remained immured six years. my true name was concealed, and another given me. "peace being restored, trenck, i, and my father were released; but the mode of our release was very different. the first obtained his freedom at the intercession of theresa, she, too, afforded him a provision. we, on the contrary, according to the amnesty, stipulated in the treaty of peace, were led from our dungeons as state prisoners, without inquiry concerning the verity or falsehood of our crimes. extreme poverty, wretchedness, and misery, were our reward for the sufferings we had endured. "not only was my health destroyed, but my jawbone was lost, eaten away by the scurvy. i laid before frederic the great the proofs of the calamities i had undergone, and the dismal state to which i was reduced, by his foe, and for his sake; entreated bread to preserve me and my father from starving, but his ear was deaf to my prayer, his heart insensible to my sighs. "providence, however, raised me up a saviour,--count gellhorn was the man. after the taking of breslau, he had been also sent a state prisoner to gratz. during his imprisonment, he had heard the report of my sufferings and my innocence. no sooner did he learn i was released, than he became my benefactor, my friend, and restored me to the converse of men, to which i had so long been dead. "i defer the continuance of my narrative to the next post. the remembrance of past woes inflict new ones. i am eternally." letter ii. "_february_ , . "dear friend,--after an interval of silence, remembering my promise, i again continue my story. "my personal sufferings have not been less than those of trenck. his, i am acquainted with only from the inaccurate relations i have heard: my own i have felt. a colonel in the prussian service, whose name was hallasch, was four years my companion; he was insane, and believed himself the christ that was to appear at the millennium: he persecuted me with his reveries, which i was obliged to listen to, and approve, or suffer violence from one stronger than myself. "the society of men or books, everything that could console or amuse, were forbidden me; and i considered it as wonderful that i did not myself grow mad, in the company of this madman. four hard winters i existed without feeling the feeble emanation of a winter sun, much less the warmth of fire. the madman felt more pity than my keeper, and lent me his cloak to cover my body, though the other denied me a truss of straw, notwithstanding i had lost the use of my hands and feet. the place where we were confined was called a chamber; it rather resembled the temple of cloacina. the noxious damps and vapours so poisoned my blood that an unskilful surgeon, who tortured me during nine months, with insult as a prussian traitor, and state criminal, i lost the greatest part of my jaw. "schottendorf was our governor and tyrant; a man who repaid the friendship he found in the mansion of my fathers--with cruelty. he was ripe for the sickle, and time cut him off. tormentini and galer were his successors in office, by them we were carefully watched, but we were treated with commiseration. their precautions rendered imprisonment less wretched. ever shall i hold their memory sacred. yet, benevolent as they were, their goodness was exceeded by that of rottensteiner, the head gaoler. he considered his prisoners as his children; and he was their benefactor. of this i had experience, during two years after the release of hallasch. "here i but cursorily describe misery, at which the monarch shall shudder, if the blood of a tyrant flow not in his veins. theresa could not wish these things. but she was fallible, and not omniscient. "from the above narrative, you will perceive how opposite the effects must be which the histories of baron trenck and of myself must produce. "trenck left his dungeon shielded from contempt; the day of freedom was the day of triumph. i, on the contrary, was exposed to every calamity. the spirit of trenck again raised itself. i have laboured many a night that i might neither beg nor perish the following day: working for judges who neither knew law nor had powers of mind to behold the beauty of justice: settling accounts that, item after item, did not prove that the lord they were intended for, was an imbecile dupe. "trenck remembers his calamities, but the remembrance is advantageous to himself and his family; while with me, the past did but increase, did but agonise, the present and the future. he was not like me, obliged to crouch in presence of those vulgar, those incapable minds, that do but consider the bent back as the footstool of pride. every man is too busy to act in behalf of others; pity me therefore, but advise me not to hope assistance, by petitioning princes at second hand. i know your good wishes, and, for these, i have nothing to return but barren thanks.--i am, &c." the reasons why i published the foregoing letters are already stated, and will appear satisfactory to the reader. once more to affairs that concern myself. i met at berlin many old friends of both sexes; among others, an aged invalid came to see me, who was at glatz, in , when i cut my way through the guard. he was one of the sentinels before my door, whom i had thrown down the stairs. the hour of quitting berlin, and continuing my journey into prussia, towards konigsberg, approached. on the eve of my departure, i had the happiness of conversing with her royal highness the princess amelia, sister of frederic the great. she protected me in my hour of adversity; heaped benefits upon me, and contributed to gain my deliverance. she received me as a friend, as an aged patriot; and laid her commands upon me to write to my wife, and request that she would come to berlin, in the month of june, with her two eldest daughters. i received her promise that the happiness of the latter should be her care; nay, that she would remember my wife in her will. at this moment, when about to depart, she asked me if i had money sufficient for my journey: "yes, madam," was my reply; "i want nothing, ask nothing; but may you remember my children!" the deep feeling with which i pronounced these words moved the princess; she showed me how she comprehended my meaning, and said, "return, my friend, quickly: i shall be most happy to see you." i left the room: a kind of indecision came over me. i was inclined to remain longer at berlin. had i done so, my presence would have been of great advantage to my children. alas! under the guidance of my evil genius, i began my journey. the purpose for which i came to berlin was frustrated: for after my departure, the princess amelia died! peace be to thy ashes, noble princess! thy will was good, and be that sufficient. i shall not want materials to write a commentary on the history of frederic, when, in company with thee, i shall wander on the banks of styx; there the events that happened on this earth may be written without danger. so proceed we with our story. chapter x. on the nd of march i pursued my journey to konigsberg, but remained two days at the court of the margrave of brandenburg, where i was received with kindness. the margrave had bestowed favours on me, during my imprisonment at magdeburg. i departed thence through soldin to schildberg, here to visit my relation sidau, who had married the daughter of my sister, which daughter my sister had by her first husband, waldow, of whom i have before spoken. i found my kinsman a worthy man, and one who made the daughter of an unfortunate sister happy. i was received at his house within open arms; and, for the first time after an interval of two-and-forty years, beheld one of my own relations. on my journey thither, i had the pleasure to meet with lieutenant-general kowalsky: this gentleman was a lieutenant in the garrison of glatz, in , and was a witness of my leap from the wall of the rampart. he had read my history, some of the principal facts of which he was acquainted with. should anyone therefore doubt concerning those incidents, i may refer to him, whose testimony cannot be suspected. from schildberg i proceeded to landsberg, on the warta. here i found my brother-in-law, colonel pape, commander of the gotz dragoons, and the second husband of my deceased sister: and here i passed a joyous day. everybody congratulated me on my return into my country. i found relations in almost every garrison. never did man receive more marks of esteem throughout a kingdom. the knowledge of my calamities procured me sweet consolation; and i were insensible indeed, and ungrateful, did my heart remain unmoved on occasions like these. in austria i never can expect a like reception; i am there mistaken, and i feel little inclination to labour at removing mistakes so rooted. yet, even there am i by the general voice, approved. yes, i am admired, but not known; pitied but not supported; honoured, but not rewarded. when at berlin, i discovered an error i had committed in the commencement of my life. at the time i wrote i believed that the postmaster-general of berlin, mr derschau, was my mother's brother, and the same person who, in , was grand counsellor at glogau, and afterwards, president in east friesland. i was deceived; the derschau who is my mother's brother is still living, and president at aurich in east friesland. the postmaster was the son of the old derschau who died a general, and who was only distantly related to my mother. neither is the younger derschau, who is the colonel of a regiment at burg, the brother of my mother, but only her first cousin; one of their sisters married lieut.- colonel ostau, whose son, the president ostau, now lives on his own estate, at lablack in prussia. i was likewise deceived in having suspected a lieutenant, named mollinie, in the narrative i gave of my flight from glatz, of having acted as a spy upon me at braunau, and of having sent information to general fouquet. i am sorry. this honest man is still alive, a captain in brandenburg. he was affected at my suspicion, fully justified himself, and here i publicly apologise. he then was, and again is become my friend. i have received a letter from one lieutenant brodowsky. this gentleman is offended at finding his mother's name in my narrative, and demands i should retract my words. my readers will certainly allow the virtue of madame brodowsky, at elbing, is not impeached. although i have said i had the fortune to be beloved by her, i have nowhere intimated that i asked, or that she granted, improper favours. by the desire of a person of distinction, i shall insert an incident which i omitted in a former part. this person was an eye-witness of the incident i am about to relate, at magdeburg, and reminded me of the affair. it was my last attempt but one at flight. the circumstances were these:-- as i found myself unable to get rid of more sand, after having again cut through the planking, and mined the foundation, i made a hole towards the ditch, in which three sentinels were stationed. this i executed one night, it being easy, from the lightness of the sand, to perform the work in two hours. no sooner had i broken through, than i threw one of my slippers beside the palisades, that it might be supposed i had lost it when climbing over them. these palisades, twelve feet in length, were situated in the front of the principal fosse, and my sentinels stood within. there was no sentry-box at the place where i had broken through. this done, i returned into my prison, made another hole under the planking, where i could hide myself, and stopped up the passage behind me, so that it was not probable i could be seen or found. when daylight came, the sentinel saw the hole and gave the alarm, the slipper was found, and it was concluded that trenck had escaped over the palisades, and was no longer in prison. immediately the sub-governor came from magdeburg, the guns were fired, the horse scoured the country, and the subterranean passages were all visited: no tidings came; no discovery was made, and the conclusion was i had escaped. that i should fly without the knowledge of the sentinels, was deemed impossible; the officer, and all the guard, were put under arrest, and everybody was surprised. i, in the meantime, sat quiet in my hole, where i heard their searches, and suppositions that i was gone. my heart bounded with joy, and i held escape to be indubitable. they would not place sentinels over the prison the following night, and i should then really have left my place of concealment, and, most probably have safely arrived in saxony. my destiny, however, robbed me of all hope at the very moment when i supposed the greatest of my difficulties were conquered. everything seemed to happen as i could wish. the whole garrison came, and visited the casemates, and all stood astonished at the miracle they beheld. in this state things remained till four o'clock in the afternoon. at length, an ensign of the militia came, a boy of about fifteen or sixteen years of age, who had more wit than any or all of them. he approached the hole, examined the aperture next the fosse, thought it appeared small, tried to enter it himself, found he could not, therefore concluded it was impossible a man of my size could have passed through, and accordingly called for a light. this was an accident i had not foreseen. half stifled in my hole, i had opened the canal under the planking. no sooner had the youth procured a light, than he perceived my shirt, examined nearer, felt about, and laid hold of me by the arm. the fox was caught, and the laugh was universal. my confusion may easily be imagined. they all came round me, paid me their compliments, and finding nothing better was to be done, i laughed in company with them, and, thus laughing was led back with an aching heart to be sorrowfully enchained in my dungeon. i continued my journey, and arrived, on the fourth of april, at konigsberg, where my brother expected my arrival. we embraced as brothers must, after the absence of two-and-forty years. of all the brothers and sisters i had left in this city, he only remained. he lived a retired and peaceable life on his own estates. he had no children living. i continued a fortnight within him and his wife. here, for the first time, i learned what had happened to my relations, during their absence. the wrath of the great frederic extended itself to all my family. my second brother was an ensign in the regiment of cuirassiers at kiow, in , when i first incurred disgrace from the king. six years he served, fought at three battles, but, because his name was trenck, never was promoted. weary of expectation he quitted the army, married, and lived on his estates at meicken, where he died about three years ago, and left two sons, who are an honour to the family of the trencks. fame spoke him a person capable of rendering the state essential service, as a military man; but he was my brother, and the king would never suffer his name to be mentioned. my youngest brother applied himself to the sciences; it was proposed that he should receive some civil employment, as he was an intelligent and well-informed man; but the king answered in the margin of the petition, "no trenck is good for anything." thus have all my family suffered, because of my unjust condemnation. my last-mentioned brother chose the life of a private man, and lived at his ease, in independence, among the first people of the kingdom. the hatred of the monarch extended itself to my sister, who had married the son of general waldow, and lived in widowhood, from the year , to her second marriage. the misfortunes of this woman, in consequence of the treachery of weingarten, and the aid she sent to me in my prison at magdeburg, i have before related. she was possessed of the fine estate of hammer, near landsberg on the warta. the russian army changed the whole face of the country, and laid it desert. she fled to custrin, where everything was destroyed during the siege. the prussian army also demolished the fine forests. after the war, the king assisted all the ruined families of brandenburg; she alone obtained nothing, because she was my sister. she petitioned the king, who repined she must seek for redress from her dear brother. she died, in the flower of her age, a short time after she had married her second husband, the present colonel pape: her son, also, died last year. he was captain in the regiment of the gotz dragoons. thus were all my brothers and sisters punished because they were mine. could it be believed that the great frederic would revenge himself on the children and the children's children? was it not sufficient that he should wreak his wrath on my head alone? why has the name of trenck been hateful to him, to the very hour of his death? one derschau, captain of horse, and brother of my mother, addressed himself to the king, in , alleging he was my nearest relation and feudal heir, and petitioned that he would bestow on him my confiscated estates of great sharlack. the king demanded that the necessary proofs should be sent from the chamber at konigsberg. he was uninformed that i had two brothers living, that great sharlack was an ancient family inheritance, and that it appertained to my brothers, and not to derschau. my brothers then announced themselves as the successors to this fief, and the king bestowed on them the estate of great sharlack conformable to the feudal laws. that it might be properly divided, it was put up to auction, and bought by the youngest of my brothers, who paid surplus to the other, and to my sister. he likewise paid debts charged upon it, according to the express orders of the court. the persons who called themselves my creditors were impostors, for i had no creditors; i was but nineteen when my estates were confiscated, consequently was not of age. by what right therefore, could such debts be demanded or paid? let them explain this who can. the same thing happened when an account was given in to the fiscus of the guardianship, although i acknowledge my guardians were men of probity. one of them was eight years in possession, and when he gave it up to my brothers he did not account with them for a single shilling. at present, therefore, the affair stands thus:--frederic william has taken off the sentence of confiscation, and ordered me to be put in possession of my estates, by a gracious rescript: empowered by this i come and demand restitution; my brother answers, "i have bought and paid for the estate, am the legal possessor, have improved it so much that great sharlack, at present, is worth three or four times the sum it was at the time of confiscation. let the fiscus pay me its actual value, and then let them bestow it on whom they please. if the reigning king gives what his predecessor sold to me, i ought not thereby to be a loser." this is a problem which the people of berlin must resolve. my brother has no children, and, without going to law, will bequeath great sharlack to mine, when he shall happen to die. if he is forced in effect to restore it without being reimbursed, the king instead of granting a favour, has not done justice. i do not request any restitution like this, since such restitution would be made without asking it as a favour of the king. if his majesty takes off the confiscation because he is convinced it was originally violent and unjust, then have i a right to demand the rents of two-and-forty years. this i am to require from the fiscus, not from my brother. and should the fiscus only restore me the price for which it then sold, it would commit a manifest injustice, since all estates in the province of prussia have, since , tripled and quadrupled their value. if the estates descend only to my children after my death, i receive neither right nor favour; for, in this case, i obtain nothing for myself, and shall remain deprived of the rents, which, as the estate is at present farmed by my brother amount to four thousand rix- dollars per annum. this estate cannot be taken from him legally, since he enjoys it by right of purchase. such is the present state of the business. how the monarch shall think proper to decide, will be seen hereafter. i have demanded of the fiscus that it shall make a fair valuation of great sharlack, reimburse my brother, and restore it to me. my brother has other estates. these he will dispose of by testament, according to his good pleasure. be these things as they may, the purpose of my journey is accomplished. thou, great god, has preserved me amidst my trouble. the purest gratitude penetrates my heart. oh, that thou wouldst shield man from arbitrary power, and banish despotism from the earth! may this my narration be a lesson to the afflicted, afford hope to the despairing, fortitude to the wavering, and humanise the hearts of kings. joyfully do i journey to the shores of death. my conscience is void of reproach, posterity shall bless my memory, and only the unfeeling, the wicked, the confessor of princes and the pious impostor, shall vent their rage against my writings. my mind is desirous of repose, and should this be denied me, still i will not murmur. i now wish to steal gently towards that last asylum, whither if i had gone in my youth, it must have been with colours flying. grant, almighty god, that the prayer i this day make may be heard, and that such may be the conclusion of my eventful life! history of francis baron trenck. written by frederick baron trenck, as a necessary supplement to his own history. francis baron trenck was born in , in calabria, a province of sicily. his father was then a governor and lieutenant-colonel there, and died in , at leitschau, in hungary, lord of the rich manors of prestowacz, pleternitz, and pakratz, in sclavonia, and other estates in hungary. his christian name was john; he was my father's brother, and born in konigsberg in prussia. the name of his mother was kettler; she was born in courland. trenck was a gentleman of ancient family; and his grandfather, who was mine also, was of prussia. his father, who had served austria to the age of sixty- eight, a colonel, and bore those wounds to his grave which attested his valour. francis baron trenck was his only son; he had attained the rank of colonel during his father's life, and served with distinction in the army of maria theresa. the history of his life, which he published in , when he was under confinement at vienna, is so full of minute circumstances, and so poorly written, that i shall make but little use of it. here i shall relate only what i have heard from his enemies themselves, and what i have myself seen. his father, a bold and daring soldier, idolised his only son, and wholly neglected his education, so that the passions of this son were most unbridled. endowed with extraordinary talents, this ardent youth was early allowed to indulge the impetuous fire of his constitution. moderation was utterly unknown to him, and good fortune most remarkably favoured all his enterprises. these were numerous, undertaken from no principle of virtue, nor actuated by any motives of morality. the love of money, and the desire of fame, were the passions of his soul. to his warlike inclination was added the insensibility of a heart natively wicked: and he found himself an actor, on the great scene of life, at a time when the earth was drenched with human gore, and when the sword decided the fate of nations: hence this chief of pandours, this scourge of the unprotected, became an iron-hearted enemy, a ferocious foe of the human race, a formidable enemy in private life, and a perfidious friend. constitutionally sanguinary, addicted to pleasures, sensual, and brave; he was unappeased when affronted, prompt to act, in the moment of danger circumspect, and, when under the dominion of anger, cruel even to fury; irreconcilable, artful, fertile in invention, and ever intent on great projects. when youth and beauty inspired love, he then became supple, insinuating, amiable, gentle, respectful; yet, ever excited by pride, each conquest gave but new desires of adding another slave over whom he might domineer; and, whenever he encountered resistance, he then even ceased to be avaricious. a prudent and intelligent woman, turning this part of his character to advantage, might have formed this man to virtue, probity, and the love of the human race: but, from his infancy, his will had never suffered restraint, and he thought nothing impossible. as a soldier, he was bold even to temerity; capable of the most hazardous enterprise, and laughing at the danger he provoked. his projects were the more elevated because the acquirement of renown was the intent of all his actions. in council he was dangerous; everything must be conceded to his views. to him the means by which his end was to be obtained were indifferent. the croats at this time were undisciplined, prone to rapine, thirsting for human blood, and only taught obedience by violence; these had been the companions of his infancy: these he undertook to subject, by servitude and fear, to military subordination, and from banditti to make them soldiers. with respect to his exterior, nature had been prodigal of her favours. his height was six feet three inches, and the symmetry of his limbs was exact; his form was upright, his countenance agreeable, yet masculine, and his strength almost incredible. he could sever the head from the body of the largest ox with one stroke of his sabre, and was so adroit at this turkish practice, that he at length could behead men in the manner boys do nettles. in the latter years of his life, his aspect had become terrible; for, during the bavarian war, he had been scorched by the explosion of a powder-barrel, and ever after his face remained scarred and impregnated with black spots. in company he rendered himself exceedingly agreeable, spoke seven languages fluently, was jocular, possessed wit, and in serious conversation, understanding; had learned music, sung with taste, and had a good voice, so that he might have been well paid as an actor, had that been his fate. he could even, when so disposed, become gentle and complaisant. his look told the man of observation that he was cunning and choleric; and his wrath was terrible. he was ever suspicious, because he judged others by himself. self-interest and avarice constituted his ruling passion, and, whenever he had an opportunity of increasing his wealth, he disregarded the duties of religion, the ties of honour, and human pity. in the thirty-first year of his age, when he was possessed of nearly two millions, he did not expend a florin per day. as he and his pandours always led the van, and as he thence had an opportunity to ravage the enemy's country, at the head of troops addicted to rapine, we must not wonder that bavaria, silesia, and alsatia were so plundered. he alone purchased the booty from his troops at a low price, and this he sent by water to his own estates. if any one of his officers had made a rich capture, trenck instantly became his enemy. he was sent on every dangerous expedition till he fell, and the colonel became his universal heir, for trenck appropriated all he could to himself. he was reputed to be a man most expert in military science, an excellent engineer, and to possess an exact eye in estimating heights and distances. in all enterprises he was first; inured to fatigue, his iron body could support it without inconvenience. nothing escaped his vigilance, all was turned to account, and what valour could not accomplish, cunning supplied. his pride suffered him not to incur an obligation, and thus he was unthankful; his actions all centred in self, and as he was remarkably fortunate in whatever he undertook, he ascribed even that, which accident gave, to foresight and genius. yet was he ever, as an officer, a most useful and inestimable man to the state. his respect for his sovereign, and his zeal in her service, were unbounded; whenever her glory was at stake, he devoted himself her victim. this i assert to be truth: i knew him well. of little consequence is it to me, whether the historians of maria theresa have, or have not, misrepresented his talents and the fame he deserved. the life of trenck i write for the following reasons. he had the honour first to form, and command, regular troops, raised in sclavonia. the soldiers acquired glory under their leader, and sustained the tottering power of austria: they made libations of their blood in its defence, as did trenck, in various battles. he served like a brave warrior, with zeal, loyalty, and effect. the vile persecutions of his enemies at vienna, with whom he refused to share the plunder he had made, lost him honour, liberty, and not only the personal property he had acquired, but likewise the family patrimony in hungary. he died like a malefactor, illegally sentenced to imprisonment; and knaves have affirmed, and fools have believed, and believe still, he took the king of prussia prisoner, and that he granted him freedom in consequence of a bribe. so have the loyal hungarians been led to suppose that an hungarian had really been a traitor. by my writings, i wish to prove to this noble nation on the contrary, that trenck, for his loyalty deserved compassion, esteem, and honour in his country. this i have already done in the former part of my history. the dead trenck can speak no more; but it is the duty of the living ever to speak in defence of right. trenck wrote his own history while he was confined in the arsenal at vienna; and, in the last two sheets he openly related the manner in which he had been treated by the council of war, of which count loewenwalde, his greatest enemy, was president. the count, however, found supporters too powerful, and these sheets were torn from the book and publicly burnt at vienna. defence after this became impossible: he groaned under the grip of his adversaries. i have given a literal copy of these sheets in the first part of this history; and i again repeat i am able to prove the truth of what is there asserted, by the acts, proceedings, and judicial registers which are in my possession. he was confined in the spielberg, because much was to be dreaded from an injured man, whom they knew capable of the most desperate enterprises. he died defenceless, the sacrifice of iniquity and unjust judges. he died, and his honour remained unprotected. i am by duty his defender: although he expired my personal enemy, the author of nearly all the ills i have suffered. i came to the knowledge of his persecutors too late for the unfortunate trenck. and who are those who have divided his spoils--who slew him that they might fatten themselves? your titles have been paid for from the coffers of trenck! yet neither can your cabals, your wealthy protectors, your own riches, nor your credit at court, deprive me of the right of vindicating his fame. i have boldly written, have openly shown, that trenck was pillaged by you; that he served the house of austria as a worthy man, with zeal; not in court-martials and committees of inquiry, but fighting for his country, sharing the soldier's glory, falling the victim of envy and power; falling by the hands of those who are unworthy of judging merit. he take the king of prussia! they might as well say he took the emperor of morocco. yes, he is dead. but should any man dare affirm that the hungarian or the prussian trenck were capable of treason, that either of them merited punishment for having betrayed their country, he will not have long to seek before he will be informed that he has done us both injustice. after this preface, i shall continue my narrative on the plan i proposed. trenck, the father, was a miser, yet a well-meaning man. trenck the son, was a youthful soldier, who stood in need of money to indulge his pleasures. many curious pranks he played, when an ensign in i know not what regiment of foot. he went to one of the collectors of his father's rents, and demanded money; the collector refused to give him any, and trenck clove his skull with his sabre. a prosecution was entered against him, but, war breaking out in , between the russians and the turks, he raised a squadron of hussars, and went with it into the russian service, contrary to the will of his father. in this war he distinguished himself highly, and acquired the protection of field-marshal munich. he was so successful as a leader against the tartars, that he became very famous in the army, and at the end of the campaign, was appointed major. it happened that flying parties of turks approached his regiment when on march, and trenck seeing a favourable moment for attacking them, went to colonel rumin, desiring the regiment might be led to the charge, and that they might profit by so fair an opportunity. the colonel answered, "i have no such orders." trenck then demanded permission to charge the turks only with his own squadron; but this was refused. he became furious, for he had never been acquainted with contradiction or subordination, and cried aloud to the soldiers, "if there be one brave man among you, let him follow me." about two hundred stepped from the ranks; he put himself at their head, routed the enemy, made a horrible carnage, and returned intoxicated with joy, accompanied by prisoners, and loaded with dissevered heads. once more arrived in presence of the regiment, he attacked the colonel, treated him like the rankest coward, called him opprobrious names, without the other daring to make the least resistance. the adventure, however, became known; trenck was arrested, and ordered to be tried. his judges condemned him to be shot, and the day was appointed, but the evening before execution, field-marshal munich passed near the tent in which he was confined, trenck saw him, came forward, and said, "certainly your excellency will not suffer a foreign cavalier to die an ignominious death because he has chastised a cowardly russian! if i must die, at least give me permission to saddle my horse, and with my sabre in my hand, let me fall surrounded by the enemy." the tartars happened to be at this time harassing the advanced posts; the field-marshal shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. trenck, not discouraged, added, "i will undertake to bring your excellency three heads or lose my own. will you, if i do, be pleased to grant me my pardon?" the field-marshal replied, "yes." the horse of trenck was brought: he galloped to the enemy, and returned within four heads knotted to the horse's mane, himself only slightly wounded in the shoulder. munich immediately appointed him major in another regiment. various and almost incredible were his feats: among others, a tartar ran him through the belly with his lance: trenck grasped the projecting end with his hands, exerted his prodigious strength, broke the lance, set spurs to his horse, and happily escaped. of this wound, dreadful as it was, he was soon cured. i myself have seen the two scars, and can affirm the fact; i also learned this, and many others in , from officers who had served in the same army. during this campaign he behaved with great honour, was wounded by an arrow in the leg, and gained the affection of field-marshal munich, but excited the envy of all the russians. towards the conclusion of the war he had a new misfortune; his regiment was incommoded on all sides by the enemy: he entreated his colonel, for leave to attack them. the colonel was once more a russian, and he was refused. trenck gave him a blow, and called aloud to the soldiers to follow him. they however being russians, remained motionless, and he was put under arrest. the court-martial sentenced him to death, and all hope of reprieve seemed over. the general would have granted his pardon, but as he was himself a foreigner, he was fearful of offending the russians. the day of execution came, and he was led to the place of death, munich so contrived it that field-marshal lowenthal should pass by, at this moment, in company within his lady. trenck profited by the opportunity, spoke boldly, and prevailed. a reprieve was requested, and the sentence was changed into banishment and labour in siberia. trenck protested against this sentence. the field-marshal wrote to petersburg, and an order came that he should be broken, and conducted out of the russian territories. this order was executed, and he returned into hungary to his father. at this period he espoused the daughter of field-marshal baron tillier, one of the first families in switzerland. the two brothers of his wife each became lieutenant-general, one of whom died honourably during the seven years' war. the other was made commander-general in croatia, where he is still living, and is at the head of a regiment of infantry that bears his name. trenck did not live long with his lady. she was pregnant, and he took her to hunt with him in a marsh: she returned ill, and died without leaving him an heir. having no opportunity to indulge his warlike inclination, because of the general peace, he conceived the project of extirpating the sclavonian banditti. trenck, to execute this enterprise, employed his own pandours. the contest now commenced and activity and courage were necessary to ensure success in such a war. trenck seemed born for this murderous trade. day and night he chased them like wild beasts, killing now one, then another, and without distinction, treating them with the utmost barbarity. two incidents will sufficiently paint the character of this unaccountable man. he had impaled alive the father of a harum-bashaw. one evening he was going on patrol, along the banks of a brook, which separated two provinces. on the opposite shore was the son of this impaled father, with his croats. it was moonlight, and the latter called aloud--"i heard thy voice, trenck! thou hast impaled my father! if thou hast a heart in thy body, come hither over the bridge, i will send away my followers; leave thy firearms, come only with thy sabre, and we will then see who shall remain the victor." the agreement was made--and the harum-bashaw sent away his croats, and laid down his musket. trenck passed the wooden bridge, both drew their sabres; but trenck treacherously killed his adversary with a pistol, that he had concealed, after which he severed his head from his body, took it with him, and stuck it upon a pole. one day, when hunting, he heard music in a lone house which belonged to one of his vassals. he was thirsty, entered, and found the guests seated at table. he sat down and ate within them, not knowing this was a rendezvous for the banditti. as he was seated opposite the door, he saw two harum-bashaws enter. his musket stood in a corner; he was struck with terror, but one of them addressed him thus:--"neither thee, nor thy vassals, trenck, have we ever injured, yet thou dost pursue us with cruelty. eat thy fill. when thou hast satisfied thy hunger, we will then, sabre in thy hand, see who has most justice on his side, and whether thou art as courageous as men speak thee." hereupon they sat down and began to eat and drink and make merry. the situation of trenck could not be very pleasant. he recollected that besides these, there might be more of their companions, without, ready to fall upon him; he, therefore, privately drew his pistols, held them under the table while he cocked them, presented each hand to the body of a harum-bashaw, fired them both at the same instant, overset the table on the guests, and escaped from the house. as he went he had time to seize on one of their muskets, which was standing at the door. one of the croats was left weltering in his blood; the other disengaged himself from the table, and ran after trenck, who suffered him to approach, killed him within his own gun, struck off his head and brought it home in triumph. by this action the banditti were deprived of their two most valorous chiefs. war broke out about this time, in , when all the hungarians took up arms in defence of their beloved queen. trenck offered to raise a free corps of pandours, and requested an amnesty for the banditti who should join his troops. his request was granted, he published the amnesty, and began to raise recruits; he therefore enrolled his own vassals, formed a corps of men, went in search of the robbers, drove them into a strait between the save and sarsaws, where they capitulated, and of them enrolled themselves with his pandours. most of these men were six feet in height, determined, and experienced soldiers. to indulge them on certain occasions in their thirst of pillage were means which he successfully employed to lead them where he pleased, and to render them victorious. by means like these trenck became at once the terror of the enemies of austria, and rendered signal services to his empress. in , while he was exercising his regiment, a company fired upon trenck, and killed his horse, and his servant that stood by his side. he ran to the company, counted one, two, three, and beheaded the fourth. he was continuing this, when a harum-bashaw left the ranks, drew his sword, and called aloud, "it is i who fired upon thee, defend thyself." the soldiers stood motionless spectators. trenck attacked him and hewed him down. he was proceeding to continue the execution of the fourth man, but the whole regiment presented their arms. the revolt became general, and trenck, still holding his drawn sabre, ran amidst them, hacking about him on all sides. the excess of his rage was terrific; the soldiers all called "hold!" each fell on their knees, and promised obedience. after this he addressed them in language suitable to their character, and from that time they became invincible soldiers whenever they were headed by himself. let the situation of trenck be considered; he was the chief of a band of robbers who supposed they were authorised to take whatever they pleased in an enemy's country, a banditti that had so often defied the gallows, and had never known military subordination. let such men be led to the field and opposed to regular troops. that they are never actuated by honour is evident: their leader is obliged to excite their avidity by the hope of plunder to engage them in action; for if they perceive no personal advantage, the interest of the sovereign is insufficient to make them act. trenck had need of a particular species of officers. they must be daring, yet cautious. they are partisans, and must be capable of supporting fatigue, desirous of daily seeking the enemy, and hazarding their lives. as he was himself never absent at the time of action, he soon became acquainted with those whom he called old women, and sent them from his regiment. these officers then repaired to vienna, vented their complaints, and were heard. his avarice prevented him from making any division of his booty with those gentlemen who constituted the military courts, thus neglecting what was customary at vienna: and in this originated the prosecution to which he fell a victim. scarcely had he entered austria with his troops before he found an opportunity of reaping laurels. the french army was defeated at lintz. trenck pursued them, treated his prisoners with barbarity; and, never granting quarter in battle, the very appearance of his pandours inspired terror. trenck was a great warrior, and knew how to profit by the slightest advantage. from this time he became renowned, gained the confidence of prince charles, and the esteem of the field-marshal count kevenhuller, who discovered the worth of the man. no partisan had ever before obtained so much power as trenck; he everywhere pursued the enemy as far as bavaria, carrying fire and sword wherever he went. as it was known trenck gave no quarter, the bavarians and the french flew at the sight of a red mantle. pillage and murder attended the pandours wherever they went, and their colonel bought up all the booty they acquired. chamb, in particular, was a scene of a dreadful massacre. the city was set on fire and the people perished in the flames; women and children who endeavoured to fly, were obliged to pass over a bridge, where they were first stripped, and afterwards thrown into the water. this action was one of the accusations brought against trenck when he was prosecuted, but he alleged his justification. the banks of the iser to this day reverberate groans for the barbarities of trenck. deckendorf and filtzhofen felt all his fury. in the first of these towns french prisoners capitulated, although his forces were four miles distant; but he formed a kind of straw men, on which he put pandour caps and cloaks, and set them up as sentinels; and the garrison, deceived by this stratagem, signed the capitulation. the services he rendered the army during the bavarian war are well known in the history of maria theresa. the good he has done has been passed over in silence, because he died under misfortunes, and did not leave his historian a legacy. he was informed that either at deckendorf or filtzhofen there was a barrel containing , florins, concealed at the house of an apothecary. impelled by the desire of booty, trenck hastened to the place, with a candle in his hand, searching everywhere, and, in his hurry, dropped a spark into a quantity of gunpowder, by the explosion of which he was dreadfully scorched. they carried him off, but the scars and the gunpowder with which his skin was blackened rendered his countenance terrific. the present field-marshal laudohn was at that time a lieutenant in his regiment, and happened to be at the door when his colonel was burnt. scarcely was trenck cured before his spies informed him that laudohn had plenty of money. immediately he suspected that laudohn had found the barrel of florins, and from that moment he persecuted him by all imaginable arts. wherever there was danger he sent him, at the head of men, against , hoping to have him cut off, and to make himself his heir. this was so often repeated that laudohn returned to vienna, where, joining the crowd of the enemies of trenck, he became instrumental in his destruction. yet it is certain that, in the beginning, trenck had shown a friendship for laudohn, had given him a commission, and that this great man learned, under the command of trenck, his military principles. general tillier was likewise formed in this nursery of soldiers, where officers were taught activity, stratagem, and enterprise. and who are more capable of commanding a hungarian army than tillier and laudohn? i, one day said to trenck, when he was in vienna, embarrassed by his prosecution, and when he had published a defamatory writing against all his accusers, excepting no man,--"you have always told me that laudohn was one of the most capable of your officers, and that he is a worthy man. wherefore then do you class him among such wretches?" he replied, "what! would you have me praise a man who labours, at the head of my enemies, to rob me of honour, property, and life!" i have related this incident to prove by the testimony of so honourable a man, that trenck was a great soldier, and a zealous patriot, and that he never took the king of prussia prisoner, as has been falsely affirmed, and as is still believed by the multitude. had such a thing happened, laudohn must have been present, and would have supported this charge. bavaria was plundered by trenck; barges were loaded with gold, silver, and effects, which he sent to his estates in sclavonia; prince charles and count kevenhuller countenanced his proceedings; but when field-marshal neuperg was at the head of the army, he had other principles. he was connected with baron tiebes, a counsellor of the hofkriegsrath who was the enemy of trenck. persecution was at that time instituted against him, and trenck was imprisoned; but he defended himself so powerfully that in a month he was set at liberty. mentzel, meanwhile, had the command of the pandours; and this man appropriated to himself the fame that trenck had acquired by the warriors he himself had formed. mentzel never was the equal of trenck. trenck now increased the number of his croats to , , from whom, in , a regiment of hungarian regulars was formed, but who still retained the name of pandours. it was a regiment of infantry. trenck also had hussars and chasseurs, whom he equipped at his own expense. yet, when this corps was reduced, all was sold for the profit of the imperial treasury, without bringing a shilling to account. with a corps so numerous, he undertook great enterprises. the enemy fled wherever he appeared. he led the van, raised contributions which amounted to several millions, delivered unto the empress, in five years, , prisoners, french and bavarian, and more than , prussians. he never was defeated. he gained confidence among his troops, and will remain in history the first man who rendered the savage croats efficient soldiers. this it was impossible to perform among a bloodthirsty people without being guilty himself of cruel acts. the necessity of the excesses he committed, when the army was in want of forage, was so evident that he received permission of prince charles, though for this he was afterwards prosecuted; while the plunders of brenklau, mentzel, and the whole army, were never once questioned. that trenck advanced more than , florins to his regiment, i clearly proved, in . this proof came too late. he was dead. the evidence i brought occasioned a quartermaster, frederici, to be imprisoned. he confessed the embezzlement of this money, yet found so many friends among the enemies of trenck that he refunded nothing, but was released in the year , when i was thrown into the dungeon of magdeburg. my cousin, who had lived like a miser, did not, at his death, leave half of the property he had inherited from his father, and which legally descended to me; it was torn from me by violence. in he obliged the french to retire beyond the rhine, seized on a fort near phillipsburg, swam across the river with pandours, attacked the fortifications, slew the marquis de crevecoeur, with his own hand manned the post, traversed the other arm of the rhine, surprised two bavarian regiments of cavalry, and by this daring manoeuvre, secured the passage of the rhine to the whole army, which, but for him, would not have been effected. wherever he came, he laid the country under contribution, and, at this moment of triumph for the austrian arms, opened himself a passage to enter the territories of france. in september, , war having broken out between austria and prussia, the imperial army was obliged to return, abandon alsatia, and hasten to the succour of the austrian states. trenck succeeded in covering its retreat. the history of maria theresa declares the damages he did the enemy, during this campaign. he gave proof of his capacity at tabor and budweis. with men he attacked one of these towns, which was defended by the two prussian regiments of walrabe and kreutz. he found the water in the moats was deeper than his spies had declared, and the scaling ladders too short: most of those led to the attack were killed, or drowned in the water, and the small number that crossed the moats were made prisoners. the garrison of tabor, of budweis, and of the castle of frauenburg, were, nevertheless, induced to capitulate, and yield themselves prisoners, although the main body under trenck was more than five miles distant. his corps did not come up till the morrow, and it was ridiculous enough to see the pandours dressed in the caps of the prussian fusiliers and pioneers, which they wore instead of their own, and which they afterwards continued to wear. the campaign to him was glorious, and the enemy's want of light troops gave free scope to his enterprises, highly to their prejudice. he never returned without prisoners. he passed the elbe near pardubitz, took the magazines, and was the cause of the great dearth and desertion among the prussians, and of that hasty retreat to which they were forced. the king was at cohn with his headquarters, where i was with him, when trenck attacked the town, which he must have carried, had he not been wounded by a cannon-ball, which shattered his foot. he was taken away, the attack did not succeed, and his men, without him, remained but so many ciphers. in , he went to vienna, where his entrance resembled a triumph. the empress received him with distinction. he appeared on crutches; she, by her condescending speech, inflamed his zeal to extravagance. who would have supposed that the favourite of the people would that year be abandoned to the power of his enemies; who had not rendered, during their whole lives, so much essential service to the state as trenck had done in a single day? he returned to his estate, raised eight hundred recruits that he might aid in the next campaign, and gather new laurels. he rejoined the army. at the battle of sorau he fell upon the prussian camp, and seized upon the tent of the king, but he came too late to attack the rear, as had been preconcerted. frederic gave up his camp to be plundered, for the croats could not be drawn off to attack the army, and the king was prepared to receive them, even if they should. in the meantime, the imperial army was defeated. here was a field for the enemies of trenck to incite the people against him. they accused him of having made the king of prussia a prisoner in his tent; that he also pillaged the camp instead of attacking the rear of the army. after having ended the campaign, he returned to vienna to defend himself. here he found twenty-three officers, whom he expelled his regiment, most of them for cowardice or mean actions. they were ready to bear false testimony. counsellor weber and gen. loewenwalde, had sworn his downfall, which they effected. trenck despised their attacks. while things remained thus, they instructed one of the empress's attendants to profit by every opportunity to deprive him of her confidence. it was affirmed, trenck is an atheist! who never prayed to the holy virgin! the officers, whom he had broken, whispered it in coffee-houses, that trenck had taken and set free the king of prussia! this raised the cry among the fanatical mob of vienna. teased by their complaints, and at the requisition of trenck himself, the empress commanded that examination should be undertaken of these accusations. field-marshal cordova was chosen to preside over this inquiry. he spoke the truth, and drew up a statement of the case; it was presented to the court, and which i shall here insert. "the complaints brought against him did not require a court-martial. trenck had broken some officers by his own authority; their demands ought to be satisfied by the payment of , florins. the remaining accusations were all the attempts of revenge and calumny, and were insufficient to detain at vienna, entangled in law-suits, a man so necessary to the army. moreover, it would be prudent not to inquire into trifles, in consideration of his important services." trenck, dissatisfied by this sentence, and animated by avarice and pride, refused to pay a single florin, and returned to sclavonia. his presence was necessary at vienna, to obtain other advantages against his enemies. they gave the empress to understand, that being a man excessively dangerous, whenever he supposed himself injured, trenck had spread pernicious views in sclavonia, where all men were dependent on him. he raised six hundred more men, with whom he made a campaign in the netherlands, and in october, , returned to vienna. after the peace of dresden, his regiment was incorporated among the regulars, and served against france. scarcely had he arrived at vienna, before an order came from the empress that he must remain under arrest in his chamber. here he rendered himself guilty by the most imprudent action of his whole life. he ordered his carriage and horses, despising the imperial mandate, went to the theatre, when the empress was present. in one of the boxes he saw count gossau, in company with a comrade of his own, whom he had cashiered: these persons were among the foremost of his accusers. inflamed with the desire of revenge, he entered the box, seized count gossau, and would have thrown him into the pit in the presence of the sovereign herself. gossau drew his sword, and tried to run him through, but the latter seizing it, wounded himself in the hand. everybody ran to save gossau, who was unable to defend himself. after this exploit, the colonel of the pandours returned foaming home. such an action rendered it impossible for maria theresa to declare herself the protectress of a man so rash. sentinels were placed over him, and his enemies profiting by his imprudence and passion, he was ordered to be tried by a court-martial. general loewenwalde intrigued so successfully, that he procured himself to be named, by the hofkriegsrath, president of the court-martial, and to be charged with the sequestration of the property of trenck. in vain did the latter protest against his judge. the very man, whom the year before he had kicked out of the ante- chamber of prince charles, received full power to denounce him guilty. then was it that public notice was given that all those who would prefer complaints against colonel baron trenck should receive a ducat per day while the council continued to sit. they soon amounted to fifty-four, who, in a space of four months, received , florins from the property of trenck. the judge himself purchased the depositions of false witnesses; and count loewenwalde offered me one thousand ducats, if i would betray the secrets of my cousin, and promised me i should be put in possession of my confiscated estates in prussia, and have a company in a regiment. that the indictment and the examinations of the witnesses were falsified, has already been proved in the revision of the cause; but as the indictment did not contain one article that could affect his life, they invented the following stratagem. a courtesan, a mistress of baron rippenda, who was a member of the court-martial, was bribed, and made oath she was the daughter of count schwerin, field-marshal in the prussian service, and that she was in bed with the king of prussia, when trenck surprised the camp at sorau, made her and the king prisoners, and restored them their freedom. she even ventured to name baron hilaire, aide-de-camp to frederic, whom she affirmed was then present. hilaire, who afterwards married the baroness tillier, and who consequently was brother-in-law to trenck, fortunately happened to be in vienna. he was confronted with this woman, and through her falsehoods, the gentleman was obliged to remain in prison, where they offered him bribes, which be refused to accept; and, to prevent his speaking, he continued in prison some weeks, and was not released till this shameful proceeding was made public. count loewenwalde invented another artifice; he drew up a false indictment; and, that he might be prevented all means of justification, he chose a day to put it in practice, when the emperor and prince charles were hunting at holitzsch. loewenwalde's court-martial had already signed a sentence of death, and every preparation for the erection of a scaffold was made. his intention was then to go to the empress and induce her to sign the sentence, under a pretence that there was some imminent peril at hand, if a man so dangerous to the state was not immediately put out of the way, and that it would be necessary to execute the sentence of death before the emperor could return. he well knew the emperor was better acquainted with trenck, and had ever been his protector. had this succeeded, trenck would have died like a traitor; miss schwerin would have espoused the aide-de-camp of loewenwalde, with fifty thousand florins, taken from the funds of trenck, and his property would have been divided between his judges and his accusers. as it happened, however, the valet-de-chambre of count loewenwalde, who was an honest man, and who had an intimacy with a former mistress of trenck, confided the whole secret to her. she immediately flew to colonel baron lopresti, who was the sincere friend of my kinsman, and, being then powerful at court, was his deliverer. the emperor and prince charles were informed of what was in agitation, but they thought proper to keep it secret. the hunting at holitzsch took place on the appointed day. count loewenwalde made his appearance before the empress, and solicited her to sign the sentence. she, however, had been pre-informed, the emperor having returned on the same day, and their abominable project proved abortive. miss schwerin was imprisoned; loewenwalde was deprived of his power, as well as of the sequestration of the effects of trenck; a total revision of the proceedings of the court-martial, and of the prosecution of my cousin, was ordered, which was an event, that, till then, was unexampled at vienna. trenck was freed from his fetters, removed to the arsenal, an officer guarded him, and he had every convenience he could wish. he was also permitted the use of a counsellor to defend his cause. i obtained by the influence of the emperor leave to visit him and to aid him in all things. it was at this epoch that i arrived at vienna, and, at this very instant, when the revision of the prosecution was commanded and determined on. count loewenwalde, supposing me a needy, thoughtless youth, endeavoured to bribe me, and prevail on me to betray my kinsman. prince charles of lorraine then desired me seriously to represent to trenck that his avarice had been the cause of all these troubles, for he hind refused to pay the paltry sum of , florins, by which he might have silenced all his accusers; but that, as at present, affairs had become so serious, he ought himself to secure his judges for the revision of the suit; to spare no money, and then he might be certain of every protection the prince could afford. the respectable field-marshal konigseck, governor of vienna, was appointed president; but, being an old man, he was unable to preside at any one sitting of the court. count s--- was the vice-president, a subtle, insatiable judge, who never thought he had money enough. i took , ducats, which baron lopresti gave me, to this most worthy counsellor. the two counsellors, komerkansquy and zetto, each received , rix-dollars, with a promise of double the sum if trenck were acquitted; there was a formal contract drawn up, which a certain noble lord secretly signed. trenck was defended by the advocate gerhauer and by berger. they began with the self-created daughter of marshal schwerin; and, to conceal the iniquitous proceedings of the late court- martial, it was thought proper that she should appear insane, and return incoherent answers to the questions put by the examiners. trenck insisted that a more severe inquiry should be instituted; but they affirmed that she had been conducted out of the austrian territories. trenck was accused of having ordered a certain pandour, named paul diack, to suffer the bastinado of , blows, and that he had died under the punishment. this was sworn to by two officers, now great men in the army, who said they were eye-witnesses of the fact. when the revision of the suit began, trenck sent me into sclavonia, where i found the dead paul diack alive, and brought him to vienna. he was examined by the court, where it appeared that the two officers, who had sworn they were present when he expired, and had seen him buried, were at that time miles from the regiment, and recruiting in sclavonia. paul diack had engaged in plots, and had mutinied three times. trenck had pardoned him, but afterwards mutinying once more, with forty others, he was condemned to death. at the place of execution he called to his colonel: "father, if i receive a thousand blows, will you pardon me?" trenck replied in the affirmative. he received the punishment, was taken to the hospital, and cured. i brought fourteen more witnesses from sclavonia, who attested the falsity of other articles of accusation which were not worthy of attention. the cause wore a new aspect; and the wickedness of those who were so desirous to have seen trenck executed became apparent. one of the chief articles in the prosecution, which for ever deprived him of favour from his virtuous and apostolic mistress, and for which alone he was condemned to the spielberg, was, that he had ravished the daughter of a miller in silesia. this was made oath of, and he was not entirely cleared of the charge in the revision, because his accusers had excluded all means of justification. two years after his death, i discovered the truth of this affair. mainstein accused him of this crime that he might prevent his return to the regiment; his motive was, because he, in conjunction with frederici, had appropriated to their own purposes , florins of regimental money. this miller's daughter was the mistress of mainstein, before she had been seen by trenck. maria theresa, however, would never forgive him; and, to satisfy the honour of this damsel, he was condemned to pay , florins to her, and , to the chest of the invalids, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. sixty-three civil suits had i to defend, and all the appeals of his accusers to terminate after his death. i gained them all and his accusers were condemned in costs, also to refund the so much per day which had been paid them by general loewenwalde; but they were all poor, and i might seek the money where i could. in justice, loewenwalde ought to have reimbursed me. the total of the sum they received was , florins. most of the other articles of accusation consisted in trenck's having beheaded some mutinous pandours, and broken his officers without a court- martial; that he had bought of his soldiers, and melted down the holy vessels of the church, chalices, and rosaries; had bastinadoed some priests, had not heard mass every sunday, and had dragged malefactors from convents, in which they had taken refuge. when the officers were no longer protected by loewenwalde, or weber, they decamped, but did not cease to labour to gain their purpose, which they attained by the aid of the court-confessor. this monk found means to render maria theresa insensible of pity towards a man who had been so prodigal of his blood in her defence. loewenwalde knew how to profit by the opportunity. gerhauer discovered the secret proceedings; and loewenwalde, now deeply interested in the ruin of trenck, went to the empress, related the manner in which the judges had been bribed, and threatened that should he, through the protection of the emperor and prince charles, be declared innocent, he would publicly vindicate the honour of the court-martial. had my cousin followed my advice and plan of flight he would not have died in prison nor should i have lain in the dungeon of magdeburg. with respect to individuals whom he robbed, innocent men whom he massacred, and many other worthy people whom he made miserable; with respect to his father, aged eighty-four, and his virtuous wife, whom he treated with barbarity; with respect to myself, to the duties of consanguinity and of man, he merited punishment, the pursuit of the avenging arm of justice, and to be extirpated from all human society. epilogue. thomas carlyle's opinion of the author of this history is expressed in the following passages from his _history of friedrich ii. of prussia_: "'frederick baron trenck,' loud sounding phantasm, once famous in the world, now gone to the nurseries as mythical, was of this carnival ( - .) . . . a tall actuality in that time, swaggering about in sumptuous life guard uniform in his mess-rooms and assembly-rooms; much in love with himself, the fool! and i rather think, in spite of his dog insinuations, neither princess had heard of him till twenty years hence, in a very different phasis of his life! the empty, noisy, quasi-tragic fellow; sounds throughout quasi-tragical, like an empty barrel; well-built, longing to be filled."--book xiv., ch. . none none a narrative of the most remarkable particulars in the life of james albert ukawsaw gronniosaw, an african prince, as related by himself. _i will bring the blind by a way that they know not, i will lead them in paths that they have not known: i will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight. these things will i do unto them and not forsake them._ isa. xlii. . bath: printed by w. gye in westgate-street; and sold by t. mills, bookseller, in king's-mead-square. price six-pence. to the right honourable the _countess_ of huntingdon; this narrative of my _life_, and of god's wonderful dealings with me, is, (_through her ladyship's permission_) _most humbly dedicated, by her ladyship's most obliged and obedient servant,_ james albert. the preface to the reader. this account of the life and spiritual experience of james albert was taken from his own mouth and committed to paper by the elegant pen of a young lady of the town of leominster, for her own private satisfaction, and without any intention at first that it should be made public. but she has now been prevail'd on to commit it to the press, both with a view to serve albert and his distressed family, who have the sole profits arising from the sale of it; and likewise as it is apprehended, this little history contains matter well worthy the notice and attention of every christian reader. perhaps we have here in some degree a solution of that question that has perplex'd the minds of so many serious persons, viz. in what manner will god deal with those benighted parts of the world where the gospel of jesus christ hath never reach'd? now it appears from the experience of this remarkable person, that god does not save without the knowledge of the truth; but, with respect to those whom he hath fore-known, though born under every outward disadvantage, and in regions of the grossest darkness and ignorance, he most amazingly acts upon and influences their minds, and in the course of wisely and most wonderfully appointed providences, he brings them to the means of spiritual information, gradually opens to their view the light of his truth, and gives them full possession and enjoyment of the inestimable blessings of his gospel. who can doubt but that the suggestion so forcibly press'd upon the mind of albert (when a boy) that there was a being superior to the sun, moon, and stars (the objects of african idolatry) came from the father of lights, and was, with respect to him, the first-fruit of the display of gospel-glory? his long and perilous journey to the coast of guinea, where he was sold for a slave, and so brought into a christian land; shall we consider this as the alone effect of a curious and inquisitive disposition? shall we in accounting for it refer to nothing higher than mere chance and accidental circumstances? whatever infidels and deists may think; i trust the christian reader will easily discern an all-wise and omnipotent appointment and direction in these movements. he belong'd to the redeemer of lost sinners; he was the purchase of his cross; and therefore the lord undertook to bring him by a way that he knew not, out of darkness into his marvellous light, that he might lead him to a saving heart-acquaintance and union with the triune god in christ reconciling the world unto himself; and not imputing their trespasses. as his call was very extraordinary, so there are certain particulars exceedingly remarkable in his experience. god has put singular honour upon him in the exercise of his faith and patience, which in the most distressing and pitiable trials and calamities have been found to the praise and glory of god. how deeply must it affect a tender heart, not only to be reduc'd to the last extremity himself, but to have his wife and children perishing for want before his eyes! yet his faith did not fail him; he put his trust in the lord, and he was delivered. and at this instant, though born in an exalted station of life, and now under the pressure of various afflicting providences, i am persuaded (for i know the man) he would rather embrace the dung-hill, having christ in his heart, than give up his spiritual possessions and enjoyment, to fill the throne of princes. it perhaps may not be amiss to observe that james albert left his native country, (as near as i can guess from certain circumstances) when he was about years old. he now appears to be turn'd of sixty; has a good natural understanding; is well acquainted with the scriptures, and the things of god, has an amiable and tender disposition, and his character can be well attested not only at kidderminster, the place of his residence but likewise by many creditable persons in london and other places. reader, recommending this narrative to your perusal, and him who is the subject of it to your charitable regard, i am your faithful and obedient servant, for christ's sake, w. shirley. an account of james albert, &c. i was born in the city bournou; my mother was the eldest daughter of the reigning king there, of which bournou is the chief city. i was the youngest of six children, and particularly loved by my mother, and my grand-father almost doated on me. i had, from my infancy, a curious turn of mind; was more grave and reserved in my disposition than either of my brothers and sisters. i often teazed them with questions they could not answer: for which reason they disliked me, as they supposed that i was either foolish, or insane. 'twas certain that i was, at times, very unhappy in myself: it being strongly impressed on my mind that there was some great man of power which resided above the sun, moon and stars, the objects of our worship. my dear indulgent mother would bear more with me than any of my friends beside.--i often raised my hand to heaven, and asked her who lived there? was much dissatisfied when she told me the sun, moon and stars, being persuaded, in my own mind, that there must be some superior power.--i was frequently lost in wonder at the works of the creation: was afraid and uneasy and restless, but could not tell for what. i wanted to be informed of things that no person could tell me; and was always dissatisfied.--these wonderful impressions begun in my childhood, and followed me continually 'till i left my parents, which affords me matter of admiration and thankfulness. to this moment i grew more and more uneasy every day, in so much that one saturday, (which is the day on which we keep our sabbath) i laboured under anxieties and fears that cannot be expressed; and, what is more extraordinary, i could not give a reason for it.--i rose, as our custom is, about three o'clock, (as we are oblig'd to be at our place of worship an hour before the sun rise) we say nothing in our worship, but continue on our knees with our hands held up, observing a strict silence 'till the sun is at a certain height, which i suppose to be about or o'clock in england: when, at a certain sign made by the priest, we get up (our duty being over) and disperse to our different houses.--our place of meeting is under a large palm tree; we divide ourselves into many congregations; as it is impossible for the same tree to cover the inhabitants of the whole city, though they are extremely large, high and majestic; the beauty and usefulness of them are not to be described; they supply the inhabitants of the country with meat, drink and clothes;[a] the body of the palm tree is very large; at a certain season of the year they tap it, and bring vessels to receive the wine, of which they draw great quantities, the quality of which is very delicious: the leaves of this tree are of a silky nature; they are large and soft; when they are dried and pulled to pieces it has much the same appearance as the english flax, and the inhabitants of bournou manufacture it for cloathing &c. this tree likewise produces a plant or substance which has the appearance of a cabbage, and very like it, in taste almost the same: it grows between the branches. also the palm tree produces a nut, something like a cocoa, which contains a kernel, in which is a large quantity of milk, very pleasant to the taste: the shell is of a hard substance, and of a very beautiful appearance, and serves for basons, bowls, &c. [footnote a: it is a generally received opinion, in _england_, that the natives of _africa_ go entirely unclothed; but this supposition is very unjust: they have a kind of dress so as to appear decent, though it is very slight and thin.] i hope this digression will be forgiven.--i was going to observe that after the duty of our sabbath was over (on the day in which i was more distressed and afflicted than ever) we were all on our way home as usual, when a remarkable black cloud arose and covered the sun; then followed very heavy rain and thunder more dreadful than ever i had heard: the heav'ns roared, and the earth trembled at it: i was highly affected and cast down; in so much that i wept sadly, and could not follow my relations and friends home.--i was obliged to stop and felt as if my legs were tied, they seemed to shake under me: so i stood still, being in great fear of the man of power that i was persuaded in myself, lived above. one of my young companions (who entertained a particular friendship for me and i for him) came back to see for me: he asked me why i stood still in such very hard rain? i only said to him that my legs were weak, and i could not come faster: he was much affected to see me cry, and took me by the hand, and said he would lead me home, which he did. my mother was greatly alarmed at my tarrying out in such terrible weather; she asked me many questions, such as what i did so for, and if i was well? my dear mother says i, pray tell me who is the great man of power that makes the thunder? she said, there was no power but the sun, moon and stars; that they made all our country.--i then enquired how all our people came? she answered me, from one another; and so carried me to many generations back.--then says i, who made the _first man_? and who made the first cow, and the first lyon, and where does the fly come from, as no one can make him? my mother seemed in great trouble; she was apprehensive that my senses were impaired, or that i was foolish. my father came in, and seeing her in grief asked the cause, but when she related our conversation to him, he was exceedingly angry with me, and told me he would punish me severely if ever i was so troublesome again; so that i resolved never to say any thing more to him. but i grew very unhappy in myself; my relations and acquaintance endeavoured by all the means they could think on, to divert me, by taking me to ride upon goats, (which is much the custom of our country) and to shoot with a bow and arrow; but i experienced no satisfaction at all in any of these things; nor could i be easy by any means whatever: my parents were very unhappy to see me so dejected and melancholy. about this time there came a merchant from the _gold coast_ (the third city in guinea) he traded with the inhabitants of our country in ivory &c. he took great notice of my unhappy situation, and enquired into the cause; he expressed vast concern for me, and said, if my parents would part with me for a little while, and let him take me home with him, it would be of more service to me than any thing they could do for me.--he told me that if i would go with him i should see houses with wings to them walk upon the water, and should also see the white folks; and that he had many sons of my age, which should be my companions; and he added to all this that he would bring me safe back again soon.--i was highly pleased with the account of this strange place, and was very desirous of going.--i seemed sensible of a secret impulse upon my mind which i could not resist that seemed to tell me i must go. when my dear mother saw that i was willing to leave them, she spoke to my father and grandfather and the rest of my relations, who all agreed that i should accompany the merchant to the gold coast. i was the more willing as my brothers and sisters despised me, and looked on me with contempt on the account of my unhappy disposition; and even my servants slighted me, and disregarded all i said to them. i had one sister who was always exceeding fond of me, and i loved her entirely; her name was logwy, she was quite white, and fair, with fine light hair though my father and mother were black.--i was truly concerned to leave my beloved sister, and she cry'd most sadly to part with me, wringing her hands, and discovered every sign of grief that can be imagined. indeed if i could have known when i left my friends and country that i should never return to them again my misery on that occasion would have been inexpressible. all my relations were sorry to part with me; my dear mother came with me upon a camel more than three hundred miles, the first of our journey lay chiefly through woods: at night we secured ourselves from the wild beasts by making fires all around us; we and our camels kept within the circle, or we must have been torn to pieces by the lyons, and other wild creatures, that roared terribly as soon as night came on, and continued to do so 'till morning.--there can be little said in favour of the country through which we passed; only a valley of marble that we came through which is unspeakably beautiful.--on each side of this valley are exceedingly high and almost inaccessible mountains--some of these pieces of marble are of prodigious length and breadth but of different sizes and colour, and shaped in a variety of forms, in a wonderful manner.--it is most of it veined with gold mixed with striking and beautiful colours; so that when the sun darts upon it, it is as pleasing a sight as can be imagined.--the merchant that brought me from bournou, was in partnership with another gentleman who accompanied us; he was very unwilling that he should take me from home, as, he said, he foresaw many difficulties that would attend my going with them.--he endeavoured to prevail on the merchant to throw me into a very deep pit that was in the valley, but he refused to listen to him, and said, he was resolved to take care of me: but the other was greatly dissatisfied; and when we came to a river, which we were obliged to pass through, he purpos'd throwing me in and drowning me; but the merchant would not consent to it, so that i was preserv'd. we travel'd 'till about four o'clock every day, and then began to make preparations for night, by cutting down large quantities of wood, to make fires to preserve us from the wild beasts.--i had a very unhappy and discontented journey, being in continual fear that the people i was with would murder me. i often reflected with extreme regret on the kind friends i had left, and the idea of my dear mother frequently drew tears from my eyes.--i cannot recollect how long we were in going from bournou to the gold coast; but as there is no shipping nearer to bournou than that city, it was tedious in travelling so far by land, being upwards of a thousand miles.--i was heartily rejoic'd when we arriv'd at the end of our journey: i now vainly imagin'd that all my troubles and inquietudes would terminate here; but could i have looked into futurity, i should have perceiv'd that i had much more to suffer than i had before experienc'd, and that they had as yet but barely commenc'd. i was now more than a thousand miles from home, without a friend or any means to procure one. soon after i came to the merchant's house i heard the drums beat remarkably loud, and the trumpets blow--the persons accustom'd to this employ, are oblig'd to go upon a very high structure appointed for that purpose, that the sound might be heard at a great distance: they are higher than the steeples are in england. i was mightily pleas'd with sounds so entirely new to me, and was very inquisitive to know the cause of this rejoicing, and ask'd many questions concerning it: i was answer'd that it was meant as a compliment to me, because i was grandson to the king of bournou. this account gave me a secret pleasure; but i was not suffer'd long to enjoy this satisfaction, for in the evening of the same day, two of the merchant's sons (boys about my own age) came running to me, and told me, that the next day i was to die, for the king intended to behead me.--i reply'd that i was sure it could not be true, for that i came there to play with them, and to see houses walk upon the water with wings to them, and the white folks; but i was soon inform'd that their king imagined that i was sent by my father as a spy, and would make such discoveries at my return home that would enable them to make war with the greater advantage to ourselves; and for these reasons he had resolved i should never return to my native country.--when i heard this i suffered misery that cannot be described.--i wished a thousand times that i had never left my friends and country.--but still the almighty was pleased to work miracles for me. the morning i was to die, i was washed and all my gold ornaments made bright and shining, and then carried to the palace, where the king was to behead me himself (as is the custom of the place).--he was seated upon a throne at the top of an exceeding large yard, or court, which you must go through to enter the palace, it is as wide and spacious as a large field in england.--i had a lane of lifeguards to go through.--i guessed it to be about three hundred paces. i was conducted by my friend, the merchant, about half way up; then he durst proceed no further: i went up to the king alone--i went with an undaunted courage, and it pleased god to melt the heart of the king, who sat with his scymitar in his hand ready to behead me; yet, being himself so affected, he dropped it out of his hand, and took me upon his knee and wept over me. i put my right hand round his neck, and prest him to my heart.--he sat me down and blest me; and added that he would not kill me, and that i should not go home, but be sold, for a slave, so then i was conducted back again to the merchant's house. the next day he took me on board a french brig; but the captain did not chuse to buy me: he said i was too small; so the merchant took me home with him again. the partner, whom i have spoken of as my enemy, was very angry to see me return, and again purposed putting an end to my life; for he represented to the other, that i should bring them into troubles and difficulties, and that i was so little that no person would buy me. the merchant's resolution began to waver, and i was indeed afraid that i should be put to death: but however he said he would try me once more. a few days after a dutch ship came into the harbour, and they carried me on board, in hopes that the captain would purchase me.--as they went, i heard them agree, that, if they could not sell me _then_, they would throw me overboard.--i was in extreme agonies when i heard this; and as soon as ever i saw the dutch captain, i ran to him, and put my arms round him, and said, "father, save me." (for i knew that if he did not buy me, i should be treated very ill, or, possibly, murdered) and though he did not understand my language, yet it pleased the almighty to influence him in my behalf, and he bought me _for two yards of check_, which is of more value _there_, than in england. when i left my dear mother i had a large quantity of gold about me, as is the custom of our country, it was made into rings, and they were linked into one another, and formed into a kind of chain, and so put round my neck, and arms and legs, and a large piece hanging at one ear almost in the shape of a pear. i found all this troublesome, and was glad when my new master took it from me--i was now washed, and clothed in the dutch or english manner.--my master grew very fond of me, and i loved him exceedingly. i watched every look, was always ready when he wanted me, and endeavoured to convince him, by every action, that my only pleasure was to serve him well.--i have since thought that he must have been a serious man. his actions corresponded very well with such a character.--he used to read prayers in public to the ship's crew every sabbath day; and when first i saw him read, i was never so surprised in my whole life as when i saw the book talk to my master; for i thought it did, as i observed him to look upon it, and move his lips.--i wished it would do so to me.--as soon as my master had done reading i follow'd him to the place where he put the book, being mightily delighted with it, and when nobody saw me, i open'd it and put my ear down close upon it, in great hope that it wou'd say something to me; but was very sorry and greatly disappointed when i found it would not speak, this thought immediately presented itself to me, that every body and every thing despis'd me because i was black. i was exceedingly sea-sick at first; but when i became more accustom'd to the sea, it wore off.--my master's ship was bound for barbadoes. when we came there, he thought fit to speak of me to several gentlemen of his acquaintance, and one of them exprest a particular desire to see me.--he had a great mind to buy me; but the captain could not immediately be prevail'd on to part with me; but however, as the gentleman seem'd very solicitous, he at length let me go, and i was sold for fifty dollars (_four and sixpenny-pieces in english_). my new master's name was vanhorn, a young gentleman; his home was in new-england in the city of new-york; to which place he took me with him. he dress'd me in his livery, and was very good to me. my chief business was to wait at table, and tea, and clean knives, and i had a very easy place; but the servants us'd to curse and swear surprizingly; which i learnt faster than any thing, 'twas almost the first english i could speak. if any of them affronted me, i was sure to call upon god to damn them immediately; but i was broke of it all at once, occasioned by the correction of an old black servant that liv'd in the family--one day i had just clean'd the knives for dinner, when one of the maids took one to cut bread and butter with; i was very angry with her, and called upon god to damn her; when this old black man told me i must not say so. i ask'd him why? he replied there was a wicked man call'd the devil, that liv'd in hell, and would take all that said these words, and put them in the fire and burn them.--this terrified me greatly, and i was entirely broke of swearing.--soon after this, as i was placing the china for tea, my mistress came into the room just as the maid had been cleaning it; the girl had unfortunately sprinkled the wainscot with the mop; at which my mistress was angry; the girl very foolishly answer'd her again, which made her worse, and she call'd upon god to damn her.--i was vastly concern'd to hear this, as she was a fine young lady, and very good to me, insomuch that i could not help speaking to her, "madam, says i, you must not say so," why, says she? because there is a black man call'd the devil that lives in hell, and he will put you in the fire and burn you, and i shall be very sorry for that. who told you this replied my lady? old ned, says i. very well was all her answer; but she told my master of it, and he order'd that old ned should be tyed up and whipp'd, and was never suffer'd to come into the kitchen with the rest of the servants afterwards.--my mistress was not angry with me, but rather diverted with my simplicity and, by way of talk, she repeated what i had said, to many of her acquaintance that visited her; among the rest, mr. freelandhouse, a very gracious, good minister, heard it, and he took a great deal of notice of me, and desired my master to part with me to him. he would not hear of it at first, but, being greatly persuaded, he let me go, and mr. freelandhouse gave £ . for me.--he took me home with him, and made me kneel down, and put my two hands together, and pray'd for me, and every night and morning he did the same.--i could not make out what it was for, nor the meaning of it, nor what they spoke to when they talk'd--i thought it comical, but i lik'd it very well.--after i had been a little while with my new master i grew more familiar, and ask'd him the meaning of prayer: (i could hardly speak english to be understood) he took great pains with me, and made me understand that he pray'd to god, who liv'd in heaven; that he was my father and best friend.--i told him that this must be a mistake; that _my_ father liv'd at bournou, and i wanted very much to see him, and likewise my dear mother, and sister, and i wish'd he would be so good as to send me home to them; and i added, all i could think of to induce him to convey me back. i appeared in great trouble, and my good master was so much affected that the tears ran down his face. he told me that god was a great and good spirit, that he created all the world, and every person and thing in it, in ethiopia, africa, and america, and every where. i was delighted when i heard this: there, says i, i always thought so when i liv'd at home! now if i had wings like an eagle i would fly to tell my dear mother that god is greater than the sun, moon, and stars; and that they were made by him. i was exceedingly pleas'd with this information of my master's, because it corresponded so well with my own opinion; i thought now if i could but get home, i should be wiser than all my country-folks, my grandfather, or father, or mother, or any of them--but though i was somewhat enlighten'd by this information of my master's, yet, i had no other knowledge of god but that he was a good spirit, and created every body, and every thing--i never was sensible in myself, nor had any one ever told me, that he would punish the wicked, and love the just. i was only glad that i had been told there was a god because i had always thought so. my dear kind master grew very fond of me, as was his lady; she put me to school, but i was uneasy at that, and did not like to go; but my master and mistress requested me to learn in the gentlest terms, and persuaded me to attend my school without any anger at all; that, at last, i came to like it better, and learnt to read pretty well. my schoolmaster was a good man, his name was vanosdore, and very indulgent to me.--i was in this state when, one sunday, i heard my master preach from these words out of the revelations, chap. i. v. . _"behold, he cometh in the clouds and every eye shall see him and they that pierc'd him."_ these words affected me excessively; i was in great agonies because i thought my master directed them to me only; and, i fancied, that he observ'd me with unusual earnestness--i was farther confirm'd in this belief as i look'd round the church, and could see no one person beside myself in such grief and distress as i was; i began to think that my master hated me, and was very desirous to go home, to my own country; for i thought that if god did come (as he said) he would be sure to be most angry with _me_, as i did not know what he was, nor had ever heard of him before. i went home in great trouble, but said nothing to any body.--i was somewhat afraid of my master; i thought he disliked me.--the next text i heard him preach from was, heb. xii. . _"follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the lord."_ he preached the law so severely, that it made me tremble.--he said, that god would judge the whole world; ethiopia, asia, and africa, and every where.--i was now excessively perplexed, and undetermined what to do; as i had now reason to believe my situation would be equally bad to go, as to stay.--i kept these thoughts to myself, and said nothing to any person whatever. i should have complained to my good mistress of this great trouble of mind, but she had been a little strange to me for several days before this happened, occasioned by a story told of me by one of the maids. the servants were all jealous, and envied me the regard, and favour shewn me by my master and mistress; and the devil being always ready, and diligent in wickedness, had influenced this girl, to make a lye on me.--this happened about hay-harvest, and one day when i was unloading the waggon to put the hay into the barn, she watched an opportunity, in my absence, to take the fork out of the stick, and hide it: when i came again to my work, and could not find it, i was a good deal vexed, but i concluded it was dropt somewhere among the hay; so i went and bought another with my own money: when the girl saw that i had another, she was so malicious that she told my mistress i was very unfaithful, and not the person she took me for; and that she knew, i had, without my master's permission, order'd many things in his name, that he must pay for; and as a proof of my carelessness produc'd the fork she had taken out of the stick, and said, she had found it out of doors--my lady, not knowing the truth of these things, was a little shy to me, till she mention'd it, and then i soon cleared myself, and convinc'd her that these accusations were false. i continued in a most unhappy state for many days. my good mistress insisted on knowing what was the matter. when i made known my situation she gave me john bunyan on the holy war, to read; i found his experience similar to my own, which gave me reason to suppose he must be a bad man; as i was convinc'd of my own corrupt nature, and the misery of my own heart: and as he acknowledg'd that he was likewise in the same condition, i experienc'd no relief at all in reading his work, but rather the reverse.--i took the book to my lady, and inform'd her i did not like it at all, it was concerning a wicked man as bad as myself; and i did not chuse to read it, and i desir'd her to give me another, wrote by a better man that was holy and without sin.--she assur'd me that john bunyan was a good man, but she could not convince me; i thought him to be too much like myself to be upright, as his experience seem'd to answer with my own. i am very sensible that nothing but the great power and unspeakable mercies of the lord could relieve my soul from the heavy burden it laboured under at that time.--a few days after my master gave me baxter's _call to the unconverted_. this was no relief to me neither; on the contrary it occasioned as much distress in me as the other had before done, _as it_ invited all to come to _christ_ and i found myself so wicked and miserable that i could not come--this consideration threw me into agonies that cannot be described; insomuch that i even attempted to put an end to my life--i took one of the large case-knives, and went into the stable with an intent to destroy myself; and as i endeavoured with all my strength to force the knife into my side, it bent double. i was instantly struck with horror at the thought of my own rashness, and my conscience told me that had i succeeded in this attempt i should probably have gone to hell. i could find no relief, nor the least shadow of comfort; the extreme distress of my mind so affected my health that i continued very ill for three days, and nights; and would admit of no means to be taken for my recovery, though my lady was very kind, and sent many things to me; but i rejected every means of relief and wished to die--i would not go into my own bed, but lay in the stable upon straw--i felt all the horrors of a troubled conscience, so hard to be born, and saw all the vengeance of god ready to overtake me--i was sensible that there was no way for me to be saved unless i came to _christ_, and i could not come to him: i thought that it was impossible he should receive such a sinner as me. the last night that i continued in this place, in the midst of my distress these words were brought home upon my mind, _"behold the lamb of god."_ i was something comforted at this, and began to grow easier and wished for day that i might find these words in my bible--i rose very early the following morning, and went to my school-master, mr. vanosdore, and communicated the situation of my mind to him; he was greatly rejoiced to find me enquiring the way to zion, and blessed the lord who had worked so wonderfully for me a poor heathen.--i was more familiar with this good gentleman than with my master, or any other person; and found myself more at liberty to talk to him: he encouraged me greatly, and prayed with me frequently, and i was always benefited by his discourse. about a quarter of a mile from my master's house stood a large remarkably fine oak-tree, in the midst of a wood; i often used to be employed there in cutting down trees, (a work i was very fond of) i seldom failed going to this place every day; sometimes twice a day if i could be spared. it was the highest pleasure i ever experienced to set under this oak; for there i used to pour out all my complaints to the lord: and when i had any particular grievance i used to go there, and talk to the tree, and tell my sorrows, as if it had been to a friend. here i often lamented my own wicked heart, and undone state; and found more comfort and consolation than i ever was sensible of before.--whenever i was treated with ridicule or contempt, i used to come here and find peace. i now began to relish the book my master gave me, baxter's _call to the unconverted_, and took great delight in it. i was always glad to be employ'd in cutting wood, 'twas a great part of my business, and i follow'd it with delight, as i was then quite alone and my heart lifted up to god, and i was enabled to pray continually; and blessed for ever be his holy name, he faithfully answer'd my prayers. i can never be thankful enough to almighty god for the many comfortable opportunities i experienced there. it is possible the circumstance i am going to relate will not gain credit with many; but this i know, that the joy and comfort it conveyed to me, cannot be expressed and only conceived by those who have experienced the like. i was one day in a most delightful frame of mind; my heart so overflowed with love and gratitude to the author of all my comforts.--i was so drawn out of myself, and so fill'd and awed by the presence of god that i saw (or thought i saw) light inexpressible dart down from heaven upon me, and shone around me for the space of a minute.--i continued on my knees, and joy unspeakable took possession of my soul.--the peace and serenity which filled my mind after this was wonderful, and cannot be told.--i would not have changed situations, or been any one but myself for the whole world. i blest god for my poverty, that i had no worldly riches or grandeur to draw my heart from him. i wish'd at that time, if it had been possible for me, to have continued on that spot for ever. i felt an unwillingness in myself to have any thing more to do with the world, or to mix with society again. i seemed to possess a full assurance that my sins were forgiven me. i went home all my way rejoicing, and this text of scripture came full upon my mind. _"and i will make an everlasting covenant with them, that i will not turn away from them, to do them good; but i will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me."_ the first opportunity that presented itself, i went to my old school-master, and made known to him the happy state of my soul who joined with me in praise to god for his mercy to me the vilest of sinners.--i was now perfectly easy, and had hardly a wish to make beyond what i possess'd, when my temporal comforts were all blasted by the death of my dear and worthy master mr. freelandhouse, who was taken from this world rather suddenly: he had but a short illness, and died of a fever. i held his hand in mine when he departed; he told me he had given me my freedom. i was at liberty to go where i would.--he added that he had always pray'd for me and hop'd i should be kept unto the end. my master left me by his will ten pounds, and my freedom. i found that if he had lived 'twas his intention to take me with him to holland, as he had often mention'd me to some friends of his there that were desirous to see me; but i chose to continue with my mistress who was as good to me as if she had been my mother. the loss of mr. freelandhouse distress'd me greatly, but i was render'd still more unhappy by the clouded and perplex'd situation of my mind; the great enemy of my soul being ready to torment me, would present my own misery to me in such striking light, and distress me with doubts, fears, and such a deep sense of my own unworthiness, that after all the comfort and encouragement i had received, i was often tempted to believe i should be a cast-away at last.--the more i saw of the beauty and glory of god, the more i was humbled under a sense of my own vileness. i often repair'd to my old place of prayer; i seldom came away without consolation. one day this scripture was wonderfully apply'd to my mind, _"and ye are compleat in him which is the head of all principalities and power."_--the lord was pleas'd to comfort me by the application of many gracious promises at times when i was ready to sink under my troubles. _"wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto god by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them._ hebrews x. ver. . _for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."_ my kind, indulgent mistress liv'd but two years after my master. her death was a great affliction to me. she left five sons, all gracious young men, and ministers of the gospel.--i continued with them all, one after another, till they died; they liv'd but four years after their parents. when it pleased god to take them to himself, i was left quite destitute, without a friend in the world. but i who had so often experienced the goodness of god, trusted in him to do what he pleased with me.--in this helpless condition i went in the wood to prayer as usual; and tho' the snow was a considerable height, i was not sensible of cold, or any other inconveniency.--at times indeed when i saw the world frowning round me, i was tempted to think that the lord had forsaken me. i found great relief from the contemplation of these words in isaiah xlix. v. . _"behold i have graven thee on the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."_ and very many comfortable promises were sweetly applied to me. the lxxxix. psalm and th verse, _"my covenant will i not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips."_ hebrews, chap. xvi. v. , . phillipians, chap. i. v. ; and several more. as i had now lost all my dear and valued friends every place in the world was alike to me. i had for a great while entertain'd a desire to come to england.--i imagined that all the inhabitants of this island were _holy_; because all those that had visited my master from thence were good, (mr. whitefield was his particular friend) and the authors of the books that had been given me were all english. but above all places in the world i wish'd to see kidderminster, for i could not but think that on the spot where mr. baxter had liv'd, and preach'd, the people must be all _righteous_. the situation of my affairs requir'd that i should tarry a little longer in new-york, as i was something in debt, and was embarrass'd how to pay it.--about this time a young gentleman that was a particular acquaintance of one of my young master's, pretended to be a friend to me, and promis'd to pay my debts, which was three pounds; and he assur'd me he would never expect the money again.--but, in less than a month, he came and demanded it; and when i assur'd him i had nothing to pay, he threatened to sell me.--though i knew he had no right to do that, yet as i had no friend in the world to go to, it alarm'd me greatly.--at length he purpos'd my going a privateering, that i might by these means, be enabled to pay him, to which i agreed.--our captain's name was ---- i went in character of cook to him.--near st. domingo we came up to five french ships, merchant-men.--we had a very smart engagement that continued from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon; when victory declar'd on our side.--soon after this we were met by three english ships which join'd us, and that encourag'd us to attack a fleet of ships.--we boarded the three first and then follow'd the others; and had the same success with twelve; but the rest escap'd us.--there was a great deal of blood shed, and i was near death several times, but the lord preserv'd me. i met with many enemies, and much persecution, among the sailors; one of them was particularly unkind to me, and studied ways to vex and teaze me.--i can't help mentioning one circumstance that hurt me more than all the rest, which was, that he snatched a book out of my hand that i was very fond of, and used frequently to amuse myself with, and threw it into the sea.--but what is remarkable he was the first that was killed in our engagement.--i don't pretend to say that this happen'd because he was not my friend: but i thought 'twas a very awful providence to see how the enemies of the lord are cut off. our captain was a cruel hard-hearted man. i was excessively sorry for the prisoners we took in general; but the pitiable case of one young gentleman grieved me to the heart.--he appear'd very amiable; was strikingly handsome. our captain took four thousand pounds from him; but that did not satisfy him, as he imagin'd he was possess'd of more, and had somewhere conceal'd it, so that the captain threatened him with death, at which he appear'd in the deepest distress, and took the buckles out of his shoes, and untied his hair, which was very fine, and long; and in which several very valuable rings were fasten'd. he came into the cabbin to me, and in the most obliging terms imaginable ask'd for something to eat and drink; which when i gave him, he was so thankful and pretty in his manner that my heart bled for him; and i heartily wish'd that i could have spoken in any language in which the ship's crew would not have understood me; that i might have let him know his danger; for i heard the captain say he was resolv'd upon his death; and he put his barbarous design into execution, for he took him on shore with one of the sailors, and there they shot him. this circumstance affected me exceedingly, i could not put him out of my mind a long while.--when we return'd to new-york the captain divided the prize-money among us, that we had taken. when i was call'd upon to receive my part, i waited upon mr. ----, (the gentleman that paid my debt and was the occasion of my going abroad) to know if he chose to go with me to receive my money or if i should bring him what i owed.--he chose to go with me; and when the captain laid my money on the table ('twas an hundred and thirty-five pounds) i desir'd mr. ---- to take what i was indebted to him; and he swept it all into his handkerchief, and would never be prevail'd on to give a farthing of money, nor any thing at all beside.--and he likewise secur'd a hogshead of sugar which was my due from the same ship. the captain was very angry with him for this piece of cruelty to me, as was every other person that heard it.--but i have reason to believe (as he was one of the principal merchants in the city) that he transacted business for him and on that account did not chuse to quarrel with him. at this time a very worthy gentleman, a wine merchant, his name dunscum, took me under his protection, and would have recovered my money for me if i had chose it; but i told him to let it alone; that i wou'd rather be quiet.--i believed that it would not prosper with him, and so it happen'd, for by a series of losses and misfortunes he became poor, and was soon after drowned, as he was on a party of pleasure.--the vessel was driven out to sea, and struck against a rock by which means every soul perished. i was very much distress'd when i heard it, and felt greatly for his family who were reduc'd to very low circumstances.--i never knew how to set a proper value on money. if i had but a little meat and drink to supply the present necessaries of life, i never wish'd for more; and when i had any i always gave it if ever i saw an object in distress. if it was not for my dear wife and children i should pay as little regard to money now as i did at that time.--i continu'd some time with mr. dunscum as his servant; he was very kind to me.--but i had a vast inclination to visit england, and wish'd continually that it would please providence to make a clear way for me to see this island. i entertain'd a notion that if i could get to england i should never more experience either cruelty or ingratitude, so that i was very desirous to get among christians. i knew mr. whitefield very well.--i had heard him preach often at new-york. in this disposition i listed in the twenty-eighth regiment of foot, who were design'd for martinico in the late war.--we went in admiral pocock's fleet from new-york to barbadoes; from thence to martinico.--when that was taken we proceeded to the havannah, and took that place likewise.--there i got discharged. i was then worth about thirty pounds, but i never regarded money in the least, nor would i tarry to receive my prize-money least i should lose my chance of going to england.--i went with the spanish prisoners to spain; and came to old-england with the english prisoners.--i cannot describe my joy when we were within sight of portsmouth. but i was astonished when we landed to hear the inhabitants of that place curse and swear, and otherwise profane. i expected to find nothing but goodness, gentleness and meekness in this christian land, i then suffer'd great perplexities of mind. i enquir'd if any serious christian people resided there, the woman i made this enquiry of, answer'd me in the affirmative; and added that she was one of them.--i was heartily glad to hear her say so. i thought i could give her my whole heart: she kept a public-house. i deposited with her all the money that i had not an immediate occasion for; as i thought it would be safer with her.--it was guineas but of them i desired her to lay out to the best advantage, to buy me some shirts, hat and some other necessaries. i made her a present of a very handsome large looking glass that i brought with me from martinico, in order to recompence her for the trouble i had given her. i must do this woman the justice to acknowledge that she did lay out some little for my use, but the guineas and part of the , with my watch, she would not return, but denied that i ever gave it her. i soon perceived that i was got among bad people, who defrauded me of my money and watch; and that all my promis'd happiness was blasted, i had no friend but god and i pray'd to him earnestly. i could scarcely believe it possible that the place where so many eminent christians had lived and preached could abound with so much wickedness and deceit. i thought it worse than _sodom_ (considering the great advantages they have) i cryed like a child and that almost continually: at length god heard my prayers and rais'd me a friend indeed. this publican had a brother who lived on portsmouth-common, his wife was a very serious good woman.--when she heard of the treatment i had met with, she came and enquired into my real situation and was greatly troubled at the ill usage i had received, and took me home to her own house.--i began now to rejoice, and my prayer was turned into praise. she made use of all the arguments in her power to prevail on her who had wronged me, to return my watch and money, but it was to no purpose, as she had given me no receipt and i had nothing to show for it, i could not demand it.--my good friend was excessively angry with her and obliged her to give me back four guineas, which she said she gave me out of charity: though in fact it was my own, and much more. she would have employed some rougher means to oblige her to give up my money, but i would not suffer her, let it go says i "my god is in heaven." still i did not mind my loss in the least; all that grieved me was, that i had been disappointed in finding some christian friends, with whom i hoped to enjoy a little sweet and comfortable society. i thought the best method that i could take now, was to go to london, and find out mr. whitefield, who was the only living soul i knew in england, and get him to direct me to some way or other to procure a living without being troublesome to any person.--i took leave of my christian friend at portsmouth, and went in the stage to london.--a creditable tradesman in the city, who went up with me in the stage, offer'd to show me the way to mr. whitefield's tabernacle. knowing that i was a perfect stranger, i thought it very kind, and accepted his offer; but he obliged me to give him half-a-crown for going with me, and likewise insisted on my giving him five shillings more for conducting me to dr. gifford's meeting. i began now to entertain a very different idea of the inhabitants of england than what i had figur'd to myself before i came amongst them.--mr. whitefield receiv'd me very friendly, was heartily glad to see me, and directed me to a proper place to board and lodge in petticoat-lane, till he could think of some way to settle me in, and paid for my lodging, and all my expences. the morning after i came to my new lodging, as i was at breakfast with the gentlewoman of the house, i heard the noise of some looms over our heads: i enquir'd what it was; she told me a person was weaving silk.--i express'd a great desire to see it, and ask'd if i might: she told me she would go up with me; she was sure i should be very welcome. she was as good as her word, and as soon as we enter'd the room, the person that was weaving look'd about, and smiled upon us, and i loved her from that moment.--she ask'd me many questions, and i in turn talk'd a great deal to her. i found she was a member of mr. allen's meeting, and i begun to entertain a good opinion of her, though i was almost afraid to indulge this inclination, least she should prove like all the rest i had met with at portsmouth, &c. and which had almost given me a dislike to all white women.--but after a short acquaintance i had the happiness to find she was very different, and quite sincere, and i was not without hope that she entertain'd some esteem for me. we often went together to hear dr. gifford, and as i had always a propensity to relieve every object in distress as far as i was able, i used to give to all that complain'd to me; sometimes half a guinea at a time, as i did not understand the real value of it.--this gracious, good woman took great pains to correct and advise me in that and many other respects. after i had been in london about six weeks i was recommended to the notice of some of my late master mr. freelandhouse's acquaintance, who had heard him speak frequently of me. i was much persuaded by them to go to holland.--my master lived there before he bought me, and used to speak of me so respectfully among his friends there, that it raised in them a curiosity to see me; particularly the gentlemen engaged in the ministry, who expressed a desire to hear my experience and examine me. i found that it was my good old master's design that i should have gone if he had lived; for which reason i resolved upon going to holland, and informed my dear friend mr. whitefield of my intention; he was much averse to my going at first, but after i gave him my reasons appeared very well satisfied. i likewise informed my betty (the good woman that i have mentioned above) of my determination to go to holland and i told her that i believed she was to be my wife: that if it was the lord's will i desired it, but not else.--she made me very little answer, but has since told me, she did not think it at that time. i embarked at tower-wharf at four o'clock in the morning, and arriv'd at amsterdam the next day by three o'clock in the afternoon. i had several letters of recommendation to my old master's friends, who receiv'd me very graciously. indeed, one of the chief ministers was particularly good to me; he kept me at his house a long while, and took great pleasure in asking questions, which i answer'd with delight, being always ready to say, _"come unto me all ye that fear god, and i will tell what he hath done for my soul."_ i cannot but admire the footsteps of providence; astonish'd that i should be so wonderfully preserved! though the grandson of a king, i have wanted bread, and should have been glad of the hardest crust i ever saw. i who, at home, was surrounded and guarded by slaves, so that no indifferent person might approach me, and clothed with gold, have been inhumanly threatened with death; and frequently wanted clothing to defend me from the inclemency of the weather; yet i never murmured, nor was i discontented.--i am willing, and even desirous to be counted as nothing, a stranger in the world, and a pilgrim here; for _"i know that my redeemer liveth,"_ and i'm thankful for every trial and trouble that i've met with, as i am not without hope that they have been all sanctified to me. the calvinist ministers desired to hear my experience from myself, which proposal i was very well pleased with: so i stood before ministers every thursday for seven weeks together, and they were all very well satisfied, and persuaded i was what i pretended to be.--they wrote down my experience as i spoke it; and the lord almighty was with me at that time in a remarkable manner, and gave me words and enabled me to answer them; so great was his mercy to take me in hand a poor blind heathen. at this time a very rich merchant at amsterdam offered to take me into his family in the capacity of his butler, and i very willingly accepted it.--he was a gracious worthy gentleman and very good to me.--he treated me more like a friend than a servant.--i tarried there a twelvemonth but was not thoroughly contented, i wanted to see my wife; (that is now) and for that reason i wished to return to _england_, i wrote to her once in my absence, but she did not answer my letter; and i must acknowledge if she had, it would have given me a less opinion of her.--my master and mistress persuaded me much not to leave them and likewise their two sons who entertained a good opinion of me; and if i had found my betty married on my arrival in england, i should have returned to them again immediately. my lady purposed my marrying her maid; she was an agreeable young woman, had saved a good deal of money, but i could not fancy her, though she was willing to accept of me, but i told her my inclinations were engaged in england, and i could think of no other person.--on my return home, i found my betty disengaged.--she had refused several offers in my absence, and told her sister that, she thought, if ever she married i was to be her husband. soon after i came home, i waited on doctor gifford who took me into his family and was exceedingly, good to me. the character of this pious worthy gentleman is well known; my praise can be of no use or signification at all.--i hope i shall ever gratefully remember the many favours i have received from him.--soon after i came to doctor gifford i expressed a desire to be admitted into their church, and set down with them; they told me i must first be baptized; so i gave in my experience before the church, with which they were very well satisfied, and i was baptized by doctor gifford with some others. i then made known my intentions of being married; but i found there were many objections against it because the person i had fixed on was poor. she was a widow, her husband had left her in debt, and with a child, so that they persuaded me against it out of real regard to me.--but i had promised and was resolved to have her; as i knew her to be a gracious woman, her poverty was no objection to me, as they had nothing else to say against her. when my friends found that they could not alter my opinion respecting her, they wrote to mr. allen, the minister she attended, to persuade her to leave me; but he replied that he would not interfere at all, that we might do as we would. i was resolved that all my wife's little debt should be paid before we were married; so that i sold almost every thing i had and with all the money i could raise cleared all that she owed, and i never did any thing with a better will in all my life, because i firmly believed that we should be very happy together, and so it prov'd, for she was given me from the lord. and i have found her a blessed partner, and we have never repented, tho' we have gone through many great troubles and difficulties. my wife got a very good living by weaving, and could do extremely well; but just at that time there was great disturbance among the weavers; so that i was afraid to let my wife work, least they should insist on my joining the rioters which i could not think of, and, possibly, if i had refused to do so they would have knock'd me on the head.--so that by these means my wife could get no employ, neither had i work enough to maintain my family. we had not yet been married a year before all these misfortunes overtook us. just at this time a gentleman, that seemed much concerned for us, advised me to go into essex with him and promised to get me employed.--i accepted his kind proposal, and he spoke to a friend of his, a quaker, a gentleman of large fortune, who resided a little way out of the town of _colchester_, his name was _handbarar_; he ordered his steward to set me to work. there were several employed in the same way with myself. i was very thankful and contented though my wages were but small.--i was allowed but eight pence a day, and found myself; but after i had been in this situation for a fortnight, my master, being told that a black was at work for him, had an inclination to see me. he was pleased to talk to me for some time, and at last enquired what wages i had; when i told him he declared, it was too little, and immediately ordered his steward to let me have eighteen pence a day, which he constantly gave me after; and i then did extremely well. i did not bring my wife with me: i came first alone and it was my design, if things answered according to our wishes, to send for her--i was now thinking to desire her to come to me when i receiv'd a letter to inform me she was just brought to bed and in want of many necessaries.--this news was a great trial to me and a fresh affliction: but my god, _faithful and abundant in mercy_, forsook me not in this trouble.--as i could not read _english_, i was obliged to apply to some one to read the letter i received, relative to my wife. i was directed by the good providence of god to a worthy young gentleman, a quaker, and friend of my master.--i desired he would take the trouble to read my letter for me, which he readily comply'd with and was greatly moved and affected at the contents; insomuch that he said he would undertake to make a gathering for me, which he did and was the first to contribute to it himself. the money was sent that evening to london by a person who happen'd to be going there: nor was this all the goodness that i experienced from these kind friends, for, as soon as my wife came about and was fit to travel, they sent for her to me, and were at the whole expence of her coming; so evidently has the love and mercy of god appeared through every trouble that ever i experienced. we went on very comfortably all the summer.--we lived in a little cottage near mr. _handbarrar's_ house; but when the winter came on i was discharged, as he had no further occasion for me. and now the prospect began to darken upon us again. we thought it most adviseable to move our habitation a little nearer to the town, as the house we lived in was very cold, and wet, and ready to tumble down. the boundless goodness of god to me has been so very great, that with the most humble gratitude i desire to prostrate myself before him; for i have been wonderfully supported in every affliction. my god never left me. i perceived light still through the thickest darkness. my dear wife and i were now both unemployed, we could get nothing to do. the winter prov'd remarkably severe, and we were reduc'd to the greatest distress imaginable.--i was always very shy of asking for any thing; i could never beg; neither did i chuse to make known our wants to any person, for fear of offending as we were entire strangers; but our last bit of bread was gone, and i was obliged to think of something to do for our support.--i did not mind for myself at all; but to see my dear wife and children in want pierc'd me to the heart.--i now blam'd myself for bringing her from london, as doubtless had we continued there we might have found friends to keep us from starving. the snow was at this season remarkably deep; so that we could see no prospect of being relieved. in this melancholy situation, not knowing what step to pursue, i resolved to make my case known to a gentleman's gardiner that lived near us, and entreat him to employ me: but when i came to him, my courage failed me, and i was ashamed to make known our real situation.--i endeavoured all i could to prevail on him to set me to work, but to no purpose: he assur'd me it was not in his power: but just as i was about to leave him, he asked me if i would accept of some carrots? i took them with great thankfulness and carried them home: he gave me four, they were very large and fine.--we had nothing to make fire with, so consequently could not boil them: but was glad to have them to eat _raw_. our youngest child was quite an infant; so that my wife was obliged to chew it, and fed her in that manner for several days.--we allowed ourselves but one every day, least they should not last 'till we could get some other supply. i was unwilling to eat at all myself; nor would i take any the last day that we continued in this situation, as i could not bear the thought that my dear wife and children would be in want of every means of support. we lived in this manner, 'till our carrots were all gone: then my wife began to lament because of our poor babies: but i comforted her all i could; still hoping, and believing that _my_ god would not let us die: but that it would please him to relieve us, which _he_ did by almost a miracle. we went to bed, as usual, before it was quite dark, (as we had neither fire nor candle) but had not been there long before some person knocked at the door & enquir'd if _james albert_ lived there? i answer'd in the affirmative, and rose immediately; as soon as i open'd the door i found it was the servant of an eminent attorney who resided at _colchester_.--he ask'd me how it was with me? if i was not almost starv'd? i burst out a crying, and told him i was indeed. he said his master suppos'd so, and that he wanted to speak with me, and i must return with him. this gentleman's name was _danniel_, he was a sincere, good christian. he used to stand and talk with me frequently when i work'd in the road for mr. _handbarrar_, and would have employed me himself, if i had wanted work.--when i came to his house he told me that he had thought a good deal about me of late, and was apprehensive that i must be in want, and could not be satisfied till he sent to enquire after me. i made known my distress to him, at which he was greatly affected; and generously gave me a guinea; and promis'd to be kind to me in future. i could not help exclaiming. _o the boundless mercies of my god!_ i pray'd unto him, and he has heard me; i trusted in him and he has preserv'd me: where shall i begin to praise him, or how shall i love him enough? i went immediately and bought some bread and cheese and coal and carried it home. my dear wife was rejoiced to see me return with something to eat. she instantly got up and dressed our babies, while i made a fire, and the first nobility in the land never made a more comfortable meal.--we did not forget to thank the lord for all his goodness to us.--soon after this, as the spring came on, mr. peter _daniel_ employed me in helping to pull down a house, and rebuilding it. i had then very good work, and full employ: he sent for my wife, and children to _colchester_, and provided us a house where we lived very comfortably.--i hope i shall always gratefully acknowledge his kindness to myself and family. i worked at this house for more than a year, till it was finished; and after that i was employed by several successively, and was never so happy as when i had something to do; but perceiving the winter coming on, and work rather slack, i was apprehensive that we should again be in want or become troublesome to our friends. i had at this time an offer made me of going to _norwich_ and having constant employ.--my wife seemed pleased with this proposal, as she supposed she might get work there in the weaving-manufactory, being the business she was brought up to, and more likely to succeed there than any other place; and we thought as we had an opportunity of moving to a town where we could both be employ'd it was most adviseable to do so; and that probably we might settle there for our lives.--when this step was resolv'd on, i went first alone to see how it would answer; which i very much repented after, for it was not in my power immediately to send my wife any supply, as i fell into the hands of a master that was neither kind nor considerate; and she was reduced to great distress, so that she was oblig'd to sell the few goods that we had, and when i sent for her was under the disagreeable necessity of parting with our bed. when she came to _norwich_ i hired a room ready furnished.--i experienced a great deal of difference in the carriage of my master from what i had been accustomed to from some of my other masters. he was very irregular in his payments to me.--my wife hired a loom and wove all the leisure time she had and we began to do very well, till we were overtaken by fresh misfortunes. our three poor children fell ill of the small pox; this was a great trial to us; but still i was persuaded in myself we should not be forsaken.--and i did all in my power to keep my dear partner's spirits from sinking. her whole attention now was taken up with the children as she could mind nothing else, and all i could get was but little to support a family in such a situation, beside paying for the hire of our room, which i was obliged to omit doing for several weeks: but the woman to whom we were indebted would not excuse us, tho' i promised she should have the very first money we could get after my children came about, but she would not be satisfied and had the cruelty to threaten us that if we did not pay her immediately she would turn us all into the street. the apprehension of this plunged me in the deepest distress, considering the situation of my poor babies: if they had been in health i should have been less sensible of this misfortune. but my god, _still faithful to his promise_, raised me a friend. mr. henry gurdney, a quaker, a gracious gentleman heard of our distress, he sent a servant of his own to the woman we hired the room of, paid our rent, and bought all the goods with my wife's loom and gave it us all. some other gentlemen, hearing of his design, were pleased to assist him in these generous acts, for which we never can be thankful enough; after this my children soon came about; we began to do pretty well again; my dear wife work'd hard and constant when she could get work, but it was upon a disagreeable footing as her employ was so uncertain, sometimes she could get nothing to do and at other times when the weavers of _norwich_ had orders from london they were so excessively hurried, that the people they employ'd were often oblig'd to work on the _sabbath-day_; but this my wife would never do, and it was matter of uneasiness to us that we could not get our living in a regular manner, though we were both diligent, industrious, and willing to work. i was far from being happy in my master, he did not use me well. i could scarcely ever get my money from him; but i continued patient 'till it pleased god to alter my situation. my worthy friend mr. gurdney advised me to follow the employ of chopping chaff, and bought me an instrument for that purpose. there were but few people in the town that made this their business beside myself; so that i did very well indeed and we became easy and happy.--but we did not continue long in this comfortable state: many of the inferior people were envious and ill-natur'd and set up the same employ and work'd under price on purpose to get my business from me, and they succeeded so well that i could hardly get any thing to do, and became again unfortunate: nor did this misfortune come alone, for just at this time we lost one of our little girls who died of a fever; this circumstance occasion'd us new troubles, for the baptist minister refused to bury her because we were not their members. the parson of the parish denied us because she had never been baptized. i applied to the quakers, but met with no success; this was one of the greatest trials i ever met with, as we did not know what to do with our poor baby.--at length i resolv'd to dig a grave in the garden behind the house, and bury her there; when the parson of the parish sent for me to tell me he would bury the child, but did not chuse to read the burial service over her. i told him i did not mind whether he would or not, as the child could not hear it. we met with a great deal of ill treatment after this, and found it very difficult to live.--we could scarcely get work to do, and were obliged to pawn our cloaths. we were ready to sink under our troubles.--when i purposed to my wife to go to _kidderminster_ and try if we could do there. i had always an inclination for that place, and now more than ever as i had heard _mr. fawcet_ mentioned in the most respectful manner, as a pious worthy gentleman; and i had seen his name in a favourite book of mine, baxter's _saints everlasting rest_, and as the manufactory of _kidderminster_ seemed to promise my wife some employment, she readily came into my way of thinking. i left her once more, and set out for _kidderminster_, in order to judge if the situation would suit us.--as soon as i came there i waited immediately on _mr. fawcet_, who was pleased to receive me very kindly and recommended me to _mr. watson_ who employed me in twisting silk and worsted together. i continued here about a fortnight, and when i thought it would answer our expectation, i returned to _norwich_ to fetch my wife; she was then near her time, and too much indisposed. so we were obliged to tarry until she was brought to bed, and as soon as she could conveniently travel we came to _kidderminster_, but we brought nothing with us as we were obliged to sell all we had to pay our debts and the expences of my wife's illness, &c. such is our situation at present.--my wife, by hard labor at the loom, does every thing that can be expected from her towards the maintenance of our family; and god is pleased to incline the hearts of his people at times to yield us their charitable assistance; being myself through age and infirmity able to contribute but little to their support. as pilgrims, and very poor pilgrims, we are travelling through many difficulties towards our heavenly home, and waiting patiently for his gracious call, when the lord shall deliver us out of the evils of this present world and bring us to the everlasting glories of the world to come.--to him be praise for ever and ever, amen. finis. none trenck*** transcribed from the cassell & co. edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org, proofed by bridie, rab hughes and roland chapman. the life and adventures of baron trenck translated by thomas holcroft. vol. i. cassell & company, limited: _london_, _paris & melbourne_. . introduction. there were two cousins von der trenck, who were barons descended from an ancient house in east prussia, and were adventurous soldiers, to whom, as to the adventurous, there were adventures that lost nothing in the telling, for they were told by the authors' most admiring friends--themselves. franz, the elder, was born in , the son of an austrian general; and frederick, whose adventures are here told, was the son of a prussian major-general. franz, at the age of seventeen, fought duels, and cut off the head of a man who refused to lend him money. he stood six feet three inches in his shoes, knocked down his commanding officer, was put under arrest, offered to pay for his release by bringing in three turks' heads within an hour, was released on that condition, and actually brought in four turks' heads. when afterwards cashiered, he settled on his estates in croatia, and drilled a thousand of his tenantry to act as "pandours" against the banditti. in , he served with his pandours under maria theresa, and behaved himself as one of the more brutal sort of banditti. he offered to capture frederick of prussia, and did capture his tent. many more of his adventures are vaingloriously recounted by himself in the _memoires du baron franz de trenck_, published at paris in . this trenck took poison when imprisoned at gratz, and died in october, , at the age of thirty-six. his cousin frederick is the trenck who here tells a story of himself that abounds in lively illustration of the days of frederick the great. he professes that frederick the king owed him a grudge, because frederick the trenck had, when eighteen years old, fascinated the princess amalie at a ball. but as frederick the greater was in correspondence with his cousin franz at the time when that redoubtable personage was planning the seizure of frederick the great, there may have been better ground for the trenck's arrest than he allows us to imagine. mr. carlyle shows that frederick von der trenck had been three months in prison, and was still in prison, at the time of the battle of the sohr, in which he professes to have been engaged. frederick von der trenck, after his release from imprisonment in , married a burgomaster's daughter, and went into business as a wine merchant. then he became adventurous again. his adventures, published in german in - , and in his own french version in , formed one of the most popular books of its time. seven plays were founded on them, and ladies in paris wore their bonnets a la trenck. but the french finally guillotined the author, when within a year of threescore and ten, on the th of july, . he had gone to paris in , and joined there in the strife of parties. at the guillotine he struggled with the executioner. h.m. chapter i. i was born at konigsberg in prussia, february , , of one of the most ancient families of the country. my father, who was lord of great scharlach, schakulack, and meichen, and major-general of cavalry, died in , after receiving eighteen wounds in the prussian service. my mother was daughter of the president of the high court at konigsberg. after my father's death she married count lostange, lieutenant-colonel in the kiow regiment of cuirassiers, with whom she went and resided at breslau. i had two brothers and a sister; my youngest brother was taken by my mother into silesia; the other was a cornet in this last-named regiment of kiow; and my sister was married to the only son of the aged general valdow. my ancestors are famous in the chronicles of the north, among the ancient teutonic knights, who conquered courland, prussia, and livonia. by temperament i was choleric, and addicted to pleasure and dissipation; my tutors found this last defect most difficult to overcome; happily, they were aided by a love of knowledge inherent in me, an emulative spirit, and a thirst for fame, which disposition it was my father's care to cherish. a too great consciousness of innate worth gave me a too great degree of pride, but the endeavours of my instructor to inspire humility were not all lost; and habitual reading, well-timed praise, and the pleasures flowing from science, made the labours of study at length my recreation. my memory became remarkable; i am well read in the scriptures, the classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could draw; learnt fencing, riding, and other necessary exercises. my religion was lutheran; but morality was taught me by my father, and by the worthy man to whose care he committed the forming of my heart, whose memory i shall ever hold in veneration. while a boy, i was enterprising in all the tricks of boys, and exercised my wit in crafty excuses; the warmth of my passions gave a satiric, biting cast to my writings, whence it has been imagined, by those who knew but little of me, i was a dangerous man; though, i am conscious, this was a false judgment. a soldier himself, my father would have all his sons the same; thus, when we quarrelled, we terminated our disputes with wooden sabres, and, brandishing these, contested by blows for victory, while our father sat laughing, pleased at our valour and address. this practice, and the praises he bestowed, encouraged a disposition which ought to have been counteracted. accustomed to obtain the prize, and be the hero of scholastic contentions, i acquired the bad habit of disputation, and of imagining myself a sage when little more than a boy. i became stubborn in argument; hasty to correct others, instead of patiently attentive: and, by presumption, continually liable to incite enmity. gentle to my inferiors, but impatient of contradiction, and proud of resisting power, i may hence date, the origin of all my evils. how might a man, imbued with the heroic principles of liberty, hope for advancement and happiness, under the despotic and iron government of frederic? i was taught neither to know nor to avoid, but to despise the whip of slavery. had i learnt hypocrisy, craft, and meanness, i had long since become field-marshal, had been in possession of my hungarian estates, and had not passed the best years of my life in the dungeons of magdeburg. i was addicted to no vice: i laboured in the cause of science, honour, and virtue; kept no vicious company; was never in the whole of my life intoxicated; was no gamester, no consumer of time in idleness nor brutal pleasures; but devoted many hundred laborious nights to studies that might make me useful to my country; yet was i punished with a severity too cruel even for the most worthless, or most villanous. i mean, in my narrative, to make candour and veracity my guides, and not to conceal my failings; i wish my work may remain a moral lesson to the world. yet it is an innate satisfaction that i am conscious of never having acted with dishonour, even to the last act of this distressful tragedy. i shall say little of the first years of my life, except that my father took especial care of my education, and sent me, at the age of thirteen, to the university of konigsberg, where, under the tuition of kowalewsky, my progress was rapid. there were fourteen other noblemen in the same house, and under the same master. in the year following, , i quarrelled with one young wallenrodt, a fellow-student, much stronger than myself, and who, despising my weakness, thought proper to give me a blow. i demanded satisfaction. he came not to the appointed place, but treated my demand with contempt; and i, forgetting all further respect, procured a second, and attacked him in open day. we fought, and i had the fortune to wound him twice; the first time in the arm, the second in the hand. this affair incited inquiry:--doctor kowalewsky, our tutor, laid complaints before the university, and i was condemned to three hours' confinement; but my grandfather and guardian, president derschau, was so pleased with my courage, that he took me from this house and placed me under professor christiani. here i first began to enjoy full liberty, and from this worthy man i learnt all i know of experimental philosophy and science. he loved me as his own son, and continued instructing me till midnight. under his auspices, in , i maintained, with great success, two public theses, although i was then but sixteen; an effort and an honour till then unknown. three days after my last public exordium, a contemptible fellow sought a quarrel with me, and obliged me to draw in my own defence, whom, on this occasion, i wounded in the groin. this success inflated my valour, and from that time i began to assume the air and appearance of a hector. scarcely had a fortnight elapsed before i had another with a lieutenant of the garrison, whom i had insulted, who received two wounds in the contest. i ought to remark, that at this time, the university of konigsberg was still highly privileged. to send a challenge was held honourable; and this was not only permitted, but would have been difficult to prevent, considering the great number of proud, hot-headed, and turbulent nobility from livonia, courland, sweden, denmark, and poland, who came thither to study, and of whom there were more than five hundred. this brought the university into disrepute, and endeavours have been made to remedy the abuse. men have acquired a greater extent of true knowledge, and have begun to perceive that a university ought to be a place of instruction, and not a field of battle; and that blood cannot be honourably shed, except in defence of life or country. in november, , the king sent his adjutant-general, baron lottum, who was related to my mother, to konigsberg, with whom i dined at my grandfather's. he conversed much with me, and, after putting various questions, purposely, to discover what my talents and inclinations were, he demanded, as if in joke, whether i had any inclination to go with him to berlin, and serve my country, as my ancestors had ever done: adding that, in the army, i should find much better opportunities of sending challenges than at the university. inflamed with the desire of distinguishing myself, i listened with rapture to the proposition, and in a few days we departed for potzdam. on the morrow after my arrival, i was presented to the king, as indeed i had before been in the year , with the character of being, then, one of the most hopeful youths of the university. my reception was most flattering; the justness of my replies to the questions he asked, my height, figure, and confidence, pleased him; and i soon obtained permission to enter as a cadet in his body guards, with a promise of quick preferment. the body guards formed, at this time, a model and school for the prussian cavalry; they consisted of one single squadron of men selected from the whole army, and their uniform was the most splendid in all europe. two thousand rix-dollars were necessary to equip an officer: the cuirass was wholly plated with silver; and the horse, furniture, and accoutrements alone cost four hundred rix-dollars. this squadron only contained six officers and a hundred and forty-four men; but there were always fifty or sixty supernumeraries, and as many horses, for the king incorporated all the most handsome men he found in the guards. the officers were the best taught of any the army contained; the king himself was their tutor, and he afterwards sent them to instruct the cavalry in the manoeuvres they had learnt. their rise was rapid if they behaved well; but they were broken for the least fault, and punished by being sent to garrison regiments. it was likewise necessary they should be tolerably rich, as well as possess such talents as might be successfully employed, both at court and in the army. there are no soldiers in the world who undergo so much as this body guard; and during the time i was in the service of frederic, i often had not eight hours' sleep in eight days. exercise began at four in the morning, and experiments were made of all the alterations the king meant to introduce in his cavalry. ditches of three, four, five, six feet, and still wider, were leaped, till that someone broke his neck; hedges, in like manner, were freed, and the horses ran careers, meeting each other full speed in a kind of lists of more than half a league in length. we had often, in these our exercises, several men and horses killed or wounded. it happened more frequently than otherwise that the same experiments were repeated after dinner with fresh horses; and it was not uncommon, at potzdam, to hear the alarm sounded twice in a night. the horses stood in the king's stables; and whoever had not dressed, armed himself, saddled his horse, mounted, and appeared before the palace in eight minutes, was put under arrest for fourteen days. scarcely were the eyes closed before the trumpet again sounded, to accustom youth to vigilance. i lost, in one year, three horses, which had either broken their legs, in leaping ditches, or died of fatigue. i cannot give a stronger picture of this service than by saying that the body guard lost more men and horses in one year's peace than they did, during the following year, in two battles. we had, at this time, three stations; our service, in the winter, was at berlin, where we attended the opera, and all public festivals: in the spring we were exercised at charlottenberg; and at potzdam, or wherever the king went, during the summer. the six officers of the guard dined with the king, and, on gala days, with the queen. it may be presumed there was not at that time on earth a better school to form an officer and a man of the world than was the court of berlin. i had scarcely been six weeks a cadet before the king took me aside, one day, after the parade, and having examined me near half an hour, on various subjects, commanded me to come and speak to him on the morrow. his intention was to find whether the accounts that had been given him of my memory had not been exaggerated; and that he might be convinced, he first gave me the names of fifty soldiers to learn by rote, which i did in five minutes. he next repeated the subjects of two letters, which i immediately composed in french and latin; the one i wrote, the other i dictated. he afterwards ordered me to trace, with promptitude, a landscape from nature, which i executed with equal success; and he then gave me a cornet's commission in his body guards. each mark of bounty from the monarch increased an ardour already great, inspired me with gratitude, and the first of my wishes was to devote my whole life to the service of my king and country. he spoke to me as a sovereign should speak, like a father, like one who knew well how to estimate the gifts bestowed on me by nature; and perceiving, or rather feeling, how much he might expect from me, became at once my instructor and my friend. thus did i remain a cadet only six weeks, and few prussians can vaunt, under the reign of frederic, of equal good fortune. the king not only presented me with a commission, but equipped me splendidly for the service. thus did i suddenly find myself a courtier, and an officer in the finest, bravest, and best disciplined corps in europe. my good fortune seemed unlimited, when, in the month of august, , the king selected me to go and instruct the silesian cavalry in the new manoeuvres: an honour never before granted to a youth of eighteen. i have already said we were garrisoned at berlin during winter, where the officers' table was at court: and, as my reputation had preceded me, no person whatever could be better received there, or live more pleasantly. frederic commanded me to visit the literati, whom he had invited to his court: maupertuis, jordan, la mettrie, and pollnitz, were all my acquaintance. my days were employed in the duties of an officer, and my nights in acquiring knowledge. pollnitz was my guide, and the friend of my heart. my happiness was well worthy of being envied. in , i was five feet eleven inches in height, and nature had endowed me with every requisite to please. i lived, as i vainly imagined, without inciting enmity or malice, and my mind was wholly occupied by the desire of earning well-founded fame. i had hitherto remained ignorant of love, and had been terrified from illicit commerce by beholding the dreadful objects of the hospital at potzdam. during the winter of , the nuptials of his majesty's sister were celebrated, who was married to the king of sweden, where she is at present queen dowager, mother of the reigning gustavus. i, as officer of my corps, had the honour to mount guard and escort her as far as stettin. here first did my heart feel a passion of which, in the course of my history, i shall have frequent occasion to speak. the object of my love was one whom i can only remember at present with reverence; and, as i write not romance, but facts, i shall here briefly say, ours were mutually the first-fruits of affection, and that to this hour i regret no misfortune, no misery, with which, from a stock so noble, my destiny was overshadowed. amid the tumult inseparable to occasions like these, on which it was my duty to maintain order, a thief had the address to steal my watch, and cut away part of the gold fringe which hung from the waistcoat of my uniform, and afterwards to escape unperceived. this accident brought on me the raillery of my comrades; and the lady alluded to thence took occasion to console me, by saying it should be her care that i should be no loser. her words were accompanied by a look i could not misunderstand, and a few days after i thought myself the happiest of mortals. the name, however, of this high-born lady is a secret, which must descend with me to the grave; and, though my silence concerning this incident heaves a void in my life, and indeed throws obscurity over a part of it, which might else be clear, i would much rather incur this reproach than become ungrateful towards my best friend and benefactress. to her conversation, to her prudence, to the power by which she fixed my affections wholly on herself, am i indebted for the improvement and polishing of my bodily and mental qualities. she never despised, betrayed, or abandoned me, even in the deepest of my distress; and my children alone, on my death-bed, shall be taught the name of her to whom they owe the preservation of their father, and consequently their own existence. i lived at this time perfectly happy at berlin, and highly esteemed. the king took every opportunity to testify his approbation; my mistress supplied me with more money than i could expend; and i was presently the best equipped, and made the greatest figure, of any officer in the whole corps. the style in which i lived was remarked, for i had only received from my father's heritage the estate of great scharlach; the rent of which was eight hundred dollars a year, which was far from sufficient to supply my then expenses. my amour, in the meantime, remained a secret from my best and most intimate friends. twice was my absence from potzdam and charlottenberg discovered, and i was put under arrest; but the king seemed satisfied with the excuse i made, under the pretext of having been hunting, and smiled as he granted my pardon. never did the days of youth glide away with more apparent success and pleasure than during these my first years at berlin. this good fortune was, alas, of short duration. many are the incidents i might relate, but which i shall omit. my other adventures are sufficiently numerous, without mingling such as may any way seem foreign to the subject. in this gloomy history of my life, i wish to paint myself such as i am; and, by the recital of my sufferings, afford a memorable example to the world, and interest the heart of sensibility. i would also show how my fatal destiny has deprived my children of an immense fortune; and, though i want a hundred thousand men to enforce and ensure my rights, i will leave demonstration to my heirs that they are incontestable. chapter ii. in the beginning of september, , war again broke out between the houses of austria and prussia. we marched with all speed towards prague, traversing saxony without opposition. i will not relate in this place what the great frederic said to us, with evident emotion, when surrounded by all his officers, on the morning of our departure from potzdam. should any one be desirous of writing the lives of him and his opponent, maria theresa, without flattery and without fear, let him apply to me, and i will relate anecdotes most surprising on this subject, unknown to all but myself, and which never must appear under my own name. all monarchs going to war have reason on their side; and the churches of both parties resound with prayers, and appeals to divine justice, for the success of their arms. frederic, on this occasion, had recourse to them with regret, of which i was a witness. if i am not mistaken, the king's army came before prague on the th of september, and that of general schwerin, which had passed through silesia, arrived the next day on the other side of the moldau. in this position we were obliged to wait some days for pontoons, without which we could not establish a communication between the two armies. the height called zischka, which overlooks the city, being guarded only by a few croats, was instantly seized, without opposition, by some grenadiers, and the batteries, erected at the foot of that mountain, being ready on the fifth day, played with such success on the old town with bombs and red-hot balls that it was set on fire. the king made every effort to take the city before prince charles could bring his army from the rhine to its relief. general harsh thought proper to capitulate, after a siege of twelve days, during which not more than five hundred men of the garrison, at the utmost, were killed and wounded, though eighteen thousand men were made prisoners. thus far we had met with no impediment. the imperial army, however, under the command of prince charles of lorraine, having quitted the banks of the rhine, was advancing to save bohemia. during this campaign we saw the enemy only at a distance; but the austrian light troops being thrice as numerous as ours, prevented us from all foraging. winter was approaching, dearth and hunger made frederic determine to retreat, without the least hope from the countries in our rear, which we had entirely laid waste as we had advanced. the severity of the season, in the month of november, rendered the soldiers excessively impatient of their hardships; and, accustomed to conquer, the prussians were ashamed of and repined at retreat: the enemy's light troops facilitated desertion, and we lost, in a few weeks, above thirty thousand men. the pandours of my kinsman, the austrian trenck, were incessantly at our heels, gave us frequent alarms, did us great injury, and, by their alertness, we never could make any impression upon them with our cannon. trenck at length passed the elbe, and went and burnt and destroyed our magazines at pardubitz: it was therefore resolved wholly to evacuate bohemia. the king hoped to have brought prince charles to the battle between benneschan and kannupitz, but in vain: the saxons, during the night, had entered a battery of three-and-twenty cannon on a mound which separated two ponds: this was the precise road by which the king meant to make the attack. thus were we obliged to abandon bohemia. the dearth, both for man and horse, began to grow extreme. the weather was bad; the roads and ruts were deep; marches were continual, and alarms and attacks from the enemy's light troops became incessant. the discontent all these inspired was universal, and this occasioned the great loss of the army. under such circumstances, had prince charles continued to harass us, by persuading us into silesia, had he made a winter campaign, instead of remaining indolently at ease in bohemia, we certainly should not have vanquished him, the year following, at strigau; but he only followed at a distance, as far as the bohemian frontiers. this gave frederic time to recover, and the more effectually because the austrians had the imprudence to permit the return of deserters. this was a repetition of what had happened to charles xii. when he suffered his russian prisoners to return home, who afterwards so effectually punished his contempt of them at the battle of pultawa. prague was obliged to be abandoned, with considerable loss; and trenck seized on tabor, budweis, and frauenberg, where he took prisoners the regiments of walrabe kreutz. no one would have been better able to give a faithful history of this campaign than myself, had i room in this place, and had i at that time been more attentive to things of moment; since i not only performed the office of adjutant to the king, when he went to reconnoitre, or choose a place of encampment, but it was, moreover, my duty to provide forage for the headquarters. the king having only permitted me to take six volunteers from the body guard, to execute this latter duty, i was obliged to add to them horse chasseurs, and hussars, with whom i was continually in motion. i was peculiarly fortunate on two occasions, by happening to come after the enemy when they had left loaded waggons and forage bundles. i seldom passed the night in my tent during this campaign, and my indefatigable activity obtained the favour and entire confidence of frederic. nothing so much contributed to inspire me with emulation as the public praises i received, and my enthusiasm wished to perform wonders. the campaign, however, but ill supplied me with opportunities to display my youthful ardour. at length no one durst leave the camp, notwithstanding the extremity of the dearth, because of the innumerable clouds of pandours and hussars that hovered everywhere around. no sooner were we arrived in silesia, than the king's body guard were sent to berlin, there to remain in winter quarters. i should not here have mentioned the bohemian war, but that, while writing time history of my life, i ought not to omit accidents by which my future destiny was influenced. one day, while at bennaschen, i was commanded out, with a detachment of thirty hussars and twenty chasseurs, on a foraging party. i had posted my hussars in a convent, and gone myself, with the chasseurs, to a mansion-house, to seize the carts necessary for the conveyance of the hay and straw from a neighbouring farm. an austrian lieutenant of hussars, concealed with thirty-six horsemen in a wood, having remarked the weakness of my escort, taking advantage of the moment when my people were all employed in loading the carts, first seized our sentinel, and then fell suddenly upon them, and took them all prisoners in the very farm- yard. at this moment i was seated at my ease, beside the lady of the mansion-house, and was a spectator of the whole transaction through the window. i was ashamed of and in despair at my negligence. the kind lady wished to hide me when the firing was heard in the farm-yard. by good fortune, the hussars, whom i had stationed in the convent, had learnt from a peasant that there was an austrian detachment in the wood: they had seen us at a distance enter the farmyard, hastily marched to our aid, and we had not been taken more than two minutes before they arrived. i cannot express the pleasure with which i put myself at their head. some of the enemy's party escaped through a back door, but we made two-and-twenty prisoners, with a lieutenant of the regiment of kalnockichen. they had two men killed, and one wounded; and two also of my chasseurs were hewn down by the sabre, in the hay-loft, where they were at work. we continued our forage with more caution after this accident: the horses we had taken served, in part, to draw the carts; and, after raising a contribution of one hundred and fifty ducats on the convent, which i distributed among the soldiers to engage them to silence, we returned to the army, from which we were distant about two leagues. we heard firing as we marched, and the foragers on all sides were skirmishing with the enemy. a lieutenant and forty horse joined me; yet, with this reinforcement, i durst not return to the camp, because i learned we were in danger from more than eight hundred pandours and hussars, who were in the plain. i therefore determined to take a long, winding, but secret route, and had the good fortune to come safe to quarters with my prisoners and five-and-twenty loaded carts. the king was at dinner when i entered his tent. having been absent all night, it was imagined i had been taken, that accident having happened the same day to many others. the instant i entered, the king demanded if i returned singly. "no, please your majesty," answered i; "i have brought five-and-twenty loads of forage, and two-and-twenty prisoners, with their officer and horses." the king then commanded me to sit down, and turning himself towards the english ambassador, who was near him, said, laying his hand on my shoulder, "_c'est un matador de ma jeunesse_." a reconnoitring party was, at the same moment, in waiting before his tent: he consequently asked me few questions, and to those he did ask, i replied trembling. in a few minutes he rose from the table, gave a glance at the prisoners, hung the order of merit round my neck, commanded me to go and take repose, and set off with his party. it is easy to conceive the embarrassment of my situation; my unpardonable negligence deserved that i should have been broken, instead of which i was rewarded; an instance, this, of the great influence of chance on the affairs of the world. how many generals have gained victories by their very errors, which have been afterwards attributed to their genius! it is evident the sergeant of hussars, who retook me and my men by bringing up his party, was much better entitled than myself to the recompense i received. on many occasions have i since met with disgrace and punishment when i deserved reward. my inquietude lest the truth should be discovered, was extreme, especially recollecting how many people were in the secret: and my apprehensions were incessant. as i did not want money, i gave the sergeants twenty ducats each, and the soldiers one, in order to insure their silence, which, being a favourite with them, they readily promised. i, however, was determined to declare the truth the very first opportunity, and this happened a few days after. we were on our march, and i, as cornet, was at the head of my company, when the king, advancing, beckoned me to come to him, and bade me tell him exactly how the affair i had so lately been engaged in happened. the question at first made me mistrust i was betrayed, but remarking the king had a mildness in his manner, i presently recovered myself, and related the exact truth. i saw the astonishment of his countenance, but i at the same time saw he was pleased with my sincerity. he spoke to me for half an hour, not as a king, but as a father, praised my candour, and ended with the following words, which, while life remains, i shall never forget: "confide in the advice i give you; depend wholly upon me, and i will make you a man." whoever can feel, may imagine how infinitely my gratitude towards the king was increased, by this his great goodness; from that moment i had no other desire than to live and die for his service. i soon perceived the confidence the king had in me after this explanation, of which i received very frequent marks, the following winter, at berlin. he permitted me to be present at his conversations with the literati of his court, and my state was truly enviable. i received this same winter more than five hundred ducats as presents. so much happiness could not but excite jealousy, and this began to be manifest on every side. i had too little disguise for a courtier, and my heart was much too open and frank. before i proceed, i will here relate an incident which happened during the last campaign, and which will, no doubt, be read in the history of frederic. on the rout while retreating through bohemia, the king came to kollin, with his horse-guards, the cavalry piquets of the head-quarters, and the second and third battalions of guards. we had only four field pieces, and our squadron was stationed in one of the suburbs. our advance posts, towards evening, were driven back into the town, and the hussars entered pell-mell: the enemy's light troops swarmed over the country, and my commanding officer sent me immediately to receive the king's orders. after much search, i found him at the top of a steeple, with a telescope in his hand. never did i see him so disturbed or undecided as on this occasion. orders were immediately given that we should retreat through the city, into the opposite suburb, where we were to halt, but not unsaddle. we had not been here long before a most heavy rain fell, and the night became exceedingly dark. my cousin trenck made his approach about nine in the evening, with his pandour and janissary music, and set fire to several houses. they found we were in the suburb, and began to fire upon us from the city windows. the tumult became extreme: the city was too full for us to re-enter: the gate was shut, and they fired from above at us with our field-pieces. trenck had let in the waters upon us, and we were up to the girths by midnight, and almost in despair. we lost seven men, and my horse was wounded in the neck. the king, and all of us, had certainly been made prisoners had my cousin, as he has since told me, been able to continue the assault he had begun: but a cannon ball having wounded him in the foot, he was carried off, and the pandours retired. the corps of nassau arrived next day to our aid; we quitted kollin, and during the march the king said to me, "your cousin had nearly played us a malicious prank last night, but the deserters say he is killed." he then asked what our relationship was, and there our conversation ended. chapter iii. it was about the middle of december when we came to berlin, where i was received with open arms. i became less cautious than formerly, and, perhaps, more narrowly observed. a lieutenant of the foot guards, who was a public ganymede, and against whom i had that natural antipathy and abhorrence i have for all such wretches, having indulged himself in some very impertinent jokes on the secret of my amour, i bestowed on him the epithet he deserved: we drew our swords, and he was wounded. on the sunday following i presented myself to pay my respects to his majesty on the parade, who said to me as he passed, "the storm and the thunder shall rend your heart; beware!" { } he added nothing more. some little time after i was a few minutes too late on the parade; the king remarked it, and sent me, under arrest, to the foot-guard at potzdam. when i had been here a fortnight, colonel wartensleben came, and advised me to petition for pardon. i was then too much a novice in the modes of the court to follow his counsel, nor did i even remark the person who gave it me was himself a most subtle courtier. i complained bitterly that i had so long been deprived of liberty, for a fault which was usually punished by three, or, at most, six days' arrest. here accordingly i remained. eight days after, the king being come to potzdam, i was sent by general bourke to berlin, to carry some letters, but without having seen the king. on my return i presented myself to him on the parade; and as our squadron was garrisoned at berlin, i asked, "does it please your majesty that i should go and join my corps?" "whence came you?" answered he. "from berlin." "and where were you before you went to berlin?" "under arrest." "then under arrest you must remain!" i did not recover my liberty till three days before our departure for silesia, towards which we marched, with the utmost speed, in the beginning of may, to commence our second campaign. here i must recount an event which happened that winter, which became the source of all my misfortunes, and to which i must entreat my readers will pay the utmost attention; since this error, if innocence can be error, was the cause that the most faithful and the best of subjects became bewildered in scenes of wretchedness, and was the victim of misery, from his nineteenth to the sixtieth year of his age. i dare presume that this true narrative, supported by testimonies the most authentic, will fully vindicate my present honour and my future memory. francis, baron of trenck, was the son of my father's brother, consequently my cousin german. i shall speak, hereafter, of the singular events of his life. being a commander of pandours in the austrian service, and grievously wounded at bavaria, in the year , he wrote to my mother, informing her he intended me, her eldest son, for his universal legatee. this letter, to which i returned no answer, was sent to me at potzdam. i was so satisfied with my situation, and had such numerous reasons so to be, considering the kindness with which the king treated me, that i would not have exchanged my good fortune for all the treasures of the great mogul. on the th of february, , being at berlin, i was in company with captain jaschinsky, commander of the body guard, the captain of which ranks as colonel in the army, together with lieutenant studnitz, and cornet wagnitz. the latter was my field comrade, and is at present commander-general of the cavalry of hesse cassel. the austrian trenck became the subject of conversation, and jaschinsky asked if i were his kinsman. i answered, yes, and immediately mentioned his having made me his universal heir. "and what answer have you returned?" said jaschinsky.--"none at all." the whole company then observed that, in a case like the present, i was much to blame not to answer; that the least i could do would be to thank him for his good wishes, and entreat a continuance of them. jaschinsky further added, "desire him to send you some of his fine hungarian horses for your own use, and give me the letter; i will convey it to him, by means of mr. bossart, legation counsellor of the saxon embassy; but on condition that you will give me one of the horses. this correspondence is a family, and not a state affair; i will make myself responsible for the consequences." i immediately took my commander's advice, and began to write; and had those who suspected me thought proper to make the least inquiry into these circumstances, the four witnesses who read what i wrote could have attested my innocence, and rendered it indubitable. i gave my letter open to jaschinsky, who sealed and sent it himself. i must omit none of the incidents concerning this letter, it being the sole cause of all my sufferings. i shall therefore here relate an event which was the first occasion of the unjust suspicions entertained against me. one of my grooms, with two led horses, was, among many others, taken by the pandours of trenck. when i returned to the camp, i was to accompany the king on a reconnoitring party. my horse was too tired, and i had no other: i informed him of my embarrassment, and his majesty immediately made me a present of a fine english courser. some days after, i was exceedingly astonished to see my groom return, with my two horses, and a pandour trumpeter, who brought me a letter, containing nearly the following words:-- "the austrian trenck is not at war with the prussian trenck, but, on the contrary, is happy to have recovered his horses from his hussars, and to return them to whom they first belonged," &c. i went the same day to pay my respects to the king, who, receiving me with great coldness, said, "since your cousin has returned your own horses, you have no more need of mine." there were too many who envied me to suppose these words would escape repetition. the return of the horses seems infinitely to have increased that suspicion frederic entertained against me, and therefore became one of the principal causes of my misfortunes: it is for this reason that i dwell upon this and suchlike small incidents, they being necessary for my own justification, and, were it possible, for that of the king. my innocence is, indeed, at present universally acknowledged by the court, the army, and the whole nation; who all mention the injustice i suffered with pity, and the fortitude with which it was endured with surprise. we marched for silesia, to enter on our second campaign: which, to the prussians, was as bloody and murderous as it was glorious. the king's head-quarters were fixed at the convent of kamentz, where we rested fourteen days, and the army remained in cantonments. prince charles, instead of following us into bohemia, had the imprudence to occupy the plain of strigau, and we already concluded his army was beaten. whoever is well acquainted with tactics, and the prussian manoeuvres, will easily judge, without the aid of calculation or witchcraft, whether a well or ill-disciplined army, in an open plain, ought to be victorious. the army hastily left its cantonments, and in twenty-four hours was in order of battle; and on the th of june, eighteen thousand bodies lay stretched on the plain of strigau. the allied armies of austria and saxony were totally defeated. the body guard was on the right; and previous to the attack, the king said to our squadron, "prove today, my children, that you are my body guard, and give no saxon quarter." we made three attacks on the cavalry, and two on the infantry. nothing could withstand a squadron like this, which for men, horses, courage, and experience, was assuredly the first in the world. our corps alone took seven standards and five pairs of colours, and in less than an hour the affair was over. i received a pistol shot in my right hand, my horse was desperately wounded, and i was obliged to change him on the third charge. the day after the battle all the officers were rewarded with the order of merit. for my own part, i remained four weeks among the wounded, at schweidnitz, where there were sixteen thousand men under the torture of the army surgeons, many of whom had not their wounds dressed till the third day. i was near three months before i recovered the use of my hand: i nevertheless rejoined my corps, continued to perform my duty, and as usual accompanied the king when he went to reconnoitre. for some time past he had placed confidence in me, and his kindness towards me continually increased, which raised my gratitude even to enthusiasm. i also performed the service of adjutant during this campaign, a circumstantial account of which no person is better enabled to write than myself, i having been present at all that passed. i was the scholar of the greatest master the art of war ever knew, and who believed me worthy to receive his instructions; but the volume i am writing would be insufficient to contain all that personally relates to myself. i must here mention an adventure that happened at this time, and which will show the art of the great frederic in forming youth for his service, and devotedly attaching them to his person. i was exceedingly fond of hunting, in which, notwithstanding it was severely forbidden, i indulged myself. i one day returned, laden with pheasants; but judge my astonishment and fears when i saw the army had decamped, and that it was with difficulty that i could overtake the rear- guard. in this my distress, i applied to an officer of hussars, who instantly lent me his horse, by the aid of which i rejoined my corps, which always marched as the vanguard. mounting my own horse, i tremblingly rode to the head of my division, which it was my duty to precede. the king, however, had remarked my absence, or rather had been reminded of it by my superior officer, who, for some time past, had become my enemy. just as the army halted to encamp, the king rode towards me, and made a signal for me to approach, and, seeing my fears in my countenance, said, "what, are you just returned from hunting?" "yes, your majesty. i hope--" here interrupting me, he added, "well, well, for this time, i shall take no further notice, remembering potzdam; but, however, let me find you more attentive to your duty." so ended this affair, for which i deserved to have been broken. i must remind my readers that the king meant by the words remembering potzdam, he remembered i had been punished too severely the winter before, and that my present pardon was intended as a compensation. this was indeed to think and act greatly; this was indeed the true art of forming great men: an art much more effectual than that of ferocious generals, who threaten subalterns with imprisonment and chains on every slight occasion; and, while indulging all the rigours of military law, make no distinction of minds or of men. frederic, on the contrary, sometimes pardoned the failings of genius, while mechanic souls he mechanically punished, according to the very letter of the laws of war. i shall further remark, the king took no more notice of my late fault, except that sometimes, when i had the honour to dine with him, he would ridicule people who were too often at the chase, or who were so choleric that they took occasion to quarrel for the least trifle. the campaign passed in different manoeuvres, marches, and countermarches. our corps was the most fatigued, as being encamped round the king's tent, the station of which was central, and as likewise having the care of the vanguard; we were therefore obliged to begin our march two hours sooner than the remainder of the army, that we might be in our place. we also accompanied the king whenever he went to reconnoitre, traced the lines of encampment, led the horse to water, inspected the head-quarters, and regulated the march and encampment, according to the king's orders; the performance of all which robbed us of much rest, we being but six officers to execute so many different functions. still further, we often executed the office of couriers, to bear the royal commands to detachments. the king was particularly careful that the officers of his guards, whom he intended should become excellent in the art of tactics, should not be idle in his school. it was necessary to do much in order that much might be learnt. labour, vigilance, activity, the love of glory and the love of his country, animated all his generals; into whom, it may be said, he infused his spirit. in this school i gained instruction, and here already was i selected as one designed to instruct others; yet, in my fortieth year, a great general at vienna told me, "my dear trenck, our discipline would be too difficult for you to learn; for which, indeed, you are too far advanced in life." agreeable to this wise decision was i made an austrian invalid, and an invalid have always remained; a judgment like this would have been laughed at, most certainly, at berlin. if i mistake not, the famous battle of soor, or sorau, was fought on the th day of september. the king had sent so many detachments into saxony, bohemia, and silesia, that the main army did not consist of more than twenty-five thousand men. neglecting advice, and obstinate in judging his enemy by numbers, and not according to the excellence of discipline, and other accidents, prince charles, blind to the real strength of the prussian armies, had enclosed this small number of pomeranian and brandenburg regiments, with more than eighty-six thousand men, intending to take them all prisoners. it will soon be seen from my narrative with what kind of secrecy his plan was laid and executed. the king came into my tent about midnight; as he also did into that of all the officers, to awaken them; his orders were, "secretly to saddle, leave the baggage in the rear, and that the men should stand ready to mount at the word of command." lieutenant studnitz and myself attended the king, who went in person, and gave directions through the whole army; meantime, break of day was expected with anxiety. opposite the defile through which the enemy was to march to the attack eight field-pieces were concealed behind a hill. the king must necessarily have been informed of the whole plan of the austrian general, for he had called in the advanced posts from the heights, that he might lull him into security, and make him imagine we should be surprised in the midst of sleep. scarcely did break of day appear before the austrian artillery, situated upon the heights, began to play upon our camp, and their cavalry to march through the defile to the attack. as suddenly were we in battle array; for in less than ten minutes we ourselves began the attack, notwithstanding the smallness of our number, the whole army only containing five regiments of cavalry. we fell with such fury upon the enemy (who at this time were wholly employed in forming their men at the mouth of the defile, and that slowly, little expecting so sudden and violent a charge), that we drove them back into the defile, where they pressed upon each other in crowds; the king himself stood ready to unmask his eight field-pieces, and a dreadful and bloody slaughter ensued in this narrow place; from which the enemy had not the power to retreat. this single incident gained the battle, and deceived all time hopes of prince charles. nadasti, trenck, and the light troops, sent to attack our rear, were employed in pillaging the camp. the ferocious croats met no opposition, while this their error made our victory more secure. it deserves to be noticed that, when advice was brought to the king that the enemy had fallen upon and were plundering the camp, his answer was, "so much the better; they have found themselves employment, and will be no impediment to our main design." our victory was complete, but all our baggage was lost; the headquarters, utterly undefended, were totally stripped; and trenck had, for his part of the booty, the king's tent and his service of plate. i have mentioned this circumstance here, because that, in the year , my cousin trenck, having fallen into the power of his enemies, who had instituted a legal, process against him, was accused, by some villanous wretches, of having surprised the king in bed at the battle of sorau, and of having afterwards released him for a bribe. what was still worse, they hired a common woman, a native of brunn, who pretended she was the daughter of marshal schwerin, to give in evidence that she herself was with the king when trenck entered his tent, whom he immediately made prisoner, and as immediately released. to this part of the prosecution i myself, an eye-witness, can answer: the thing was false and impossible. he was informed of the intended attack. i accompanied the watchful king from midnight till four in the morning, which time he employed in riding through the camp, and making the necessary preparations to receive the enemy; and the action began at five. trenck could not take the king in bed, for the battle was almost gained when he and his pandours entered the camp and plundered the head- quarters. as for the tale of miss schwerin, it is only fit to be told by schoolboys, or examined by the inquisition, and was very unworthy of making part of a legal prosecution against an innocent man at vienna. this incident, however, is so remarkable that i shall give in this work a farther account of my kinsman, and what was called his criminal process, at reading which the world will be astonished. my own history is so connected with his that this is necessary, and the more so because there are many ignorant or wicked people at vienna, who believe, or affirm, trenck had actually taken the king of prussia prisoner. never yet was there a traitor of the name of trenck; and i hope to prove, in the clearest manner, the austrian trenck as faithfully served the empress-queen as the prussian trenck did frederic, his king. maria theresa, speaking to me of him some time after his death, and the snares that had been laid for him, said, "your kinsman has made a better end than will be the fate of his accusers and judges." of this more hereafter: i approach that epoch when my misfortunes began, and when the sufferings of martyrdom attended me from youth onward till my hairs grew grey. chapter iv. a few days after the battle of sorau, the usual camp postman brought me a letter from my cousin trenck, the colonel of pandours, antedated at effek four months, of which the following is a copy:-- "your letter, of the th of february, from berlin, informs me you desire to have some hungarian horses. on these you would come and attack me and my pandours. i saw with pleasure, during the last campaign, that the prussian trenck was a good soldier; and that i might give you some proofs of my attachment, i then returned the horses which my men had taken. if, however, you wish to have hungarian horses, you must take mine in like manner from me in the field of battle: or, should you so think fit, come and join one who will receive you with open arms, like his friend and son, and who will procure you every advantage you can desire," &c. at first i was terrified at reading this letter, yet could not help smiling. cornet wagenitz, now general in chief of the hesse cassel forces, and lieutenant grotthausen, both now alive, and then present, were my camp comrades. i gave them the letter to read, and they laughed at its contents. it was determined to show it to our superior officer, jaschinsky, on a promise of secrecy, and it was accordingly shown him within an hour after it was received. the reader will be so kind as to recollect that, as i have before said, it was this colonel jaschinsky who on the th of february, the same year, at berlin, prevailed on me to write to the austrian trenck, my cousin; that he received the letter open, and undertook to send it according to its address; also that, in this letter, i in jest had asked him to send me some hungarian horses, and, should they come, had promised one to jaschinsky. he read the letter with an air of some surprise; we laughed, and, it being whispered through the army that, in consequence of our late victory, detached corps would be sent into hungary, jaschinsky said, "we shall now go and take hungarian horses for ourselves." here the conversation ended, and i, little suspecting future consequences, returned to my tent. i must here remark the following observations:-- st. i had not observed the date of the letter brought by the postman, which, as i have said, was antedated four months: this, however, the colonel did not fail to remark. ndly. the probability is that this was a net, spread for me by this false and wicked man. the return of my horses, during the preceding campaign, had been the subject of much conversation. it is possible he had the king's orders to watch me; but more probably he only prevailed on me to write that he might entrap me by a fictitious answer. certain it is, my cousin trenck, at vienna, affirmed to his death he never received any letter from me, consequently never could send any answer. i must therefore conclude this letter was forged. jaschinsky was at this time one of the king's favourites; his spy over the army; a tale-bearer; an inventor of wicked lies and calumnies. some years after the event of which i am now speaking, the king was obliged to break and banish him the country. he was then also the paramour of the beauteous madame brossart, wife of the saxon resident at berlin, and there can be little doubt but that this false letter was, by her means, conveyed to some saxon or austrian post- office, and thence, according to its address, sent to me. he had daily opportunities of infusing suspicions into the king's mind concerning me; and, unknown to me, of pursuing his diabolical plan. i must likewise add he was four hundred ducats indebted to me. at that time i had always a plentiful supply of money. this booty became his own when i, unexamined, was arrested, and thrown into prison. in like manner he seized on the greatest part of my camp equipage. further, we had quarrelled during our first campaign, because he had beaten one of my servants; we even were proceeding to fight with pistols, had not colonel winterfield interfered, and amicably ended our quarrel. the lithuanian is, by nature, obstinate and revengeful; and, from that day, i have reason to believe he sought my destruction. god only knows what were the means he took to excite the king's suspicious; for it is incredible that frederic, considering his _well- known professions_ of public justice, should treat me in the manner he did, without a hearing, without examination, and without a court-martial. this to me has ever remained a mystery, which the king alone was able to explain; he afterwards was convinced i was innocent: but my sufferings had been too cruel, and the miseries he had inflicted too horrible, for me ever to hope for compensation. in an affair of this nature, which will soon he known to all europe, as it long has been in prussia, the weakest is always guilty. i have been made a terrible example to this our age, how true that maxim is in despotic states. a man of my rank, having once unjustly suffered, and not having the power of making his sufferings known, must ever be highly rewarded or still more unjustly punished. my name and injuries will ever stain the annals of frederic _the great_; even those who read this book will perhaps suppose that i, from political motives of hope or fear, have sometimes concealed truth by endeavouring to palliate his conduct. it must ever remain incomprehensible that a monarch so clear-sighted, himself the daily witness of my demeanour, one well acquainted with mankind, and conscious i wanted neither money, honour, nor hope of future preferment; i say it is incomprehensible that he should really suppose me guilty. i take god to witness, and all those who knew me in prosperity and misfortune, i never harboured a thought of betraying my country. how was it possible to suspect me? i was neither madman nor idiot. in my eighteenth year i was a cornet of the body guard, adjutant to the king, and possessed his favour and confidence in the highest degree. his presents to me, in one year, amounted to fifteen hundred dollars. i kept seven horses, four men in livery; i was valued, distinguished, and beloved by the mistress of my soul. my relations held high offices, both civil and military; i was even fanatically devoted to my king and country, and had nothing to wish. that i should become thus wretched, in consequence of this unfortunate letter, is equally wonderful: it came by the public post. had there been any criminal correspondence, my kinsman certainly would not have chosen this mode of conveyance; since, it is well known, all such letters are opened; nor could i act more openly. my colonel read the letter i wrote; and also that which i received, immediately after it was brought. the day after the receipt of this letter i was, as i have before said, unheard, unaccused, unjudged, conducted like a criminal from the army, by fifty hussars, and imprisoned in the fortress of glatz. i was allowed to take three horses, and my servants, but my whole equipage was left behind, which i never saw more, and which became the booty of jaschinsky. my commission was given to cornet schatzel, and i cashiered without knowing why. there were no legal inquiries made: all was done by the king's command. unhappy people! where power is superior to law, and where the innocent and the virtuous meet punishment instead of reward. unhappy land! where the omnipotent "such is our will" supersedes all legal sentence, and robs the subject of property, life, and honour. i once more repeat i was brought to the citadel of glatz; i was not, however, thrown into a dungeon, but imprisoned in a chamber of the officer of the guard; was allowed my servants to wait on me, and permitted to walk on the ramparts. i did not want money, and there was only a detachment from the garrison regiment in the citadel of glatz, the officers of which were all poor. i soon had both friends and freedom, and the rich prisoner every day kept open table. he only who had known me in this the ardour of my youth, who had witnessed how high i aspired, and the fortune that attended me at berlin, can imagine what my feelings were at finding myself thus suddenly cast from my high hopes. i wrote submissively to the king, requesting to be tried by a court-martial, and not desiring any favour should i be found guilty. this haughty tone, in a youth, was displeasing, and i received no answer, which threw me into despair, and induced me to use every possible means to obtain my liberty. my first care was to establish, by the intervention of an officer, a certain correspondence with the object of my heart. she answered, she was far from supposing i had ever entertained the least thought treacherous to my country; that she knew, too well, i was perfectly incapable, of dissimulation. she blamed the precipitate anger and unjust suspicions of the king; promised me speedy aid, and sent me a thousand ducats. had i, at this critical moment, possessed a prudent and intelligent friend, who could have calmed my impatience, nothing perhaps might have been more easy than to have obtained pardon from the king, by proving my innocence; or, it may be, than to have induced him to punish my enemies. but the officers who then were at glatz fed the flame of discontent. they supposed the money i so freely distributed came all from hungary, furnished by the pandour chest; and advised me not to suffer my freedom to depend upon the will of the king, but to enjoy it in his despite. it was not more easy to give this advice than to persuade a man to take it, who, till then, had never encountered anything but good fortune, and who consequently supported the reverse with impatience. i was not yet, however, determined; because i could not yet resolve to abandon my country, and especially berlin. five months soon passed away in prison: peace was concluded; the king was returned to his capital; my commission in the guards was bestowed on another, when lieutenant piaschky, of the regiment of fouquet, and ensign reitz, who often mounted guard over me, proposed that they and i should escape together. i yielded; our plan was fixed, and every preparatory step taken. at that time there was another prisoner at glatz, whose name was manget, by birth a swiss, and captain of cavalry in the natzmerschen hussars; he had been broken, and condemned by a court-martial to ten years' imprisonment, with an allowance of only four rix-dollars per month. having done this man kindness, i was resolved to rescue him from bondage, at the same time that i obtained freedom for myself. i communicated my design, and made the proposal, which was accepted by him, and measures were taken; yet were we betrayed by this vile man, who thus purchased pardon and liberty. piaschky, who had been informed that reitz was arrested, saved himself by deserting. i denied the fact in presence of manget, with whom i was confronted, and bribed the auditor with a hundred ducats. by this means reitz only suffered a year's imprisonment, and the loss of his commission. i was afterwards closely confined in a chamber, for having endeavoured to corrupt the king's officers, and was guarded with greater caution. here i will interrupt my narrative, for a moment, to relate an adventure which happened between me and this captain manget, three years after he had thus betrayed me--that is to say, in , at warsaw. i there met him by chance, and it is not difficult to imagine what was the salutation he received. i caned him; he took this ill, and challenged me to fight with pistols. captain heucking, of the polish guards, was my second. we both fired together; i shot him through the neck at the first shot, and he fell dead on the field. he alone, of all my enemies, ever died by my own hand; and he well merited his end, for his cowardly treachery towards the two brave fellows of whom i have spoken; and still more so with respect to myself, who had been his benefactor. i own, i have never reproached myself for this duel, by which i sent a rascal out of the world. i return to my tale. my destiny at glatz was now become more untoward and severe. the king's suspicions were increased, as likewise was his anger, by this my late attempt to escape. left to myself, i considered my situation in the worst point of view, and determined either on flight or death. the length and closeness of my confinement became insupportable to my impatient temper. i had always had the garrison on my side, nor was it possible to prevent my making friends among them. they knew i had money, and, in a poor garrison regiment, the officers of which are all dissatisfied, having most of them been drafted from other corps, and sent thither as a punishment, there was nothing that might not be undertaken. my scheme was as follows:--my window looked towards the city, and was ninety feet from the ground in the tower of the citadel, out of which i could not get, without having found a place of refuge in the city. this an officer undertook to procure me, and prevailed on an honest soap- boiler to grant me a hiding place. i then notched my pen-knife, and sawed through three iron bars; but this mode was too tedious, it being necessary to file away eight bars from my window, before i could pass through; another officer therefore procured me a file, which i was obliged to use with caution, lest i should be overheard by the sentinels. having ended this labour, i cut my leather portmanteau into thongs, sewed them end to end, added the sheets of my bed, and descended safely from this astonishing height. it rained, the night was dark, and all seemed fortunate, but i had to wade through moats full of mud, before i could enter the city, a circumstance i had never once considered. i sank up to the knees, and after long struggling, and incredible efforts to extricate myself, i was obliged to call the sentinel, and desire him to go and tell the governor, trenck was stuck fast in the moat. my misfortune was the greater on this occasion, because that general fouquet was then governor of glatz. he was one of the cruellest of men. he had been wounded by my father in a duel; and the austrian trenck had taken his baggage in , and had also laid the country of glatz under contribution. he was, therefore, an enemy to the very name of trenck; nor did he lose any opportunity of giving proofs of his enmity, and especially on the present occasion, when he left me standing in the mire till noon, the sport of the soldiers. i was then drawn out, half dead, only again to be imprisoned, and shut up the whole day, without water to wash me. no one can imagine how i looked, exhausted and dirty, my long hair having fallen into the mud, with which, by my struggling, it was loaded. i remained in this condition till the next day, when two fellow-prisoners were sent to assist and clean me. my imprisonment now became more intolerable. i had still eighty louis- d'ors in my purse, which had not been taken from me at my removal into another dungeon, and these afterwards did me good service. the passions soon all assailed me at once, and impetuous, boiling, youthful blood overpowered reason; hope disappeared; i thought myself the most unfortunate of men, and my king an irreconcileable judge, more wrathful and more fortified in suspicion by my own rashness. my nights were sleepless, my days miserable; my soul was tortured by the desire of fame; a consciousness of innocence was a continued stimulus inciting me to end my misfortunes. youth, inexperienced in woe and disastrous fate, beholds every evil magnified, and desponds on every new disappointment, more especially after having failed in attempting freedom. education had taught me to despise death, and these opinions had been confirmed by my friend la mettrie, author of the famous work, "l'homme machine," or "man a machine." i read much during my confinement at glatz, where books were allowed me; time was therefore less tedious; but when the love of liberty awoke, when fame and affection called me to berlin, and my baulked hopes painted the wretchedness of my situation; when i remembered that my loved country, judging by appearances, could not but pronounce me a traitor; then was i hourly impelled to rush on the naked bayonets of my guards, by whom, to me, the road of freedom was barred. big with such-like thoughts, eight days had not elapsed since my last fruitless attempt to escape, when an event happened which would appear incredible, were i, the principal actor in the scene, not alive to attest its truth, and might not all glatz and the prussian garrison be produced as eye and ear witnesses. this incident will prove that adventurous, and even rash, daring will render the most improbable undertakings possible, and that desperate attempts may often make a general more fortunate and famous than the wisest and best concerted plans. major doo { } came to visit me, accompanied by an officer of the guard, and an adjutant. after examining every corner of my chamber, he addressed me, taxing me with a second crime in endeavouring to obtain my liberty; adding this must certainly increase the anger of the king. my blood boiled at the word crime; he talked of patience; i asked him how long the king had condemned me to imprisonment; he answered, a traitor to his country, who has correspondence with the enemy, cannot be condemned for a certain time, but must depend for grace and pardon on the king. at that instant i snatched his sword from his side, on which my eyes had some time been fixed, sprang out of the door, tumbled the sentinel from the top to the bottom of the stairs, passed the men who happened to be drawn up before the prison door to relieve the guard, attacked them sword in hand, threw them suddenly into surprise by the manner in which i laid about me, wounded four of them, made way through the rest, sprang over the breastwork of the ramparts, and, with my sword drawn in my hand, immediately leaped this astonishing height without receiving the least injury. i leaped the second wall with equal safety and good fortune. none of their pieces were loaded; no one durst leap after me, and in order to pursue, they must go round through the town and gate of the citadel; so that i had the start full half an hour. a sentinel, however, in a narrow passage, endeavoured to oppose my flight, but i parried his fixed bayonet, and wounded him in the face. a second sentinel, meantime, ran from the outworks, to seize me behind, and i, to avoid him, made a spring at the palisadoes; there i was unluckily caught by the foot, and received a bayonet wound in the upper lip; thus entangled, they beat me with the butt-end of their muskets, and dragged me back to prison, while i struggled and defended myself like a man grown desperate. certain it is, had i more carefully jumped the palisadoes, and despatched the sentinel who opposed me, i might have escaped, and gained the mountains. thus might i have fled to bohemia, after having, at noonday, broken from the fortress of glatz, sprung past all its sentinels, over all its walls, and passed with impunity, in despite of the guard, who were under arms, ready to oppose me. i should not, having a sword, have feared any single opponent, and was able to contend with the swiftest runners. that good fortune which had so far attended me forsook me at the palisadoes, where hope was at an end. the severities of imprisonment were increased; two sentinels and an under officer were locked in with me, and were themselves guarded by sentinels without; i was beaten and wounded by the butt-ends of their muskets, my right foot was sprained, i spat blood, and my wounds were not cured in less than a month. chapter v. i was now first informed that the king had only condemned me to a year's imprisonment, in order to learn whether his suspicions were well founded. my mother had petitioned for me, and was answered, "your son must remain a year imprisoned, as a punishment for his rash correspondence." of this i was ignorant, and it was reported in glatz that my imprisonment was for life. i had only three weeks longer to repine for the loss of liberty, when i made this rash attempt. what must the king think? was he not obliged to act with this severity? how could prudence excuse my impatience, thus to risk a confiscation, when i was certain of receiving freedom, justification, and honour, in three weeks? but, such was my adverse fate, circumstances all tended to injure and persecute me, till at length i gave reason to suppose i was a traitor, notwithstanding the purity of my intentions. once more, then, was i in a dungeon, and no sooner was i there than i formed new projects of flight. i first gained the intimacy of my guards. i had money, and this, with the compassion i had inspired, might effect anything among discontented prussian soldiers. soon had i gained thirty- two men, who were ready to execute, on the first signal, whatever i should command. two or three excepted, they were unacquainted with each other; they consequently could not all be betrayed at a time: had chosen the sub-officer nicholai to head them. the garrison consisted only of one hundred and twenty men from the garrison regiment, the rest being dispersed in the county of glatz, and four officers, their commanders, three of whom were in my interest. everything was prepared; swords and pistols were concealed in the oven which was in my prison. we intended to give liberty to all the prisoners, and retire with drums beating into bohemia. unfortunately, an austrian deserter, to whom nicholai had imparted our design, went and discovered our conspiracy. the governor instantly sent his adjutant to the citadel, with orders that the officer on guard should arrest nicholai, and, with his men, take possession of the casement. nicholai was on the guard, and the lieutenant was my friend, and being in the secret, gave the signal that all was discovered. nicholai only knew all the conspirators, several of whom that day were on guard. he instantly formed his resolution, leaped into the casement, crying, "comrades, to arms, we are betrayed!" all followed to the guard-house, where they seized on the cartridges, the officer having only eight men, and threatening to fire on whoever should offer resistance, came to deliver me from prison; but the iron door was too strong, and the time too short for that to be demolished. nicholai, calling to me, bid me aid them, but in vain: and perceiving nothing more could be done for me, this brave man, heading nineteen others, marched to the gate of the citadel, where there was a sub-officer and ten soldiers, obliged these to accompany him, and thus arrived safely at braunau, in bohemia; for, before the news was spread through the city, and men were collected for the pursuit, they were nearly half-way on their journey. two years after i met with this extraordinary man at ofenbourg, where hue was a writer: he entered immediately into my service, and became my friend, but died some months after of a burning fever, at my quarters in hungary, at which i was deeply grieved, for his memory will be ever dear to me. now was i exposed to all the storms of ill-fortune: a prosecution was entered against me as a conspirator, who wanted to corrupt the officers and soldiers of the king. they commanded me to name the remaining conspirators; but to these questions i made no answer, except by steadfastly declaring i was an innocent prisoner, an officer unjustly broken; unjustly, because i had never been brought to trial; that consequently i was released from all my engagements; nor could it be thought extraordinary that i should avail myself of that law of nature which gives every man a right to defend his honour defamed, and seek by every possible means to regain his liberty: that such had been my sole purpose in every enterprise i had formed, and such should still continue to be, for i was determined to persist, till i should either be crowned with success, or lose my life in the attempt. things thus remained: every precaution was taken except that i was not put in irons; it being a law in prussia that no gentleman or officer can be loaded with chains, unless he has first for some crime been delivered over to the executioner; and certainly this had not been my case. the soldiers were withdrawn from my chamber; but the greatest ill was i had expended all my money, and my kind mistress, at berlin, with whom i had always corresponded, and which my persecutors could not prevent, at last wrote-- "my tears flow with yours; the evil is without remedy--i dare no more--escape if you can. my fidelity will ever be the same, when it shall be possible for me to serve you.--adieu, unhappy friend: you merit a better fate." this letter was a thunderbolt:--my comfort, however, still was that the officers were not suspected, and that it was their duty to visit my chamber several times a day, and examine what passed: from which circumstance i felt my hopes somewhat revive. hence an adventure happened which is almost unexampled in tales of knight-errantry. a lieutenant, whose name was bach, a dane by nation, mounted guard every fourth day, and was the terror of the whole garrison; for, being a perfect master of arms, he was incessantly involved in quarrels, and generally left his marks behind him. he had served in two regiments, neither of which would associate with him for this reason, and he had been sent to the garrison regiment at glatz as punishment. bach one day, sitting beside me, related how, the evening before, he had wounded a lieutenant, of the name of schell, in the arm. i replied, laughing, "had i my liberty, i believe you would find some trouble in wounding me, for i have some skill in the sword." the blood instantly flew in his face; we split off a kind of pair of foils from an old door, which had served me as a table, and at the first lunge i hit him on the breast. his rage became ungovernable, and he left the prison. what was my astonishment when, a moment after, i saw him return with two soldiers' swords, which he had concealed under his coat.--"now, then, boaster, prove," said he, giving me one of them, "what thou art able to do." i endeavoured to pacify him, by representing the danger, but ineffectually. he attacked me with the utmost fury, and i wounded him in the arm. throwing his sword down, he fell upon my neck, kissed me, and wept. at length, after some convulsive emotions of pleasure, he said, "friend, thou art my master; and thou must, thou shalt, by my aid, obtain thy liberty, as certainly as my name is bach." we bound up his arm as well as we could. he left me, and secretly went to a surgeon, to have it properly dressed, and at night returned. he now remarked, that it was humanly impossible i should escape, unless the officer on guard should desert with me;--that he wished nothing more ardently than to sacrifice his life in my behalf, but that he could not resolve so far to forget his honour and duty to desert, himself, while on guard: he notwithstanding gave me his word of honour he would find me such a person in a few days; and that, in the meantime, he would prepare everything for my flight. he returned the same evening, bringing with him lieutenant schell, and as he entered said, "here is your man." schell embraced me, gave his word of honour, and thus was the affair settled, and as it proved, my liberty ascertained. we soon began to deliberate on the means necessary to obtain our purpose. schell was just come from garrison at habelchwert to the citadel of glatz, and in two days was to mount guard over me, till when our attempt was suspended. i have before said, i received no more supplies from my beloved mistress, and my purse at that time only contained some six pistoles. it was therefore resolved that bach should go to schweidnitz, and obtain money of a sure friend of mine in that city. here must i inform the reader that at this period the officers and i all understood each other, captain roder alone excepted, who was exact, rigid, and gave trouble on all occasions. major quaadt was my kinsman, by my mother's side, a good, friendly man, and ardently desirous i should escape, seeing my calamities were so much increased. the four lieutenants who successively mounted guard over me were bach, schroeder, lunitz, and schell. the first was the grand projector, and made all preparations; schell was to desert with me; and schroeder and lunitz three days after were to follow. no one ought to be surprised that officers of garrison regiments should be so ready to desert. they are, in general, either men of violent passions, quarrelsome, overwhelmed with debts, or unfit for service. they are usually sent to the garrison as a punishment, and are called the refuse of the army. dissatisfied with their situation, their pay much reduced, and despised by the troops, such men, expecting advantage, may be brought to engage in the most desperate undertaking. none of them can hope for their discharge, and they live in the utmost poverty. they all hoped by my means to better their fortune, i always having had money enough; and, with money, nothing is more easy than to find friends, in places where each individual is desirous of escaping from slavery. the talents of schell were of a superior order; he spoke and wrote six languages, and was well acquainted with all the fine arts. he had served in the regiment of fouquet, had been injured by his colonel, who was a pomeranian; and fouquet, who was no friend to well-informed officers, had sent him to a garrison regiment. he had twice demanded his dismissal, but the king sent him to this species of imprisonment; he then determined to avenge himself by deserting, and was ready to aid me in recovering my freedom, that he might, by that means, spite fouquet. i shall speak more hereafter of this extraordinary man, that i must not in this place interrupt my story. we determined everything should be prepared against the first time schell mounted guard, and that our project should be executed on our next. thus, as he mounted guard every four days, the eighth was to be that of our flight. the governor meantime had been informed how familiar i was become with the officers, at which taking offence, he sent orders that my door should no more be opened, but that i should receive my food through a small window that had been made for the purpose. the care of the prison was committed to the major, and he was forbidden to eat with me, under pain of being broken. his precautions were ineffectual; the officers procured a false key, and remained with me half the day and night. captain damnitz was imprisoned in an apartment by the side of mine. this man had deserted from the prussian service, with the money belonging to his company, to austria, where he obtained a commission in his cousin's regiment, who having prevailed on him to serve as a spy, during the campaign of , he was taken in the prussian territories, known, and condemned to be hanged. some swedish volunteers, who were then in the army, interested themselves in his behalf, and his sentence was changed to perpetual imprisonment, with a sentence of infamy. this wretch, who two years after, by the aid of his protectors, not only obtained his liberty but a lieutenant-colonel's commission, was the secret spy of the major over the prisoners; and he remarked that, notwithstanding the express prohibition laid on the officers, they still passed the greater part of their time in my company. the th of december came, and schell mounted guard. he entered my prison immediately, where he continued a long time, and we made our arrangements for flight when he next should mount guard. lieutenant schroeder that day dined with the governor, and heard orders given to the adjutant that schell should be taken from the guard, and put under arrest. schroeder, who was in the secret, had no doubt but that we were betrayed, not knowing that the spy damnitz had informed the governor that schell was then in my chamber. schroeder, full of terror, came running to the citadel, and said to schell, "save thyself, friend; all is discovered, and thou wilt instantly be put under arrest." schell might easily have provided for his own safety, by flying singly, schroeder having prepared horses, on one of which he himself offered to accompany him into bohemia. how did this worthy man, in a moment so dangerous, act toward his friend? running suddenly into my prison, he drew a corporal's sabre from under his coat, and said, "friend, we are betrayed; follow me, only do not suffer me to fall alive into the hands of my enemies." i would have spoken: but interrupting me, and taking me by the hand, he added, "follow me; we have not a moment to lose." i therefore slipped on my coat and boots, without having time to take the little money i had left; and, as we went out of the prison, schell said to the sentinel, "i am taking the prisoner into the officer's apartment; stand where you are." into this room we really went, but passed out at the other door. the design of schell was to go under the arsenal, which was not far off, to gain the covered way, leap the palisadoes, and afterwards escape after the best manner we might. we had scarcely gone a hundred paces before we met the adjutant and major quaadt. schell started back, sprang upon the rampart, and leaped from the wall, which was there not very high. i followed, and alighted unhurt, except having grazed my shoulder. my poor friend was not so fortunate; having put out his ankle. he immediately drew his sword, presented it to me, and begged me to despatch him, and fly. he was a small, weak man: but, far from complying with his request, i took him in my arms, threw him over the palisadoes, afterwards got him on my back, and began to run, without very well knowing which way i went. chapter vi. it may not be unnecessary to remark those fortunate circumstances that favoured our enterprise. the sun had just set as we took to flight; the hoar frost fell. no one would run the risk that we had done, by making so dangerous a leap. we heard a terrible noise behind us. everybody knew us; but before they could go round the citadel, and through the town, in order to pursue us, we had got a full half league. the alarm guns were fired before we were a hundred paces distant; at which my friend was very much terrified, knowing that in such cases it was generally impossible to escape from glatz, unless the fugitives had got the start full two hours before the alarm guns were heard; the passes being immediately all stopped by the peasants and hussars, who are exceedingly vigilant. no sooner is a prisoner missed than the gunner runs from the guard-house, and fires the cannon on the three sides of the fortress, which are kept loaded day and night for that purpose. we were not five hundred paces from the walls, when all before us and behind us were in motion. it was daylight when we leaped, yet was our attempt as fortunate as it was wonderful: this i attributed to my presence of mind, and the reputation i had already acquired, which made it thought a service of danger for two or three men to attack me. it was besides imagined we were well provided with arms for our defence; and it was little suspected that schell had only his sword, and i an old corporal's sabre. among the officers commanded to pursue us was lieutenant bart, my intimate friend. captain zerbst, of the regiment of fouquet, who had always testified the kindness of a brother towards me, met us on the bohemian frontiers, and called to me, "make to time left, brother, and you will see some lone houses, which are on the bohemian confines: the hussars have ridden straight forward." he then passed on as if he had not seen us. we had nothing to fear from the officers; for the intimacy between the prussian officers was at that time so great, and the word of honour so sacred, that during my rigorous detention at glatz i had been once six- and-thirty hours hunting at neurode, at the seat of baron stillfriede; lunitz had taken my place in the prison, which the major knew when he came to make his visit. hence may be conjectured how great was the confidence in which the word of the unfortunate trenck was held at glatz, since they did not fear letting him leave his dungeon, and hunt on the very confines of bohemia. this, too, shows the governor was deceived, in despite of his watchfulness and order, and that a man of honour, with money, and a good head and heart, will never want friends. these my memoirs will be the picture of what the national character then was; and will prove that, with officers who lived like brothers, and held their words so sacred, the great frederick well might vanquish his enemies. arbitrary power has now introduced the whip of slavery, and mechanic subordination has eradicated those noble and rational incitements to concord and honour. instead of which, mistrust and slavish fear having arisen, the enthusiastic spirit of the brandenburg warrior declines, and into this error have most of the other european states fallen. scarcely had i borne my friend three hundred paces before i set him down, and i looked round me, but darkness came on so fast that i could see neither town nor citadel; consequently, we ourselves could not be seen. my presence of mind did not forsake me: death or freedom was my determination. "where are we, schell?" said i to my friend. "where does bohemia lie? on which side is the river neiss?" the worthy man could make no answer: his mind was all confusion, and he despaired of our escape: he still, however, entreated i would not let him be taken alive, and affirmed my labour was all in vain. after having promised, by all that was sacred, i would save him from an infamous death, if no other means were left, and thus raised his spirits, he looked round, and knew, by some trees, we were not far from the city gates. i asked him, "where is the neiss?" he pointed sideways--"all glatz has seen us fly towards the bohemian mountains; it is impossible we should avoid the hussars, the passes being all guarded, and we beset with enemies." so saying, i took him on my shoulders, and carried him to the neiss; here we distinctly heard the alarm sounded in the villages, and the peasants, who likewise were to form the line of desertion, were everywhere in motion, and spreading the alarm. as it may not be known to all my readers in what manner they proceed on these occasions in prussia, i will here give a short account of it. officers are daily named on the parade whose duty it is to follow fugitives as soon as the alarm-guns are fired. the peasants in the villages, likewise, are daily appointed to rim to the guard of certain posts. the officers immediately fly to these posts to see that the peasants do their duty, and prevent the prisoner's escape. thus does it seldom happen that a soldier can effect his escape unless he be, at the very least, an hour on the road before the alarm-guns are fired. i now return to my story. i came to the neiss, which was a little frozen, entered it with my friend, and carried him as long as i could wade, and when i could not feel the bottom, which did not continue for more than a space of eighteen feet, he clung round me, and thus we got safely to the other shore. my father taught all his sons to swim, for which i have often had to thank him; since by means of this art, which is easily learnt in childhood, i had on various occasions preserved my life, and was more bold in danger. princes who wish to make their subjects soldiers, should have them educated so as to fear neither fire nor water. how great would be the advantage of being able to cross a river with whole battalions, when it is necessary to attack or retreat before the enemy, and when time will not permit to prepare bridges! the reader will easily suppose swimming in the midst of december, and remaining afterwards eighteen hours in the open air, was a severe hardship. about seven o'clock the hoar-fog was succeeded by frost and moonlight. the carrying of my friend kept me warm, it is true, but i began to be tired, while he suffered everything that frost, the pain of a dislocated foot (which i in vain endeavoured to reset), and the danger of death from a thousand hands, could inflict. we were somewhat more tranquil, however, having reached the opposite shore of the neiss, since nobody would pursue us on the road to silesia. i followed the course of the river for half an hour, and having once passed the first villages that formed the line of desertion, with which schell was perfectly acquainted, we in a lucky moment found a fisherman's boat moored to the shore; into this we leaped, crossed the river again, and soon gained the mountains. here being come, we sat ourselves down awhile on the snow; hope revived in our hearts, and we held council concerning how it was best to act. i cut a stick to assist schell in hopping forward as well as he could when i was tired of carrying him; and thus we continued our route, the difficulties of which were increased by the mountain snows. thus passed the night; during which, up to the middle in snow, we made but little way. there were no paths to be traced in the mountains, and they were in many places impassable. day at length appeared: we thought ourselves near the frontiers, which are twenty english miles from glatz, when we suddenly, to our great terror, heard the city clock strike. overwhelmed, as we were, by hunger, cold, fatigue, and pain, it was impossible we should hold out through the day. after some consideration, and another half-hour's labour, we came to a village at the foot of the mountain, on the side of which, about three hundred paces from us, we perceived two separate houses, which inspired us with a stratagem that was successful. we lost our hats in leaping the ramparts; but schell had preserved his scarf and gorget, which would give him authority among the peasants. i then cut my finger, rubbed the blood over my face, my shirt, and my coat, and bound up my head, to give myself the appearance of a man dangerously wounded. in this condition i carried schell to the end of the wood not far from these houses; here he tied my hands behind my back, but so that i could easily disengage them in ease of need: and hobbled after me, by aid of his staff, calling for help. two old peasants appeared, and schell commanded them to run to the village, and tell a magistrate to come immediately with a cart. "i have seized this knave," added he, "who has killed my horse, and in the struggle i have put out my ankle; however, i have wounded and bound him; fly quickly, bring a cart, lest he should die before he is hanged." as for me, i suffered myself to be led, as if half-dead, into the house. a peasant was despatched to the village. an old woman and a pretty girl seemed to take great pity on me, and gave me some bread and milk: but how great was our astonishment when the aged peasant called schell by his name, and told him he well knew we were deserters, having the night before been at a neighbouring alehouse where the officer in pursuit of us came, named and described us, and related the whole history of our flight. the peasant knew schell, because his son served in his company, and had often spoken of him when he was quartered at habelschwert. presence of mind and resolution were all that were now left. i instantly ran to the stable, while schell detained the peasant in the chamber. he, however, was a worthy man, and directed him to the road toward bohemia. we were still about some seven miles from glatz, having lost ourselves among the mountains, where we had wandered many miles. the daughter followed me: i found three horses in the stable, but no bridles. i conjured her, in the most passionate manner, to assist me: she was affected, seemed half willing to follow me, and gave me two bridles. i led the horses to the door, called schell, and helped him, with his lame leg, on horseback. the old peasant then began to weep, and beg i would not take his horses; but he luckily wanted courage, and perhaps the will to impede us; for with nothing more than a dung-fork, in our then feeble condition, he might have stopped us long enough to have called in assistance from the village. and now behold us on horseback, without hats or saddles; schell with his uniform scarf and gorget, and i in my red regimental coat. still we were in danger of seeing all our hopes vanish, for my horse would not stir from the stable; however, at last, good horseman-like, i made him move: schell led the way, and we had scarcely gone a hundred paces, before we perceived the peasants coming in crowds from the village. as kind fortune would have it, the people were all at church, it being a festival: the peasants schell had sent were obliged to call aid out of church. it was but nine in the morning; and had the peasants been at home, we had been lost past redemption. we were obliged to take the road to wunshelburg, and pass through the town where schell had been quartered a month before, and in which he was known by everybody. our dress, without hats or saddles, sufficiently proclaimed we were deserters: our horses, however, continued to go tolerably well, and we had the good luck to get through the town, although there was a garrison of one hundred and eighty infantry, and twelve horse, purposely to arrest deserters. schell knew the road to brummem, where we arrived at eleven o'clock, after having met, as i before mentioned, captain zerbst. he who has been in the same situation only can imagine, though he never can describe, all the joy we felt. an innocent man, languishing in a dungeon, who by his own endeavours, has broken his chains, and regained his liberty, in despite of all the arbitrary power of princes, who vainly would oppose him, conceives in moments like these such an abhorrence of despotism, that i could not well comprehend how i ever could resolve to live under governments where wealth, content, honour, liberty, and life all depend upon a master's will, and who, were his intentions the most pure, could not be able, singly, to do justice to a whole nation. never did i, during life, feel pleasure more exquisite than at this moment. my friend for me had risked a shameful death, and now, after having carried him at least twelve hours on my shoulders, i had saved both him and myself. we certainly should not have suffered any man to bring us, alive, back to glatz. yet this was but the first act of the tragedy of which i was doomed the hero, and the mournful incidents of which all arose out of, and depended on, each other. chapter vii. could i have read the book of fate, and have seen the forty years' fearful afflictions that were to follow, i certainly should not have rejoiced at this my escape from glatz. one year's patience might have appeased the irritated monarch, and, taking a retrospect of all that has passed, i now find it would have been a fortunate circumstance, had the good and faithful schell and i never met, since he also fell into a train of misfortunes, which i shall hereafter relate, and from which he could never extricate himself, but by death. the sufferings which i have since undergone will be read with astonishment. it is my consolation that both the laws of honour and nature justify the action. i may serve as an example of the fortitude with which danger ought to be encountered, and show monarchs that in germany, as well as in rome, there are men who refuse to crouch beneath the yoke of despotism, and that philosophy and resolution are stronger than even those lords of slaves, with all their threats, whips, tortures, and instruments of death. in prussia, where my sufferings might have made me supposed the worst of traitors, is my innocence universally acknowledged; and instead of contempt, there have i gained the love of the whole nation, which is the best compensation for all the ills i have suffered, and for having persevered in the virtuous principles taught me in my youth, persecuted as i have been by envy and malicious power. i have not time further to moralise; the numerous incidents of my life would otherwise swell this volume to too great an extent. thus in freedom at braunau, on the bohemian frontiers, i sent the two horses, with the corporal's sword, back to general fouquet, at glatz. the letter accompanying them was so pleasing to him that all the sentinels before my prison door, as well as the guard under arms, and all those we passed, were obliged to run the gauntlet, although the very day before he had himself declared my escape was now rendered impossible. he, however, was deceived; and thus do the mean revenge themselves on the miserable, and the tyrant on the innocent. and now for the first time did i quit my country, and fly like joseph from the pit into which his false brethren had cast him; and in this the present moment of joy for my escape, the loss even of friends and country appeared to me the excess of good fortune. the estates which had been purchased by the blood of my forefathers were confiscated; and thus was a youth, of one of the noblest families in the land, whose heart was all zeal for the service of his king and country, and who was among those most capable to render them service, banished by his unjust and misled king, and treated like the worst of miscreants, malefactors, and traitors. i wrote to the king, and sent him a true state of my case; sent indubitable proofs of my innocence, and supplicated justice, but received no answer. in this the monarch may be justified, at least in my apprehension. a wicked man had maliciously and falsely accused me; colonel jaschinsky had made him suspect me for a traitor, and it was impossible he should read my heart. the first act of injustice had been hastily committed; i had been condemned unheard, unjudged; and the injustice that had been done me was known too late; frederic the great found he was not infallible. pardon i would not ask, for i had committed no offence; and the king would not probably own, by a reverse of conduct, he had been guilty of injustice. my resolution increased his obstinacy: but, in the discussion of the cause, our power was very unequal. the monarch once really loved me; he meant my punishment should only be temporary, and as a trial of my fidelity. that i had been condemned to no more than a year's imprisonment had never been told me, and was a fact i did not learn till long after. major doo, who, as i have said, was the creature of fouquet, a mean and covetous man, knowing i had money, had always acted the part of a protector as he pretended to me, and continually told me i was condemned for life. he perpetually turned the conversation on the great credit of his general with the king, and his own great credit with the general. for the present of a horse, on which i rode to glatz, he gave me freedom of walking about the fortress; and for another, worth a hundred ducats, i rescued ensign reitz from death, who had been betrayed when endeavouring to effect our escape. i have been assured that on that very day on which i snatched his sword from his side, desperately passed through the garrison, and leaped the walls of the rampart, he was expressly come to tell me, after some prefatory threats, that by his general's intercession, my punishment was only to be a year's imprisonment, and that consequently i should be released in a few days. how vile were means like these to wrest money from the unfortunate! the king, after this my mad flight, certainly was never informed of the major's base cunning; he could only be told that, rather than wait a few days, i had chosen, in this desperate manner, to make my escape, and go over to the enemy. thus deceived and strengthened in his suspicion, must he not imagine my desire to forsake my country, and desert to the enemy, was unbounded? how could he do otherwise than imprison a subject who thus endeavoured to injure him and aid his foes? thus, by the calumnies of wicked men, did my cruel destiny daily become more severe; and at length render the deceived monarch irreconcilable and cruel. yet how could it be supposed that i would not willingly have remained three weeks longer in prison, to have been honourably restored to liberty, to have prevented the confiscation of my estate, and to have once more returned to my beloved mistress at berlin. and now was i in bohemia, a fugitive stranger without money, protector, or friend, and only twenty years of age. in the campaign of i had been quartered at braunau with a weaver, whom i advised and assisted to bury his effects, and preserve them from being plundered. the worthy man received us with joy and gratitude. i had lived in this same house but two years before as absolute master of him and his fate. i had then nine horses and five servants, with the highest and most favourable hopes of futurity; but now i came a fugitive, seeking protection, and having lost all a youth like me had to lose. i had but a single louis-d'or in my purse, and schell forty kreutzers, or some three shillings; with this small sum, in a strange country, we had to cure his sprain, and provide for all our wants. i was determined not to go to my cousin trenck at vienna, fearful this should seem a justification of all my imputed treasons; i rather wished to embark for the east indies, than to have recourse to this expedient. the greater my delicacy was the greater became my distress. i wrote to my mistress at berlin, but received no answer; possibly because i could not indicate any certain mode of conveyance. my mother believed me guilty, and abandoned me; my brothers were still minors, and my friend at schweidnitz could not aid me, being gone to konigsberg. after three weeks' abode at braunau, my friend recovered of his lameness. we had been obliged to sell my watch, with his scarf and gorget, to supply our necessities, and had only four florins remaining. from the public papers i learned my cousin, the austrian trenck, was at this time closely confined, and under criminal prosecution. it will easily be imagined what effect this news had upon me. never till now had i felt any inconvenience from poverty; my wants had all been amply supplied, and i had ever lived among, and been highly loved and esteemed by, the first people of the land. i was destitute, without aid, and undetermined how to seek employment, or obtain fame. at length i determined to travel on foot to prussia to my mother, and obtain money from her, and afterwards enter into the russian service. schell, whose destiny was linked to mine, would not forsake me. we assumed false names: i called myself knert, and schell, lesch; then, obtaining passports, like common deserters, we left braunau on the st of january, in the evening, unseen of any person, and proceeded towards bielitz in poland. a friend i had at neurode gave me a pair of pocket pistols, a musket, and three ducats; the money was spent at braunau. here let me take occasion to remark i had lent this friend, in urgent necessity, a hundred ducats, which he still owed me; and when i sent to request payment, he returned me three, as if i had asked charity. though a circumstantial description of our travels alone would fill a volume, i shall only relate the most singular accidents which happened to us; i shall also insert the journal of our route, which schell had preserved, and gave me in , when he came to see me at aix-la-chapelle, after an absence of thirty years. this may be called the first scene in which i appeared as an adventurer, and perhaps my good fortune may even have overbalanced the bad, since i have escaped death full thirty times when the chances were a hundred to one against me; certain it is i undertook many things in which i seemed to have owed my preservation to the very rashness of the action, and in which others equally brave would have found death. journal of travels on foot. from braunau, in bohemia, through bielitz, in poland, to meseritsch, and from meseritsch, by thorn, to ebling; in the whole miles, { } performed without begging or stealing. january th, .--from braunau, by politz, to nachod, three miles, we having three florins forty-five kreutzers in our purse. jan. .--to neustadt. here schell bartered his uniform for an old coat, and a jew gave him two florins fifteen kreutzers in exchange; from hence we went to reichenau; in all, three miles. jan. .--we went to leitomischl, five miles. here i bought a loaf hot out of the oven, which eating greedily, had nearly caused my death. this obliged us to rest a day, and the extravagant charge of the landlord almost emptied our purse. jan. .--from trubau, to zwittau, in moravia, four miles. jan. .--to sternberg, six miles. this day's journey excessively fatigued poor schell, his sprained ankle being still extremely weak. jan. .--to leipnik, four miles, in a deep snow, and with empty stomachs. here i sold my stock-buckle for four florins. jan. .--to freiberg, by weiskirch, to drahotusch, five miles. early in the morning we found a violin and case on the road; the innkeeper in weiskirch gave us two florins for it, on condition that he should return it to the owner on proving his right, it being worth at least twenty. jan. .--to friedek, in upper silesia, two miles. jan. .--to a village, four miles and a half. jan. .--through skotschau, to bielitz, three miles. this was the last austrian town on the frontiers of poland, and captain capi, of the regiment of marischall, who commanded the garrison, demanded our passports. we had false names, and called ourselves common prussian deserters; but a drummer, who had deserted from glatz, knew us, and betrayed us to the captain, who immediately arrested us very rudely, and sent us on foot to teschin (refusing us a hearing), four miles distant. here we found lieut.-colonel baron schwarzer, a perfectly worthy man, who was highly interested in our behalf, and who blamed the irregular arbitrary conduct of captain capi. i frankly related my adventures, and he used every possible argument to persuade me, instead of continuing my journey through poland to go to vienna, but in vain; my good genius, this time, preserved me--would to god it ever had! how many miseries had i then avoided, and how easily might i have escaped the snares spread for me by the powerful, who have seized on my property, and in order to secure it, have hitherto rendered me useless to the state by depriving me of all post or preferment. i returned, therefore, a second time to beilitz, travelling these four miles once more. schwarzer lent us his own horse and four ducats, which i have since repaid, but which i shall never forget, as they were of signal service to me, and procured me a pair of new boots. irritated against captain capi, we passed through beilitz without stopping, went immediately to biala, the first town in poland, and from thence sent capi a challenge to fight me, with sword or pistol, but received no answer; and his non-appearance has ever confirmed him in my opinion a rascal. and here suffer me to take a retrospective view of what was my then situation. by the orders of capi i was sent prisoner as a contemptible common deserter, and was unable to call him to account. in poland, indeed, i had that power, but was despised as a vagabond because of my poverty. what, alas! are the advantages which the love of honour, science, courage, or desire of fame can bestow, wanting the means that should introduce us to, and bid us walk erect in the presence of our equals? youth depressed by poverty, is robbed of the society of those who best can afford example and instruction. i had lived familiar with the great, men of genius had formed and enlightened me; i had been enumerated among the favourites of a court; and now was i a stranger, unknown, unesteemed, nay, condemned, obliged to endure the extremes of cold, hunger, and thirst; to wander many a weary mile, suffering both in body and mind, while every step led me farther from her whom most i loved, and dearest; yet had i no fixed plan, no certain knowledge in what these my labours and sufferings should end. i was too proud to discover myself; and, indeed, to whom could i discover myself in a strange land? my name might have availed me in austria, but in austria, where this name was known, would i not remain; rather than seek my fortune there, i was determined to shun whatever might tend to render me suspicious in the eyes of my country. how liable was a temper so ardent as mine, in the midst of difficulties, fatigues, and disappointments, hard to endure, to betray me into all those errors of which rash youth, unaccustomed to hardship, impatient of contrariety, are so often guilty! but i had taken my resolution, and my faithful schell, to whom hunger or ease, contempt or fame, for my sake, were become indifferent, did whatever i desired. once more to my journal. feb. .--we proceeded four miles from biala to oswintzen, i having determined to ask aid from my sister, who had married waldow, and lived much at her case on a fine estate at hanmer, in brandenburg, between lansberg, on the warta and meseritsch, a frontier town of poland. for this reason we continued our route all along the silesian confines to meseritsch. feb. .--to bobrek and elkusch, five miles. we suffered much this day because of the snow, and that the lightness of our dress was ill suited to such severe weather. schell, negligently, lost our purse, in which were nine florins. i had still, however, nineteen grosch in my pocket (about half-a-crown). feb. .--to crumelew, three miles; and feb. .--to wladowiegud joreck, three miles more; and from thence, on. feb. .--to czenstochowa, where there is a magnificent convent, concerning which, had i room, i might write many remarkable things, much to the disgrace of its inhabitants. we slept at an inn kept by a very worthy man, whose name was lazar. he had been a lieutenant in the austrian service, where he had suffered much, and was now become a poor innkeeper in poland. we had not a penny in our purse, and requested a bit of bread. the generous man had compassion on us, and desired us to sit down and eat with himself. i then told him who we were, and trusted him with the motives of our journey. scarcely had we supped, before a carriage arrived with three people. they had their own horses, a servant and a coachman. this is a remarkable incident, and i must relate it circumstantially, though as briefly as possible. we had before met this carriage at elkusch, and one of these people had asked schell where we were going; he had replied, to czenstochowa; we therefore had not the least suspicion of them, notwithstanding the danger we ran. they lay at the inn, saluted us, but with indifference, not seeming to notice us, and spoke little. we had not been long in bed, before our host came to awaken us, and told us with surprise, these pretended merchants were sent to arrest us from prussia; that they had offered, first, fifty, afterwards, a hundred ducats, if he would permit them to take us in his house, and carry us into silesia: that he had firmly rejected the proposal, though they had increased their promises: and that at last they had given him six ducats to engage his silence. we clearly saw these were an officer and under-officers sent by general fouquet, to recover us. we conjectured by what means they had discovered our route, and imagined the information they had received could only come from one lieutenant molinie, of the garrison of habelschwert, who had come to visit schell, as a friend, during our stay at braunau. he had remained with us two days, and had asked many questions concerning the road we should take, and he was the only one who knew it. he was probably the spy of fouquet, and the cause of what happened afterwards, which, however, ended in the defeat of our enemies. the moment i heard of this infamous treachery, i was for entering with my pistols primed, into the enemy's chamber, but was prevented by schell and lazar: the latter entreated me, in the strongest manner, to remain at his house till i should receive a supply from my mother, that i might be enabled to continue my journey with more ease and less danger: but his entreaties were ineffectual; i was determined to see her, uncertain as i was of what effect my letter had produced. lazar assured me, we should, most infallibly, be attacked on the road. "so much the better," retorted i; "that will give me an opportunity of despatching them, sending them to the other world, and shooting them as i would highwayman." they departed at break of day, and took the road to warsaw. we would have been gone, likewise, but lazar, in some sort, forcibly detained us, and gave us the six ducats he had received from the prussians, with which we bought us each a shirt, another pair of pocket pistols, and other urgent necessaries; then took an affectionate leave of our host, who directed us on our way, and we testified our gratitude for the great services done us. feb. .--from czenstochowa to dankow, two miles. here we expected an attack. lazar had told us our enemies had one musket: i also had a musket, and an excellent sabre, and each of us was provided with a pair of pistols. they knew not we were so well armed, which perhaps was the cause of their panic, when they came to engage. feb. .--we took the road to parsemechi: we had not been an hour on the road, before we saw a carriage; as we drew near, we knew it to be that of our enemies, who pretended it was set in the snow. they were round it, and when they saw us approach, began to call for help. this, we guessed, was an artifice to entrap us. schell was not strong; they would all have fallen upon me, and we should easily have been carried off, for they wanted to take us alive. we left the causeway about thirty paces, answering--"we had not time to give them help;" at which they all ran to their carriage, drew out their pistols, and returning full speed after us, called, "stop, rascals!" we began to run, but i suddenly turning round, presented my piece, and shot the nearest dead on the spot. schell fired his pistols; our oppressors did the same, and schell received a ball in the neck at this discharge. it was now my turn; i took out my pistols, one of the assailants fled, and i enraged, pursued him three hundred paces, overtook him, and as he was defending himself with his sword, perceiving he bled, and made a feeble resistance, pressed upon him, and gave him a stroke that brought him down. i instantly returned to schell, whom i found in the power of two others that were dragging him towards the carriage, but when they saw me at their heels, they fled over the fields. the coachman, perceiving which way the battle went, leaped on his box, and drove off full speed. schell, though delivered, was wounded with a ball in the neck, and by a cut in the right hand, which had made him drop his sword, though he affirmed he had run one of his adversaries through. i took a silver watch from the man i had killed, and was going to make free with his purse, when schell called, and showed me a coach and six coming down a hill. to stay would have exposed us to have been imprisoned as highwaymen; for the two fugitives who had escaped us would certainly have borne witness against us. safety could only be found in flight. i, however, seized the musket and hat of him i had first killed, and we then gained the copse, and after that the forest. the road was round about, and it was night before we reached parsemechi. schell was besmeared with blood; i had bound up his wound the best i could; but in polish villages no surgeons are to be found: and he performed his journey with great difficulty. we met with two saxon under- officers here, who were recruiting for the regiment of guards at dresden. my six feet height and person pleased them, and they immediately made themselves acquainted with me. i found them intelligent, and entrusted them with our secret, told them who we were, related the battle we had that day had with our pursuers, and i had not reason to repent of my confidence in them. schell had his wounds dressed, and we remained seven days with these good saxons, who faithfully kept us company. i learned, meantime, that of the four men by whom we had been assaulted, one only, and the coachman, returned to glatz. the name of the officer who undertook this vile business was gersdorf; he had a hundred and fifty ducats in his pocket when found dead. how great would our good fortune have been, had not that cursed coach and six, by its appearance, made us take to flight; since the booty would have been most just! fortune, this time, did not favour the innocent; and though treacherously attacked, i was obliged to escape like a guilty wretch. we sold the watch to a jew for four ducats, the hat for three florins and a half, and the musket for a ducat, schell being unable to carry it farther. we left most of this money behind us at parsemechi. a jew surgeon sold us some dear plaisters, which we took with us and departed. feb. .--from parsemechi, through vielum, to biala, four miles. feb. .--through jerischow to misorcen, four miles and a half. feb. .--to osterkow and schwarzwald, three miles. feb. .--to sdune, four miles. feb. .--to goblin two miles. here we arrived wholly destitute of money. i sold my coat to a jew, who gave me four florins and a coarse waggoner's frock, in exchange, which i did not think i should long need, as we now drew nearer to where my sister lived, and where i hoped i should be better equipped. schell, however, grew weaker and weaker; his wounds healed slowly, and were expensive; the cold was also injurious to him, and, as he was not by nature cleanly in his person, his body soon became the harbour of every species of vermin to be picked up in poland. we often arrived wet and weary, to our smoky, reeking stove-room. often were we obliged to lie on straw, or bare boards; and the various hardships we suffered are almost incredible. wandering as we did, in the midst of winter, through poland, where humanity, hospitality, and gentle pity, are scarcely so much as known by name; where merciless jews deny the poor traveller a bed, and where we disconsolately strayed, without bread, and almost naked: these were sufferings, the full extent of which he only can conceive by whom they have been felt. my musket now and then procured us an occasional meal of tame geese, and cocks and hens, when these were to be had; otherwise, we never took or touched anything that was not our own. we met with saxon and prussian recruiters at various places; all of whom, on account of my youth and stature, were eager to inveigle me. i was highly diverted to hear them enumerate all the possibilities of future greatness, and how liable i was hereafter to become a corporal: nor was i less merry with their mead, ale, and brandy, given with an intent to make me drunk. thus we had many artifices to guard against; but thus had we likewise, very luckily for us, many a good meal gratis. feb. .--we went from goblin to pugnitz, three miles and a half. feb. .--through storchnest to schmiegel, four miles. here happened a singular adventure. the peasants at this place were dancing to a vile scraper on the violin: i took the instrument myself, and played while they continued their hilarity. they were much pleased with my playing: but when i was tired, and desired to have done, they obliged me, first by importunities, and afterwards by threats, to play on all night. i was so fatigued, i thought i should have fainted; at length they quarrelled among themselves. schell was sleeping on a bench, and some of them fell upon his wounded hand: he rose furious: i seized our arms, began to lay about me, and while all was in confusion, we escaped, without further ill-treatment. what ample subject of meditation on the various turns of fate did this night afford! but two years before i danced at berlin with the daughters and sisters of kings: and here was i, in a polish hut, a ragged, almost naked musician, playing for the sport of ignorant rustics, whom i was at last obliged to fight. i was myself the cause of the trifling misfortune that befell me on this occasion. had not my vanity led me to show these poor peasants i was a musician, i might have slept in peace and safety. the same vain desire of proving i knew more than other men, made me through life the continued victim of envy and slander. had nature, too, bestowed on me a weaker or a deformed body, i had been less observed, less courted, less sought, and my adventures and mishaps had been fewer. thus the merits of the man often become his miseries; and thus the bear, having learned to dance, must live and die in chains. this ardour, this vanity, or, if you please, this emulation, has, however, taught me to vanquish a thousand difficulties, under which others of cooler passions and more temperate desires would have sunk. may my example remain a warning; and thus may my sufferings become somewhat profitable to the world, cruel as they have been to myself! cruel they were, and cruel they must continue; for the wounds i have received are not, will not, cannot be healed. feb. .--from schmiegel to rakonitz, and from thence to karger holland, four miles and a half. here we sold, to prevent dying of hunger, a shirt and schell's waistcoat for eighteen grosch, or nine schostacks. i had shot a pullet the day before, which necessity obliged us to eat raw. i also killed a crow, which i devoured alone, schell refusing to taste. youth and hard travelling created a voracious appetite, and our eighteen grosch were soon expended. feb. .--we came through benzen to lettel, four miles. here we halted a day, to learn the road to hammer, in brandenburg, where my sister lived. i happened luckily to meet with the wife of a prussian soldier who lived at lettel, and belonged to kolschen, where she was born a vassal of my sister's husband. i told her who i was, and she became our guide. feb. .--to kurschen and falkenwalde. feb. .--through neuendorf and oost, and afterwards through a pathless wood, five miles and a half to hammer, and here i knocked at my sister's door at nine o'clock in the evening. chapter viii. a maidservant came to the door, whom i knew; her name was mary, and she had been born and brought up in my father's house. she was terrified at seeing a sturdy fellow in a beggar's dress; which perceiving, i asked, "molly, do not you know me?" she answered, "no;" and i then discovered myself to her. i asked whether my brother-in-law was at home. mary replied, "yes; but he is sick in bed." "tell my sister, then," said i, "that i am here." she showed me into a room, and my sister presently came. she was alarmed at seeing me, not knowing that i had escaped from glatz, and ran to inform her husband, but did not return. a quarter of an hour after the good mary came weeping, and told us her master commanded us to quit the premises instantly, or he should be obliged to have us arrested, and delivered up as prisoners. my sister's husband forcibly detained her, and i saw her no more. what my feelings must be, at such a moment, let the reader imagine. i was too proud, too enraged, to ask money; i furiously left the house, uttering a thousand menaces against its inhabitants, while the kind-hearted mary, still weeping, slipped three ducats into my hand, which i accepted. and, now behold us once more in the wood, which was not above a hundred paces from the house, half dead with hunger and fatigue, not daring to enter any habitation, while in the states of brandenburg, and dragging our weary steps all night through snow and rain, until our guide at length brought us back, at daybreak, once again to the town of lettel. she herself wept in pity at our fate, and i could only give her two ducats for the danger she had run; but i bade her hope more in future; and i afterwards sent for her to vienna, in , where i took great care of her. she was about fifty years of age, and died my servant in hungary, some weeks before my unfortunate journey to dantzic, where i fell into my enemies' hands, and remained ten years a prisoner at magdeburg. we had scarcely reached the wood, before, in the anguish of my heart, i exclaimed to schell, "does not such a sister, my friend, deserve i should fire her house over her head?" the wisdom of moderation, and calm forbearance, was in schell a virtue of the highest order; he was my continual mentor; my guide, whenever my choleric temperament was disposed to violence. i therefore honour his ashes; he deserved a better fate. "friend," said he, on this occasion, "reflect that your sister may be innocent, may be withheld by her husband; besides, should the king discover we had entered her doors, and she had not delivered us again into his power, she might become as miserable as we were. be more noble minded, and think that even should your sister be wrong, the time may come when her children may stand in need of your assistance, and you may have the indescribable pleasure of returning good for evil." i never shall forget this excellent advice, which in reality was a prophecy. my rich brother-in-law died, and, during the russian war, his lands and houses were laid desolate and in ruins; and, nineteen years afterwards, when released from my imprisonment at magdeburg, i had an opportunity of serving the children of my sister. such are the turns of fate; and thus do improbabilities become facts. my sister justified her conduct; schell had conjectured the truth; for ten years after i was thus expelled her house, she showed, during my imprisonment, she was really a sister. she was shamefully betrayed by weingarten, secretary to the austrian ambassador at berlin; lost a part of her property, and at length her life fell an innocent sacrifice to her brother. this event, which is interwoven with my tragical history, will be related hereafter: my heart bleeds, my very soul shudders, when i recollect this dreadful scene. i have not the means fully to recompense her children; and weingarten, the just object of vengeance, is long since in the grave; for did he exist, the earth should not hide him from my sword. i shall now continue my journal: deceived in the aid i expected, i was obliged to change my plan, and go to my mother, who lived in prussia, nine miles beyond konigsberg. feb. .--we continued, tired, anxious, and distressed, at lettel. march .--we went three miles to pleese, and on the nd, a mile and a half farther to meseritz. march .--through wersebaum to birnbaum, three miles. march .--through zircke, wruneck, obestchow, to stubnitz, seven miles, in one day, three of which we had the good fortune to ride. march .--three miles to rogosen, where we arrived without so much as a heller to pay our lodgings. the jew innkeeper drove us out of his house; we were obliged to wander all night, and at break of day found we had strayed two miles out of the road. we entered a peasant's cottage, where an old woman was drawing bread hot out of the oven. we had no money to offer, and i felt, at this moment, the possibility even of committing murder, for a morsel of bread, to satisfy the intolerable cravings of hunger. shuddering, with torment inexpressible, at the thought, i hastened out of the door, and we walked on two miles more to wongrofze. here i sold my musket for a ducat, which had procured us many a meal: such was the extremity of our distress. we then satiated our appetites, after having been forty hours without food or sleep, and having travelled ten miles in sleet and snow. march .--we rested, and came, on the th, through genin, to a village in the forest, four miles. here we fell in with a gang of gipsies (or rather banditti) amounting to four hundred men, who dragged me to their camp. they were mostly french and prussian deserters, and thinking me their equal, would force me to become one of their hand. but, venturing to tell my story to their leader, he presented me with a crown, gave us a small provision of bread and meat, and suffered us to depart in peace, after having been four and twenty hours in their company. march .--we proceeded to lapuschin, three miles and a half; and the th to thorn, four miles. a new incident here happened, which showed i was destined, by fortune, to a variety of adventures, and continually to struggle with new difficulties. there was a fair held at thorn on the day of our arrival. suspicions might well arise, among the crowd, on seeing a strong tall young man, wretchedly clothed, with a large sabre by his side, and a pair of pistols in his girdle, accompanied by another as poorly apparelled as himself, with his hand and neck bound up, and armed likewise with pistols, so that altogether he more resembled a spectre than a man. we went to an inn, but were refused entertainment: i then asked for the jesuits' college, where i inquired for the father rector. they supposed at first i was a thief, come to seek an asylum. after long waiting and much entreaty his jesuitical highness at length made his appearance, and received me as the grand mogul would his slave. my case certainly was pitiable: i related all the events of my life, and the purport of my journey; conjured him to save schell, who was unable to proceed further, and whose wounds grew daily worse; and prayed him to entertain him at the convent till i should have been to my mother, have obtained money, and returned to thorn, when i would certainly repay him whatever expense he might have been at, with thanks and gratitude. never shall i forget the haughty insolence of this priest. scarcely would he listen to my humble request; thou'd and interrupted me continually, to tell me, "be brief, i have more pressing affairs than thine." in fine, i was turned away without obtaining the least aid; and here i was first taught jesuitical pride; god help the poor and honest man who shall need the assistance of jesuits! they, like all other monks, are seared to every sentiment of human pity, and commiserate the distressed by taunts and irony. four times in my life i have sought assistance and advice from convents, and am convinced it is the duty of every honest man to aid in erasing them from the face of the earth. they succour rascals and murderers, that their power may be idolised by the ignorant, and ostentatiously exert itself to impede the course of law and justice; but in vain do the poor and needy virtuous apply to them for help. the reader will pardon my native hatred of hypocrisy and falsehood, especially when he hears i have to thank the jesuits for the loss of all my great hungarian estates. father kampmuller, the bosom friend of the count grashalkowitz, was confessor to the court of vienna, and there was no possible kind of persecution i did not suffer from priestcraft. far from being useful members of society, they take advantage of the prejudices of superstition, exist for themselves alone, and sacrifice every duty to the support of their own hierarchy, and found a power, on error and ignorance, which is destructive of all moral virtue. let us proceed. mournful and angry, i left the college, and went to my lodging-house, where i found a prussian recruiting-officer waiting for me, who used all his arts to engage me to enlist; offering me five hundred dollars, and to make me a corporal, if i could write. i pretended i was a livonian, who had deserted from the austrians, to return home, and claim an inheritance left me by my father. after much persuasion, he at length told me in confidence, it was very well known in the town that i was a robber; that i should soon be taken before a magistrate, but that if i would enlist he would ensure my safety. this language was new to me; my passion rose instantaneously; i remembered my name was trenck, i struck him, and drew my sword; but, instead of defending himself, he sprang out of the chamber, charging the host not to let me quit the house. i knew the town of thorn had agreed with the king of prussia, secretly, to deliver up deserters, and began to fear the consequences. looking through the window, i presently saw two under prussian officers enter the house. schell and i instantly flew to our arms, and met the prussians at the chamber door. "make way," cried i, presenting my pistols. the prussian soldiers drew their swords, but retired with fear. going out of the house, i saw a prussian lieutenant, in the street, with the town-guard. these i overawed, likewise, by the same means, and no one durst oppose me, though every one cried, "stop thief!" i came safely, however, to the jesuits' convent; but poor schell was taken, and dragged to prison like a malefactor. half mad at not being able to rescue him, i imagined he must soon be delivered up to the prussians. my reception was much better at the convent than it had been before, for they no longer doubted but i was really a thief, who sought an asylum. i addressed myself to one of the fathers, who appeared to be a good kind of a man, relating briefly what had happened, and entreated he would endeavour to discover why they sought to molest us. he went out, and returning in an hour after, told me, "nobody knows you: a considerable theft was yesterday committed at the fair: all suspicious persons are seized; you entered the town accoutred like banditti. the man where you put up is employed as a prussian enlister, and has announced you as suspicious people. the prussian lieutenant therefore laid complaint against you, and it was thought necessary to secure your persons." my joy, at hearing this, was great. our moravian passport, and the journal of our route, which i had in my pocket, were full proofs of our innocence. i requested they would send and inquire at the town where we lay the night before. i soon convinced the jesuit i spoke truth; he went, and presently returned with one of the syndics, to whom i gave a more full account of myself. the syndic examined schell, and found his story and mine agreed; besides which, our papers that they had seized, declared who we were. i passed the night in the convent without closing my eyes, revolving in my mind all the rigours of my fate. i was still more disturbed for schell, who knew not where i was, but remained firmly persuaded we should be conducted to berlin; and, if so, determined to put a period to his life. my doubts were all ended at ten in the morning when my good jesuit arrived, and was followed by my friend schell. the judges, he said, had found us innocent, and declared us free to go where we pleased; adding, however, that he advised us to be upon our guard, we being watched by the prussian enlisters; that the lieutenant had hoped, by having us committed as thieves, to oblige me to enter, and that he would account for all that had happened. i gave schell a most affectionate welcome, who had been very ill-used when led to prison, because he endeavoured to defend himself with his left hand, and follow me. the people had thrown mud at him, and called him a rascal that would soon be hanged. schell was little able to travel farther. the father-rector sent us a ducat, but did not see us; and the chief magistrate gave each of us a crown, by way of indemnification for false imprisonment. thus sent away, we returned to our lodging, took our bundles, and immediately prepared to leave thorn. as we went, i reflected that, on the road to elbing, we must pass through several prussian villages, and inquired for a shop where we might purchase a map. we were directed to an old woman who sat at the door across the way, and were told she had a good assortment, for that her son was a scholar. i addressed myself to her, and my question pleased her, i having added we were unfortunate travellers, who wished to find, by the map, the road to russia. she showed us into a chamber, laid an atlas on the table, and placed herself opposite me, while i examined the map, and endeavoured to hide a bit of a ragged ruffle that had made its appearance. after steadfastly looking at me, she at length exclaimed, with a sad and mournful tone--"good god! who knows what is now become of my poor son! i can see, sir, you too are of a good family. my son would go and seek his fortune, and for these eight years have i had no tidings of him. he must now be in the austrian cavalry." i asked in what regiment. "the regiment of hohenhem; you are his very picture." "is he not of my height?" "yes, nearly." "has he not light hair?" "yes, like yours, sir." "what is his name?" "his name is william." "no, my dear mother," cried i, "william is not dead; he was my best friend when i was with the regiment." here the poor woman could not contain her joy. she threw herself round my neck, called me her good angel who brought her happy tidings: asked me a thousand questions which i easily contrived to make her answer herself, and thus, forced by imperious necessity, bereft of all other means, did i act the deceiver. the story i made was nearly as follows:--i told her i was a soldier in the regiment of hohenhem, that i had a furlough to go and see my father, and that i should return in a month, would then take her letters, and undertake that, if she wished it, her son should purchase his discharge, and once more come and live with his mother. i added that i should be for ever and infinitely obliged to her, if she would suffer my comrade, meantime, to live at her house, he being wounded by the prussian recruiters, and unable to pursue his journey; that i would send him money to come to me, or would myself come back and fetch him, thankfully paying every expense. she joyfully consented, told me her second husband, father-in-law to her dear william, had driven him from home, that he might give what substance they had to the younger son; and that the eldest had gone to magdeburg. she determined schell should live at the house of a friend, that her husband might know nothing of the matter; and, not satisfied with this kindness, she made me eat with her, gave me a new shirt, stockings, sufficient provisions for three days, and six lunenburg florins. i left thorn, and my faithful schell, the same night, with the consolation that he was well taken care of; and having parted from him with regret, went on the th two miles further to burglow. i cannot describe what my sensations were, or the despondence of my mind, when i thus saw myself wandering alone, and leaving, forsaking, as it were, the dearest of friends. these may certainly be numbered among the bitterest moments of my life. often was i ready to return, and drag him along with me, though at last reason conquered sensibility. i drew near the end of my journey, and was impelled forward by hope. march .--i went to schwetz, and march .--to neuburg and mowe. in these two days i travelled thirteen miles. i lay at mowe, on some straw, among a number of carters, and, when i awoke, perceived they had taken my pistols, and what little money i had left, even to my last penny. the gentlemen, however, were all gone. what could i do? the innkeeper perhaps was privy to the theft. my reckoning amounted to eighteen polish grosch. the surly landlord pretended to believe i had no money when i entered his house, and i was obliged to give him the only spare shirt i had, with a silk handkerchief, which the good woman of thorn had made me a present of, and to depart without a single holler. march .--i set off for marienburg, but it was impossible i should reach this place, and not fall into the hands of the prussians, if i did not cross the vistula, and, unfortunately, i had no money to pay the ferry, which would cost two polish schellings. full of anxiety, not knowing how to act, i saw two fishermen in a boat, went to them, drew my sabre, and obliged them to land me on the other side; when there, i took the oars from these timid people, jumped out of the boat, pushed it off the shore, and left it to drive with the stream. to what dangers does not poverty expose man! these two polish schellings were not worth more than half a kreutzer, or some halfpenny, yet was i driven by necessity to commit violence on two poor men, who, had they been as desperate in their defence as i was obliged to be in my attack, blood must have been spilled and lives lost; hence it is evident that the degrees of guilt ought to be strictly and minutely inquired into, and the degree of punishment proportioned. had i hewn them down with my sabre, i should surely have been a murderer; but i should likewise surely have been one of the most innocent of murderers. thus we see the value of money is not to be estimated by any specific sum, small or great, but according to its necessity and use. how little did i imagine when at berlin, and money was treated by me with luxurious neglect, i may say, with contempt, i should be driven to the hard necessity, for a sum so apparently despicable, of committing a violence which might have had consequences so dreadful, and have led to the commission of an act so atrocious! i found saxon and prussian recruiters at marion-burgh, with whom, having no money, i ate, drank, listened to their proposals, gave them hopes for the morrow, and departed by daybreak. march .--to elbing, four miles. here i met with my former worthy tutor, brodowsky, who was become a captain and auditor in the polish regiment of golz. he met me just as i entered the town. i followed triumphantly to his quarters; and here at length ended the painful, long, and adventurous journey i had been obliged to perform. this good and kind gentleman, after providing me with immediate necessaries, wrote so affectionately to my mother, that she came to elbing in a week, and gave me every aid of which i stood in need. the pleasure i had in meeting once more this tender mother, whose qualities of heart and mind were equally excellent, was inexpressible. she found a certain mode of conveying a letter to my dear mistress at berlin, who a short time after sent me a bill of exchange for four hundred ducats upon dantzic. to this my mother added a thousand rix-dollars, and a diamond cross worth nearly half as much, remained a fortnight with me, and persisted, in spite of all remonstrance, in advising me to go to vienna. my determination had been fixed for petersburg; all my fears and apprehensions being awakened at the thought of vienna, and which indeed afterwards became the source of all my cruel sufferings and sorrows. she would not yield in opinion, and promised her future assistance only in case of my obedience; it was my duty not to continue obstinate. here she left me, and i have never seen her since. she died in , and i have ever held her memory in veneration. it was a happiness for this affectionate mother that she did not hive to be a witness of my afflictions in the year . an adventure, resembling that of joseph in egypt, happened to me in elbing. the wife of the worthy brodowsky, a woman of infinite personal attraction, grew partial to me; but i durst not act ungratefully by my benefactor. never to see me more was too painful to her, and she even proposed to follow me, secretly, to vienna. i felt the danger of my situation, and doubted whether potiphar's wife offered temptations so strong as madame brodowsky. i owned i had an affection for this lady, but my passions were overawed. she preferred me to her husband, who was in years, and very ordinary in person. had i yielded to the slightest degree of guilt, that of the present enjoyment, a few days of pleasure must have been followed by years of bitter repentance. having once more assumed my proper name and character, and made presents of acknowledgment to the worthy tutor of my youth, i became eager to return to thorn. how great was my joy at again meeting my honest schell! the kind old woman had treated him like a mother. she was surprised, and half terrified, at seeing me enter in an officer's uniform, and accompanied by two servants. i gratefully and rapturously kissed her hand, repaid, with thankfulness, every expense (for schell had been nurtured with truly maternal kindness), told her who i was, acknowledged the deceit i had put upon her concerning her son, but faithfully promised to give a true, and not fictitious account of him, immediately on my arrival at vienna. schell was ready in three days, and we left thorn, came to warsaw, and passed thence, through crakow, to vienna. i inquired for captain capi, at bilitz, who had before given me so kind a reception, and refused me satisfaction; but he was gone, and i did not meet with him till some years after, when the cunning italian made me the most humble apologies for his conduct. so goes the world. my journey from dantzic to vienna would not furnish me with an interesting page, though my travels on foot thither would have afforded thrice as much as i have written, had i not been fearful of trifling with the reader's patience. in poverty one misfortune follows another. the foot-passenger sees the world, becomes acquainted with it, converses with men of every class. the lord luxuriously lolls and slumbers in his carriage, while his servants pay innkeepers and postillions, and passes rapidly over a kingdom, in which he sees some dozen houses, called inns; and this he calls travelling. i met with more adventures in this my journey of miles, than afterwards in almost as many thousand, when travelling at ease, in a carriage. here, then, ends my journal, in which, from the hardships therein related, and numerous others omitted, i seem a kind of second robinson crusoe, and to have been prepared, by a gradual increase and repetition of sufferings, to endure the load of affliction which i was afterwards destined to bear. arrived at vienna in the month of april, . and now another act of the tragedy is going to begin. chapter ix. after having defrayed the expenses of travelling for me and my friend schell, for whose remarkable history i will endeavour to find a few pages in due course, i divided the three hundred ducats which remained with him, and, having stayed a month at vienna, he went to join the regiment of pallavicini, in which he had obtained a lieutenant-colonel's commission, and which was then in italy. here i found my cousin, baron francis trenck, the famous partisan and colonel of pandours, imprisoned at the arsenal, and involved in a most perplexing prosecution. this trenck was my father's brother's son. his father had been a colonel and governor of leitschau, and had possessed considerable lordships in sclavonia, those of pleternitz, prestowacz, and pakratz. after the siege of vienna, in , he had left the prussian service for that of austria, in which he remained sixty years. that i may not here interrupt my story, i shall give some account of the life of my cousin baron francis trenck, so renowned in the war of , in another part, and who fell, at last, the shameful sacrifice of envy and avarice, and received the reward of all his great and faithful services in the prison of the spielberg. the vindication of the family of the trencks requires i should speak of him; nor will i, in this, suffer restraint from the fear of any man, however powerful. those indeed who sacrificed a man most ardent in his country's service to their own private and selfish views, are now in their graves. i shall insert no more of his history here than what is interwoven with my own, and relate the rest in its proper place. a revision of his suit was at this time instituted. scarcely was i arrived in vienna before his confidential agent, m. leber, presented me to prince charles and the emperor; both knew the services of trenck, and the malice of his enemies; therefore, permission for me to visit him in his prison, and procure him such assistance as he might need, was readily granted. on my second audience, the emperor spoke so much in my persecuted cousin's favour that i became highly interested; he commanded me to have recourse to him on all occasions; and, moreover, owned the president of the council of war was a man of a very wicked character, and a declared enemy of trenck. this president was the count of lowenwalde, who, with his associates, had been purposely selected as men proper to oppress the best of subjects. the suit soon took another face; the good empress queen, who had been deceived, was soon better informed, and trenck's innocence appeared, on the revision of the process most evidently. the trial, which had cost them twenty-seven thousand florins, and the sentence which followed, were proved to have been partial and unjust; and that sixteen of trenck's officers, who most of them had been broken for different offences, had perjured themselves to insure his destruction. it is a most remarkable circumstance that public notice was given, in the _vienna gazette_, to the following purport. "all those who have any complaints to make against trenck, let them appear, and they shall receive a ducat per day, so long as the prosecution continues." it will readily be imagined how fast his accusers would increase, and what kind of people they were. the pay of these witnesses alone amounted to fifteen thousand florins. i now began the labour in concurrence with doctor gerhauer, and the cause soon took another turn; but such was the state of things, it would have been necessary to have broken all the members of the council of war, as well as counsellor weber, a man of great power. thus, unfortunately, politics began to interfere with the course of justice. the empress queen gave trenck to understand she required he should ask her pardon; and on that condition all proceedings should be stopped, and he immediately set at liberty. prince charles, who knew the court of vienna, advised me also to persuade my cousin to comply; but nothing could shake his resolution. feeling his right and innocence, he demanded strict justice; and this made ruin more swift. i soon learned trenck must fall a sacrifice--he was rich--his enemies already had divided among them more than eighty thousand florins of his property, which was all sequestered, and in their hands. they had treated him too cruelly, and knew him too well, not to dread his vengeance the moment he should recover his freedom. i was moved to the soul at his sufferings, and as he had vented public threats, at the prospect of approaching victory over his enemies, they gained over the court confessor: and, dreading him as they did, put every wily art in practice to insure his destruction. i therefore, in the fulness of my heart, made him the brotherly proposition of escaping, and, having obtained his liberty, to prove his innocence to the empress queen. i told him my plan, which might easily have been put in execution, and which he seemed perfectly decided to follow. some days after, i was ordered to wait on field-marshal count konigseck, governor of vienna. this respectable old gentleman, whose memory i shall ever revere, behaved to me like a father and the friend of humanity, advised me to abandon my cousin, who he gave me clearly to understand had betrayed me by having revealed my proposed plan of escape, willing to sacrifice me to his ambition in order to justify the purity of his intentions to the court, and show that, instead of wishing to escape, he only desired justice. confounded at the cowardly action of one for whom i would willingly have sacrificed my life, and whom i only sought to deliver, i resolved to leave him to his fate, and thought myself exceedingly happy that the worthy field-marshal would, after a fatherly admonition, smother all farther inquiry into this affair. i related this black trait of ingratitude to prince charles of lorraine, who prevailed on me to again see my cousin, without letting him know i knew what had passed, and still to render him every service in my power. before i proceed i will here give the reader a per-'trait of this trenck. he was a man of superior talents and unbounded ambition; devoted, even fanatically, to his sovereign; his boldness approached temerity; he was artful of mind, wicked of heart, vindictive and unfeeling. his cupidity equalled the utmost excess of avarice, even in his thirty-third year, in which he died. he was too proud to receive favours or obligations from any man, and was capable of ridding himself of his best friend if he thought he had any claims on his gratitude or could get possession of his fortune. he knew i had rendered him very important services, supposed his cause already won, having bribed the judges, who were to revise the sentence, with thirty thousand florins, which money i received from his friend baron lopresti, and conveyed to these honest counsellors. i knew all his secrets, and nothing more was necessary to prompt his suspicious and bad heart to seek my destruction. scarcely had a fortnight elapsed, after his having first betrayed me, before the following remarkable event happened. i left him one evening to return home, taking under my coat a bag with papers and documents relating to the prosecution, which i had been examining for him, and transcribing. there were at this time about five- and-twenty officers in vienna who had laid complaints against him, and who considered me as their greatest enemy because i had laboured earnestly in his defence. i was therefore obliged, on all occasions, to be upon my guard. a report had been propagated through vienna that i was secretly sent by the king of prussia to free my cousin from imprisonment; he, however, constantly denied, to the hour of his death, his ever having written to me at berlin; hence also it will follow the letter i received had been forged by jaschinsky. leaving the arsenal, i crossed the court, and perceived i was closely followed by two men in grey roquelaures, who, pressing upon my heels, held loud and insolent conversation concerning the runaway prussian trenck. i found they sought a quarrel, which was a thing of no great difficulty at that moment, for a man is never more disposed to duelling than when he has nothing to lose, and is discontented with his condition. i supposed they were two of the accusing officers broken by trenck, and endeavoured to avoid them, and gain the jew's place. scarcely had i turned down the street that leads thither before they quickened their pace. i turned round, and in a moment received a thrust with a sword in the left side, where i had put my bag of papers, which accident alone saved my life; the sword pierced through the papers and slightly grazed the skin. i instantly drew, and the heroes ran. i pursued, one of them tripped and fell. i seized him; the guard came up: he declared he was an officer of the regiment of kollowrat, showed his uniform, was released, and i was taken to prison. the town major came the next day, and told me i had intentionally sought a quarrel with two officers, lieutenants f---g and k---n. these kind gentlemen did not reveal their humane intention of sending me to the other world. i was alone, could produce no witness, they were two. i must necessarily be in the wrong, and i remained six days in prison. no sooner was i released, than these my good friends sent to demand satisfaction for the said pretended insult. the proposal was accepted, and i promised to be at the scotch gate, the place appointed by them, within an hour. having heard their names, i presently knew them to be two famous swaggerers, who were daily exercising themselves in fencing at the arsenal, and where they often visited trenck. i went to my cousin to ask his assistance, related what had happened, and, as the consequences of this duel might be very serious, desired him to give me a hundred ducats, that i might be able to fly if either of them should fall. hitherto i had expended my own money on his account, and had asked no reimbursement; but what was my astonishment when this wicked man said to me, with a sneer, "since, good cousin, you have got into a quarrel without consulting me, you will also get out of it without my aid!" as i left him, he called me back to tell me, "i will take care and pay your undertaker;" for he certainly believed i should never return alive. i ran now, half-despairing, to baron lopresti, who gave me fifty ducats and a pair of pistols, provided with which i cheerfully repaired to the field of battle. here i found half a dozen officers of the garrison. as i had few acquaintances in vienna, i had no second, except an old spanish invalid captain, named pereyra, who met me going in all haste, and, having learned whither, would not leave me. lieutenant k---n was the first with whom i fought, and who received satisfaction by a deep wound in the right arm. hereupon i desired the spectators to prevent farther mischief; for my own part i had nothing more to demand. lieutenant f---g next entered the lists, with threats, which were soon quieted by a lunge in the belly. hereupon lieutenant m- f, second to the first wounded man, told me very angrily--"had i been your man, you would have found a very different reception." my old spaniard of eighty proudly and immediately advanced, with his long whiskers and tottering frame, and cried--"hold! trenck has proved himself a brave fellow, and if any man thinks proper to assault him further, he must first take a breathing with me." everybody laughed at this bravado from a man who scarcely could stand or hold a sword. i replied--"friend, i am safe, unhurt, and want not aid; should i be disabled, you then, if you think proper, may take my place; but, as long as i can hold a sword, i shall take pleasure in satisfying all these gentlemen one after another." i would have rested myself a moment, but the haughty m-f, enraged at the defeat of his friend, would not give me time, but furiously attacked me, and, having been wounded twice, once in the hand and again in the groin, he wanted to close and sink me to the grave with himself, but i disarmed and threw him. none of the others had any desire to renew the contest. my three enemies were sent bleeding to town; and, as m---f appeared to be mortally wounded, and the jesuits and capuchins of vienna refused me an asylum, i fled to the convent of keltenberg. i wrote from the convent to colonel baron lopresti, who came to me. i told him all that had passed, and by his good offices had liberty, in a week, to appear once more at vienna. the blood of lieutenant f---g was in a corrupt state, and his wound, though not in itself dangerous, made his life doubtful. he sent to entreat i would visit him, and, when i went, having first requested i would pardon him, gave me to understand i ought to beware of my cousin. i afterwards learned the traitorous trenck had promised lieutenant f---g a company and a thousand ducats if he would find means to quarrel with me and rid the world of me. he was deeply in debt, and sought the assistance of lieutenant k-n; and had not the papers luckily preserved me, i had undoubtedly been despatched by his first lunge. to clear themselves of the infamy of such an act, these two worthy gentlemen had pretended i had assaulted them in the streets. i could no more resolve to see my ungrateful and dangerous kinsman, who wished to have me murdered because i knew all his secrets, and thought he should be able to gain his cause without obligation to me or my assistance. notwithstanding all his great qualities, his marked characteristic certainly was that of sacrificing everything to his private views, and especially to his covetousness, which was so great that, even at his time of life, though his fortune amounted to a million and a half, he did not spend per day more than thirty kreutzers. no sooner was it known that i had forsaken trenck than general count lowenwalde, his most ardent enemy, and president of the first council of war, by which he had been condemned, desired to speak to me, promised every sort of good fortune and protection, if i would discover what means had secretly been employed in the revision of the process; and went so far as to offer me four thousand florins if i would aid the prosecution against my cousin. here i learned the influence of villains in power, and the injustice of judges at vienna. the proposal i rejected with disdain, and rather determined to seek my fortune in the east indies than continue in a country where, under the best of queens, the most loyal of subjects, and first of soldiers, might be rendered miserable by interested, angry, and corrupt courtiers. certain it is, as i now can prove, though the bitterest of my enemies, and whose conduct towards me merited my whole resentment, he was the best soldier in the austrian army, had been liberal of his blood and fortune in the imperial service, and would still so have continued had not his wealth, and his contempt for weber and lowenwalde put him in the power of those wretches who were the avowed enemies of courage and patriotism, and who only could maintain their authority, and sate their thirst of gain, by the base and wicked arts of courts. had my cousin shared the plunder of the war among these men, he had not fallen the martyr of their intrigues, and died in the spielberg. his accusers were, generally, unprincipled men of ruined fortunes, and so insufficient were their accusations that a useful member of society ought not, for any or all of them, to have suffered an hour's imprisonment. being fully informed, both of all the circumstances of the prosecution and the inmost secrets of his heart, justice requires i should thus publicly declare this truth and vindicate his memory. while living he was my bitterest enemy, and even though dead, was the cause of all my future sufferings; therefore the account i shall give of him will certainly be the less liable to suspicion, where i shall show that he, as well as myself, deserved better of austria. i was resolved forever to forsake vienna. the friends of trenck all became distrustful of him because of his ingratitude to me. prince charles still endeavoured to persuade me to a reconciliation, and gave me a letter of recommendation to general brown, who then commanded the imperial army in italy. but more anxious of going to india, i left vienna in august, , desirous of owing no obligation to that city or its inhabitants, and went for holland. meantime, the enemies of trenck found no one to oppose their iniquitous proceedings, and obtained a sentence of imprisonment, in the spielberg, where he too late repented having betrayed his faithful adviser, and prudent friend. i pitied him, and his judges certainly deserved the punishment they inflicted: yet to his last moments he showed his hatred towards me was rooted, and, even in the grave, strove by his will to involve me in misfortune, as will hereafter be seen. i fled from vienna, would to god it had been for ever; but fate by strange ways, and unknown means, brought me back where providence thought proper i should become a vessel of wrath and persecution: i was to enact my part in europe, and not in asia. at nuremberg i met with a body of russians, commanded by general lieuwen, my mother's relation, who were marching to the netherlands, and were the peace-makers of europe. major buschkow, whom i had known when russian resident at vienna, prevailed on me to visit him, and presented me to the general. i pleased him, and may say, with truth, he behaved to me like a friend and a father. he advised me to enter into the russian service, and gave me a company of dragoons, in the regiment of tobolski, on condition i should not leave him, but employ myself in his cabinet: and his confidence and esteem for me were unbounded. peace followed; the army returned to moravia, without firing a musket, and the head-quarters were fixed at prosnitz. in this town a public entertainment was given, by general lieuwen, on the coronation day of the empress elizabeth; and here an adventure happened to me, which i shall ever remember, as a warning to myself, and insert as a memento to others. the army physician, on this day, kept a faro bank for the entertainment of the guests. my stock of money consisted of two and twenty ducats. thirst of gain, or perhaps example, induced me to venture two of these, which i immediately lost, and very soon, by venturing again to regain them, the whole two and twenty. chagrined at my folly, i returned home: i had nothing but a pair of pistols left, for which, because of their workmanship, general woyekow had offered me twenty ducats. these i took, intending by their aid to attempt to retrieve my loss. firing of guns and pistols was heard throughout the town, because of the festival, and i, in imitation of the rest, went to the window and fired mine. after a few discharges, one of my pistols burst, and endangered my own hand, and wounded my servant. i felt a momentary despondency, stronger than i ever remember to have experienced before; insomuch that i was half induced, with the remaining pistol, to shoot myself through the head. i however, recovered my spirits, asked my servant what money he had, and received from him three ducats. with these i repaired, like a desperate gamester, once more to the faro table, at the general's, again began to play, and so extraordinary was my run of luck, i won at every venture. having recovered my principal, i played on upon my winnings, till at last i had absolutely broke the doctor's bank: a new bank was set up, and i won the greatest part of this likewise, so that i brought home about six hundred ducats. rejoiced at my good fortune, but recollecting my danger, i had the prudence to make a solemn resolution never more to play at any game of chance, to which i have ever strictly adhered. it were to be wished young men would reflect upon the effects of gaming, remembering that the love of play has made the most promising and virtuous, miserable; the honest, knaves; and the sincere, deceivers and liars. officers, having first lost all their own money, being entrusted with the soldiers' pay, have next lost that also; and thus been cashiered, and eternally disgraced. i might, at prosnitz, have been equally rash and culpable. the first venture, whether the gamester wins or loses, ensures a second; and, with that, too often destruction. my good fortune was almost miraculous, and my subsequent resolution very uncommon; and i entreat and conjure my children, when i shall no longer be living to advise and watch for their welfare, most determinedly to avoid play. i seemed preserved by providence from this evil but to endure much greater. general lieuwen, my kind patron, sent me, from crakow, to conduct a hundred and forty sick men down the vistula to dantzic, where there were russian vessels to receive and transport them to riga. i requested permission of the general to proceed forward and visit my mother and sister, whom i was very desirous to see: at elbing, therefore, i resigned the command to lieutenant platen, and, attended by a servant, rode to the bishopric of ermeland, where i appointed an interview with them in a frontier village. here an incident happened that had nearly cost me my life. the prussians, some days before, had carried off a peasant's son from this village, as a recruit. the people were all in commotion. i wore leathern breeches, and the blue uniform of the russian cavalry. they took me for a prussian, at the door, and fell upon me with every kind of weapon. a chasseur, who happened to be there, and the landlord, came to my assistance, while i, battling with the peasants, had thrown two of them down. i was delivered, but not till i had received two violent bruises, one on the left arm, and another which broke the bridge of my nose. the landlord advised me to escape as fast as possible, or that the village would rise and certainly murder me; my servant, therefore, who had retired for defence, with a pair of pistols, into the oven, got ready the horses and we rode off. i had my bruises dressed at the next village; my hand and eyes were exceedingly swelled, but i was obliged to ride two miles farther, to the town of ressel, before i could find an able surgeon, and here i so far recovered in a week, that i was able to return to dantzic. my brother visited me while at ressel, but my good mother had the misfortune, as she was coming to me, to be thrown out of her carriage, by which her arm was broken, so that she and my sister were obliged to return, and i never saw her more. i was now at dantzic, with my sick convoy, where another most remarkable event happened, which i, with good reason, shall ever remember. i became acquainted with a prussian officer, whose name i shall conceal out of respect to his very worthy family; he visited me daily, and we often rode out together in the neighbourhood of dantzic. my faithful servant became acquainted with his, and my astonishment was indeed great when he one day said to me, with anxiety, "beware, sir, of a snare laid for you by lieutenant n-; he means to entice you out of town and deliver you up to the prussians." i asked him where he learned this. "from the lieutenant's servant," answered he, "who is my friend, and wishes to save me from misfortune." i now, with the aid of a couple of ducats, discovered the whole affair, and learned it was agreed, between the prussian resident, reimer, and the lieutenant, that the latter should entice me into the suburb of langfuhr, where there was an inn on the prussian territories. here eight recruiting under-officers were to wait concealed, and seize me the moment i entered the house, hurry me into a carriage, and drive away for lauenberg in pomerania. two under-officers were to escort me, on horseback, as far as the frontiers, and the remainder to hold and prevent me from calling for help, so long as we should remain on the territories of dantzic. i farther learned my enemies were only to be armed with sabres, and that they were to wait behind the door. the two officers on horseback were to secure my servant, and prevent him from riding off and raising an alarm. these preparations might easily have been rendered fruitless, by my refusing to accept the proposal of the lieutenant, but vanity gave me other advice, and resentment made me desirous of avenging myself for such detestable treachery. lieutenant n--- came, about noon, to dine with me as usual, was more pensive and serious than i had ever observed him before, and left me at four in the afternoon, after having made a promise to ride early next day with him as far as langfuhr. i observed my consent gave him great pleasure, and my heart then pronounced sentence on the traitor. the moment he had left me i went to the russian resident, m. scheerer, an honest swiss, related the whole conspiracy, and asked whether i might not take six of the men under my command for my own personal defence. i told him my plan, which he at first opposed; but seeing me obstinate, he answered at last, "do as you please; i must know nothing of the matter, nor will i make myself responsible." i immediately joined my soldiers, selected six men, and took them, while it was dark, opposite the prussian inn, hid them in the corn, with an order to run to my help with their firelocks loaded the first discharge they should hear, to seize all who should fall into their power, and only to fire in case of resistance. i provided them with fire-arms, by concealing them in the carriage which brought them to their hiding-place. notwithstanding all these precautions, i still thought it necessary to prevent surprise, by informing myself what were the proceedings of my enemies, lest my intelligence should have been false; and i learned from my spies that, at four in the morning, the prussian resident, reimer, had left the city with post horses. i loaded mine and my servant's horse and pocket pistols, prepared my turkish sabre, and, in gratitude to the lieutenant's man, promised to take him into my service, being convinced of his honesty. the lieutenant cheerfully entered about six in the morning, expatiated on the fineness of the weather, and jocosely told me i should be very kindly received by the handsome landlady of langfuhr. i was soon ready; we mounted, and left the town, attended by our servants. some three hundred paces from the inn, my worthy friend proposed that we should alight and let our servants lead the horses, that we might enjoy the beauty of the morning. i consented, and having dismounted, observed his treacherous eyes sparkle with pleasure. the resident, reimer, was at the window of the inn, and called out, as soon as he saw me, "good-morrow, captain, good-morrow; come, come in, your breakfast is waiting." i, sneering, smiled, and told him i had not time at present. so saying, i continued my walk, but my companion would absolutely force me to enter, took me by the arm, and partly struggled with me, on which, losing all patience, i gave him a blow which almost knocked him down, and ran to my horses as if i meant to fly. the prussians instantly rushed from behind their door, with clamour, to attack me. i fired at the first; my russians sprang from their hiding- place, presented their pieces, and called, _stuy_, _stuy_, _yebionnamat_. the terror of the poor prussians may well be supposed. all began to run. i had taken care to make sure of my lieutenant, and was next running to seize the resident, but he had escaped out of the back door, with the loss only of his white periwig. the russians had taken four prisoners, and i commanded them to bestow fifty strokes upon each of them in the open street. an ensign, named casseburg, having told me his name, and that he had been my brother's schoolfellow, begged remission, and excused himself on the necessity which he was under to obey his superiors. i admitted his excuses and suffered him to go. i then drew my sword and bade the lieutenant defend himself; but he was so confused, that, after drawing his sword, he asked my pardon, laid the whole blame upon the resident, and had not the power to put himself on his guard. i twice jerked his sword out of his hand, and, at last, taking the russian corporal's cane, i exhausted my strength with beating him, without his offering the least resistance. such is the meanness of detected treachery. i left him kneeling, saying to him, "go, rascal, now, and tell your comrades the manner in which trenck punishes robbers on the highway." the people had assembled round us during the action, to whom i related the affair, and the attack having happened on the territories of dantzic, the prussians were in danger of being stoned by the populace. i and my russians marched off victorious, proceeded to the harbour, embarked, and three or four days after, set sail for riga. it is remarkable that none of the public papers took any notice of this affair; no satisfaction was required. the prussians, no doubt, were ashamed of being defeated in an attempt so perfidious. i since have learnt that frederic, no doubt by the false representations of reimer, was highly irritated, and what afterwards happened proves his anger pursued me through every corner of the earth, till at last i fell into his power at dantzic, and suffered a martyrdom most unmerited and unexampled. the prussian envoy, goltz, indeed, made complaints to count bestuchef, concerning this dantzic skirmish, but received no satisfaction. my conduct was justified in russia, i having defended myself against assassins, as a russian captain ought. some dispassionate readers may blame me for not having avoided this rencontre, and demanded personal satisfaction of lieutenant n---. but i have through life rather sought than avoided danger. my vanity and revenge were both roused. i was everywhere persecuted by the prussians, and i was therefore determined to show that, far from fearing, i was able to defend myself. i hired the servant of the lieutenant, whom i found honest and faithful, and whom i comfortably settled in marriage, at vienna, in . after my ten years' imprisonment, i found him poor, and again took him into my service, in which he died, at zwerbach, in . chapter x. and now behold me at sea, on my voyage to riga. i had eaten heartily before i went on board; a storm came on; i worked half the night, to aid the crew, but at length became sea-sick, and went to lie down. scarcely had i closed my eyes before the master came with the joyful tidings, as he thought, that we were running for the port of pillau. far from pleasing, this, to me, was dreadful intelligence. i ran on deck, saw the harbour right before me, and a pilot coming off. the sea must now be either kept in a storm, or i fall into the hands of the prussians; for i was known to the whole garrison of pillau. i desired the captain to tack about and keep the sea, but he would not listen to me. perceiving this, i flew to my cabin, snatched my pistols, returned, seized the helm, and threatened the captain with instant death if he did not obey. my russians began to murmur; they were averse to encountering the dangers of the storm, but luckily they were still more averse to meet my anger, overawed, as they were, by my pistols, and my two servants, who stood by me faithfully. half an hour after, the storm began to subside, and we fortunately arrived the next day in the harbour of riga. the captain, however, could not be appeased, but accused me before the old and honourable marshal lacy, then governor of riga. i was obliged to appear, and reply to the charge by relating the truth. the governor answered, my obstinacy might have occasioned the death of a hundred and sixty persons; i, smiling, retorted, "i have brought them all safe to port, please your excellency; and, for my part, my fate would have been much more merciful by falling into the hands of my god than into the hands of my enemies. my danger was so great that i forgot the danger of others; besides, sir, i knew my comrades were soldiers, and feared death as little as i do." my answer pleased the fine grey-headed general, and he gave me a recommendation to the chancellor bestuchef at moscow. general lieuwen had marched from moravia, for russia, with the army, and was then at riga. i went to pay him my respects; he kindly received me, and took me to one of his seats, named annaburg, four miles from riga. here i remained some days, and he gave me every recommendation to moscow, where the court then was. it was intended i should endeavour to obtain a company in the regiment of cuirassiers, the captains of which then ranked as majors, and he advised me to throw up my commission in the siberian regiment of tobolski dragoons. peace be to the names and the memory of this worthy man! may god reward this benevolence! from riga i departed, in company with m. oettinger, lieutenant-colonel of engineers, and lieutenant weismann, for moscow. this is the same weismann who rendered so many important services to russia, during the last war with the turks. on my arrival, after delivering in my letters of recommendation, i was particularly well received by count bestuchef. oettinger, whose friendship i had gained, was exceedingly intimate with the chancellor, and my interest was thereby promoted. i had not been long at moscow before i met count hamilton, my former friend during my abode at vienna. he was a captain of cavalry, in the regiment of general bernes, who had been sent as imperial ambassador to russia. bernes had been ambassador at berlin in , where he had consequently known me during the height of my favour at the court of frederic. hamilton presented me to him, and i had the good fortune so far to gain his friendship, that, after a few visits, he endeavoured to detach me from the russian service, offering me the strongest recommendations to vienna, and a company in his own regiment. my cousin's misfortunes, however, had left too deep an impression on my mind to follow his advice. the indies would then have been preferred by me to austria. bernes invited me to dine with him in company with his bosom friend, lord hyndford, the english ambassador. how great was the pleasure i that day received! this eminent statesman had known me at berlin, and was present when frederic had honoured me with saying, _c'est un matador de ma jeunesse_. he was well read in men, conceived a good opinion of my abilities, and became a friend and father to me. he seated me by his side at table, and asked me, "why came you here, trenck?" "in search of bread and honour, my lord," answered i, "having unmeritedly lost them both in my own country." he further inquired the state of my finances; i told him my whole store might be some thirty ducats. "take my counsel," said he; "you have the necessary qualifications to succeed in russia, but the people here despise poverty, judge from the exterior only, and do not include services or talents in the estimate; you must have the appearance of being wealthy. i and bernes will introduce you into the best families, and will supply you with the necessary means of support. splendid liveries, led horses, diamond rings, deep play, a bold front, undaunted freedom with statesmen, and gallantry among the ladies, are the means by which foreigners must make their way in this country. avail yourself of them, and leave the rest to us." this lesson lasted some time. bernes entered in the interim, and they determined mutually to contribute towards my promotion. few of the young men who seek their fortune in foreign countries meet incidents so favourable. fortune for a moment seemed willing to recompense my past sufferings, and again to raise me to the height from which i had fallen. these ambassadors, here again by accident met, had before been witnesses of my prosperity when at berlin. the talents i possessed, and the favour i then enjoyed, attracted the notice of all foreign ministers. they were bosom friends, equally well read in the human heart, and equally benevolent and noble-minded; their recommendation at court was decisive; the nations they represented were in alliance with russia, and the confidence bestuchef placed in them was unbounded. i was now introduced into all companies, not as a foreigner who came to entreat employment, but as the heir of the house of trenck, and its rich hungarian possessions, and as the former favourite of the prussian monarch. i was also admitted to the society of the first literati, and wrote a poem on the anniversary of the coronation of the empress elizabeth. hyndford took care she should see it, and, in conjunction with the chancellor, presented me to the sovereign. my reception was most gracious. she herself recommended me to the chancellor, and presented me with a gold-hilted sword, worth a thousand roubles. this raised me highly in the esteem of all the houses of the bestuchef party. manners were at that time so rude in russia, that every foreigner who gave a dinner, or a ball, must send notice to the chancellor bestuchef, that he might return a list of the guests allowed to be invited. faction governed everything; and wherever bestuchef was, no friend of woranzow durst appear. i was the intimate of the austrian and english ambassadors; consequently, was caressed and esteemed in all companies. i soon became the favourite of the chancellor's lady, as i shall hereafter notice; and nothing more was wanting to obtain all i could wish. i was well acquainted with architectural design, had free access to the house and cabinet of the chancellor, where i drew in company with colonel oettinger, who was then the head architect of russia, and made the perspective view of the new palace, which the chancellor intended to build at moscow, by which i acquired universal honour. i had gained more acquaintance in, and knowledge of, russia in one month, than others, wanting my means, have done in twelve. as i was one day relating my progress to lord hyndford, he, like a friend, grown grey in courts, kindly took the trouble to advise me. from him i obtained a perfect knowledge of russia; he was acquainted with all the intrigues of european courts, their families, party cabals, the foibles of the monarchs, the principles of their government, the plots of the great peter, and had also made the peace of breslau. thus, having been the confidential friend of frederic, he was intimately acquainted with his heart, as well as the sources of his power. hyndford was penetrating, noble-minded, had the greatness of the briton, without his haughtiness; and the principles, by which he combined the past, the present, and the future, were so clear, that i, his scholar, by adhering to them, have been enabled to foretell all the most remarkable revolutions that have happened, during the space of six-and-thirty years, in europe. by these i knew, when any minister was disgraced, who should be his successor. i daily passed some hours improving by his kind conversation; and to him i am indebted for most of that knowledge of the world i happen to possess. he took various opportunities of cautioning me against the effects of an ardent, sanguine temper; and my hatred of arbitrary power warned me to beware of the determined persecution of frederic, of his irreconcilable anger, his intrigues and influence in the various courts of europe, which he would certainly exert to prevent my promotion, lest i should impede his own projects, and lamented my future sufferings, which he plainly foresaw. "despots," said he, "always are suspicious, and abhor those who have a consciousness of their own worth, of the rights of mankind, and hold the lash in detestation. the enlightened are by them called the restless spirits, turbulent and dangerous; and virtue there, where virtue is unnecessary for the humbling and trampling upon the suffering subject, is accounted a crime, of all others the most to be dreaded." hyndford taught me to know, and highly to value freedom: to despise tyrants, to endure the worst of miseries, to emulate true greatness of mind, to despise danger, and to honour only those whose elevation of soul had taught them equally to oppose bigotry and despotism. bernes was a philosopher; but with the penetration of an italian, more cautious than hyndford, yet equally honest and worthy. his friendship for me was unbounded, and the time passed in their company was esteemed by me most precious. the liberality of my sentiments, thirst after knowledge and scientific acquirements gained their favour; our topics of conversation were inexhaustible, and i acquired more real information at moscow than at berlin, under the tuition of la metri, maupertuis, and voltaire. chapter xi. scarcely had i been six weeks in this city before i had an adventure which i shall here relate; for, myself excepted, all the persons concerned in it are now dead. intrigues properly belong to novels. this book is intended for a more serious purpose, and they are therefore here usually suppressed. it cannot be supposed i was a woman-hater. most of the good or bad fortune i experienced originated in love. i was not by nature inconstant, and was incapable of deceit even in amours. in the very ardour of youth i always shunned mere sensual pleasures. i loved for more exalted reasons, and for such sought to be beloved again. love and friendship were with me always united; and these i was capable of inciting, maintaining, and deserving. the most difficult of access, the noblest, and the fairest, were ever my choice: and my veneration for these always deterred me from grosser gratifications. by woman i was formed; by the faith of woman supported under misfortunes; in the company of woman enjoyed the few hours of delight my life of sorrows has experienced. woman, beautiful and well instructed, even now, lightens the burden of age, the world's tediousness and its woes; and, when these are ended, i would rather wish mine eyes might be closed by fair and virgin hands, than, when expiring, fixed on a hypocritical priest. my adventures with women would amply furnish a romance: but enough of this, i should not relate the present, were it not necessary to my story. dining one public day with lord hyndford, i was seated beside a charming young lady of one of the best families in russia, who had been promised in marriage, though only seventeen, to an old invalid minister. her eyes soon told me she thought me preferable to her intended bridegroom. i understood them, lamented her hard fate, and was surprised to hear her exclaim, "oh, heavens! that it were possible you could deliver me from my misfortune: i would engage to do whatever you would direct." the impression such an appeal must make on a man of four and twenty, of a temperament like mine, may easily be supposed. the lady was ravishingly beautiful; her soul was candour itself, and her rank that of a princess; but the court commands had already been given in favour of the marriage; and flight, with all its inseparable dangers, was the only expedient. a public table was no place for long explanations. our hearts were already one. i requested an interview, and the next day was appointed, the place the trotzer garden, where i passed three rapturous hours in her company: thanks to her woman, who was a georgian. to escape, however, from moscow, was impossible. the distance thence to any foreign country was too great. the court was not to remove to petersburg till the next spring, and her marriage was fixed for the first of august. the misfortune was not to be remedied, and nothing was left us but patience perforce. we could only resolve to fly from petersburg when there, the soonest possible, and to take refuge in some corner of the earth, where we might remain unknown of all. the marriage, therefore, was celebrated with pomp, though i, in despite of forms, was the true husband of the princess. such was the state of the husband imposed upon her, that to describe it, and not give disgust, were impossible. the princess gave me her jewels, and several thousand roubles, which she had received as a nuptial present, that i might purchase every thing necessary for flight; my evil destiny, however, had otherwise determined. i was playing at ombre with her, one night, at the house of the countess of bestuchef, when she complained of a violent headache, appointed me to meet her on the morrow, in the trotzer gardens, clasped my hand with inexpressible emotion, and departed. alas! i never beheld her more, till stretched upon the bier! she grew delirious that very night, and so continued till her death, which happened on the sixth day, when the small-pox began to appear. during her delirium she discovered our love, and incessantly called on me to deliver her from her tyrant. thus, in the flower of her age, perished one of the most lovely women i ever knew, and with her fled all i held most dear. all my plans were now to be newly arranged. lord hyndford alone was in the secret, for i hid no secrets from him: he strengthened me in my first resolution, and owned that he himself, for such a mistress, might perhaps have been weak enough to have acted as i had done. almost as much moved as myself, he sympathised with me as a friend, and his advice deterred me from ending my miseries, and descending with her, whom i have loved and lost, to the grave. this was the severest trial i had ever felt. our affection was unbounded, and such only as noble hearts can feel. she being gone, the whole world became a desert. there is not a man on earth, whose life affords more various turns of fate than mine. swiftly raised to the highest pinnacle of hope, as suddenly was i cast headlong down, and so remarkable were these revolutions that he who has read my history will at last find it difficult to say whether he envies or pities me most. and yet these were, in reality, but preparatory to the evils that hovered over my devoted head. had not the remembrance of past joys soothed and supported me under my sufferings, i certainly should not have endured the ten years' torture of the magdeburg dungeon, with a fortitude that might have been worthy even of socrates. enough of this. my blood again courses swifter through my veins as i write! rest, gentle maiden, noble and lovely as thou wert! for thee ought heaven to have united a form so fair, animated as it was, by a soul so pure, to ever-blooming youth and immortality. my love for this lady became well-known in moscow; yet her corpulent overgrown husband had not understanding enough to suppose there was any meaning in her rhapsodies during her delirium. her gifts to me amounted in value to about seven thousand ducats. lord hyndford and count bernes both adjudged them legally mine, and well am i assured her heart had bequeathed me much more. to this event succeeded another, by which my fortune was greatly influenced. the countess of bestuchef was then the most amiable and witty woman at court. her husband, cunning, selfish, and shallow, had the name of minister, while she, in reality, governed with a genius, at once daring and comprehensive. the too pliant elizabeth carelessly left the most important things to the direction of others. thus the countess was the first person of the empire, and on whom the attention of the foreign ministers was fixed. haughty and majestic in her demeanour, she was supposed to be the only woman at court who continued faithful to her husband; which supposition probably originated in her art and education, she being a german born: for i afterwards found her virtue was only pride, and a knowledge of the national character. the russian lover rules despotic over his mistress: requires money, submission, and should he meet opposition, threatens her with blows, and the discovery of her secret. during elizabeth's reign foreigners could neither appear at court, nor in the best company, without the introduction of bestuchef. i and sievers, gentlemen of the chamber, were at that time the only germans who had free egress and regress in all houses of fashion; my being protected by the english and austrian ambassadors gave me very peculiar advantages, and made my company everywhere courted. bestuchef had been resident, during the late reign, at hamburg, in which inferior station he married the countess, at that time, though young and handsome, only the widow of the merchant boettger. under elizabeth, bestuchef rose to the summit of rank and power, and the widow boettger became the first lady of the empire. when i knew her she was eight and thirty, consequently no beauty, though a woman highly endowed in mind and manners, of keen discernment, disliking the russians, protecting the prussians, and at whose aversions all trembled. her carriage towards the russians was, what it must be in her situation, lofty, cautious, and ironical, rather than kind. to me she showed the utmost esteem on all occasions, welcomed me at her table, and often admitted me to drink coffee in company with herself alone and colonel oettinger. the countess never failed giving me to understand she had perceived my love for the princess n---; and, though i constantly denied the fact, she related circumstances which she could have known, as i thought, only from my mistress herself; my silence pleased her; for the russians, when a lady had a partiality for them, never fail to vaunt of their good fortune. she wished to persuade me she had observed us in company, had read the language of our eyes, and had long penetrated our secret. i was ignorant at that time that she had then, and long before, entertained the maid of my mistress as a spy in her pay. about a week after the death of the princess, the countess invited me to take coffee with her, in her chamber; lamented my loss, and the violence of that passion which had deprived me of all my customary vivacity, and altered my very appearance. she seemed so interested in my behalf, and expressed so many wishes, and so ardent to better my fate, that i could no longer doubt. another opportunity soon happened, which confirmed these my suspicions: her mouth confessed her sentiments. discretion, secrecy, and fidelity, were the laws she imposed, and never did i experience a more ardent passion from woman. such was her understanding and penetration, she knew how to rivet my affections. caution was the thing most necessary. she contrived, however, to make opportunity. the chancellor valued, confided in me, and employed me in his cabinet; so that i remained whole days in his house. my captainship of cavalry was now no longer thought of: i was destined to political employment. my first was to be gentleman of the chamber, which in russia is an office of importance, and the prospect of futurity became to me most resplendent. lord hyndford, ever the repository of my secrets, counselled me, formed plans for my conduct, rejoiced at my success, and refused to be reimbursed the expense he had been at, though now my circumstances were prosperous. the degree of credit i enjoyed was soon noticed: foreign ministers began to pay their court to me: goltz, the prussian minister, made every effort to win me, but found me incorruptible. the russian alliance was at this time highly courted by foreign powers; the humbling of prussia was the thing generally wished and planned: and nobody was better informed than myself of ministerial and family factions at this court. my mistress, a year after my acquaintance with her, fell into her enemies' power, and with her husband, was delivered over to the executioner. chancellor bestuchef, in the year , was forced to confession by the knout. apraxin, minister of war, had a similar fate. the wife of his brother, then envoy in poland, was, by the treachery of a certain lieutenant berger, with three others of the first ladies of the court, knouted, branded, and had their tongues cut out. this happened in the year , when elizabeth ascended the throne. her husband, however, faithfully served: i knew him as russian envoy, at vienna, . this may indeed be called the love of our country, and thus does it happen to the first men of the state: what then can a foreigner hope for, if persecuted, and in the power of those in authority? no man, in so short a space of time, had greater opportunities than i, to discover the secrets of state; especially when guided by hyndford and bernes, under the reign of a well-meaning but short-sighted empress, whose first minister was a weak man, directed by the will of an able and ambitious wife, and which wife loved me, a stranger, an acquaintance of only a few months, so passionately that to this passion she would have sacrificed every other object. she might, in fact, be considered as empress of russia, disposing of peace or war, and had i been more prudent or less sincere, i might in such a situation, have amassed treasures, and deposited them in full security. her generosity was boundless; and, though obliged to pay above a hundred thousand roubles, in one year, to discharge her son's debts, yet might i have saved a still larger sum; but half of the gifts she obliged me to receive, i lent to this son, and lost. so far was i from selfish, and so negligent of wealth, that by supplying the wants of others, i often, on a reverse of fortune, suffered want myself. this my splendid success in russia displeased the great frederic, whose persecution everywhere attended me, and who supposed his interest injured by my success in russia. the incident i am going to relate was, at the time it happened, well known to, and caused much agitation among all the foreign ambassadors. lord hyndford desired i would make him a fair copy of a plan of cronstadt, for which he furnished the materials, with three additional drawings of the various ships in the harbour, and their names. there was neither danger nor suspicion attending this; the plan of cronstadt being no secret, but publicly sold in the shops of petersburg. england was likewise then in the closest alliance with russia. hyndford showed the drawing to funk, the saxon envoy, his intimate friend, who asked his permission to copy it himself. hyndford gave him the plan signed with my name; and after funk had been some days employed copying it, the prussian minister, goltz, who lived in his neighbourhood, came in, as he frequently paid him friendly visits. funk, unsuspectingly, showed him my drawing, and both lamented that frederic had lost so useful a subject. goltz asked to borrow it for a couple of days, in order to correct his own; and funk, one of the worthiest, most honest, and least suspicious of men, who loved me like a brother, accordingly lent the plan. no sooner was goltz in possession of it than he hurried to the chancellor, with whose weakness he was well acquainted, told him his intent in coming was to prove that a man, who had once been unfaithful to his king and country, where he had been loaded with favours, would certainly betray, for his own private interest, every state where he was trusted. he continued his preface, by speaking of the rapid progress i had made in russia, and the free entrance i had found in the chancellor's house, where i was received as a son, and initiated in the secrets of the cabinet. the chancellor defended me: goltz then endeavoured to incite his jealousy, and told him my private interviews with his wife, especially in the palace-garden, were publicly spoken of. this he had learned from his spies, he having endeavoured, by the snares he laid, to make my destruction certain. he likewise led bestuchef to suspect his secretary, s-n, was a party in the intrigue; till at last the chancellor became very angry; goltz then took my plan of cronstadt from his pocket, and added, "your excellency is nourishing a serpent in your bosom. this drawing have i received from trenck, copied from your cabinet designs, for two hundred ducats." he knew i was employed there sometimes with oettinger, whose office it was to inspect the buildings and repairs of the russian fortifications. bestuchef was astonished; his anger became violent, and goltz added fuel to the flame, by insinuating, i should not be so powerfully protected by bernes, the austrian ambassador, were it not to favour the views of his own court. bestuchef mentioned prosecution and the knout; goltz replied my friends were too powerful, my pardon would be procured, and the evil this way increased. they therefore determined to have me secretly secured, and privately conveyed to siberia. thus, while i unsuspectingly dreamed of nothing but happiness, the gathering storm threatened destruction, which only was averted by accident, or god's good providence. goltz had scarcely left the place triumphant, when the chancellor entered, with bitterness and rancour in his heart, into his lady's apartment, reproached her with my conduct, and while she endeavoured to soothe him, related all that had passed. her penetration was much deeper than her husband's: she perceived there was a plot against me: she indeed knew my heart better than any other, and particularly that i was not in want of a poor two hundred ducats. she could not, however, appease him, and my arrest was determined. she therefore instantly wrote me a line to the following purport. "you are threatened, dear friend, by a very imminent danger. do not sleep to-night at home, but secure yourself at lord hyndford's till you hear farther from me." secretary s-n, her confidant (the same who, not long since, was russian envoy at ratisbon) was sent with the note. he found me, after dinner, at the english ambassador's, and called me aside. i read the billet, was astonished at its contents, and showed it lord hyndford. my conscience was void of reproach, except that we suspected my secret with the countess had been betrayed to the chancellor, and fearing his jealousy, hyndford commanded me to remain in his house till we should make further discovery. we placed spies round the house where i lived; i was inquired for after midnight, and the lieutenant of the police came himself and searched the house. lord hyndford went, about ten in the morning, to visit the chancellor, that he might obtain some intelligence, who immediately reproached him for having granted an asylum to a traitor. "what has this traitor done?" said hyndford. "faithlessly copied a plan of cronstadt, from my cabinet drawings," said the chancellor; "which he has sold to the prussian minister for two hundred ducats." hyndford was astonished; he knew me well, and also knew that he had then in money and jewels, more than eight thousand ducats of mine in his own hands: nor was he less ignorant of the value i set on money, or of the sources whence i could obtain it, when i pleased. "has your excellency actually seen this drawing of trenck's?"--"yes, i have been shown it by goltz."--"i wish i might likewise be permitted to see it; i know trenck's drawing, and make myself responsible that he is no traitor. here is some mystery; be so kind as to desire m. goltz will come and bring his plan of cronstadt. trenck is at my house, shall be forthcoming instantly, and i will not protect him if he proves guilty." the chancellor wrote to goltz; but he, artful as he was, had no doubt taken care to be informed that the lieutenant of the police had missed his prey. he therefore sent an excuse, and did not appear. in the meantime i entered; hyndford then addressed me, with the openness of an englishman, and asked, "are you a traitor, trenck? if so, you do not merit my protection, but stand here as a state prisoner. have you sold a plan of cronstadt to m. goltz?" my answer may easily be supposed. hyndford rehearsed what the chancellor had told him; i was desired to leave the room, and funk was sent for. the moment he came in, hyndford said, "sir, where is that plan of cronstadt which trenck copied?" funk, hesitating, replied, "i will go for it." "have you it," continued hyndford, "at home? speak, upon your honour."--"no, my lord, i have lent it, for a few days, to m. goltz, that he may take a copy." hyndford immediately then saw the whole affair, told the chancellor the history of this plan, which belonged to him, and which he had lent to funk, and requested a trusty person might be sent with him to make a proper search. bestuchef named his first secretary, and to him were added funk and the dutch envoy, schwart, who happened then to enter. all went together to the house of goltz. funk demanded his plan of cronstadt; goltz gave it him, and funk returned it to lord hyndford. the secretary and hyndford both then desired he would produce the plan of cronstadt which he had bought of trenck for two hundred ducats. his confusion now was great, and hyndford firmly insisted this plan should be forthcoming, to vindicate the honour of trenck, whom he held to be an honest man. on this, goltz answered, "i have received my king's commands to prevent the preferment of trenck in russia, and i have only fulfilled the duty of a minister." hyndford spat on the ground, and said more than i choose to repeat; after which the four gentlemen returned to the chancellor, and i was again called. everybody complimented me, related to me what had passed, and the chancellor promised i should be recompensed; strictly, however, forbidding me to take any revenge on the prussian ambassador, i having sworn, in the first transports of anger, to punish him wherever i should find him, even were it at the altar's foot. the chancellor soothed me, kept me to dine with him, and endeavoured to assuage my boiling passions. the countess affected indifference, and asked me if suchlike actions characterised the prussian nation. funk and schwart were at table. all present congratulated me on my victory, but none knew to whom i was indebted for my deliverance from the hasty and unjust condemnation of the chancellor, although my protectress was one of the company. i received a present of two thousand roubles the next day from the chancellor, with orders to thank the empress for this mark of her bounty, and accept it as a sign of her special favour. i paid these my thanks some days after. the money i disregarded, but the amiable empress, by her enchanting benevolence, made me forget the past. the story became public, and goltz appeared neither in public, nor at court. the manner in which the countess personally reproached him, i shall out of respect pass over. bernes, the crafty piedmontese, assured me of revenge, without my troubling myself in the matter, and--what happened after i know not; goltz appeared but little in company, fell ill when i had left russia, and died soon after of a consumption. this vile man was, no doubt, the cause of all the calamities which fell upon me. i should have become one of the first men in russia: the misfortune that befel bestuchef and his family some years afterward might have been averted: i should never have returned to vienna, a city so fatal to the name of trenck: by the mediation of the russian court, i should have recovered my great sclavonian estates; my days of persecution at vienna would have passed in peace and pleasure: nor should i have entered the dungeon of magdeburg. chapter xii. how little did the great frederic know my heart. without having offended, he had rendered me miserable, had condemned me to imprisonment at glatz on mere suspicion, and on my flying thence, naked and destitute, had confiscated my paternal inheritance. not contented with inflicting all these calamities, he would not suffer me peaceably to seek my fortune in a foreign land. few are the youths who, in so short a time, being expelled their native country with disgrace, by their own efforts, merits, and talents, have obtained honour and favour so great, acquired such powerful friends, or been entrusted with confidence equally unlimited in transactions so important. enraged as i was at the treachery of goltz, had opportunity offered, i might have been tempted even to turn my native country into a desert; nor do i deny that i afterwards promoted the views of the austrian envoy, who knew well how to cherish the flame that had been kindled, and turn it to his own use. till this moment i never felt the least enmity either to my country or king, nor did i suffer myself, on any occasion, to be made the agent of their disadvantage. no sooner was i entrusted more intimately with cabinet secrets, than i discovered the state of factions, and that bestuchef and apraxin were even then in prussian pay; that a counterpoise, by their means, might be formed to the prevalence of the austrian party. hence we may date the change of russian politics in the year . here also we may find a clue to the contradictory orders, artifices, positions, retreats and disappointments of the russian army, in the seven years' war, beginning in . the countess, who was obliged to act with greater caution, foresaw the consequence of the various intrigues in which her husband was engaged: her love for me naturally drew her from her former party; she confided every secret to me, and ever remained till her fall, which happened in , during my imprisonment, my best friend and correspondent. hence was i so well informed of all the plans against prussia, to the years and ; much more so than many ministers of the interested courts, who imagined they alone were in the secret. how many after events could i then have foretold! such was the perverseness of my destiny, that where i should most have been sought for, and best known, there was i least valued. no man, in my youth, would have believed i should live to my sixtieth year, untitled and obscure. in berlin, petersburg, london, and paris, have i been esteemed by the greatest statesmen, and now am i reduced to the invalid list. how strange are the caprices of fortune! i ought never to have left russia: this was my great error, which i still live to repent. i have never been accustomed to sleep more than four or five hours, so that through life i have allowed time for paying visits and receiving company. i have still had sufficient for study and improvement. hyndford was my instructor in politics; boerhaave, then physician to the court, my bosom friend, my tutor in physic and literary subjects. women formed me for court intrigues, though these, as a philosopher, i despised. the chancellor had greatly changed his carriage towards me since the incident of the plan. he observed my looks, showed he was distrustful, and desirous of revenge. his lady, as well as myself, remarked this, and new measures became necessary. i was obliged to act an artful, but, at the same time, a very dangerous part. my cousin, baron trenck, died in the spielberg, october , , and left me his heir, on condition i should only serve the house of austria. in march, , count bernes received the citation sent me to enter on this inheritance. i would hear nothing of vienna; the abominable treatment of my cousin terrified me. i well knew the origin of his prosecution, the services he had rendered his country, and had been an eye-witness of the injustice by which he was repaid. bernes represented to me that the property left me was worth much above a million: that the empress would support me in pursuit of justice, and that i had no personal enemy at vienna, that a million of certain property in hungary was much superior to the highest expectations in russia, where i myself had beheld so many changes of fortune, and the effects of family cabals. russia he painted as dangerous, vienna as secure, and promised me himself effectual assistance, as his embassy would end within the year. were i once rich, i might reside in what country i pleased; nor could the persecutions of frederic anywhere pursue me so ineffectually as in austria. snares would be laid for me everywhere else, as i had experienced in russia. "what," said he, "would have been the consequence, had not the countess warned you of the impending danger? you, like many other honest and innocent men, would have been sent to siberia. your innocence must have remained untested, and yourself, in the universal opinion, a villain and a traitor." hyndford spoke to me in the same tone, assured me of his eternal protection, and described london as a certain asylum, should i not find happiness at vienna. he spoke of slavery as a briton ought to speak, reminded me of the fate of munich and osterman, painted the court such as i knew it to be, and asked me what were my expectations, even were i fortunate enough to become general or minister in such a country. these reasonings at length determined me; but having plenty of money, i thought proper to take stockholm, copenhagen, and holland in my way, and barnes was in the meantime to prepare me a favourable reception at vienna. he desired, also, i would give him authority to get possession of the estates to which i was heir. my mistress strongly endeavoured to detain me, but yielded at length to the force of reason. i tore myself away, and promised, on my honour, to return as soon as i had arranged my affairs at vienna. she made the proposition of investing me within some foreign embassy, by which i might render the most effectual services to the court at vienna. in this hope we parted with heavy hearts: she presented me with her portrait, and a snuffbox set with diamonds; the first of these, three years after was torn from my bosom by the officers in my first dungeon at magdeburg, as i shall hereafter relate. the chancellor embraced me, at parting, with friendship. apraxin wept, and clasped me in his arms, prophesying at the same time, i should never be so happy as in russia. i myself foreboded misfortune, and quitted russia with regret, but still followed the advice of hyndford and bernes. from moscow i travelled to petersburg, where i found a letter, at the house of baron wolf, the banker, from the countess, which rent my very heart, and almost determined me to return. she endeavoured to terrify me from proceeding to vienna, yet inclosed a bill for four thousand roubles, to aid me on my journey, were i absolutely bent to turn my back on fortune. my effects, in money and jewels, amounted to about thirty-six thousand florins; i therefore returned the draft, intreated her eternal remembrance, and that she would reserve her favour and support to times in which they might become needful. after remaining a few days at petersburg, i journeyed, by land, to stockholm; taking with me letters of recommendation from all the foreign envoys. i forgot to mention that funk was inconsolable for my departure; his imprudence had nearly plunged me into misery, and destroyed all my hopes in russia. twenty-two years after this i met the worthy man, once more in dresden. he, there, considered himself as the cause of all the evils inflicted on me, and assured me the recital of my sufferings had been so many bitter reproaches to his soul. our recapitulation of former times gave us endless pleasure, and it was the sweetest of joys to meet and renew my friendship with such a man, after having weathered so many storms of fate. at stockholm i wanted for no recommendation; the queen, sister to the great frederic, had known me at berlin, when i had the honour, as an officer of the body guard, of accompanying her to stettin. i related my whole history to her without reserve. she, from political motives, advised me not to make any stay at stockholm, and to me continued till death, an ever-gracious lady. i proceeded to copenhagen, where i had business to transact for m. chaise, the danish envoy at moscow: from whom also i had letters of recommendation. here i had the pleasure of meeting my old friend, lieutenant bach, who had aided me in my escape from my imprisonment at glatz. he was poor and in debt, and i procured him protection, by relating the noble manner in which he behaved i also presented him with five hundred ducats, by the aid of which he pushed his fortune. he wrote to me in the year , a letter of sincere thanks, and died a colonel of hussars in the danish service in . i remained in copenhagen but a fortnight, and then sailed in a dutch ship, from elsineur to amsterdam. scarcely had we put to sea, before a storm arose, by which we lost a mast and bowsprit, had our sails shattered, and were obliged to cast anchor among the rocks of gottenburg, where our deliverance was singularly fortunate. here we lay nine days before we could make the open sea, and here i found a very pleasant amusement, by going daily in the ship's boat from rock to rock, attended by two of my servants, to shoot wild ducks, and catch shell-fish; whence i every evening returned with provisions, and sheep's milk, bought of the poor inhabitants, for the ship's crew. there was a dearth among these poor people. our vessel was laden with corn; some of this i purchased, to the amount of some hundreds of dutch florins, and distributed wherever i went. i also gave one of their ministers a hundred florins for his poor congregation, who was himself in want of bread, and whose annual stipend amounted to one hundred and fifty florins. here in the sweet pleasure of doing good, i left behind me much of that money i had so easily acquired in russia; and perhaps had we stayed much longer should myself have left the place in poverty. a thousand blessings followed me, and the storm-driven trenck was long remembered and talked of at gottenburg. in this worthy employment, however, i had nearly lost my life. returning from carrying corn, the wind rose, and drove the boat to sea. i not understanding the management of the helm, and the servants awkwardly handling the sails, the boat in tacking was overset. the benefit of learning to swim, i again experienced, and my faithful servant, who had gained the rock, aided me when almost spent. the good people who had seen the shallop overset, came off in their boats to my assistance. an honest calmuc, whom i had brought from russia, and another of my servants perished. i saw the first sink after i had reached the shore. the kind swedes brought me on board, and also righted and returned with the shallop. for some days i was sea-sick. we weighed anchor, and sailed for the texel, the mouth of which we saw, and the pilots coming off, when another storm arose, and drove us to the port of bahus, in norway, into which we ran, without farther damage. in some few days we again set sail, with a fair wind, and at length reached amsterdam. here i made no long stay; for the day after my arrival, an extraordinary adventure happened, in which i was engaged chiefly by my own rashness. i was a spectator while the harpooners belonging to the whale fishery were exercising themselves in darting their harpoons, most of whom were drunk. one of them, herman rogaar by name, a hero among these people, for his dexterity with his snickasnee, came up, and passed some of his coarse jests upon my turkish sabre, and offered to fillip me on the nose. i pushed him from me, and the fellow threw down his cap, drew his snickasnee, challenged me, called me monkey-tail, and asked whether i chose a straight, a circular, or a cross cut. thus here was i, in this excellent company, with no choice but that of either fighting or running away. the robust, herculean fellow grew more insolent, and i, turning round to the bystanders, asked them to lend me a snickasnee. "no, no," said the challenger, "draw your great knife from your side, and, long as it is, i will lay you a dozen ducats you get a gash in the cheek." i drew; he confidently advanced with his snickasnee, and, at the first stroke of my sabre, that, and the hand that held it, both dropped to the ground, and the blood spouted in my face. i now expected the people would, indubitably, tear me to pieces; but my fear was changed into astonishment at hearing a universal shout applauding the vanquisher of the redoubted herman rogaar who, so lately feared for his strength and dexterity, became the object of their ridicule. a jew spectator conducted me out of the crowd, and the people clamorously followed me to my inn. this kind of duel, by which i gained honour, would anywhere else have brought me to the highest disgrace. a man who knew the use of the sabre, in a single day, might certainly have disabled a hundred herman rogaars. this story may instruct and warn others. he that is quarrelsome shall never want an enemy. my temerity often engaged me in disputes which, by timely compliance and calmness, might easily have been avoided; but my evil genius always impelled me into the paths of perplexity, and i seldom saw danger till it was inevitable i left amsterdam for the hague, where i had been recommended to lord holderness, the english ambassador, by lord hyndford; to baron reisbach, by bernes; to the grand pensionary fagel, by schwart; and from the chancellor i had a letter to the prince of orange himself i could not, therefore, but be everywhere received with all possible distinction. within these recommendations, and the knowledge i possessed, had i had the good fortune to have avoided vienna, and gone to india, where my talents would have insured me wealth, how many tears of affliction had i been spared! my ill fortune, however, had brought me letters from count bernes, assuring me that heaven was at vienna, and including a citation from the high court, requiring me to give in my claim of inheritance. bernes further informed me the austrian court had assured him i should meet with all justice and protection, and advised me to hasten my journey, as the executorship of the estates of trenck was conducted but little to my advantage. this advice i took, proceeded to vienna, and from that moment all my happiness had an end. i became bewildered in lawsuits, and the arts of wicked men, and all possible calamities assaulted me at once, the recital of which would itself afford subject matter for a history. they began by the following incidents:-- one m. schenck sought my acquaintance at the hague. i met with him at my hotel, where he intreated i would take him to nuremberg, whence he was to proceed to saxony. i complied, and bore his expenses; but at hanau, waking in the morning, i found my watch, set with diamonds, a ring worth two thousand roubles, a diamond snuff-box, with my mistress's picture, and my purse, containing about eighty ducats, stolen from my bed-side, and schenck become invisible. little affected by the loss of money, at any time, i yet was grieved for my snuff-box. the rascal, however, had escaped, and it was fortunate that the remainder of my ready money, with my bills of exchange, were safely locked up. i now pursued my journey without company, and arrived in vienna. i cannot exactly recollect in what month, but i had been absent about two years; and the reader will allow that it was barely possible for any man, in so short a time, to have experienced more various changes of fate, though many smaller incidents have been suppressed. the places, where my pledged fidelity required discretion will be easily supposed, as likewise will the concealment of court intrigues, and artifices, the publication of which might even yet subject me to more persecutions. all writers are not permitted to speak truth of monarchs and ministers. i am the father of eight children, and parental love and duty vanquish the inclination of the author; and this duty, this affection, have made me particularly cautious in relating what happened to me at vienna, that i might, thereby, serve them more effectually than by indulging the pride of the writer, or the vengeance of the man. chapter xiii. since accounts so various, contradictory, and dishonourable to the name of trenck, have been circulated in vienna, concerning facts which happened thirty-seven years ago, i will here give a short abstract of them, and such as may he verified by the records of the court. i pledge my honour to the truth of the statement, and were i so allowed, would prove it, to the conviction of any unprejudiced court of justice: but this i cannot hope, as princes are much more disposed to bestow unmerited favours than to make retribution to those whom they have unjustly punished. francis baron trenck died in the spielberg, october th, . it has been erroneously believed in vienna that his estates were confiscated by the sentence which condemned him to the spielberg. he had committed no offence against the state, was accused of none, much less convicted. the court sentence was that the administration of his estate should be committed to counsellor kempf and baron peyaczewitz, who were selected by himself, and the accounts of his stewards and farmers were to be sent him yearly. he continued, till his death, to have the free and entire disposal of his property. although, before his death, he sent for his advocate, doctor berger, and by him petitioned the empress she would issue the necessary orders to the governor of the spielberg, to permit the entrance of witnesses, and all things necessary to make a legal will, it by no means follows that he petitioned her for permission to make this will. the case is too clear to admit of doubt. the royal commands were given, that he should enjoy all freedom of making his will. permission was also given that, during his sickness, he might be removed to the capuchin convent, which was equal to liberty, but this he refused to accept. neither was his ability to make a will questioned. the advocate was only to request the queen's permission to supply some formalities, which had been neglected, when he purchased the lordships of velika and nustar, which petition was likewise granted. the royal mandate still exists, which commissioned the persons therein named as trustees to the estate and effects of trenck, and this mandate runs thus: "let the last will of trenck be duly executed: let dispatch be used, and the heir protected in all his rights." confiscation, therefore, had never been thought of, nor his power to make a will questioned. i will now show how i have been deprived of this valuable inheritance, while i have been obliged to pay above sixty thousand florins, to defray legacies he had left; and when this narrative is read, it will no longer be affirmed at vienna, that by the favours of the court i inherited seventy-six thousand florins, or the lordship of zwerbach from trenck, i shall proceed to my proofs. the father of baron trenck, who died in the year , governor of leitschau, in hungary, named me in his will the successor of his son, should he die without heirs male. this will was sent to be proved, according to form, at vienna, after having been authenticated in the most legal manner in hungary. the court called hofkriegsrath, at vienna, neglected to provide a curator for the security of the next heir; yet this could not annul my right of succession. when trenck succeeded his father, he entered no protest to this, his father's will; therefore, dying without children, in the year , my claim was indisputable. i was heir had he made no will: and even in case of confiscation, my title to his father's estates still remained valid. trenck knew this but too well: he, as i have before related, was my worst enemy, and even attempted my life. i will therefore proceed to show the real intent of this his crafty testament. determined no longer to live in confinement, or to ask forgiveness, by which, it is well known, he might have obtained his freedom, having lost all hopes of reimbursing his losses, his avarice was reduced to despair. his desire of fame was unbounded, and this could no way be gratified but by having himself canonized for a saint, after spending his life in committing all the ravages of a pandour. hence originated the following facts:-- he knew i was the legal claimant to his father's estates. his father had bought with the family money, remitted from prussia, the lordships of prestowacz and pleternitz, in sclavonia, and he himself, during his father's life, and with his father's money, had purchased the lordship of pakratz, for forty thousand florins: this must therefore descend also to me, he having no more power to will this from me, than he had the remainder of his paternal inheritance. the property he himself had gained was consigned to administrators, but a hundred thousand florins had been expended in lawsuits, and sixty-three suits continued actually pending against him in court; the legacies he bequeathed amounted to eighty thousand florins. these, he saw, could not be paid, should i claim nothing more than the paternal inheritance; he, therefore, to render me unfortunate after his death, craftily named me his universal heir, without mentioning his father's will, but endeavoured, by his mysterious death, and the following conditions, to enforce the execution of his own will. first,--i was to become a catholic. secondly,--i was to serve only the house of austria; and, lastly,--he made his whole estate, without excepting the paternal inheritance, a _fidei commissum_. hence arose all my misfortunes, as indeed was his intention; for, but a short time before his death, he said to the governor, baron kottulinsky, "i shall now die contented, since i have been able to trick my cousin, and render him wretched." his death, believed in vienna to be miraculous, happened after the following manner; and by this he had induced many weak people, who really believed him a saint, to further his views. three days before his death, while in perfect health, he desired the governor of the spielberg would send for his confessor, for that st. francis had revealed to him he should be removed into life everlasting on his birth-day at twelve o'clock. the capuchin was sent for, but the prediction laughed at. the day, however, after the departure of his confessor, he said, "praise be to god, my end approaches; my confessor is dead, and has appeared to me." strange as it may seem; it was actually found to be true that the priest was dead. he now had all the officers of the garrison of brunn assembled, tonsured his head like a capuchin, took the habit of the order, publicly confessed himself in a sermon of an hour's length, exhorted them all to holiness, acted the part of a most exemplary penitent, embraced all present, spoke with a smile of the insignificance of all earthly possessions, took his leave, knelt down to prayers, slept calmly, rose, prayed again, and about eleven in the forenoon, october th, taking his watch in his hand, said, "thanks be to my god, my last hour approaches." all laughed at such a farce from a man of such a character; yet they remarked that the left side of his face grew pale. he then leaned his arm on the table, prayed, and remained motionless, with his eyes closed. the clock struck twelve--no signs of life or motion could be discovered; they spoke to him, and found he was really dead. the word miracle was echoed through the whole country, and the transmigration of the pandour trenck, from earth to heaven, by st. francis, proclaimed. the clue to this labyrinth of miracles, known only to me, is truly as follows:--he possessed the secret of what is called the _aqua tofana_, and had determined on death. his confessor had been entrusted with all his secrets, and with promissory notes, which he wished to invalidate. i am perfectly certain that he had returned a promissory note of a great prince, given for two hundred thousand florins, which has never been brought to account. the confessor, therefore, was to be provided for, that trenck might not be betrayed, and a dose of poison was given him before he set off for vienna: his death was the consequence. he took similar means with himself, and thus knew the hour of his exit; finding he could not become the first on earth, he wished to be adored as a saint in heaven. he knew he should work miracles when dead, because he ordered a chapel to be built, willed a perpetual mass, and bequeathed the capuchins sixty thousand florins. thus died this most extraordinary man, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, to whom nature had denied none of her gifts; who had been the scourge of bavaria; the terror of france; and who had, with his supposed contemptible pandours, taken above six thousand prussian prisoners. he lived a tyrant and enemy of men, and died a sanctified impostor. such was the state of affairs, as willed by trenck, when i came to vienna, in , where i arrived with money and jewels to the amount of twenty thousand florins. instead of profiting by the wealth trenck had acquired, i expended a hundred and twenty thousand florins of my own money, including what devolved to me from my uncle, his father, in the prosecution of his suits. trenck had paid two hundred ducats to the tribunal of vienna, in the year , to procure its very reprehensible silence concerning a curator, to which i was sacrificed, as the new judges of this court refused to correct the error of their predecessors. such are the proceedings of courts of justice in vienna! on my first audience, no one could be received more kindly than i was, by the empress queen. she spoke of my deceased cousin with much emotion and esteem, promised me all grace and favour, and informed me of the particular recommendations she had received, on my behalf, from count bernes. finding sixty-three cases hang over my head, in consequence of the inheritance of trenck, to obtain justice in any one of which in vienna, would have employed the whole life of an honest man, i determined to renounce this inheritance, and claim only under the will and as the heir of my uncle. with this view i applied for and obtained a copy of that will, with which i personally appeared, and declared to the court that i renounced the inheritance of francis trenck, would undertake none of his suits, nor be responsible for his legacies, and required only his father's estates, according to the legal will, which i produced; that is to say, the three lordships of pakratz, prestowacz, and pleneritz, without chattels or personal effects. nothing could be more just or incontrovertible than this claim. what was my astonishment, to be told, in open court, that her majesty had declared i must either wholly perform the articles of the will of trenck, or be excluded the entire inheritance, and have nothing further to hope. what could be done? i ventured to remonstrate, but the will of the court was determined and absolute: i must become a roman catholic. in this extremity i bribed a priest, who gave me a signed attestation, "that i had abjured the accursed heresy of lutheranism." my religion, however, remained what it had ever been. general bernes about this time returned from his embassy, and i related to him the lamentable state in which i found my affairs. he spoke to the empress in my behalf, and she promised everything. he advised me to have patience, to perform all that was required of me, and to make myself responsible for the depending suits. some family concerns obliged him, as he informed me, to make a journey to turin, but his return would be speedy: he would then take the management of my affairs upon himself, and insure my good fortune in austria. bernes loved me as his son, and i had reason to hope, from his assurance, i should be largely remembered in his will, which was the more probable, as he had neither child nor relations. he parted from me, like a father, with tears in his eyes; but he had scarcely been absent six weeks before the news arrived of his death, which, if report may be credited, was effected by poison, administered by _a friend_. ever the sport of fortune, thus were my supporters snatched from me at the very moment they became most necessary. the same year was i, likewise, deprived by death of my friend and protector, field-marshal konigseck, governor of vienna, when he had determined to interest himself in my behalf. i have been beloved by the greatest men austria ever produced, but unfortunately have been persecuted by the chicanery of pettifoggers, fools, fanatics, and priests, who have deprived me of the favour of my empress, guiltless as i was of crime or deceit, and left my old age in poverty. my ills were increased by a new accident. soon after the departure of bernes, the prussian minister, taking me aside, in the house of the palatine envoy, m. becker, proposed my return to berlin, assured me the king had forgotten all that was past, was convinced of my innocence, that my good fortune would there be certain, and be pledged his honour to recover the inheritance of trenck. i answered, the favour came too late; i had suffered injustice too flagrant, in my own country, and that i would trust no prince on earth whose will might annihilate all the rights of men. my good faith to the king had been too ill repaid; my talents might gain me bread in any part of the world, and i would not again subject myself to the danger of unmerited imprisonment. his persuasions were strong, but ineffectual. "my dear trenck," said he, "god is my judge that my intentions are honest; i will pledge myself, that my sovereign will insure your fortune: you do not know vienna; you will lose all by the suits in which you are involved, and will be persecuted because you do not carry a rosary." how often have i repented i did not then return to berlin! i should have escaped ten years' imprisonment; should have recovered the estates of trenck: should not have wasted the prime of life in the litigation of suits, and the writing of memorials; and should have certainly been ranked among the first men in my native country. vienna was no place for a man who could not fawn and flatter: yet here was i destined to remain six-and-thirty years, unrewarded, unemployed; and through youth and age, to continue on the list of invalid majors. having rejected the proposition of the prussian envoy, all my hopes in vienna were ruined; for frederic, by his residents and emissaries, knew how to effect whatever he pleased in foreign courts, and determined that the trenck who would no longer serve or confide in him should at least find no opportunity of serving against him: i soon became painted to the empress as an arch heretic who never would be faithful to the house of austria, and only endeavoured to obtain the inheritance of trenck that he might devote himself to prussia. this i shall hereafter prove; and display a scene that shall be the disgrace of many, by whom the empress was induced to harbour unjust suspicions of an able and honest man. i here stand erect and confident before the world; publish the truth, and take everlasting shame to myself, if any man on earth can prove me guilty of one treacherous thought. i owe no thanks; but so far from having received favours, i have six and thirty years remained unable to obtain justice, though i have all the while been desirous of shedding my blood in defence of the monarchy where i have thus been treated. till the year , i was equally zealous and faithful to prussia; yet my estates there, though confiscated, were liable to recovery: in hungary, on the contrary, the sentence of confiscation is irrevocable. this is a remarkable proof in favour of my honour, and my children's claims. surely no reader will be offended at these digressions; my mind is agitated, my feelings roused, remembering that my age and grey hairs deprive me of the sweet hope of at length vanquishing opposition, either by patience, or forcing justice, by eminent services, or noble efforts. this my history will never reach a monarch's eye, consequently no monarch, by perceiving, will be induced to protect truth. it may, indeed, be criticised by literati; it will certainly be decried by my persecutors, who, through life, have been my false accusers, and will probably, therefore, be prohibited by the priests. all germany, however, will read, and posterity perhaps may pity, should my book escape the misfortune of being classed among improbable romances; to which it is the more liable, because that the biographers of frederic and maria theresa, for manifest reasons, have never so much as mentioned the name of trenck. once more to my story: i was now obliged to declare myself heir, but always _cum reservatione juris mei_, not as simply claiming under the will of francis trenck i was obliged to take upon myself the management of the sixty-three suits, and the expenses attending any one of these are well known in vienna. my situation may be imagined, when i inform the reader i only received, from the whole estate of trenck, , florins in three years, which were scarcely sufficient to defray the expenses of new year's gifts to the solicitors and masters in chancery. how did i labour in stating and transcribing proofs for the court! the money i possessed soon vanished. my prussian relations supported me, and the countess bestuchef sent me the four thousand roubles i had refused at petersburg. i had also remittances from my faithful mistress in prussia; and, in addition, was obliged to borrow money at the usurious rate of sixty per cent. bewildered as i was among lawyers and knaves, my ambition still prompted me to proceed, and all things are possible to labour and perseverance; but my property was expended: and, at length, i could only obtain that the contested estates should be made a _fidei commissum_, or put under trust; whereby, though they were protected from being the further prey of others, i did not inherit them as mine. in this pursuit was my prime of life wasted, which might have been profitably and honourably spent. in three years, however, i brought my sixty-three suits to a kind of conclusion; the probabilities were this could not have been effected in fifty. exclusive of my assiduity, the means i took must not be told; it is sufficient that i here learnt what judges were, and thus am enabled to describe them to others. for a few ducats, the president's servant used to admit me into a closet where i could see everything as perfectly as if i had myself been one of the council. this often was useful, and taught me to prevent evil; and often was i scarcely able to refrain bursting in upon this court. their appointed hour of meeting was nine in the morning, but they seldom assembled before eleven. the president then told his beads, and muttered his prayers. someone got up and harangued, while the remainder, in pairs, amused themselves with talking instead of listening, after which the news of the day became the common topic of conversation, and the council broke up, the court being first adjourned some three weeks, without coming to any determination. this was called _judicium delegatum in causis trenkiansis_; and when at last they came to a conclusion, the sentence was such as i shall ever shudder at and abhor. the real estates of trenck consisted in the great sclavonian manors, called the lordships of pakratz, prestowatz, and pleternitz, which he had inherited from his father, and were the family property, together with velika and nustak, which he himself had purchased: the annual income of these was , florins, and they contained more than two hundred villages and hamlets. the laws of hungary require-- st. that those who purchase estates shall obtain the _consensus regius_ (royal consent). nd. that the seller shall possess, and make over the right of property, together with that of transferring or alienating, and dly. that the purchaser shall be a native born, or have bought his naturalisation. in default of all, or any of these, the fiscus, on the death of the purchaser, takes possession, repaying the _summa emptitia_, or purchase- money, together within what can be shown to have been laid out in improvements, or the _summa inscriptitia_, the sum at which it stands rated in the fiscal register. without form or notice, the hungarian fiscal president, count grassalkowitz, took possession of all the trenck estates on his decease, in the name of the fiscus. the prize was great, not so much because of the estates themselves, as of the personal property upon them. trenck had sent loads of merchandise to his estates, of linen, ingots of gold and silver from bavaria, alsatia, and silesia. he had a vast storehouse of arms, and of saddles; also the great silver service of the emperor charles vii., which he had brought from munich, with the service of plate of the king of prussia; and the personal property on these estates was affirmed considerably to exceed in value the estates themselves. i was not long since informed by one of the first generals, whose honour is undoubted, that several waggons were laden with these rich effects and sent to mihalefze. his testimony was indubitable; he knew the two pandours, who were the confidants of trenck, and the keepers of his treasures; and these, during the general plunder, each seized a bag of pearls, and fled to turkey, where they became wealthy merchants. his rich stud of horses were taken, and the very cows driven off the farms. his stand of arms consisted of more than three thousand rare pieces. trenck had affirmed he had sent linen to the amount of fifty thousand florins, in chests from dunnhausen and cersdorf, in the county of glatz, to his estates. the pillage was general; and when orders came to send all the property of trenck and deliver it to his universal heir, nothing remained that any person would accept. i have myself seen, in a certain hungarian nobleman's house, some valuable arms, which i knew i had been robbed of! and i bought at esseck some silver plates on which were the arms of prussia, that had been sold by counsellor d-n, who had been empowered to take possession of these estates, and had thus rendered himself rich. of this i procured an attestation, and proved the theft: i complained aloud at vienna, but received an order from the court to be silent, under pain of displeasure, and also to go no more into sclavonia. the principal reason of my loss of the landed property in hungary was my having dared to make inquiries concerning the personal, not one guinea of which was ever brought to account. i then proved my right to the family estates, left by my uncle, beyond all dispute, and also of those purchased by my cousin. the commissions appointed to inquire into these rights even confirmed them; yet after they had been thus established, i received the following order from the court, in the hand of the empress herself:--"the president, count grassalkowitz, takes it upon his conscience that the sclavonian estates do not descend to trenck, _in natura_; he must therefore receive the _summa emptitia et inscriptitia_, together with the money he can show to have been expended in improvements." chapter xiv. and herewith ended my pleadings and my hopes. i had sacrificed my property, laboured through sixty-three inferior suits, and lost this great cause without a trial. i could have remained satisfied with the loss of the personal property: the booty of a soldier, like the wealth amassed by a minister, appears to me little better than a public robbery; but the acquirements of my ancestors, my birth-right by descent, of these i could not be deprived without excessive cruelty. oh patience! patience!--yet shall my children never become the footmen, nor grooms, of those who have robbed them of their inheritance; and to them i bequeathed my rights in all their power: nor shall any man prevent my crying aloud, so long as justice shall not be done. the president, it is true, did not immediately possess himself of the estates, but he took good care his friends should have them at such rates that the sale of them did not bring the fiscal treasury , florins, while i, in real and personal property, lost a million and a half; nay, probably a sum equal to this in personal property alone. the summa _inscriptitia et emptitia_ for all these great estates only amounted to , florins, and this was to be paid by the chamber, but the president thought proper to deduct , on pretence the cattle had been driven off the estate of pakratz; and, further, , more, under the shameful pretence that trenck, to recruit his pandours, had drained the estates of , vassals, who had never returned; the estates, therefore, must make them good at the rate of thirty florins per head, which would have amounted to , florins; but, with much difficulty, this sum was reduced, as above stated, to , florins, each vassal reckoned at ten florins per head. thus was i obliged, from the property of my family, to pay for , men who had gloriously died in war, in defence of the contested rights of the great maria theresa; who had raised so many millions of contributions for her in the countries of her enemies; who, sword in hand, had stormed and taken so many towns, and dispersed, or taken prisoners, so many thousands of her foes. would this be believed by listening nations? all deductions made for legacies, fees, and formalities, there remained to me , florins, with which i purchased the lordship of zwerbach, and i was obliged to pay , florins for my naturalisation. thus, when the sums are enumerated which i expended on the suits of trenck, received from my friends at berlin and petersburg, it will be found that i cannot, at least, have been a gainer by having been made the universal heir of the immensely rich trenck. with regret i write these truths in support of my children's claims, that they may not, in my grave, reproach me for having neglected the duty of a father. i will mere add a few particulars which may afford the reader matter for meditation, cause him to commiserate my fate, and give a picture of the manner in which the prosecution was carried on against trenck. one schygrai, a silly kind of beggarly baron, who was treated as a buffoon, was invited in the year to dine with baron pejaczewitz, when trenck happened to be present. the conversation happened to turn on a kind of brandy made in this country, and trenck jocularly said he annually distilled this sort of brandy from cow-dung to the value of thirty thousand florins. schygrai supposed him serious, and wished to learn the art, which trenck promised to teach him pejaczewitz told him he could give him thirty thousand load of dung. "but where shall i get the wood?" said schygrai. "i will give you thirty thousand klafters," answered trenck. the credulous baron, thinking himself very fortunate, desired written promises, which they gave him; and that of trenck ran thus: "i hereby permit and empower baron schygrai to sell gratis, in the forest of tscherra horra, thirty thousand klafters of wood. "witness my hand, "trenck." trenck was no sooner dead than the baron brought his note, and made application to the court. his attorney was the noted bussy, and the court decreed the estates of trenck should pay at the rate of one form thirty kreutzers per klafter, or forty-five thousand florins, with all costs, and an order was given to the administrators to pay the money. just at this time i arrived at vienna, from petersburg. doctor berger, the advocate of trenck, told me the affair would admit of no delay. i hastened to the empress, and obtained an order to delay payment. an inquiry was instituted, and this forest of tscherra horra was found to be situated in turkey. the absurdity and injustice were flagrant, and it was revoked. i cannot say how much of these forty-five thousand florins the baron had promised to the noble judge and the attorney. i only know that neither of them was punished. had not some holidays luckily intervened, or had the attorney expected my arrival, the money would have been paid, and an ineffectual attempt to obtain retribution would have been the consequence, as happened in many similar instances. i have before mentioned the advertisement inviting all who had any demands or complaints against trenck to appear, with the promise of a ducat a day; and it is mere proper to add that the sum of fifteen thousand florins was brought to account, and paid out of the estates of trenck. for this shameful purpose some thousand of florins were paid besides to this species of claimants and though, after examination, their pretensions all proved to be futile, and themselves were cast in damages, yet was none of this money ever refunded, or the false claimants punished. among these the pretended daughter of general schwerin received two thousand florins, notorious as was her character. again, trenck was accused of having appropriated the money to his own use, and treated as if convicted. after his death a considerable demand was accordingly made. i happening, however, to meet with ruckhardt, his quarter-master, he with asseverations declared that, instead of being indebted to the regiment, the regiment was more than a hundred thousand florins indebted to him, advised me to get attestations from the captains, and assured me he himself would give in a clear statement of the regiment's accounts. i followed his advice, hastened to the regiment, and obtained so many proofs, that the quarter-master of the regiment, who, with the major, had in reality pocketed the money, was imprisoned and put in irons. what became of the thief or the false witness afterward i know not; i only know that nothing was refunded, that the quarter-master found protectors, detained the money, and, some years after this vile action, purchased a commission. one instance more. trenck, to the corps of infantry he commanded, added a corps of hussars, which he raised and provided with horses and accoutrements sold by auction. my demand on this account was upwards of sixty thousand florins, to which i received neither money nor reply. he had also expended a hundred thousand florins for the raising and equipping his three thousand pandours; in consequence of which a signed agreement had been given by the government that these hundred thousand florins should be repaid to his heir, or he, the heir, should receive the command of the regiment. the regiment, however, at his decease, was given to general simschen; and as for the agreement, care was taken it should never come into my hands. thus these hundred thousand florins were lost. yet it has been wickedly affirmed he was imprisoned in the spielberg for having embezzled the regiment's money; whereas, i would to god i only was in possession of the sums he expended on this regiment; for he considered the regiment as his own; and great as was his avarice, still greater was his desire of fame, and greater still his love for his empress, for whom he would gladly have yielded both property and life. within respect to the money that was to have been repaid for improvement of the estates, i must add, these estates were bought at a time when the country had been left desolate by the turks, and the reinstalment of such places as had fallen into their hands, and the erecting of farmhouses, mills, stocking them with horses, cattle, and seed corn, according to my poor estimate, could not amount to less than eighty thousand florins; but i was forbidden to go into sclavonia, and the president offered, as an indemnification, four thousand florins. everybody was astonished, but he, within the utmost coolness, told me i must either accept this or nothing. the hearers of this sentence cast their eyes up to heaven and pitied me. i remonstrated, and thereby only made the matter worse. grief and anxiety occasioned me to take a journey into italy, passing through venice, rome, and florence. on my return to vienna, i, by a friendly interference in behalf of a woman whose fears rather than guilt had brought her into danger, became suspected myself; and the very officious officers of the police had me imprisoned as a coiner without the least grounds for any such accusation except their own surmises. i was detained unheard nine days, and when, having been heard, i had entirely justified myself, was again restored to liberty; public declaration was then made in the gazette that the officers of the police had acted too precipitately. this was the satisfaction granted, but this did not content me. i threatened the counsellor by whom my character had been so aspersed, and the empress, condescending to mediate, bestowed on me a captainship of cavalry in the cordova cuirassiers. such was the recompense i received for wounds so deep, and such the neglect into which i was thrown at vienna. discontent led me to join my regiment in hungary. here i gained the applause of my colonel, count bettoni, who himself told the empress i, more than any other, had contributed to the forming of the regiment. it may well be imagined how a man like me, accustomed, as i had been, to the first company of the first courts, must pass my time among the carpathian mountains, where neither society nor good books were to be found, nor knowledge, of which i was enamoured, improved. the conversation of count bettoni, and the chase, together with the love of the general of the regiment, old field-marshal cordova, were my only resources; the persecutions, neglect, and even contempt, i received at vienna, were still the same. in the year , in the month of march, my mother died in prussia, and i requested the permission of the court that held the inheritance of trenck, as a _fidei commissum_, to make a journey to dantzic to settle some family affairs with my brothers and sister, my estates being confiscated. this permission was granted, and thither i went in may, where i once more fell into the hands of the prussians; which forms the second great and still more gloomy epoch in my life. all who read what follows will shudder, will commiserate him who, feeling himself innocent, relates afflictions he has miserably encountered and gloriously overcome. i left hungary, where i was in garrison, for dantzic, where i had desired my brothers and sister to meet me that we might settle our affairs. my principal intent, however, was a journey to petersburg, there to seek the advice and aid of my friends, for law and persecution were not yet ended at vienna; and my captain's pay and small income scarcely sufficed to defray charges of attorneys and counsellors. it is here most worthy of remark that i was told by prince ferdinand of brunswick, governor of magdeburg, he had received orders to prepare my prison at magdeburg before i set out from hungary. nay, more; it had been written from vienna to berlin that the king must beware of trenck, for that he would be at dantzic at the time when the king was to visit his camp in prussia. what thing more vile, what contrivance more abominable, could the wickedest wretch on earth find to banish a man his country, that he might securely enjoy the property of which the other had been robbed? that this was done i have living witnesses in his highness prince ferdinand of brunswick and the berlin ministry, from whose mouths i learned this artifice of villainy. it is the more necessary to establish this truth, because no one can comprehend why the _great frederic_ should have proceeded against me in a manner so cruel that, when it comes to be related, must raise the indignation of the just, and move hearts of iron to commiserate. men so vile, so wicked, as i have described them, in conjunction with one weingarten, secretary to count puebla, then austrian minister at berlin, have brought on me these my misfortunes. this was the weingarten who, as is now well known, betrayed all the secrets of the austrian court to frederic, who at length was discovered in the year , and who, when the war broke out, remained in the service of prussia. this same weingarten, also, not only caused my wretchedness, but my sister's ruin and death, as he likewise did the punishment and death of three innocent men, which will hereafter be shown. it is an incontrovertible truth that i was betrayed and sold by men in vienna whose interest it was that i should be eternally silenced. i was immediately visited by my brothers and sister on my arrival at dantzic, where we lived happy in each other's company during a fortnight, and an amicable partition was made of my mother's effects; my sister perfectly justified herself concerning the manner in which i was obliged to fly from her house an the year : our parting was kind, and as brother and sister ought to part. our only acquaintance in dantzic was the austrian resident, m. abramson, to whom i brought letters of recommendation from vicuna, and whose reception of us was polite even to extravagance. this abramson was a prussian born, and had never seen vienna, but obtained his then office by the recommendation of count bestuchef, without security for his good conduct, or proof of his good morals, heart, or head. he was in close connection with the prussian resident, reimer; and was made the instrument of my ruin. scarcely had my brothers and sister departed before i determined to make a voyage by sea to russia. abramson contrived a thousand artifices, by which he detained me a week longer in dantzic, that, he in conjunction with reimer, might make the necessary preparations. the king of prussia had demanded that the magistrates of dantzic should deliver me up; but this could not be done without offending the imperial court, i being a commissioned officer in that service, with proper passports; it was therefore probable that this negotiation required letters should pass and repass; and for this reason abramson was employed to detain me some days longer, till, by the last letters from berlin, the magistrates of dantzic were induced to violate public safety and the laws of nations. abramson, i considered as my best friend, and my person as in perfect security; he had therefore no difficulty in persuading me to stay. the day of supposed departure on board a swedish ship for riga approached, and the deceitful abramson promised me to send one of his servants to the port to know the hour. at four in the afternoon he told me he had himself spoken to the captain, who said he would not sail till the next day; adding that he, abramson, would expect me to breakfast, and would then accompany me to the vessel. i felt a secret inquietude which made me desirous of leaving dantzic, and immediately to send all my luggage, and to sleep on board. abramson prevented me, dragging me almost forcibly along with him, telling me he had much company, and that i must absolutely dine and sup at his house; accordingly i did not return to my inn till eleven at night. i was but just in bed when i heard a tremendous knocking at my chamber door, which was not shut, and two of the city magistrates with twenty grenadiers entered my chamber, and surrounded my bed so suddenly that i had not time to take to my arms and defend myself. my three servants had been secured and i was told that the most worthy magistracy of dantzic was obliged to deliver me up as a delinquent to his majesty the king of prussia. what were my feelings at seeing myself thus betrayed! they silently conducted me to the city prison, where i remained twenty-four hours. about noon abramson came to visit me, affected to be infinitely concerned and enraged, and affirmed he had strongly protested against the illegality of this proceeding to the magistracy, as i was actually in the austrian service; but that they had answered him the court of vienna had afforded them a precedent, for that, in , they had done the same by the two sons of the burgomaster rutenberg, of dantzic, and that, therefore, they were justified in making reprisal; and likewise, they durst not refuse the most earnest request accompanied with threats, of the king of prussia. their plea of retaliation originated as follows:--there was a kind of club at vienna, the members of which were seized for having committed the utmost extravagance and debauchery, two of whom were the sons of the burgomaster rutenberg, and who were sentenced to the pillory. great sums were offered by the father to avoid this public disgrace, but ineffectually--they were punished, their punishment was legal, and had no similarity whatever to my case, nor could it any way justly give pretence of reprisal. abramson, who had in reality entered no protest whatever, but rather excited the magistracy, and acted in concert with reimer, advised me to put my writings and other valuable effects into his hands, otherwise they would be seized. he knew i had received letters of exchange from my brothers and sister, about seven thousand florins, and these i gave him, but kept my ring, worth about four thousand, and some sixty guineas, which i had in my purse. he then embraced me, declared nothing should be neglected to effect my immediate deliverance; that even he would raise the populace for that purpose; that i could not be given up to the prussians in less than a week, the magistracy being still undetermined in an affair so serious, and he left me, shedding abundance of crocodile tears, like the most affectionate of friends. the next night two magistrates, with their posse, came to my prison, attended by resident reimer, a prussian officer and under officers, and into their hands i was delivered. the pillage instantly began; reimer tore off my ring, seized my watch, snuff-box, and all i had, not so much as sending me a coat or shirt from my effects; after which, they put me into a close coach with three prussians. the dantzic guard accompanied the carriage to the city gate, that was opened to let me pass; after which the dantzic dragoons escorted me as far as lauenburg in pomerania. i have forgotten the date of this miserable day; but to the best of my memory, it must have been in the beginning of june. thirty prussian hussars, commanded by a lieutenant, relieved the dragoons at lauenburg, and thus was i escorted from garrison to garrison, till i arrived at berlin. hence it was evidently falsely affirmed, by the magistracy of dantzic, and the conspirator abramson, who wrote in his own excuse to vienna, that my seizure must be attributed wholly to my own imprudence, and that i had exposed myself to this arrest by going without the city gates, where i was taken and carried off; nor was it less astonishing that the court of vienna should not have demanded satisfaction for the treachery of the dantzickers toward an austrian officer. i have incontrovertibly proved this treachery, after i had regained my liberty abramson indeed they could not punish, for during my imprisonment he had quitted the austrian for the prussian service, where he gradually became so contemptible, that in the year , when i was released from my imprisonment, he was himself imprisoned in the house of correction; and his wife, lately so rich, was obliged to beg her bread. thus have i generally lived to see the fall of my betrayers; and thus have i found that, without indulging personal revenge, virtue and fortitude must at length triumph over the calumniator and the despot. this truth will be further proved hereafter, nor can i behold, unmoved, the open shame in which my persecutors live, and how they tremble in my presence, their wicked deeds now being known to the world nay, monarchs may yet punish their perfidy:--yet not so!--may they rather die in possession of wealth they have torn from me! i only wish the pity and respect of the virtuous and the wise. but, though austria has never resented the affront commenced on the person of an officer in its service, still have i a claim on the city of dantzic, where i was thus treacherously delivered up, for the effects i there was robbed of, the amount of which is between eleven and twelve thousand florins. this is a case too clear to require argument, and the publication of this history will make it known to the world. this claim also, among others, i leave to the children of an unfortunate father. enough of digression; let us attend to the remarkable events which happened on the dismal journey to berlin. i was escorted from garrison to garrison, which were distant from each other two, three, or at most five miles; wherever i came, i found compassion and respect. the detachment of hussars only attended me two days; it consisted of twelve men and an officer, who rode with me in the carriage. the fourth day i arrived at ---, where the duke of wirtemberg, father of the present grand duchess of russia, was commander, and where his regiment was in quarters. the duke conversed with me, was much moved, invited me to dine, and detained me all the day, where i was not treated as a prisoner. i so far gained his esteem that i was allowed to remain there the next day; the chief persons of the place were assembled, and the duchess, whom he had lately married, testified every mark of pity and consideration. i dined with him also on the third day, after which i departed in an open carriage, without escort, attended only by a lieutenant of his regiment. i must relate this, event circumstantially for it not only proves the just and noble character of the duke, but likewise that there are moments in which the brave may appear cowards, the clear-sighted blind, and the wise foolish; nay, one might almost be led to conclude, from this, that my imprisonment at magdeburg, was the consequence of predestination, since i remained riveted in stupor, in despite of suggestions, forebodings, and favourable opportunities. who but must be astonished, having read the daring efforts i made at glatz, at this strange insensibility now in the very crisis of my fate? i afterwards was convinced it was the intention of the noble-minded duke that i should escape, and that he must have given particular orders to the successive officers. he would probably have willingly subjected himself to the reprimands of frederic if i would have taken to fight. the journey through the places where his regiment was stationed continued five days, and i everywhere passed the evenings in the company of the officers, the kindness of whom was unbounded i slept in their quarters without sentinel, and travelled in their carriages, without other guard than a single officer in the carriage. in various places the high road was not more than two, and sometimes one mile from the frontier road; therefore nothing could have been easier than to have escaped; yet did the same trenck, who in glatz had cut his way through thirty men to obtain his freedom, that trenck, who had never been acquainted with fear, now remain four days bewildered, and unable to come to any determination. in a small garrison town, i lodged in the house of a captain of cavalry, and continually was treated by him with every mark of friendship. after dinner he rode at the head of his squadron to water the horse, unsaddled. i remained alone in the house, entered the stable, saw three remaining horses, with saddles and bridles; in my chamber was my sword and a pair of pistols. i had but to mount one of the horses and fly to the opposite gate. i meditated on the project, and almost resolved to put it in execution, but presently became undetermined by some secret impulse. the captain returned some time after, and appeared surprised to find me still there. the next day he accompanied me alone in his carriage; we came to a forest, he saw some champignons, stopped, asked me to alight, and help him to gather them; he strayed more than a hundred paces from me, and gave me entire liberty to fly; yet notwithstanding all this, i voluntarily returned, suffering myself to be led like a sheep to the slaughter. i was treated so well, during my stay at this place, and escorted with so much negligence, that i fell into a gross error. perceiving they conveyed me straight to berlin, i imagined the king wished to question me concerning the plan formed for the war, which was then on the point of breaking out. this plan i perfectly knew, the secret correspondence of bestuchef having all passed through my hands, which circumstance was much better known at berlin than at vienna. confirmed in this opinion, and far from imagining the fate that awaited me, i remained irresolute, insensible, and blind to danger. alas, how short was this hope! how quickly was it succeeded by despair! when, after four days' march, i quitted the district under the command of the duke of wirtemberg, and was delivered up to the first garrison of infantry at coslin! the last of the wirtemberg officers, when taking leave of me, appeared to be greatly affected; and from this moment till i came to berlin, i was under a strong escort, and the given orders were rigorously observed. chapter xv. arrived here, i was lodged over the grand guardhouse, with two sentinels in my chamber, and one at the door. the king was at potzdam, and here i remained three days; on the third, some staff-officers made their appearance, seated themselves at a table, and put the following questions to me:-- first. what was my business at dantzic? secondly. whether i was acquainted with m. goltz, prussian ambassador to russia? thirdly. who was concerned with me in the conspiracy at dantzic? when i perceived their intention, by these interrogations, i absolutely refused to reply, only saying i had been imprisoned in the fortress of glatz, without hearing, or trial by court-martial; that, availing myself of the laws of nature, i had by my own exertions procured my liberty, and that i was now a captain of cavalry in the imperial service; that i demanded a legal trial for my first unknown offence, after which i engaged to answer all interrogatories, and prove my innocence; but that at present, being accused of new crimes, without a hearing concerning my former punishment, the procedure was illegal. i was told they had no orders concerning this, and i remained dumb to all further questions. they wrote some two hours, god knows what; a carriage came up; i was strictly searched, to find whether i had any weapons; thirteen or fourteen ducats, which i had concealed, were taken from me, and i was conducted under a strong escort, through spandau to magdeburg. the officer here delivered me to the captain of the guard at the citadel; the town major came, and brought me to the dungeon, expressly prepared for me; a small picture of the countess of bestuchef, set with diamonds, which i had kept concealed in my bosom, was now taken from me; the door was shut, and here was i left. my dungeon was in a casemate, the fore part of which, six feet wide and ten feet long, was divided by a party wall. in the inner wall were two doors, and a third at the entrance of the casemate itself. the window in the seven-feet-thick wall was so situated that, though i had light, i could see neither heaven nor earth; i could only see the roof of the magazine; within and without this window were iron bars, and in the space between an iron grating, so close and so situated, by the rising of the walls, that it was impossible i should see any parson without the prison, or that any person should see me. on the outside was a wooden palisade, six feet from the wall, by which the sentinels were prevented from conveying anything to me. i had a mattress, and a bedstead, but which was immovably ironed to the floor, so that it was impossible i should drag it, and stand up to the window; beside the door was a small iron stove and a night table, in like manner fixed to the floor. i was not yet put in irons, and my allowance was a pound and a half per day of ammunition bread, and a jug of water. from my youth i had always had a good appetite, and my bread was so mouldy i could scarcely at first eat the half of it. this was the consequence of major reiding's avarice, who endeavoured to profit even by this, so great was the number of unfortunate prisoners; therefore, it is impossible i should describe to my readers the excess of tortures that, during eleven months, i felt from ravenous hunger. i could easily every day have devoured six pounds of bread; and every twenty-four hours after having received and swallowed my small portion, i continued as hungry as before i began, yet must wait another twenty-four hours for a new morsel. how willingly would i have signed a bill of exchange for a thousand ducats, on my property at vienna, only to have satiated my hunger on dry bread! for, so extreme was it, that scarcely had i dropt into a sweet sleep. therefore i dreamed i was feasting at some table luxuriously loaded, where, eating like a glutton, the whole company were astonished to see me, while my imagination was heated by the sensation of famine. awakened by the pains of hunger, the dishes vanished, and nothing remained but the reality of my distress; the cravings of nature were but inflamed, my tortures prevented sleep, and, looking into futurity, the cruelty of my fate suffered, if possible, increase, from imagining that the prolongation of pangs like these was insupportable. god preserve every honest man from sufferings like mine! they were not to be endured by the villain most obdurate. many have fasted three days, many have suffered want for a week, or more; but certainly no one, beside myself, ever endured it in the same excess for eleven months. some have supposed that to eat little might become habitual, but i have experienced the contrary. my hunger increased every day; and of all the trials of fortitude my whole life has afforded, this, of eleven months, was the most bitter. petitions, remonstrances, were of no avail; the answer was--"we must give no more, such is the king's command." the governor, general borck, born the enemy of man, replied, when i entreated, at least, to have my fill of bread, "you have feasted often enough out of the service of plate taken from the king, by trenck, at the battle of sorau; you must now eat ammunition bread in your dirty kennel. your empress makes no allowance for your maintenance, and you are unworthy of the bread you eat, or the trouble taken about you." judge, reader, what pangs such insolence, added to such sufferings must inflict. judge what were my thoughts, foreseeing, as i did, an endless duration to this imprisonment and these torments. my three doors were kept ever shut, and i was left to such meditations as such feelings and such hopes might inspire. daily, about noon, once in twenty-four hours, my pittance of bread and water was brought. the keys of all the doors were kept by the governor; the inner door was not opened, but my bread and water were delivered through an aperture. the prison doors were opened only once a week, on a wednesday, when the governor and town major, my hole having been first cleaned, paid their visit. having remained thus two months, and observed this method was invariable, i began to execute a project i had formed, of the possibility of which i was convinced. where the night-table and stove stood, the floor was bricked, and this paving extended to the wall that separated my casemate from the adjoining one, in which was no prisoner. my window was only guarded by a single sentinel; i therefore soon found, among those who successively relieved guard, two kind-hearted fellows, who described to me the situation of my prison; hence i perceived i might effect my escape, could i but penetrate into the adjoining casemate, the door of which was not shut. provided i had a friend and a boat waiting for me at the elbe, or could i swim across that river, the confines of saxony were but a mile distant. to describe my plan at length would lead to prolixity, yet i must enumerate some of its circumstances, as it was remarkably intricate and of gigantic labour. i worked through the iron, eighteen inches long, by which the night-table was fastened, and broke off the clinchings of the nails, but preserved their heads, that i might put them again in their places, and all might appear secure to my weekly visitors. this procured me tools to raise up the brick floor, under which i found earth. my first attempt was to work a hole through the wall, seven feet thick behind, and concealed by the night-table. the first layer was of brick. i afterwards came to large hewn stones. i endeavoured accurately to number and remember the bricks, both of the flooring and the wall, so that i might replace them and all might appear safe. this having accomplished, i proceeded. the day preceding visitation all was carefully replaced, and the intervening mortar as carefully preserved; the whole had, probably, been whitewashed a hundred times; and, that i might fill up all remaining interstices, i pounded the white stuff this afforded, wetted it, made a brush of my hair, then applied this plaster, washed it over, that the colour might be uniform, and afterwards stripped myself, and sat with my naked body against the place, by the heat of which it was dried. while labouring, i placed the stones and bricks upon my bedstead, and had they taken the precaution to come at any other time in the week, the stated wednesday excepted, i had inevitably been discovered; but, as no such ill accident befell me, in six months my herculean labours gave me a prospect of success. means were to be found to remove the rubbish from my prison; all of which, in a wall so thick, it was impossible to replace; mortar and stone could not be removed. i therefore took the earth, scattered it about my chamber, and ground it under my feet the whole day, till i had reduced it to dust; this dust i strewed in the aperture of my window, making use of the loosened night-table to stand upon, i tied splinters from my bedstead together, with the ravelled yarn of an old stocking, and to this i affixed a tuft of my hair. i worked a large hole under the middle grating, which could not be seen when standing on the ground, and through this i pushed my dust with the tool i had prepared in the outer window, then, waiting till the wind should happen to rise, during the night i brushed it away, it was blown off, and no appearance remained on the outside. by this simple expedient i rid myself of at least three hundred weight of earth, and thus made room to continue my labours; yet, this being still insufficient, i had recourse to another artifice, which was to knead up the earth in the form of sausages, to resemble the human faeces: these i dried, and when the prisoner came to clean my dungeon, hastily tossed them into the night-table, and thus disencumbered myself of a pound or two more of earth each week. i further made little balls, and, when the sentinel was walking, blew them, through a paper tube, out of the window. into the empty space i put my mortar and stones, and worked on successfully. i cannot, however, describe my difficulties after having penetrated about two feet into the hewn stone. my tools were the irons i had dug out, which fastened may bedstead and night-table. a compassionate soldier also gave me an old iron ramrod and a soldier's sheath knife, which did me excellent service, more especially the latter, as i shall presently more fully show. with these two i cut splinters from my bedstead, which aided me to pick the mortar from the interstices of the stone; yet the labour of penetrating through this seven-feet wall was incredible; the building was ancient, and the mortar occasionally quite petrified, so that the whole stone was obliged to be reduced to dust. after continuing my work unremittingly for six months, i at length approached the accomplishment of my hopes, as i knew by coming to the facing of brick, which now was only between me and the adjoining casemate. meantime i found opportunity to speak to some of the sentinels, among whom was an old grenadier called gelfhardt, whom i here name because he displayed qualities of the greatest and most noble kind. from him i learned the precise situation of my prison, and every circumstance that might best conduce to my escape. nothing was wanting but money to buy a boat, and crossing the elbe with gelfhardt, to take refuge in saxony. by gelfhardt's means i became acquainted with a kind-hearted girl, a jewess, and a native of dessau, esther heymannin by name, and whose father had been ten years in prison. this good, compassionate maiden, whom i had never seen, won over two other grenadiers, who gave her an opportunity of speaking to me every time they stood sentinel. by tying my splinters together, i made a stick long enough to reach beyond the palisades that were before my window, and thus obtained paper, another knife, and a file. i now wrote to my sister, the wife of the before-mentioned only son of general waldow; described my awful situation, and entreated her to remit three hundred rix-dollars to the jewess, hoping, by this means, i might escape from my prison. i then wrote another affecting letter to count puebla, the austrian ambassador at berlin, in which was enclosed a draft for a thousand florins on my effects at vienna, desiring him to remit these to the jewess, having promised her that sum as a reward for her fidelity. she was to bring the three hundred rix-dollars my sister should send to me, and take measures with the grenadiers to facilitate my flight, which nothing seemed able to prevent, i having the power either to break into the casemate or, aided by the grenadiers and the jewess' to cut the locks from the doors and that way escape from my dungeon. the letters were open, i being obliged to roll them round the stick to convey them to esther. the faithful girl diligently proceeded to berlin, where she arrived safe, and immediately spoke to count puebla. the count gave her the kindest reception, received the letter, with the letter of exchange, and bade her go and speak to weingarten, the secretary of the embassy, and act entirely as he should direct. she was received by weingarten in the most friendly manner, who, by his questions, drew from her the whole secret, and our intended plan of flight, aided by the two grenadiers, and also that she had a letter for my sister, which she must carry to hammer, near custrin. he asked to see this letter; read it, told her to proceed on her journey, gave her two ducats to bear her expenses, ordered her to come to him on her return, said that during this interval he would endeavour to obtain her the thousand florins for my draft, and would then give her further instructions. esther cheerfully departed for hammer, where my sister, then a widow, and no longer, as in , in dread of her husband, joyful to hear i was still living, immediately gave her three hundred rix-dollars, exhorting her to exert every possible means to obtain my deliverance. esther hastened back with the letter from my sister to berlin, and told all that passed to weingarten, who read the letter, and inquired the names of the two grenadiers. he told her the thousand florins from vienna were not yet come, but gave her twelve ducats; bade her hasten back to magdeburg, to carry me all this good news, and then return to berlin, where he would pay her the thousand florins. esther came to magdeburg, went immediately to the citadel, and, most luckily, met the wife of one of the grenadiers, who told her that her husband and his comrade had been taken and put in irons the day before. esther had quickness of perception, and suspected we had been betrayed; she therefore instantly again began her travels, and happily came safe to dessau. here i must interrupt my narrative, that i may explain this infernal enigma to my readers, an account of which i received after i had obtained my freedom, and still possess, in the handwriting of this jewess. weingarten, as was afterwards discovered, was a traitor, and too much trusted by count puebla, he being a spy in the pay of prussia, and one who had revealed, in the court of berlin, not only the secrets of the imperial embassy, but also the whole plan of the projected war. for this reason he afterwards, when war broke out, remained at berlin in the prussian service. his reason for betraying me was that he might secure the thousand florins which i had drawn for on vienna; for the receipt of the th of may, , attests that the sum was paid, by the administrators of my effects, to count puebla, and has since been brought to account; nor can i believe that weingarten did not appropriate this sum to himself, since i cannot be persuaded the ambassador would commit such an action, although the receipt is in his handwriting, as may easily be demonstrated, it being now in my possession. thus did weingarten, that he might detain a thousand florins with impunity, bring new evils upon me and upon my sister, which occasioned her premature death; caused one grenadier to run the gauntlet three successive days, and another to be hung. esther alone escaped, and since gave me an elucidation of the whole affair. the report at magdeburg was, that a jewess had obtained money from my sister and bribed two grenadiers, and that one of these had trusted and been betrayed by his comrade. indeed, what other story could be told at magdeburg, or how could it be known i had been betrayed to the prussian ministry by the imperial secretary? the truth, however, is as i have stated: my account-book exists, and the jewess is still alive. her poor imprisoned father was punished with more than a hundred blows to make him declare whether his daughter had entrusted him with the plot, or if he knew whither she was fled, and miserably died in fetters. such was the mischief occasioned by a rascal! and who might be blamed but the imprudent count puebla? in the year , this said jewess demanded of me a thousand florins; and i wrote to count puebla, that, having his receipt for the sum, which never had been repaid, i begged it might be restored. he received my agent with rudeness, returned no answer, and seemed to trouble himself little concerning my loss. whether the heirs of the count be, or be not, indebted to me these thousand florins and the interest, i leave the world to determine. thrice have i been betrayed at vienna and sold to berlin, like joseph to the egyptians. my history proves the origin of my persuasion that residents, envoys, and ambassadors must be men of known worth and honesty, and not the vilest of rascals and miscreants. but, alas! the effects and money they have robbed me of have never been restored; and for the miseries they have brought upon me, they could not be recompensed by the wealth of any or all the monarchs on earth. estates they may, but truth they cannot confiscate; and of the villainy of abramson and weingarten i have documents and proofs that no court of justice could disannul. stop, reader, if thou hast a heart, and in that heart compassion for the unfortunate! stop and imagine what my sensations are while i remember and recount a part only of the injustice that has been done me, a part only of the tyranny i have endured! by this last act of treachery of weingarten was i held in chains, the most horrible, for nine succeeding years! by him was an innocent man brought to the gallows! by him, too, my sister, my beloved, my unfortunate sister, was obliged to build a dungeon at her own expense! besides being amerced in a fine, the extent of which i never could learn. her goods were plundered, her estates made a desert, her children fell into extreme poverty, and she herself expired in her thirty-third year, the victim of cruelty, persecution, her brother's misfortunes, and the treachery of the imperial embassy! footnotes: { } a common expression with frederic when he was angry, and which has since become proverbial among the prussian and other german officers. see critical _review_, _april_, . { } the same doo who was governor of glatz during the seven years' war, and who, having been surprised by general laudohu, was made prisoner, which occasioned the loss of glatz. the king broke him with infamy, and banished him with contempt. in he came to vienna, where i gave him alms. he was, by birth, an italian, a selfish, wicked man; and, while major under the government of fouquet, at glatz, brought many people to misery. he was the creature of fouquet, without birth or merit; crafty, malignant, but handsome, and, having debauched his patron's daughter, afterwards married her; whence at first his good, and at length his ill fortune. he wanted knowledge to defend a fortress against the enemy, and his covetousness rendered him easy to corrupt. { } the german mile contains from four to seven english miles, and this variation appears to depend on the ignorance of the people and on the roads being in some places but little frequented. it seems probable the baron and his friend might travel about english miles.--translator. produced from images generously made available by the kentuckiana digital library) autobiography of frank g. allen, minister of the gospel and selections from his writings edited by robert graham _president of the college of the bible, lexington, ky._ cincinnati guide printing & publishing co. copyright, , by the guide printing & publishing co. dedication. to all who love the old paths, this volume, in memory of one who found them and walked therein, is respectfully inscribed, by the editor. preface. by prescription, which often has the force of law, a book should have both a _preface_ and an _introduction_: the first relating to the writer; the second to the things written. i may well dispense with the latter, for what is here written the humblest capacity can understand; and it would be cruel to detain him long on the porch who is anxious to enter the building. but, dear reader, a word with you (for that is the meaning of "preface") before you begin this unpretentious little book, the joint production of an author, an editor, and a publisher. it is due the first, to say that he wrote what is here called his autobiography in great physical weakness, and without expecting that it would appear in this form. this will account for its homely garb, and apologize for it, if apology be necessary. frank allen had no time to spend upon mere style in anything he wrote. he aimed at clearness and force of expression, and reached these in a remarkable degree in his latter days. if any one, therefore, should take up this volume expecting to find literary entertainment, he will have the search for his pains; but if he seeks for what is far better, the secret of a life devoted to god and goodness, told in plain, unvarnished english, he will not be disappointed. when i received from the gifted author the record of his "travel's history," i intended to write his life, but death came and found us, not him, unprepared; and so, under the constraint of other and pressing duties, my purpose was reluctantly abandoned. besides, upon examination it was found that with a few changes and additions here and there, these memoranda, as they came from the hand of their author, could, under the circumstances, appear in that form and do him no discredit. such is my admiration of this noble man, and such my deference to what i am sure must be the desire of his friends, that i have preferred to let _him_ tell in simple phrase the strange story of his struggles and triumphs; and if its perusal should give the reader half the pleasure it has been to me to prepare it for the press, i shall not have labored in vain. the book is intended to be a _memorial volume_, and especially one to encourage young men who, under adverse circumstances, are striving to qualify themselves to preach the gospel. bro. allen was always in warm and loving sympathy with these--so much so, that he was rightly called the young preacher's friend. it is a pleasure to say that such is the veneration of the publishers, the guide printing and publishing company, for the memory of our deceased brother, that but for them this tribute would hardly have appeared. with a generosity as rare as it is praiseworthy, they have undertaken to publish the work in the best style of their art, at a low price, and without any pecuniary risk to sister allen; and, indeed, in all their transactions with her they have given abundant proof that men can carry into business the benevolent spirit of pure and undefiled religion. it only remains to be said that whatever profits arise from the sale of this book go to the wife and children of its lamented author, and that should sufficient encouragement be given, a companion volume containing the letters and miscellaneous productions of bro. allen may in due time be issued. the editor. lexington, ky., may, . contents. page. part i.--autobiography. chapter i. birth and ancestors. family circumstances. "fist and skull" entertainment. removal to ohio and return. fight with his mother. gets lost. his father buys a farm. the "improvements." plenty of hard work. his opinion of work and of play. chapter ii. his first school. the school-house. the teacher. the order of reciting. spelling matches. first sweetheart. extremes in likes and dislikes. fondness for study. improvement in schools. chapter iii. his religious experience. tries to be a methodist. hopes to become a preacher. boy preaching. attends a sunday-school. "chaws" tobacco. goes to love feast. mourners' bench experience. is puzzled and disgusted. chapter iv. fun and mischief. his little cousin and the "gnats." the aurora borealis. a bumble-bee scrape. another bee scrape. justification by faith alone. readiness to fight. love of justice. no surrender. chapter v. given to abstraction of thought. cases in point. opinion of debating societies. perseverance. consumption. endurance. more comfortable home. death of his father. love of fashionable amusements. meets his future wife. is married. tribute to his wife. her father and mother. chapter vi. goes to housekeeping. discussions with mr. maddox. attends meeting. is baptized by william tharp. double damages for an old horse. begins trading. moves to floydsburg. description of the place. chapter vii. tries to become a politician. fails. last act as a politician. tries to join the southern army. fails again. his first appointment. feeling of responsibility. his plan. text. analysis of sermon. buys a family bible. rules of life. chapter viii. resolves to go to college. friends oppose. wife decides it. hard living and hard work. impaired health. preaches for his home church. father-in-law dies. "frank, be a true man." house robbed. "scraps." college incidents. first pay for preaching. holds several meetings. dishonest preacher. chapter ix. leaves college. goes to alexandria, ky. an adventure in ohio. a baby _not_ baptized. peril in crossing the river. opens his school. makes some money. buys a nice home. chapter x. narrow escapes. is thrown from a horse. has pneumonia. nearly killed. self-possession. almost drowned. eludes angry soldiers. reflections. chapter xi. he abandons the school-room. remarkable meeting near alexandria. incidents. establishes a church. mischief-making preachers. long and severe attack of typhoid fever. does not lose hope. gratitude. chapter xii. sells out at alexandria. moves to crittenden. preaches there and at williamstown. low state of these churches. plan of work. memorizing in sunday-school. lack of church discipline. one-man system. moves to new liberty. visits mount byrd chapter xiii. history of the mt. byrd church. when established. where. charter members. officers. preachers. number of members. three things contributing to its prosperity. new house of worship. serious trouble in the church. how settled. method of raising money. the church builds allen a house. organizes a sunday-school. how it is conducted chapter xiv. he moves to mt. byrd. debate with j. w. fitch. preaches at madison, ind. protracted meetings at columbia, burksville, thompson's church, dover, germantown, pleasant hill, burksville again, beech grove, dover again chapter xv. begins preaching at beech grove. debates with elder hiner. amusing incident. holds many meetings. debates with elder frogge. debates again with elder hiner. repudiates miller's book. sick again. holds more meetings chapter xvi. continues to evangelize. dr. cook's prescription. incident at glendale. peculiar feature in the meeting at madisonville. the fractious preacher at sonora. closes his evangelistic labors. establishes the _old path guide_. the bruner debate chapter xvii. visits midway. attends the missouri state convention. reflections. annual sermons. last protracted meeting. kindness of mt. byrd, glendale and smithfield churches. gives up office work. goes to eureka, ill. country home. takes cold at the lexington convention. goes to florida chapter xviii. organizes a church at deland. health improves. relapses. starts home. resignation. sells his interest in the _guide_. begins writing again. attends two conventions. goes to texas. at home again. works on. chapter xix. reflections on his fiftieth birthday. what a wonderful being is man! governed, not by instinct, but by reason. man lives by deeds, not years. how to grow old. half of life spent in satan's service. renewed consecration. last three birthdays. his trust in god. chapter xx. conclusion, by the editor. tokens of love from many. keeps writing. controversy with the _standard_. last meeting with his mother. visited by professors mcgarvey and graham. commits his writings to the latter. visits eminence and lexington. many brethren come to see him. meeting at mt. byrd. estimate of his character. the closing scenes. farewell to his family. dies. funeral services. part ii.--addresses. i.--culture and christianity: their relation and necessity. ii.--self-culture. iii.--plus ultra _vs._ ne plus ultra. part iii.--selections. new testament views of christ. i.--christ the lamb of god. ii.--christ the bread of life. iii.--christ the water of life. iv.--christ the son of god. v.--christ the son of man vi.--christ the great teacher vii.--christ the deliverer viii.--christ the great physician ix.--christ our mediator x.--christ our mediator (continued) xi.--christ our high priest xii.--christ our righteousness part i.--autobiography. chapter i. birth and ancestors. family circumstances. "fist and skull" entertainment. removal to ohio and return. fight with his mother. gets lost. his father buys a farm. the "improvements." plenty of hard work. his opinion of work and of play. i was born near la grange, oldham county, ky., march , . my father, francis myers allen, was born in brown county, ohio, december , . he was the son of thomas allen, who, in , when my father was only five years old, moved from brown county, o., to shelby county, ky., and lived on little bullskin, a few miles west of shelbyville. my mother, sarah a. gibbs, was a daughter of james l. gibbs and mary ashby, and was born in loudoun county, va., april , . the family moved from virginia to kentucky in , and lived in shelbyville. my grandparents on both sides reared large families of industrious, thrifty children, and both grandfathers lived to be quite aged, my mother's father living to be nearly one hundred years old. my parents were married near simpsonville, in shelby county, april , , and to them were born thirteen children--five boys and eight girls--ten of whom lived to be grown. i was the fifth child--two boys and two girls being older. the oldest child, a boy, died in infancy. being poor, both parents and children had to work hard and use strict economy to make ends meet. we all knew much of the toils and hardships of life, little of its luxuries. both parents were blessed with good constitutions, and had fine native intellects, but they were uneducated save in the mere rudiments of the common school. they thought that "to read, write and cipher" as far as the single rule of three, was all the learning one needed for this life, unless he was going to teach. if my father's mind had been trained, it would have been one of vast power. he was philosophical, a good reasoner, and possessed of unusual discrimination. he had also great coolness and self-possession in emergencies. in illustration of the latter statement, there recurs an incident in my father's life that will bear recital. in those old-fashioned days of "fist and skull" entertainments on public occasions, it was common for each county to have its bully. oldham at different times had several--men of great muscular build and power, whose chief idea of fame was that they could "whip anything in the county." my father was a small man, weighing only one hundred and thirty pounds, and of a peaceable disposition. indeed, it was hard to provoke him to pugilistic measures. but circumstances caused one of these bullies to force a fight upon him at la grange, in which the man was whipped so quickly and so badly that no one knew how it was done. the man himself accounted for it on the ground that "mr. allen came at me smiling." this caused one or two others, at different times, to seek to immortalize themselves by doing what the first had failed to accomplish; but with the same result. being a farmer, my father was never without occupation, and he always had plenty for his boys to do; hence i knew nothing but hard work on the farm, except a few school days in winter, from the time i could pull a weed out of a hill of corn till i reached my majority. in the fall after i was born my parents moved from the farm near la grange to brown county, o., not far from hamersville. there they remained a year; but my mother being much dissatisfied, they moved to floydsburg, ky., and in the following spring, when i was two years old, returned to the old place where i was born. here the memories of life begin. the incidents of daily life from this time forward are fresh in my memory to-day. here i had my first and last fight with my mother. when i was three years old, my father, one day in june, was plowing corn in a field not far from the house. when he went out, after noon, i wanted to go with him. he took me behind him on the horse to the field. when we got there i wanted to come back. he brought me back. i then wanted to go to the field. he took me to the field. i then wanted to come back. he brought me back. i then wanted to go to the field, but he left me, telling my mother to take me in charge. because she attempted to control me i began fighting her. she whipped me with a small switch, and i fought till i fell. being completely exhausted, i begged my oldest sister to fight for me, and when she refused and i had recovered a little, i got up and went at it again. but when i fell the second time, i lay till they took me and put me to bed, and there i remained several days. though i did not surrender, i never afterwards felt disposed to renew the engagement. it was almost death to my mother, for she did not chastise me in anger; her firmness, however, saved me. in the spring of we moved to a farm some two miles south of la grange, on the road leading from that place to ballardsville. here we lived one year. only one event worth naming occurred while we lived here. my mother took myself, an older sister, and a younger brother to visit a sister she had living in la grange. it was a beautiful summer day, the roads were good, and we walked. my mother stopped at the house of a neighbor on the road side for a few minutes, and told us to go on, and be sure not to leave the road. with childish perversity we thought the green fields better than the dusty road, and were soon into them. it was not long till we were completely lost, and naturally wandered the wrong way, not thinking to observe the sun and consider our course. so, when we did not put in an appearance, the whole neighborhood was aroused, and several hours of excitement followed before we were found. my sister bettie, two years my senior, was captain of this expedition. in the spring of my father bought a farm of one hundred and twenty acres, lying about three miles southwest from la grange. most of the land was poor, and the "improvements" equally so. the house was a hewed log cabin about Ã� feet, with clap-board roof held down by weight poles, and the walls "chinked" with mud. it had a large fire-place at one end, and a chimney made of slats and mortar, familiarly known as a "stick" chimney. the only window was paneless, with a solid shutter hung on leather hinges, propped up with a stick, except when it was wanted down. the floors above and below, were of broad lumber, and laid loose. the door, when closed, was fastened with a big pin. a narrow porch ran along the front, connecting with another at one end of the house, between it and the kitchen. this was large and of the same style of architecture as the house, but what that style was would puzzle any one to tell. these two rooms and porches, with the smoke-house and hen-house, constituted the "improvements" in that line. the out-buildings were stables and a crib, of round logs. the fences were all of rails, and inferior in kind. "bars" and "slip-gaps" supplied the place of gates in some places, and in others the fences had to be often pulled down for lack of such conveniences. a fine spring gushed from the foot of a hill, one hundred yards in front of this humble abode. the location of dwellings, in that age and country, was determined almost exclusively by springs. every other consideration yielded to this. here we took up our abode in a home of our own in the spring of , as above stated. the farm was afterwards enlarged by other purchases, and the original still remains in the family. the poverty of the soil, its tendency to produce briars, its large amount of heavy timber, with the clearing necessary to be done, made it a place specially favorable for the cultivation of industry. my father was one of those men who never ran short of work; he always had plenty of it for himself and the whole family. recreation was almost unknown, and we had hardly rest enough to secure good health. we were not of those who had to resort to base-ball and foot-ball for exercise; it was ours to combine pleasure with profit, only the profit was more than the pleasure. there is no doubt that employment contributes to health of both body and mind. good blood, good thought and good morals are born of industry, provided it be not pushed to the extreme of exhaustion. children and young people must have relaxation from toil, that both the physical and mental powers may recuperate; but not much attention was paid to this beneficent philosophy in my father's family. had there been, it might have been better for at least some of his children in after years. there is a golden mean in this, as in other things, which parents sometimes miss in their blind adhesion to a false theory. rest and labor are both appointments of god's benevolence. chapter ii. his first school. the school-house. the teacher. the order of reciting. spelling matches. first sweetheart. extremes in likes and dislikes. fondness for study. improvement in schools. at the age of about seven i attended my first school. the house was on my father's farm, a half a mile from our dwelling. it was constructed of round logs, and had _five_ corners--the fifth was formed at one end by having shorter logs laid from the corners at an obtuse angle, like the corner of a rail fence, and meeting in the middle. it was built up thus to the square, then the logs went straight across, forming the end for the roof to rest on; consequently this fifth corner was open, and this was the fire-place. stones laid with mud mortar were built in this corner, extending several feet each way, and wood nearly as long as the breadth of the house would be filled in. the seats were split logs smoothed on the flat side, and supported on legs put in with an auger. from these the feet of the children dangled early and late. there was no support for the back. the house had a dirt floor and a clap-board roof. light was let in by cutting away part of two logs in the end. a wide puncheon was fastened just below this for the writers, with a seat to correspond. during winter they pasted paper over these openings, and light for the rest of the school came down the chimney. the first teacher we had was an old man by the name of ballou. he lived on our place, not far from the school-house, and taught for several years. he was very poor, did poor teaching, and got poor pay. he was master of only reading, writing and ciphering. there were no classes in the school, and each one went it independently, studying what suited his taste and ability. some read in the testament, and others in any book they happened to have. in those days the rule was that those who got to school first "said first"--that is, they recited in the order in which they got to the house. this would sometimes get up a great rivalry, and i have known young men living two miles away to be at school before daylight. the whole day, except an hour at noon, was spent in saying lessons. the old teacher sat in his chair, and the pupils went to him one by one, in the order in which they got to the house, and said their lessons. when they got around, the same process was repeated. sometimes between turns the old man would take a little nap, and then we all would have some fun. one more bold than the rest would tickle his bald head or his nose, and to see him scratching would afford us much amusement. each friday afternoon was spent in a spelling-match. captains were chosen, and they would "choose up" till the school was divided into two classes. beginning at the head, one of each class would stand up and spell, till one was "turned down;" then another took his place, and so on until all on one side were down. i began at this school in the alphabet, and the second winter i could spell almost every word in webster's old elementary speller. if provided with a sharp knife, and a stick on which to whittle, which the kind old man would allow, i could generally stand most of an afternoon without missing. strange to say, after a few years, when i had given myself to the study of other things, it all went from me, and i have been a poor speller ever since. in this school i had my first sweetheart--a buxom, jolly good girl, about six years my senior. to her i wrote my first love letter, and when it was done its chirography looked as if it had been struck by lightning; and i had to get an old bachelor friend to help me read it. here i am reminded of an early tendency to extremes in my likes and dislikes. i had a race one morning with a girl whom i saw coming to school from an opposite direction, each striving to get into the house first. i clearly went in ahead, but she claimed the race and beat me out of it. from this on i had an extreme dislike for her. the spring to which we all had to go for a drink, was about a hundred yards from the house. the path to it passed through a broken place in a large log that lay across this path. in this i would never walk, nor would i pass through the gap, but would always climb over that big log. these school days were only during winter, after the crop was all gathered in and before spring work began. after i got large enough to help in winter work, my attendance was only "semi-occasional." after a while a better school-house was built, a mile further away, and it was every way more comfortable, save that we had still the backless slab seats. here i went at odd times in winter for several years. i had acquired a great fondness for reading, devouring everything in the way of books i could lay my hands upon. especially i had a great passion for history, biography, geography, natural philosophy, and the like, and i let nothing escape me that the country afforded. i had no money to buy books, and had to depend on borrowing them. i soon went through arithmetic, grammar, and the history of the united states. this was more than my paterfamilias recognized as essential to a practical education, and hence he was not disposed to let me go to school as much as the other children, who gave themselves no concern about books out of school. the idea of one's going through grammar, philosophy, or more than half the arithmetic, "unless he was going to teach," he regarded as a waste of time. his conception of life and mine were so different that there was frequently more or less friction. it was decidedly unpleasant from youth to manhood to be discouraged and opposed in my one absorbing passion for obtaining an education. my mother sympathized with me, but could not help me. the first dollar i ever made i spent for a book, and for this purpose i saved my hard-earned pennies. midnight often found me poring over this book by the light of kindling prepared for the purpose. this was opposed; and thus the struggle went on during my minority. i can not forbear, before closing this short chapter upon my school life, to allude to the great improvement in the matter of common schools since i was a boy. my native state, though sadly behind many of her younger sisters, has made some progress in this direction, and i can but hope this is only an earnest of what is to come. in a few favored localities, chiefly the cities, there is ample provision made for the education of the children of the people, but in the country districts much remains to be done before we are up with the demands of the age in regard to the comfort of the pupils as well as the facilities for the prosecution of their studies. we need more and better school-houses, better furniture, and more attractive surroundings. well qualified and earnest teachers are not yet as thick as blackberries in kentucky. when as much attention is bestowed on these as on jockeys, and on our boys as on our horses, we shall be both richer and better. chapter iii. his religious experience. tries to be a methodist. hopes to become a preacher. boy preaching. attends a sunday-school. "chaws" tobacco. goes to love feast. mourners' bench experience. is puzzled and disgusted. my parents were methodists, as were their ancestors on both sides. my mother was uniformly religious, but not fussy about it. i have seen her intensely happy, but never heard her shout. her religion was a deep, smooth, current without fluctuation. my father was religious more by spells, but still he never went to extremes, and could never "get religion" at the altar, in the methodist fashion. this lifelong failure of his discouraged him, causing him at times to become somewhat skeptical and indifferent. but he died, rejoicing in the faith of christ as held by the methodist church. when about ten years of age i joined the methodist episcopal church, south. a great revival was in progress at la grange, and over one hundred persons united with the church. i enjoyed the services, and continued to do so for a number of years. often in those early times i rode to meeting at surrounding churches and private dwellings on horseback behind my mother. i still remember, as vividly as if it were but yesterday, the texts and treatment of many of the sermons i heard. in later years i have frequently thought of the fallacies the preachers imposed upon us, and, i charitably believe, upon themselves, in these sermons, but which neither we nor they could detect for want of correct scriptural knowledge. the thought that i should one day become a preacher impressed me, and it clung to me for years. when afterwards i grew wild and wicked, this impression possessed me, and many a time, when my good wife would rebuke me for my wickedness, i would say, "never mind, dear; i'll be a preacher yet." i had a high regard for preachers, and from early life was fond of their company; and since i have become one myself, the society of good, faithful men of god brings me as near heaven as i shall ever be in the flesh. it was a common thing with me, when i came home from meeting, to get up one of my own by gathering the children together and preaching to them the sermons i had heard; and while these were not verbally correct, there was in them the substance of what the preachers had delivered. i would sing and pray, and go through the whole performance. i improvised a little pulpit, and had a church after my own notion; i was a great plagiarist, and in this, too, i copied after some others. i attended the first sunday-school i ever heard of; it was conducted by floyd wellman, a gentleman who afterwards became a prominent and honored citizen of louisville. sunday-schools were then poor things, as i fear many of them are yet. little question-books, with the answers supplied, and reading-books, mostly about angelic boys and girls who died of early piety, furnished the staple of our reading, while but little of the scriptures was taught, or thought about. to chew tobacco seemed to me to be manly; so to let the people see i was thus far developed, i prepared me a rough twist of "long green;" this i stuck in my pantaloons pocket, for the occasion, and when everything was propitious in the sunday-school, i drew out the twist and bit off a "chaw." it raised quite a laugh, in which the superintendent himself joined; and this ended for life my chewing tobacco to be seen of men. i often went with my parents to "love feast." at the first of these which i attended i had an experience of my own. the light-bread was cut into slips about two inches long and a half an inch wide and thick. some of these were then divided into small pieces. on the plate which was passed around were two long pieces, and i concluded that if there was any virtue in the thing it would be enhanced by my taking a long one; but when i discovered that all the rest had taken but a bite my philosophy failed, and i hid the remainder where rachel hid the gods of her father laban. when about fifteen years of age the methodists had a big revival at mount tabor, a neighboring country church. in this meeting a great many of my friends and companions were "getting religion" at the altar of prayer. i became intensely desirous of the same blessing, and in great anxiety and hopefulness i went to the altar. day after day did i go, but only to be disappointed. every time some would "get through," and there would be great rejoicing, till only one young man and myself were left. the whole power of the church was then concentrated on us, but to no purpose. in this extremity i began to reason about it as i had not done before. i had been taught that "god was no respecter of persons; but that in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." my soul ever recoiled from the idea of his decreeing some men to salvation and others to damnation, irrespective of their own will and conduct. here, now, i was as helpless as a stone till god should do this work of grace for me. why would he send down the holy spirit and convert one on my right, another on my left, till the "bench" was vacant, and not convert me? the preachers were praying for him to do it; my father and mother were praying earnestly for it; the whole church were pleading with him, and yet he would not do it. i knew i was a sinner; that i wanted salvation; that i was sincere, earnest as the others could be: but all this availed nothing. the preachers tried to explain the failure on the ground that i was still clinging to the world and my own righteousness; that i had not given my heart wholly to god, etc. this i knew to be false. i concluded that if a poor, penitent, agonizing sinner with all his prayers and pleadings, with the whole church earnestly coöperating, could not induce god to save him, he might just as well be decreed to damnation from all eternity. with these reflections i left the mourners' bench in disgust, and ever since i have had for it an inexpressible contempt. time and observation have confirmed me in this feeling; and while i cherish a sincere respect for those who in ignorance think it is a divine arrangement, and that in resorting to it they are obeying a command of god, i have none for those who, knowing better, still use it as a means of conversion. as often employed by professional evangelists, there is so much of clap-trap that it must bring the whole subject of religion into contempt with sensible people. it is amazing to me that, in view of its entire lack of scripture precept or example, the light and knowledge of this day, and its frequent failures, it, and the whole system of which it is an essential part, are not laid aside. having been taught that methodism and christianity were identical, and having completely lost faith in the former, it was natural enough that i should become skeptical as to the latter. only a lingering suspicion that after all they might be different, saved me from hopeless infidelity; and had i not in after years learned such to be the case, i should have lived and died in rebellion against god. chapter iv. fun and mischief. his little cousin and the "gnats." the aurora borealis. a bumble-bee scrape. another bee scrape. justification by faith alone. readiness to fight. love of justice. no surrender. when a boy, i was as full of fun and mischief as an egg is of meat, and i have never got rid of it. with a younger brother and a neighbor boy of my own age, equally mischievous with myself, there was hardly a thing in the way of fun and frolic that we were not continually into. hunting rabbits was our chief sport, and, when we got larger, coons, 'possums and the like at night. there was not a tree of any peculiarity, or a hole in the ground, for miles around, that we did not know all about. we knew, also, every fruit tree, from the apple to the black-haw or persimmon in the same territory, and the time they were ready for company; and we never failed to pay our respects to them all in due time. i would not mention many of the bad things of my early life; but that is the way the bible does with its heroes, and the bible is always a safe guide to follow. about all the money we made in our boyhood days was from the sale of nuts and the flesh and skins of the animals we caught during the fall and winter. this was my way of getting books, maps, etc., to help me in my studies. i was the recognized leader in all the mischief we did, and many prophecies were made that i should one day be hanged, and in this anticipation my father fully shared. my younger brother and i were constantly playing practical jokes on each other, and often upon others. we never became offended, though the pranks were sometimes exceedingly rough; but we were always watching an opportunity to "get even." i will relate a few as samples, while others are too bad to tell. on one occasion some cousins and their children visited us from shelby county. they were considered quite wealthy for that time. their little boy was dressed in very fine clothes, at least, in our estimation, and we concluded he was putting on airs. we thought we would do him a valuable service by taking him down a little, so we asked him if he had ever seen a singular kind of gnat, which we described. he had not. we proposed to show him a fine lot--a big nest of them. we affirmed that they were nice, harmless things to play with. so we went forth to see the gnats. we got him to the nest and stirred them up, and in a few minutes the innocent, unsuspecting boy was covered with yellow jackets. of course, he ran to the house screaming, and they had a time in getting them off of him. he was badly stung, but we made it appear that we had gone down there to fight them, which was a favorite pastime with us, and that he got too near the nest. thus we escaped a well-merited whipping. about the same time in life my younger brother and i caught a rabbit and dressed it for breakfast. it was saturday afternoon, and father and mother had gone to her father's, some six miles away, to stay till the next evening. that night the aurora borealis was unusually bright, and as the excitement of millerism had not died away, there was much talk of the world's coming to an end. my oldest sister, mary, was getting supper ready and was greatly alarmed. she would go out and watch the sky, and then go back to see about the supper. finally i said, "mary, do you really think the world will come to an end before morning?" "i do believe it will," said she. "then," said i, "_we must have the rabbit for supper_." i had no notion of losing my rabbit by such a trifling circumstance as that. later in life, when old enough to work in the harvest field, we had a neighbor who was very "close," and we never had any fancy for him. he was always boasting of his ability to work with bees. one year he had a large harvest, and many hands employed, and we were helping him. one day we told him we had found a fine bee tree which could be cut down in a few minutes, and that if he would go and take the honey he might have it all except what we could eat. he was delighted with the proposal, so after supper a number of us started for the bee tree, a mile and a half from his house, in a dense forest. he had several buckets prepared to secure a large amount of honey. when we began to chop, the bees began to roar, and our friend was frantic with delight. soon the tree fell, and he "waded in" with his axe and buckets to get the luscious spoil. as he went in we went out, and soon he discovered himself in a big bumble-bees' nest alone with all his buckets, etc., a mile and a half from home! we saw no more of him that night, and did not care to meet him next day. this reminds me of another bee scrape, in which my father figured largely. he prided himself on being able to handle bees as so many flies. on a cool, drizzly day we cut a bee tree on the farm. i was wearing a brown jeans sack coat. this i laid aside while chopping. when the tree fell the bees swarmed forth in great numbers, and my father stalked in with his axe, chipping and cutting the limbs, preparatory to chopping for the honey, and was as indifferent as if surrounded only by gnats. we stood at a safe distance. soon he came out with a trifle less indifference than he went in with, picking the bees out of his hair with both hands. they had literally settled on his head and were stinging him furiously. he came running to us to fight them off. i grabbed up my coat, and with both hands struck him over the head. a large jack knife, very heavy, was in one of the pockets, and this struck him on the opposite side of the head and came near felling him to the ground. we fought the bees off the best we could, but he was terribly stung. this was the last of his working with bees as with flies. my father was a firm believer in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. all those passages of scripture that connect justification or salvation with faith, without mentioning anything else as a condition, he had at his tongue's end. his argument was, whatever may be mentioned elsewhere, here salvation is promised on the condition of faith, and nothing else is in the text. with all this i had become perfectly familiar, and always had a suspicion that there was a fallacy in it some where, though i could not exactly expose it. we were clearing a piece of new ground in april, about the time the spring fever sets in, and my younger brother and i always "had it bad." it was a monday morning, and father was going to la grange to attend court. at breakfast he gave us very particular instructions about our work--what to do and how to do it--and a feature emphasized was that we were to keep at it. it was getting quite dry, and when he had started to town he hallooed back and said, "boys, i want you to watch the fire to-day and not let it get out." "all right," we responded. his two directions, perhaps not an hour apart, reminded me of his theology, and i resolved at once to test its validity when weighed in his own scales. so we went out to the clearing, lay down under the shade of a tree, and "watched the fire" all day! having returned, he asked us how we had got along. we replied, "finely," that we had done what he told us; but when he came to "view the landscape o'er," we had to give an account for the deeds done in the body, or, rather, not done. i told him that his specific instruction was to watch the fire. "but," said he, "i told you before that, that you were to do the work." "yes," i replied, "but the last time you said anything about it you did not allude to the work; but only to watch the fire. there was no work in the text." however, he was by no means disposed to look upon that as favorably as upon justification by faith only, which rests on the same principle. still it opened his eyes to a fallacy in his argument that he had not seen before. i generally lived in peace and good will with all the boys in the neighborhood, but a few times in my life feeling imposed on, or that some one else was, i got into fights, and always with those older and stronger than myself. i had learned something of the secret of success in that line from what i had heard said of my father. this often gave me a victory quite unlooked for. i would fight the best friend i had in the world if he imposed on one unable to cope with him. i had a companion much stronger than i, and inclined to be overbearing. on one occasion, at a corn husking, he tried to force a fight on a boy smaller than himself. when i saw he was quite determined about it, while the other boy was trying to avoid it, i said, "jim, you and i are good friends. i have nothing against you in the world. i like you, but you can't fight that boy. if you fight any body you will have to fight me. i don't want any quarrel with you, nor do i want to hurt you, but if nothing but a fight will do you, that's just the way it has to be done." when he saw i was in earnest, the matter was dropped, and our friendship continued. i was severely tried on one occasion. my older brother had a falling out with a neighbor, and we three were alone in the woods. i had a dislike for the man, as much as my brother had. he was boastful, bigoted and disagreeable. but in this particular case i saw clearly that my brother was in the wrong, i felt compelled, therefore, to take sides with the other man. at this my brother was deeply offended, and it took him a long time to get over it. he did not see his wrong, and thought my conduct very strange and unnatural, especially as i did not like the man. i deplored this, but could not yield the principle of holding justice superior to persons. one of my difficulties was so peculiar that i will recount it. it was in the winter, and the ground was frozen deep. the day was bright, and on the south hillsides the ground had thawed to the depth of two or three inches. several boys were together, and one of them several years older than i. he was a son of one of our tenants, and entirely too proud for one in his condition. he was imposing on my younger brother, and i gave him to understand he must not do that. with this he turned upon me. we were upon a south hillside, under a large beech tree, and the ground was thawed on top and frozen beneath. about the first pass i slipped on a root concealed in the mud, and fell on my back, with my shoulders wedged between two projecting roots and my head against the tree. i was utterly powerless. after pommeling me a while, he proposed to let me up if i would say "enough." this i declined to do. then he would renew the operation, and then the proposition. the sun was three hours high, no one interfered, and i insisted that they should not. sometimes he would lie upon me and talk for half an hour or more; he would argue the case, remind me of my helplessness, and that it would be death to lie there on the frozen ground till night. then when his advice all failed, he would renew hostilities. thus it continued till sundown. as the sun got low he changed his proposal. he would now let me up if i would promise to make friends, and not fight him. this i also declined. finally, when he saw that nothing would avail, he gave me a few parting salutes, and, springing to his feet, ran away. before i could get up he had such a start that i could not overtake him. for some time i watched for a chance to pay him back, but he kept out of my sight; and soon after his folks moved away, and thus the matter ended. from my infancy it has been my disposition to stick to my convictions till i saw i was in the wrong. i can not say that i am obstinate, though it may have that appearance to others. i never could yield a point for policy's sake, though my adherence to my convictions has cost me a good deal. this led me early in life to be careful in coming to a conclusion, and i have always admired davy crockett's motto, "be sure you're right, and then go ahead." i commend this homemade philosophy to all who may read this chapter. chapter v. given to abstraction of thought. cases in point. opinion of debating societies. perseverance. consumption. endurance. more comfortable home. death of his father. love of fashionable amusements. meets his future wife. is married. tribute to his wife. her father and mother. during early life i was much given to abstraction of thought, and i am still down with the same disease. from morning till night, between the plow-handles or swinging the maul, i was absorbed in reflection. my reading and other studies raised many questions that i sought to find out. natural philosophy and the elements of astronomy were subjects of peculiar delight, and would cause me to become oblivious of all surroundings. this frequently got me into trouble. it vexed my father very much that my mind was not more on my work, and he had but little patience with me. when about the house i would often realize that i had been told to do something, and i would start at once about it, and perchance when i came to myself i would find that i was at the barn or spring, wholly forgetful of what i had been told to do. on one occasion i was told to go to the lot and catch a horse and come to the crib, and my father would put the sack on for me, and i was to go to mill. i went and caught the horse, got on and went, but when i arrived the mill was in ashes; it was just through burning. on my return i saw that my father was not as serene as a may morning. but not till he spoke of it did i discover that i had gone off without the sack. i at once taxed my eloquence to give a glowing account of the fire, and thus divert his attention from my neglect. many a time have i acted ridiculously on account of this absorption of thought. while at eminence college, there was a public exhibition one evening in the chapel. a few minutes before it began i went into the room of prof. henry giltner, just across the hall from the chapel, and here i saw mcgarvey's "commentary on acts" for the first time. i thought i would look into it for a moment before the exercises should begin; and that was the last i thought of the exhibition till some one came into the room just before its close, hunting for me. one more instance of this nature must suffice. about , i was holding a very successful meeting at burksville, on the cumberland river, and while i was preaching one night there came up a terrific thunderstorm, with vivid lightning and hard rain. a young man occupied a front seat who had just been reclaimed from a life of sin, and who is now a preacher. i had a faint recollection of seeing him leave the house. he had become alarmed at the storm and left, but i knew nothing of the confusion till the services closed. every fall and winter we would have debating societies at the school-house, and at these, men of considerable attainments would be present and participate--teachers, preachers, and lawyers. in these i took a deep interest. my reading enabled me to become well posted on most of the questions discussed; and by careful preparation i soon came to be recognized as a good debater for one of my age. these discussions were of great advantage to me, and i am clearly of opinion that debating societies, when properly conducted, can be made useful to aspiring young men. from childhood my under front teeth passed up on the outside, and, when a good sized boy, i concluded that that was not just the right thing, and that i would bring them into their proper place. by an effort in drawing back my under jaw, i could barely get the edges to so pass as to make a pressure of any value. but with this slight purchase the operation was continued from day to day, till the work was accomplished. the teeth became very sore from pressure, and the muscles of the jaw very tired from the unnatural strain, but in about ten days it was all over, and the job complete for life. another case required much greater perseverance. my older brother was very hollow-chested, and died of consumption; several others of the family were afflicted in like manner, and met the same fate. when about sixteen, i had strong tendencies in that direction. my chest was becoming "hollow," and i decided upon an effort to counteract it. to this end i slept on my back with no pillow under my head, and a good-sized one under my chest. i would awake of a morning feeling almost too dignified to bend forward. this i kept up for two years, holding myself erect during the day, till my chest expanded and the threatening trouble was overcome. but for that i should have been in my grave long ago. the simple fact is, i have been fighting consumption since i was sixteen years of age. while i was never robust in health or appearance, i was exceedingly tough, and had great power of endurance. one of my physicians told me long ago that in all his practice he had never seen anything that would compare with it. this enabled me to do as much work as men of much greater strength. in those days reapers were generally unknown in our country, and the grain was all "cradled." at this i was an adept, never meeting any one that could excel me. the same was true of jumping and running foot races. hundreds of men could no doubt beat me, but i never happened to meet them. i kept up these exercises till i left college. when i was about twelve years of age my father built a large and comfortable house on another part of his farm. it was of hewed logs, and a story and a half high, with a large kitchen and dining-room, porches, etc. it was subsequently weather-boarded, and it is still a comfortable, commodious dwelling, owned by my mother, who never left it till her children all married and went to themselves. father died of typhoid fever in , in the fifty-third year of his age. he left my mother in comparatively easy circumstances, with nearly three hundred acres of land, plenty of stock, and a considerable amount of money on interest. by industry and economy on the part of himself and the whole family this property was accumulated, and he died in the assurance that with prudence on our part we could all make a respectable living. my mother now makes her home with her oldest daughter, mary crenshaw, wife of mr. o. b. crenshaw, a few miles north of simpsonville, shelby county, ky. she waits in confident expectation that before long she too will depart to be with christ and his redeemed, where the families of his saints will be reunited for ever. after i grew to be a young man, i became very fond of fashionable amusements; i liked dancing, and went far and near to engage in the fascinating exercise. i gave a great deal of attention to dress; priding myself on being a gentleman; hence i found a welcome in the best society. in those years of wildness and wickedness, some things i was careful to avoid. i never learned to play cards, to gamble, or to tolerate the company of immodest women. for the latter i had an invincible repugnance that grew stronger with my years. in the summer of , while harvesting for her uncle, i first met at the dinner-table miss jennie maddox, the lady whom i afterwards married. i looked as rough and unprepossessing that day as she ever saw me afterwards. i was as brown as a florida "cracker," and my dress was anything but elegant. had i anticipated the forming of such a captivating acquaintance, i should have made some preparation, but i was caught, and i had to make the best of it. we were married september , ; i was twenty years and a half old; she ten months younger. from that time to this she has been a loving, faithful wife, prudent in all things, industrious and frugal, caring for me and her children; and, above all, a consistent disciple of jesus christ, whom she had obeyed several years before our marriage. when we first met i thought her very handsome; she was rather small, had auburn hair, blue eyes and fair skin. "and to-day you are fairer to me, jennie, than when you and i were young." as to myself, i was six feet one inch in height, weighed a hundred and forty pounds, had brown eyes, and was, and am still, of a nervous-bilious temperament. my complexion was then, as now, very dark. my wife's father, g. w. maddox, was an elder in the pleasant hill church, oldham county, ky., near which he lived. the church is about two miles south-east of baird's station, on the louisville & lexington railroad. he was a man of a firm logical mind, good general information, and more intelligent in the scriptures than any man i ever met, outside of the ministry. i have heard several preachers make the same remark. he was, however, a timid man, and it was difficult to get much out of him in public. he began too late in life, and had no training in that direction. but he was a very popular man, both in and out of the church, and his counsel was generally taken. his wife was a timid, unassuming, good woman, very conscientious and religious. they reared a family of six girls and one boy, all of whom obeyed the gospel in good time. i myself baptized several of them. my father-in-law and i soon became very much attached to each other, fond of each other's company, and i loved him as i loved few others. his fine information, philosophic christian spirit and wonderful self-control first won my admiration, and this ripened into the strongest friendship. he, more than all other men, caused me to see the error of my way. we spent the first winter of our married life in his pious home, and this gave us much time for investigation and conversation upon the subject of religion. chapter vi. goes to housekeeping. discussions with mr. maddox. attends meeting. is baptized by william tharp. double damages for an old horse. begins trading. moves to floydsburg. description of the place. in the spring of we moved to a place on currie's fork, near centerfield, about a mile and a half from my former home and a little farther from hers. so it will be seen i married only a few miles from home. it may seem a little strange that we grew up in the same neighborhood, and knew nothing of each other till a year before we were married. but i rarely went to her church, and she as rarely went anywhere else. our religious proclivities led us in different directions, and into different society. i had been taught to look upon "campbellism" as the most miserable of all heresies; and till i began to visit at the maddox house i was seldom in the company of "that deluded people." after moving to ourselves, we went nearly every lord's day to the home of my wife's father, and this for several reasons: she wanted to attend her church, and this took her virtually home: this she enjoyed, and so did i. the old folks could not visit us on that day without missing church, and this they would not do. mr. maddox and i still engaged in the investigation of methodism, "campbellism" and infidelity. i could feel the ground gradually giving way under me, but i was resolved upon thoroughly testing every inch, and not yielding till i should become satisfied as to the truth of all his positions. i would therefore study all week and arrange my arguments with the utmost care, and when the time seemed propitious i would present them as forcibly as i could. he would never say a word till i was through; then he would say, "well! now let us test that." then he would very calmly and pleasantly pick the thing all to pieces, till i could see nothing but shreds. with a mere touch, my carefully built structure would tumble like a cob house. thus the work went on for years. in the meantime i attended meeting with my wife nearly every lord's day, and heard much good preaching. every important point in the sermon would be afterward investigated, and, like the noble bereans, i searched the scriptures daily, "to see whether those things were so." during these years several successful meetings were held at the church, all of which i closely attended. one of these was conducted by john a. brooks, and another by the lamented simeon king. at the latter i came very near yielding to christ, but persuaded myself that all was not yet ready. i delighted to see others obey the lord, and enjoy the blessings of his religion, but i could not exactly see the way clear for myself. in spite of a more enlightened judgment, i would find some of my old erroneous notions clinging to me. i had a high regard for the church, and loved the company of its good members, and only a supreme carefulness, born of former blunders, kept me in disobedience. in may, , william tharp and wallace cox were holding a meeting, and at this i confessed christ, and was immersed by bro. tharp. my doubts as to the truth of the christian religion and the way of salvation therein, had all been removed; and to this day not a shadow of a doubt has crossed my mind as to either. i now experienced a peace of conscience that i had not known since my thought was first disturbed in regard to the right way of the lord. i farmed for three years after marriage. the last year, we lived on the railroad just below buckner's station, and while here i had a little experience with the railroad company that teaches a lesson worth learning. i had an old horse, of not much value, but useful to me; he got out upon the road, and was killed by a passing train. i spoke of going to louisville, to see if i could not get pay for it. the neighbors discouraged the idea, saying it would be useless. they cited a number of instances where stock had been killed, and in no case had any one obtained damages. but i went, found the superintendent, and to him i made my speech of about three minutes' length. at its conclusion, he asked me if seventy-five dollars would satisfy me; and on my replying that it would, he handed me the money. he then remarked that the reason people got nothing in such cases, was because of the spirit in which they came and the way they talked about it. i left him feeling quite pleasant, for it was more than double the animal was worth. this was before i became an adept in christian ethics. in the fall of i began trading, having obtained an interest in a country store at a little place called centerfield. we moved to the place, and i began to haul country produce to louisville. i had a team which was said to be the best that came into the city, and i made weekly trips, bringing back merchandise. this i continued for three years, without the least regard to weather, and with scarcely a failure during the whole time. this employment threw me into rough associations in the city every week. many engaged in like business from kentucky and indiana stopped at the same tavern, and most of them were given to dissipation. at home it was predicted that with my inclination to wildness this would finish me; and while truth compels me to confess that i often had "a jolly good time" with "the boys," the excess of wickedness i saw had an opposite effect, and i came out at last a preacher. the next year we moved to floydsburg, sixteen miles from louisville, because, as i did not stay in the store, but did the hauling back and forth, it was a better location for us. it is an old town, in which my maternal grandfather lived before i was born, in which i spent much time before i was old enough to work, and around which cluster the earliest memories of life. it was once a place of large business, on the main road from henry and adjacent counties to louisville, and in ante-railroad times a large amount of wagoning was done through the place. at certain seasons great droves of cattle and hogs were driven through it, and everything was lively; besides, it had a good trade with the country around. but the louisville & lexington railroad, which runs within a mile of the town, killed it as dead as an egyptian mummy, because all this through business was taken by the railroad, and the surrounding trade went to the stations or to the city. it is, therefore, a quiet, undisturbed little place to live in, if one is not dependent upon making his expenses there. most of the old citizens, business men of its prosperous days, have passed away, and the town has the appearance of being at their funeral. as far back as i recollect, and i know not how much farther, it had in it one church, built of stone, small, and with a roof as sharp as the best presentations of methodism that were ever set forth in it. about , this ancient structure was replaced by one of brick, of good size, but poorly furnished. this is the only church that has ever been in the place; and while the people have been unusually quiet and moral, they have never been burdened with religion. there is a graveyard in the rear of the house, opened, perhaps, when the first building was erected, and in this silent spot sleep many of my friends and relatives. i have never thought it made much difference where one is buried--and in this i suppose i agree with most protestants--but it is one proof of the improved taste of the age to see the care now taken of our cemeteries. such places were unknown when i was a boy and where i lived, and even yet, outside of our cities and larger towns, they are too rare. every village should have a neat and well-kept cemetery, to take the place of the neglected old burying-grounds where, "each in his narrow cell forever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." chapter vii. tries to become a politician. fails. last act as a politician. tries to join the southern army. fails again. his first appointment. feeling of responsibility. his plan. text. analysis of sermon. buys a family bible. rules of life. when i obeyed the saviour, the brethren urged me to begin at once to preach the gospel. i had been accustomed to making political speeches, and public addresses of different kinds, and they thought i could just as easily preach a sermon as to make a speech on any other subject. but i was not thus inclined. i had political aspirations, and was not disposed to give them up. my idea was, that i could have a good influence on public men, in conversation and association, by being a faithful and consistent christian. i regarded this as a field in which the influence of christianity was much needed; and i decided to make this a specialty, while leading a public political life. but it did not take long for me to learn that there was at least a strong probability that the influence would go the other way. however successfully some men may be politicians and christians both, i soon discovered that, with my temperament, the two things would not work harmoniously together. i concluded that if i continued in politics i would be a very sorry kind of christian, if one at all. for a thing of this kind i had a deep repugnance. the issue, then, as it appeared to me, was finally forced upon me: shall i give up politics or christianity? of course i was not compelled to give up christianity in theory, but i felt that i would virtually do so in practice; and with me the difference between the two was hardly worth considering. while i felt that it was a great sacrifice, in a worldly point of view, to give up the golden dreams of a brilliant future, i decided in favor of christ and the bible. i shall never cease to thank god for the decision. my last act in political life was attending, as a delegate, a state convention at frankfort, in august, . this was, in some respects, a miserable affair, and i became thoroughly disgusted with politics and politicians, such as seemed to be pushing to the front, and crowding modesty and decency and honesty out of sight. i decided that that kind of association, that kind of companionship in the profession, that kind of trickery and treachery as food for daily thought, however successful one might be, was disgusting and debasing. i went home from the convention determined upon a clear cut-loose from the whole concern. during the convention, gen. wm. preston remarked in a speech that in one year from that day, "the stars and bars" would be waving from the dome of that capitol. in twelve months to a day, i went to frankfort to see the board of the christian education society, about assisting me in college. the railroad was not in use, and i went by way of the shelbyville pike. when i got in sight of the city, i saw "the stars and bars" waving from the dome of the capitol! gen. kirby smith had possession. when the brethren learned of my determination to give up politics, they renewed their solicitations in regard to my preaching. but i had become intensely concerned about the cause of the southern confederacy, and longed to take a part in what i then considered her struggle for independence and justice. in my misguided zeal, i regarded this a duty that patriotism would not allow me to exchange for anything till it was performed. then, if spared, my life-work should be begun. a peculiar circumstance, greatly lamented at the time, kept me out of the southern army. but i have long regarded it as a special providence of god. i was an officer in a large cavalry company under the training of col. j. w. griffith. he had fought through the mexican war, was an intelligent man, and a good soldier. he also fought through the late war, and was several times promoted. we had been drilling for some weeks, and the time was set for our departure. i had a good deal of unsettled business at louisville, and went to the city to settle it up. during my absence the federal authorities of louisville were apprised, in some way, of the movements and purposes of our men, and two companies of cavalry were sent out to intercept them. our men were notified of this, and went twenty-four hours in advance of the set time. of all this i knew nothing, and when i got home the company was gone. i knew not which way it had taken, for our colonel kept his own counsel. when night came i left home, determined upon an earnest effort to find the trail of the company and follow them. twice i came near being caught by the soldiers in pursuit, and after a night's fruitless search, i was compelled to return disappointed. i had not another opportunity, and ere long i gave up the vain idea. but for that disappointment i should have gone into the southern army; and what the result would have been will remain a secret till the day in which the results of all contingencies are known. but it is highly improbable that i should have ever become a preacher of the gospel of the grace of god. thank him for the providence that overruled me! i finally yielded to the importunities of the brethren, and allowed them to make an appointment. this was in may, , one year after making the confession. the meeting was announced two weeks ahead. it was a fine day, and through curiosity a great crowd assembled. i had never been in the pulpit before, nor made any remarks in the church except to pray. the brethren had a bible-class every lord's day when there was no preaching, and no public speaking was indulged in except a few remarks at the lord's table, by one of the elders. though i was accustomed to speak in public, i felt a responsibility in this matter that i never felt before. i decided upon three things as insuring success, or at least resulting in no harm: . to select a plain, practical subject, on which i would not be likely to indulge in false teaching. . to thoroughly study the _subject_, rather than the _sermon_. . to make myself thoroughly familiar with the analysis of the subject, and then talk about it, without relying upon memory as to language. relying on memory has been the cause of ten thousand failures, and has taken all the "snap" out of ten thousand more, that were considered a success. the intellect never leaps and bounds with vivacity when it is chained by verbal memory. i selected for my text matt. xvi. : "then said jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." i went into the pulpit alone, "introduced," as the saying is, for myself, and then spoke for forty minutes. while i felt embarrassed by a sense of responsibility, there was no confusion of thought in regard to the subject; hence no difficulty in its presentation. as it was my first sermon, the analysis of it may be of some interest. i called attention, first, to the universal offer of salvation: "if _any man_." second, to the freedom of the will: "if any man _will_." third, personal responsibility involved in the foregoing. fourth, self-denial as a condition of eternal life. fifth, the nature and necessity of cross-bearing. sixth, examples of self-denial and cross-bearing on the part of christ and the apostles. the church in which i preached my first sermon was the same in which i made the confession, and near which i was reared. for it i did my first regular monthly preaching, while in college, and in it held a number of successful protracted meetings, one annually, during the early years of my ministry. the old church is dear to me yet; its old members are my devoted friends, and i delight to visit them when providence permits. immediately after obeying the saviour i bought a family bible and a pocket testament; not that we had none before, but they were not such as suited my convenience. at home and abroad, in the city or the country, in the store or on the road, i had my testament. as i drove all day along the highway, i would look at it occasionally to see how a certain passage read, and then study its meaning. i have never read the bible largely, as some do, but i have studied it every day since i knew the way of life, unless i was too sick to have anything in mind. i have studied, doubtless, a hundred times as much without the book in my hands as with it. the idea that one can study the bible only as he has opportunity to sit down with the book in his hands, is a great mistake. hence many people complain of having no time to study the bible, when the fact is they have nearly all their time, if they only knew it. i early learned to study the bible at any time or under any circumstances, and the advantages of this to me have been beyond estimation. as soon as i got my family bible, i wrote on a flyleaf a few simple rules of life. . to study this book carefully and prayerfully every day. . to try to understand its teaching, regardless of the theories and traditions of men. . to make it the man of my counsel, the source and limit of my knowledge of divine things, and to speak on such matters only as it speaks. . to measure myself in everything by this standard, and bring my life, in all respects, in subjection to its divine authority. . to strive to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the truth, that i may become strong in the lord, be a blessing to my fellow men, and at last obtain a home in heaven. these rules, in some respects, have been closely observed; especially the first three. while in the others i have fallen immeasurably short, i feel that, upon the whole, the rules have been of great advantage to me. chapter viii. resolves to go to college. friends oppose. wife decides it. hard living and hard work. impaired health. preaches for his home church. father-in-law dies. "frank, be a true man." house robbed. "scraps." college incidents. first pay for preaching. holds several meetings. dishonest preacher. when i fully decided to devote my life to the ministry of the word, i felt an overwhelming desire for a better education, in order to do the kind of work for the master that his cause demanded. i had a good deal of general information that i had acquired through years of reading and study, but i was wholly ignorant of a number of things that i felt to be necessary to reliable, satisfactory work for the lord. i wanted to devote my life to study, and i needed assistance in laying the foundation on which to build in after years. i decided, therefore, to quit business and go to college. this was vigorously opposed by all my friends. the church insisted that i had education enough, and that all i lacked was practice, to make me as good a preacher as there was need to be. my relatives opposed it, because they could not see the necessity, and it promised to wife and children only starvation. i had had some reverses, and had got just fairly square with the world. the flush war times had just come on. trade was booming, money abundant and prices going up. i was now prepared to make money as i had never made it before, by five to one. to quit business just at that time, cut off all source of revenue, and go with a wife and three children to college, with but little money to start on, did, indeed, in one sense, look like absolute recklessness. indeed, some of the brethren thought i was actually going crazy. it was then argued that i should at least defer it a few years, till i should make some money, which was then easily done, and thus provide for the wants of my family while going through college. this looked very plausible; but i was deeply impressed with the blunders i had already made in trying to be a politician, then a soldier, and not going at once to the work of the lord. i was afraid to dally about the matter any longer. i laid the case before the lord and my wife. i knew she was to be the greatest sufferer by the change, and her counsel weighed more with me than that of all others. considering what _might_ result from delay, the brave little woman said "go." that settled it. in august, , i wound up my business, and prepared to enter eminence college. i rented an old, dilapidated house near the railroad, a mile above town. the place had about three acres for cultivation, and the same amount in grass. i kept a horse and buggy, a cow and several hogs. my wife raised a large number of fowls. i cultivated the ground, making it produce all it would, cut and hauled my fuel from the woods, and so managed as to be at no great expense in living. but when going to a city market every week, and feeling no embarrassment about money, we indulged in a style of living that now had to be discontinued. this went rather hard, but we tried to bear it bravely. the plainest and hardest living of our lives, by far, were those years at eminence. the self-denial of my wife, for my sake and the gospel's, greatly encouraged me to bear the cross. i did double work during the whole time, reciting eight times a day. this required intense application. i allowed myself eight hours for sleep, and the other sixteen were given to study. whether eating, walking, working in the garden or chopping wood, i was boring into the questions of the recitation room. i would occasionally take a little turn with the boys on the playground at noon, but not often. i was fond of it, but felt that i could not spare the time. this was a sad mistake, confirmed by a life of broken-down health. but, like many others, it was not discovered till the mischief was done. a determined effort to crowd four years' work into two, under discouraging circumstances, resulted in impaired health; which continued labor beyond my strength kept impaired for the rest of my life. it is often stated that preachers suffer more from overeating than overwork. this is doubtless true to a large extent. but it was far from true in my case. i was never a large eater after i was grown. and when my health first failed me, want of a variety of good, nourishing food had no little to do with it. and all through subsequent life, a trouble has been to take sufficient food to meet the wants of the system. i was the first married man that ever attended eminence college. it was considered quite a novelty by some. but a few months later, in the same term, bro. briney came in. he and his wife boarded at the college. a few years later bro. george bersot and wife came, and married school-boys got to be quite common. while attending school, i preached once a month for the old church at home--pleasant hill. the distance was twenty miles, with a good dirt road--when it wasn't bad. this afforded my wife an opportunity, during favorable weather, to go to see her parents once a month. and her father was now getting low with consumption. the church promised me no specified amount for my preaching, and, as is frequently the case, most of them considered the contract complied with when they gave me a hearing. they were not in sympathy with my college enterprise, and were not specially concerned about supporting it. in may, , my father-in-law died. in his death i lost one of my best and dearest earthly friends. he was the only one who encouraged me in my efforts for an education. while he could give me no material aid, being himself embarrassed by years of affliction, his wise counsel and deep sympathy helped me even more than money, badly as that was needed. when he was gone, i felt as if the only bright spot in my horizon, apart from my family, had faded into darkness. by nature he had a quick temper, and was very impulsive. by christian culture he came to be a model in gentleness, patience and self-control. he was a wonderful example of how men, by faith, "out of weakness are made strong." as we stood around his bed of death, and his breathing indicated that the end was at hand, he opened his eyes as i was bending over him, looked me earnestly in the face, and composedly said, "frank, be a true man." and with these words his spirit took its flight. no other words that ever fell from mortal lips ever so impressed me as these. the source whence they came, and the circumstances under which they were uttered, gave them peculiar significance. my soul, what is it for one to be a true man--true to his friends and true to his foes; true to his family and to her whose life is dearer to him than his own; true to himself and his better nature in all that involves his honor as a man; true to the truth, under all circumstances; and true to the saviour and his cause, to which he has dedicated his life? ever in after years when tempted in regard to a faithful discharge of its responsibilities, those sacred words came from the sleeping dust of death--"frank, be a true man." though dead, he yet speaks, and his words have been fruitful of good. while attending his death and funeral, our house was broken into, and almost everything we had was stolen. we had laid in meat and lard for the year, and not a pound was left. all the flour, meal, sugar, coffee, preserves, jams, jellies, and everything else, was taken. not a pound of anything to eat was left on the place. all the best cupboard ware, and part of the bedding and my wife's clothing were taken. this was a sorry plight to find ourselves in when we returned from the funeral. the country was full of soldiers, and nothing was done towards recovering the property. thus we started on a darker and rougher road for the rest of college life. during the first year at eminence there grew up a strong rivalry between the two leading college societies--the philomathean and the rising star. both were strong in numbers, and each had in it an unusual amount of talent. i was appointed by the philomathean society to criticise the rising stars. this was my special business. i prepared what i called a scrap-basket. for this i would prepare notes from time to time, as something would suggest them, and on the nights of public exhibition, which were quite frequent, i would read them. these were cuts at the young ladies and criticisms of their performances, as sharp as i could make them. the result was, the whole society soon got too much out of humor to speak to me. they called me "scraps." even sister giltner became offended, and was so for several months, till i was brought down in sickness, and then her good heart conquered, and she came to see me, bringing a load of delicacies to tempt and satisfy my appetite. the "scrap" at which she became offended was about this: coming on the stage, the first scrap i took from the basket read: "we do not expect many compliments for this dish of scraps, especially from the young ladies of the boarding-house, as they are so used to being fed on scraps, it will be no variety to them." sister g. prided herself on her good table. i knew it was good, and hence felt free to make the jocular remark. had it been otherwise, i should have felt some hesitation in doing so. president giltner and i were in frequent conflict, and he came in for a full share of notice from the scrap-basket. while i would not assent to his views of things, which frequently caused disputation, on the whole he was kind and generous, and did much to help me through those hard school years. i have since met many of those young ladies in all parts of the country, mothers of interesting families, but not one of them had ever forgotten that scrap-basket. doctor russell was my teacher in latin and the sciences, and prof. henry giltner in mathematics and greek. the doctor was a fine moralist, but an unbeliever. he was a fine teacher, and very popular with the boys. in the public debates in our society, bro. j. b. briney and i were always pitted against each other. we were the oldest and the nearest equal in our advancement, especially in this line. we had quite a number of public discussions. here, as elsewhere, many went through on the shoulders of others. as an illustration of this, take two young men who were appointed on public debate. soon each came to me insisting that i should write his speech. i refused both. the time was drawing nigh, and neither had done anything. one evening one of them went home with me from school, and compelled me, virtually, to write his speech. he was delighted with it. the next morning, while he was asleep, i got up and wrote a reply, just "tearing it all to flinders." the negative gained the decision, and neither one knows to this day that i wrote the speech of the other. during the winter of - i went to hendronsville, the old church that now composes the one at smithfield, to fill an appointment for bro. giltner. i went to dinner with old bro. hieatt. on leaving, he gave me a dollar--the first dollar i ever received for preaching. in the summer of i held a meeting at hendronsville, with bro. giltner, for which i was liberally paid, all things considered, and this was my first pay for a protracted meeting. the same vacation, i went to south fork, in boone county, to fill an appointment for bro. wm. tandy. bro. jacob hugley was to come on the first of the week, and join me in a protracted meeting. something prevented him from coming. i soon ran out of sermons, the supply on hand being small. in the meantime a fine interest had sprung up, and i had no excuse for quitting. so i had either to face the music, prepare and preach two sermons a day, or ingloriously surrender. the meeting continued two weeks, with some eighteen or twenty additions. during the same trip i held a meeting at a church near walton, at which several additions were made to the congregation. i did but little preaching during the school term. convenient churches could not be obtained, and inconvenient ones took too much of my time to be given for nothing. at eminence i first met bro. i. b. grubbs. he came to preach for a few days, and spent a day at our humble home. i then formed for him a peculiar attachment, which has grown and strengthened with the passing years. our minds ran close together in the channels of divine truth, and they have never materially diverged. a disagreement between us in the interpretation of scripture has been very rare. old bro. t. m. allen preached for the church at eminence while i was there. his sermons were enjoyable, and possessed considerable power, but they lacked logical construction, and i learned but little from them. in a few weeks after going to eminence, in the fall of , we were blessed with the birth of a third daughter, and in the summer of the lord took her to himself, and left us to mourn her absence. in june, , i went with willis and wallace cox to daviess county, to hold some meetings. wallace was not able to preach, but went along for the enjoyment of the trip. he had labored there before, and was well acquainted. we held a meeting at owensboro, and one at a new church some eight miles in the country. both meetings were moderately successful. as an evidence of what some men can do, i shall speak of a meeting held about this time, _without giving place or name_. the meeting had been successful, and a fine interest prevailed. the night it was to close there came a severe storm, and no one was out. we had to leave the next morning, and on the next lord's day the brethren raised considerable money and gave it to the preacher to send to us. some years after, the brother who was with me in the meeting went back there to preach for the church, and while there some one asked him whether he and i received our money all right. this was the first intimation that any money had been sent to us. the case was investigated by the church, and the man confessed he had never sent it. the brother got his, and the thief preacher promised to send mine, but hasn't done it yet. he is still preaching, and on several occasions has come a long way to hear me preach. what kind of a face and heart such a man can have, is a mystery i have never been able to solve! chapter ix. leaves college. goes to alexandria, ky. an adventure in ohio. a baby _not_ baptized. peril in crossing the river. opens his school. makes some money. buys a nice home. having obtained a sufficient knowledge of latin, greek, and various sciences, to enable me to prosecute my education without a teacher, and my health being bad through close application and hard living, and feeling that i ought not to subject my family to such hardships any longer, i determined, very reluctantly, to leave college, at least for a time. i had now been at eminence two years, and i shall ever thank god that even for this short time i was able to gratify my burning desire to acquire knowledge. it was at a great sacrifice we went there and remained as long as we did, but we have never once regretted it. through the influence of president giltner, we secured the high school at alexandria, campbell county, ky. this had been conducted for some years previously by bros. o. a. and chester bartholomew, under the name of the "mammoth institute." i visited the place, and arranged to conduct the school and preach for the church there, which was small and financially weak; but there was no other in reach. so i could not do better than to give them all my time, at whatever could be raised in the way of salary. they had a nice little brick house, and a number of good members, and for several years the church prospered; but the county filled up with germans, some of the best members moved away, and the cause went down. the house was sold, and to-day we have no church in the place. after completing arrangements to preach and teach, i went over to hamersville, brown county, o., to see some relatives. a brother and sister of my father lived there, besides other relatives. my uncle had a large family. i had never visited any of them, and now being near and having a little time, i borrowed a horse and rode over. i sent an appointment for lord's day at hamersville, and got there about the middle of the week. i found that an appointment had not been made for sunday morning, but for night. the reason was, the methodists were to have a quarterly meeting in the woods near town--a big affair--and everybody was going. hence i could get no hearing in the morning. i went to the meeting, as it was the only place to which to go. it was thought that three thousand people were on the ground. there were seven preachers. it was during the darkest period of the war, and every man from the south side of the ohio river was looked upon with suspicion. i had been there several days, and quite a number knew who i was and where i was from. i took a seat near the stand, and when they prayed, in conformity with their custom, i kneeled in the leaves. the old preacher who "led in prayer" yelled as if his congregation was a mile away and god was on a journey. he began by praying for the president; then his cabinet; then the senate; then the representatives; then the generals; then the colonels; then the captains; then the private soldiers. all this i tolerated, but did not say amen. finally he prayed for the utter extermination of the southern people. he besought god to wipe them out of existence--men, women and children--from the ohio river to the gulf of mexico. this blasphemy and contemptible wickedness i could not endure, and i arose from my knees. perhaps five hundred people saw me when i got up. the point in the prayer at which i got up aroused suspicion, and inquiry was in a moment rife. they learned who i was and where i was from, and the excitement grew intense. numerous threats were made to hang me on a limb there and then. the country was full of what they called "copperheads," who had kept very quiet, because it was to their interest to do so, but now they were aroused, and any attempt at violence would have led to the most serious trouble. during the intermission at noon, men of different politics congregated in different groups, in earnest conversation, and the meeting was forgotten in the excitement over a refusal to indorse that prayer. i was waited on by a committee to know if it was my political feelings that caused me to get up when i did. without hesitation, i confessed that it was. then they said, "what more need have we of evidence?" it was finally decided, so we were informed, that i would not be allowed to preach at night--that they would egg me, etc. but at night, not only the house, but the yard, was full of "copperheads" who meant "business," and i preached without molestation. they had been holding these meetings at various places throughout the country, and at all of them sprinkled all the children that their parents could be induced to bring. one lady had a bright little boy about eighteen months old, and when the presiding elder took him to "baptize" him, he said, "sister, name this child." she responded, "his name is vallandigham." he flew into a perfect rage, handed the child to her as if it were burning his fingers, saying, "if you want this child baptized you will have to change its name. i will baptize no child named for a traitor." the mother took the child and departed. we presume that had its name been jeff. davis, he would have broken its neck on the spot. such was the "religion" of that class at that time. the speeches on the day alluded to were nothing but political harangues of the most exciting nature. previously i had thought they had politics and religion mixed, but i now discovered that there was no mixture about it. on my return, i had a little adventure in crossing the river. the ferry was at new richmond. the boat was a small affair, propelled by poles and oars. it was just wide enough for a wagon, and had railings on the sides. a two-horse wagon went in before me. when we got some distance out into the river, one of the horses jumped over the railing, and caused the boat to careen so that it was filling rapidly. it was astonishing how those river men, who, perhaps, had been reared on the water, became excited. they seemed almost incapable of any intelligent action, but yelled like so many savages. i decided at once upon my course. i got into the wagon, calculating that the water would probably not come to my head while standing up, should the boat go down. if it should, then i determined to take my horse by the tail and let him tow me ashore. but the owner of the team succeeded in cutting the harness, thus freeing the horse and allowing the boat to right itself so that it did not sink. we moved from eminence to alexandria, and boarded with a gentleman by the name of brown. he had a nice family, a good house, and he was a clever gentleman, and a "hardshell" baptist of the first water. our school opened about the first of september, with seventy-eight pupils, and it soon increased to . not expecting so many, i had secured no assistant but my wife; and the result was, we were both over-worked. i had to hear several classes out of school hours, especially in latin and greek. there were some young men in these studies, clerks, merchants, etc., who were not otherwise in the school, and these recitations were in the evening after school was dismissed. this, with preaching every lord's day, worked me very hard. the school paid well, and for the first time since i gave up business for the gospel of christ, i made some money. in a few months, as soon as i saw an open road to success, i bought a nice little cottage and two acres of ground, from bro. giltner, at $ , . he had taken it for a school debt, and let us have it on reasonable terms. it was nicely improved, and altogether a desirable piece of property. thus for the first time we had a home of our own. this is a luxury that comparatively few preachers can enjoy. moving from place to place as, for example, methodist preachers have to do, is unfavorable to domestic happiness. how few members of our churches ever think of this, or make allowance for the discomfort frequent changes of residence impose upon the families of their preachers! to own a home and have the taste and the means to adorn it, is an educational force in any family; its lack, a great misfortune. chapter x. narrow escapes. is thrown from a horse. has pneumonia. nearly killed. self-possession. almost drowned. eludes angry soldiers. reflections. during the christmas holidays we went down to oldham county to see our relatives. while there, an event occurred, the recollection of which brings up a chapter of narrow escapes hitherto untold, a few of which i shall relate in their order. when about thirteen years of age, a horse on which i was riding in a slow walk and on a level road, fell, throwing me over its head and coming over on top of me. it broke both bones of my left ankle and several ribs, mashing in my left breast, which has ever since been much depressed; it never developed like the other, and the lung on that side is the one now chiefly affected. this accident occurred at ballardsville, on a public day, some three miles from home. i was taken to the home of dr. swaine, our family physician, near which it happened. he was absent, and a doctor from shelby county was called. he had a carpenter to make a box, reaching from my foot to my knee, and in this he put my leg. the box was straight on the bottom, and as the break was just in the hollow between the calf and the heel, anybody that had any sense should have known that the broken part would settle down level with the rest, and a bad job be the result. it was badly set, and gave me much trouble for several years. following this, in successive winters, i had two severe spells of pneumonia in that left lung, in both of which my life was despaired of. one day i was hauling heavy barn sills. they were swung under the hind axle, and the pole was tied by a chain back around the sill. the chain caught on a solid rock in the road, and, as i had four strong horses, and they all came to a dead pull, the chain broke; then the pole came over with force enough to have mashed every bone in a man's body. the horses happened to be on a straight pull, and the pole just brushed by my right shoulder and side. had it struck me, i might as well have been struck by a cannon-ball. that ended my dragging logs without a block under the front end of the pole. while trading in louisville, a grocery firm with which i dealt to some extent had a clerk who was very dissipated at times. he was a desperate character, and, when drinking, was very dangerous. one day i sold them a lot of bacon, and this clerk, who almost had delirium tremens at the time, made a mistake in weighing it. when i told him of it, he took it as an accusation of intentional swindling. instantly he came at me with a large cheese knife, swearing vengeance and his eyes flashing fire. there was nothing in reach with which to defend myself, and i could not well get out of his way. i decided instantly on the only possible way of escape. i stood perfectly still, did not move a hand, and looked him steadily in the eye. when he got to me, he hesitated a moment, and the uplifted hand with the huge knife dropped to his side. not a word was spoken, nor did my eye fall from his, and he turned and went back to his work. during the summer after i confessed the saviour, quite a number of hands were harvesting at my father-in-law's. on saturday evening we went to a large pond near by to bathe. it was made to supply a saw-mill by throwing a large dam across a hollow. it covered, perhaps, an acre of ground, and was twelve or fifteen feet deep in places. i never could swim successfully, but a number of those present were good swimmers, and there were many slabs on the pond that would float several men. i told them i believed i could swim across the pond, and if i could not there were too many good swimmers present to let me drown. i swam across once, and, after resting a moment, started back. when i got about the middle, i missed my stroke and went down. i thought nothing of it at first, fully expecting that when i came to the top they would save me. i came to the top, could hear them yelling like indians, but no one came to my rescue. i took breath and went down again. when i came up the second time the result was the same. when i came up the third time, and no one there to help me, i began to get a little uneasy and considerably out of humor. i was becoming exhausted, and i knew that i could not come to the top more than once or twice more. i tried to go to the bottom, knowing that if i could touch bottom i could spring to the surface without exertion. but i could not reach the bottom. i came up the fourth time; still no one gave me assistance. by summoning the entire stock of remaining strength, i came up the fifth time. as i did so, a strong young man, sparks by name, a good swimmer, caught me by the left arm near the shoulder. he told me to take hold of him, but this i refused to do. i thought this might endanger him, and that if i would be perfectly passive he could manage me with no danger to himself. but when i would not take hold of him, he let me go and swam off and left me. another man was within ten feet at the time, coming to his assistance. when i went down this time, i was satisfied they were going to let me drown. i felt that i could not come to the top again, and could not reach the bottom. i thought if i could reach the bottom i could crawl out by springing to the top now and then for breath. but i could not touch bottom. i then began to calculate the chances of their getting my body out in time to resuscitate it. i knew it would not take long to cut the dam and drain the pond; but, when i reflected that they had not the presence of mind to do anything, i lost all hope in that direction. i saw no chance for me, and regarded the end as come. the reflection that i had obeyed the gospel was intensely joyous. during the whole time i had not strangled, knowing that it would be fatal. a young man named gipson--sam gipson--one of the owners of the mill, was some eighty yards away, filing the saw. when sparks swam away and left me, gipson saw they were going to let me drown, and ran to my assistance. he got on one of the large slabs, and came in to where i had gone down. i was still making some commotion in the water, and, guessing about where i was, he pushed a plank down that came just under my left arm. i knew what it was, and pressed it to my side. he then bore on the other end and brought me to the surface. he held on thus till others came and helped me upon the slab. as soon as i got breath a few times i appeared to be all right, and they thought i was only playing a trick on them; but in a few moments i tumbled over, became black in the face, and suffered intensely for several hours. on one occasion during the war i went into floydsburg, on the morning after christmas day. there was a little squad of confederates there, belonging to the command of col. jessee, of new castle, ky. one of them was a boy, named hall, who went from that neighborhood. the rest were strangers. i was introduced to the lieutenant in command, and had some talk with him. the main street of the town runs east and west. about the middle, the brownsboro road comes in from the north, at a right angle. this comes down a "branch" which crosses the main street. at the east end of town the road descends into another hollow. some of the soldiers were inside, some sitting outside, of a blacksmith shop, and some on their horses. i had walked near the east end, till i was just on the ridge between the two hollows. i was standing at the door of col. wilson, talking to his wife, when several companies of negroes, stationed at la grange under the command of white men, came marching into town. they were a terror to the whole country. a little negro boy, chopping wood just at the east edge of town, informed the commander, who was riding in front, that the rebels were at the shop. instantly everything was quieted, and a stealthy march for the shop began. from my position i could see both parties, and that the rebels were wholly unsuspecting. while they were nothing to me, and i had but little sympathy with them, for they were not in the regular service, i could not stand and see them surprised and shot. i determined to warn them. mrs. wilson tried to dissuade me, assuring me that it would be certain death. i confess i could see it in no other light myself, yet i could not decline. i walked down the street with an unconcerned air, about forty yards in advance of the company. the lieutenant was sitting on his horse sidewise, with his face turned from me, talking to a presbyterian preacher. i could see the eyes of the preacher over the shoulders of the horse, but he was looking up into the face of the other man, and i could catch the eye of neither. finally, i had to stop and make lively demonstrations in the face of the whole negro command. when the attention of the confederates was attracted, they endeavored to escape by the brownsboro road, and a charge from the other company was instantly ordered. each company opened fire on the other. i was on the side of the street next to the brownsboro road, and hence thrown into all of the crossfire. i stood perfectly still till the entire colored company passed by me. one man fell within a few feet of me, and afterwards died. they had a running fight till they got out of hearing. they caught young hall, the only one i knew, and killed him. notwithstanding the agreeable disappointment at not finding myself killed, i concluded that it might not be healthy to stay around there. the town contained one of the most unprincipled white men that ever went unhung. he was a sneak thief, and made it his business to get southern men into trouble. i saw him watching me all the time. i concluded, therefore, that it would be better for me to leave town before the soldiers got back. i had not gone more than a mile when they returned, and threatened to burn the town if i was not produced. they were watching me from the first, and the only thing that saved me was they concluded that they could attend to me after they got through with the rebels. they were told that i had left town, and were put on the wrong road in search of me. i was then notified, and my holiday visit terminated suddenly. when i think now of the many narrow escapes from death before i was a child of god, a number of which are not recorded, my heart overflows with gratitude for the kind providence that spared me till i knew the way of life and had the precious promises of god. an ungodly man may be brave, and face death without a tremor, but only a child of god can face certain death as it comes on apace in the stillness of the sick chamber, and when the body is wasted with disease, in perfect composure and even inexpressible joy. chapter xi. he abandons the school-room. remarkable meeting near alexandria. incidents. establishes a church. mischief-making preachers. long and severe attack of typhoid fever. does not lose hope. gratitude. after teaching a year, i decided to abandon the school-room and give myself wholly to the preaching of the word. in the summer of i did some mission work in boone county, under the direction of the state board. in august, i held a meeting in campbell county, about five miles from alexandria. the circumstances were a little peculiar. the baptist meeting-house in alexandria had been blown down, and they were using our house, at our invitation, every lord's day afternoon, till they could rebuild. they had a house about five miles in the country, and a large congregation. nearly the whole community were baptists, and they claimed a kind of preëmption. we had not a member in the neighborhood. i was exceedingly anxious to hold a meeting in the very center of this stronghold, and thought that as they were using our house, they would grant me the use of theirs; but they would not. they offered to let me have it for one sermon, but not for a protracted meeting. this did not suit my purpose; and as there was an old log school-house near by, i made an appointment for a meeting in this, which was to begin on sunday afternoon; and a few friends went with me from town. when we arrived at the place, not a soul was on the ground; so having waited after the time, and no one coming, i decided at once that the baptists had reported the appointment withdrawn, so that when i came and found no one, i would be disgusted, and return home. but i was not disposed to be defeated in that way. there was no brother in reach with whom i could stay, but i told the friends to go back to town and leave me, and that i would hold the meeting, "if i had to sleep in the woods, live on pawpaws, and drink out of the 'branch.'" so they left me. there was a man living about a mile away whom the baptists had excluded about a year before, and who had no good feeling for them. concluding that that would be the best chance for shelter, i went to the house, and learned from him that the appointment had indeed been countermanded, just as i suspected. he promised me food and shelter while i held the meeting. a number of neighbor boys were there with his, and these were told to circulate the appointment for next night. the following day he and i went and cleaned the house, putting in some "anxious seats," fixing it to hold as many as possible. he sent his boys out through the neighborhood notifying the people, and that night we had about thirty present. the next night the house was full; and from this on we had large audiences, day and night. in a few days we built an arbor in front, and seated it; then, standing in the door, i preached to those within and without. the meeting continued two weeks, and resulted in fifty-two additions. twenty-seven of these were from that baptist church, and the rest by confession. a few of the twenty-seven, the man with whom i lodged among the number, were not in the fellowship of the church at that time. several incidents occurred during the meeting. a very wicked man began to attend, and one night he felt that he could stand the fire no longer; but as i was in the door, preventing his escape in that direction, he leaped out of a window, and ran off into the woods. in about ten minutes he came crowding in from the outside, to make the confession. a baptist man became interested in the meeting, but his wife was so bitter in her feelings that she would not attend. he finally prevailed upon her to come. going home, he asked her how she liked it. "better than i expected," was the reply. no more was said, but the next day she came without persuasion. when asked the same question, she said, "they don't preach what i thought they did." he was anxious to unite with us on the bible, but was waiting in the hope of getting her to come with him. the next day she was in the house and he on the outside, and he did not know till the meeting was over that she had come forward and been received into the fellowship. at this meeting a gentleman came and asked me to marry him that night after the services should be over. i told him i could not, as i had not obtained license to marry. he then asked if i would object to his getting a methodist preacher who lived several miles away. that night there was a great crowd, and i saw nothing of the preacher, but while we were singing an invitation song a gentleman came pushing in, and gave me his hand. i thought, of course, he wanted to make the confession, and i tried to seat him with the others who had come forward; but he would not. he soon became excited, and, tearing himself loose, forced his way into the crowd. just then some one whispered to me that that was the methodist preacher. it was a long time before the services closed, and he was still so embarrassed that it was with great difficulty he performed the required ceremony. he hurried away without speaking to me, and then sent his apology, stating that he was so mortified over his blunder that he could not speak to me about it that night. on account of the numbers, the distance from town, and the want of facilities for attendance there on the part of many of the converts, they insisted upon having a church of their own at the school-house. under the circumstances it was thought best to comply with their request. no officers were appointed as such, because of inexperience, but several brethren were designated as those who should take a general oversight of the flock, conduct their worship, etc., but none had authority; and all were exhorted to be in subjection one to another. they met every lord's day and broke the loaf, and had prayer-meeting wednesday night. a large number took part in the worship. they had frequent confessions, and a blacksmith across licking river, who preached, met them at the water, when notified, to attend to baptizing. they thus grew in a few months from the fifty-two to seventy-five, when two mischief-making preachers visited them and insisted that without ordained elders and deacons they were no church at all, and finally prevailed upon them to have a number of men ordained. i was sick, and knew nothing that was going on. these ignorant novices thought there was no use in having authority unless it were exercised. so they began to crack their ecclesiastical whip, and the peace of the church was disturbed. things went from bad to worse till the whole congregation went to pieces. thus a good work was destroyed by the folly of two ignorant, self-important preachers. much mischief has been done in our reformatory work by hasty organization. like the new testament churches, we should have no ordained officers till we have material out of which to make them. about september , , i was stricken down with typhoid fever. i had a good physician, and he nursed me with the utmost care. during that sickness he came to see me a _hundred and thirty_ times. for over seven weeks there was not a hopeful symptom. he allowed no company in the room but my wife and the nurses. he appointed good brethren to nurse me, each night about. no one else was allowed to touch me, except my wife. i did not see my two little children for over two months, though they were all the time in the house. after seven weeks he told me that for the first time he saw a slight indication of recovery. after i became convalescent, he said, in talking over the case, that he could attribute my recovery to but two things--my confidence all the time that i should get well, and the faith i had in my physician. he determined this latter by saying that i followed his direction minutely in everything. theologically, he could not have given a better definition of faith. he was a baptist. i never gave up for a moment, and would not allow my mother to be sent for till i was far on the road to recovery. i got out for the first time on christmas day, but it was a year before i was able to resume regular preaching; and even then, and for a long time afterwards, i felt the effects of this terrible disease. had it not been for the close attention of the doctor, and the good nursing of my dear wife and kind brethren, i am sure that attack of sickness would have sent me to my grave. truly, god has been very merciful to me in giving me friends wherever i have lived, and i have ever felt i could not be grateful enough or diligent enough in the service of my redeemer and his church to repay him or them for all this undeserved goodness. chapter xii. sells out at alexandria. moves to crittenden. preaches there and at williamstown. low state of these churches. plan of work. memorizing in sunday-school. lack of church discipline. one-man system. moves to new liberty. visits mount byrd. in the spring of , we sold out at alexandria, and spent most of the summer in oldham county, among our friends, while i was recuperating my health. the meeting-house at la grange had been blown down in a storm, and at the solicitation of the church i visited a number of congregations and obtained help to rebuild it. midway was one of the places visited. bro. franklin was there holding a meeting. this was my first acquaintance with that grand hero of the cross of christ. in september we moved to crittenden, ky. i preached for that church and at williamstown, each half the time, for the rest of that year, and for . the churches were both at low ebb. they had had no regular preaching for some time; had not met on lord's day; had no discipline; and everything was in decay and disorder. i decided upon a plan of work for each church. the first point was to get them to meet on the lord's day and break the loaf, having social worship, when i could not be with them. this done, we carefully revised the church records, excluding whom we could not induce to attend the house of the lord and to try to discharge their christian duties. this was followed by protracted meetings at neighboring school-houses, through which quite a number were added to both churches. meetings were then held in each church. by this time both churches were in a prosperous condition. they both had good sunday-schools, and a number of members were taking an active part in the work of the church. we disposed of the old house in williamstown, and got the new house roofed in . we also repaired the house at crittenden, getting it in nice order, and putting in a baptistery. for the year , the church at crittenden wanted all my time, and i gave up the church at williamstown, devoting all my energies to the one church. we arranged a book in which each member promised to pay so much a week. envelopes were given them, through which they were to pay their weekly installment on each lord's day. the congregations were large and regular, and double the amount of money was thus collected that had ever been raised before. that was before the days of sunday-school "helps," and we made memorizing the scriptures a prominent feature in the work. the first of january, , i offered a reward to the one memorizing and repeating the most scripture that year. quite a number started in to win the prize, but it was soon evident that the contest was between three girls. the amount of scripture memorized was immense. all the scholars memorized largely. soon it required a teacher's whole time to hear the verses of one of those girls. then we had them recite during the week; and, finally, i had them examined on the scripture committed, repeating here and there as called on. this was harder than repeating it all. the first of june another little girl entered the lists. on the day they were examined they could repeat with ease and accuracy any passage committed to memory during the year. they were examined for several hours. incredible as it may appear, two of these girls committed the whole bible, and another committed anderson's translation of the new testament in addition; still another did not begin till june, and committed the bible by the end of the year. i never intended such a result, nor can i approve that way of cramming the memory. while the church at crittenden was in other respects in a flourishing condition (indeed, rather too much flourish), it was difficult to get it to act promptly and strictly in the administration of discipline. the officers and church generally had more lax ideas on that subject than i had. but in this particular i suppose they were about on a par with most other congregations in kentucky, both among our people and others. indeed, i must confess that at that time i was unusually strict in such matters. i wanted everything pertaining to the church to come square up to the mark in all respects, and i was unnecessarily worried over every shortcoming. on account of not having discipline attended to as strictly as i desired, i was disposed to resign at the close of . but the elders promised more hearty coöperation in the matter, and i accepted for another year conditionally. i stated publicly that i would begin on three months' trial, and if at the end of that time the church had not so coöperated with me as to effect certain ends, our engagement would close. i did not succeed in getting the coöperation desired, and the first lord's day in april i announced to a crowded house that my relation to them as preacher had closed. it fell upon them like a thunder-clap from a clear sky. i stated the reasons, which they understood, but had not regarded. thus ended my ministry with that church. my preaching at crittenden, and the subsequent history of the church, impressed upon me a very important lesson, upon which i acted in after life. while everything was "booming," i could not teach them self-reliance. they depended upon me. i had to take the lead in everything. consequently, when i left, it was just like taking the engine off a big lot of machinery. everything came to a standstill. i feared this, and tried to guard against it. the material, however, was of such a nature that it was next to impossible to get them to go forward in church work without being led. but i was so impressed with the virtual loss of my work then, that i made it a special point, ever after, to develop the church in self-reliance, and make it largely independent of a preacher. in i decided that it was not best for the master's cause for me to longer give all my time to the crittenden church, as i wanted them to learn to do without me. so the first of january i engaged to preach for the church at new liberty, owen county, one-half my time. resigning at crittenden in april, in may i moved to new liberty. here i found a good, substantial set of brethren, and did a substantial work. we soon had a good sunday-school, renovated the house, cut off a lot of dead material, and got the church in good working order. in may, , i held a successful meeting in owenton, and established the cause in that place. up to this time we had no organization there. in i held them the second meeting. the cause continued to grow there. in a few years they built a house of worship. the church has generally been in a prosperous condition. in august of this year, i held another meeting for my old home church, pleasant hill. it resulted in a goodly number of additions. it was always a peculiar pleasure to hold a meeting among these old associates, and i held quite a number. in august, , bro. i. b. grubbs and i met at mt. byrd to hold a protracted meeting. it was the first in their new house, after its completion. we had an enjoyable and successful meeting. this was my introduction to mt. byrd, which has since afforded me a home, has stood by me through good and evil fortune, has never wavered in its devotion and fidelity, and among whose good members my frail body will rest, till it rises in the likeness of christ. here i might as well express my views upon the lack of church discipline, as they have been formed from an extensive observation in this and other states. i must, however, do this briefly. no one can read the epistles of the apostles, and especially those of paul, and not be profoundly impressed with the belief that the administration of discipline engaged a large share of their attention; and we may infer the necessity of this from the very nature of the case. the first churches were largely formed of gentile converts, and these came from heathenism; and they had to be recovered from its debasing practices; and even the converts from among the jews had to be reformed from many evil ways. any one who will read even casually paul's pastoral epistles will see these evils and sins exposed. these were contrary to the purity and benevolence of the new religion, and hence the necessity of self-denial and constant diligence on the part of both people and pastors. "the times have changed and we have changed with them," but the _forms_ of sin have changed rather than the thing itself, and we have as much need to practice watchcare over ourselves and others as ever. it was cain that asked, "am i my brother's keeper?" i am satisfied that the two crying needs in our kentucky churches, and i suppose elsewhere, are the faithful administration of discipline by our elders and activity in christian work by our members. i think we are growing in the latter, and fear we are falling off in the former. the reasons for both these opinions are not, in my opinion, hard to find. had i time and strength i should like to give them in full. chapter xiii. history of the mt. byrd church. when established. where. charter members. officers. preachers. number of members. three things contributing to its prosperity. new house of worship. serious trouble in the church. how settled. method of raising money. the church builds allen a house. organizes a sunday-school. how it is conducted. since the history of mt. byrd church from till my death will be an inseparable part of my history, the two being linked together, the church is destined to be known, and is known to-day, wherever i am known. and as a part of its history will be given, i think it would be more satisfactory to all who may feel interested in it, and more profitable as a study, if an outline of its career from the beginning were known. i therefore insert it here. in , isaac foster, then a baptist preacher, came into this community preaching the principles of reform as advocated by thomas and alexander campbell. the people gave heed to his teaching concerning the kingdom of god and the name of jesus christ, and on the second lord's day in september, , at the house of david floyd, on the top of the ohio river hill, opposite hanover college, ind., a church was established. the following were the charter members: james lindsey, hatty ann lindsey, william maddox, elizabeth maddox, david floyd, john b. floyd, miss mary a. trout, miss catherine trout, miss priscilla b. trout, miss sally trout, miss saloma overpeck, miss julia ann lindsey, miss artamisia cooper, mrs. minerva cooper. james lindsey and his wife, hatty a., were formerly members of the old christian connection, at cane ridge, ky. william maddox and his wife, elizabeth, were from the baptists. the rest were admitted by immersion. william maddox and john b. floyd were appointed elders, and david lloyd deacon. for a time they met and worshiped in private houses. they then built a meeting-house, near the river bluff, on the farm of bro. david floyd. it was of hewed logs, and primitive in architecture. it was called mt. olivet. they met every lord's day to break bread, to worship god and to edify one another in love. much of the long-continued prosperity of the mt. byrd church is doubtless due to beginning with good material and on correct principles. in that early day the church enjoyed the visits of such men as isaiah cornelius, allen kendrick, l. l. fleming, jesse mavity, wm. brown, and others. the church increased in number rapidly. in a short time several families of standing and influence moved into the present neighborhood of mt. byrd and south of it, from woodford county, ky. the house was unfavorably located, being on the extreme edge of the territory from which the membership must come. it was agreed by all parties to build another house, farther back from the river, in a more desirable locality. about this house was built on the farm of bro. robert moffett, at the crossing of the strother and cooper roads, about two and one-half miles from the other house, and one and one-half south of milton. it was a commodious frame building. the site is now on the corner of bro. allen's place, two hundred yards from his house. it was called mt. byrd, from the fact that it was on part of a large survey of land known as the byrd survey; and the "mt." was due to its elevation. it was understood that so soon as certain obstacles were removed, the two churches were to become one. hence the house was used a year or two before our organization was established. and, in one view of the case, mt. byrd had its origin in ; and in another, in . on the second day of august, being the first lord's day, , an organization was established on the following covenant: "we, the undersigned individuals, agree to have fellowship with each other, and to be united together in the bonds of christian affection according to all the rules of conduct and requirements of god, as contained in his word--the scriptures of the old and new testaments." charter members. robert moffett, elizabeth moffett, lucinda moffett, sarah ann moffett, catherine stipes, alexander moffett, nancy moffett, emily moffett, harriet moffett, jane moffett, porter fisher, caroline fisher, hayden fisher, robert thompson, anna f. thompson, polly blake, elizabeth taylor, susan taylor, zachariah taylor, sally taylor. porter fisher was chosen elder. in september following, dr. curtis j. smith and newton short held them a meeting, resulting in forty additions. the members of the first organization began to move their membership to mt. byrd, and soon the two congregations were one. the following is a list of the overseers of the church, in their order, from its establishment till : porter fisher, hayden fisher, john b. floyd, james jones, samuel morris, john a. bain, isaac trout, john s. maddox, jacob trout, george craig, f. g. allen. the following are the names of the preachers who have served the church a stated length of time: porter fisher, hiram stark, j. newton payne, dr. c. j. smith, henry rice, jesse mavity, dr. sadler, j. a. bain, g. b. moore, a. a. knight, j. c. walden, j. v. price, f. g. allen. in addition to meetings held by the regular preachers, it has enjoyed the evangelistic labors of some of the ablest preachers in the reformation. from its organization to june, , there were added to the church, at various times and in various ways, members. at this time (june , ) the membership is . in addition to removals, deaths, exclusions, etc., we gave a large number to the bedford church when it last organized ( ), and our colored membership organized to themselves in . also the nucleus of the beech grove church went from here. three things, that have had much to do with the prosperity of this church, deserve special mention--their course during the war, their way of choosing church officers, and their method of church discipline. during the war the church remained in a peaceful and prosperous condition. at the beginning they were of one mind in the decision that the religion of christ was more important to them than political interests; that the war would end, but that the kingdom of god would not, and that they would stand for the things that could not be shaken by the shock of arms. a large number of young men of the community were in the service, and they wanted to be in a spiritual condition to take care of such of them as should return. though soldiers of both armies were frequently in the neighborhood, the church continued the service of god and the discharge of christian duty as if the peace of the country was undisturbed. consequently, when the war was over, they had no alienations to adjust, no broken down walls to rebuild, no breaches to close up. they needed no reconstruction. their history demonstrates that even cruel war need not necessarily alienate the people of god. the congregation was not a unit in political sympathy, but they allowed no mixing of politics with religion, in the pulpit or elsewhere, on either side. strong rebels from kentucky and strong union men from indiana filled the pulpit during the time, but with the understanding that they preach the gospel and not politics--no difference was made. till the method of selecting church officers was by popular ballot. they were thus selected according to the feelings, and tastes, and prejudices of men, women and children, many of whom are always controlled by personal likes and dislikes. at this time a change was made that resulted in great good. the change was to this effect, that a committee in whom the church have perfect confidence be appointed to select elders and deacons. when selected, their names are submitted to the congregation, and two weeks given during which objections may be made privately to the committee. should objections be made to any one, which are considered valid, and can not be removed, that name is dropped and another substituted. it is understood from the beginning, by all parties, that the objections are to be kept private, and if a candidate is dropped on account of objections, he has no right to demand the name of the objector nor the objections. when objections are not made, or they no longer exist, it is understood that the selection is ratified by the church. the parties are then set apart to their work by fasting, prayer and the laying on of hands. in this way a better selection is made, and the church is much more impressed with the importance of the official work, and of their obligation to those set apart, as co-operants in the work. the plan gave entire satisfaction, and the church ever after observed it. when i began to preach for the church, i introduced a plan of disciplinary work which i had observed since my labors with the crittenden church. the leading idea in it was to save the offender, and the church was impressed with that fact. the relatives and friends of the offending party were enlisted in an effort with the preachers and elders to save him, with the understanding that if this could not be done, the law of the lord must be enforced in his exclusion. such efforts rarely failed, and, when they did, those most likely to be hurt about his exclusion felt that they had failed in trying to save him, and that all was done that could be done. when such efforts failed, the case was then stated to the church, and if any one thought that he might accomplish something, and wished an opportunity to try, action was delayed till he did what he could, and thus the whole moral force of the church was exerted. when all felt that nothing more could be done, the law of the lord was executed, the church withdrew its fellowship, and the occasion was made as solemn and impressive as possible. there was no voting as to whether or not they would exclude him. that is a matter of divine legislation on which we have no right to vote. the sense of the congregation was taken only as to whether or not they had done all they could to save the offender, and had thus complied with the law of the lord in this respect. in twenty years, with much attention to disciplinary work, i have never had the least trouble or evil consequence result from a case of exclusion. in they built a new house of worship, about a quarter of a mile nearer milton than was the old house. it is a large and substantial frame. when mt. byrd was established there were several strong methodist and baptist churches within a few miles. they have all dwindled into comparative insignificance, and mt. byrd has the controlling influence in the county. her territory extends sixteen miles along the ohio river and eight miles back. i engaged to preach for mt. byrd church one-half my time, beginning the first of october, . it is thirty miles from new liberty, and at that time it was reached by a dirt road terribly muddy in the winter. i went back and forth on horseback. i arranged to have my two sundays come together, and spent the intervening week visiting the congregation and preaching at some neighboring school-house. i thus made but one trip a month. my health was very poor, and each visit i made they thought would be the last. after i began preaching at mt. byrd, i discovered a very serious trouble in the church, of which i before knew nothing. i saw, from its nature and the men involved in it, that unless it was peaceably and permanently settled, the church would be effectually ruined. and circumstances indicated that it was next to impossible to secure such a settlement. i was deeply concerned about it. the difficulty grew out of a man's making engagements to teach two schools at once, and consequently having to disappoint one of the parties. they had depended on him, and thereby lost the opportunity of getting a good teacher. they felt grievously wronged, and sued for damages. the teacher was a poor man, not able to fight the suit, and he so worked upon his patrons that they promised to stand by him and defend him in court. a large number of good and influential brethren were involved in it, and they had worked up a very bad state of feeling. bro. j. s. maddox, the leading elder, stood by me faithfully in the work. we labored incessantly day and night for over two weeks before we accomplished our purpose. i preached in the two school-houses alternately, day and night, so as to reach all of both parties; for they would not go to each other's houses. the rest of the time was spent in visiting and laboring privately with the disaffected members. the preaching was all directed to the one special end. sometimes we would have it nearly completed as we thought, and then the trouble would break out again. one day our hearts beat with joyous hope, and the next we were depressed and discouraged. finally, they agreed to arbitrate the matter if i alone would act as arbitrator. i tried hard to reason them out of this, for i felt almost certain that i would sacrifice myself in so doing. i felt that i could hardly hope to retain the friendship of both parties in such a complicated matter, over which there was so much bad feeling. but, finding that there was no other way of settlement, i concluded that the sacrifice of myself was a small matter as compared with the ruin of the church, and i consented. all parties agreed to abide by my decision in good faith, bury all their animosities, and be at peace among themselves. i wrote out carefully the whole case, giving my decision on each point, and the reasons therefor. i read it at a meeting at which all were present. they all signed it, and the trouble was forever ended. both parties kept it in good faith, and i retained their fraternal love. when the church had been "rounded up," and all dead matter cast off, we had members on the list. some new deacons were appointed, till we had seven in all. not because there were seven appointed at jerusalem, but because we needed that number and had material out of which to make them. we divided the congregation into seven districts, each deacon having his boundary defined. each had a list of all the members in his district, and it was his duty to obtain a subscription from each member and collect it. each child of a family made his own subscription. all were expected to give something, unless they were beneficiaries of the church. this system has several advantages: ( ) more money is obtained than when given only by heads of families. ( ) each one feels that he is a factor in the church, not an overlooked cipher, and this does him good. it stimulates him to do something. ( ) in training each one to give, however little they may be able, there is developed in them a right spirit and a very important principle. a business meeting was held every three months. at these the deacons made their reports, and squared accounts with the preacher. thus the exact financial condition of the church was known. cases of discipline, missions, charities, and everything pertaining to the interests of the church, were freely discussed. a record was kept of everything done. these meetings were held on saturday, and the next day a statement was made to the church of what was done, and their sanction obtained to such matters as it was thought best to submit. with a thorough organization, systematic working, and the happy settlement of the big trouble over which all were filled with anxiety, the church took on new life, and ever after continued in an active, growing condition. the brethren soon petitioned me to move into their midst. i jocularly told them i would do so if they would give me a good home. the suggestion was no sooner made than accepted. bro. j. h. moffett gave me eight acres of ground just where i wanted it, and he and the rest of the brethren agreed to build me a house. i was permitted to plan just such a house as i wanted, and they would see that it was built. no obligation whatever was required of me as a condition. i was free to dispose of it and leave them at any time, if i wished to do so. it was all a matter of trust. the outside improvements were also made mostly by the brethren. i may say here that in the fifteen years i preached for that church, not a man ever charged me a cent for anything he ever did for me, and they did everything that i needed to have done. in the spring of we organized a sunday-school. it ranged usually, one year with another, from to . one peculiar feature about it was that a large number of old people attended. in a word, the _church_ went into the sunday-school. the teachers have all the time been of the older brethren and sisters, and many men and women of middle age and beyond have been in the classes. we kept a record of the attendance, recitations, contributions, etc., thus indicating the regularity of the work. the record shows that there were perfect, in recitations and attendance, twenty-six in , thirty-four in , and twenty in . this is a fair sample for the fifteen years. the school is still in a fine condition. some members have not missed a single recitation in five years. from the beginning we have adhered to the rule of opening on the last sunday in april and continuing till christmas. the congregation being scattered over a large district, and the roads being bad in winter, we have been in the habit of dismissing the children for the rest of the year; but all the older people form one class, and are taught the scriptures by the preacher or elder of the church from the first of january till the last of april. i am satisfied this is a good arrangement for churches in the country, where the membership is much scattered. it works well at mt. byrd, and i don't see why it may not work well elsewhere under the same circumstances. chapter xiv. he moves to mt. byrd. debate with j. w. fitch. preaches at madison, ind. protracted meetings at columbia, burksville, thompson's church, dover, germantown, pleasant hill, burksville again, beech grove, dover again. in september, , we moved to the neighborhood of mt. byrd. my house not being completed, we lived in the lower end of hunter's bottom, above milton. we spent here a very pleasant year. i gave a good deal of time to the building, helping in whatever i could do, which was quite a benefit to my health. i continued to preach at new liberty half my time during this year and . the last of october, , we got into our new house. it is about three hundred yards from the church, beautifully situated on the main thoroughfare to milton and madison. in i held two meetings in carrollton, ky. the cause was very low there at that time. our band was feeble; and the place almost entirely given to sectarianism. we had no place of worship, and the court-house in which we met was not comfortable. some of the prominent members had become very worldly. because i preached against their sins, they became much offended, but the offense was to reformation. they afterwards built a meeting-house, and they are now in good condition. nov. , , i began my first public religious debate. it was at mt. byrd, and with presiding elder j. w. fitch. it came about in this way: at a quarterly conference in the county, the preachers and prominent men present, to the number of fourteen, drew up and sent me a formal challenge to meet c. w. miller, at mt. byrd (this being by far the largest house in the county), and debate certain designated propositions. at that time i had a very bad opinion of mr. miller, and there was no good feeling existing between us. in reply to their communication i said: "you have a number of brethren in kentucky of equal or superior ability to mr. miller, whom i can meet as christian gentlemen, and when i have the promise of such a disputant, i shall be ready to arrange propositions." they then applied to mr. fitch, and a correspondence between us was opened. my purpose then, and ever since in debating with methodists, was to discuss the _system_ of methodism, instead of a few isolated propositions. in that way the people see what _methodism_ is; in this, they do not. we finally agreed that each would affirm that the polity and practice of the church with which he was identified are authorized by the word of god. an immense crowd attended the debate. the weather was beautiful, and we had dinner on the ground. each affirmed for three days. my affirmation closed saturday afternoon. the president moderator announced that the debate would be resumed at o'clock monday, on the polity of the methodist church, mr. fitch affirming. monday, mr. fitch declined to discuss the polity of his church, giving as a reason that it was of no consequence, and he wanted to give all his time to more important matters. he further stated that he had agreed to discuss the polity of the church simply in order to get the debate, not that it was worth discussing. i happened to have in my pocket a letter in which he had insisted on the discussion of the polity of the two churches as a very important matter. this was read. the president moderator--col. preston--ruled that he must either debate the question, as agreed upon, or concede that it was indefensible; and he yielded. we learned afterward, just what we then suspected, that the preachers present, of whom there were about twelve, held a council on saturday night, and protested against his discussing the polity of the church. the debate created a great deal of interest and investigation in the community, and within nine months following, over one hundred were added to the church. of these, quite a number were from the baptists and methodists. a rather curious thing occurred during the debate. while on the practice of the m. e. church, i made a raid on the mourners' bench, describing its workings and demanding authority for it. mr. fitch jumped up, very much excited, and called me to order. his point of order was that the m. e. church, south, had abandoned the mourners' bench; that it was now countenanced only by a few ignorant preachers for whose conduct the church was not willing to be held responsible. and as it was no longer a part of the practice of the church, he was not there to affirm that it was authorized by the word of god. the president appealed to all the methodist preachers present to know if that was the case. the last one of them said "yes." in three weeks i went to carrollton to hold a meeting, and the two most prominent preachers at the debate were there in a meeting, and they had the mourners' bench out twice a day, and six or eight mourners were striving to "get through!" what are we to think of such as that? by preaching at adjacent school-houses, the membership of the church was considerably increased. this plan was continued till my editorial work on the _guide_ interfered with it. about seven miles back from mt. byrd the methodists had an old house, and a weak church where they years ago had a strong one. we had quite a number of members in that neighborhood. by our assisting in rebuilding the old chapel, we held by written contract a fourth interest in it. this gave us the use of the house one sunday in the month, and at such other times as it was not occupied by the methodists. this we did in order to have a place to preach in that community, and especially for protracted meetings. we also rented the presbyterian house in milton, by the year, for the same purpose. in i engaged to preach at carrollton and white's run, both in carroll county, once a month at each. i held a meeting for each church, and got the membership, to some extent, reconstructed. but in may i was called to preach for the church in madison, ind., one-half my time. it being so convenient--just across the river from me--and an important field, i got the churches at carrollton and white's run to release me, and i entered on my work in madison the first of june, . i preached for them the rest of that year. i held a protracted meeting in october. the number of additions for the seven months was small. finding that they needed a preacher all the time, since they had no one to lead them in the absence of a preacher, and wishing to devote half my time to evangelizing, i resigned and induced them to get bro. j. h. hardin in my place. in november, , i had a fine meeting at columbia, ky. this was before the college there was built. bro. j. h. hardin was preaching for the church. bro. azbill has since built up the church, but was that year in butler university. the fruits of my first meeting there are manifest to this day. prominent among these is the efficient work of dr. u. l. taylor, who was formerly a methodist, but for years has been the stay of the congregation and college in that place. in i gave one-half my time to holding meetings. in march i went to burksville, cumberland county, ky. the church had had no preaching for a long time, and was not meeting on the lord's day. there were a few faithful ones, especially sisters, but the majority had gone to the world. we had over forty additions. the membership was organized for work, a sunday-school was established, a preacher secured, and the church entered on a long period of prosperity. two preachers were the result of this meeting--c. m. mcpherson, of the _apostolic guide_, and e. j. ellison, now of glasgow, ky. they had been immersed, but, with many others, had strayed from the fold. they were reclaimed and put to work, and to-day they are faithful ministers of the word. as showing what may result from a word timely spoken, a young lady from nashville, now the wife of bro. mcpherson, was visiting a sister at burksville. she was a devoted episcopalian, talented and accomplished. one day she was telling me about her church and preacher, etc., and the work she was trying to do for the master. i asked her if she had ever obeyed the gospel. she looked amazed, and remarked that that was a strange question to ask a church member. i told her i feared that many church members, and even devoted ones, had never obeyed the gospel; and in a few words explained the reason why. she soon made the confession and was immersed, stating afterwards that that question led to an entire change of religious views. in may i held a meeting at thompson's church, in robinson county. the meeting was of no special importance; the number of additions was small, and no important results any way. willis cox was preaching for the church. at this meeting the wealthiest man in the church was greatly taken with the preaching, said he intended to go to dover, twenty odd miles away, to hear me there, had three of his children immersed, and was almost too happy to behave himself. he gave a _two cent copper_ to help pay the expenses of the meeting! this was all they could get out of him. he got so happy that it dried up the fountain of his liberality. in june i held a meeting at dover, mason county. this was an old church, and once a prosperous one, but a bad spirit had been engendered during the war, and it had virtually gone to pieces. they were meeting, and had a preacher employed, bro. willis cox; but only a few members were concerned about the things of zion. they had had no additions for so long that the town was full of young people who had grown up out of the church. the brethren expected no additions, but wanted a meeting for the encouragement of the faithful few. this was the way they put it when they engaged me to hold the meeting. the house was well-filled from the first, and in a few nights crowded. they paid profound attention to the word. this led me to hope for additions, but the brethren hooted at the idea. i preached only at night and on the lord's day. on the ninth night they made a move, and continued to move till fifty-seven were added. i baptized fifty. the deepest religious interest prevailed that i ever had in any of my meetings. no telling what the result would have been, had i not been taken sick and compelled to leave. as i was going to the boat to return home, i went by the church. it was crowded. i had just a few minutes. i went in and explained the situation, and proposed to take the confession of any that wished to make it, before i left. without a word of exhortation two came forward. thus i left them. nearly all the young people of the town came into the church, so that there was no outside element left to get up mischief, and it is gratifying to know how faithfully they held out. the church has ever since been in active working order. in july i held a meeting at germantown. bro. j. c. walden was preaching for them. we had a pleasant meeting, but no special results. in august i held another good meeting at my old home church--pleasant hill, in oldham county. i held them a meeting each year for five or six years. while they were slow to assist me when i was struggling for a start, after i got well under way they were quite liberal in reward of my labor. but one dollar at the first would have done me more good, because more needed, than five at the time they were given. this is a mistake made by many churches. in october, , i held another meeting at burksville. this was also a fine meeting, but not quite so many additions were made as at the one in march preceding. in november i had a good meeting at beech grove, a country church in trimble county, eight miles from mt. byrd. in december i was again at dover. we had another excellent meeting, but there was not material for so many converts as at first. this visit was mainly for the membership, to rid the church of some dead material, and put it into good working order. on account of getting sick at the previous meeting, i had to leave before this needed work was accomplished. thus ended my labors for . chapter xv. begins preaching at beech grove. debates with elder hiner. amusing incident. holds many meetings. debates with elder frogge. debates again with elder hiner. repudiates miller's book. sick again. holds more meetings. in i engaged to preach once a month for the beech grove church. beginning january th, at a methodist church near beech grove, i held a debate with elder robert hiner. the debate continued eight days. it was largely attended, though the roads and weather were bad. the feeling throughout the debate was good, but hardly so much so as at the one held at mt. byrd with elder fitch. a very amusing thing occurred. mr. hiner brought all of his books, and, coming through bedford, he got all of mr. young's, the preacher at that place. they made a perfect wagon load. he obtained a long table, like a carpenter's bench, and stacked them up on it. i soon discovered that it was all for a show, and the question was how to most successfully burlesque it. i first thought of sending to bedford and getting a large wagon-load of patent office reports and the like, and stacking them up on my table. but in my room i discovered a little toy-book, about an inch long, called "orphan willie." this i took to church in my vest pocket, with a few leaves carefully turned down. after alluding to his "silent artillery," as i had done before, i drew out "orphan willie," and planted it on the pulpit in position to effectually blow up his entire battery, with the assurance that that was going to be done. i had laughed over the idea till i thought i could do it without laughing. but in this i failed; and the whole audience, methodist preachers and all, got into such a laugh that i lost half my speech. but the books were put out of sight, and thus ended the scarecrow business. during the debate mr. hiner expressed the opinion that i would yet come back to the methodist church. i told him he might as well talk of a full-grown rooster, spurs and all, going back into the shell that hatched it. for a long time this gave me the sobriquet of "old chicken." some brethren use it even now. while on the design of baptism, mr. hiner remarked that if he believed baptism was for the remission of sins, he would live on a creek or river and be baptized every time he sinned. i gave it as my opinion that in that case he would find it a very difficult matter to keep any dry clothes! during this year i held meetings at louisville, crittenden, cove hill, burksville and glasgow, with varied success. in i held meetings at glasgow, carrollton, campbellsville, burksville, bedford, hodgenville and columbia. in july of this year i debated twelve days, at burksville, with presiding elder frogge. he was the great champion of methodism in southern kentucky. he had had a great many debates, and, while he was very ready and glib in his line of debating, i soon discovered that his scholarship and reading were both very limited, exceedingly so; and i intentionally widened the range of controversy more than was my wont, to see what he would do--and he was completely lost. his forte in debating is wit and ridicule, by which he gets his opponents angry and confused. he tried this hard for three days, till he rendered himself offensive to all. it was rumored that his brethren then held a council and told him that this must be stopped; that he must debate the questions on their merits or quit; that he was bringing the cause into disrepute. the county paper, edited by a scholarly episcopalian, was very severe in its criticism of his conduct. this caused much excitement among the methodists. when he had to quit his efforts to get me excited, he was no longer himself. this debate was held at the request of the baptists. mr. frogge and a baptist preacher had debated near there the fall before, and, the baptist having failed, had to give up the discussion. mr. frogge then left a broad and boastful challenge for any immersionist. the baptists were very sore over it, and when i went there in the winter to hold a meeting they requested me to accept his challenge. i referred them to the brethren, and with their concurrence i entered upon the discussion. in november i held another debate with mr. hiner, this time at bedford, ky. it continued eight days. this created the most intense excitement i ever saw in a meeting-house. at the two previous debates in the county i repudiated c. w. miller's book (_points of controversy_) as authority. it is the book that dr. ditzler exposed. our opponents said i would not dare to do that where miller was. they had him at this debate. mr. hiner read from it a passage purporting to be from moses stuart. i asked him what he was reading from. he said, "'points of controversy,' and you challenge it if you dare." i then asked for the page in stuart's book where the language occurred. he refused to give it. i had stuart, and the inference was that he didn't want the comparison made. when i got up i referred to what had passed about the quotation, saying i was willing to take stuart for it if he had given me the page, but as for "points of controversy," i could take nothing on its authority, for i repudiated the book and its author as authority in anything. this provoked a personal wrangle with miller, who was close to me, after the debate--for the day was over. the excitement was intense as we passed and repassed our compliments. finally the house refused to hear mr. m. even his own brethren rose as one man and went out of the house. this so infuriated him that he left the place. january , , i went on the _apostolic times_ with i. b. grubbs and s. a. kelley. i had been writing for it every two weeks, by contract, for several years. from this time i devoted special attention to it every week, and, with the exception of a few months from the sale of the _times_ to dr. hopson and cozine till the establishing of the _guide_, i have been constantly engaged in editorial work. about the middle of january i was taken down with intercostal rheumatism and spinal trouble, and was very low for several months. very little hope was entertained of my recovery. after the intense suffering was over, my system was so racked that convalescence was slow. the doctors agreed that it was due to nervous exhaustion produced by overwork. for years i had known nothing practically of mental rest, and the year preceding was unusually severe on me, in my feeble state of health. when i held the twelve days' debate at burksville the summer before, i went from my bed to the house and from the house to my bed. i was hardly any better in the one held a few weeks before. these labors, with those given to my home church of over three hundred members, together with holding seven protracted meetings, and writing for the _times_, all the while in feeble health, brought me down very low. i wish here to emphasize the fact that i have never gone out of my way to either seek or shun a religious debate. i repeat this statement here, lest some might think otherwise from the fact that i have held so many. after getting up again, i held meetings at antioch, in shelby county, glasgow, burksville, south elkhorn, and at some other points. this has always been congenial employment for me. chapter xvi. continues to evangelize. dr. cook's prescription. incident at glendale. peculiar feature in the meeting at madisonville. the fractious preacher at sonora. closes his evangelistic labors. establishes the _old path guide_. the bruner debate. in i spent much time evangelizing, being called to hold protracted meetings at many important places. i accepted work at seven of these, and my labors were fruitful in the conversion of sinners and in building up the saints in their most holy faith; but i had to be away from home a great deal, and my exposure in all kinds of weather, and the wear and tear of constant preaching, increased my lung disease. while preaching at cynthiana my spinal trouble returned, causing me to close abruptly, and i could preach no more till july. on my return from cynthiana, some friends in cincinnati induced me to visit a dr. cook (i think that is the name). he was celebrated for his skill in such afflictions. he was a corpulent, jolly old gentleman, full of humor. when i was introduced, he looked at me for a moment without coming near, and said: "well, sir, you don't laugh enough. you take too serious a view of life. why, sir, at least two inches of your spinal marrow is inflamed, produced by nervous exhaustion, the result of overwork and no mental recreation. i tell you, sir, all the medicine in the world will do you no good till you quit that and cultivate laziness. you must take a more cheerful view of life. and you must learn to laugh, not giggle a little, but laugh away down to the bottom of the abdomen. then you will get well. i used to be a little, scrawny, sallow, nervous, overworked thing like you are, but i saw it was going to kill me, and i quit it and went to laughing, and now see what i am?" and this was all the prescription he gave me. there is, doubtless, a good deal of philosophy in it. at glendale a rather singular circumstance occurred. the first night of the meeting, i observed a very intelligent looking lady in the audience, and she was intensely interested. when we got back to the place where i was stopping, i asked the sister who this lady was. she gave her name, stating that she was the pride of the methodist church in that country; that her talk at the love-feast a few weeks before had been the topic of conversation ever since. i remarked that she would not be a methodist when that meeting was over. but they would not listen to the idea that she would ever be anything but a methodist. she was present the second and third nights, and manifested the same intense interest. the next morning early, she sent to ascertain if she could have a private interview. when she came, she made her business known at once. she wanted to learn if i would immerse her and let her remain in the m. e. church. without answering her question, i asked her what she wanted to be immersed for. she said she had become convinced that she had never obeyed the gospel, and she wanted to be immersed because it was the saviour's will, and her sprinkling was not authorized. "well," said i, "why do you want to correct your life in some things according to the divine authority, and not in others?" she said she wanted to correct it in all respects where it was contrary to divine authority. i then told her that there were a number of things in the methodist church for which there was no more authority than there is for infant baptism. she inquired what, and when i told her, she said, "that will do," and right away i immersed her. she had been brought up a romanist, and while we were gone to the baptizing her sister burnt her bible. no special persecution followed her change to the methodists, but it was otherwise when she united with us. her relatives, so far as known to me, have never become reconciled. the meeting at madisonville, o., eighteen miles from cincinnati, also had a peculiar feature which i think worthy of mention. it was the first preaching by our brethren ever heard in the place, and most of those who made the confession had never before heard it made. the first person called upon to make it answered aloud and distinctly: "yes, sir; i believe with my whole heart that jesus is the christ, the son of the living god." all who followed answered in the same way. i wish it could always be so. in calls upon me to conduct meetings were multiplied, but i could comply only with those from vevay, ind., sonora, ky., dover, white's run, columbia, burksville, glendale, oakland and owenton. at sonora, a methodist preacher attended a few times, and he was remarkably fractious. several times he interrupted me. one night, in preaching on the "plan of salvation," commenting on the case of the jailer, i remarked that the fact that the apostles sometimes baptized households, was no evidence that they baptized infants, since there are many households without infants. he spoke up very much excited, saying, "may i ask you a question?" i told him yes. "well, now," he says, "suppose we take a common sense view of that matter. suppose you were to come to town, and start out to baptizing households, and you were to go to bro. creel's house and mine, wouldn't you have to baptize infants?" (bro. creel had five little fellows, and he seven.) i answered, "yes, bro. campbell, i admit that whenever you go to a preacher's house, you are very apt to find them." the whole house laughed outright, and they never ceased laughing at that preacher till he left the circuit. these meetings were all successful in the way of additions, except that at vevay. but i have never kept an account of my additions, and remember the number at only a few meetings. this year my regular evangelistic work closed on account of editing the _guide_ and preaching half the time at portland avenue church, in louisville. in january, , i established the _old path guide_, in louisville. i was owner, proprietor, editor, bookkeeper, treasurer, mailing clerk, general agent, and special "boss." this required all my time, except what i had necessarily to give to preaching on the lord's day and the preparation therefor. the _guide_ was a success, financially, from the beginning. i put money in bank the first three months of each year to pay every dollar of expense to the end. the net profits the first year were over $ , and this increased each year for the three years that i managed it all myself. the third year would have netted $ , , but in the midst of it i made the change, transferring one-half of it to cline, marrs & co., and giving them control of its business management. this was the beginning of financial embarrassment. the change was demanded by my failing health, and i could no longer do everything, as i had been doing from the first. that year i engaged to preach half my time for the portland avenue church. in order to serve the glendale church, which is fifty miles on the louisville & nashville road, the mt. byrd church released me one sunday in the month. during the year the portland avenue church increased per cent. in february, , i held a meeting for the campbell st. church, louisville. the meeting proved to be quite beneficial to the congregation, in many respects. i boarded in the city during the winter, and moved my family down in april. the church at glendale had a partnership house--a very common thing in all southwestern kentucky. this prevented their meeting regularly on the lord's day, and also prevented a sunday-school, as the house was occupied more than half the time by others. knowing that i could accomplish no substantial and enduring good while this state of things lasted, i made it a condition of preaching for them that they build a new house. this they did. the house is a neat frame, well finished inside and out, and large enough for all ordinary use. it was promptly built and paid for. in november i held a debate there--the first use made of the new house--with i. w. bruner, a baptist preacher. the baptist church there and ours arranged for a debate, on certain specified propositions, and each had the privilege of selecting its representative. consequently i had nothing to do with getting up the debate or arranging for it. i never challenged a man for debate in my life, and never held one except by special invitation. and i have declined more debates than i ever held. while i was peculiarly fond of it, i never debated simply for the sake of debating; hence, if the circumstances were not favorable for good results, i always declined. this debate with mr. bruner was, i think, the poorest one i ever held, and i lost all interest in it before it was half over. chapter xvii. visits midway. attends the missouri state convention. reflections. annual sermons. last protracted meeting. kindness of mt. byrd, glendale and smithfield churches. gives up office work. goes to eureka, ill. country home. takes cold at the lexington convention. goes to florida. in october, , i visited midway, and though i had virtually closed my evangelistic labors when i began the _guide_, i could not resist the desire to hold a meeting there. it is the seat of our female orphan school, one of our grandest enterprises. bro. shouse was then preaching for the church and bro. lucy was president of the school. their companionship was highly enjoyable. what a feast to the soul is the companionship of wise, godly men! it has for me the highest happiness i expect to know this side of heaven. and will it not be a very prominent factor of that which constitutes heaven? any place in the universe of god where my brethren and the saviour are will be heaven enough for me. in i continued at the avenue church, louisville, mt. byrd and glendale. the state board of the missouri christian missionary society invited me to deliver an address before the state convention, held that year at moberly. in order to justify me in a visit to the state, they arranged several meetings for me--one in connection with the convention of audrain county, at a country church near mexico, called sunrise; one at new london, and one at slater. these meetings were all enjoyable and profitable; but the one in audrain county was only for a few days, and resulted in but few additions. the address at moberly was on "our strength and our weakness." the convention was largely attended, and it was a great pleasure to meet so many brethren known only by name, and loved for their work's sake, and to renew the acquaintance of others known before. the addresses of haley, procter, jones and others were very able. that of jones was speculative, and the basic principle of it, in my opinion, erroneous. several of those missouri preachers have done much harm by preaching a false philosophy instead of the gospel of christ. bro. procter, whom we all allow to be one of our best men and ablest preachers, went from this convention to california and held several meetings. within a few months i had several applications to come out there to undo some of his work, and i should have been glad to comply had my other duties permitted. in i resigned at the avenue church, as they needed more pastoral labor than my other duties would allow me to perform. i gave half my time to mt. byrd, one-fourth to glendale, and one-fourth to my old home church--pleasant hill, in oldham county. it was a pleasure to visit these old friends of my youth once a month. old memories were revived, and the past, in a sense, lived over again. besides, several members of the families related to my wife and to myself were enabled to attend. to preach to them, after years of separation, was a great pleasure. mt. byrd moved on in the even tenor of its way, in a prosperous condition. in august of this year, and also the year previous, i preached the annual sermon at the clark county, ind., coöperation meeting. the county contains sixteen or eighteen churches, including those of jeffersonville and new albany, and for more than forty years they have had an annual county meeting. representatives from all the churches attend, as a rule, and the condition, etc., of each church is given. it brings together a great congregation, and the day meetings are held in the woods. in september of this year the _guide_ was changed to a weekly. while the monthly magazine was the most desirable for preservation, it was thought that a weekly would best serve the cause of christ, and peculiar circumstances at that time seemed to demand it. in november i went to poplar plains and held the last protracted meeting of my life. it was a pleasant one, and attended with some good results. in i preached at mt. byrd, glendale and smithfield, that is, i engaged to preach for these churches, but my health was such that i preached but little to any. at my first visit to smithfield, the first lord's day in the year, i was taken sick, and i never visited them once when i was not sick. i was never able to so preach as to do them or myself justice. while this was equally so at the other churches, i did not regret it so much, since i had been laboring for them a long time. the work at smithfield was virtually a failure, and early in the fall i had to give it up entirely. yet they paid me for the whole year, and made me a present of about $ besides. they are a noble band of brethren, and one of the most liberal i ever knew. the church at glendale also paid for the entire year, though i lost much time and resigned in october. it also made me a generous present in addition. speaking of their generosity, reminds me that the mt. byrd church continued my salary three or four years when i was able to do little or nothing in return. in i lost most of the year through spinal and rheumatic affections; i did very little in ; i was in the church but once in , and in i attempted to talk only a few times, yet all these years my salary continued. when the _guide_ was sold to the present guide printing and publishing company, which relieved me of financial embarrassments which the failure of c. c. cline & co. had produced, i refused to longer accept support from the church. in april, , i was compelled, on account of failing health, to give up the office work of the _guide_. i had been under a physician all the year, and grew constantly worse. i allowed the office work to make a heavier draft on me than some men do. i always knew every paragraph that was going into the paper, and where and how it would appear. i stood by the foreman and noticed everything that went in--when it went in, what was put in and what was left out--till the forms were locked up. i have never been able to get any one else to do it. but that is my idea of editing a paper. this thing of giving printers a mass of matter and telling them to put it in, leaving them to add or diminish, and put in where and what they please, is simply a burlesque on the business; and yet this is the way it is largely done. i have had no little annoyance over just that thing. had i been willing to edit in that way i could have continued, but i would not consent to follow such a course. in may i went to eureka college, to preach the baccalaureate sermon. i arranged to make the trip as easy as possible, on account of my feebleness, by stopping over at indianapolis for the night, in both going and returning. the trip was every way pleasant, and the associations there very agreeable. i hoped it would be a benefit to me in the way of recreation, but on reaching home i was taken down with typho-malarial fever. i was quite low for several weeks. i got up with a trouble in my throat, causing a constant coughing and hacking, which has increased without intermission to the present time. in september, realizing that my health was permanently broken down, we went back to our country home. i was satisfied that if i should even continue to edit the _guide_, i would not be able to assume the responsibilities of the office, and that the best place for me, under the circumstances, was my country home. after going back to the country i rallied considerably, and attended the general convention, at lexington, about the th of october. here i took life memberships in both the general and foreign societies for the mt. byrd church. this was the first church taking membership in those societies, so far as i am informed. it has since become quite common. last year ( ) i succeeded in getting their constitutions so amended as to provide for this. i took cold at the convention, and relapsed. my physicians were very fearful of tubercular trouble, and advised me to go to florida for the winter. we went the first of december, not knowing whither we went, but it seems that the hand of providence guided us. we knew not where to turn, but concluded to try deland, where we had some acquaintances, and there look out for accommodations. in a few days after reaching deland old bro. anderson, who lived two miles in the country, heard we were there and came in for us. he had formerly seen a copy of the _guide_ and subscribed for it. this good man rented for us a convenient house near him, paid the rent, set us up, and would not allow me to pay for anything we needed while there if he knew it and could prevent it. his wife was as kind as he, and did all in her power to make our stay in "the land of flowers" comfortable and inexpensive. the great teacher has said, in a well-known passage, "it is more blessed to give than to receive." what, then, must not have been the blessedness of this pious couple in thus caring for a poor broken-down invalid and his family, whom providence had guided to their hospitable home? may god reward them richly for their kindness. chapter xviii. organizes a church at deland. health improves. relapses. starts home. resignation. sells his interest in the _guide_. begins writing again. attends two conventions. goes to texas. at home again. works on. while at deland we gathered up the few scattered disciples in and around the town, and organized them into a church. i felt quite confident, from the character of the material, that the enterprise would be a success. it has thus far proved to be so; they have not failed to keep up their weekly meetings to break the loaf and edify one another after the apostolic model. they now have a nice house, and have employed a preacher and given him a home among them. this is just what all churches should aim to do; all may not be able, but they should aim to accomplish it. the church is in a prosperous condition. i was able to talk to them occasionally while there. the climate of florida agreed with me. my cough left me in a few weeks, my appetite became good, and i got heavier than i ever was before. i went there weighing pounds, and increased to . in good health, my usual weight was pounds, and it had been many years since i weighed that. i should have come home in this improved condition but for my own imprudence. i don't blame the country, providence, nor anything else but myself. i was passionately fond of hunting, as i have ever been. i hunted a great deal, and frequently got overheated, and took cold; sometimes got my feet wet when in the woods. thus i had several backsets. but still i was in that condition when the time came to return home. the day before we were to start, i concluded i must have one more hunt. it had rained the night before; the sand was damp; it was cloudy, quite warm, and a strong south wind was blowing. i would get warm in walking (the sand there is very slavish to walk in), and would sit down and let the wind cool me off. i should have had more discretion; but sometimes people act with very little sense about such things. before i reached the house i felt acute inflammation of the mucus membrane, to the bottom of my lungs. in three hours fever set in, and i was completely prostrated. i remained there about three weeks, and the doctors urged my return as the only chance of recovery. they considered that very hazardous, on account of exposure to cold; but to stay there was less hopeful. i was taken to the boat, carried on board by two men, then carried off at jacksonville to a hack, taken to a hotel, thence to the train. i secured a good berth in a sleeper, and got through without the least trouble. i improved, every mile of the way; but as soon as i got home i went down again, and was extremely low for some time. my dread of dying in florida and having my wife return with my body, was such that i concentrated all my prayers to that one point. i prayed the lord to enable me to get home, that i might die in the midst of my family. i felt and prayed that if he would enable me to reach home, he could have the rest all his own way, without any further petition. he enabled me to rally, gave a week of the best weather of the whole season, brought me home under the most favorable circumstances, and i never afterwards felt free to ask him to restore me to health, and have never done it. it may be wrong, but i promised to let him have the rest all his own way, and my prayers have ever since conformed to that idea. i never could have believed, till i experienced it, that one could become so indifferent as to whether he lived or died, i saw many days, after my return from florida, when it was a matter of perfect indifference to me; previous anxiety to get home, and the resolution to leave all the rest to the lord, had no doubt much to do with it. i observed this, however: that as hope revived, a desire to live would arise in proportion. when there was little or no prospect, there was little or no concern. when i was at my worst, i decided, taking my past and present condition into consideration, the medicine i was taking, the attention received, etc., that if i did not take a turn for the better by a certain day, then in three days the case would be entirely hopeless. in the afternoon of that day the change came. that evening i took some nourishment--the first for fourteen days. after i sufficiently recovered to be able to do anything, i was anxious to get my business arranged, with a view to death. i never expected to be able to write another editorial, and i was concerned about making some arrangement by which to get rid of the _guide_ and its responsibility. i was not pleased with its business management, and did not want to leave it as the property of my family, not knowing what trouble it might give nor what expense it might involve them in. and without a change in management, i knew it could never be of any profit. i wrote for bro. srygley to come, and i sold him my remaining half-interest. my purpose was to resign, and thus have no further connection with it. but he would not buy unless i would agree to let my name remain, with a promise to resume the responsibility of chief editor if i should ever get able; and the firm would consent to the sale only upon these conditions. so i had to sell upon those conditions, or not sell at all. the latter part of september the company urged me to begin to write again, if it were at all possible, even if it were only a few paragraphs each week. they said the impression everywhere entertained that i would not recover, was injuring the paper very much. the people were losing interest in it. they insisted that i should counteract that feeling as much as possible. under this pressure, though confined to my bed and suffering every hour, i began writing, the first of october, and never after missed a week. that winter i stayed at home, and was not out of my room for eight months. the last of august i started to midway, to see dr. lucy. i got as far as louisville, and could get no further. we dispatched for the doctor, and he came down. after resting a few days i got home, the last of august, and i was not out of the door again till the last of april. during that winter i did a large amount of writing, besides my weekly work on the _guide_. june i went to louisville to attend the international sunday-school convention, but was able to get out only a few times. i attended the state meeting at paris, but was able to take no part. i greatly enjoyed meeting with the brethren, and hearing them concerning the things of the kingdom of god. these convocations are seasons of refreshing from the presence of the lord. the first of october we went to mason, in south-west texas, to spend the winter. here, as at de land, it looked as if the hand of providence guided us. we knew no one there, but we found some of the dearest and best friends of our lives. they had been taking the _guide_, and, in competition with several other places that wanted us, made such a liberal offer that our trip cost us nothing. they seemed to anticipate all our wants, and find great pleasure in supplying them. the lord has always blessed me with many good friends--more than i deserved. i have felt, for a number of years, that i was greatly overestimated, and it has been a source of no little humiliation. i should have quit editorial work several years ago, and lived in obscurity here at my retired home, if i could have done so. i appreciate the good opinion of my brethren, to the extent that i think it is merited; but to realize that i am not what i am thought by some to be, is a great mortification. i am now at home enjoying the company of my family, the quiet of my home, with every want anticipated and supplied by a devoted wife and children, pleasantly, though in much feebleness, doing my work on the _guide_, and putting in my spare time in other writing. i find my greatest pleasure in being about my father's business. i must be employed. i expect to thus work on till the master says, "it is enough." mt. byrd, ky., june , . chapter xix. reflections on his fiftieth birthday. what a wonderful being is man! governed, not by instinct, but by reason. man lives by deeds, not years. how to grow old. half of life spent in satan's service. renewed consecration. last three birthdays. his trust in god. the seventh day of march has come again. fifty times has come this anniversary of my natal day! half a hundred years old to-day! what a period through which to carry the burdens and responsibilities of life! (what a time for which to give account to god for wasted moments and opportunities lost!) what a period to be devoted to building a character for the skies! what a period of time devoted to the issues of eternity! what a wonderful being is man! time is but his cradle, from which he walks forth into a world where life is parallel with the ages of god. an intelligent, expansive being that will never cease to be--what a thought! when the sun grows gray with age, his eye is dimmed, and darkness reigns, man will still be drinking in the light of heaven from the morning star of eternity. the century-living crow doubles this period of man's probation, with life as it began. she builds her nest the last year, as she did the first, with no improvement sought. she rears her young the hundredth time as she did the first, by the long experience none the wiser. this is her nature. god made her thus. instinct is wonderful, but it never improves. it grows not wiser with age nor the ages. it nothing from experience learns. the sparrow builds her nest, and the beaver his dam, just as they did in the years before the flood. the little quails an hour from the shell, will hide at the danger-signal of the mother bird, when they never saw a hawk, nor heard of one's existence. how different this from man! more helpless than the stupid beast, and more senseless than the creeping worm, he starts to make the pilgrimage of life. but what a change does time produce! the child more helpless than the humming insect of an hour, becomes the monarch of the world. he bridles the lightning in its home above the mountain peaks, and makes it do his bidding. the terror of the ages past, becomes his willing servant. he harnesses the steam, that for ages spent its power in the open air, and with it moves the world. he sends his whisperings through old ocean's bed, where the great leviathan sports, as if he talked to one across the room. he leaps aloft as if on steady wing, till his look is downward where the lightnings play and the thunderbolt leaps to its deadly mission. wonderful development! the heavens declare the glory of god, and the earth proclaims the dominion of man. he was made a little lower than the angels, and crowned with majesty. age counts with man, and years bring knowledge, but not unfailing wisdom. did man grow wise with age, as a sure result, age should be an unfailing blessing sought. but imbecility it often brings and childish discontent. these are the blighted sheaves of evil sowing in the spring and summer days of life. with right ideas of life, men grow wiser and better, as they older grow in the service of their god. life is not measured simply by the flight of time. men live more now than they did before the flood. intenser now is _life_. into a few decades, is now crowded the patriarch's experience of nearly a thousand years. how to grow old, is a problem not to be despised. it should not be left to solve itself. to grow old gracefully, is to make a picture on which the world delights to look. but, alas! how sadly blurred is the picture by many made! it is sad to see one's religion sour with age. while young and strong the loved disciple on the bosom of the master leaned. then when age had dimmed his eagle eye, and time had stolen his elastic step, he had the same love for his children in the faith. his was a sweet old age, the outgrowth of a life of faith and love. he grew old gracefully. when brought, as was his wont, and before his congregation set, his last sermons were mainly the touching, tender words, "my little children, love one another." o, that his mantle could on many of us fall! but oft, alas! we see grow cross, self-willed and sour the shepherd of the flock. this, too, when age should give his words both weight and wisdom. lord, give me poverty and affliction, if it be thy will, but save me, i pray, from this sad end. far better that one die young, than grow old against the grain. "is life worth living?" the sages ask. that depends on how one lives it. lived aright, it is worth living, and many such worlds as this beside. otherwise 'tis not. of right living, the more the better; of wrong, the less. the life lived faithfully to god, can never be too long; its opposite, too short. of the half-century, this day gone, one claim i can safely make--it was not spent in idleness. the years to satan's service given, were well to his account put in; and those devoted to a better cause, i have tried to give as faithfully to him to whom they all belonged. for the years in satan's service spent, like saul of tarsus, i conscientious ignorance plead. o'er eyes unused to heaven's light, sectarianism's vail was thick. but no sooner was known the way of life, than in its path i tried to walk; and in it have i tried to keep, till this good day. thus equally divided has the time been spent. except the years of childish innocence, twenty-five were in the service spent of him who for this life pays the soul in spurious coin, and leaves it bankrupt in the life beyond; while an equal number, praise the lord, have a better master claimed. for the rest of life, be it long or short, the long side will the right side be, while hitherto it otherwise has been. the periods of service have not before been equally divided, nor will they be again. but the sides have changed proportions, praise the lord! should not this turning-point in life an epoch make? a half century, and a half divided life, in one! surely i shall not look upon its like again. the past few birthdays i have noted as those of former years were noted not, and for reasons i need hardly state. the first that deep impression on the mind did make since apprehension was that each would be the last, was three years ago, amid the orange groves of the sunny south. the day was lovely as the queen of may; and friends more lovely than the day, made it a time not to be forgotten. the feasting of the outer man was the lesser part of the day's enjoyment. "the feast of reason and the flow of soul" was chief. three of us were seeking health in that sunny land. two have found it, but not there. in a fairer land by far than this world can boast, did they find the fountain of perpetual health. beneath the branches of the tree of life, have they also sat and plucked its leaves for the healing of the nations given. i, the feeblest of the three, and thought the nearest to the other side to be, on the shores of time am struggling still. thus it is with man's poor guessing. two years ago the day was cold and bleak. it drizzled through the dreary hours, freezing as it fell. but to many loving hearts, its sleet and rain were not its gloom. on this day was laid to rest in mother earth the loved remains of one numbered in the health-seeking trio of the year before. what a contrast with that day one year before! the day and its events, how sadly changed! but such is life. well do i remember on this asking, "shall i another birthday live to see?" and well do i remember, too, the thought expressed in grave response. while, in the providence of god, it was possible, of course, the other way were all the probabilities. but this so oft before the case had been, it left a ray of hope. and that has now been more than realized. as said our sweetest poet, how truly can we say: "god moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." one year ago, in the balmy breezes of the "lone star" state, compelled was i by feebleness of frame to miss the sumptuous feast by loving hands so deftly spread. and sad, yet happy thought, those as ever ready on the poor to wait, are now in those of the master clasped. and still i linger, and the years go by. such is life. deep and many are her mysteries. god knows it all, but he keeps it to himself. but what are now the prospects for the year to come? better now, by far, than they before have been in all these dreary years of pain. would it not be strange, if once again in providence divine i should mingle with my fellow men, and tell them, as of yore, the story of the cross? indeed, it would; but stranger things have happened. stranger things by providence divine have come to pass without the aid of "warner's safe cure," or other disgusting humbuggery, with its offensive intrusion into the reading of decent men. the providence of god is not dependent on patent nostrums; nor is he limited in his healing power to calomel or blue mass. prayer is oft more potent than all the noxious drugs of man's device. god has promised, when consistent with his holy will, the prayers of his believing children to hear and bless. and in numbers more by far than this poor life is worth, have these from earnest, pleading souls gone up to god. hence to-day we rest in the cheering hope that these have not been in vain. should it please the lord to give the health i need to fight again the battles of christian life, what responsibilities will it bring! that strength must all be counted his who gave it. all those years must be wholly his, his cause to serve. the interests of his kingdom to his children left, must be strictly guarded. conflicts with men, even those we love, will come to him who strictly guards the faith, as jude directs. in all conflicts with fellow men, for two good graces i humbly pray--the courage of paul and the gentleness of john. this holy lord's-day morning, the sun rose bright and charming as on the seventh day of march it did three years ago in the sunny land of florida. for the first time in many weary months did i a whiff of the outside air inhale. oh! how delicious! 'twas like a prisoner's whiff of the air of freedom. but this was not the best. to sit again with the brethren around the table of the lord and hear again the sweet old story that is forever new, what a feast to the hungry soul! then the birthday feast is next to be enjoyed. loved ones gathered at the dear old "cottage home" to celebrate the marked event with music, song and recitation. the birthday cakes and other "dainty tricks" by loving hands prepared and sent to grace the festive board, told tales of love. one thing alone marred the pleasure of the day and checked the overflow of its cup of bliss: two loved and loving ones were far away and disappointed in their hope of being here. these would have made the ring complete, the family circle whole. but such, again, is life. its disappointments will forever come. we should expect them, therefore, and be content. this is my fiftieth milestone along life's rugged road. at this half-century mark i set up a pillar, as did jacob of old. "here i'll raise my ebenezer, hither by thy help i've come, and i hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home." thus far in life has a loving father led me, and in his providential care i trust for all the rest. i place my trusting hand in his, asking to be led as he sees the way. "guide me, o thou great jehovah," shall be my constant prayer. and thus, dear father, the rest of life i leave with thee. dear lord, should birthdays more be mine to spend on earth to thee, thy cause shall claim them wholly thine as earnest work can be. and should'st thou will the next be one in thy bright home above, i gladly say, "thy will be done," and join thee in thy love. cottage home, march , . chapter xx. conclusion by the editor. tokens of love from many. keeps writing. controversy with the _standard_. last meeting with his mother. visited by professors mcgarvey and graham. commits his writings to the latter. visits eminence and lexington. many brethren come to see him. meeting at mt. byrd. estimate of his character. the closing scenes. farewell to his family. dies. funeral services. the foregoing autobiography closes with june , , while the life of the author was prolonged till january , , and it remains for the editor to record a few of the incidents transpiring in the interval; and to bring this remarkable recital to a close. midsummer found bro. allen in his "cottage home," at mt. byrd, growing weaker in body day by day, but with no very acute suffering. everything that devoted love on the part of his family and church could suggest for his comfort was done; and there were not wanting from abroad many tokens of undying affection, as it became generally known that he was gradually but surely passing away. many of his friends, and especially preachers, came to mt. byrd as to a mecca, to find their pilgrimage repaid in the fresh inspiration received by communing with this saintly man. the company of his brethren did not weary him; on the contrary, it seemed to have a favorable effect on both his body and mind; he greatly desired the visits of his friends, and found comfort in them. still many were deterred from going to see him for fear it might disturb the quiet which they hoped would contribute to lengthen out his days. meanwhile he kept writing with a diligence and persistence marvelous to those who witnessed it, and incredible to others; so much so, that many at a distance could not understand how one so near the grave could continue to write so much and so well; hence the hope entertained that he might survive for years to bless the church and the world. it must be remembered that his disease never affected his mind, and that, like most persons who die of consumption, he retained the full possession of his mental faculties even unto the end. besides, he was sustained by an indomitable will that hesitated at nothing that stood in the way of duty; added to which was an unfaltering trust in god and a joyous resignation to his will, causing him to cease praying for longer life. propped up in an invalid chair with a convenience of his own invention, he continued his weekly editorials to the _guide_ as regularly as ever, and developed abilities as an editor that none suspected he possessed till the last years of his life. it was at this time that the unfortunate controversy began between the _guide_ and the _standard_ about our work in london, england, causing so much regret on the part of many friends of both papers. it was feared by some that this controversy would work irreparable injury to our mission enterprises, not only in england, but in other lands, for we all realized that titans were engaged in the conflict; men, not like those of old, giants in physical strength and daring, but of intellectual power intensified by the love of god and his cause. of course the disputants viewed the matter from different angles, and both, we must think, were equally sincere in their convictions. the present writer was not of those who thought upon the whole harm would come of this dispute, though he deeply regretted the asperity with which it was conducted. in our present imperfect state we need, i doubt not, these conflicts to remind us of our frailty, and if only we have grace to profit by them, god will turn them to our good and to his own glory. it is a source of devout thankfulness to those who knew bro. allen's unselfish purpose, that many who censured his course united with multitudes who approved it in paying honor to his memory, when the messenger who ends all earthly strifes called him to his final account. in july, , his aged and revered mother made him a visit, and remained some time; it was their last meeting; and now that her gifted son has gone to his reward, she waits in joyous hope for the day that shall reunite them forever. a few weeks later it was the pleasure of the writer, in company with prof. mcgarvey, to spend two days at mt. byrd, in delightful fellowship with this grand man. he had been apprised of our coming, and was prepared for it. truly, to him and to us it was a foretaste of the joys of the future world, and we left him the same resolute, confiding servant of christ he had ever been, wholly resigned to the will of god and rejoicing in assured hope of eternal rest. it pleased his master to protract his life and usefulness a little longer, and so closed, and we find him still with his family, receiving many tokens of love from them and from brethren far away. spring comes, and birds and flowers; the bright sunshine beams into his chamber, and now and then he is barely able to walk out to see and feel his father's goodness bathing all things in quiet beauty. he repines not, knowing that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." he continues to write, and with the rest the preceding chapter of "reflections on his fiftieth birthday." he commits it, his diary, and other writings to me, with the request that i do with them as i think best, for now he is sure that this unequal contest with mortality can not last much longer. summer comes, and with it increasing weakness, but no diminution of his trust in god. he wishes to visit eminence once more, and to see his two younger daughters graduate from the college that had helped himself in former years. he attends, and then, unable to walk without help, he comes on to lexington, to spend commencement week among his friends and brethren; this done, he returns to his beloved mt. byrd, to leave it no more till he goes to stand with the redeemed on the mount of god. during the fall of this year hardly a week passed that several of his relatives and christian brethren were not found at his home; and did not the limit of this chapter forbid, we would like to record their names, for in love they came to testify their admiration for him and their sympathy with his sorrowing family. for one and all he had a word of cheer, and none came away without being deeply impressed with the conviction that he had been with one of the purest and best of men--one who lived in daily communion with his maker. his one theme of conversation was religion, and if we may judge from his increasing delight in it, to no one was death a more gentle transition from faith to sight. narrow, indeed, to him was the bourn that divides the seen from the unseen, the temporal from the eternal, and the labors of earth from the felicities of heaven. he daily lived upon the boundary of two worlds. in october, bro. j. k. p. south held a meeting with the mt. byrd church, and, though feeble beyond measure, bro. allen made out to attend a few times, and even to take part in prayer and exhortation, sitting in his chair. only twice after this was he able to be carried to the lord's house, but on neither occasion could he take an active part in the worship. in all the relations of life bro. allen was a model of all that is lovable in human character--kind, gentle, considerate of the feelings of others, even the least, and always cheerful. a refined and delicate humor pervaded his conversation, which was always chaste and instructive. there was in him a moderation that always attends reserved power, and a candor that was transparent; these qualities, united with an equipoise of intellectual and moral strength, harmony of emotions, and hatred of everything mean or unfair, made him revered by his friends, and an idol in his household. wife, children, servants, all who came into that charmed circle, were attached to him in a love that bordered on idolatry. to draw a portraiture of this remarkable man would indeed be a pleasing task did space allow--his logical penetration, depth of feeling, strength of will, energy, industry, unwavering faith in god and goodness, and, crowning all, his fidelity to the gospel of christ--but it is unnecessary. to us who knew him these virtues were conspicuous; by others, they may be gathered from the unvarnished story of his life as it is told in the foregoing pages. we must hasten to the closing scene. on new year's day, , he laid down his pen to resume it again no more. he was forced to this by sheer exhaustion; his body was wasted to a skeleton, and it was clear to all that the end was near. having suffered much for several days, but without a murmur, on the evening of jan. he requested all his family to come to his bedside, and while their hearts were breaking for grief and all eyes were blinded with tears, he spoke to them for the last time. "my dear children," said he, "i want to say a few things to you while i can. i may not be able to do it if i put it off longer. i will soon leave you, and i know you will miss me. it is hard for you to give me up, but it is the will of god, and you must bear up as best you can. i am sure i have always had your love, and you have always obeyed me; and now i want you to always love and obey your mother. remember, wherever you may be, that you are all of one household. live in peace, and let no strife or discord spring up among you." taking the hand of each of his daughters, he asked them to meet him in heaven, and then kissed them good-bye. laying his hand upon frank's head, he said, "my dear son, papa has to leave you." "o papa," said the lad, "pray not to die." "we have prayed, my dear boy, but it is god's will to take me home, and he knows best. you must love your mamma and obey her; be good to your sisters. i want you to grow up and become a minister of the gospel. try to make a better preacher than your papa has been. be studious and industrious, and live so that you may at last meet me in heaven. may god bless you, my son, and keep you in his care. kiss me good-bye." throwing one arm around his wife, he said, "my dear, my affliction has been a blessing to me in having you near me all the time. you have been everything on earth that a good wife could be. i have loved you even more in my affliction than i ever did before. i want to thank you for all your kindness to me and loving care of me. if i have ever done or said anything i should not, i want you to forgive me now. i can say on my dying bed that i have always been a true husband to you. i have made the best provision i could for you and the children, and if there should appear any mistakes they have not been of my heart." he then bade her a long and last farewell. he then blessed his three little grandchildren and kissed them; expressed a desire to see his "dear old mother," brother and sisters once more, and spoke of some business matters a moment, then said, "this is too sacred for that." for two or three days before this he had been able to speak only a few words at a time; but throughout this interview with his family, his voice was as strong and clear as it had ever been. after this his breathing became difficult, and he could gasp only a single word now and then. he seemed to have no wish to be occupied with this world. the weary traveler had at last reached the goal; and about nine o'clock thursday night, january , , his pure spirit left its frail tenement to suffer no more. the following account of his funeral, written by his devoted friend and christian brother, w. k. azbill, may well close the biography of frank gibbs allen: "it is finished." it is finished. the struggle with his fatal malady is over at last, and f. g. allen is at rest. he sank into a quiet sleep last thursday night, jan. , . a few friends were notified of the end by telegrams, and that the burial would take place from mt. byrd church on sunday, but the condition of the ohio river rendered it extremely difficult to reach "cottage home." however, in spite of the difficulties and dangers in crossing the river, and the extreme cold weather, there were seven ministers and a very large audience present at the burial. the people came over the snow and through the snow, in sleighs and sleds and buggies, afoot and on horseback, till the large country audience-room was well filled. the presence of such an assembly on such a day evinced the truth of what is now widely known, that frank allen was loved best where he has lived and labored for the past sixteen years. the services were begun by bro. a. w. kokendoffer, who lead in an invocation of divine blessing and strength and guidance. the congregation then sang "nearer, my god, to thee." the writer read the following scriptures; john xiv. - , , ; i. cor. xv. - ; i. thess. iv. - ; ii. sam, iii. - , repeating . he felt that he should not, because he could not speak on the occasion. he had followed the inclinations of his own grief, and had come as a mourner and not as a comforter. we had not met to tell how much we esteemed our departed brother, or how much we loved him, or how much we should miss him, now that he has gone. the gap is a wide one he has left in the family, in the congregation of his love, and in the larger church; and it will seem wider and wider as the days go by. we had come as his brothers and sisters--as those who loved him--to lay him away in the grave, and to ask god's help and blessing in this time of loss and sorrow. he then led in worship, thanking god for his gift to the church of the precious life that had just been surrendered at his call; praising god for his love of brave and true men like him; expressing the loving confidence of all that the heavenly father would deal tenderly with our widowed sister and her children; asking especially that the little boy might live to honor the name of his beloved father, and praying that the dear church, that has borne him on their hearts through all this anxious time of weakness and suffering, might forever be blessed by the memory of his godly life in it. the song, "asleep in jesus," was then sung, after which president r. graham, of the college of the bible, addressed the audience on the life and character of the deceased. he had thought of how truly it might be said of him, that "there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in israel." he had felt inclined to derive comfort for the church, and to those to whom he was doubly dear, from the passage in the apocalypse, "i heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, blessed are the dead which die in the lord from henceforth; yea, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labors: and their works do follow them." he did not know whether others would be present to take part in the services. but bro. kurfees was here from the churches in louisville, and, as a representative of the _guide_, bro. mcdiarmid, from cincinnati, to represent his associates in our other publishing interests, and bro. azbill, from indianapolis, connected with our missionary interests, while he himself brought the sympathies of those in the college of the bible. he felt there was a suitableness in all this, for all these things were dear to the heart of our brother. he then proceeded to give a sketch of his life and career. there were several distinct periods in his history. the first was from his birth, march , , to his marriage in , a period of about twenty years. here he spoke of his early struggles for an education, and of the signs of a useful life manifested even then. the second, from the time of his marriage till his entry upon general evangelistic work, about . during this decade he became a christian, resolved to preach the gospel, and entered and passed through a course of collegiate studies in eminence college. the third period began with his evangelistic labors. during this time he became a pastor of the mt. byrd church. during this period most of his public discussions were held. it was through these labors that he was revealed to his brethren as a man who was greater than we knew. the last period began with his editorial career, and closed with his death. he became first a contributing editor of _the apostolic times_, and afterwards co-editor. then he became the proprietor and editor of _the old-path guide_, which, in the course of events, was consolidated with the _times_, and became _the apostolic guide_. president graham then spoke of his character and his characteristic abilities. he was a sincere man, he was a conscientious man, he was a brave, true man; he was a pure-minded man, he was a godly man. his ability was not that of the great scholar, but of the logician of keen, accurate perceptions. he was not an encyclopedia, but a compact volume of naked logic. he was capable of the very nicest discriminations; and he had the faculty of pointing out a fallacy with marvelous clearness, and of turning an objection to his position into an argument in its favor. he was sometimes misunderstood; but he was always true to his convictions, and there was no honorable thing he would not do for the truth's sake. he believed in the gospel as the power of god unto salvation; and he made no compromises with doctrines in conflict with his conviction that the gospel must be believed and obeyed by those who would be saved. the speaker said many tender and fatherly things to the bereaved family and to the church, one of which was that we who knew of our brother's sufferings, could have had but the one motive of selfishness for detaining him an hour longer than he lingered with us. bro. m. c. kurfees followed the remarks of president graham with some comforting reflections on bro. allen's views of death and of the future life. he spoke of his willingness "to depart and to be with christ, which is far better." heaven is not a far off place, but an actual spiritual presence with god. he spoke of the blessedness of being always ready for this change from our life in the body to our life with god in the invisible world. bro. mcdiarmid closed the services with suitable remarks and an earnest prayer. after the singing of the song, "jesus, lover of my soul," came the final leave-taking, and the departure from the church to the grave. not the least touching of these scenes was the breaking down in grief of the sturdy yeomen of the congregation as they stood around the bier of their dear brother and former pastor, and looked on that manly face and form for the last time. finally we laid him to rest in the burying-place near by. at the grave the closing prayer was offered by bro. wm. buchanan, who referred tenderly to his aged mother and absent relatives. and thus the final scenes closed. his resting-place is a lovely spot, overlooking the city of madison, commanding an extended view of the river valley, and in sight of the stream and of all the vessels that go by. it is near to his "cottage home" and to the church he so much loved; and the spot will be all the dearer now that he sleeps in it. only four days ago the writer said in a letter to the family: "i linger on the eve of taking a long voyage, and he may soon go on a very short one; but which of these shall be made the occasion of saying 'good-bye,' i hardly know." even then the solitary voyager was on his way. the breakers dashed about him as he launched; the great billows roared beneath and around him as he went out; the waves broke over each other in ripples as he passed on; and the ripples hushed into whispers as he neared the other shore. at last he took the adorable divine guide by the hand, and passed beyond our view. part ii.--addresses. i.--culture and christianity: their relation and necessity. [an address delivered before eminence college, june , .] there are periods in our history which form the oases in the desert of life. in one of these our spirits are to-day refreshed. its dark shade and cooling fountain strengthen us for the onward pilgrimage. from its green sward we pluck bright flowers, whose fragrance will linger with us till the end of life's journey. from these let us to-day weave fresh garlands, which shall ever exhale the sweetness of these associations. this is ever a proud day for eminence college. annually on these festive occasions do the hearts of the many thousands who have gone out from these classic halls turn to them again with longing. memory, unfettered by space, walks again amid these lovely bowers and responds unconsciously to the greetings of other days. though separated far, and mingling in the busy scenes of life, how their souls revel in these delights! these college associations are the golden links which bind many hearts in an unbroken chain. the chords so exquisitely touched in our hearts to-day will vibrate for an age. ere these sweet strains die away on the distant air they will be caught up by responsive hearts and reëchoed round the earth. these are times in our college life that must ever be linked with the future. memory will ever delight to lift the heavy curtain of material life, and behold again these visions of beauty, and paint in fancy these rose tints of youth. then let this day be one whose brightness shall shed a ray of celestial light along the path of life. let our spirits bathe in the fountain of living waters, while the chords of our hearts are swept with entrancing melodies. "then th' inexpressive strain diffuses its enchantment. fancy dreams of sacred fountains and elysian groves, and vales of bliss; the intellectual power bends from his awful throne a wandering ear, and smiles." as a theme worthy of your consideration to-day, i have selected "_culture and christianity: their relation and necessity_." the greek word for man, [greek: anthropos], signifies etymologically to _look upward_. man is the only terrestrial being capable of looking inward and upward. in this there lies between him and the animal creation an impassable gulf. man alone can look into his inner nature, and thereby make his very failures the stepping-stones to a higher life. god designed that man's progress should be upward; hence his high destiny is attained, not by creation, but by development. the ladder at whose foot he begins his immortal career rests upon the eternal throne. this is not a development _into_ man, but a development _of_ man. the theory of development into man is of the flesh; but the development of man is of the spirit. since man is destined for eternity, it is not befitting that he should attain perfection in time. hence he does not develop as the beast of the field, or the fowl of the air. they soon learn all that they ever know. they soon enjoy all they are capable of enjoying. they soon attain to the perfection of their being, and fulfill the end of their creation. the swallow builds her nest and the beaver his dam precisely as they did in the days before the flood. nor can it ever be otherwise. but it is not so with man. this life is too short and this world too small for his development. he but begins to live in this world. this life is simply a state of probation. our faculties but begin to unfold on the things of time when we are called hence. this unfolding of our faculties, this development of our inner self, is the result of culture--a culture not of the flesh, but of the spirit; not of the outer, but of the inner man. culture and christianity, properly considered, are inseparable. he who relies on culture apart from christianity misconceives the end of his being. he appreciates not his high destiny. animals have minds susceptible of a high degree of cultivation, but not of a culture which reaches beyond time. their culture is wholly a thing of this life; but not more so than is the culture of men unsanctified by the religion of christ. a culture that terminates with death is in harmony with the nature of a horse, but contrary to the nature of a man. what is culture? this is a question on whose solution man's eternal destiny is largely suspended. our age prides itself on being an age of culture; but do we know in what true culture really consists? as a whole, i think not. a smattering of sentimental literature, a superficial refinement of manners, a few borrowed phrases and appropriated customs of "society," the rendering of a few pieces by rote, and fashionable dress, constitute with, alas! too many the standard of culture. how unworthy of their race are those who entertain the thought! all this may be but the gilding of barbarism; beneath this external glitter there may be a heart and character steeped in moral rudeness and degradation. true culture consists not in the cultivation of outward accomplishments. it consists not in intellectual acquirements. it consists in the development of the triune man--body, soul and spirit--in their divine harmony. without a cultivation of the spirit in harmony with its immortal destiny, all that this world calls culture is but the gilded tinsel that bedecks the putrefaction of death. the truly cultured man is developed in harmony with the laws of his being. this being is compound, having a fleshly and a spiritual side. hence, to cultivate one to the neglect of the other is to disproportion him whom god created in his own image. as we exist first in time and next in eternity, that culture which loses sight of either state misconceives the full mission of man. man's conception of his present mission and ultimate destiny determines his standard of culture. he must have an ideal, and if that ideal be low, his life will be correspondingly low. nothing but christianity can furnish man an ideal worthy of himself; and nothing but christian culture can develop him in the direction of that ideal. classical antiquity never conceived a destiny worthy of man. it never contemplated him in that relation of christ-likeness to his god, which the bible reveals. even aristotle, the most cultivated of all heathen philosophers, thought that only a part of mankind possessed a rational soul. with such a conception man is incapable of the highest culture. it is degrading to his dignity. all culture based on such a hypothesis must be a culture of the flesh, and not of the spirit. it is the culture of materialism, not of christianity. between modern materialism and the cultivated heathenism of the ancient greeks the difference is not worth the naming. "to assume the existence of a soul," says vogt, "which uses the brain as an instrument with which to work as it pleases, is utter nonsense. physiology distinctly and categorically pronounces against any individual immortality, and against all ideas which are connected with a figment of a separate existence of the soul." "man," says moleschott, "is produced from wind and ashes. the action of vegetable life called him into existence.... thought consists in the motion of matter, it is a translocation of the cerebral substance; without phosphorus there can be no thought; and consciousness itself is nothing but an attribute of matter." this deification of the flesh, this "gospel of dirt," makes man consist simply of what he eats. the missionaries of this heathen gospel have no need to address the reason of men; only feed them on the right kind of food and their regeneration is accomplished! materialism is a religion of the flesh, a deification of matter; its laver of regeneration is the chemist's retort; its new birth, phosphorus! give the brain plenty of phosphorus by high living, and you develop the _soul_ of materialism! yet the heralds of this soulless gospel talk flippantly about culture! man's fall was due to an attempt to acquire knowledge at the expense of heart culture. here, amid the bowers of "paradise lost" is found the root of all false culture, and from that root the world has ever been filled with a noxious growth. true culture consists in a correction of the process which "brought death into the world, and all our woe." man in his spiritual nature must be educated back to the divine image from which he fell. no culture comprehending less than this has ever proved a permanent blessing to the race. the highest culture hitherto attained apart from christianity was incapable of saving its devotees from ruin. greece and rome were never more cultured, in a popular sense, than when they began to go down in death. materialistic culture was their winding-sheet, and "a religion of the flesh" should be their epitaph. as christlieb has truly said: "wherever civilization is not made to rest on the basis of moral and religious truth it can not attain to any permanent existence, and is incapable of preserving the nations possessed of it from spiritual starvation, to say nothing of political death." it is idle to boast of liberty when the foundations of her temples are not laid in divine truth. of this, greece and rome have furnished the world examples. in greece freedom had a field peculiarly her own; she breathed her inspiration into the people, and her spirit into their literature; she lived in the deeds of their youth, and was sung by the muse of their bards. this spirit was diffused in rome. plato, aristotle and homer were transplanted to the rhine, the seine, and the thames. their land was full of liberty and culture, but not the liberty nor the culture of the soul. when we learn from tacitus that "in the first century, in a time of famine, all the teachers of youth were banished from the city, and six thousand dancers were retained," we have an example of that culture which made rome a sink of iniquity. it is not impossible that the fatal mistake of greece and rome should be repeated in our own country. we are venturing to some extent on the slippery places from which they fell. the evil star of their national ruin is that on which the eyes of many of our political leaders are fixed. the godless spirit that animated the roman senate is being nursed into new life in american politics, and this nursing is not simply in the halls of legislation, but in the homes of the people. here lies the trouble. if the american republic ever goes down in ruin, the power that hurls it from its high position will be enthroned in the family circle. we complain that those in authority have not the fear of god before their eyes. we lift our hands in holy horror at the public corruption which brings our nation into dishonor before the world. but who is to blame? one political party is ever ready to ascribe all the corruption of the country to its political rival. but this godless disregard of national honor and national interest is confined to no party. neither is it confined to party leaders; but it controls the people on whom the leaders rely for support. here is the seat of the disease which is gnawing at the vitals of the republic. the man who now refuses to cater to the depraved tastes of the masses, can not, as a rule, be promoted to office. how many men can sit in the halls of legislation, or even on our benches of justice, who persistently refuse to influence men's votes by money, or inflame their passions and sway their judgment with strong drink? when a man of a high sense of moral honor seeks promotion by the suffrage of his fellow-citizens, he soon learns that he must come down from his "stilted dignity" or be defeated. in the excitement of the canvass he yields to base motives to prevent defeat. he compromises his high sense of honor, deadens his conscience, and sells out his manhood to secure an honorable (?) position. we should not expect men to manifest a high sense of honor in public places as long as we require them to compromise their honor in order to secure such places. the thing is both unreasonable and unjust. as well expect sweet water to flow from a fountain which we have made bitter! party spirit is hostile to moral purity. as one becomes filled with the spirit of party, to that extent does he surrender the freedom of a man. he can neither think nor speak impartially. he stifles the convictions of conscience and shouts the shibboleth of party. with him the triumph of party is infinitely dearer than the maintenance of principle. hence the conflict becomes a struggle, not for principle, but for victory. the people are distracted and the nation brought to the verge of ruin over the most trivial matters. the eastern empire was once shaken to its foundation by parties which differed only about the merits of charioteers at the amphitheater. this ruinous party spirit is fostered by ignorance. the masses who are controlled at the ballot-box by the basest influences, because they will not be controlled by any other; and who in turn control the ballots of our country, are, as a rule, the uncultured part of society. the better class of citizens are not approached with the influences which control the ignorant. therefore, the remedy is in the _correct_ education of the masses. the emphasis is correctly made; for any kind of education will not accomplish this end. only as people are _truly_ cultured do they cease to be tools of politicians. then their intelligence, not their passions, must be addressed. when the masses are thus cultured they will refine instead of demoralize our public men. as a remedy, then, for the demoralization of all classes we need a better system of education. we must have a free education if we would have a free people. our children must be educated in just principles, if we would perpetuate a just government. to make this remedy effectual, when the means of education are provided for the ignorant, they should be required to appropriate them, or forfeit their right of suffrage. no man should have a voice in determining the destiny of our nation, who rejects the means of that culture which alone can qualify him to act intelligently. a man who has not spirit enough to avail himself of the benefits of an elementary education, when placed within his reach, is not worthy of being a citizen of a free government. not only must the ballot-box be elevated by culture, if this government would number its centennials, but it must be purified by christianity. we need to erect a high standard of moral qualification for positions of trust and honor. those in authority will ever be about what the people require of them. when ungodliness and moral corruption are at a discount among the people, and party spirit can not atone for the darkest crimes, then may we expect more purity in high places; not before. this standard must be erected at the ballot-box or our liberties will find an untimely grave. this government was established on a false idea--the idea that man is capable of self-government. god never intended that man should govern himself. consequently, in the strictest sense of the word, he is incapable, both individually and collectively, of self-government. since, by his own wisdom, man is incapable of governing himself he is likewise incapable of governing others. the men and the nations, in the ages of the past, that attempted this, failed of the high destiny for which god gave them being. the ultimate prosperity of men and nations depends on the government of god. only he who created man fully understands his ultimate destiny and the laws of his being to attain to that end. therefore, only when man is thus governed is his life a success. all sacred history shows that god rules in the governments of men; and only when this fact is practically acknowledged may nations expect permanent prosperity. that nation whose laws are framed and executed regardless of the law of god will eventually fall under the divine chastisement. no more can the statesmanship of this world, unsanctified by divine wisdom, save a nation from the wrath of god, than the wisdom of man can save a soul from eternal death, regardless of him, "who of god is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." for the disregard of god's will, nations are punished here, because as nations they do not exist hereafter. on this the lord has clearly spoken: "at what instant i shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it: if that nation against whom i have pronounced, turn from their evil, i will repent of the evil that i thought to do unto them. and at what instant i shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it: if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then i will repent of the good, wherewith i said i would benefit them." thus it is that nations are in the hands of god as clay in the hands of the potter. only, therefore, when they purge themselves from ungodly legislation, will they become "vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master's use." the voice of god, then, must be heard and heeded in our nation, and if the people rule, and the nation prosper, the voice of god must become the voice of the people. _in this sense, and this only, are any people capable of self-government._ to this end we need more extended culture, and that of a higher order. our politics must be purified by our religion, and our religion must be a religion of the spirit, not of the flesh. we need more religion in our politics, and less politics in our religion. the history of other nations fully confirms the language of goethe: "all epochs," says he, "in which faith prevailed have been the most heart-stirring and fruitful, both as regards contemporaries and posterity; whereas, on the other hand, all epochs in which unbelief obtains its miserable triumphs, even when they boast of some apparent brilliancy, are not less surely doomed to speedy oblivion." liberty is the twin sister of faith. in the language of seneca: "to obey god is freedom. a nation that desires to be free must believe, and a nation that will not believe must be in servitude; only despotism can dispense with faith, but not liberty." history clearly proves that national prosperity depends on an appreciation of the intimate relation existing between culture and christianity. of this relation christlieb truly speaks: "no one, indeed," says he, "will wish to deny that in our modern culture there is much that is false, egotistic, and selfish; much that is misleading and exaggerated, and consequently opposed to true culture. against these untrue elements of culture, christianity will and must always take the field; it must not oppose progress, although it is at all times bound to show itself hostile to the _sins_ of progress, just as from its very commencement it has always testified and striven against such sins. between christless culture and christianity a bridge of accommodation can no more be built than between light and darkness, and woe to him who undertakes this! but whatever in our modern culture is thoroughly _christless_, and therefore godless, is unworthy of the name and can, therefore, claim from us no further consideration; it is mere naked rudeness and selfishness, ill-disguised by the gaudy rays of outward decency; a mere cherishing of the sensual nature which, left to itself, would soon degenerate into monstrous barbarism, of which we already see many indications." intellectual, at the expense of moral, culture is one of the curses of this age. by such culture man acquires power without the principles which alone can make that power a blessing. intellect is deified; but intellect unsubdued by christianity is a remorseless god. true culture would lift man above this low conception of his own nature. it would give him a more comprehensive view of himself; of the infinite development of which he is susceptible; of the rulings of an all-wise providence, whose loving care "from seeming evil still educing good, and better thence again, and better still, in infinite progression." true culture consists not in an accumulation of facts or ideas, but in developing a force of thought that is ever a ready and willing servant. to educate is to lead out and develop the faculties, not to break them down with the endless rubbish of other minds. the collection of facts amounts to but little unless with those facts we build towers from which to take higher and wider views of truth. thus it is that culture demands them as a means, not as an end. to build up the mental and moral faculties, so as to comprehend and appreciate the great principles which control the life that now is, and that which is to come, is the highest culture in our probationary state. this can be accomplished only by an education in which the bible and the _authority of christ_ are made paramount. on this, as we have seen, our free institutions and the perpetuity of religious liberty depend. this is the secret of roman catholic opposition to the bible in our public schools. and it is not simply the bible in the public schools that rome opposes; she is opposed to the existence of the schools themselves; to the system of free education. no people understand better than the catholics the power of religious teaching in connection with education. hence they are the foe to all religion in connection with education that is not catholic. rome is the friend of education and religion when that education is priestly and that religion romish; otherwise she is the enemy of both. hence those who support catholic schools foster the deadliest foe of our religious liberties. there will ever be, therefore, an irrepressible conflict between roman catholicism and christian culture. let him who doubts this study impartially the history of catholic countries. we ask no more. the idea is fast passing away, and it can not pass too rapidly, that the mass of the people need no other culture than that which fits them for their various vocations. the world is beginning to learn that culture is due to our _nature_, not to our _calling_. it is not the calling nor the place of residence that makes the man. it is what a man _is_, not what he does, that makes him great. true greatness is in the man, not in circumstances. true greatness and worldly fame are two widely different things. the greatest men of earth may be but little known. as force of thought measures intellectual, so force of principle measures moral, greatness. there is more true greatness in the huts of poverty than in the palaces of kings, only it is undeveloped. here, therefore, is where we need true christian culture. i can not better express my appreciation of obscure greatness, which culture should develop, than by repeating the words of dr. channing: "the greatest man," says he, "is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on god, is most unfaltering; and is this a greatness which is apt to make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous stations? the solemn conflicts of reason with passion; the victories of moral and religious principles over urgent and almost irresistible solicitations to self-indulgence; the hardest sacrifices of duty, those of deep-seated affection and of the heart's fondest hopes; the consolations, hopes, joys, and peace, of disappointed, persecuted, scorned, deserted virtue; these are of course unseen, so that the true greatness of human life is almost wholly out of sight. perhaps in our presence the most heroic deed on earth is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifices made, and we do not suspect it. i believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard." most beautifully has the poet expressed the same fine thought: "full many a gem of purest ray serene, the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air." these pure gems need to be discovered and polished, and these sweet flowers cultivated and utilized by christian culture. it is idle to talk of developing these hidden resources of intellectual and moral wealth but by true culture, and this can never exist apart from christianity. christianity is the spiritual power that vitalizes the culture of our age. so evident is this that even a fichte was compelled to confess that, "we and our whole age are rooted in the soil of christianity, and have sprung from it; it has exercised its influence in the most manifold ways on the whole of our culture, and we should be absolutely nothing of all that we are, if this mighty principle had not preceded us." culture and christianity can not now be divorced. those who would array culture against christianity are themselves under the influence of that which they oppose. the very imagined imperfections of christianity must be discovered by the light of christianity, "just as he who seeks to discover spots in the sun, must for this purpose borrow the light of the sun itself." culture and christianity are so interwoven that we may never expect either, separate from the other, as a blessing to the world. the very fact that the protestant nations of the earth, where god is honored by a free bible, are the chief exponents of true culture, attests this connection. so vital is this relation that, "united they stand; divided they fall." another important end to be attained in the culture of the masses is independence of thought. we need to cast off the yoke of human opinion and cultivate the individual judgment. we are too much the slaves of fashion. we are disposed to dress our minds as well as our bodies, after the fashion of the times. this destroys originality and independence of thought, and renders our lives tame and insipid. we need connection with other minds to excite our own, not to enslave them. we want the thoughts of others that we may think; and without correct modes of thinking, all efforts at education and culture are failures. but it may be argued, the masses are denied the privilege of association with the cultivated. this is not true. they may deprive themselves, but they are not denied. this is peculiarly an age of printing. the best of literature may now find its way into the most humble homes. there is not a roof in the land under which the prophets and apostles of god will not enter with the glad message containing the promise of the life that is and that which is to come; not one under which the poets will not come to sing to us of that far-off land; not one too holy for the habitation of the great minds of earth which inspire us "with thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." with these for our companions, we may have the best society that this world affords, and, by such association, fit ourselves for the companionship of the cultivated. is it argued that the poor have not time for self-culture? this is one of the greatest mistakes of life. it is not _time_ that we want; it is _inclination_. generally, those who have most time profit by it least. an earnest purpose will either find time or make time. nor is it necessary that much time should be taken. the spare moments, the mere fragments of time, often worse than wasted, will, if carefully improved, make both mind and heart a store-house of the most precious treasure. it is said that spurgeon read the whole of macaulay's history of england between the courses at dinner. i would not advise that these golden opportunities for social culture be devoted to reading; but the circumstance shows how much may be accomplished by gathering up the crumbs which fall from the table of time. when martin luther was asked how, amid all his other labors, he found time to translate the holy scriptures, he replied, "one verse a day." a small amount of daily reading, of the right kind, will furnish food for thought; and it is thought, after all, that enriches the soul. a proper improvement of the most slender opportunities for self-culture creates new capacities for enjoyment, and saves the leisure moments from being dull and wearisome. more than this; it saves them from being devoted to ruinous indulgence. the soul-culture for which these fragments of time provide, lifts humanity above mere brutal enjoyments, and implants pleasures worthy of their race. christian culture is essential to the subduing of sensuality, and the subduing of sensuality is essential to the permanent prosperity of both individuals and nations. but, it may be said, any considerable degree of culture will lift the masses above their vocations, and cause them to become dissatisfied with their lot; that the cultured mind despises drudgery. the very reverse of this is true. culture dignifies labor and destroys drudgery. the man determines the dignity of the calling; not the calling the dignity of the man. let men of culture carry their culture into their vocations, and their vocations will become honorable. let cultured men plow and reap, and plowing and reaping will become as dignified as the "learned professions." because a man can not wear as fine a garb at the forge as he can at the desk, it does not follow that his thoughts may not be as fine. a man may wear a polished intellect and a cultivated soul under a coarse garb as well as under a fine one; and he should be respected the more, if circumstances have compelled him to develop his intellectual and moral forces; if at all, under a rough exterior. while in these thoughts i have spoken of men, i have used the term generically. the principles apply with equal force to the women of this country. one of the great evils of our land is, that among the ladies, domestic labor is not sufficiently dignified. the number of mothers in the ordinary walks of life, silly enough to think that ignorance of domestic duties is an accomplishment for their daughters, is by no means small. this results from a want of true culture and common sense. there is no just reason why a young lady should not knead her dough and conjugate a greek verb at the same time with equal skill. true culture will dignify domestic labor among women of all classes, and this will result in more domestic prosperity, and more domestic happiness. the rich and the poor will be brought into closer sympathy, unnecessary distinctions will be broken down, and the people will become one in the essential elements of good government and pure religion. young ladies, you above all others should appreciate the blending of culture and christianity. one glance at the history of the world must convince you that the highest culture, unsanctified by christianity, has never elevated your sex above disgraceful servitude. certainly you can not entertain the thought, that the culture which does not elevate woman can ever bless the world. only christianity has exalted the gentler sex to that position in the esteem and affections of men that god designed she should occupy. hence, of all the friends of ancient christianity, woman should be the truest and most lasting; and of all the enemies of modern rationalism, she should be the most bitter and unrelenting. in conclusion, allow me to repeat the thought of the beginning, that it is the nature of man to _look upward_, and he who does not look upward is untrue to his nature. but in the flesh, we can only begin to ascend the heights of god. here we are weighed down with infirmity, with our frail, decaying bodies; but our souls long for the power of incessant, never-wearying, glorious activity, awaiting us in the upper world. one of my highest conceptions of heaven; one that thrills me to contemplate, is a life of no more prostration from labor; no more weariness of over-wrought brain; no aching head nor pain-racked body; but incessant labor, unincumbered by frail mortality; growth, development, expanding visions of god, among pure intelligences, and amid the celestial splendor of eternal worlds. but in the flesh, i can not bathe in those fountains of celestial light. then let me leave this frail tenement of clay, as one steps out of the vehicle that can take him no farther, and leaving it behind, ascends the lofty mountain to gaze upon the unfolding wonders of god. let my liberated spirit not only look upward, but mount upward, as on eagles' wings, till rising above the pleiades, and leaving the milky-way to fade out in the receding distance, it walks with god on the ever-ascending plain, reached only by culture and christianity. ii.--self culture. [an address delivered before columbia christian college, june , .] _ladies and gentlemen:_--i am happy in the privilege of again addressing you in the interests of the great work in which you are so nobly engaged. to-day many of you go out from under the fostering care of this institution, to engage in the ceaseless battle of life. that you have been well panoplied for the conflict is not questioned. and, if i can second, in some degree, the efforts of your faithful and worthy faculty in directing and encouraging you to that success that should crown their efforts and yours, i shall feel that i have labored to no trifling purpose. the theme selected for your consideration is "_self-culture_." man, though fallen, is in his ruins grand. his powers of development are little less than infinite. they begin with the cradle, but do not end with the grave. no other being begins so low and ascends so high. in his beginning, he is "crushed before the moth;" in the fullness of his power he shall "judge angels." in this world he scarcely begins to live. this life is too short and this world too small for the development of his god-given faculties. here he scarcely learns the alphabet preparatory to god's grand university from which he is never to graduate. he simply begins the study of an unending book. he but gathers a few pebbles on the shores of the river of time, then sinks beneath its wave. but while in this world we scarcely make a beginning, yet everything depends on the character of that beginning. as is the beginning, so will be the conclusion. in the direction taken in time will we progress in eternity. we may repent of our mistakes here and correct them, but there is no repentance beyond the grave. there are no mistakes corrected in eternity. hence the necessity of a proper use of time. i have selected the word culture to express the idea which i wish to convey, and yet i must confess that it does not express it as happily as i should desire. where the greeks had their _paideia_, the romans their _humanitas_, we have the more elastic and accommodating word culture. i use it in this address in the sense of drawing out and developing the nobler powers that are potentially in fallen humanity. it is not so much the development of all the faculties in man to their highest extent, as the directing and training of the better ones to their true end. we are dealing here with beginnings, not endings. the perfection of man in all his capacities is not a thing of time. in time, the character must receive its mold; in eternity, its highest polish. by self-culture i mean, of course, the power that one has, and ought to use, of cultivating himself. "to cultivate anything," says dr. channing, "be it a plant, an animal, a mind, is to make grow. growth, expansion is the end. nothing admits culture but that which has a principle of life, capable of being expanded. he, therefore, who does what he can to unfold all his powers and capacities, especially his nobler ones, so as to become a well proportioned, vigorous, happy being, practices self-culture." this may apply to those who have not the advantages of schools and colleges, and to the after education of those who have. we hear much in this age about a "finished education at college." there is, alas! too much truth in the expression. generally, the more superficial our collegiate education, the more completely is it "finished" on the day of graduation. how few young ladies and gentlemen meet the expectations raised by their educational advantages! how few years sadden loving hearts with disappointed hopes! how many stars shine brilliantly within college walls, then go out to be seen no more! and all this the result of a "finished education!" most of these failures are the result of wrong views of education. our school days are but a beginning of our earthly education, as this is but the beginning of that which is to come. it is not what we learn in school, but what we learn after leaving it, that determines our success or failure. these advantages are but for the purpose of laying the foundation; the building is the work of after years. and he who does not build, does not even preserve the foundation. alas! how many well-laid foundations have moldered into ruin! no sooner does the plant cease to grow than it begins to decay. therefore, he who would live must grow, and he who would grow must be active. there is no success to him who stands with his hands in his pockets. this is an age of intense activity. competition in every calling is sharp; the professions are crowded, and there is room only at the top. therefore, the path to success is not strewed with flowers and tinted with the rainbow's hue. as carlyle truly says: "the race of life has become intense; the runners are treading upon each other's heels, woe be to him who stops to tie his shoestrings." many a young man fails because he thinks himself a genius, and therefore does not need to study. the sooner you get rid of the idea that you are a genius the better. the old idea of a genius that never has to study is the pet of laziness and the ruin of manliness. sidney smith truly says: "there is but one method of attaining to excellence, and that is hard labor; and a man who will not pay that price for distinction had better at once dedicate himself to the pursuit of the fox, or sport with the tangles of neæra's hair, or talk of bullocks and glory in the goad! there are many modes of being frivolous, and not a few of being useful; there is but one mode of being intellectually great." it is common for those who have not the wealth to afford them a luxurious college course to bemoan their misfortune and content themselves with being nothing. if culture were attained by complaining of misfortune, many would soon reach perfection. to some, extreme poverty is doubtless a misfortune, but to many others it is a blessing. the world's grandest heroes and benefactors have struggled with poverty; and, but for this, they would have died unwept and unhonored. the great men and women of earth were not dandled in the lap of luxury. lord thurlow, chancellor of england, when asked by a wealthy friend what course his son should pursue to secure success at the bar, is said to have thus replied: "let your son spend his fortune, marry and spend his wife's, and then go to the bar; there will be little fear of his failure." the chancellor well knew that, with his wealth, the young man would not do the work that success demanded. how many men, and women, too, were never anything till they lost their fortune! then the world felt their power. what a fortune, then, to have no fortune to lose! true, poverty brings difficulties, but difficulties develop men. they show the material out of which one is composed. while they dishearten the irresolute, they stimulate the brave. the wind that extinguishes the taper only intensifies the heat of the stronger flame. gnats are blown with the wind, but kites rise only against it. all culture is, in a large degree, self-culture. our teachers are only helps. they can teach us, but they can not learn us. we must do our own learning. wealth can not buy it, nor luxurious surroundings impart it; it must be made ours by personal application. i am not contending that all may or should be scholars in the proper sense of that word. there is a difference between culture and scholarship. a man of culture may or may not be a scholar. i plead more especially for the training of the mind, for the development of the nobler faculties of our nature, that we may fulfill the true end of our being. i do not mean that all should be great, in the popular acceptation of that term. this is neither desirable nor possible. if all were great, then none were great. but god has designed us all for positions of usefulness and happiness; some in one direction, some in another. these positions we should seek and fill to the full extent of our ability. and it is with reference to this ability that i am making the plea for self-culture. it is not simply preparation for a position, but development in it, for which i plead. there is much said in this age about education for a position, and this education is all right; the more thorough the better. but the trouble is, too many seem to think that this is all. here is the ruinous mistake. there is a world of difference between being educated _for_ a calling, and being educated _in_ it. that may be obtained in schools and colleges; this is a work of subsequent life. that is important; this is indispensable. without that, this may be a grand success; without this, that is next to worthless. many men are highly educated in their calling who were never educated for it. this is self-culture in its true sense. nor is the culture for which i plead derived simply from books. these we need, but we need them simply as helps. we should make them our servants, not our masters. a "bookworm" is sometimes a very inferior kind of a worm. some men that the schools call highly educated rely so much on books that they are nothing in themselves. they have no mind of their own. they deal altogether in second-hand goods. we need to lay aside our books, and study men and things--commence with god and nature. we must learn to _think_. to think much. to think accurately. to do our own thinking, not have it done for us. without this, we shall make but little of our advantages; with it, we rise superior to advantages. neither am i contending that we should all strive for the "learned professions." it is just the reverse. we want to elevate and ennoble the _un_learned professions. the american people, at least, should learn that the calling does not make the man. we need to dignify all the honest and legitimate vocations by intellectual and moral culture. we not only need to dignify labor by culture, but, by so doing, we need to dignify the mass of our common humanity. personal worth consists not in what one does, but in what one is. better be a good barber than a poor doctor, a good shoemaker than a poor lawyer. i would not be understood as claiming that men and women in all the vocations in life should be cultured in all directions. in this age of short and intense life this is not practicable. it might have done before the flood, when men lived a thousand years, but it is not adapted to the nineteenth century. remember i am speaking with reference to the masses. men can not know everything, neither can they do everything, and do it well. all knowledge may be made useful, and i would urge the obtaining of all possible; but it is a mistake to try to do too much, and do nothing. a few things well understood are of more value than a smattering of much. by all means avoid being "jack-of-all-trades." decide what you want to do and do it. i would urge the training of mind and heart and hand as a specialty in that which you select as a life work, embellished and perfected by all the general knowledge that a life of intense application will enable you to possess. difference in occupation demands a difference in special culture, but not in general. this is culture, not of the schools, simply, but of life. but the difficulties and the means of self-culture need now to be considered. in doing this, the first essential element to success to which your attention is called, is self-reliance. no man ever amounted to much who did not rely on god and himself. the young man who whines around, waiting for some one to help him, instead of helping himself, ought to be sent back to the nursery, clothed in enlarged baby-gowns, and fed with a spoon. men of independence are the men that move the world. the living rarely walk well in the shoes of the dead, and he who waits for them ought to go barefooted all his life. god helps those who help themselves. self-reliance toughens our sinews and develops our manhood. "it is not in the sheltered garden or the hothouse, but on the rugged alpine cliffs where the storm bursts most violently, that the toughest plants are reared." the man who does not rely on self, soon ceases to have any self. he becomes a zoological parasite, instead of a man. he is a lobster that waits for the sea to come to him, instead of going to it, though its waves may be dashing at his feet. should the sea accommodate him in time, well enough; otherwise he dies. these men make the subjunctive heroes of the world. they always "might," "could," "would" or "should" do some great thing; but they never get into the imperative mood to do it. they have never learned self-reliance; and, the result is, they never learned anything worth knowing. they can never appreciate this saying of the immortal burke: "i was not rocked and swaddled and dandled into a legislator. _nitor in adversum_ is the motto for a man like me." those who are afraid to move without the arms of a rich ancestry around them, will never learn to walk erect. they will never have a firm, elastic step, nor make the world feel the weight of their tread. the man who thus shrinks from difficulties and responsibilities, refuses to be a pupil of the best teacher the world affords. they should learn that repeated failure, if wisely used, is but a means to grand success. as dr. mathews truly says: "great statesmen in all countries have owed their sagacity, tact and foresight more to their failures than to their successes. the diplomatist becomes master of his art by being baffled, thwarted, defeated, quite as much as by winning his points. every time he is checkmated he acquires a profounder knowledge of the political game, and makes his next combination with increased skill and increased chances of success." ease and luxury may make the butterflies of society, but difficulties make men and women. that was a wise saying of pythagoras, that, "ability and necessity dwell near each other." it is astonishing how difficulties will yield to one who will not yield to them. they tip their plumed caps to his dominant will, and politely bow themselves out of sight. they not only clear the way for self-reliance, but give him the encouragement of their parting salute. "every person," says gibbon, "has two educations--one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives himself." archimedes said, "give me a standing-place and i will move the world." but goethe more happily says, "make good thy standing-place and move the world." circumstances may afford a standing-place, but self-reliance alone can give the leverage power. we must learn that character and worth consists in doing, not in possessing. not resting, not having, not being simply, but growing and becoming, is the true character of self-culture. this thought is most beautifully expressed by rogers-- "our reward is in the race we run, not in the prize, those few, to whom is given what they ne'er earned, having by favor or inheritance the dangerous gifts placed in their hands, know not, nor ever can, the generous pride that glows in him who on himself relies, entering the lists of life. he speeds beyond them all, and foremost in the race succeeds. his joy is not that he has got his crown, but that the power to win the crown is his." another important item in the attainment of self-culture is the economy of time. time is a divine inheritance that no man has a right to squander. the antediluvians might have afforded to be a little profligate in this direction, but the man who would fulfill his high destiny in this age has no time to lose. lost time is forever lost. there is much useless complaint in the world of a want of time. it is not more time we need, so much as a better use of that we have. i do not mean that we should deprive ourselves of requisite sleep and rest. on the contrary, the regulation of these constitutes a part of the economy of which i speak. rest is necessary; but all rest is not idleness. we should learn to rest by changing our employment, not by its abandonment. the man whose mind becomes weary in his study, finds the most invigorating rest in manual labor. the physical and intellectual have a happy reflective influence on each other. the moments wisely taken for intellectual and moral culture by the laboring man are fountains whose refreshing stream, like that from horeb, follows him through his daily toil. they are a ceaseless pleasure, both in remembrance and anticipation. those, also whose lives are disconnected with manual labor should have such a variety of work that one kind prepares the way for the enjoyment of another. there are both pleasure and health in a change of diet. to happily manage this variety requires a training of the mind essential to self-culture. we must learn to do the right thing at the right time. the happy influence of one thing upon another depends on their arrangement and the manner of their execution. it may not be well to have too many irons in the fire, but it is certainly best to have enough for some to be heating while others are cooling. in order to do the right thing at the right time, and do it well, we must learn to think about the right thing at the right time. this is one of the most important features in mental training. we can think well on but one thing at a time. therefore, the mind that is filled with various kinds of thoughts can prosecute none of them successfully. we must learn to select the guests that we would have sit at our intellectual banquets, summon or exclude them at will, and never permit the intrusion of a promiscuous crowd. when our work is arranged for the day, the week, the month, the year, we should set apart the time to be devoted to each item, both in work and in thought; and then never allow the thoughts of one to encroach upon the time allotted to another. we should so train the mind that we can think about the thing only of which we wish to think, concentrate our whole mind upon it till the time comes to put it away; then dismiss it in a moment, turn to something else, and think no more about it, till its proper time. the mind is soon trained to pass from one subject to another in a moment, with all its powers of concentration. this mastery of the mind, once attained, will enable us to study at all times and places regardless of circumstances. the man who can not study amid the wild shouts of the excited multitude is not his own master. he who can command his time and his talents only when no surging billows beat against his quiet retreat, has necessarily to spend much of life in which he has neither time nor talents which he can call his own. a very important item, then, in the economy of time, is to learn to labor under difficulties, till we rise superior to external surroundings. to keep the reins of the mind well in hand when there is a stampede all around us, is absolutely essential in the great crises of life. this is attained only by training the mind to instantaneous concentration under all circumstances. this, then, i would urge you to persist in until it is accomplished. without this you will lose much time in acquiring information, and, what is of vastly more importance, you will be unprepared to use what you have at the very time, it may be, when it is most needed. another important element in the economy of time we learn from the great teacher who said, "gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." if he who had the power to create as well as to preserve, was such an economist of the remnants of loaves and fishes, how much more should we save the fragments of time, which we can not lengthen out a span? many people seem to think they can make garments only out of whole cloth. if they have not an abundance of uninterrupted time in which to accomplish a thing, they think they can not accomplish it at all. such men accomplish but little, not for want of time, but for want of its economy. to avoid this waste, we must learn to weave whole garments out of the mere ravelings of the fabric of time. but some complain that they can not "get up steam" for intellectual labor in these fractions of time. we don't need to "get up steam." the "steam" should be already up. we only need to change the gearing. "there is a momentum in the active man," says mathews, "which of itself almost carries him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart one was required to set it in motion. while others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the _vis inertiae_, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fiber. he walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing than a vacant man is likely to do by strenuous effort." let no one conclude that nothing important can be accomplished by these scattered fragments. it is said that "hugh miller found time while pursuing his trade as a stone-mason, not only to read but to write, cultivating his style till he became one of the most facile and brilliant authors of the day." also, that elihu burritt "acquired a mastery of eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, not by rare genius, which he disclaimed, but by improving the bits and fragments of time which he could steal from his occupation as a blacksmith." with these examples before us, then, let no one conclude that he can not get time from his daily vocation, whatever it may be, to cultivate his mind, and develop his moral and intellectual faculties. another essential element in self-culture is singleness of purpose. "a man," says emerson, "is like a bit of labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors." there is no adaptation or universal applicability in man; but each has his special talent; and the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall need oftenest to be practiced. the successful man in every calling, whether literary, scientific or business, is he who is _totus in illo_--who can say with paul, this one thing i do! with the exception of a few great creative minds, the men whose names are historic are identified with some one achievement, upon which all their life force is spent. "whatever i have tried to do in my life," says dickens, "i have tried with all my heart to do well. what i have devoted myself to, i have devoted myself to completely. never to put one hand to a thing on which i would not throw my whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, i find now to have been golden rules." the fact is, the range of human knowledge has become so extensive that the man who would know some things well must have the courage to be ignorant of many others. there are many things for which one is wholly incapacitated; for which he has no talent, and, as a rule, time spent in this direction is time lost. goethe justly says: "we should guard against a talent which we can not hope to practice in perfection. improve it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching." sidney smith condemns what he calls the "foppery of _universality_--of knowing all sciences and excelling in all arts." "now _my_ advice," he says, "on the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything." i do not mean that you should try to learn but one thing, or be a man or woman of one idea; far from it. i simply mean that you must be select. select your calling, and then bend all your energies in that direction. let those branches of knowledge that bear most directly on your vocation be mastered first, then widen the circle as opportunity affords. do not scatter your powers over so much territory that they are felt nowhere. it is only when the sun's rays are brought to a focus that they burn. the man who is one thing this year, another next; studies medicine a while, then law, is next a school-teacher, and then an insurance agent, will, in the end, be nothing. men who are always changing, never learn enough about anything to make it of any value. men who are eminent in their professions have stuck to them with a singleness of purpose. men talk much about genius, when, generally, the genius of which they speak is but the result of unremitting application. the genius that blesses this world is simply a talent for hard work. they are men who have the resolution to try, and the courage to persevere. idle men of the most eminent natural ability are soon distanced in the race by the mediocre who sticks to his purpose and plods. then, i repeat, if you would succeed in life, in whatever calling you may select, divest yourself of the idea that you are a genius and do not need the application demanded by common mortality; rely not on the caprices of fickle fortune; but rely on god and yourself, economize your time, apply yourself with diligence and with singleness of purpose. with these you will be a blessing to the world, and fulfill the high and holy purposes of god in giving you being. self-culture looks not simply to time, but to eternity. no man is truly cultured who is not cultured for eternity. his culture is but one-sided, and that the most inferior side. the well-rounded and perfected culture, though it may be only partial so far as the culture of this world is concerned, is the culture that prepares one to matriculate in the great university over which god presides, and sit forever in delightful appreciation at the feet of the great teacher. let this, then, be the ultimatum of all your efforts. it is for this reason that you should so highly appreciate this institution from which you go out to-day as honored students. while the various branches of the arts and sciences that pertain to this life, have been carefully and accurately taught you, the great science of eternal life, if i may so term it, has been, i trust, indelibly engraved on your every heart. a college whose faculty is composed exclusively of christian men and women, and in which the systematic study of the bible by both ladies and gentlemen is made one of its most prominent features, will ever be most highly appreciated by those who appreciate true culture, and know in what it consists. i think i appreciate a high standard of education, and i want, if possible, to give my children its advantages; but i should infinitely prefer their never going beyond the common school than to be graduated with the first honors from the most renowned colleges or universities of europe or america, in which the authority of jesus is not held as supreme, and the bible honored as our only divine guide. other things being equal, we should always honor those institutions most that honor god's word most. for this reason, then, as well as for many others, we delight to honor this institution from whose fostering care you this day go forth. in conclusion, let me entreat you to be what this world now most needs--men and women. the world is now burdened with "gentlemen and ladies;" but it is perishing for the want of men and women. the world needs men and women that are true to themselves, true to each other, and true to god--men and women who know what manliness is, and what womanly virtues are; who delight in the real, and scorn the counterfeit; who have the courage to do right because it is right; who would rather stand alone on the side of truth, than with the world on the side of error; who are governed by high and holy principle, not by selfish policy. we need men and women that will create a healthier public sentiment, rather than to float on that which exists; who will frown out of countenance the fraud, dishonesty and meanness that now lifts high its head in society; who will not live in fine palaces, drive fast horses, and occupy the first pews in the sanctuary, at ten cents on the dollar. the world needs men and women who have hearts and consciences, as well as brains; who realize that they have a soul as well as a body; who live for eternity rather than for time. god grant that you may all make such men and women. that you may not only be a blessing to the age and generation in which you live; but that your influence for the "true, the beautiful and the good," may be felt like the gentle dews of heaven upon the earth, generations after you are gathered to your fathers! may you be diligent and faithful in the cultivation of your nobler powers of mind and heart till the world shall bless god that you have lived in it; then laying aside the body, in which you have fought the grand fight for righteousness and truth--a fight on which god and angels have looked with interest and delight--as you would lay aside a worn-out garment, and passing through "the gates ajar," enter on a higher plane of culture, where you will not have to rely upon self, and struggle against adversity as here; but where you will have all the facilities of heaven, and be forever pupils of the great teacher! iii.--plus ultra vs. ne plus ultra. [an address delivered before eminence college, june , .] ladies and gentlemen of eminence college:--it has ever been a delight to me to meet with the faculty and students of eminence college on these festive occasions. it is but natural that the hearts of those who have gone out from these classic halls should turn on these gala days, and in feeling if not in fact, renew the fond associations of the past. they are oases in the desert; well-springs to the thirsty soul in the journey of life. i should, therefore, be untrue to myself, and unjust to you, were i not to confess to a pardonable pride in the privilege of addressing for the second time one of the graduating classes of this renowned institution. the subject on which i shall to-day address you is "_plus ultra vs. ne plus ultra._" spain is the great southwestern peninsula of europe. it juts out between two seas as does no other country of that continent. before the discovery of america by columbus, the spaniards prided themselves on the supposed fact that their country was the last point of solid land on the earth westward. beyond them, they thought, there was nothing but a vast expanse of water--a shoreless ocean--a mystery never to be solved. consequently the early coins of that country, in order to give prominence to this idea, were indented with a picture of the pillars of hercules, the two great sentries on each side of the straits of gibraltar. encircling these pillars on their coins was the inscription, _ne plus ultra_--nothing beyond. they imagined, therefore, that they constituted the limits of creation; that beyond them there was nothing. consequently, as in creation the last is the best, they gave to themselves the preëminence. in this proud idea they rested and praised the lord. in their own estimation, therefore, they constituted the _ne plus ultra_ of god's favored people. thus they constituted another proud monument of man's folly and ignorance, from which it is well to take warning. in course of time, however, columbus conceived the idea of another world west of spain. after long years of discouragement, sufficient to crush the spirit of all but those of noble impulses and high resolves, he was permitted, with a small fleet, utterly insignificant in this age, to sail westward. he thus discovered the _new world_ whose existence, if ever known before, had faded from the memory of man. on his return, when the spaniards became convinced that a great continent lay to the west of them, they were compelled, humiliating as it was, to change the inscription on their coins, encircling the pillars of hercules, to _plus ultra_--more beyond. this the demonstrated truth demanded. thus the discovery of america took the _ne_ off of their proud motto, thus teaching them a lesson which should be a lesson to the world. their negation was changed to an affirmation. their boasted limit of creation was changed to an acknowledgment of the unknown beyond. thus it has ever been in man's proud history. thus it will doubtless continue to be till we know as we are known. "whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; for now we know only in part, but then shall we know even also as we are known." the first thought with which i would impress your minds to-day, especially the minds of those who go out from this institution with the honors of graduation, is that there is something beyond--the _plus ultra_ of a collegiate education. one of the most fatal mistakes in securing a collegiate education is, that this is all. if one of you entertains the idea to-day that your education is "finished," you will be a failure. we hear much in this age about a "finished education" in college. alas! there is too much truth in it. the education of many is thus "finished," and their progress in life is also _finished_. a college course is not the end, but simply the means, of an education. this is simply the foundation, not the structure. on this you are to hereafter build; otherwise the foundation will be worthless. without the after building the foundation itself will decay. this is alike the teaching of the history of man and the son of god. on this foundation, therefore, i would urge you to build, not for time only, but for eternity. on it you should erect a noble structure, at once an ornament and a blessing to your race. this can not be done in a day. patience and perseverance are the price of success. you must learn to "labor and to wait." how often do we see the scintillations of genius within college walls, of which we see or hear nothing after the day of graduation? on that day the sun of their brilliancy seems to set forever. why is this? simply because they think their graduation is the _ne plus ultra_ of their literary life. it is not what we learn in college, but what we learn after leaving it, that makes us what we are in after life. the value of a collegiate education consists not in the amount of information it imparts, but in a preparation for the accumulation and use of information. not simply the best minds, but the best students are those who win the prize in the end. not the best students in college, but the best students after leaving it, are those who make the world feel their power. many study hard for the honors of graduation, and beyond this seem to have no aspirations. if this is their _ne plus ultra_, then it is worthless. this institution does not educate you for graduation; it graduates you for education. without this end in view, its labors would better cease. an institution is honored not by what its students know on the day of commencement, but by what they know and do ere they matriculate in the great university of worlds. it is, therefore, young ladies and gentlemen, to this end and not to this hour, that your teachers have faithfully labored to bring you. without this in view, you will miss the grand purpose of your education thus far. doubtless many of us know men and women who have not grown an inch since the day that they went out from these or other halls of learning. they may have promised much at the beginning. on their success high hopes were built. loving hands were impatient to wreathe their brows with the garlands of victory. but, alas! those hopes have been blighted and those garlands have withered. we see them in the pulpit, at the bar, and in all the other vocations of life. they are failures, not for want of mind, but for want of application. they have not followed up their victories, and their victories have turned to defeat. they have been resting on the honor of faded laurels, that in their freshness so become you to-day. to gather these was the _ne plus ultra_ of their efforts, and hence the end of their success. therefore, if any of you to-day look upon your graduation as the consummation of your literary struggles, let me exhort you to change your motto, and, like the spaniards, on the birth of the new world, discard the idea of a possessed _ultimatum_, and imprint upon your banner _plus ultra_--more beyond. as most of the graduating class are ladies, i feel the necessity of speaking especially of their hopes and prospects. till recently, the hindrances of woman's education and literary position have been great and discouraging. but, thanks to the religion of jesus, her disabilities have in christian lands been removed. woman was the crowning workmanship of god, and she has received the crowning blessings of christianity. by the blessing of christianity, the intellectual and spiritual powers of woman are encouraged. the world is often dazzled by her genius, astonished at her resources, and subdued by her spirit. she has stood in the halls of learning, walked in the groves of science, and gathered laurels on the mountains of fame. she has stimulated the world's genius, soothed its passion, and strewed her pathway through it with the sweetest flowers. women have ever been the world's brightest angels of mercy-- "whose company has harmonized mankind, soften'd the rude and calmed the boisterous mind." there are positions in the world for which woman was not made. the finishing touches of creation's wondrous works were too delicate to fit her for the political arena, the command of armies, or the founding of empires. she was made for higher and holier ends than these. she is adapted to a work more noble and more enduring. her empire is in the heart, and her scepter one of spiritual dominion. here she is a queen, and reigns without a rival. while there is a limit to her appropriate field of action, there is no limit to her power. some one has said: "the current of female existence runs more within the embankments of home." this is true, but her influence overflows those banks and inundates the world. her influence may be compared to the sparkling rivulet that bursts from the mountain peak, then winding its way to the valley below, it flows gently onward for thousands of miles, through rugged hills and fertile plains, bathing the feet of great cities and slaking the thirst of great countries, augmented by its tributaries, till, bearing upon its bosom the commerce of a nation, it pours its flood of waters into the world's great ocean. as our grand mississippi will readily yield to an infant's touch, and yet bear upon its bosom the proudest vessels of man's invention, so is the tenderness and the power of woman's influence. i have spoken of woman being the "last of creation." this expression is generally used in a false sense. she was last because god created on an ascending scale. she was, therefore, last in creation and first in redemption. she gave to the world its saviour, and first proclaimed his birth from the dead. she was his best friend while he was here, and has been most devoted to his cause during his absence. hence where christianity goes woman's power is felt. the extent to which woman is honored marks to-day with unerring certainty the extent of a nation's civilization. young ladies, you have before you a field of golden opportunities. only thrust in your sickles and reap. in this age and country there are great potentialities to every young lady of a good mind and a pure heart. let no one, therefore, be discouraged. remember that there is something beyond--the _plus ultra_ of a well-begun life. having urged the necessity of _plus ultra_ as your motto, as against _ne plus ultra_, i may drop some profitable hints as to the attainment of success. you know that one may give good advice, though he may not have profited by it himself. in the first place, everything depends on work. intense application is the price of success. the world's benefactors are the world's hard workers. "tickle the earth with a hoe, and it will laugh at you with a harvest." but it closes its fists against those who extend to it an idle hand. many people contend that the world owes them a living, and grumble that it does not pay the debt. what have they done for the world to bring it into their debt? the world owes every man a living when he earns it by honest toil, and not before. those who sow with a stingy hand may expect to reap a scanty harvest. you should, therefore, in whatever vocation you may elect, strive to succeed on this principle; otherwise you will not deserve success. you should not be discouraged because surroundings are not favorable, and hope seems long deferred. be not impatient of results. do your whole duty, and leave the consequences with the lord. never strive to be great. few men become great this way, and they never deserve it. true greatness comes as a result of devotion to principle and duty. the highest and noblest success comes through a spirit of self-forgetfulness. learn to be indifferent to surroundings. you need not catch the "spirit of the age" unless the "spirit of the age" is worth catching. when you contemplate marquis de condorcet, in the dark days of the french revolution, hiding in a lonely room in the city of paris, while its streets ran red with noble and innocent blood, quietly writing a book whose subject was, "_man's certain progress to liberty, virtue, and happiness_," you will understand what i mean. you must learn to _think_; to think regardless of surroundings; to think only of the thing of which you wish to think; and on this to concentrate the whole power of your mind. this requires careful training; but this only is _education_. with this you have full command of all your resources; without this they avail but little. the great motive power of the world is thought. information without thought is simply a peddler burdened with stale wares on a dead market. it is not what one knows, but what he can produce, that makes the world feel his power. hence one must be a producer as well as a receiver. the world's thought must be regenerated in his own mind. he should turn the world's dead facts into living thoughts--"thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." avoid fickleness of purpose. decide to do something in harmony with your endowments and the will of god, _and do it_. many people of fine attainments and intellectual powers are spending their lives trying to decide for what purpose the lord made them. before they determine what they are good for, the world is certain to decide that they are good for nothing. life is too precious to be spent in hesitation. he who vacillates will do nothing. concentration is power. the rays of the sun that would hardly warm an infant's hand will, when concentrated by a lens, blister the palms of the hardiest sons of toil. if we would make life a success, we must live for a purpose. he who lives simply for the sake of living, has no just conception of life. those who live for the gratification of the flesh should remember that the goat lives for the same purpose. how humiliating the thought, that so many of the cultured, as well as the ignorant; the rich as well as the poor; the "cream of society" as well as its dregs, are thus living on the low plane of animal life! the grand distinction between man and the brute creation is in his _spirit_ nature. without spiritual culture, every thought, every aspiration, every gratification, is of the earth earthy. how sad, then, to see the gaudy "butterflies of society" spending their lives without a thought above that which alone can lift them forever above the plane of animal life! it is sad thus to think, but sadder still 'tis true. the enjoyment of "society," therefore, must not be your _ne plus ultra_, else life will be a failure. in order to the highest success, you should live fast, but not in the world's bad sense of that word. i simply mean that your life should be intense. mere existence is not life. life is action. life is not measured by time, but by experience. it is our duty, therefore, to live all we can in the time allotted us. the patriarchs lived longer than we, but we may live more than they. this is a grand age in which we live. we may now live more in fifty years than methuselah did before the flood. the time is short. hence if we would live much we must live fast. but here i anticipate an objection. you say, "we shall shorten our days by fast living." not by _this kind_ of fast living. the world will never be troubled for burying ground for those who kill themselves simply by hard work. it is not work, but worry, that wears men out. we have too much friction in our lives. this must be stopped. an hour's passion will tell more on the constitution than a week's work. the largest amount of action, with the smallest amount of friction, is the problem before you; and he is the wisest philosopher who gives to us its best practical solution. i wish now to invite your attention to mistakes that men have made in supposing that their knowledge was the _ne plus ultra_ of human wisdom. time was when the alchemists thought they possessed the _ne plus ultra_ of human knowledge, and that wisdom would die with them; yet their knowledge is now to chemistry what astrology is to astronomy. it is a superstition on whose claims no scientist would dare to risk his reputation. now chemistry is the _ne plus ultra_ of human wisdom, and every man is a fool who does not hold the key to the secret chambers of its hidden treasures! but how long till we shall have a new chemistry that will render the old a bundle of laughable folly? the fact is, by the advancement of human knowledge we demonstrate that our ancestors were a set of fools, and our posterity will doubtless pay us the same compliment! the philosophy of history should teach us to be modest, and to keep as our motto _plus ultra versus ne plus ultra_. modern science has demonstrated that of all unreliable things, ancient science is the most unreliable. we should, therefore, expect to eventually see modern science remanded to the same category. one of the greatest inventors of the age, mr. edison, whose inventions have had to do wholly with modern science, tells us that he has been constantly thrown off the track and misled by the frauds of science. he thus expresses his estimate of the authorities in modern science: "they [the text-books] are mostly misleading. i get mad with myself when i think i have believed what was so learnedly set out in them. _there are more frauds in science than anywhere else_.... take a whole pile of them and you will find uncertainty, if _not imposition_, in half of what they state as scientific truth. they have time and again set down _experiments as done by them_, curious, out-of-the-way experiments, _that they never did_, and upon which they have founded so-called scientific truths. i have been thrown off my track often by them, and for months at a time. you see a great name, and you believe it. try the experiment yourself, and you find the result altogether different.... i tell you i'd rather know nothing about a thing in science, nine times out of ten, than what the books would tell me--for practical purposes, for applied science, the best science, the only science, i'd rather take the thing up and go through with it myself. i'd find out more about it than any one could tell me, and i'd be sure of what i know. that's the thing. professor this or that will controvert you out of the books, and prove out of the books it can't be so, though you have it right in the hollow of your hand all the time and could break his spectacles with it." thus it is that these authorities have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. this is a marvelous age, an age of unsurpassed invention and discovery of truth, but it is not the _ne plus ultra_ of human wisdom--if we are to take any lessons from the past ages. the wave theory of sound, which has been regarded as a settled scientific fact since the days of pythagorean, is now vigorously attacked, and the adherents to the orthodox ground will have to rally their forces and reconsider their proofs, if they save the theory from slumbering among the follies of the past. in the past few years the world has been startled by the bold theory of evolution, as advocated by darwin, haeckel, huxley and others. many have felt uneasy about the foundations of our faith. but such alarm is all premature. the glaring contradictions of one another of these modern apostles of a "gospel of dirt," and their self-stultification, are enough to convince any thoughtful reader, that if the race has not developed from apes, a few of them bear marks of descent from asses! the credulity of this class of men is simply marvelous. they can believe that a moneron can be developed into a man, but can not believe in a miracle! their wonderful development of a moneron into a man terminates with the boundary line of time, and thus the _ne plus ultra_ is reached of their "infinite progression!" in order to a proper appreciation of the present life, we must be deeply impressed with the nature of that which lies beyond. no one can well spend the present life who does not spend it in view of the life to come. man must properly appreciate himself before he can live in harmonious relations with his being. no man can have that appreciation of himself essential to a true life, who believes that his ancestors were monerons and mud-turtles! while there are many striking resemblances between animals and man, just such as we should expect to find from the hand of the same creator, who began farthest from himself and worked to his own divine model, yet there are striking differentiae which demand profound consideration. animals come into the world with the knowledge of their ancestors. the beaver knows just what its ancestors knew before the flood. it is born into the world with that transmitted knowledge. its posterity will know no more during the millennium. on the contrary, man is born into the world an intellectual blank. however wise his parents, he inherits not one idea. he knows absolutely nothing except what he learns--learns from teachers and by experience. it would be incomprehensibly strange if man in his development from a mollusk, should accumulate inherited knowledge till he reaches the _ne plus ultra_ of terrestrial life, and then by a sudden break in the chain of nature lose it all, and come into the world a born fool!! this would be "development," "natural selection," and the "survival of the fittest," with a vengeance! here is a chasm between man and the lower animals, made by the hand of god, that human wisdom can never bridge. in his intellectual, moral and spiritual development, man starts from zero. god has thus ordained it. he is dependent on progression for all that he is and all that he is to be. god simply gives him a start in this world, with the numberless ages of eternity before him for infinite advancement. the idea, therefore, that "death ends all" nips in the bud this grand conception of man's greatness, and blights forever that which is noblest and truest in his nature. to regard this life as the _ne plus ultra_ of man's development, is to charge nature with a freak of folly, and an abortion in her best works. men may laud human virtue for human virtue's sake; but if man is but the moth of a day, the fire-fly whose phosphorescent light flashes for a moment and then goes out in eternal night, his virtues are but the tales of the hour that have their value in the telling. if this life is all there is of man, then he is the most unmeaning portion of the creation of god. there is for him no perfection, no satisfying of his inherent wants, and the whole of his existence is a sham and a fraud. as young has beautifully said: "how poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how complicate, how wonderful, is man! how passing wonder he who made him such! who centered in our make such strange extremes, from different natures marvelously mixed, connection exquisite of distant worlds! distinguished link in being's endless chain! midway from nothing to the deity! a beam ethereal, sullied, and absorbed! though sullied and dishonored, still divine! dim miniature of greatness absolute! an heir of glory! a frail child of dust! helpless immortal! insect infinite! a worm! a god!--i tremble at myself, and in myself am lost. at home, a stranger. thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, and wondering at her own. how reason reels! o, what a miracle to man is man! triumphantly distressed! what joy! what dread! alternately transported and alarmed! what can preserve my life? or what destroy? an angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; legions of angels can't confine me there." it is only when we thus look beyond this life, and contemplate his relation to the deity, that we realize the true dignity of man. it is natural that you should desire power--power to bless the race and bring it nearer to god. do not be discouraged if you do not find this power clothed in the world's pomp and parade. the most god-like power comes not in this way. god works by quiet forces that man may scorn but can not equal. behold that mountain of ice in the polar sea held by the relentless grip of a winter's frost. all the engineering power of man could not shake it upon its throne. all the locomotives in the world could not move it an inch. but nature unveils her smiling face when the springtime comes, the sun sheds upon it his gentle rays, noiseless as the grave, too mild to hurt an infant's flesh, and soon these mountains of ice relax their grip and glide away into the great deep! this is power. this power you may possess, and should strive to possess, through the gentle forces of a regenerated nature, till the quiet influences you exert for god will pass beyond the bounds of time and be expended on a shoreless eternity. in conclusion, then, let me urge you to live for eternity, and let the life that now is be with reference to that which is to come. then will you progress from the low plane of our terrestrial sphere to association with god, and eternity alone will mark the _ne plus ultra_ in intellectual and spiritual development toward the divine being. part iii.--selections. new testament views of christ. i.--christ the lamb of god. "behold, the lamb of god, that taketh away the sin of the world" (john i. ) the new testament presents a many-sided view of christ. from each point of view he appears in a new relation, and we study him in a different character. we can see but one side of a mountain by approaching it from only one direction. we must view it from every point from which it presents a different aspect, before we have seen it as it is. so we should study christ in the many characters in which he is introduced upon the sacred page, that we may understand more of the many dear relations he sustains to us. the more we know of him in his various relations, the more we will love him and the better we will serve him. we therefore purpose a number of articles under the general title of "new testament views of christ." they will appear, we trust, with as much regularity as the press of other matters will permit. after the temptation, jesus returned to where john was baptizing, and began the work of gathering about him his apostles. on different occasions, as jesus moved among the multitudes during this visit, john pointed him out as the lamb of god. and john said, "i knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, upon whomsoever thou shalt see the spirit descending and abiding upon him, the same is he that baptizeth with the holy spirit. and i have seen and borne witness that this is the son of god" (john i. , ). both before and after this statement, john calls him the lamb of god. john knew that he was to make the messiah manifest to israel by his baptism, for god had told him so. he did not know jesus to be the christ till after his baptism, yet he shrank back from the idea of baptizing him, and pleaded his unworthiness. he was worthy, and specially appointed of god, to make manifest the messiah, but gave way under a sense of unworthiness at the thought of baptizing his cousin, jesus of nazareth! what a flood of light does this pour upon the private life of the son of mary! john knew jesus as a _man_; and while he doubtless had hopes that he was the long-promised one, he did not _know_ it, and could not base his refusal of baptism on that ground. john was baptizing for the remission of sins, and required those whom he baptized to confess their sins, and his knowledge of the spotless life of jesus caused him to shrink at the thought of administering to him such a baptism. thus impressed with the purity and innocence of jesus, it is not strange that he should call him the lamb of god. but innocence is not the only prominent feature in contemplating jesus as a lamb. the idea of sacrifice to which innocence and purity are essential has pre-eminence. the first accepted offering on the earth, of which we have an account, was a lamb. it was offered in faith; hence by divine direction. that abel saw anything in it beyond an act of simple obedience to god in an arbitrary appointment, we have no reason to believe. he did what god directed, and because it was directed. this is the essential element of obedience in all ages, regardless of the thing required. nothing else can be the "obedience of faith." what different conceptions had god and abel of that sacrifice! abel saw in it only a "firstling of his flock." god saw in it his own son--"the lamb of god that taketh away the sin of the world." not only so, but on this account was it directed. the fact that this was not revealed to abel, shows that god intends us to obey him in what he directs, without being concerned about the reasons he has for the requirement. he who sees the end from the beginning makes the first in execution conform to that which is to be last. hence, the first act of worship, and every subsequent act, from the divine point of view, harmonizes with the perfection which in the fullness of times, was given us in christ jesus. the lamb of abel borrowed all its value and significance from the lamb of god. while we are enabled to see this through the development of the scheme of redemption, he was not; and the fact that his act of simple obedience in ignorance of god's far-seeing purposes is recorded as an example for us, is of unspeakable value to the child of faith. during the four thousand years in which god was preparing the world for christ, both in patriarchal and jewish worship, a lamb without spot or blemish was the most prominent offering for sin. in every case the offering was made as directed, and when made, the worshiper was assured that his sin was forgiven. christ is our sin-offering--the lamb of god that takes away our sins--and we must present him before god as divinely directed. we may build no strange fire on god's altars. we may substitute nothing for christ as an offering for sin, and no ways of our own for god's way, in his presentation. in viewing christ as the lamb of god--the lamb slain from the foundation of the world--the prominent feature of his saving relationship to us is his _blood_. hence we are redeemed, not with silver and gold and perishable things, "but with the precious blood of christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." as a lamb, christ is sin-atoning. his power to save is not in the innocence of his life, but the merits of his death. the sacrifice of an innocent life is god's wisdom and power to save the world. let us remember it was for _us_ he was led as a lamb to the slaughter; that _our_ sins were laid upon him; that he was bruised for _our_ iniquities; that he bore _our_ sins in his bosom on the tree; that by his stripes we are healed; that in his innocent life and sacrificial death, we behold the lamb of god that taketh away the sin of the world. new testament views of christ. ii.--christ the bread of life. "i am the bread of life. your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they died. this is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. i am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he will live forever; yea, and the bread which i will give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (john vi. - ). when the israelites came out of egypt and started on their wilderness journey to the promised land, they found themselves without sustenance. the land furnished no supplies. in this respect they were cut off from earthly resources. in their emergency they cried unto the lord, and god gave them bread from heaven. each day they gathered the necessary supply. the amount for the sabbath was gathered the day preceding. beyond this there was no collection for future use. an effort to save it proved a disgusting failure. forty years did the daily supply of manna fail not, till they reached the land that god had promised. the bread on which god fed his people from the land of bondage to the land of canaan was a type of christ. this is asserted by both paul and the saviour. as such it is worthy of careful study. . the israelites were wholly dependent on the daily bread which god gave. this was a want which the world could not supply. they must feed upon the heaven-supplied food or die. so is every one thus dependent on the bread of life. the world can not supply the wants of the child of god. he needs a daily food which the world does not produce. the world is to him a spiritual desert. he can not look to it to meet the wants of his spiritual nature. being born from above, he has to live from above. when he seeks to gratify the cravings of his carnal nature by turning back to the flesh-pots of egypt, he languishes and dies. be it remembered that this bread of life is christ. it is not some theory about him. it is not some system of theology of man's formulation. men may feed upon systems and theories till their souls are dwarfed and starved. such feeding makes partisans and cold-blooded sectarians, without imparting divine life to the soul. we must come directly to christ. through his holy word we must study him, assimilate our lives to his, feed upon him as the bread from heaven, and drink in of his gracious spirit. the world took knowledge of the saints of old, that they had been with jesus. and so it may now easily decide as to those of such holy companionship. . christ is the bread of life. as such he has to be appropriated. there is no virtue in bread to sustain life until it is appropriated and assimilated to the system. men may starve within reach of abundance. god supplies the bread of life, but he does not compel men to eat it. they are urged to eat and live, but they may refuse and die. oh, the millions in our land who are starving for the bread of life, when it is offered them day by day! unless we eat the body of the son of god we have no life. our salvation, therefore, depends upon eating. yet there is no virtue in the act of eating. the virtue is in the thing eaten. it is not putting on your coat that makes you warm, but the coat after it is on. faith is a condition of salvation; but there is no power to save in believing. the saving virtue is in the thing believed. so we may substitute nothing for that which god has given. we must eat the bread which god provides, else all our eating will be in vain. . it is well understood by all classes that the wants of the physical man need to be daily supplied. to meet these demands, is the chief concern of the great mass of humanity. observe that young man. he is in the vigor of robust manhood. he has just enjoyed a night's refreshing sleep and a hearty breakfast. his system seems to be overflowing with an excess of vitality. he goes forth to his work boastful of his strength. but how many hours is it till nature cries aloud for the replenishing of his strength? how long can he live on the boastful supply of his physical manhood? a few days finds him as helpless as a babe. so essential is physical food to physical life. nor is spiritual food less essential to spiritual life. as new-born babes we need the unadulterated milk of the word, that we may grow thereby. as men and women, we need the strong meat adapted to our maturity. the great mistake is in trying to live the spiritual life without spiritual food. the strong men in christ are the good feeders. those who feed upon the bread of heaven will develop in that which is heavenly. no man has religion enough at the start to take him through life, unless he dies early. the foolishness of the five foolish virgins consisted in their not taking an additional supply of oil. so it is now with every one who does not daily replenish his supply of spirituality. he who tries to live without communion with god--in reading, in praying, in meditation and obedience to the divine will--will end in shameful failure. christian character is a growth, not a divine impartation. god does not give spiritual strength in an arbitrary way. he provides the means to that end. if we use them, strength results. if we neglect them, we die in feebleness. the means in the figure before us is the bread of life, and the bread of life is christ. there is an absolute necessity, therefore, for feeding upon him. from him all spiritual strength is derived. he is the source of all life. he said to his disciples: "without me, ye can do nothing." as the branch draws its nourishment and fruit-bearing qualities from the vine, so we draw all spirituality and fruitfulness from christ. we are fruitful in proportion as we abide in the vine; and we are strong in proportion to our feeding on the bread of life. . god permitted israel to gather manna for one day only at a time. so in teaching his disciples to pray, the saviour said: "give us this day our daily bread." our bread of life is a never-failing supply. there was no need of laying up manna, for god gave a fresh and abundant supply every morning. this daily supply never ceased till their pilgrimage was over. of this they had assurance. hence an attempt to lay up a supply for future use was to distrust the god of their fathers. the true bread of heaven is as unfailing as was the typical bread of the wilderness. god's people will ever have an abundant supply of that bread of which, if a man eats, he shall never hunger. hence the saviour says: "lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." . the world has been greatly concerned about food for six thousand years. the gratification of the appetite has both blessed and cursed the race. life has ever depended upon food; hence food has been the chief concern of man. during the history of the world the race has been ignorant of the processes of digestion and assimilation. they have known nothing of the chemistry of this source of life. they have gone on from age to age building up their bodies by taking food, wholly ignorant of the process by which it was done. the value of the thing eaten has never depended on a knowledge of the process by which it was assimilated. we thank god that it is thus with the bread of life. we may never expect to comprehend the "mystery of godliness" in this life. just how the bread of life enables us to live forever, we are not concerned to know. it is enough for us to know that it is so. let us, then, appropriate this rich provision of god's grace, and the blessing will be ours. new testament views of christ. iii.--christ the water of life. "jesus answered and said unto her, every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that i shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that i shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life" (john iv. , ). "now on the last day, the great day of the feast, jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (john vii. ). "and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was christ" (i. cor. x. ). twice was a rock smitten by moses in the wilderness to supply the israelites with water. the first was at rephidim, in the wilderness of sin, during the first year of their exodus, before they came to mount sinai. the second was at kadesh, in the wilderness of zin, in the fortieth year of the exodus. it is evident that the apostle refers to the first of these, though we can hardly think, with most commentators known to us, that he does so exclusively. the fact that the rock followed them, as a type of christ, in their wilderness life, demands that it be from the beginning, rather than the end, of their journey. and the fact that many who drank of it fell in the wilderness, requires the same conclusion. but for reasons yet to appear, we think the two are considered as one. the miracle was in all respects the same in the second as in the first. there was the same dependence for life on the second as the first. there was the same necessity that the second rock or stream should follow them as there was of the first; for they were yet a long way from canaan, with a waterless desert before them. we can, therefore, see no reason why the first should be a type of christ and not the second. was it the stream or the rock which followed the israelites? paul says the rock. but commentators seem generally to agree that the "rock" is here put by metonymy for the water of the rock, barnes says, "it would be absurd to suppose that the rock that was smitten by moses literally followed them in the wilderness." just why it is more "absurd" to suppose the rock followed them, than the stream from a stationary fountain at horeb, we are wholly unable to see. let us look at the facts and probabilities in the case. we must keep in view the important fact, as mentioned in the last chapter, that these people were _dependent on god_. they had seen the mighty hand of god in their delivery, and now they were to be taught dependence on him, as the only source of life. they had, therefore, to be sustained by miraculous food and miraculous drink. the country supplied neither food nor water. the miraculous supply of water was as great a necessity as that of bread. for two or three millions of people, with their flocks and herds, a large stream, even a small river, would be required. it is also true that their cattle had to have food, as well as themselves. just how this was furnished, we are not told. here is a large field for conjecture. it is generally held that the river continued to flow from a stationary source at horeb, and that it irrigated the country in its following of the people, and thus caused vegetation for the flocks and herds. but in the fortieth year they are again found without water. why was this? what had become of the river that had followed them from the first year, if it was the river, and not the rock, that followed them? on this point we can not refrain from quoting macknight and barnes, as examples of how learned commentators, led by a theory, sometimes drop their readers into a perfect abyss of darkness. macknight says: "for as wall observes, from horeb, which was a high mountain, there may have been a descent to the sea; and the israelites during the thirty-seven years of their journeying from mount sinai may have gone by those tracts of country in which the waters from horeb could follow them, till in the thirty-ninth year of the exodus they came to ezion-gaber (num. xxxiii. ), which was a part of the red sea a great way down the arabian side, where it is supposed the waters from horeb went into that sea." barnes says: "mount horeb was higher than the adjacent country, and the water that thus gushed from the rock, instead of collecting into a pool and becoming stagnant, would flow off in the direction of the sea. the sea to which it would naturally flow would be the red sea. the israelites doubtless, in their journeyings, would be influenced by the natural direction of the water, or would not wander far from it, as it was daily needful for the supply of their wants. at the end of thirty-seven years we find the israelites at ezion-gaber, a seaport on the eastern branch of the red sea, where the waters probably flowed into the sea (num. xxxiii. ). in the fortieth year of their departure from egypt, they left this place to go into canaan, by the country of edom, and were immediately in distress again by the want of water." these comments involve several objectionable features. ( ) the israelites were guided in their course by the pillar of cloud and fire; not by the stream of water on its course to the sea. ( ) paul says the rock followed them; not that they followed the river. ( ) we can not allow that when god sets out to work a miracle, he is defeated by natural causes. the idea that the river ran into the sea, and left the children of israel without water, just because the situation would naturally lead to that result, is to let go the miracle and have god defeated, because the surroundings are not favorable! the idea that god could cause a river to flow from a flinty rock, and then have to leave it to seek its natural way to the sea, leaving his people destitute when the surface of the country would be in the way of its natural flow, is equaled only by admitting that god created the heavens and the earth, but could not give sight to the blind or call lazarus out of the grave. we, therefore, repeat the question, if the river followed the people, what became of it when they came into the wilderness of zin? on the hypothesis that it was the rock which followed them, just as paul says it was, there is nothing unreasonable in the supposition that for some cause, not given, god withheld the flow of water to chastise them for their wickedness, as he did in other ways, and make them realize their dependence. as favoring this idea, when they were destitute the second time, and cried unto moses in their distress, god told him to gather the people together and speak unto _the rock_. not only was there a suitable rock present for the second river of water, but it seemed to be a particular rock. hence designated "_the_ rock." our conclusion is, therefore, that the two rocks were one; that it followed the israelites during their entire journey to canaan, supplying the people with the _fresh_ out-gushings of its crystal stream. that rock was typical of christ, and the blessings of christ are never stale or stagnant, as the water from a fountain in horeb would have been, after winding its sluggish way through the parched desert of arabia. "that rock was christ." that is, it was a type of him. all those transactions were typical. "now these things happened unto them by way of types; and they were written for our admonition." "a dry and thirsty land where no water is," well represents this world to one who has not an ever-present saviour as the fountain of the water of life. as the israelites would have perished without the crystal flow from the flinty rock, so perishes the world without christ. there is no appetite more distressing than thirst. there is nothing more delightful than the cooling draught to the parched throat. oh, to those who thus "thirst after righteousness," how delightful it is to be "filled"! "as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, o god." only the thirsty can appreciate drink; so only those who first feel the need of a saviour can experience the joy of salvation. not only shall the thirsty soul be satisfied that drinks of the water of life, but it shall "become within him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." this refreshing and ever-present fountain of life flows for all. "if any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." to slake one's thirst at this fountain, is a foretaste of the river of life that flows from beneath the throne in the eternal city of god. many who drank of the typical water of the wilderness, fell under the displeasure of god, and died short of the promised land. hence we should be careful to live ever near to the water of life, that our thirsty souls may be continually supplied, and our strength renewed. only by being constantly refreshed can we be saved from perishing in the wilderness and kept unto the land of god beyond. new testament views of christ. iv.--christ the son of god. "thou art the christ, the son of the living god" (matt. xvi. ). "whosoever shall confess that jesus is the son of god, god abideth in him and he in god" (i. john iv. ). "and who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that jesus is the son of god?" (i. john v. ). in one sense all men are sons of god. in a much dearer sense all christians are sons and daughters of the almighty. but the relationship of christ to the father is infinitely above this. he is _the_ son of god. god is his father by direct production, without the agency of a human father. the same divine power that can create life through the agency of man, can create it without such agency. hence there is nothing to stumble over in the idea of the miraculous conception, to one who fully accepts the god of the bible in the character in which he is revealed as a divine creator. to accept god as the creator of heaven and earth, and then stagger at his performance of any miracle is a logical absurdity. jesus claimed to be the son of god in the high sense that involved equality with the father. he said: "i and the father are one." on account of this relationship, "he thought it not robbery to be equal with god." his enemies understood that this equality was involved in his claim; hence they charged him with blasphemy in making himself equal with god. this was a high claim on the part of the nazarene. he claimed to be more than a man. when some said that he was john, or elijah, or jeremiah, or some one of the prophets, they underestimated him according to his claim. the greatest prophet, or inspired teacher, that had ever appeared among men, _even if raised from the dead as the special messenger of god to his people_, could not meet the demands involved in the claim of jesus, that he was the son of god. this high claim had to be sustained by two distinct lines of testimony--miracles and a sinless life. the purpose of miracles is to establish the claims of the miracle-worker and to glorify god. the miracles of jesus establish his divine mission and claim to the messiahship. no man could do the miracles he did "except god be with him;" and god would not be with one who was advocating false claims. the enemies of jesus understood this; hence they said: "god heareth not sinners." miracles are the substratum of the foundation underlying our faith. while the divine claims of jesus are attested by his miracles, the evidence is crowned by his sublime character. his life is itself among the most wonderful of miracles. as a child of poverty and a son of toil, he lived thirty years among men. when he afterwards claimed to be the son of god, he had many bitter enemies. they persecuted him even unto death, and yet not one of them ever pointed to an act of his private life as inconsistent with, or unworthy of, his divine claim. this simple fact speaks volumes as to the purity of his life. the world has contained but one such. the very life which his claims require is the life revealed on the sacred page. infidels have ordinarily contented themselves with mere negations. they seem not to realize the fact that in denying some things they are logically bound to account for others. if we deny the claim of jesus that he is the son of god, then we have to account for his miracles, his life, the disposal of his entombed body, and the establishment and development of his kingdom. these are facts. as such they have to be accounted for. on the hypothesis that jesus is the christ, all difficulty vanishes. on any other, it is more than the world has yet been able to meet. skeptics laud the character of jesus as a model of purity, such as the world has never elsewhere found, and yet deny the claim on which was based his mission to men and on which he built his church. how the establishment of a religion upon a known falsehood can harmonize with a life of faultless purity, they do not pretend to tell us, for it is a palpable absurdity. how his disciples could testify on a point of fact in regard to which they could not be mistaken, and surrender all worldly position and comfort, and life itself, to establish a known falsehood in the hearts of men, in which they--the witnesses--could have no personal interest, they leave in the egyptian darkness characteristic of their system. how can he account for american history and american institutions who denies the existence of washington, or claims that he was a disreputable impostor? how, then, shall he account for the history and institutions of civilization who denies to jesus of nazareth existence as a man of that age and country, or makes him a base deceiver and vile impostor? that jesus is the christ, the son of god, is the fundamental, pivotal fact in the christian religion. it underlies every other feature of the christian system. on it turn the value and significance of every other item of the faith. everything takes position with regard to this, and derives its value from it. with this, all else stands by divine appointment, and bears the seal of heaven. without it, the whole system is but as the chaff which the wind driveth away. when the proposition is established that jesus is the son of god, every other feature of the christian system rests upon _authority_. nothing else has to be proved as this does. before establishing this proposition, the word of jesus settles nothing. after its establishment, it settles everything. when we accept him as the christ, we accept all else on his authority. hence he says, "why do you call me lord, lord, and do not the things which i say?" "all authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit." the making and baptizing of disciples rests upon the authority of jesus, and that authority is based upon his messiahship. so of every other item of the christian system of faith. the great inconsistency and consequent weakness of the religious world, is in not accepting the simple authority of jesus as conclusive and wholly sufficient on any matter on which he has expressed the divine mind. as the son of god and coronated lord of lords, his authority is supreme, and his word is law. what he says is to be accepted as infallibly true, and the end of all controversy. whatever he directs is to be done, simply because he directs it. whatever else we may consider a corroborative reason, the direction of jesus alone is to determine our action. only this can be the obedience of faith. and in regard to what he directs, there can be no compromise. the king speaks to be obeyed, not to be argued with. it is his prerogative to command; ours to obey. jesus made his authority the controlling principle in his religion. where this is maintained, the religion of christ is preserved in its purity. where it is disregarded, anything follows that the tastes and follies of men may demand. the religion of christ is pure or corrupt in proportion as his authority is observed or ignored. the authority of jesus can not be separated from his appointments. his entire authority is embodied in each of his appointments. hence he who disregards an appointment of jesus christ, disregards his authority. and he who disregards his authority, ignores his lordship. the man who deliberately refuses to do what christ directs, ignores the authority of his lord, and dethrones the son of the living god. yet how much of this do we see among men! not only in the world, but in the church as well. it seems strange that one should make a profession of the religion of christ, and yet thus ignore his lordship. the authority of jesus against a life of indifference in the church, of non-attendance, of want of coöperation in the work of the lord, against carnality, pleasure-loving, worldliness, the lusts of the flesh, want of spirituality, and such like, is as direct and positive as that against rejecting the gospel of christ; and yet how many church members, all over our land, are disregarding the authority of jesus in these matters. those who make a profession of religion and live in the church without continuing to honor the lord jesus by regarding his authority and complying with his will, would better have never known the way of life. the authority of jesus follows us to the grave, and is never relaxed for a day. his will, not ours, is to rule in our life. our desires, however strong, are to be subordinated to the mind of him who gave his life for ours, and said, "all authority in heaven and on earth is given unto me." it is the height of inconsistency, therefore, to exalt the name of jesus in words and professions, and speak lightly of, or disregard any one of his appointments. it is not only inconsistent; it is disloyal and wicked. this is the great stumbling-block in our way to the indorsement of mr. moody and such men. we care not what else he may be, we can indorse no man who tears in two the commission of jesus christ. he who refuses to "speak as the oracles of god speak," in order to promote his work, is not doing the work that god would have him do. we can not honor christ without honoring his teaching, and we can not honor his teaching by withholding a part of it from those inquiring the way of eternal life. we can honor jesus as the son of god only by declaring his whole counsel, and yielding submissively in all things to his divine authority. this acceptance of jesus as an infallible teacher, as one whose every word is to be believed simply because he said it, and whose every direction is to be observed simply because he directs it, whose spirit is to be possessed and cultivated to the transforming of the life, till we grow into the divine image and become partakers of the divine nature, is all involved in the "good confession": jesus is the christ, the son of the living god. new testament views of christ. v.--christ the son of man. "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the son of man hath not where to lay his head" (matt. viii. ). "who do men say that the son of man is?" (matt. xvi. ). "and as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life" (john iii. ). it is a matter of profound gratitude that our saviour was a man. "the son of man," as well as "the son of god," was essential to his great work of bringing salvation to the race. in one sense we are all sons of man, but not as he was. he was not simply the son of mary and her ancestors. he was the son of humanity. he was equally akin to the race. he touches humanity at every angle and on every side. while he was the son of david according to the flesh, he is the kinsman of the race as a partaker of our common nature. "since the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself, in like manner, partook of the same." he ignored all accidental relationships closer than this shared by the race. the members of his own household obtained not a blessing which he did not as freely bestow on others. the fact that he did not manifest greater partiality toward his mother has been a matter of comment. the simple fact is, that the relationship with which we are concerned, and of which the inspired record treats, is to the race; hence it is not concerned about his personal family affections. his brothers and sisters and mothers are those who hear his word and keep it. the world has ever had too far-away ideas of god. it has contemplated god at a great distance. it puts him beyond the stars. indeed, the stars fade away from view in the distance behind us, as we ascend in imagination to the dwelling-place of the most high. the world can never be suitably impressed with god's presence while it holds him at a distance. he can never be sensibly near unto us while we keep him beyond the stars. nor can we be influenced by the idea of his presence till we learn that "he is not far from each one of us." god tried to impress his people anciently with the idea of his presence by various visible manifestations. abraham realized time and again that god was his present companion and friend. when jacob saw the ladder reaching to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on it, he said, "surely, the lord is in this place." and when moses drew near to see the burning bush, a voice from its flame demanded the removal of the sandals from his feet, for the ground on which he stood was holy ground. god impressed israel with the awfulness of his presence as a lawgiver, whom the nations were to honor, by his voice from mount sinai which "shook the earth." the glorious manifestation of god's presence at the tabernacle, in the midst of the camp of israel, impressed them with the fact that the god of their fathers was with them; that he was in their midst; that he had not forgotten his covenant; and that he would be with them to sustain them in every emergency till the end. with all this, they often forgot god and went astray. what would they have done without it? in the person of jesus, god perfected the divine purpose of bringing himself into a realized nearness to the human family. he clothed himself in our humanity, and became one with us. we are thus enabled to look upon him, to contemplate him, not as a great, self-existing spirit, incomprehensible and awful, but as a _man_. jesus was a man; and "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily." he is god manifest in flesh. and as god is thus manifest, would he have us apprehend him. just, therefore, as we can appreciate the nearness of jesus as a loving and sympathizing kinsman, may we appreciate the nearness of his father and our god. it is evident that men need a god to whom they can get sensibly near. there is no profit in the worship of a god of abstractions. there is in it no food for the soul. what is there to satisfy the languishing soul in a prayer to the "great unknown and unknowable"? they that come to god must believe that he _is_. and that "is" is a personal divine being, into whose arms we may cast our helpless selves, and on whose bosom we may pillow our weary head; instead of a great, bewildering, incomprehensible abstraction, "without body, parts, or passions." we are brought into a sacred nearness with god in the life of jesus. from his bed in the manger to his rest in a borrowed grave, we have a life of abject poverty. he was the friend and companion of the poor. the world is full of poverty, and ever will be. but the poorest of every age and country find a companion and friend, of like sufferings with themselves, in the person of jesus. the cares and sorrows of life, resulting from poverty, of which the world knows most as a daily burden, were fully realized by him; and in it all he is a deeply sympathetic friend. jesus was a man of labor. the hands so often extended to bless humanity, and through which the cruel nails were driven, were hardened by daily toil. he never did a day's work with which his employers found fault. long after he had built mansions in the skies for them that love him, were the houses of his own workmanship standing in galilee; but when he laid aside his tools to do the work of his father, no man ever pointed to an earthly house and said, "this job is not in harmony with his claims to be the son of god." he knew what it was to be tired and hungry. he doubtless knew the meaning of hard work and low wages. it follows, therefore, that every son of toil, every burdened and weary life, has for a gracious redeemer and providential saviour one who was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." jesus was a man of temptation. he was tempted as no other man was ever tempted. the devil is the author of temptation, and he had a peculiar interest in the temptation of jesus. through temptation comes sin. sin is the yielding of the will under temptation to do wrong. the devil had a special interest in inducing jesus to sin. he was the representative of the race. their fortunes were all involved in his. the consummation of his work as a redeemer required a sinless life. hence if jesus could be induced to yield to temptation, the world's hope of salvation was forever gone. it is evident, therefore, that the devil exhausted his resources to accomplish that end. consequently he was "tempted in all points like as we are," and infinitely beyond what we know of temptation. and he who withstood satan in every onset has promised to be with us to the end, and suffer us not to be tempted above what we are able, if we only keep him between us and the enemy of our souls. it is a source of profound gratitude that we have a saviour who has felt in all its forms the tempting power of sin, who is full of sympathy for us in our temptations, and who has promised to ever be in such our faithful friend. hence the great apostle to the gentiles, whose life was full of temptation and trial, gives us a reason why we should "draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace," that "we have not a high priest that can not be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like we are; yet without sin." this very fact in the character of our saviour gives us humble boldness to approach the throne of grace that nothing else could give. when we have given way under temptation, and our souls are burdened with a sense of sin, we can come to god through the mediation of jesus, with a confidence that his sympathy for us has been perfected by the experience of his own earthly life. for christ was perfected for the special parts of his work by his mission among men. "for it become him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings." "and having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salvation." in order to accomplish the great work of redeeming the race, christ had to be a _man_. he had to be human, as well as divine. hence it was just as essential that he be the son of man as that he be the son of god. he had to make an offering for sin, and that required a human body. hence he says, "sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not. but a body didst thou prepare for me." he had to be human in order to die, and divine in order to conquer death. hence, while we exalt his divinity, we must none the less appreciate his humanity. we must not cease to contemplate our lord and saviour as the son of man. new testament views of christ. vi.--christ the great teacher. "we know that thou art a teacher come from god: for no man can do these signs that thou does, except god be with him" (john iii. ). "and it came to pass, when jesus ended these words, the multitudes were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes" (matt. vii. , ). "never man spake like this man" (john vii. ). on "the great day of the feast"--the feast of the tabernacles--in the second year of his ministry, jesus was performing many miracles, and there was great commotion among the people as to whether he was the christ. the chief priests and the pharisees sent officers to take him. but they returned without him. then the chief priests and pharisees said, "why did you not bring him?" they simply reply, "never man so spake." these were, doubtless, resolute men who were accustomed to obeying orders. but in this case they did not obey orders, nor even try to do it. their excuse for not doing so was peculiar. they gave no ordinary or natural circumstances as hindering the execution of orders. they made no plea to exculpate themselves. they simply said, "no man ever spake like this man." how, then, shall we account for this? there was simply an unearthly majesty in the person, the manner and the words of jesus, that awed them into inaction. the very fact that such men were so unnerved by the presence and words of jesus, gives us an idea of his majesty as a teacher, and of his power over men. thus it was that he could cleanse the temple, overturn the tables of the money-changers, drive out the whole crew who were making merchandise of the house of god, and no one resisted. when did the world produce another man whose presence alone awed bold officers of the law into disregard of duty, and the chastised multitude into non-resistance? jesus was the world's great teacher, and yet he was never taught. this fact was recognized by those who knew his history. "the jews therefore marveled, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" jesus explained it by saying, "my teaching is not mine, but his that sent me." this is the only satisfactory explanation that can be given. that jesus was a man of unequaled wisdom, surpassing infinitely all the great philosophers of renown, is freely admitted by the best informed of modern skeptics. that the world has been influenced by his teaching infinitely beyond what it has been by that of any other man, is not denied. that the world regards his teaching to-day, after eighteen hundred years from the day of his death as a malefactor and his rest in a borrowed grave, as it has never regarded the teaching of another man, is also an admitted fact. how shall we account for such teaching--teaching of such accumulating power over ages and generations of men--when he himself was untaught? the world can not answer the question except as jesus answered it: "my teaching is not mine, but his that sent me." christ was the only teacher among men who never made a mistake. after nearly two thousand years, during which his teaching has been subjected to the severest scrutiny, he stands without conviction as to a single error. its ethics, its morals, its righteousness, its philosophy, its wisdom, its accuracy, have stood the test of the most rigid investigation. how can this be accounted for on the hypothesis that jesus was only a man? the greatest of all other men, with the advantage of the world's best facilities, and under teachers of renown, have furnished the world with teaching full of mistakes and imperfections. if jesus were only a man, how came it that he was so infinitely superior to all other men? and if thus superior in wisdom, righteousness and purity, how belie himself in claiming to be infinitely more than a man? it were impossible. the two things are mutually destructive. jesus furnishes the only explanation: "my teaching is not mine, but his that sent me." jesus is _the_ teacher of the science of salvation. others before him taught the things pertaining to salvation, but their teaching was all by the spirit of god, framed with reference to what his was to be. others, after him, taught the way of life, but they taught it as they received it from him. when he ascended to the father he sent the holy spirit as his advocate. the spirit imparted to the apostles what he received from christ. he took the words of the coronated christ and gave them to the apostles, and they spake as the spirit gave them utterance (see john xvi. , ). it follows, therefore, that the teaching of the apostles is as infallible as that of the christ, for it is simply his. it was not the purpose of jesus to teach the wisdom of this world. he was not of this world, and his teaching was not with reference to this world. he came from another world, and the things pertaining to another world were the ultimatum of his teaching. the way of salvation is purely a matter of revelation. man knows nothing about it except what god has revealed through christ. the same is true as to that from which we are saved, and that to which we are saved. we know nothing of god, heaven, hell and eternity, except that which is revealed. all that we know of sin and its remedy we learn from the great teacher. the nature and the consequences of sin we learn from the same source. the revelation of god is at once the source and limit of our knowledge of sin and righteousness, and their consequences. in the whole scheme of redemption christ is the central figure; and on it he is the great teacher and supreme authority. christ, as a teacher of law and morals, legislates for the heart. men can take cognizance only of deeds. they can not know the heart. hence they can judge it only by outward manifestations. but christ knew what was in man. hence he could legislate for man's thoughts, as well as his deeds. hence he says: "ye have heard that it was said, thou shalt not commit adultery: but i say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." even the law of the ten commandments legislated against adultery only as an outward act, but christ legislates against the thought. in this respect, as in many others, he is unique as a teacher. finally, he taught by his own authority. this was the cause of the astonishment at the conclusion of the sermon on the mount. "the multitudes were astonished at his teaching; for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes." the scribes taught that which "was said to them of old time," and the traditions of men, but christ said, "i say unto you." mark this feature in that discourse. a dozen times does he say, "_i_ say unto you." this was in harmony with that which was predicted of him as a teacher. "moses indeed said, a prophet shall the lord god raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me; to him shall ye hearken in all things whatsoever he shall speak unto you. and it shall be, that every soul which shall not hearken to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people." and in the presence of moses and elijah, the great teachers of the past, the divine father said: "this is my beloved son, in whom i am well pleased; hear ye him." all this recognizes one of the fundamental principles in the christian religion--the supreme authority of christ. the world seems slow to learn that what he said he said by his own authority, whether personally or through the apostles and prophets; that it needs no other support, and that it is the irrepealable _law_ of the kingdom of god. because we are not under the law, but under grace, many conclude that we have a religious latitude in which we may legislate for ourselves, forgetting that paul says we are "under law to christ." in our supreme ignorance we need a teacher--an infallible teacher; and that we have in the person of jesus. in order to become wise unto salvation, we must hear and learn of him. in believing what he says, and doing what he directs, we have his divine assurance of salvation from sin and a home in heaven. new testament views of christ. vii.--christ the deliverer. "and he [jesus] came to nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet isaiah. and he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, the spirit of the lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: he hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the lord. and he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. and he began to say unto them, to-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears" (luke iv. - ). this sublime passage is a quotation of isaiah lxi. - . it contains several words indicating a character in which the messiah was to appear, strikingly appreciated by the jews at the time of the prophecy. especially from the time of the babylonish captivity did the jews make prominent the idea of a deliverer in the person of their promised messiah. "_release_ to the _captives_" and "_liberty_ to the _bruised_"--ill-treated by their captors--was to them a precious proclamation, looked forward to with great anxiety, when deliverance should be proclaimed and israel should again be the free and favored people of god. since this characteristic was so long appreciated as a matter of prophecy, and jesus announced its fulfillment in himself, it is a befitting occasion on which to briefly notice the relation of christ to prophecy. the understanding of this relationship is important at any time, because it furnishes a valuable class of evidence as to the messiahship and divinity of jesus. it is especially so at this time, since infidels are making a special effort to destroy the value of prophecy in this respect; and some from whom we should expect better things seem to be assisting in the work. a great deal of importance was given to messianic prophecies during the days of the saviour and the apostolic age of the church. indeed, this was the main source of evidence to the jewish mind that jesus was the christ. and the use made of it by christ and the apostles shows that it was abundant. when jesus talked with two of the disciples on their way to emmaus, on the day of the resurrection, he said to them: "o foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! behooved it not the christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? and beginning from moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." here jesus himself states that moses and all the prophets prophesied of him. and when he had returned to jerusalem, and stood in the midst of the eleven, he said to them: "these are my words which i spake unto you, while i was yet with you, how that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning me." thus the books of moses, and all the prophets, and the psalms, contained teaching concerning the christ, according to jesus' own statement; and it was all in the form of type and prophecy. indeed, types are but forms of prophecy. jesus charged the jews with not believing moses, and gave that as the reason why they did not believe on him. he said: "for if ye believe moses, ye would believe me: for he wrote of me. but if ye believe not his writings how shall ye believe my words?" like modern skeptics, they did not believe the writings of moses concerning the messiah--did not believe that they referred to the messiah; hence their value was destroyed, and they did not believe in jesus. had they believed these prophecies they would have believed on christ. on the day of pentecost peter convinced the three thousand by argument from prophecy concerning the christ. in his sermon in solomon's porch the argument was likewise based upon prophecy. paul's manner of preaching (see acts xvii. - ) was to show the prophecies of the old testament concerning the messiah and then show that these were fulfilled in jesus of nazareth. therefore the conclusion was necessitated that he was the christ. as this was paul's method, he evidently attached to prophecy the highest possible value. that all the apostles did this is evident from the statement of peter. speaking of their being "eye-witnesses of his majesty," and of the infallible signs he gave of his divinity, he says: "and we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place." how are we to determine the messianic prophecies? we unhesitatingly reply, by the example of christ and the apostles. three important points are established by their testimony: ( ) they teach that such prophecies are numerous, and made by moses, david, and all the prophets. ( ) they quote or refer to specifically, and thus apply, quite a number. it is evident that these are messianic, because so applied. ( ) since christ and the apostles designate a large number as messianic, we are safe in concluding that others are so that are of like character. they are infallible judges, and they furnish us a criterion by which to judge. it is not true, as claimed, that in order to a messianic prophecy, the prophet making it must so understand it at the time. on the contrary, peter tells us that they searched diligently to ascertain the things and the time of them referred to in their own prophecies concerning the sufferings of the christ and the glory that was to follow. (see i. pet. i. - ). they, therefore, did not understand the things or the time referred to. since they did not know these, they did not know that the prophecy referred to the messiah. the same peter did not understand some of his own utterances on the day of pentecost. his language here makes the promise of salvation to gentiles as well as to jews. but he did not so understand it till he had a special revelation at joppa and the house of cornelius. nor is it true, as claimed, that a messianic prophecy must have been so understood by the people before its fulfillment. many of the messianic prophecies were not understood as such in old testament times. the saviour charged this want of understanding upon his disciples, and told them that if they had correctly interpreted moses and the prophets, in this very respect, they would have known that his death was required by such prophecies, and they would not have received the story of his resurrection as an idle tale. moreover, he charged the jews that this failure to understand messianic prophecies, as such, was the ground of their not believing on him. (see john v. - ). in regard to types, which is a feature of prophetic teaching, and a strong chapter of evidence as to inspiration, clark braden says: "there are but few real types in the bible; that is, there are but few things that men devised and acted with the intention of symbolizing or typifying anything future. there are exceeding few that were devised or acted with that as their sole object." it would be difficult for one to crowd more flagrant error into the same space than the above contains, if he were to make it a specialty. it contains the following positions, all of which are false: ( ) that there are but few types in the bible. ( ) that types are _devised_ by _men_. ( ) that types were "devised and acted" by the same party. ( ) that they were "devised and acted" by men with the intention of typifying something future. ( ) that this, in order to their value as evidence of inspiration, should have been "their sole object." this will do quite well for five lines. we would suggest that _god_ devised types, not men. while men were the actors, they were not the originators. while men may not have intended to typify anything in the case, god did. while types were intended by god to typify something future, this was not "their sole object." god had in them a purpose for the actors in addition to their typical significance. the purpose they then served detracts not from their value as types. as to the comparative number, we prefer paul as authority. speaking of the wilderness life of the israelites, from their baptism in the cloud and in the sea, he says: "now these things happened unto them by way of types [_tupoi_], and they were written for our admonition." this history contains numerous types, paul being judge. indeed, the patriarchal and jewish religions were mainly typical. when noah built the ark to the saving of his house, it is not probable that he thought of anything typical. certainly that was not the only purpose, nor the main purpose. but peter says it was a type, all the same. the fact that god's people did not understand the full significance of their worship, did not destroy its character or its value. the same is true now. while god's oppressed people worshiped in types and symbols which foreshadowed the perfection to come, they were taught by the spirit of prophecy to look with longing anxiety to the coming of a deliverer. while, in debate, we may not rely on a large number of prophecies as messianic, because the proof is not conclusive, it does not effect the fact that many of them have that character. to appreciate christ as a deliverer one must realize his own bondage--the slave of sin, and sold under its power. there is no appreciation of the deliverer till there is a longing for deliverance, and no longing for deliverance till there is a hatred of bondage. hence one must have a just sense of the heinousness of sin before he can appreciate christ as a saviour. in coming to this world to deliver us, christ had, in a sense, to come within the dominion of satan, and under the assaults of sin. this is typfied by moses going into egypt to deliver his brethren. he had to place himself under the reign of pharaoh, and in order to deliver his brethren he had to deliver himself. the son of god took upon him our humanity. this he had to do to make a sacrifice and be a mediator for us. in doing this he placed himself under the tempting power of sin, and was tempted in all points as we are. he had to save himself from this condition before he could save us. this was done through death and the resurrection. with him the old life ceased at the cross, and the new one began from the grave. he conquered satan--dragged the captor captive--and was forever delivered from his tempting power. "he died unto sin once," says paul; and we die to sin just where he did, being put to death by the cross. we are buried with him, and rise with him to walk in newness of life. thus the new life begins with us just where it began with him--from the grave--the grave of baptism in which we are buried together and rise together. the denominational world want to make the new life begin from the cross. but it did not thus begin with jesus, and paul says it does not thus begin with us. new testament views of christ. viii.--christ the great physician. "they that are whole have no need of a physician; but they that are sick. i am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (luke v. , ). "for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and i should heal them" (matt. xiii. ). "he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted" (luke iv. ). several times, either directly or indirectly, christ alludes to himself as a physician. in this character he is worthy of careful study. the first thing in order to appreciate a physician, is to realize that one is sick. the saviour says the well need not a physician. it is equally true that the well care not for a physician. sin is the disease of which christ, as a physician, is the healer. the disease is deadly. the smallest amount is fatal. the great physician alone can heal it. there is no other remedy. when a man is once affected, however much he may keep it under control, and prevent its increase, there is never a diminution of the disease till the remedy of the great physician is applied. there is much senseless talk about depravity that necessarily implies, though its advocates may not so intend, that sin has comparatively little condemnatory force. the idea so often expressed that one must be "a great sinner in order to need a great saviour;" that if he is only "partially depraved, he needs to be only partially saved;" that he must be "totally depraved in order to be totally lost;" that he must be "totally depraved in order to be wholly dependent on christ for salvation," and such like, necessarily puts a light estimate upon sin. the idea is, that if one has but a comparatively small amount of sin, he is not wholly lost and utterly helpless, and wholly dependent on christ. when the simple fact is, that sin is so heinous in its character and condemnatory in its consequences, that any amount of it, whether much or little, renders one as helpless and hopeless and dependent on christ as if he were totally depraved by nature and doubly defiled by a life of sin. there is, therefore, no necessity for total depravity, in order that man be in an utterly lost and helpless condition without christ. a grain of strychnine is just as fatal as an ounce, without an antidote. in order that we appreciate a physician, and avail ourselves of the benefits of his skill, we must have faith in him. without faith that his skill is superior to ours, and that he can help us, we will not call upon him. if we have faith in him we will do as he directs. the highest evidence of faith in a physician, and the surest way of being benefited by his skill, is in going precisely by his directions. some years ago the writer had a long spell of typhoid fever. his physician came to see him one hundred and thirty times. after he became convalescent, his physician said to him one day, "in looking back over your case, i can attribute your recovery to but two things--your unyielding resolution and confidence, and your faith in your physician." what did he mean by faith in my physician? what had that to do with it? he explained. "for," said he, "you followed my directions minutely in everything, and for more than seven weeks the least wabble would have turned the scale against you." this was a fine illustration of faith, but theologically he attached to the word a very different idea. such must be our faith in the great physician that we apply to him for the treatment of a sin-sick soul. and having called upon him, we are to follow his directions. on one occasion he said to the pharisees, "why do you call me lord, lord, and do not the things which i say?" so in this case he would say, "why do you call on me as a physician, and do not as i direct you?" as well apply to an earthly physician and expect to be healed by faith in his skill, without taking his medicine or following his directions in other respects, as to expect the great physician to heal you in the same way. this illustrates the absolute folly of expecting to be "justified by faith only" in the great physician of souls, before and without doing as he directs. our faith in a physician is valuable only as it induces us to take his remedies. when it leads to this, it has fulfilled its only office. when it does not lead to this, it is worthless. so of our faith in christ. the only value of faith is in its leading to the observance of the divine will. the faith that does this saves, because it leads us to where god saves us. god promises salvation in the doing of his will. "not every one that says unto me, lord, lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father who is in heaven." faith leads to the doing of the father's will. in this it performs its only office, and in this it saves. faith can have value only as it leads to the appropriation and use of the remedies prescribed. it is often the case that a physician is stationary, and his patients have to come to him in order to get the benefits of his treatment. in such case, the acts necessary to take us to him are essential to our recovery, though they have no virtue whatever except as means of reaching him. so of coming to christ. christ does not come to the sinner, as orthodox prayers at the mourners' bench imply; but he invites the sinner to come to him. "come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest." "and you will not come to me that you may have life." believing on christ is one thing, and coming to him is quite another. one must first believe before he will come. yet, in addition to believing, the orthodox world, so-called, utterly fails to tell us how to come to christ. they cry, "come, come," but tell us not how. christ plainly teaches that we come to him in obedience. we are baptized into him; into his body. we put him on by baptism. being baptized into christ is paul's explanation of how we become the children of god by faith. "ye are all sons of god, through faith in christ jesus. for as many of you as were baptized into christ did put on christ." we come to christ, then, in baptism. this is the first overt act in the "obedience of faith." our faith, repentance and baptism bring us to christ; then he, as the great physician, heals our sin-sick soul. there is no healing virtue in these things that bring us to him; but they are conditions of our healing because they are means of our reaching the physician. the remedy for sin is the physician's own blood. that is the only thing in the universe of god that can heal the disease of sin, and remove the ruinous consequences. "the blood of jesus christ, his son, cleanses from all sin." the blood of animal sacrifices could not take away sin. "for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." since animal sacrifice could not meet the demands of the law, god prepared a body for his son in which to make a sacrifice. "sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body thou didst prepare me." hence we are redeemed from the curse of sin, not with corruptible things, "but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of christ." "and without the shedding of blood there was no remission." it is plain, therefore, that the blood of the physician is the only remedy. this remedy is freely given when we come to him. jesus said: "as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life." the israelites were commanded to look upon the brazen serpent; and they that looked were healed. they had to have faith, in order to look with a view to being healed. looking was the thing commanded. it was the result of faith. in looking they were healed. but there was no virtue in the looking. looking, in and of itself, had no power to heal. still it was essential to the healing. neither had the thing looked upon any power to heal. there was no virtue in the serpent. the healing power lay back of that. it was in god, who had promised. god did the healing. but while there was no healing virtue in the look nor in the thing looked upon, they were necessary to the healing, because to this end were they commanded. they were, therefore, necessary to bring one to the point in the obedience of faith where god promised to heal. so it is with the great healer of souls. they that believe shall _in him_ find the healing power. their faith leads them to him, where the healing power is applied, as the look brought the israelites to the healing power of god. our obedience that brings us to christ is the outgrowth of our faith, just as their look was the outgrowth of theirs. there is no healing virtue in the one nor the other, but they were and are necessary to bring the believer where the healing virtue is. after all that is said about being saved by faith, and by other things, it is simply true that _christ_ saves us. _he_ is our saviour. and he saves us by means of his own blood. "there is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from immanuel's veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains." it is thus that christ is precious to us as the great physician of souls. we should give heed to his inviting voice, place ourselves under his continued care, follow his directions, and we shall enjoy a healed and healthful state of the soul. "the great physician now is near, the sympathizing jesus; he speaks, the drooping heart to cheer: oh, hear the voice of jesus." new testament views of christ. ix.--christ our mediator. "for there is one god, one mediator also between god and men, himself man, christ jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all; the testimony to be borne in its own time" (i. tim. ii. - ). a mediator is one who comes between alienated parties to effect a reconciliation. he must be the friend, the advocate and equal of both parties. failing in one of these, he is incapacitated. no one would accept a mediator whom he believed would be wanting in any of these respects in his relations to him. no one is fit to mediate who is not qualified to do justice to both parties. this he can not do unless he knows the rights of both and is the friend of both. he must be unbiased in his judgment and impartial in his friendship. he must be considered the equal of both, in so far, at least, as his knowledge of them and his ability to judge between them is concerned. a mediator between god and men implies alienation between them. the history of the race shows this to be true. the time was when they were one; when not a feeling or a shadow came between them. the bliss of eden reached its daily acme when the footfall of god was heard amid its bowers. the hour that he joined their company was that of supreme joy. but man sinned, and then the presence of god was shunned. that which was delightful before is painful now. such is the principle of congeniality; and such the consequences of sin--to make of heaven a hell. this fact alone should teach us that it lies not within the limits of divine power to make a heaven for sinful men. separation from god is hell; and with the soul defiled by sin, union is worse than separation. after the fall of man he could no longer stand in the immediate presence of god, as he was wont to do before. sin can not approach the divine presence, hence he needed a mediator, one to stand between him and an offended god, through whom he might again be heard and blessed. mediators of an imperfect and typical character were had in that age of preparation for the coming perfection. but where could a perfect mediator be found to stand between an offended god and rebellious man? where in all the universe could one be found the friend and equal of both parties? where could one be found that could stand on equality with god, know what was just and right in regard to him, and, at the same time know the weaknesses, the wants and the rights of man? where was one who could poise with one hand the scales of god's justice and gather fallen humanity to his bosom with the other? the boundless dominions of god contained not such a being. man could not thus act, for the best of men are themselves sinners, and can approach god only through a mediator. the best of men know nothing of god's side of this matter, and they fall below equality with him, as the earth is below the stars. an angel could not stand between god and men, for he can not descend to equality with fleshly natures, to know their weaknesses and their wants; nor can ascend the heights of divine perfection till he knows the mind and the rights of god. in the divine logos, and the divine spirit we find, in a sense, equality with god, but no equality with men. how, then, is this great problem, that on which the world's salvation turns, to be solved? the human and the divine must be blended. they must meet and dwell in one. this is accomplished, not by lifting the human up to the divine, but by bringing the divine down to the human. god glories in condescension. the word that was in the beginning with god, that was god in his divine attributes, became flesh and dwelt among us. in the person of the babe of bethlehem we have a being that never before existed--a being both human and divine. he brought from the skies the divinity of his father, and dwelt among men with the humanity of his mother. hence the mighty chasm between man and god, between earth and heaven, is bridged over in the god-man, christ jesus. his divinity reaches half-way from heaven to earth, and his humanity half-way from earth to heaven, and the two unite in him. in the life of jesus we see his two natures constantly manifested. as he hungers and thirsts and sleeps; as he weeps over the sins of men, and sorrows over their afflictions, we see his humanity. he seems to be only a man. but when he stills the tempest on the sea of galilee, or calls lazarus back to life, we see his divinity. it is interesting to study his life with a view to the manifestation of his two natures in each event--their distinctness and their blending. we may never know in this life the reasons for the blending of the divine and the human in the person of the mediator. these things are doubtless beyond the ken of an archangel, in all their fullness. yet from our point of view, obscured by our fleshly weakness, we may see some reasons lying on the surface why this was a necessity. some of these let us consider. man fell through the weakness of the flesh and the power of temptation. satan works through the flesh to pollute the spirit. in order to be one with us in our temptation, and perfect himself as an experimental sympathizer, our mediator must be tempted in all points like as we are, that he may know how we feel under temptation. this demanded that he take upon himself not the nature of angels, but that of the seed of abraham. he must, therefore, be a man. but this temptation is to be successfully met. it is to be without sin. no man had ever successfully withstood the assaults of satan. our mediator was to do this. hence the necessity of divinity. he must be human to be tempted; he must be divine to resist it. and to make his victory the more complete, he had his flesh put to the sorest test. after a fast of forty days, when his long pent-up hunger rushed upon him as a lion upon its prey, satan approached and exhausted his strength to overcome him. not only did he give satan this advantage, such as he had never had nor needed over men, but he even went out of the flesh, into the citadel of which satan held the keys, and came out a triumphant conqueror. hence his humanity in order to enter in; his divinity in order to come out. the scheme of redemption contemplated a sacrifice for the sins of the world. men must get rid of sin. they had no power of themselves to do this. sin must be remitted. this demanded a sacrifice for sin. "without the shedding of blood there is no remission." the blood shed must be the blood of humanity. it must contain the life under condemnation. hence the "blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin." it could not reach and cleanse the conscience. it was used as an imperfect type, but the perfection required the blood that courses in human veins; but the victim must be innocent. it must be absolutely free from sin. only a sinless offering can meet the requirements of the divine government. hence, in order to offer the blood of the condemned race, our mediator must be human; in order to offer it in innocence, he must be divine. the completion of the preparation of our mediator for his work as such, required his death and resurrection. it is shocking to the mind of some to speak of christ having to be educated and perfected for his office of mediator, but this he asserts himself. "for it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings." "though he was a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation." this officiating for man as mediator and high priest, is the only thing, as we now remember, in which christ is said to have been specially qualified by his life among men. this is significant. the reasons for it are easily seen in the foregoing. he had to become a man, and these things peculiar to humanity he had to learn. in offering himself a sacrifice for sin, our mediator had to die. in order to his work as such, of which his death was only preparatory, he had to live again. his death was voluntary. he said, "i have power to lay down my life, and i have power to take it up again." in order to lay down his life, he had to be human; in order to take it up again, he had to be divine. having accomplished his preparatory work, christ returned to the father to make an atonement, and to sit henceforth as a mediator between god and men. he was equal with god before he left the heavens; he became the equal of man in his sojourn in the world. hence he is now perfectly qualified for his work. but we find that we can not dispose of this subject in one chapter. new testament views of christ. x.--christ our mediator.--continued. "but now hath he [christ] obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises" (heb. viii. ). having considered christ's preparatory work, his earthly mission, we wish now to consider his office and work as mediator between god and men. christ sought no additional honor because of his message to men and suffering on their account. on the contrary, he prayed: "and now, o father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which i had with thee before the world was." but while he sought no additional glory, he found additional work. the office he now fills existed not till he ascended to the father from an empty grave. he descended into the dominion of death and robbed it of its power. he dragged the captor captive, and gave gifts unto men. ascending, as a conquering king, his angelic retinue raise the exultant shout: "lift up your heads, o ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in." "who is this king of glory?" the guardian hosts shout back. "the lord strong and mighty, the lord mighty in battle." again, the gates of the eternal city are shaken with the shout: "lift up your heads, o ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in." christ was coronated king of kings and lord of lords. he began at once his work of mediation. through the holy spirit, sent as his advocate, he convicts men of sin, and brings them into harmony and union with god. his mediatorship involves a work of reconciliation. this is his fundamental work. the old theology was that christ labors to reconcile god to men. indeed, the world is not yet as free from the thought as the truth and the honor of god demand. whatever may be true of the atonement, one thing is certain, it grew out of the love of god. "god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." any theory, therefore, that does not harmonize with this is false. god already loves the world. he loves sinners, even, who are not penitent. he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. how dishonoring to god, then, to represent him as unwilling to save agonizing sinners; so that the protracted prayers of the church are necessary, and often unavailing! paul says that god was in christ, reconciling the world unto himself. the world had transgressed, had gone away from god, and christ's mission as mediator, is to bring it back in agreement and submission to the divine will. the importance of the mediatorial office of christ is very improperly apprehended. the necessity of a mediator between us and god can never be fully realized in this life. this belongs to that association of deep and profound mysteries emanating from the mind of god, that angels intently desire to look into. we are permitted to see only the surface in this life. but we know enough about the general character of his work, to know, that it has a value far above the world's comprehension. when one stands as our intercessor we are favored in proportion to his standing with the other party. when one seeks a favor at the hands of the chief executive of the nation, if he has no standing of his own, all depends on the standing of his advocate. if the one interceding for him stands high in the president's favor, and has great influence with him, his request is favorably considered on account of his advocate. when we consider the standing of the son with the father; that through him the father has sought the reconciliation of the world; that he is the "brightness, the father's glory, and the express image of his person;" we have perfect confidence that his pleadings will prevail. but when the father "so loved the world as to give his son to die for it;" when he so loves sinners that his great loving heart goes out in yearnings for their salvation, why should his loving, struggling children need an intercessor with him at all? this has been one of the questions of the ages. theories more curious than satisfactory have been promulgated concerning it by the different schools of theology. we shall not presume to answer it, beyond the simple suggestion that this was the special work for which the divine logos that was in the beginning with god, had to qualify himself by special education. hence it is a matter not of difference between the love and goodness of the father and that of the son, but of qualification by _experience_ in the trials, temptations and weaknesses of the flesh. the consideration of this fact would have saved the world from much vain speculation. when paul argues the importance of a mediator, it is not on the ground that the son loves us more than the father, but on the ground that he knows us by experience. "for we have not a high priest that can not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. let us, therefore, draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace." the fact that our high priest, or intercessor, was "tempted in all points, like as we are," is the reason why we may approach a throne of grace with boldness. this boldness is simply a profound confidence based upon the humanity of our mediator. when we approach a throne of grace, conscious of sin and imperfection, how little can we trust ourselves. we realize that we come empty-handed before god. with the poet, each can sing: "nothing in my hands i bring, simply to thy cross i cling." we can plead no merit of our own. we have no legal claim on the store-house of god's boundless mercy and love. but we remember that we have a friend; that this friend has suffered the same trials and temptations; that he knows by bitter experience just how we feel; that he deeply sympathizes with us, and that he loves us with a devotion and faithfulness beyond human experience or expression. remembering this, how can we feel otherwise than confident that an already loving father will hear our petitions in harmony with his will, and bless us as his believing children? the efficacy of prayer, therefore, grows out of the mediatorship of jesus, and the confidence in prayer grows out of our appreciation of the mediator and of his work. hence a light appreciation of the mediatorial work of jesus leads to a prayerless life. jesus himself taught that there is no way of approach to the father except through him. "i am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the father but by me." no man can approach god _in his own name_. god does not look upon men in their own personality. he looks upon them only _through their mediator_; and what he sees to commend, is seen and commended only through, and on account of, their mediator. in other words, god sees the mediator only, not them. hence the man that does not accept the mediator cuts himself off from god. he rejects the only way of approach to god. he prevents god's considering his case; for god considers us only through the mediator. it is this fact, that god considers the mediator through whom the petition is made, rather than the petitioner, that gives significance to the fact that our prayers are to be _in the name_ of jesus christ; and that we ask that our petitions be granted for "christ's sake." at a throne of grace we present the name of our intercessor. we ask in _his name_, not our own. we present him, not ourselves. we hide ourselves behind him, put him in our place, and ask what god will do for him. he authorizes us to thus use his name, and the blessings bestowed are just to the extent that that name prevails with god. should vanderbilt grant you the legal right to use his name to the full extent of your desire in presentation of checks, etc.; with his pledge to redeem all paper bearing his signature in your hand, his whole fortune would be pledged to meet the demands of your drafts upon him. bankrupt financially, as you are spiritually, you present your check for a large amount and it would be rejected. but add to that the name of vanderbilt, and your check is honored. you draw the money not in your name, but in his. the bank sees not you, but him. now, just as you would thus present the name of vanderbilt, with full assurance of your request being granted to the extent of his fortune, you to-day present the name of jesus at the court of heaven, and a heaven honors that name; its resources are pledged to meet your petition. the name of jesus, therefore, when thus presented, means to us all that it signifies in the government of god. to the extent that his name is honored are heavenly blessings secured to us. in the light of these sublime truths, we see the significance of the saviour's requirement that henceforth all prayer should be offered in his name. "verily, verily, i say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the father, he will give it to you in my name. hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name; ask, and ye shall receive." what is called the lord's prayer, is not in his name, because his mediatorship had not then been established. but now it would be sinful to repeat that prayer, as thousands do, and omit to offer it in the name of christ. the custom of masons, and other secret orders, of having a form of religion that ignores christ, that does not recognize his mediatorship and that is not offered in his name, is supremely wicked. it is a gross perversion of the religion of jesus. and how christian men, even preachers of the gospel, can find it in their hearts to acquiesce in such a thing, is to us a profound puzzle. the institution that has no place for my master has no place for me. the only way of approach to god is through christ as our mediator; and the mediatorial office of christ is in the church, not in the world. hence, as god can be glorified only through christ, he can be glorified only through the church. paul, recognizing this, says: "unto god be glory in the church, by christ jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. amen." new testament views of christ. xi.--christ our high priest. "now, if there was perfection through the levitical priesthood (for under it hath the people received the law), what further need _was there_ that another priest should arise after the order of melchisedec, and not be reckoned after the order of aaron? for the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. for he of whom these things are said belongeth to another tribe, from which no man hath given attendance at the altar. for it is evident that our lord hath sprung out of judah; as to which tribe moses spake nothing concerning priests. and _what we say_ is yet more abundantly evident, if after the likeness of melchisedec there ariseth another priest, who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life, for it is witnessed of him, thou art a priest forever after the order of melchisedec" (heb. vii. - ). each dispensation has had its priesthood. each has had its priests and its high priests. each has had its priests, its altars and its sacrifices peculiar to itself. only priests in any age could worship god; and acceptable worship must ever be in accordance with the law of the priesthood. during the patriarchal age the father of the family was priest. he offered sacrifice for the family. the grandfather, great grandfather, etc., was high priest over his posterity for all the generations descending from him while he lived. adam was high priest of the whole race during his life. then the high priesthood descended to each of his sons for the posterity of each. so noah was high priest of all the post-diluvian world during his life. then it descended to each of his sons. each son was high priest of his branch of the family, in all its generations, during his life. in that age, therefore, as in this, there was a universal priesthood. the priesthood of the christian dispensation is, in a certain sense, modeled after the patriarchal and in contrast with the jewish. it is after the order of melchisedec, and not after that of aaron. melchisedec was high priest of that division of the human family to which abraham belonged, and this distinguished patriarch paid tithes to him. if we do not misinterpret the law of the priesthood of that age, this could have been none other than shem. shem was then living, and noah was dead; and abraham belonged to shem's posterity. hence no one else could be high priest while shem lived. many have thought that because it is said he was "without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life," that he could not be a man. but they fail to observe that he was without these things _in the aaronic priesthood_. for it is said that he had a genealogy, but that it was not in the priestly family. "and they indeed of the sons of levi that receive the priest's office have commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though these have come out of the loins of abraham; but he whose genealogy is not counted from them hath taken tithes of abraham." shem had neither father nor mother, nor beginning of days, nor end of life, in the sense that the aaronic priests had them; and this is all that is affirmed of melchisedec. when god called his people out of egyptian bondage, and gave them the law, he gave them a new priesthood. the priests were now all confined to the tribe of levi and the family of aaron. men could no longer build their own altars and offer their own sacrifices. on the contrary, they had all to bring their offering to the priests appointed of the family of aaron, and have them make the offering. with a change of the priesthood came a change of the law. "for," says paul, "the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also in the law." the law thus changed was the law of worship through the priesthood. and as it was through this worship that pardon was obtained, the change of priesthood changed the law of pardon. hence the law of pardon under each priesthood has been different from that under either of the others. after the establishment of the aaronic priesthood, a descendant of jacob could no longer build his altar and offer his sacrifice just as he had done before the change. and now a priest under the christian dispensation can not offer acceptable worship as did either the jew or the patriarch. the worship that once brought to one the divine blessing would now bring upon him a curse. how strange it is, then, that the denominational world in large measure go back to a different priesthood for their ideas of religion and salvation. under the law the kings and the priests were of two distinct tribes. these were of the tribe of levi; those of the tribe of judah. hence it is written: "the scepter shall not depart from judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." christ was of the tribe of judah; hence he, like melchisedec, is both priest and king. he could not be a priest of the aaronic order, for he was of a different tribe--a tribe of which moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood. hence all the efforts to make him a priest of that kind are refuted by that simple fact. many insist that christ was inducted into his priestly office at his baptism, and many vain speculations are based thereon. but this can not be. christ was not a priest while he was on the earth, says paul in these words: "now, if he were on earth he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the law" (heb. viii. ). he could not be a priest on earth, because the aaronic priesthood was then in force, and he was not of the aaronic family. since he could not be a priest while on earth, it is folly to talk of his becoming a priest at his baptism. he could not become a priest till the law of the priesthood was changed, and that was not changed till after his death. the aaronic priesthood was in full force till his death. he was made high priest, not by the legal ritual, but by the oath of god; and this oath was "_after the law_," not while it was in force. the law continued till his death, hence it was after his death that he was made high priest by the oath of god. he was a sacrifice when he died, not a priest. he could not be priest and sacrifice at the same time. after his ascension he, as high priest, made atonement with his own blood which he shed as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. hence a number of facts show the utter folly of claiming that he was a priest among men. it is through christ as high priest that we worship god. we can worship acceptably in no other way. there are no other means of access to the father. only through and by the priesthood can god be worshiped. hence the worshiper must become a priest, and then worship through christ as high priest. all pretensions to approach god in worship, without recognizing christ as our high priest and mediator, is only an exhibition of an infidel farce. it is an insult to god, because a rejection of his son. hence those who do not accept christ as their high priest cut themselves off from access to the father. christ himself says, "no man cometh unto the father but by me." paul makes it a matter of rejoicing that we have a great high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; one that has been tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. such a high priest knows how to sympathize with us, and to make for us all just excuses. the earthly high priest went once a year, on the great day of atonement, into the most holy place, with the blood of others, to make atonement for the sins of israel; but christ, as the high priest of the good things to come, has entered the holy place on high, with his own blood, to make atonement for the sins of the whole world. the offerings made by the priests under the law pertained only to the cleansing of the flesh; but the blood offered by our high priest "cleanses the conscience from dead works to serve the living god." new testament views of christ. xii.--christ our righteousness. "but of him are ye in christ jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from god, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the lord" (i. cor. i. , ). in this language paul affirms that christ is our righteousness. this is a momentous thought. it goes to the heart of the scheme of redemption. how is christ our righteousness? what does paul mean by the affirmation? the very life of christianity is involved in the answer. by one's answer we know just where to place him in regard to the vital principles of christianity. that one must be righteous in order to be prepared for heaven, must be conceded by those who accept the bible as authority. "know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of god." and this must be a positive, not simply a relative, righteousness. men may be comparatively righteous, and yet be wholly unprepared for the presence of god. the righteousness required in order to a home in heaven is absolute. all unrighteousness is sin, and one must be perfectly free from sin to be accepted in the beloved. no sin can enter heaven. one can not stand in the presence of god, accepted through the righteousness of christ, with the least taint of sin upon his soul. hence perfect righteousness is required. one must be righteous even as christ himself is righteous. knowing this to be true, and knowing our own imperfections and shortcomings, even in our best estate, it is no wonder that the way is described as narrow. one can not but see at a glance his utter hopelessness if he has to depend on himself. if christ has made any provision by which this righteousness can be attained then one can not but appreciate what christ has done for him and his absolute dependence on him for salvation. two distinct kinds of righteousness are clearly defined in the word of god. they are in striking contrast. one is approved; the other condemned. one is of god; the other of men. one is of faith; the other of law. god's righteousness is not only a divine, holy principle of justice and mercy, but is also a system or plan of salvation. when jesus applied to john for baptism, john declined. he was preaching the "baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." he also required a confession of their sins. they were baptized of him in jordan, "confessing their sins." while he did not know jesus to be the christ, he knew him as his kinsman, and he knew enough of the purity and sinlessness of his life to think that he should not confess his sins to be baptized for their remission. besides he doubtless hoped that jesus would be the favored one on whom he was to see the holy spirit descending and abiding upon him. he, therefore, felt himself unworthy to baptize his cousin jesus. but jesus said, "suffer it now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." no matter what john's personal feelings were, or the sinlessness and purity of jesus, it became the duty of one as the administrator and the other as the subject to observe this divine appointment. had their idea been that baptism was to be administered to those free from sin, such an objection could never have been raised. here the word "righteousness" evidently refers to god's appointments in the divine economy--the plan of salvation. when peter went to the house of cornelius to break the bread of life to the gentiles, he said: "i now perceive that god is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth god and worketh righteousness is accepted of him." here "righteousness" is something to be "worked." it is, therefore, something to be done. in it men are active. it is not, therefore, a quality in god or man, but something that enlists the activities of men. it is a plan by the observance of which men are accepted of god. speaking of his own brethren according to the flesh, paul says: "brethren, my heart's desire and supplication to god is for them, that they may be saved. for i bear them witness that they have a zeal for god, but not according to knowledge. for being ignorant of god's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit themselves to the righteousness of god" (rom. x. - ). here the righteousness of god is contrasted with that of the unbelieving jews. they rejected god's, and set up one of their own. they did not submit to god's righteousness. here it is clearly a religious system, a plan of salvation. they rejected god's plan and tried to establish one of their own. in this they were zealous, but it was a misguided zeal. in harmony with this idea of righteousness we understand the expression in the first chapter of this epistle: "for i am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of god unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the jew first, and also to the greek. for therein is revealed a righteousness of god by faith unto faith: as it is written, but the righteous shall live by faith." here we understand god's righteousness to be god's plan of saving or justifying men by faith; the plan to which the jews would not submit in the tenth chapter. hence, in the gospel, god's system of justification by faith is revealed in order to faith. faith comes by hearing the word of god. in the gospel god's plan of saving men by faith in christ is revealed, and this is the only place in which it is revealed. consequently the truth herein revealed produces faith. this results in the acceptance of god's plan of salvation. we have "the faith" as a system of salvation through christ, and faith as a personal state of the mind and heart. so, also, have we righteousness as a plan of salvation which we accept from god, and righteousness as a personal quality--a state of personal freedom from sin. and the one leads to the other, as a revelation of "the faith" produces personal faith. this leads us to consider how we obtain that perfect righteousness, without which we can not enjoy the blissful presence of god. paul's teaching in regard to the personal righteousness of the saints, makes salvation by a mere reformation of life, an impossibility. the importance of this fact can not be over-estimated. many people seem to think that a reformation in regard to moral conduct, is all that is necessary to prepare to meet god. if they can only break off their sinful practices, and practice morality, they think they have done all that is really essential. in this there are two fatal mistakes. first, no reformation is perfect. the best of men whose lives have been moulded into the divine image, and are most conformed to the divine nature, have their imperfections. the ripest saint upon the earth feels that if his salvation depended on his perfect sinlessness in conduct for the rest of life, the chances of heaven would at once become dark and hopeless. the cheerfulness and bright assurance of the child of god are not because he hopes to live a perfect life, but because his imperfections will be taken away in christ. and second, the most perfect reformation would avail nothing. could one so reform his life as to never sin again, and practice virtue in place of the former vice, it would fall far short of securing the end. however free from sin one may live in the future, the sins of the past are upon him. these will forever condemn him, unless they are removed. our ceasing to sin will not take away the old ones. the fact that a man refuses to contract any more debts, will not pay a dollar of his old ones. so no amount of reformation will make amends for the past. our past sins must be taken away, else they will condemn us in the day of eternity. we can not remove them ourselves; we can not atone for our own sins. here we are utterly helpless. to what source, then, shall we go? christ is the only refuge. he alone can take away our sins; his blood alone can cleanse from sin. "if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of jesus christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin." this is the "fountain opened in the house of david for all manner of sin and uncleanness." "though your sins be as scarlet, he will make them white as wool." "he will put them as far from us as the east is from the west, and remember them against us no more forever." thus it is that christ is our righteousness. we are righteous because he has made us such. he makes us such by taking away our sins. when our sins are pardoned, we are as free from sin as if we had never sinned at all. hence as regards the guilt of sin, we are perfect. we are made perfect in righteousness because christ removes all unrighteousness. we are, therefore, absolutely dependent on him for salvation. we have no righteousness of our own. our robes of self-righteousness are but filthy tatters in his sight. those clothed in the righteousness of christ, that is, the righteousness which christ gives them, shall have right to the tree of life, and shall enter through the gates into the eternal city. their right is not one of merit, but one that christ has given. he is our righteousness, and apart from him none is possibly attainable. since we have to be perfectly righteous in order to be saved, and since this is impossible on our part, when relying on ourselves, but is obtained only by being pardoned through christ, it follows that all boasting is cut off. no man has occasion to glory except in the cross of christ. hence the apostle concludes his argument by saying: "he that glorieth let him glory in the lord." it also follows that he who would obtain personal righteousness, must submit to the "righteousness of god"--god's plan of salvation. through the one "righteousness," is the other righteousness obtained. (mormontextsproject.org), with thanks to renah holmes for proofreading. anthon l. skanchy a brief autobiographical sketch of the missionary labors of a valiant soldier for christ translated and edited by john a. widtsoe [image captioned "bishop anthon l. skanchy. born, trondhjem, norway, sept. , ; died logan, utah, april , ."] anthon l. skanchy a brief autobiographical sketch of the missionary labors of a valiant soldier for christ translated and edited by john a. widtsoe contents i. early years ii. i accept the gospel iii. i go on my first mission iv. missionary labors in nordland and finmarken v. again before the courts vi. how i spent the winter in nordland vii. the lord sends me money and more friends viii. i am released from my first mission ix. i labor in aalesund x. i preside in christiania xi. the land of zion xii. my third mission xiii. my fourth mission xiv. quiet years of home service xv. my fifth mission xvi. the last word xvii. the sixth mission xviii. the end of the journey introduction the missionary labors of the elders of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints would form a most interesting chapter in the history of human endeavor. every experience seems to have fallen to the lot of "mormon" missionaries, who have labored under every clime and among all classes and races of people. taken, by a sudden call, from the home, workshop, field, store or office, they have gone out at their own expense, with no special training in speaking or argument, to teach to all the world a system of eternal truth, against which mighty forces have ever been arrayed. the third generation of this volunteer army is now carrying the gospel over the face of the earth, and the vigor of the work is unabated. the plain, unstudied sketch herewith presented of a few of the missionary experiences of an elder who spent a third of his long, mature life in foreign missionary service can be duplicated by hundreds of the missionaries of the church. simple and straightforward these sketches are; yet, between the lines, may be read every human emotion, from the highest exaltation of spirit to the darkest despair. it would be well if many such missionary lives could be published for the encouragement of all who desire to battle fearlessly for righteousness. bishop anthon l. skanchy died on april , , after a lingering illness of several years. in the midst of the pain of this sickness he wrote these sketches, chiefly of his early mission when he had the privilege of opening the gospel door in the beautifully majestic land of the midnight sun, and of bringing hundreds into the church. he wrote in his mother tongue, which he loved so well. the eloquent directness, as well as the severe repression of feeling, characteristic of the northern people, are on every page. a few weeks before his death. bishop skanchy entrusted his manuscript to me, to do with it as i might see fit. he hoped that, somehow, his experiences might strengthen the testimonies of others. the missionary instinct was strong within him. i have rendered it freely into english, and, while in so doing it has lost its peculiarly eloquent flavor, i hope it has not wholly lost its power for good. i should greatly love to fulfil the wish of the noble author of these sketches, who was the instrument in the hands of god of bringing to the family to which i belong, and to me, the priceless gift of an understanding of the gospel. that thousands of such strong men as was anthon l. skanchy could and do find a life's satisfaction in the gospel, in spite of the hardships and contempt they must endure, is a strong testimony of the inherent vitality of the message of the prophet joseph smith. logan, utah anthon l. skanchy a brief autobiographical sketch of the missionary labors of a valiant soldier for christ translated and edited by john a. widtsoe. if any of my friends should interest themselves in reading parts of my life's history, of my missions especially in the northern parts of norway, they may do so in this short report, and they may depend upon it that what is here written is the truth. i. early years. i, anthon l. skanchy was born in trondhjem, norway, september , , the seventh child of elling lornsen skanchy and mina ansjon. my father was a sea-faring man, well known, and much sought after as a pilot in northern norway. he, as many other sea-faring men of that day, became addicted to strong drink, and consequently, though he earned well, there was poverty in the home. my dear mother was compelled to work both day and night to keep the children, who numbered seven in all. from the time i was eight years old, i had to work and earn something for the family. my boyhood was spent by the water, where the great fjord comes in from the ocean. the shore was low and level, and great sand-spits ran out into the water. there the water ebbed and flowed every six and one half hours, through a distance of eight or ten feet. when the water was low, we could go out to the sand-spits into the fjord, and there i used to fish with one hundred hooks on my line, baited with sand worms. the line was left on the sand, with the end secured, and after fifteen hours, the water again was low and the lines lay in the dry sand with the fish that had been caught by the hooks. the fish thus caught furnished some means to the support of the family. as i grew a little older i was employed by a fisherman, who owned his own boat, and with him learned how to fish. i also worked between times in the rope factory, where i later became apprenticed and learned the trade well. the school naturally was neglected, and i was there only once in a while. when i was thirteen years old i began, however, to see the necessity of taking proper hold of my schooling, and determined to use my whole time in the attempt to win back what i had lost. my mother could not earn all the necessaries of life for me and herself, and during this period i learned to know the gnawings of hunger and the effects of hunger upon my system. a young school boy as i was could not grow and develop without proper and sufficient food. those days i can never forget. my mother had a little house of three rooms, built on rented ground. in a little garden around the house she raised potatoes with which to pay the larger part of the rent on the land. because of broken health and the weakness of my aged father, he had been compelled to quit the sea-faring life, and had journeyed to his oldest son who lived far up in nordland. there my father resided until his death. i gave all my time to schooling during three years. i was determined to win back what i had lost, and my interest was centered on the school, and as a result i made good progress. among other things i was taught the lutheran religion, and we had regular lessons in the history of the bible, and explanations of the events and doctrines found in both the old and the new testaments. these books on bible history we were obliged to learn by heart, and i learned my lessons well. this became a good foundation for me in the practice and preaching of my dear religion of the future and, through this knowledge of the bible, i learned to understand a little of the lord's dealings with the children of men, which became a great blessing and relief to me in the mission field and at home. after three years of school work i was confirmed, with a very good grade, in the lutheran church. i had worked now and then in the rope walks and had become greatly interested in this work. i then apprenticed myself to a rope factory, the owner of which was t. h. berg. i was permitted to remain at home with my mother, and received about $ . a week for my support in return for my service. this was pretty good, and occasionally i earned something extra between times. as i remained at home it was possible for me to have a little more liberty than i would have had, had i remained with the other apprentices in the household of the master. since i had now left the school, in which i had been so intensely interested, i became possessed of a kind of melancholy which led me to seek the lord and to study religion more closely. i went for help to the lutheran priest who had confirmed me, and he loaned me several books on religion and other books containing much useful information, in which i interested myself for some time. nevertheless, i found no satisfaction as a result of my reading; in fact, i hardly knew what i was reading. one sunday, in the summer of , i went to the church located a short distance beyond the city. a little valley lies by the side of the main road. i went into this valley, under some trees, and bent upon my knees and prayed to the lord with a loud voice. immediately came a moment of great exaltation, but followed quickly by a voice which spoke to me in a contemptuous tone: "what is wrong with you? what do you want? you come here and bend upon your knees as a child; you, who have learned your profession so well; you, who have so many friends, and have so much honor and respect! are you not ashamed?" under the influence of this voice i began to feel almost ashamed of myself, and of what i was doing. presently, however, i broke through the mist, and was given power to rebuke the evil spirits and to compel them to draw back. then a great joy rested upon my soul. i prayed for light. from that time on, i felt as free as a bird in the air. in the fall of , i finished my apprenticeship. in accordance with the contract, i received my last year's pay, $ ; a suit of new black clothes; new shoes; a silk velvet hat of the best kind, and, in the evening, a splendid dinner. it was customary at the end of the apprenticeship to do a piece of work as a proof that the business had been thoroughly learned. i was required to make a long rope, used by ships in measuring the number of knots traveled per hour. i made such a rope, and it was accepted as very good by the shipping committee. after my apprenticeship was over i was offered work in the same factory, but with the difference that i was to receive the pay of a master workman. in those days there was great traffic in rope, because wire cables had not yet been introduced, and there was much building and travel of ships in the city of trondhjem. ii. i accept the gospel. my uncle cornelius and his wife, who owned a house in the city, a short time before had been baptized into the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, by the brothers dorius, who were the first missionaries in the northern part of norway. i visited this aunt and presented her with a clothes line which i had made. my aunt was a well spoken lady, very fervent in her faith, and she immediately began to bombard me with "mormonism." in fact, she lent me a lot of tracts and scandinavian _stars_ for me to read. these i began to read, and compared what i read with the bible. i had my own room in our home and spent all my spare time in the study of the bible and the "mormon" books. i soon borrowed more gospel literature and studied it, with the bible, both day and night, and prayed to god for aid and guidance in the investigation. the testimony that i had the truth came to me more strongly, until, as it were, i became transformed both in body and spirit through the saving message of the gospel. in those days, many kinds of spirits made themselves known, but this had no influence upon me, for i had seen even the evil one in the days that i attended school. this may sound peculiar, but i have, in truth, seen with my material, eyes, evil spirits in different appearances, and under such varying conditions that i am absolutely convinced of their existence among us. both good and evil spirits are among us even here in the valleys of the mountains. i am ever grateful to the lord that he has permitted me to see and hear such things, as they have been of great use to me in my life's journey. when i investigated the gospel i established an unspeakable faith in the apostle's counsel that the saints should seek after spiritual gifts. i have the same faith and conviction today. i reflected much upon the message that had come to me, without saying much to any one. there was a missionary in trondhjem, thomasen, by name, from christiania, a well informed and talented man; also another named john dahle, from bergen. these missionaries conducted meetings among the saints, but i did not visit their meetings, for i was very retiring in my disposition. meanwhile my oldest sister, mrs. martha hagen, had investigated the gospel and was baptized. shortly afterward i also became so strongly convinced of the truth of "mormonism" that i went to elder thomasen and asked to be baptized. in the evening of the th of january, , i was baptized at trondhjem, under a most pleasant influence. after my baptism, i presented myself at one of the meetings of the saints. it was the first time that i had attended. some of the faithful old sisters doubted my sincerity, since i had not before attended their meetings; moreover, it was looked upon as a wonder that a young man, like myself, could face the persecution sure to follow the acceptance of a religion so despised as was "mormonism." at that time there were few young men in the church. it was soon proposed that i be ordained an elder. i felt, however, that i was not possessed of the power and information to receive so high a calling, and i asked that the ordination be postponed for some time. in a later meeting it was suggested again that i should be ordained to the priesthood, and i was then ordained an elder in the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. immediately afterwards i was called to assist the missionaries. trondhjem, at that time, was notoriously the headquarters of "mormon" persecution. the authorities had gone to the extreme. they had arrested and severely punished some of our sisters because they had left the legal church of the land and had accepted "mormonism," and had been baptized into this new church. among the sisters so punished were marit greslie and mrs. olsen, two sisters who later came to logan and were married to respectable men; also lena christensen who later came to salt lake city. these sisters were imprisoned and sentenced to five days' imprisonment with a diet of only bread and water. i was also called to the court house at the trial and had to answer many questions put to me by the chief of police. several of the questions were of such a nature that i did not feel under any obligation to answer them, which did not bring the chief into the best of humor. as a result, the police chief promised me that he should not forget me. he was very bitter in his feelings towards the saints. "mormonism" from that time on, became my guiding star. with great interest i accepted the call to help in bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, and in visiting the saints in the city and its surroundings. all this time i continued my work in the rope factory, owned by mr. berg, under whom i served my apprenticeship. he was a religious man, a dissenter who had some time before left the lutheran church and now belonged to a local sect. while my master and i walked up and down the rope walk together spinning hemp, "mormonism" became the theme of the day, during weeks and months. by this time i had acquired many of the principles of the gospel as taught in the tracts of orson pratt and parley p. pratt, and i was enabled thereby to continue day after day our interesting discussion. after i had joined the church, since it was very difficult to rent a house where meetings could be held, the missionaries secured the largest room in my mother's house. the missionaries lived there, and conducted their meetings there for several years. many times the house was bombarded by mobs, and my mother had to go and talk to the people in order to disperse them. after a year or so, the persecution quieted somewhat and life became more peaceful. the missionaries had, as it were, a home with my mother, and many enjoyable meetings were held in my mother's house. after a time my mother also made herself acquainted with the gospel, and developed a faith in it, but was not baptized. on many occasions, during the persecutions, she went out in her garden and preached "mormonism" to the restless crowd of people standing in the street and around the house. she was well acquainted with the bible, and at once, when an editor was present in the crowd, he wrote down the principles that she declared to the crowd, and printed them in his paper as the remarkable speech of an old woman. she had a good singing voice and went often to the houses of our neighbors where she sang songs from our hymn book. the missionaries remained in my mother's house, and loved her, during many years, even after i returned from my first mission to nordland and finmarken in the northern part of norway. several were baptized at trondhjem. several changes occurred among the missionaries, and at one time we were in charge of a local elder, who gave us good counsel and guidance. later we received as our missionary, hans a. hansen from christiansand, who was sent to trondhjem to care for the new branch there. this man later became my counselor in the bishopric of the sixth ward of logan. i secured frequently at this time leave of absence from the factory for a week or two at a time, in order to accompany the missionaries on their visits to the surrounding districts, such as stordalen, indhered, seldo, borseskogen. in this manner i learned to know something of the different conditions that a "mormon" elder has to meet. often, though he had money, we could not secure the privilege of buying food, or a place in which to sleep, simply because we were "mormons." nevertheless, we were of good faith, though we were many times utterly exhausted by the long distances that we had to cover on foot, without proper food. these experiences were of a kind to give us greater preparation for our important work as messengers carrying the glad tidings of the gospel to the people. we felt much interested in our labors, especially since we had the joy of seeing some of the fruits of them. thus passed the first two years of my membership in the church. iii. i go on my first mission. early in the spring of i was called to be present at the conference to be held in christiania. i resigned, immediately, my place in the rope factory. according to law, six weeks' notice had to be given when a person resigned from steady employment; but if i was to reach the conference on time, i had to leave at once, for at that time there was no railroad between christiania and trondhjem. i was, therefore, obliged to tell the owner of the factory that i had to leave in one week. this was a hard nut for him to crack, especially since he had the law on his side. i told him that i was going to the conference, law or no law, and that i was going to be there on time. he finally gave in to my request, and even offered to meet me in the morning of my departure to bid me goodbye, and promised to send an apprentice to carry my satchel to the city limits. on the morning of my departure, the master came, according to his agreement, and brought with him an old school teacher, connected with the church, as i supposed for the purpose of driving "mormonism" out of me. their plan did not materialize; our discussions were carried on in a friendly way, and at last they bade me goodbye, and gave me their best wishes for my future. the apprentice came and carried my satchel through the city. thus i left my native city, to begin the many years of missionary service. a swedish rope-maker was also on his way to christiania, and we, therefore, traveled together. we traveled on foot, along the country roads, the miles that separate trondhjem from christiania. this was early in the month of march. the roads were difficult to travel for there was much snow. moreover, neither of us knew the conditions and short cuts of the roads. we had snow shoes along with us, which made our journey more rapid in places where they could be used. on we traveled, day after day; along the valleys, over the hills, now in heavy drifted snow, now where the road was bare from the heavy winds. in the course of our journey, we finally had to climb dovre mountain, the highest divide in norway. the mountain side was covered with drifted snow, and it was exceedingly difficult to walk there. one evening we reached the station known as grievestuen, the first station north of dovre mountain, and spent the night there on nearly the highest point of the mountain. this is far above the tree line, and no dwelling houses are found so far up on the mountain. the next day we crossed the mountain, for the first time for me, though it was not to be my last. that day we undertook, as usual, almost too much of a day's journey, for we traveled almost fourteen miles through the heavy drifted snow, to the second station from the one in which we had spent the night. darkness overtook us. the road was filled with drifted snow, and in our worn-out condition we were in danger of giving up and remaining in the snow throughout the night. i had in my pocket a small bottle of camphor drops of which we took a drop now and then. this seemed to help us, and at length, we reached the station. the next morning we walked ten or twelve miles downward into the beautiful and well-known guldbrands valley. some days later we reached the beautiful city of lillehammer, which lies at the end of the great lake of mjosen. ships here take passengers to eidsvold; but, when we arrived, the lake was still covered with ice and we had to continue our foot journey twenty-eight miles farther. at last we reached the town of gjevig, where we journeyed by ship to eidsvold, the railroad terminus, where we boarded the train immediately, and found ourselves in christiania the same day. the long walk was ended. on the evening of my arrival, the conference began, in the large hall in storgaden. elder rasmus johansen was president, and the brothers dorius were also there. i felt like one who has just escaped from a prison--glad and happy. we had a good time together. nearly all of the missionaries and our local elders were there. during this conference i was called to go to nordland on a mission, and i received my commission from president rasmus johansen. i suppose few of those present knew anything about nordland at that time. soon after the conference, i began, alone, my long tramp of miles, northward, to my native city of trondhjem. on the return journey, however, i took a somewhat different route, through osterdalen. on this trip, also, i had to walk across a great mountain and as i was not acquainted with the conditions, it was night before i came down from the mountain, into the nearest village. the people had all gone to bed. i knocked on the door of one of the houses. "who is there?" asked someone. "a stranger who has come over the mountain," said i. "no, he can get no entertainment here," said a woman, briskly. "hold on," said a man. "a man who has walked over the mountain alone at this time of night needs rest. i have been out myself and know what it means." he dressed himself, opened the door, put good food on the table, made my bed, and said, "help yourself." this man was one of the many who has secured, for himself, a reward. [image captioned "missionary certificate of bishop anthony l. skanchy. this certificate, issued in , bears the endorsement of different police officers, under date of nov. , ; june , ; and may , ."] i came finally to the city of roros, where many of my family lived, and to whom i bore my testimony. at last i reached trondhjem where i secured work again in the rope factory, and where i worked during two weeks, in order to earn enough to buy a steamer ticket to the place assigned to me for my missionary labors. at that time, the missionaries were sent out without purse or scrip, and depended entirely upon the promises of the lord. iv. missionary labors in nordland and finmarken. the th of may, , i took passage with the steamship _prince gustaf_, and with god's mercy of eternal salvation before me, i bade my dear mother goodbye. with joy in my heart i went out to carry the message of the everlasting covenant, to preach the gospel and to battle for the cause of truth. the first island i visited was degoe. it lies off helgeland. there i bore my testimony to the people, and distributed books and tracts wherever i went. i then traveled to harstad, from there to qvarfjorden where there was a family who belonged to the church, and then along kadsfjorden where there also was a family belonging to the church. then came numerous long visits among the many deep fjords and sounds of which nordland mainly consists, and upon the islands, most of which are thickly peopled. i traveled by boat, sailship or steamship, as opportunity offered. i tramped from island to island, over mountains and valleys, visited houses and fishing districts, and had opportunity to bear my testimony before many people. i visited nearly all of the inhabited islands, fjords and sounds in nordland. there i met many kinds of people,--priests and school teachers, and many people well versed in the bible. the people in nordland seemed to me to be better posted on the bible than in any other place in norway. the few saints whom i found scattered on the different islands were visited, but, soon after i reached there, two families who belonged to the church emigrated to zion, namely pollov israelsen, and peter hartvigsen. my greatest interest and joy was my mission work; this i can truthfully say. nordland begins several miles north of trondhjem, where the atlantic ocean crowds in and follows the norwegian coastline northward and washes the old steep rocks of the shore, until the famous north cape is reached, a few miles from the widely known city of hammerfest. hundreds of tourists from various nations visit this place every summer. here they may see the midnight sun circle around the horizon, through two long months of summer. after we leave north cape the coast line draws north-east and east to south, until the great atlantic ocean surrounds norway's northern, barren and fjord-furrowed coast. this part of norway is called finmarken. the country is here very barren. no vegetation, excepting grass, is found, and the population, chiefly finns and lapps, live on the mountains and care for their great herds of reindeer, or, they live on the islands and fish from season to season. fishing, as is well known, is the life-blood of norway's industrial existence. i give these facts because this great mission field is little known, even now, in our church history. i was called to go on a mission to nordland, which includes many cities such as namsos, bodo, harstad, and tromso. the last mentioned city lies miles north of trondhjem, and vardo, the most distant of the cities lies , miles north of trondhjem. this vast territory was, therefore, my mission field. in this field only ten souls belonged to the church at the time i came there. these few had been baptized by elder ola orstend who was the captain of a trading ship, and who later became postmaster in cottonwood, utah. the people in that part of the land did not always deem it proper for me to preach "mormonism" and to administer the ordinances of the church. consequently, during the time i spent in that country, i was arrested seven times, carried over land and sea in boats and steamers as a prisoner, tried in various places, and was sentenced to imprisonment six times. the first time i was given six days imprisonment with only bread and water for food. this was in the city of tromso. in the prison i had to mingle with thieves and murderers. i was assigned a little room in the attic with a tiny window in the east, and a hard bed hanging by hinges on the wall so that it might be dropped down when it was to be used and lifted again when not in use, so that there would be some room for me in which to move about. a tiny table and a tiny bench constituted the furniture. i had a small piece of sour, coarse bread, and all the water i desired, every twenty-four hours. the cause of my sentence was illegal religious activity. when i had earned my freedom, and was let out of the prison, i began again to bear my testimony among the people and to distribute books and to hold meetings, and to baptize those who were converted to the saving message. the tracts that i distributed found their way to many of the honest in heart. i heard at one time of a man far away in finmarken who desired much to see and speak with an elder. he had read something in some of our books that had reached him. i had then just come out of the prison in tromso. i bought a ticket on a steamer to a station known as hasvig, on the east side of the great island of soro. he who desired to meet an elder of the church lived in ofjorden, west of the island, nearly thirty-five miles away, over great mountains and morasses. since i had never been in this place, i wondered if i could find my way to it. the only road was that made by the goats as they traveled back and forth between the watering and feeding places. the steamship was to arrive in hasvig at two o'clock in the morning. it was the th day of september. i was the only deck passenger on the ship. as the night went on i became very anxious about the manner of my reaching my destination, and when all was quiet on board i went forward on the ship, bowed before the lord and prayed to him, in whose service i was traveling, to guide my footsteps and to care for me on this particular task. i became surrounded by a great light and a voice said to me, "be of good courage. you are not alone. whatever is necessary will be given you." i cannot describe how happy i felt. at two o'clock in the morning the steamboat whistled and we stopped at the station of hasvig. there was no landing place there at that time, so the postmaster came out with a boat to deliver and receive the mail. i was the only passenger he brought away. he asked me where i came from and where i was going. i told him and he invited me immediately to go with him to his office. he said, "my housekeeper has always a cup of coffee ready for me when i am up at night to get the mail." afterwards he went down with me to the shore and took me to a freight boat which was about to travel up the fjord the way i was going. the postmaster asked those in the boat to take me with them as far as they went, and told me it was best for me to begin my foot journey at the place the boat would stop. i continued with the boat to sorvar, which we reached at ten o'clock the next forenoon. great fishing districts are located there. i had been up all night, and i was very tired. a fisherman whom i met asked me to go with him to his place and he would make some coffee for me, for he understood that i was tired. as my strength returned to me i began to bear my testimony to them. after an hour's time, one of the many who had gathered to listen to me, invited me to go with him to his house for dinner, after which he took a boat and rowed me across the sound. on this journey our time was occupied in explaining questions which he directed to me. he was very much interested. after we crossed the sound he hired a boat and we rowed up to the head of the fjord. here we found shelter for the night with a family of laps. when they heard where i was going, one of the lap women said she knew the road well and offered to go with me and to show me the road over the mountains, about seven miles. we reached ofjorden, my destination, early in the afternoon and was welcomed by the man who had desired to see a "mormon" elder. this man, for some time, had held a position similar to that of probate judge, but had resigned his position and was now living quietly and was being cared for by a housekeeper. it was peculiar that the man who had heard me speak on the island, and who had rowed me across the sound, had followed me the whole distance. i held a meeting with them and spoke to them the whole day of my arrival and the day after. my friend the fisherman returned, at last. the day afterward i baptized the old probate judge; later his housekeeper was baptized, and at last the lap woman who had acted as my guide over the mountain was baptized. when this had been accomplished the lap woman guided me back straight over the mountain, to hasvig where i had left the steamship early in the night just a week previously. the vision that i had had on the deck of the ship that night had been literally fulfilled. everything that was necessary had been given me. i felt very grateful to the lord for his fatherly care and guidance during the week. afterward i visited the huts of the laps on the shore and slept one night with them. they received me with much kindness, invited me to eat with them and desired much to listen to what i had to tell them. i held a meeting with them and sang for them. they all felt well, as did i also. v. again before the courts. i had a sister five years older than myself who was not in the church, but was a private teacher in the family of mr. miller, a merchant in kovaaen, about one hundred seventy-five miles south of tromso. mrs. miller was slightly related to the skanchys. at one time i had been kept in prison in tromso during twenty-one days, waiting for a session of the court at which i could be tried. at last i was sent by steamship to kovaaen, where a court was to be held. we left tromso about ten o'clock in the evening. there were many passengers on board, especially on the deck. it was one of the mild, beautiful summer nights of nordland. the steward who had my ticket and was supposed to take care of me desired to have a little fun with the "mormon" preacher, but apparently he made a wrong calculation, for when he attacked me with improper words, i talked back to him so loudly that the captain on the bridge came running down to the steward and took him by the coat collar and put him under arrest, saying that he had no right to make life disagreeable for a prisoner. the steward remained under deck as a prisoner during the whole day. at once, as a result of this episode, i was surrounded by all the passengers on the deck, and as i stood on one side of the deck the little ship began to tip. the captain very politely asked me to stand in the middle of the deck. i felt then that i had a good opportunity to preach and to answer the questions that might be put to me. the people again gathered about me, and i stood there and defended the cause of truth from twelve o'clock at night until five o'clock in the morning. at that time a lady of the first class came to me and offered me something to eat. this food strengthened my body. thus, in my life's experience, i have been occupied a whole night in battling for the cause of truth. on this occasion i felt that i was not alone, but that i was powerfully supported by the lord and his influence. at seven o'clock in the morning we reached our destination, and two of the civil authorities came on board. they both greeted me, as i had long been acquainted with them. at eight o'clock we reached the place where the court was to be held. the courthouse was on a little hill rising abruptly from the fjord. mr. nordrum, the court clerk, and his deputy went at once into the house which was occupied as a dwelling house, and where the family were eating breakfast. mr. nordrum was a liberal-minded man and he said to mrs. miller, "have you a comfortable room that we can have, as we have a prisoner along with us?" "what?" said the lady, "a nice room for a prisoner?" "yes," he answered. "it is no ordinary prisoner. it is the 'mormon' preacher, skanchy." my sister, who was standing by the table, heard this and almost fainted. she left the table and went weeping down to the shore where i was standing, threw her arms about my neck, kissed me, and cried again. all this was done to the great surprise of my fellow passenger, the lady who so kindly gave me a bite to eat earlier in the morning. this lady soon heard that i was her brother. this also brought tears from the lady, who said, "i would give a great deal if i had such a brother, for he has been on the battlefield all night and has won a victory." all this occurred on sunday morning. i was given a good breakfast in a large, well-furnished room in the building. the court clerk came to my room, greeted me in a friendly way, and told me that my hearing should be the first one so that i could be released early. at eight o'clock monday morning, i was called into the court room where i was examined concerning my great crime against the norwegian law, namely, that i had freely preached the doctrines of the bible and performed the ordinances of the gospel which should be done only by the lutheran priests who were paid for so doing. the court clerk, mr. nordrum, of whom i have spoken, felt well towards the "mormons" and treated them with much respect, but he was obliged, of course, to do his work in accordance with the laws of the land. the only judges who were after us were those who wanted to make a reputation for themselves by persecuting the "mormons." this bitter trial was similar to the many others to which i had been subjected. upon the request of the court, i bore a long testimony to the truthfulness of "mormonism," all of which was written down in the records of the court. all of it was read to me again, so that i might correct it, if i so desired, before it became a permanent part of the court records. i thought this was not so bad, as my testimony had been written into the official records each time that i had been before the courts. as a result a great deal of "mormonism" stands recorded in the official records of northern norway, as a testimony against the unjust persecutions to which the servants of the lord have been subjected. my case now went to a superior officer for his consideration, and i was set free until such time as he might pronounce judgment upon me. the day after, the clerk of the court, mr. nordrum, offered to take me on my journey with him, in a large row boat which belonged to the city. it would be at least a week before the steamer arrived. the boat had four men as rowers. the clerk and i sat at the back of the boat on a comfortable bench, and during the eight hours of the trip discussed the gospel. we came during the day to a large island which was densely populated and there, in accordance with my wishes, i was set on land. on this island i took up my work with much satisfaction, and continued it from island to island. i will say here again that my mission work was of greatest interest and joy to me. when i saw the fruits of my work, as i took the honest in heart to the water's edge and there baptized them, i felt that it was the most glorious work any mortal could perform. no sacrifice seemed too great, for i felt as if my whole system was swallowed up in "mormonism." the experiences which i won by my work in nordland, the long journeys by land and water, the sacrifices and the suffering i had to endure, such as hunger and loss of sleep, will always remain in my memory, and they were no doubt for my good. i learned on this mission great lessons, and the lord be praised therefor. vi. how i spent the winter in nordland. i continued my work until late into the fall and early winter, as long as i could find the people at home. when winter opened, most of the able-bodied men voyaged to the fishing districts and worked there throughout the winter. especially did the fishermen gather in the famous fisheries of lofoten, where thousands of men and boats assembled each winter while the women, children and the aged remained home on the islands. at that season so much snow falls that it is almost impossible to travel from place to place. i was in considerable distress, for i hardly knew what a poor missionary could do during the winter to perform his duties and to measure up to the responsibilities that had been placed upon him and be true to his call. this great problem filled my thoughts. i presented the matter to him in whose service i had been called. the result was that i obtained the testimony that i should go wherever i could find people and work with them just as far as i could. consequently, i started out for the fisheries where the men gathered for the winter. first i went to the island of hatsel, and from there to a place near lofoten, in the midst of the wild ocean, and hired out to one of the fishermen, the owner of a large boat. there were six of us in the boat, and during the winter we fished with all our strength in the great atlantic ocean. an old house stood on the shore, at a point known as qualnes, in which the fishermen lived during the fishing season. twelve men, six from our boat and six from another, lived in the large, one room of the cabin. here we cooked and slept; but it went pretty well. as i was quick, strong, and endured the sea without becoming sick, i felt that i never needed to take a place inferior to any of the other men. my associates were raw, uncultured seamen. i thought to myself, "here is something for me to do." i went out among the great rocks that littered the coast and had my prayers and communions with the lord. soon i acquired influence over the men and began to teach them to refrain from their fearful swearing and cursing, which they continued from morning until evening. they all knew that i was a "mormon" preacher. our captain was the first to stop swearing; then the others, and finally they developed a very great respect for me. whatever i said, they accepted as being right. in the end they developed such a love for me that when the fishing season was ended, and i bade them farewell, tears came into their eyes. this was the first winter of my first mission, and the first winter that i spent as a fisherman on the wild ocean. from the fisheries i sailed to the island of hatsel where my winter's captain lived, and visited for a short time with him and his family. i received my $ for the winter's work, and went joyfully on my way, to continue my mission over the country. vii. the lord sends me money and more friends. the second summer of my mission was used chiefly in preaching to the fishermen. i traveled from island to island, from shore to shore, over mountains and valleys, and i won numerous friends. many were baptized and more were left with a testimony. i was arrested, of course, and on one occasion was given eight days' solitary confinement with only bread and water to eat. in the fall my means had all been consumed, and the snow water ran in and out of my boots. i succeeded in borrowing about five dollars from a friend, who was not in the church, and that put me in tip-top shape again. on my journey i secured many subscribers for the _scandinavian star_, which also helped to spread the gospel. the second winter came, and i received a letter from captain christian hansen, with whom i had labored the preceding winter, asking me to report at his home the first of january, . it was about the middle of december that one of the brethren who took a boat and rowed me into gosfjorden, whence i could walk over a mountain, about fourteen miles, until i would be opposite the island which was my destination. the country here was very wild and open, and had great chasms running through it. it was very easy for a person to become hopelessly lost in a maze of wonderful natural phenomena. i bade my good brother goodbye by the ocean side; he gave me explicit instructions for my guidance. i was to go in a straight line southward, and i would reach my destination. as much snow lay on the ground, i took a pair of skis and carried my clothes and books in a satchel on my back. within five minutes after starting, the air became filled with snow, so that i could not discover which was south or north. to go back was impossible, for no one lived by the fjord; the boat had gone back, and i stood alone in the solitary, mountainous wilderness. however, this did not frighten me, for i felt that i was directed by the lord. i turned about to get the direction i had taken in the beginning, and then sighted ahead, as best i could, in the same direction to some bush or other natural object. this i repeated, over and over again, and in that fashion i traveled the whole fourteen miles in the midst of a terrific snow-storm. the snow was so soft that my skis sank down in it until i was in the snow almost up to my knees, and i could hardly see the end of my skis, as i brought them out of the snow. naturally, my progress was slow. night came and darkness overtook me, but for me there was light, nevertheless. at nine o'clock that night i reached the shore. it was joy to take the skis from my feet and walk on the sand among the great rocks. i saw a house on the shore about a mile away. i went in there and asked for lodging. i was so overcome by weakness from the hard journey of the day that i could scarcely speak. the man in the house, however, understood what troubled me, and placed me in a chair by the warm stove; then he took my boots from off my feet, and brought me from the cellar a bowl of home-made malt beer. after i had become warmed, he asked me to sit up to the table and eat. i did this in a great hurry. this poor fisherman's home was the only house on this side of the island. after i had eaten, the wife made the beds. she put clean sheets and pillow slips over a good straw mattress covered with an old boat sail in the corner of the one room in the house. after prayers, it seemed that they knew who i was. i was then made to sleep in their own bed, while they slept on the straw bed made in the corner. the next morning we had a modest breakfast, and the man rowed me across the sound to the next island, and would not take the slightest pay for what he had done. i then walked across this island and found a man to ferry me across the next sound. for this service the ferryman demanded twenty-five cents. this was the last money that i had. i gave him the money and he set me ashore on a sand ridge that jutted out from the island into the water. he immediately rowed back to his own island. there i stood, alone, penniless and in a strange place. with a heavy heart i gathered up my satchel and my coat and looked around for my directions. there, as i looked, by my side and on the sand, lay a little pile of money in silver and copper coins, totaling nearly a dollar. i was so affected by this unexpected relief that i sat down on a stone and wept for gratitude. i wondered how this money had been left, and came to the conclusion that some fishermen had probably been selling fish among the neighboring islands and had placed the money that they received, as is very common, in the bailing dipper of the boat; on their way back they had forgotten that the money was in the bailing dipper, and in bailing out the boat had thrown the money accidentally on the sand-ridge on which i had landed. however, it had happened. it was another testimony to me that there is one high above us, who sees and knows all things. he knew, no doubt, that i had paid out my last money, and therefore guided my boat so that i landed where this money had been lost. i was grateful to the lord. i continued my journey from island to island, and at last reached the island of hasel, where i was received warmly by captain christian hansen and his wife. this time he offered me a much better position in the fishery than i had the previous winter. i was to be with him during january, february and march. he was to furnish the fishing apparatus and my provisions, and we were to divide equally the products of my labor. i agreed to this and we sailed away. we lived this winter also in the old log house, and all went fairly well. when the fishing season was ended, and the account was to be settled, i found that my share was about fifty dollars. i paid my debts and continued my journeys again. viii. i am released from my first mission. at last i came to the town vardo in finmarken, the most distant city in my field, where i remained a few weeks. while there i went out on the ocean and fished. instead of nets, hooks and lines were used. the whole ocean was so filled with fish that it seemed as if it were a great pot in which fish were boiled. it was a common experience that heavily weighted fish lines could not get past the mass of fish. on this trip i was arrested for preaching the gospel of christ and brought by steamer to the city of hammerfest, where sentence was pronounced on me; and from there, in another steamer to tromso where i spent ten days in prison on a diet of bread and water. i learned many things from these seasons of imprisonment. i was a young man, healthy and strong, accustomed to moving quickly in my work, and i found that this diet of bread and water did not agree with me; especially as i was given a tiny piece of sour, heavy, dry, coarse bread, about the size of half of my hand, every twenty-four hours. as the days went by in prison, i must confess that i became very hungry and that it caused sleeplessness. i was able to sleep about two hours each night, and would awake weak and tired. i dreamed usually that i was feasting on an abundance of things to eat and drink and then would suddenly awake hungry and weak, dizziness and headache overmastering me. i lay on my hard bed hoping for the arrival of day because i could then divert my thoughts a little better. these seasons of imprisonment tired me severely. none can fully understand it unless he has experienced it himself. it brought to my mind the words of the prophet isaiah, "it shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold, he eateth; but he waketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and behold, he drinketh, but he waketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite: so shall the multitude of the nations be that fight against mount zion." i thought to myself that he who spoke those words had undoubtedly had experience in it. during the month of july, in , the third summer of my labors in nordland, i received my release from this mission, from elder george m. brown, who then presided over the norway conference. i wrote to all the saints in nordland's branch to meet in the historical place bjarkoe at a stated time. all of the saints came to the meeting, as also strangers. my sister in the flesh, amelia, came there, also, and was baptized. we partook of the sacrament together, and for three or four days we had a most enjoyable time. at last, then, i bade farewell to my brethren, sisters and friends, and to nordland with its many islands, fjords and great and beautiful mountains, forming a landscape so brilliantly equipped that it does not stand second to any that i have seen. the impressions which became stamped upon my mind during my mission up among the people of northern norway, in the days of my youth, will never, i believe, leave me, for one might learn more up there than can be learned in a university. before i leave this extensive and valuable mission field, i will add my modest judgment of this great and beautiful country, with fjords and sounds, islands and high mountains covered with leafy trees, reaching down to the shore, with the background of high cliffs and barren mountains, covered with patches of trees and moss, where the laps watch their great herds grazing in the small mountain valleys. all about, are every kind of feathered life, representing the birds of the ocean, among which the eider duck is a prominent feature. it seems as if nature has here made attempt after attempt to invite wealth and beauty to the children of men. three months throughout the year the midnight sun shines; the great ocean teems with measureless wealth of food for man. wherever one turns there is something attractive to behold. not only is the eye pleased, but the spiritual intelligence is touched as well. to me it was as if, in this rugged nature, a new world of inspiration and introspection came from god, who from the beginning had organized the whole land. no wonder that thousands visit summer after summer this land of the midnight sun, this wonderland. i took passage homeward in a steamer under capt. j. s. green, a friend of mine, and a member of the church. i was very grateful to the lord for his fatherly care and protection over me during my honest labors both on land and sea; and though i felt myself a very humble and imperfect messenger of the great and noble work, i also felt that the lord was satisfied with my work, and that the honor belonged to him. at last i reached trondhjem and had the joy to greet my dear mother again, together with my brethren, sisters and friends. i remained a few days with the missionaries, who still roomed in my mother's house, and held several meetings. then i bade my mother farewell again, and began my long walk to christiania, and again had the opportunity of walking over the dovre mountain alone. i reached christiania in due season, about two and a half years after i set out on my mission. [image captioned "latter-day saints' mission house, christiana, norway."] ix. i labor in aalesund. i was retained as a missionary, but was now at liberty to go wherever i wanted. i said goodbye, and journeyed on to guldbrands valley where i thought there would be a good field for work, as the whole valley is thickly populated. from there i went to roms valley and at last reached aalesund. in this city i found a sister whom i had baptized in nordland and who was now married to mr. myre, a bookkeeper. as i was the first elder who had visited this town, i was greatly persecuted by the minister, mr. buck, and by the police who were on my track every day. nevertheless, i won friends there and after a time baptized mr. myre. just at this time elder christian folkman, and the saints who were in trondhjem, invited me to spend the christmas season there, and sent me traveling money so that i could buy my steamship ticket. i was in my native city by christmas and had a most interesting time. early in january, i returned by steamer to aalesund, to continue my work. when i arrived i had only twelve cents, which was just enough to pay the man who rowed me from the steamship and placed me on land in the city. i secured lodgings in the house of a master shoemaker, nielsen, who owned a large three-story house. the police chief soon came and ordered me to leave the city, but when i told him i was paying for my support, and that i knew something about the norwegian law and his authority, and that it did not extend so far as to drive me out of the city, he left me alone, but commanded his force to keep a very close watch over me. [image captioned "interior of the assembly hall, latter-day saints' mission house, christiania, norway."] then came the priest of the city, the mr. buck formerly mentioned, in company with one of the local merchants, and gave me considerable more such information, that if i conducted any meetings, the doors of the prison were ready to close behind me. a few days afterward i went to call on the priest, but he saw me come and instructed his housekeeper to tell me that he was not at home. when i asked if the pastor was at home, she said, "no, he is away." as i knew that he was at home at that time, i warned the lady she should not tell an untruth to one of the lord's servants. she took my words to heart and told her folks what had happened. it so happened that this lady was of very prominent parents, and they immediately took their daughter home. two days later, one of the merchants greeted me, and told me that this story of the pastor's untruthfulness had spread over the city to the shame of the pastor himself. sometime after i had left aalesund, i heard that this minister, mr. buck, had hung himself, for what reason i did not learn. then came the superior priest of the district and pressed upon my landlord that he must drive me out of the house, and not give home or habitation to false prophets. mr. nielsen, who had learned something of the gospel, bore testimony in my behalf, and then everything went wrong. i was not present, but the two must have had a serious time together. in a few days came a letter from the superior priest to mr. nielsen insisting that as nielsen was a respected man in the community, in order to maintain his good name he must not any longer give me lodging. mr. nielsen was now in a tight place, and he presented the matter to me. he did not want to turn me out, yet he desired to favor the chief priest of the district. in fact, so overcome was he that he cried. an evening or two later he received another letter from the pastor which was even more insistent. the morning after the receipt of the second letter, i placed the whole matter before the lord, and received my inspiration that if i would call on the priest he would acknowledge the correctness of every principle that i might present to him. filled with joy, i walked to his home some two miles beyond the edge of the city. i was courteously invited into the office of the great man. we had first a conversation concerning the bible: then, concerning the relation of "mormonism" to biblical doctrines. questions were directed to me, and i replied in the spirit of truth that was present; and he acknowledged the correctness of every principle that i advocated. for two hours we were together in friendly conversation. the battle was won; and from that time on he was especially kind and helpful to our missionaries who followed me. the same day mr. nielsen was informed by letter from the priest that he could give me lodging as long as he liked, and the priest further stated that he had had a conversation with mr. skanchy which convinced him that he had been mistaken in his opposition, but excused himself by saying that it was the duty of his profession to oppose those who believed in any other religion than that supported by the state. even after this, i had a pretty hard time in aalesund; but after several members had been brought into the church the work became somewhat easier. among others who were baptized at this time was mrs. soneva torgesen, the wife of a friendly ship captain. this woman was a true daughter of israel, and did much good. she had two small children whom i blessed. the boy was instructed by his mother and is a faithful elder in the church today. in the spring of , at a conference held in christiania, c. c. a. christensen, who had arrived from utah, was assigned to preside in norway. i bade farewell to aalesund and began my journey up the valley of the roms, over dovre mountain again, and then down guldbrands valley until i reached the little town of lillehammer, where we had a sister in the gospel, ellen buckwald, who was employed in the household of a mr. revers, a friend of our people. to this house the elders were invited whenever they came to the city, and were treated there in the very best manner. i had many conversations concerning the gospel with this educated man. the family did not want to part with ellen, for she taught the children of the household "mormonism," and used to pray, even, for brigham young as a leader of israel. i finally again came to christiania, and in the conference then held was released from my second mission by the outgoing president. x. i preside in christiania. elder c. c. a. christensen then took over the guidance of the saints in norway. i was called to act as the president of the christiania branch which at that time had about members. upon the receipt of this call i felt my unworthiness in a very great degree. there were many in the congregation who had accepted the gospel long before i had, many of them older and more intelligent men and women, but i prayed to my god for wisdom and intelligence to be able to guide this great body of people. these prayers were heard and the lord blessed me mightily. i gained the love and respect of the saints and with the fatherly guidance of our respected president, c. c. a. christensen, i got along very well. many persons were converted and baptized into the church both in christiania and throughout the branches in the country as a result of the visits of president christensen to the different branches and the meetings he held everywhere with the people. as the children of the saints in christiania were often persecuted in school by the other children, because their parents were "mormons," i decided to try to stop this unnecessary and improper persecution. i went to the chief of police, one of our friends, and counseled with him as to what we would best do. he advised us to petition the school board, the chairman of which was bishop arup, for the privilege of establishing a school of our own, and he suggested further that we secure a number of well known names to this petition and offered to be the first to sign it. we delivered this petition to the bishop who was a very courteous man. after a couple of weeks the petition was granted, on the condition that an officer of the school board should inspect the school once a year to make sure that we were giving the right training and maintaining proper discipline. moreover, in our school, the children should not be obliged to study the state religion or the history of the bible. we thought this a very great concession. i was then appointed to take charge of this school, with sister christina osterbeck as assistant. the children were each to pay a little, as they could obtain the means, for the expense of books, and other supplies. this was a fairly successful experiment. the officers of the school board also seemed satisfied with our work. i was permitted occasionally to make mission journeys into the district surrounding christiania. some of these journeys, taken in the winter, were very difficult. in the summer of , i was sent to visit the town of kongsberg and numme valley, where i had been before. from the city of drammen, the road leads through a great forest, and then over a high mountain. when i reached the top of the mountain the sun was setting in the west behind me, and the shadow of the mountain was thrown miles and miles over the forest below the mountain and covered the whole city of kongsberg. the magnificent beauty and vastness of this sunset from the mountain top worked upon my feelings and i sought a place under a small hill where, with enthusiasm in my heart, i kneeled before the lord and opened my heart to him. i prayed especially that he would lead my footsteps, guide me on my way, and help me find a place to stay that night, for i had only a few cents left. at the close of my prayers, it seemed to me that i was surrounded by a holy influence. i then began my descent of the mountain. it was already dark when i crossed the bridge over the river that flows near the city. where was i to go? the houses of the city are built very near to each other. when i reached the first block, i turned to the right and walked around it. then i crossed the street and began on the next block. at last, i thought, "here is the place where i would better go in and knock." but the answer of the spirit was immediately "no." i continued to walk to the right around the blocks and after a while i thought, "now i will knock on the next door." but again the voice whispered, "no." i continued circling the blocks until i reached the eighth block. as i approached the middle of this block a voice whispered to me, "here you are to enter." i knocked on the door, and a hearty, "come in" was the answer. i stepped into the room and saw a man and his wife sitting by a table, playing dominos. i noticed that they looked at each other and smiled. "can i obtain lodging here tonight?" i said. "yes," said the man and pointed to a door that led into a little bedroom, in which were a table, a candlestick ready to be lighted, a bed, a wash bowl and other furniture. the lady came in and lighted the candle and asked me if i did not want something to eat. i was very hungry and could have eaten a good hearty supper, but i told her, if she pleased, a little bowl of bread and milk would be sufficient. next morning at six o'clock, i heard the man move about in the house. as i learned later, he worked in the national rifle factory, and had to be at work quite early in the morning. after he had gone, the lady came into my room, placed a chair in front of the bed, and placed upon it a tray with food. when she left, i got up and ate this light breakfast with great appetite. at eight o'clock the man came back for his breakfast, and i was called in and placed at the table. there was a little pause. they looked at each other, and i asked if they would permit me to bless the food. the man said, "that is what we are waiting for." i blessed the food, and we began to eat. then a very peculiar conversation ensued. "you have not been here before?" "no." "who brought you here last night?" "no one." "are you not a 'mormon' elder?" "yes." "did you notice anything when you came in here last night?" "yes." "what was it you noticed?" "i noticed that you looked at your wife and smiled and she smiled back." he then told me the story. just before i knocked on the door, they both heard distinctly a voice which said, "here comes a servant of the lord, who desires lodging for the night. take good care of him." he continued, "the bed in which you slept last night has not been used during the last six years. the last person before you who slept there was a 'mormon' elder to whom the room was rented out for a year. when he left, most of the people he had baptized sold out and went to utah. no 'mormon' has been here since." i said to him, "i suppose then you know very well the teachings of 'mormonism.'" he said, "yes; i believe that what is called 'mormonism' is the message from god above. i am not baptized, and if i should go with you alone this evening to be baptized it would be known in the factory tomorrow, for those in charge there call upon their god from morning till evening, and he can reveal to those who pray to him just as our god revealed to us who would knock on our door last night. then i would receive my 'walking papers' at once. should i be baptized, and then lose my position, my savings would possibly take me and my family to zion, but i have here at home an old father and mother who cannot help themselves and i have not means enough to take them with me. perhaps my faith is not strong enough, or i should leave them in the hands of the lord, for he provides for us all, but i cannot bear the thought of bidding them farewell and leaving them alone." these were his words. i had a splendid mission journey through the numme valley. i met many good and honest people. as far as i know, no missionary has been there since that day. [image captioned "mission house of the latter-day saints, at copenhagen, denmark."] xi. the land of zion. in the spring of , through the help of president c. c. a. christensen, i succeeded in borrowing enough means to emigrate to zion. i had then been in the church a little more than seven years, the first two of which had been devoted in part, and the last five wholly, to missionary service. i married at this time, anna christina krogero, an assistant in the mission office, who was a widow with four children. after bidding farewell to the many saints in christiania, we traveled to copenhagen and thence to liverpool, where we boarded the sailship, _john bright_, which has carried many of our people across the ocean. after a voyage of six weeks, mostly in the face of a strong headwind, we reached new york on the th of july, , during a spell of very warm weather. there were over immigrants in our company. we spent a few days in new york and were then sent westward by railway. the terminus of the railway was laramie, which left about miles to salt lake city. at laramie there was a company from utah with horses and mules to conduct the immigrants onward. we were organized into companies, with hector c. haight as captain, and we began our journey over the plains along the banks of the sweetwater. we reached salt lake city the first week in september, , after a six weeks' march from laramie over the dry and warm plains, immersed in a cloud of dust from morning until night. the children and the weak mothers were allowed to ride in the wagons; while all the men were obliged to walk the whole distance in dust by day, and keep watch against the indians at night. we were pretty well supplied with meat, flour, fruit and other food for our journey over the plains. when we camped in the evening, we cooked our food, and made our bread. all went fairly well. at last we came to emigration canyon, and had our first glimpse of salt lake city. we were glad and grateful to our heavenly father for his fatherly care of us during our journey. on arriving at the tithing yard, in salt lake city, our captain was released. i pitched our little tent and remained there during eleven days awaiting an opportunity to go to cache valley where i had some norwegian friends of earlier days. that fall, the grasshoppers visited cache valley, and all the crops were destroyed, so that there was not enough food to supply the needs of the people. as i was responsible for a family i took my blanket on my shoulder and walked over the mountains to salt lake valley in search of work that would bring me a little money with which to buy bread stuff,--the greatest need of my family at the time. there was just then a call for "mormon" boys to go out and do section work on the union pacific railway. i worked at this until the october conference at salt lake city, which i felt i must attend. i was given free fare to salt lake city, upon my promise to return, as the railroad company wanted the "mormons" to continue the work on the road. when the railroad was laid to corinne, box elder co., we were laid off, and i went home to logan the following night. i rented a small log house, in the logan fifth ward, and began to work at once in the canyon, cutting timber. in this work i continued for five years. i took out logs for the house of apostle ezra t. benson, in exchange for which i obtained the city lot on which i later built my residence. i filled a contract to deliver to the utah northern railroad two thousand ties. then i contracted to deliver to brother micklesen the timber for the grist mill in logan, now known as the central mills. for this last contract i received six hundred pounds of flour. i also contracted with alexander allen of newton and received as pay twenty gallons of molasses. i was now well off. i could have bread, with molasses, and this, indeed, was my steady diet while i worked in the mountains. nevertheless, this work was very hard. between times, i helped in the hay harvest, and thus earned some wheat and, in fact, i took hold of whatever work offered itself. in the fall of , we began to build the logan tabernacle. brother charles o. card was called to act as the superintendent and he called me to assist him. it was my special work to keep accounts and to collect donations with which to pay the workmen. i measured and weighed rocks, sand, and other materials of construction, brought in for the building, and paid the workers in beef, vegetables, and the variety of things donated. many beeves were brought in as donations, so we tanned the hides, and began to manufacture shoes. thus came the tabernacle shoe shop and meat shop in one building, which we called, our meat market and our shoe shop. i labored nearly six years in this capacity. in , i was ordained a high priest and set apart as a member of the cache stake high council. xii. my third mission. in , when the logan tabernacle was completed, and we were at work on the logan temple, i was called, at the october conference, to go on a mission to scandinavia. i left logan in november, , and reached liverpool, december . we had a rough voyage across the ocean. i was sent to frederickstad, for a short time, then to my native city, trondhjem, in norway. elder ellingsen, of lehi, was there when i arrived, but in a couple of months he was released to return to his home. i then remained there alone to represent the gospel of the everlasting covenant, but i harbored only gratitude to my heavenly father. i organized a choir, held meetings and preached the gospel with all my might. many were won to the truth. those who did not enter the church, through baptism, are good friends to our people, and respect "mormonism" with its doctrines and principles of salvation. among many others, i had the honor to baptize, as a member of the church, anna c. widtsoe. her son, john, i had the joy to baptize after the family arrived in utah. our meeting place, at that time, was on what was known as mollenberg, in a house belonging to johnson who later settled in logan. the branch over which i presided extended far into northern norway. i went frequently to the northern city of namsos, where i rented a hall and had large meetings. many were also brought into the church in that place. i made many friends in namsos, and among the more influential, a mr. salvesen. he belonged to the aristocracy of the city, but became friendly to me and the cause i represented, until he even offered me one of his large halls for our gatherings, in case the priest should attempt to banish me. mr. salvesen, with his two sons, came to our meetings. once when the hall was crammed full, he stood up before the congregation and testified to the truth of what i had said. so much to his honor! i went from house to house and offered books and writings. i did not find much to eat, but i was well satisfied and when i sold a few books i could buy myself a little bread before i returned to my little room. and a little bread with fresh water tasted really good! by the early spring, i had baptized, in namsos, among others, brother hassing and his family, who are yet living in salt lake city. before i left namsos, i organized a relief society so that the good sisters could conduct meetings when i left. in the spring of , i was called to attend the conference in christiania. after the conference, i tried to find some of the brethren and sisters of christiania whom i knew so well in earlier days. some i found, and many had moved away to the distant valleys of norway. i decided to find, if i could, the family of gunder johnson. to do this, i was obliged, again, to walk the full length of southern norway, over the dovre mountain and down guldbrands valley and up and down other valleys. i found at last gunder johnson with his family. i found that they had had no opportunities for schooling, nor for meetings, for several years, but they had our books and the _scandinavian star_, which had been read and reread until the books were almost worn out. they lived as the gospel demanded. i remained with these friends about two weeks, held meetings, and baptized all who would embrace the doctrines taught by me. during this visit, in guldbrands valley, i had very great success. the whole community took sides with me, until the priest came and broke up my crowded meetings, and warned the people against following teachers of false doctrines! this priest, mr. halling, was well respected and beloved of the people. he edited a magazine called _rich and poor_. he was good to the poor. he lived only four miles from where i held my meetings, and i stayed with a friend near his home. one day i called on this minister to discuss things with him, but his feelings were so bitter that he showed me the door several times, and at last took my hat and cane and threw them out. as i left the house, he spoke bitter, hard words to me. half a year later i came there again. the priest had then become the chairman of the county court. one of his duties was to keep the country roads in good condition. this brought him in quite close contact with the people who all worked on the roads. i was told that on one occasion when he was supervising a body of road workers, while they were all at lunch, one of the men, a friend of mine, curious to know what the priest would say, said, "i should like to know what became of that tramp 'mormon' preacher that we had here a half year ago." the priest immediately took up the conversation and said, "that man was no tramp. we were both angry when we left each other, but i would give much now if i could have that man in conversation again." this was his testimony that day, before a large gathering of people. i have now performed the endowment ordinances for him in the temple, and i look upon him as a good man, although he did all he could to work against me and my beloved religion. when i had been in the mission field something over three years, i was released. i reached my home in logan late in the year, . [image captioned "sixth ward meetinghouse, logan."] upon my return from my third mission, i was called, in , to take charge of a district of the logan first ward, as presiding priest. after the logan temple was dedicated, this district was made a ward, and i was ordained to be bishop of the logan sixth ward, on june , . the many duties pertaining to this calling occupied my time very completely for several years. xiii. my fourth mission. on october , , i left logan for another mission to scandinavia. upon my arrival in copenhagen i was assigned to labor in norway. i acted first as a traveling elder, and in that capacity visited nearly the whole of norway. later i presided, again, at christiania. my mission was filled with active labors, and i believe much good was accomplished. in the year, , while i presided over the christiania conference, many were baptized into the church. among them was brother koldstad who afterwards became superintendent of the christiania sunday school. his wife seemed to be against the gospel, but the lord, who knows the hearts of the children of men, made manifest to her when she humbled herself in prayer, that "mormonism" is a saving message sent by god from the heavens. it came about in this manner. [image captioned "interior sixth ward meetinghouse, logan."] my mission was nearly ended. i had been away more than three years, and had been released to return home. i spent the last days before leaving christiania in bidding goodbye to the saints. one evening i took the train from the little village of lien, where i had been visiting. that evening there was to be an important council meeting in christiania, at which i was to transfer the presidency of the conference to elder o. h. berg, of provo, now bishop of the provo fourth ward. while the cars were rapidly moving towards christiania, i sat in one of the compartments thinking of the business of the evening. suddenly a voice came to me, telling me to go out to granlund, where brother koldstad resided, for a woman there had fasted and prayed to the lord that elder skanchy might visit her, and she desired to accept the gospel in which she had faith. in my simplicity, i believed the voice to be an imagination of my soul, and for about five minutes tried to convince myself that such was the case. i had very little time, because i had to be in christiania before our council meeting began, in order to get things in order to deliver into new hands, and the place the voice told me to go was in an opposite direction from the meetinghouse. i felt that the lord knew that my service was in his cause, and that the council meeting was in his service. soon, however, the message came again, this time in a tremendous voice, that i must go to koldstad's home, for a woman there had fasted and prayed to the lord that i might come. the voice was so commanding that i arose to my feet, in the car, and i threw my right arm into the air, and said, "yes, lord, i will go." as soon as i reached the christiania station, i proceeded there. with brother koldstad i found sister koldstad. i told her that i had received a message to meet there. i felt greatly touched by the spirit. she told me that she had fasted and prayed that i would come to her home before i went away. she told me further that she believed all that i had taught, and if i thought her worthy, she would like to be baptized before i left christiania. she was determined that i should baptize her the day following. thus the lord dictates in his own way to his children. this revelation from our heavenly father was a very great testimony to me, and may be pleasing to all who believe in spiritual manifestations. many years after, when we were all in zion, i called on sister anna c. widtsoe and her sister lina gaarden, and we visited sister koldstad in her home, salt lake city, during one of the annual conferences. sister koldstad, then and there, explained to them the manner of her conversion, and that i had come to her in answer to prayer. xiv. the quiet years of home service. from , the time of his return from his fourth mission, to , when he went on his fifth mission. bishop skanchy remained in logan, utah, in pursuit of his duties as bishop of the logan sixth ward. under his direction, the ward prospered; the poor were well cared for; and a good spirit pervaded all the organizations of the ward. during this period, also, the longest in his life without foreign missionary service, bishop skanchy built up his material interests. the lumber business which he had organized, flourished under his care. though he had sacrificed many years in spiritual service, they were fully made up to him in a material way, during the periods that he could give himself to his business interests. he was always a good provider for his families,--they had comfortable homes, and the comforts of the day. his personal gifts and charities to people in utah and in the old countries, have not been recorded, but they were large. bishop skanchy loved the poor and afflicted, and to their relief he gave unstintingly of his time, means and sympathy. xv. my fifth mission. in , i was called by presidents lorenzo snow, george q. cannon, and joseph f. smith to take charge of the scandinavian mission, which then included denmark, sweden, and norway. i was set apart in the salt lake temple, april , by president c. d. fjeldsted, and i was especially commissioned to buy and erect for the church, mission houses in these three scandinavian countries. i presented to the first presidency the necessity of having c. d. fjeldsted accompany me as he was well acquainted with denmark. this was permitted. we had a pleasant voyage across the ocean. in copenhagen we bought the place where our mission house is now erected. president fjeldsted was called home again and i remained to arrange the matter. i laid the foundation of the copenhagen mission house and dedicated the place together with the corner stone the nd of march, . the house itself was dedicated on the fourth of july, . the next mission house was built the year afterwards on the same ground that the old mission house had stood on in christiania. the old house had been built of poor materials and was in a dangerous condition. we therefore took it down and sold the material by auction. i then contracted with architects and builders and the house was erected and finally dedicated the th of july, , after a great celebration. the dedicatory prayer was offered by president francis m. lyman. when these two countries had obtained their splendid houses, we turned our attention to sweden. i went to stockholm but found great difficulties confronting me there, since the swedish law does not permit strangers to buy building lots. we were obliged, therefore, to secure agents to act for us. we bought, at last, a building lot in a very public place, in an excellent district. there we built a large four-story building, so arranged as to make it a worthy and most beautiful place for presenting the gospel. several smaller rooms in the building can be rented out, thus providing a small income. this mission house was dedicated the second of october, , president heber j. grant offering the dedicatory prayer. thus, my mission time was lengthened out so that i could remain until this house had been dedicated. that i had my hands full on this mission, i suppose everyone will understand. my work appeared to be satisfactory to the presidency of the church, and as for myself, i trusted that i could complete this responsible work with satisfaction to my own soul. for the success that was achieved i will continue to give gratitude to my father in heaven. i owe to him all the praise and honor. [image captioned "stockholm, sweden, mission house."] at the time that we erected our mission houses in these countries, we contracted with a stone cutter, by the name of peterson, for an assembly room and a room for the elders, in a dwelling house which he was erecting in frederickshavn, denmark. we also bought a house in borups street, in the city of aarhus, denmark, in which we constructed a baptismal font. elder adam peterson, who was on a mission at that time, had great influence among the people of aarhus, and won many friends, which all helped. [image captioned "interior of the stockholm mission house, looking from the gallery."] while i had charge of the scandinavian mission, sister anna c. widtsoe and her sister lina gaarden, were called on a mission to norway and remained there for about four years. these two sisters traveled over norway, from the extreme north to the extreme south, and spared neither time nor money in order to bring before the people the gospel. they won honor and friends everywhere for the cause of truth. they bore a great testimony to the world, which we hope will in time bear fruit. [image captioned "interior stockholm mission house, looking towards the gallery."] brother h. j. christiansen was also called on a mission again, at this time, and was chosen president over the conference in copenhagen. he was born there, acquainted with the conditions, and had the language of copenhagen under complete control. he gathered many friends for the gospel cause. xvi. the last word. i do not care to write more, as most of my friends are acquainted with the work that has been done in the mission field. what i have done here at home has gratified me; and the people here know my whole life. now i am on the sick list. i have forgotten to take care of myself in my desire to care for others. the lord be honored and praised from now to eternity and forever. amen. the lord be merciful with us all and forgive our weaknesses and imperfections. xvii. the sixth mission. after bishop skanchy had returned from his labors as president of the scandinavian mission, he entered again upon his duties in the bishopric of the logan sixth ward. he rallied the people to his support, and he laid the cornerstone of a new ward chapel, one of the handsomest in the church. this house is now completed. on january , , after twenty-five years of service, bishop skanchy was honorably released from his position as bishop of the logan sixth ward. a little later he closed out such of his business interests as required his daily active supervision. on july , , he went again to norway, with his wife and younger children, to spend some time in gathering genealogical information for his temple work. this may be called his sixth mission, for he went with the authority of a missionary, and did much good while away. true to his love for the city of his birth, trondhjem, he took with him a large and expensive copy of munkacsy's painting of christ before pilate, executed by dan weggeland, of salt lake city, which he presented to the branch, and which now adorns the meeting hall in trondhjem. he returned to zion, june , ; never again to leave it in the flesh. xviii. the end of the journey. soon after bishop skanchy returned from his last trip to norway, he was seized with his last illness. the evil preyed steadily upon him, but his strong body and iron constitution could not be broken at once. it took years for the disease to undermine his strength and reach the vital processes of his system. during his long illness, he composed the sketch now presented. from page to page it bears the marks of the physical sufferings which he endured. had he been in good health, he would have told more of the marvelous experiences of his long missionary life. perhaps, however, in good health, he would not have undertaken the work at all. while withdrawn from active life by this lingering illness, he also reviewed his own poems, his favorite songs, and the word of god that he loved. bishop skanchy, like all who live in close communion with spiritual things, was much of a poet; a lover of the fine arts, painting and sculpture, and an ardent worshiper of all natural beauty. in his last days, though filled with physical pain, he found the leisure for the contemplation of the things of the spirit he loved so well, which he had been denied in his active life. ever did his thoughts go back to the land of the midnight sun, in which he was born; where the gospel message found him, and where, in the full strength of his youth, he fought valiantly for the cause of truth, and won hundreds, yea, thousands, to the cause of eternal truth. on sunday, april , , in his th year, his spirit returned to the god he had served so well. on the following wednesday he was buried from the beautiful chapel he had built. many wept at his grave, especially those who were poor in spirit or worldly goods, and whom this noble man had loved and helped and raised up, and brought into the glorious light of truth. (the end) transcriber's note this edition was based off scans available at archive.org (see https://archive.org/details/anthonlskanchybr skan). the harold b. lee library at brigham young university supplied the scans to archive.org; the original book was donated to the library by sidney sperry; and it contained a dedication from john a. widtsoe, reproduced above. any minor typographical errors in the original have been silently corrected. [etext producer's note: chapter sub-headings in second longer stay abroad are misnumbered in the original hard copy, skipping from vii to ix.] recollections of my childhood and youth by george brandes author of "william shakespeare," etc. [illustration: dr. george brandes _from a sketch by g. rump_] discovering the world first impressions--going to bed--my name--fresh elements--school--the king--town and country--the king's gardens--the friendly world--inimical forces--the world widens--the theatre--progress--warlike instincts--school adventures--polite accomplishments--my relations boyhood's years our house--its inmates--my paternal grandfather--my maternal grandfather--school and home--farum--my instructors--a foretaste of life--contempt for the masters--my mother--the mystery of life--my first glimpse of beauty--the head master--religion--my standing in school--self-esteem--an instinct for literature--private reading--heine's _buch der lieder_--a broken friendship transitional years school boy fancies--religion--early friends--_daemonic theory_--a west indian friend--my acquaintance widens--politics--the reactionary party--the david family--a student society--an excursion to slesvig--temperament--the law--hegel--spinoza--love for humanity--a religious crisis--doubt--personal immortality--renunciation adolescence julius lange--a new master--inadaption to the law--the university prize competition--an interview with the judges--meeting of scandinavian students--the paludan-müllers--björnstjerne björnson--magdalene thoresen--the gold medal--the death of king frederik vii--the political situation--my master of arts examination--war--_admissus cum laude praecipua_--academical attention--lecturing--music--nature--a walking tour--in print--philosophical life in denmark--death of ludwig david--stockholm first long sojourn abroad my wish to see paris--_dualism in our modern philosophy_--a journey--impressions of paris--lessons in french--mademoiselle mathilde--taine early manhood feud in danish literature--riding--youthful longings--on the rack--my first living erotic reality--an impression of the miseries of modern coercive marriage--researches on the comic--dramatic criticism--a trip to germany--johanne louise heiberg--magdalene thoresen--rudolph bergh--the sisters spang--a foreign element--the woman subject--orla lehmann--m. goldschmidt--public opposition--a letter from björnstjerne björnson--hard work second longer stay abroad hamburg--my second fatherland--ernest hello--_le docteur noir_--taine--renan--marcelin--gleyre--taine's friendship--renan at home--philarète chasles' reminiscences--_le théâtre français_--coquelin--bernhardt--beginnings of _main currents_--the tuileries--john stuart mill--london--philosophical studies--london and paris compared--antonio gallenga and his wife--don juan prim--napoleon iii--london theatres--gladstone and disraeli in debate--paris on the eve of war--first reverses--flight from paris--geneva, switzerland--italy--pasquale villari--vinnie ream's friendship--roman fever--henrik ibsen's influence--scandinavians in rome filomena italian landladies--the carnival--the moccoli feast--filomena's views second longer stay abroad _continued_ reflections on the future of denmark--conversations with giuseppe saredo--frascati--native beauty--new susceptibilities--georges noufflard's influence--the sistine chapel and michael angelo--raphael's loggias--a radiant spring recollections of my childhood and youth discovering the world first impressions--going to bed--my name--fresh elements--school--the king--town and country--the king's gardens--the friendly world--inimical forces--the world widens--the theatre--progress--warlike instincts--school adventures--polite accomplishments--my relations. i. he was little and looked at the world from below. all that happened, went on over his head. everyone looked down to him. but the big people possessed the enviable power of lifting him to their own height or above it. it might so happen that suddenly, without preamble, as he lay on the floor, rummaging and playing about and thinking of nothing at all, his father or a visitor would exclaim: "would you like to see the fowls of kjöge?" and with the same he would feel two large hands placed over his ears and the arms belonging to them would shoot straight up into the air. that was delightful. still, there was some disappointment mingled with it. "can you see kjöge now?" was a question he could make nothing of. what could kjöge be? but at the other question: "do you see the fowls?" he vainly tried to see something or other. by degrees he understood that it was only a phrase, and that there was nothing to look for. it was his first experience of empty phrases, and it made an impression. it was just as great fun, though, when the big people said to him: "would you like to be a fat lamb? let us play at fat lamb." he would be flung over the man's shoulder, like a slaughtered lamb, and hang there, or jump up and ride with his legs round the man's hips, then climb valiantly several steps higher, get his legs round his shoulders, and behold! be up on the giddy height! then the man would take him round the waist, swing him over, and after a mighty somersault in the air, he would land unscathed on his feet upon the floor. it was a composite kind of treat, of three successive stages: first came the lofty and comfortable seat, then the more interesting moment, with a feeling, nevertheless, of being on the verge of a fall, and then finally the jump, during which everything was upside down to him. but, too, he could take up attitudes down on the floor that added to his importance, as it were, and obliged the grown-up people to look at him. when they said: "can you stand like the emperor napoleon?" he would draw himself up, bring one foot a little forward, and cross his arms like the little figure on the bureau. he knew well enough just how he had to look, for when his stout, broad-shouldered swedish uncle, with the big beard and large hands, having asked his parents about the little fellow's accomplishments, placed himself in position with his arms crossed and asked: "who am i like?" he replied: "you are like napoleon's lackey." to his surprise, but no small delight, this reply elicited a loud exclamation of pleasure from his mother, usually so superior and so strict, and was rewarded by her, who seldom caressed, with a kiss. ii. the trying moment of the day was when he had to go to bed. his parents were extraordinarily prejudiced about bedtime, just when he was enjoying himself most. when visitors had arrived and conversation was well started--none the less interesting to him because he understood scarcely half of what was said--it was: "now, to bed!" but there were happy moments after he was in bed, too. when mother came in and said prayers with him, and he lay there safely fenced in by the tall trellis-work, each bar of which, with its little outward bend in the middle, his fingers knew so well, it was impossible to fall out through them. it was very pleasant, the little bed with its railing, and he slept in it as he has never slept since. it was nice, too, to lie on his back in bed and watch his parents getting ready to go to the theatre, father in a shining white shirt and with his curly hair beautifully parted on one side mother with a crêpe shawl over her silk dress, and light gloves that smelled inviting as she came up to say goodnight and good-bye. iii. i was always hearing that i was pale and thin and small. that was the impression i made on everyone. nearly thirty years afterwards an observant person remarked to me: "the peculiarity about your face is its intense paleness." consequently i looked darker than i was; my brown hair was called black. pale and thin, with thick brown hair, difficult hair. that was what the hairdresser said--mr. [footnote: danish _herre_.] alibert, who called father erré: "good-morning, erré," "good-bye, erré." and all his assistants, though as danish as they could be, tried to say the same. difficult hair! "there is a little round place on his crown where the hair will stand up, if he does not wear it rather long," said mr. alibert. i was forever hearing that i was pale and small, pale in particular. strangers would look at me and say: "he is rather pale." others remarked in joke: "he looks rather green in the face." and so soon as they began talking about me the word "thin" would be uttered. i liked my name. my mother and my aunts said it in such a kindly way. and the name was noteworthy because it was so difficult to pronounce. no boy or girl smaller than i could pronounce it properly; they all said _gayrok_. i came into the world two months too soon, i was in such a hurry. my mother was alone and had no help. when the midwife came i had arrived already. i was so feeble that the first few years great care had to be taken of me to keep me alive. i was well made enough, but not strong, and this was the source of many vexations to me during those years when a boy's one desire and one ambition is to be strong. i was not clumsy, very agile if anything; i learnt to be a good high jumper, to climb and run well, was no contemptible wrestler, and by degrees became an expert fighter. but i was not muscularly strong, and never could be compared with those who were so. iv. the world, meanwhile, was so new, and still such an unknown country. about that time i was making the discovery of fresh elements. i was not afraid of what i did not like. to overcome dislike of a thing often satisfied one's feeling of honour. "are you afraid of the water?" asked my brisk uncle from fünen one day. i did not know exactly what there was to be afraid of, but answered unhesitatingly: "no." i was five years old; it was summer, consequently rainy and windy. i undressed in the bathing establishment; the old sailor fastened a cork belt round my waist. it was odiously wet, as another boy had just taken it off, and it made me shiver. uncle took hold of me round the waist, tossed me out into the water, and taught me to take care of myself. afterwards i learnt to swim properly with the help of a long pole fastened to the cork belt and held by the bathing-man, but my familiarity with the salt element dated from the day i was flung out into it like a little parcel. without by any means distinguishing myself in swimming, any more than in any other athletic exercise, i became a very fair swimmer, and developed a fondness for the water and for bathing which has made me very loth, all my life, to miss my bath a single day. there was another element that i became acquainted with about the same time, and which was far more terrifying than the water. i had never seen it uncontrolled: fire. one evening, when i was asleep in the nursery, i was awaked by my mother and her brother, my french uncle. the latter said loudly: "we must take the children out of bed." i had never been awaked in the night before. i opened my eyes and was thrilled by a terror, the memory of which has never been effaced. the room was brightly illuminated without any candle having been lighted, and when i turned my head i saw a huge blaze shoot up outside the window. flames crackled and sparks flew. it was a world of fire. it was a neighbouring school that was burning. uncle jacob put his hand under my "night gown," a long article of clothing with a narrow cotton belt round the waist, and said laughing: "do you have palpitations of the heart when you are afraid?" i had never heard of palpitations of the heart before. i felt about with my hand and for the first time found my heart, which really was beating furiously. small though i was, i asked the date and was told that it was the th of november; the fright i had had was so great that i never forgot this date, which became for me the object of a superstitious dread, and when it drew near the following year, i was convinced that it would bring me fresh misfortune. this was in so far the case that next year, at exactly the same time, i fell ill and was obliged to spend some months in bed. v. i was too delicate to be sent to school at five years old, like other boys. my doctor uncle said it was not to be thought of. since, however, i could not grow up altogether in ignorance, it was decided that i should have a tutor of my own. so a tutor was engaged who quickly won my unreserved affection and made me very happy. the tutor came every morning and taught me all i had to learn. he was a tutor whom one could ask about anything under the sun and he would always know. first, there was the abc. that was mastered in a few lessons. i could read before i knew how to spell. then came writing and arithmetic and still more things. i was soon so far advanced that the tutor could read _frithiof's saga_ aloud to me in swedish and be tolerably well understood; and, indeed, he could even take a short german extract, and explain that i must say _ich_ and not _ish_, as seemed so natural. mr. voltelen was a poor student, and i quite understood from the conversation of my elders what a pleasure and advantage it was to him to get a cup of coffee extra and fine white bread and fresh butter with it every day. on the stroke of half-past ten the maid brought it in on a tray. lessons were stopped, and the tutor ate and drank with a relish that i had never seen anyone show over eating and drinking before. the very way in which he took his sugar--more sugar than father or mother took--and dissolved it in the coffee before he poured in the cream, showed what a treat the cup of coffee was to him. mr. voltelen had a delicate chest, and sometimes the grown-up people said they were afraid he could not live. there was a report that a rich benefactor, named nobel, had offered to send him to italy, that he might recover in the warmer climate of the south. it was generous of mr. nobel, and mr. voltelen was thinking of starting. then he caught another complaint. he had beautiful, brown, curly hair. one day he stayed away; he had a bad head, he had contracted a disease in his hair from a dirty comb at a bathing establishment. and when he came again i hardly recognised him. he wore a little dark wig. he had lost every hair on his head, even his eyebrows had disappeared. his face was of a chalky pallor, and he coughed badly too. why did not god protect him from consumption? and how could god find it in his heart to give him the hair disease when he was so ill already? god was strange. he was almighty, but he did not use his might to take care of mr. voltelen, who was so good and so clever, and so poor that he needed help more than anyone else. mr. nobel was kinder to mr. voltelen than god was. god was strange, too, in other ways; he was present everywhere, and yet mother was cross and angry if you asked whether he was in the new moderator lamp, which burnt in the drawing-room with a much brighter light than the two wax candles used to give. god knew everything, which was very uncomfortable, since it was impossible to hide the least thing from him. strangest of all was it when one reflected that, if one knew what god thought one was going to say, one could say something else and his omniscience would be foiled. but of course one did not know what he thought would come next. the worst of all, though, was that he left mr. voltelen in the lurch so. vi. some flashes of terrestrial majesty and magnificence shone on my modest existence. next after god came the king. as i was walking along the street one day with my father, he exclaimed: "there is the king!" i looked at the open carriage, but saw nothing noticeable there, so fixed my attention upon the coachman, dressed in red, and the footman's plumed hat. "the king wasn't there!" "yes, indeed he was--he was in the carriage." "was that the king? he didn't look at all remarkable--he had no crown on." "the king is a handsome man," said father. "but he only puts on his state clothes when he drives to the supreme court." so we went one day to see the king drive to the supreme court. a crowd of people were standing waiting at the naval church. then came the procession. how splendid it was! there were runners in front of the horses, with white silk stockings and regular flower-pots on their heads; i had never seen anything like it; and there were postillions riding on the horses in front of the carriage. i quite forgot to look inside the carriage and barely caught a glimpse of the king. and that glimpse made no impression upon me. that he was christian viii. i did not know; he was only "the king." then one day we heard that the king was dead, and that he was to lie in state twice. these lyings in state were called by forced, unnatural names, _lit de parade_ and _castrum doloris_; i heard them so often that i learnt them and did not forget them. on the _lit de parade_ the body of the king himself lay outstretched; that was too sad for a little boy. but _castrum doloris_ was sheer delight, and it really was splendid. first you picked your way for a long time along narrow corridors, then high up in the black-draped hall appeared the coffin covered with black velvet, strewn with shining, twinkling stars. and a crowd of candles all round. it was the most magnificent sight i had ever beheld. vii. i was a town child, it is true, but that did not prevent me enjoying open-air life, with plants and animals. the country was not so far from town then as it is now. my paternal grandfather had a country-house a little way beyond the north gate, with fine trees and an orchard; it was the property of an old man who went about in high wellington boots and had a regular collection of wax apples and pears--such a marvellous imitation that the first time you saw them you couldn't help taking a bite out of one. driving out to the country-house in the summer, the carriage would begin to lumber and rumble as soon as you passed through the north gate, and when you came back you had to be careful to come in before the gate was closed. we lived in the country ourselves, for that matter, out in the western suburb, near the black horse (as later during the cholera summer), or along the old king's road, where there were beautiful large gardens. in one such a huge garden i stood one summer day by my mother's side in front of a large oblong bed with many kinds of flowers. "this bed shall be yours," said mother, and happy was i. i was to rake the paths round it myself and tend and water the plants in it. i was particularly interested to notice that a fresh set of flowers came out for every season of the year. when the asters and dahlias sprang into bloom the summer was over. still the garden was not the real country. the real country was at inger's, my dear old nurse's. she was called my nurse because she had looked after me when i was small. but she had not fed me, my mother had done that. inger lived in a house with fields round it near high taastrup. there was no railway there then, and you drove out with a pair of horses. it was only later that the wonderful railway was laid as far as roskilde. so it was an unparalleled event for the children, to go by train to valby and back. their father took them. many people thought that it was too dangerous. but the children cared little for the danger. and it went off all right and they returned alive. inger had a husband whose name was peer. he was nice, but had not much to say. inger talked far more and looked after everything. they had a baby boy named niels, but he was in the cradle and did not count. everything at inger and peer's house was different from the town. there was a curious smell in the rooms, with their chests of drawers and benches, not exactly disagreeable, but unforgettable. they had much larger dishes of curds and porridge than you saw in copenhagen. they did not put the porridge or the curds on plates. inger and peer and their little visitor sat round the milk bowl or the porridge dish and put their spoons straight into it. but the guest had a spoon to himself. they did not drink out of separate glasses, but he had a glass to himself. it was jolly in the country. a cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow. inger used to churn, and there was buttermilk to drink. it was great fun for a little copenhagen boy to roll about in the hay and lie on the hay-waggons when they were driven home. and every time i came home from a visit to inger mother would laugh at me the moment i opened my mouth, for, quite unconsciously, i talked just like inger and the other peasants. viii. in the wood attic, a little room divided from the main garret by wooden bars, in which a quantity of split firewood and more finely chopped fir sticks, smelling fresh and dry, are piled up in obliquely arranged heaps, a little urchin with tightly closed mouth and obstinate expression has, for more than two hours, been bearing his punishment of being incarcerated there. several times already his anxious mother has sent the housemaid to ask whether he will beg pardon yet, and he has only shaken his head. he is hungry; for he was brought up here immediately after school. but he will not give in, for he is in the right. it is not his fault that the grown-up people cannot understand him. they do not know that what he is suffering now is nothing to what he has had to suffer. it is true that he would not go with the nurse and his little brother into the king's gardens. but what do father and mother know of the ignominy of hearing all day from the other schoolboys: "oh! so you are fetched by the nurse!" or "here comes your nurse to fetch you!" he is overwhelmed with shame at the thought of the other boys' scorn. she is not _his_ nurse, she is his brother's. he could find his way home well enough, but how can he explain to the other boys that his parents will not trust him with the little one yet, and so send for them both at the same time! now there shall be an end to it; he will not go to the king's gardens with the nurse again. it is the housemaid, once more, come to ask if he will not beg pardon now. in vain. everything has been tried with him, scolding, and even a box on the ear; but he has not been humbled. now he stands here; he will not give in. but this time his kind mother has not let the girl come empty-handed. his meal is passed through the bars and he eats it. it is so much the easier to hold out. and some hours later he is brought down and put to bed without having apologised. before i had so painfully become aware of the ignominy of going with the maid to the king's gardens, i had been exceedingly fond of the place. what gardens they were for hide and seek, and puss in the corner! what splendid alleys for playing paradise, with heaven and hell! to say nothing of playing at horses! a long piece of tape was passed over and under the shoulders of two playfellows, and you drove them with a tight rein and a whip in your hand. and if it were fun in the old days when i only had tape for reins, it was ever so much greater fun now that i had had a present from my father of splendid broad reins of striped wool, with bells, that you could hear from far enough when the pair came tearing down the wide avenues. i was fond of the gardens, which were large and at that time much larger than they are now; and of the trees, which were many, at that time many more than now. and every part of the park had its own attraction. the hercules pavilion was mysterious; hercules with the lion, instructive and powerful. a pity that it had become such a disgrace to go there! i had not known it before. one day, not so long ago, i had felt particularly happy there. i had been able for a long time to read correctly in my reading-book and write on my slate. but one day mr. voltelen had said to me: "you ought to learn to read writing." and from that moment forth my ambition was set upon reading _writing_, an idea which had never occurred to me before. when my tutor first showed me _writing_, it had looked to me much as cuneiform inscriptions and hieroglyphics would do to ordinary grown-up people, but by degrees i managed to recognize the letters i was accustomed to in this their freer, more frivolous disguise, running into one another and with their regularity broken up. in the first main avenue of the king's gardens i had paced up and down, in my hand the thin exercise-book, folded over in the middle,--the first book of writing i had ever seen,--and had already spelt out the title, "little red riding-hood." the story was certainly not very long; still, it filled several of the narrow pages, and it was exciting to spell out the subject, for it was new to me. in triumphant delight at having conquered some difficulties and being on the verge of conquering others, i kept stopping in front of a strange nurse-girl, showed her the book, and asked: "can you read writing?" twenty-three years later i paced up and down the same avenue as a young man, once more with a book of manuscript, that i was reading, in my hand. i was fixing my first lecture in my mind, and i repeated it over and over again to myself until i knew it almost by heart, only to discover, to my disquiet, a few minutes later, that i had forgotten the whole, and that was bad enough; for what i wished to say in my lecture were things that i had very much at heart. the king's garden continued to occupy its place in my life. later on, for so many years, when spring and summer passed by and i was tied to the town, and pined for trees and the scent of flowers, i used to go to the park, cross it obliquely to the beds near the beautiful copper beeches, by the entrance from the ramparts, where there were always flowers, well cared for and sweet scented. i caressed them with my eyes, and inhaled their perfume leaning forward over the railings. but just now i preferred to be shut up in the wood-loft to being fetched by the nurse from school to the gardens. it was horrid, too, to be obliged to walk so slowly with the girl, even though no longer obliged to take hold of her skirt. how i envied the boys contemptuously called street boys! they could run in and out of the courtyard, shout and make as much noise as they liked, quarrel and fight out in the street, and move about freely. i knew plenty of streets. if sent into the town on an errand i should be able to find my way quite easily. and at last i obtained permission. happy, happy day! i flew off like an arrow. i could not possibly have walked. and i ran home again at full galop. from that day forth i always ran when i had to go out alone. yes, and i could not understand how grown-up people and other boys could walk. i tried a few steps to see, but impatience got the better of me and off i flew. it was fine fun to run till you positively felt the hurry you were in, because you hit your back with your heels at every step. my father, though, could run very much faster. it was impossible to compete with him on the grass. but it was astonishing how slow old people were. some of them could not run up a hill and called it trying to climb stairs. ix. on the whole, the world was friendly. it chiefly depended on whether one were good or not. if not, karoline was especially prone to complain and father and mother were transformed into angry powers. father was, of course, a much more serious power than mother, a more distant, more hard-handed power. neither of them, in an ordinary way, inspired any terror. they were in the main protecting powers. the terrifying power at this first stage was supplied by the bogey-man. he came rushing suddenly out of a corner with a towel in front of his face and said: "bo!" and you jumped. if the towel were taken away there soon emerged a laughing face from behind it. that at once made the bogey-man less terrible. and perhaps that was the reason maren's threat: "now, if you are not good, the bogey-man will come and take you," quickly lost its effect. and yet it was out of this same bogey-man, so cold-bloodedly shaken off, that at a later stage a personality with whom there was no jesting developed, one who was not to be thrust aside in the same way, a personality for whom you felt both fear and trembling--the devil himself. but it was only later that he revealed himself to my ken. it was not he who succeeded first to the bogey-man. it was--the police. the police was the strange and dreadful power from which there was no refuge for a little boy. the police came and took him away from his parents, away from the nursery and the drawing-room, and put him in prison. in the street the police wore a blue coat and had a large cane in his hand. woe to the one who made the acquaintance of that cane! my maternal grandfather was having his warehouse done up, a large warehouse, three stories high. through doors at the top, just under the gable in the middle, there issued a crane, and from it hung down a tremendously thick rope at the end of which was a strong iron hook. by means of it the large barrels of sky-blue indigo, which were brought on waggons, were hoisted. inside the warehouse the ropes passed through every storey, through holes in the floors. if you pulled from the inside at the one or the other of the ropes, the rope outside with the iron crook went up or down. in the warehouse you found jens; he was a big, strong, taciturn, majestic man with a red nose and a little pipe in his mouth, and his fingers were always blue from the indigo. if you had made sure of jens' good-will, you could play in the warehouse for hours at a time, roll the empty barrels about, and--which was the greatest treat of all--pull the ropes. this last was a delight that kept all one's faculties at extreme tension. the marvellous thing about it was that you yourself stood inside the house and pulled, and yet at the same time you could watch through the open doors in the wall how the rope outside went up or down. how it came about was an enigma. but you had the refreshing consciousness of having accomplished something--saw the results of your efforts before your eyes. nor could i resist the temptation of pulling the ropes when jens was out and the warehouse empty. my little brother had whooping cough, so i could not live at home, but had to be at my grandfather's. one day jens surprised me and pretty angry he was. "a nice little boy you are! if you pull the rope at a wrong time you will cut the expensive rope through, and it cost rigsdaler! what do you think your grandfather will say?" [footnote: a rigsdaler was worth about two shillings and threepence, english money. it is a coin that has been out of use about years.] it was, of course, very alarming to think that i might destroy such a valuable thing. not that i had any definite ideas of money and numbers. i was well up in the multiplication table and was constantly wrestling with large numbers, but they did not correspond to any actual conception in my mind. when i reckoned up what one number of several digits came to multiplied by another of much about the same value, i had not the least idea whether father or grandfather had so many rigsdaler, or less, or more. there was only one of the uncles who took an interest in my gift for multiplication, and that was my stout, rich uncle with the crooked mouth, of whom it was said that he owned a million, and who was always thinking of figures. he was hardly at the door of mother's drawing-room before he called out: "if you are a sharp boy and can tell me what , times , are, you shall have four skilling;" and quickly slate and pencil appeared and the sum was finished in a moment and the four skilling pocketed. [footnote: four skilling would be a sum equal to - / d. english money.] i was at home then in the world of figures, but not in that of values. all the same, it would be a terrible thing to destroy such a value as rigsdaler seemed to be. but might it not be that jens only said so? he surely could not see from the rope whether it had been pulled or not. so i did it again, and one day when jens began questioning me sternly could not deny my guilt. "i saw it," said jens; "the rope is nearly cut in two, and now you will catch it, now the policeman will come and fetch you." for weeks after that i did not have one easy hour. wherever i went, or whatever i did, the fear of the police followed me. i dared not speak to anyone of what i had done and of what was awaiting me. i was too much ashamed, and i noticed, too, that my parents knew nothing. but if a door opened suddenly i would look anxiously at the incomer. when i was walking with the nurse and my little brother i looked all round on every side, and frequently peeped behind me, to see whether the police were after me. even when i lay in my bed, shut in on all four sides by its trellis-work, the dread of the police was upon me still. there was only one person to whom i dared mention it, and that was jens. when a few weeks had gone by i tried to get an answer out of him. then i perceived that jens did not even know what i was talking about. jens had evidently forgotten all about it. jens had been making fun of me. if my relief was immense, my indignation was no less. so much torture for nothing at all! older people, who had noticed how the word "police" was to me an epitome of all that was terrible, sometimes made use of it as an explanation of things that they thought were above my comprehension. when i was six years old i heard the word "war" for the first time. i did not know what it was, and asked. "it means," said one of my aunts, "that the germans have put police in schleswig and forbidden the danes to go there, and that they will beat them if they stay there." that i could understand, but afterwards i heard them talking about soldiers. "are there soldiers as well?" i asked. "police and soldiers," was the answer. but that confused me altogether, for the two things belonged in my mind to wholly different categories. soldiers were beautiful, gay-coloured men with shakos, who kept guard and marched in step to the sound of drums and fifes and music, till you longed to go with them. that was why soldiers were copied in tin and you got them on your birthday in boxes. but police went by themselves, without music, without beautiful colours on their uniforms, looked stern and threatening, and had a stick in their hands. nobody dreamt of copying them in tin. i was very much annoyed to find out, as i soon did, that i had been misled by the explanation and that it was a question of soldiers only. not a month had passed before i began to follow eagerly, when the grown-up people read aloud from the farthing newspaper sheets about the battles at bov, nybböl, etc. the danes always won. at bottom, war was a cheerful thing. then one day an unexpected and overwhelming thing happened. mother was sitting with her work on the little raised platform in the drawing-room, in front of the sewing-table with its many little compartments, in which, under the loose mahogany lid, there lay so many beautiful and wonderful things--rings and lovely earrings, with pearls in them--when the door to the kitchen opened and the maid came in. "has madame heard? the _christian viii_. has been blown up at eckernförde and the _gefion_ is taken." "can it be possible?" said mother. and she leaned over the sewing-table and burst into tears, positively sobbed. it impressed me as nothing had ever done before. i had never seen mother cry. grown-up people did not cry. i did not even know that they could. and now mother was crying till the tears streamed down her face. i did not know what either the _christian viii_. or the _gefion_ were, and it was only now that the maid explained to me that they were ships. but i understood that a great misfortune had happened, and soon, too, how people were blown up with gunpowder, and what a good thing it was that one of our acquaintances, an active young man who was liked by everyone and always got on well, had escaped with a whole skin, and had reached copenhagen in civilian's dress. x. about this time it dawned upon me in a measure what birth and death were. birth was something that came quite unexpectedly, and afterwards there was one child more in the house. one day, when i was sitting on the sofa between grandmamma and grandpapa at their dining-table in klareboderne, having dinner with a fairly large company, the door at the back of the room just opposite to me opened. my father stood in the doorway, and, without a good-morning, said: "you have got a little brother"--and there really was a little one in a cradle when i went home. death i had hitherto been chiefly acquainted with from a large, handsome painting on grandfather's wall, the death of the king not having affected me. the picture represented a garden in which aunt rosette sat on a white-painted bench, while in front of her stood uncle edward with curly hair and a blouse on, holding out a flower to her. but uncle edward was dead, had died when he was a little boy, and as he had been such a very good boy, everyone was very sorry that they were not going to see him again. and now they were always talking about death. so and so many dead, so and so many wounded! and all the trouble was caused by the enemy. xi. there were other inimical forces, too, besides the police and the enemy, more uncanny and less palpable forces. when i dragged behind the nursemaid who held my younger brother by the hand, sometimes i heard a shout behind me, and if i turned round would see a grinning boy, making faces and shaking his fist at me. for a long time i took no particular notice, but as time went on i heard the shout oftener and asked the maid what it meant. "oh, nothing!" she replied. but on my repeatedly asking she simply said: "it is a bad word." but one day, when i had heard the shout again, i made up my mind that i would know, and when i came home asked my mother: "what does it mean?" "jew!" said mother. "jews are people." "nasty people?" "yes," said mother, smiling, "sometimes very ugly people, but not always." "could i see a jew?" "yes, very easily," said mother, lifting me up quickly in front of the large oval mirror above the sofa. i uttered a shriek, so that mother hurriedly put me down again, and my horror was such that she regretted not having prepared me. later on she occasionally spoke about it. xii. other inimical forces in the world cropped up by degrees. when you had been put to bed early the maids often sat down at the nursery table, and talked in an undertone until far on into the evening. and then they would tell stories that were enough to make your hair stand on end. they talked of ghosts that went about dressed in white, quite noiselessly, or rattling their chains through the rooms of houses, appeared to people lying in bed, frightened guilty persons; of figures that stepped out of their picture-frames and moved across the floor; of the horror of spending a night in the dark in a church--no one dared do that; of what dreadful places churchyards were, how the dead in long grave-clothes rose up from their graves at night and frightened the life out of people, while the devil himself ran about the churchyard in the shape of a black cat. in fact, you could never be sure, when you saw a black cat towards evening, that the devil was not inside it. and as easily as winking the devil could transform himself into a man and come up behind the person he had a grudge against. it was a terrifying excitement to lie awake and listen to all this. and there was no doubt about it. both maren and karoline had seen things of the sort themselves and could produce witnesses by the score. it caused a revolution in my consciousness. i learnt to know the realm of darkness and the prince of darkness. for a time i hardly ventured to pass through a dark room. i dared not sit at my book with an open door behind me. who might not step noiselessly in! and if there were a mirror on the wall in front of me i would tremble with fear lest i might see the devil, standing with gleaming eyes at the back of my chair. when at length the impression made upon me by all these ghost and devil stories passed away, i retained a strong repugnance to all darkness terror, and to all who take advantage of the defenceless fear of the ignorant for the powers of darkness. xiii. the world was widening out. it was not only home and the houses of my different grandparents, and the clan of my uncles, aunts, and cousins; it grew larger. i realized this at the homecoming of the troops. they came home twice. the impression they produced the first time was certainly a great, though not a deep one. it was purely external, and indistinctly merged together: garlands on the houses and across the streets, the dense throng of people, the flower-decked soldiers, marching in step to the music under a constant shower of flowers from every window, and looking up smiling. the second time, long afterwards, i took things in in much greater detail. the wounded, who went in front and were greeted with a sort of tenderness; the officers on horseback, saluting with their swords, on which were piled wreath over wreath; the bearded soldiers, with tiny wreaths round their bayonets, while big boys carried their rifles for them. and all the time the music of _den tapre landsoldat_, when not the turn of _danmark dejligst_ or _vift stolt!_ [footnote: three favourite danish tunes: "the brave soldier," "fairest denmark," and "proudly wave." ] but the second time i was not wholly absorbed by the sight, for i was tormented by remorse. my aunt had presented me the day before with three little wreaths to throw at the soldiers; the one i was to keep myself, and i was to give each of my two small brothers one of the others; i had promised faithfully to do so. and i had kept them all three, intending to throw them all myself. i knew it was wrong and deceitful; i was suffering for it, but the delight of throwing all the wreaths myself was too great. i flung them down. a soldier caught one on his bayonet; the others fell to the ground. i was thoroughly ashamed of myself, and have never forgotten my shame. xiv. i knew that the theatre (where i had never been) was the place where mother and father enjoyed themselves most. they often talked of it, and were most delighted if the actors had "acted well," words which conveyed no meaning to me. children were not at that time debarred from the royal theatre, and i had no more ardent wish than to get inside. i was still a very small child when one day they took me with them in the carriage in which father and mother and aunt were driving to the theatre. i had my seat with the others in the pit, and sat speechless with admiration when the curtain went up. the play was called _adventures on a walking tour_. i could not understand anything. men came on the stage and talked together. one crept forward under a bush and sang. i could not grasp the meaning of it, and when i asked i was only told to be quiet. but my emotion was so great that i began to feel ill, and had to be carried out. out in the square i was sick and had to be taken home. unfortunately for me, that was precisely what happened the second time, when, in response to my importunity, another try was made. my excitement, my delight, my attention to the unintelligible were too overwhelming. i nearly fainted, and at the close of the first act had to leave the theatre. after that, it was a very long time before i was regarded as old enough to stand the excitement. once, though, i was allowed to go to see a comedy. mr. voltelen gave me a ticket for some students' theatricals at the court theatre, in which he himself was going to appear. the piece was called _a spendthrift_, and i saw it without suffering for it. there was a young, flighty man in it who used to throw gold coins out of the window, and there was an ugly old hag, and a young, beautiful girl as well. i sat and kept a sharp lookout for when my master should come on, but i was disappointed; there was no mr. voltelen to be seen. next day, when i thanked him for the entertainment, i added: "but you made game of me. you were not in it at all." "what? i was not in it? did you not see the old hag? that was i. didn't you see the girl? that was i." it was incomprehensible to me that anyone could disguise himself so. mr. voltelen must most certainly have "acted well." but years afterwards, i could still not understand how one judged of this. since plays affected me exactly like real life, i was, of course, not in a position to single out the share the actors took. xv. the war imbued my tin soldiers with quite a new interest. it was impossible to have boxes enough of them. you could set them out in companies and battalions; they opened their ranks to attack, stormed, were wounded, and fell. sometimes they lay down fatigued and slept on the field of battle. but a new box that came one day made the old ones lose all value for me. for the soldiers in the new box were proper soldiers, with chests and backs, round to the touch, heavy to hold. in comparison with them, the older ones, profile soldiers, so small that you could only look at them sideways, sank into utter insignificance. a step had been taken from the abstract to the concrete. it was no longer any pleasure to me to play with the smaller soldiers. i said: "they amused me last year, when i was little." there was a similar change, a similar picture of historic progress, when the hobby-horse on which i had spent so many happy hours, and on which i had ridden through rooms and passages, was put in the corner in favour of the new rocking-horse which, long coveted and desired, was carried in through the door, and stood in the room, rocking slightly, as though ready for the boldest ride, the moment its rider flung himself into the saddle. i mounted it and oh, happiness! i began to ride, and rode on with passionate delight till i nearly went over the horse's head. "when i was a little boy the hobby-horse amused me, but it does not now." every time i climbed a fresh rung of the ladder, no matter how low an one, the same feeling possessed me, and the same train of thought. mother often joked about it, up to the time when i was a full grown man. if i quickly outgrew my fancies, if i had quite done with anything or anybody that had absorbed me a little while before, she would say, with a smile: "last year, when i was a little boy, the hobby-horse amused me." still, progress was not always smooth. when i was small i had pretty blouses, one especially, grey, with brown worsted lace upon it, that i was fond of wearing; now i had plain, flat blouses with a leather belt round the waist. later on, i was ambitious to have a jacket, like big boys, and when this wish had been gratified there awoke in me, as happens in life, a more lofty ambition still, that to wear a frock coat. in the fulness of time an old frock coat of my father's was altered to fit me. i looked thin and lank in it, but the dress was honourable. then it occurred to me that everybody would see i was wearing a frock coat for the first time. i did not dare to go out into the streets with it on, but went out of my way round the ramparts for fear of meeting anyone. when i was a little boy i did not, of course, trouble much about my appearance. i did not remember that my portrait had been drawn several times. but when i was nine years old, aunt sarah--at that time everybody was either uncle or aunt--determined that we brothers should have our portraits taken in daguerreotype for father's birthday. the event made a profound impression, because i had to stand perfectly still while the picture was being taken, and because the daguerreotypist, a german, whose name was schätzig, rolled his _r_s and hissed his _s_s. the whole affair was a great secret, which was not to be betrayed. the present was to be a surprise, and i was compelled to promise perfect silence. i kept my promise for one day. but next day, at the dinner-table, i accidentally burst out: "now! quite shtill! _as the man said_." "what man?" "ah! that was the secret!" the visit to schätzig in itself i had reason to remember a long time. some one or another had said that i had a slender neck, and that it was pretty. just as we were going in, my aunt said: "you will catch cold inside," and in spite of my protests tied a little silk handkerchief round my neck. that handkerchief spoilt all my pleasure in being immortalised. and it is round my neck on the old picture to this day. xvi. the tin soldiers had called all my warlike instincts into being. after the rocking-horse, more and more military appurtenances followed. a shining helmet to buckle firmly under the chin, in which one looked quite imposing; a cuirass of real metal like the horseguards', and a short rapier in a leather scabbard, which went by the foreign name of hirschfänger, and was a very awe-inspiring weapon in the eyes of one's small brothers, when they were mercilessly massacred with it. sitting on the rocking-horse, arrayed in all this splendour, wild dreams of military greatness filled the soul, dreams which grew wilder and more ambitious from year to year until between the age of and they received a fresh and unwholesome stimulus from ingemann's novels. [footnote: b.s. ingemann ( - ), a danish writer celebrated chiefly as the author of many historical novels, now only read by very young children.] on horseback, at the head of a chosen band, fighting like the lost against unnumbered odds! rock goes the rocking-horse, violently up and down. the enemy wavers, he begins to give way. the rocking-horse is pulled up. a sign with the hirschfänger to the herd of common troops. the enemy is beaten and flies, the next thing is to pursue him. the rocking-horse is set once more in furious motion. complete victory. procession into the capital; shouts of jubilation and wreaths of flowers, for the victor and his men. xvii. just about this time, when in imagination i was so great a warrior, i had good use in real life for more strength, as i was no longer taken to school by the nurse, but instead had myself to protect my brother, two years my junior. the start from home was pleasant enough. lunch boxes of tin with the danish greeting after meals in gold letters upon them, stood open on the table. mother, at one end of the table, spread each child six pieces of bread and butter, which were then placed together, two and two, white bread on brown bread, a mixture which, was uncommonly nice. the box would take exactly so many. then it was put in the school-bag with the books. and with bag on back you went to school, always the same way. but those were days when the journey was much impeded. every minute you met boys who called you names and tried to hit the little one, and you had to fight at every street corner you turned. and those were days when, even in the school itself, despite the humanity of the age (not since attained to), terms of abuse, buffets and choice insults were one's daily bread, and i can see myself now, as i sprang up one day in a fight with a much bigger boy and bit him in the neck, till a master was obliged to get me away from him, and the other had to have his neck bathed under the pump. i admired in others the strength that i lacked myself. there was in the class one big, stout, squarely built, inexpressibly good-natured boy, for whom no one was a match in fighting. he was from lolland, and his name was ludvig; he was not particularly bright, but robust and as strong as a giant. then one day there arrived at the school a west indian of the name of muddie, dark of hue, with curly hair, as strong and slim as a savage, and with all the finesse and feints which he had at his command, irresistible, whether wrestling or when fighting with his fists. he beat all the strongest boys in the school. only ludvig and he had not challenged each other. but the boys were very anxious to see a bout between the two, and a wrestling match between them was arranged for a free quarter of an hour. for the boys, who were all judges, it was a fine sight to see two such fighters wrestle, especially when the lollander flung himself down on the other and the west indian struggled vainly, writhing like a very snake to twist himself out of his grasp. one day two new boys came to school, two brothers; the elder, adam, was small and sallow, extraordinarily withered, looking like a cripple, without, however, being one; the somewhat younger brother, sofus, was splendidly made and amazed us in the very first lesson in which the new arrivals took part--a gymnastic class--by his unusual agility in swarming and walking up the sloping bar. he seemed to be as strong as he was dexterous, and in a little boy with a reverence for those who were strong, he naturally aroused positive enthusiasm. this was even augmented next day, when a big, malicious boy, who had scoffed at adam for being puny, was, in a trice, so well thrashed by sofus that he lost both his breath and his courage. sofus, the new arrival, and i, who had achieved fighting exploits from the rocking-horse only, were henceforth, for some time, inseparable friends. it was one of the usual friendships between little boys, in which the one admires and the other allows himself to be worshipped. the admirer in this case could only feed his feelings by presenting the other with the most cherished thing he possessed. this most cherished thing happened to be some figures cut out in gold paper, from france, representing every possible object and personage, from ships with masts and sails, to knights and ladies. i had collected them for a long time and preserved them, piece by piece, by gumming them into a book which was the pride of my existence. i gave the book, without the slightest hesitation, to sofus, who accepted it without caring for it in the least. and then by reason of the exaggerated admiration of which he was the object, sofus, who hitherto had been so straightforward, began to grow capricious. it was a settled rule that he and i went home from school together. but one day a difficulty cropped up; sofus had promised valdemar, a horrid boy, who cheated at lessons, to go home with him. and next day something else prevented him. but when, suddenly having learnt to know all the pangs of neglect and despised affection, i met him the third day, after having waited vainly for him, crossing our lady's square with valdemar, in my anger i seized my quondam friend roughly by the arm, my face distorted with rage, and burst out: "you are a rascal!" then rushed off, and never addressed him again. it was a very ill-advised thing to do, in fact, the very most foolish thing i could have done. but i was too passionate to behave sensibly. valdemar spread the account of my conduct all through the class, and next day, in our quarter of an hour's playtime, i heard on every side from the laughing boys: "you are a rascal! you are a rascal!" xviii. the world was widening out. the instruction i received grew more varied. there were a great many lessons out of school. from my drawing mistress, a pleasant girl, who could draw fingal in a helmet in charcoal, i learnt to see how things looked in comparison with one another, how they hid one another and revealed themselves, in perspective; from my music mistress, my kind aunt, to recognise the notes and keys, and to play, first short pieces, then sonatas, alone, then as duets. but alas! neither in the arts of sight nor hearing did i ever prove myself more than mediocre. i never attained, either in drawing or piano-playing, to more than a soulless accuracy. and i hardly showed much greater aptitude when, on bright sunday mornings, which invited not at all to the delights of dancing, with many another tiny lad and lass i was marshalled up to dance in the dancing saloon of mr. hoppe, the royal dancer, and learnt to take up the first to the fifth positions and swing the girls round in the polka mazurka. i became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer. xix. the world was widening out. father brought from paris a marvellous game, called fortuna, with bells over pockets in the wood, and balls which were pushed with cues. father had travelled from paris with it five days and six nights. it was inexpressibly fascinating; no one else in copenhagen had a game like it. and next year, when father came home from paris again, he brought a large, flat, polished box, in which there were a dozen different games, french games with balls, and battledores and shuttlecocks, games which grown-up people liked playing, too; and there were carriages which went round and round by clockwork, and a tumbler who turned somersaults backwards down a flight of steps as soon as he was placed on the top step. those were things that the people in france could do. the world was widening out more and more. relations often came over from göteborg. they spoke swedish, but if you paid great attention you could understand quite well what they said. they spoke the language of _frithiof's saga_, but pronounced it differently from mr. voltelen. and there came a young french count whose relations my father's brother had known; he had come as a sailor on a french man-o'-war, and he came and stayed to dinner and sang the marseillaise. it was from him that i heard the song for the first time. he was only fifteen, and very good-looking, and dressed like an ordinary sailor, although he was a count. and then there were my two uncles, uncle jacob and uncle julius--my mother's brother jacob and my father's brother julius, who had both become frenchmen long ago and lived in paris. uncle jacob often came for a few weeks or more at a time. he was small and broad-shouldered and good-looking. everybody was fond of uncle jacob; all the ladies wanted to be asked to the house when uncle jacob came. he had a wife and four children in paris. but i had pieced together from the conversation of the grown-up people that aunt victorine was his wife and yet not his wife. grandmother would have nothing to do with her. and uncle jacob had gone all the way to the pope in rome and asked for her to remain his wife. but the pope had said no. why? because aunt victorine had had another husband before, who had been cruel to her and beaten her, and the man came sometimes, when uncle was away, and took her furniture away from her. it was incomprehensible that he should be allowed to, and that the pope would do nothing to prevent it, for after all she was a catholic. uncle jacob had a peculiar expression about his mouth when he smiled. there was a certain charm about everything he said and did, but his smile was sad. he had acted thoughtlessly, they said, and was not happy. one morning, while he was visiting father and mother and was lying asleep in the big room, there was a great commotion in the house; a messenger was sent for the doctor and the word _morphia_ was spoken. he was ill, but was very soon well again. when he asked his sister next day: "what has become of my case of pistols?" she replied with a grave face: "i have taken it and i shall keep it." i had not thought as a boy that i should ever see uncle jacob's wife and children. and yet it so happened that i did. many years afterwards, when i was a young man and went to paris, after my uncle's death, i sought out victorine and her children. i wished to bring her personally the monthly allowance that her relatives used to send her from denmark. i found her prematurely old, humbled by poverty, worn out by privation. how was it possible that she should be so badly off? did she not receive the help that was sent from copenhagen every month to uncle's best friend, m. fontane, in the rue vivienne? alas, no! m. fontane gave her a little assistance once in a while, and at other times sent her and her children away with hard words. it turned out that m. fontane had swindled her, and had himself kept the money that had been sent for years to the widow of his best friend. he was a tall, handsome man, with a large business. no one would have believed that a scoundrel could have looked as he did. he was eventually compelled to make the money good. and when the cousin from denmark rang after that at his french relatives' door, he was immediately hung round, like a christmas tree, with little boys and one small girl, who jumped up and wound their arms round his neck, and would not let him go. boyhood's years our house--its inmates--my paternal grandfather--my maternal grandfather--school and home--farum--my instructors--a foretaste of life--contempt for the masters--my mother--the mystery of life--my first glimpse of beauty--the head master--religion--my standing in school--self-esteem--an instinct for literature--private reading--heine's _buch der lieder_--a broken friendship. i. the house belonged to my father's father, and had been in his possession some twenty years. my parents lived on the second floor. it was situated in the busy part of the town, right in the heart of copenhagen. on the first floor lived a west indian gentleman who spoke danish with a foreign accent; sometimes there came to see him a danish man of french descent, mr. lafontaine, who, it was said, was so strong that he could take two rifles and bayonets and hold them out horizontally without bending his arm. i never saw mr. lafontaine, much less his marvellous feat of strength, but when i went down the stairs i used to stare hard at the door behind which these wonderful doings went on. in the basement lived niels, manservant to the family, who, besides his domestic occupations, found time to develop a talent for business. in all secrecy he carried on a commerce, very considerable under the circumstances, in common watches and in mead, two kinds of wares that in sooth had no connection with each other. the watches had no particular attraction for a little boy, but the mead, which was kept in jars, on a shelf, appealed to me doubly. it was the beverage the old northmen had loved so much that the dead drank it in valhalla. it was astonishing that it could still be had. how nice it must be! i was allowed to taste it and it surpassed all my expectations. sweeter than sugar! more delicious than anything else on earth that i had tasted! but if you drank more than a very small glass of it, you felt sick. and i profoundly admired the dead warriors for having been able to toss off mead from large drinking-horns and eat fat pork with it. what a choice! and they never had stomach-ache! ii. on the ground floor was the shop, which occupied the entire breadth and nearly the entire depth of the house, a silk and cloth business, large, according to the ideas of the time, which was managed by my father and grandfather together until my eleventh year, when father began to deal wholesale on his own account. it was nice in the shop, because when you went down the assistants would take you round the waist and lift you over to the other side of the semi-circular counter which divided them from the customers. the assistants were pleasant, dignified gentlemen, of fine appearance and behaviour, friendly without wounding condescension. between my fifth and sixth years some alterations were done at the shop, which was consequently closed to me for a long time. when it was once more accessible i stood amazed at the change. a long, glass-covered gallery had been added, in which the wares lay stored on new shelves. the extension of the premises was by no means inconsiderable, and simultaneously an extension had been made in the staff. among the new arrivals was an apprentice named gerhard, who was as tall as a grown man, but must have been very young, for he talked to me, a six-year-old child, like a companion. he was very nice-looking, and knew it. "you don't want harness when you have good hips," he would say, pointing to his mightily projecting loins. this remark made a great impression upon me, because it was the first time i had heard anyone praise his own appearance. i knew that one ought not to praise one's self and that self-praise was no recommendation. so i was astonished to find that self-praise in gerhard's mouth was not objectionable; in fact, it actually suited him. gerhard often talked of what a pleasure it was to go out in the evenings and enjoy one's self--what the devil did it matter what old people said?--and listen to women singing--amusements which his hearer could not manage to picture very clearly to himself. it soon began to be said that gerhard was not turning out well. the manner in which he procured the money for his pleasures resulted, as i learnt long afterwards, in his sudden dismissal. but he had made some slight impression on my boyish fancy--given me a vague idea of a heedless life of enjoyment, and of youthful defiance. iii. on the landing which led from the shop to the stockroom behind, my grandfather took up his position. he looked very handsome up there, with his curly white hair. thence, like a general, he looked down on everything--on the customers, the assistants, the apprentices, both before and behind him. if some specially esteemed lady customer came into the shop, he hurriedly left his exalted position to give advice. if the shopman's explanations failed to satisfy her, he put things right. he was at the zenith of his strength, vigour, and apparently of his glory. the glory vanished, because from the start he had worked his way up without capital. the hamburg firm that financed the business lent money at too high a rate of interest and on too hard conditions for it to continue to support two families. but when later on my grandfather had his time at his own disposal, he took up the intellectual interests which in his working years he had had to repress. in his old age, for instance, he taught himself italian, and his visitors would find him, with tasso's _gerusalemme liberata_ in front of him, looking out in a dictionary every word that presented any difficulty to him, and of such there were many. the old man was an ardent buonapartist, and, strangely enough, an even more ardent admirer of the third napoleon than of the first, because he regarded him as shrewder, and was convinced that he would bequeath the empire to his son. but he and i came into collision on this point from the time i was fourteen years of age. for i was of course a republican, and detested napoleon iii. for his breach of the constitution, and used to write secretly in impossible french, and in a still more impossible metre (which was intended to represent hexameters and pentameters) verses against the tyrant. an ode to the french language began: "ah! quelle langue magnifique, si belle, si riche, si sonore, langue qu'un despote cruel met aux liens et aux fers!" on the subject of napoleon iii. grandfather and grandson could not possibly agree. but this was the only subject on which we ever had any dispute. iv. my maternal grandfather was quite different, entirely devoid of impetuosity, even-tempered, amiable, very handsome. he too had worked his way up from straightened circumstances; in fact, it was only when he was getting on for twenty that he had taught himself to read and write, well-informed though he was at the time i write of. he had once been apprentice to the widow of möller the dyer, when oehlenschläger and the oersteds used to dine at the house. after the patriarchal fashion of the day, he had sat daily at the same table as these great, much-admired men, and he often told how he had clapped his hands till they almost bled at oehlenschläger's plays, in the years when, by reason of baggesen's attack, opinions about them at the theatre were divided. my great-grandfather, the father of my mother's stepmother, who wore high boots with a little tassel in front, belonged to an even older generation. he used to say: "if i could only live to see a danish man-o'-war close with an english ship and sink it, i should be happy; the english are the most disgraceful pack of robbers in the world." he was so old that he had still a vivid recollection of the battle in the roadstead and of the bombardment of copenhagen. v. school and home were two different worlds, and it often struck me that i led a double life. six hours a day i lived under school discipline in active intercourse with people none of whom were known to those at home, and the other hours of the twenty-four i spent at home, or with relatives of the people at home, none of whom were known to anybody at school. on oct. st, , i was taken to school, led in through the sober-looking doorway, and up into a classroom, where i was received by a kindly man, the arithmetic master, who made me feel at my ease. i noticed at once that when the master asked a boy anything which another knew, this other had a right to publish his knowledge by holding up a finger--a right of which i myself made an excessive use in the first lessons, until i perceived the sense of not trying, in season and out of season, to attract attention to my knowledge or superiority, and kept my hands on the table in front of me. vi. suddenly, with surprising vividness, a little incident of my childhood rises up before me. i was ten years old. i had been ill in the winter and my parents had boarded me out in the country for the summer holidays; all the love of adventure in me surged up. at the straw market a fat, greasy, grinning peasant promised to take me in his cart as far as the little town of farum, where i was to stay with the schoolmaster. he charged two dalers, and got them. any sum, of course, was the same to me. i was allowed to drive the brown horses, that is to say, to hold the reins, and i was in high glee. where farum was, i did not know and did not care, but it was a new world. until now i, who was a town child, had seen nothing of the country except my nurse's house and land at glostrup,--but what lay in front of me was a village, a schoolhouse, a large farm, in short an adventure in grand style. i had my shirts and blouses and stockings in a portmanteau, and amongst them a magnificent garment, never yet worn, a blue cloth jacket, and a white waistcoat belonging to it, with gold buttons, which my mother had given me permission to wear on sundays. for days, i always wore blouses, so the jacket implied a great step forward. i was eager to wear it, and regretted profoundly that it was still only monday. half-way there, the peasant pulled up. he explained to me that he could not very well drive me any farther, so must put me down; he was not going to farum himself at all. but a peat cart was coming along the road yonder, the driver of which was going to farum, and he transferred me, poor defenceless child as i was, to the other conveyance. he had had my money; i had nothing to give the second man, and sadly i exchanged the quick trot of the brown horses for the walking pace of the jades in the peat-cart. my first experience of man's perfidy. at last i was there. on a high, wide hill--high and wide as it seemed to me then--towered the huge schoolhouse, a miniature christiansborg castle, with the schoolmaster's apartments on the right and the schoolroom on the left. and the schoolmaster came out smiling, holding a pipe which was a good deal taller than i, held out his hand, and asked me to come in, gave me coffee at once, and expressed the profoundest contempt for the peasant who had charged two rigsdaler for such a trifle, and then left me in the road. i asked at once for pen and paper, and wrote in cipher to a comrade, with whom i had concocted this mysterious means of communication, asking him to tell my parents that i had been most kindly received. i felt a kind of shyness at the schoolmaster seeing what i wrote home from his house. i gave him the sheet, and begged him to fold it up, as i could not do it myself. there were no envelopes in those days. but what was my surprise to hear him, without further ado, read aloud with a smile, from my manufactured cipher: "i have been most kindly received," etc. i had never thought such keen-wittedness possible. and my respect for him and his long pipe rose. just then there was a light knock at the door. in walked two girls, one tall and one short, the former of whom positively bewildered me. she was fair, her sister as dark as a negro. they were ten and eight years old respectively, were named henrietta and nina k., came from brazil, where their home was, and were to spend a few years in denmark; came as a rule every day, but had now arrived specially to inspect the strange boy. after gazing for two minutes at the lovely henrietta's fair hair and wonderful grey eyes, i disappeared from the room, and five minutes afterwards reappeared again, clothed in the dark-blue jacket and the white waistcoat with gold buttons, which i had been strictly forbidden to wear except on sundays. and from that time forth, sinner that i was, i wore my sunday clothes every blessed day,--but with what qualms of conscience! i can still see lovely fields, rich in corn, along the sides of which we played; we chased beautiful, gaudy butterflies, which we caught in our hats and cruelly stuck on pins, and the little girls threw oats at my new clothes, and if the oats stuck fast it meant something, sweethearts, i believe. sweethearts--and i! then we were invited to the manor, a big, stately house, a veritable castle. there lived an old, and exceedingly handsome, white-haired chamberlain, called the general, who frequently dined with frederik vii, and invariably brought us children goodies from dessert, lovely large pieces of barley sugar in papers with gay pictures on the outside of shepherd lovers, and crackers with long paper fringes. his youngest son, who owned a collection of insects and many other fine things, became my sworn friend, which means that i was his, for he did not care in the least about me; but i did not notice that, and i was happy and proud of his friendship and sailed with him and lots of other boys and girls on the pretty farum lake, and every day was more convinced that i was quite a man. it was a century since i had worn blouses. every morning i took all the newspapers to dr. dörr, the german tutor at the castle, and every morning i accidentally met henrietta, and after that we were hardly separated all day. i had no name for the admiration that attached me to her. i knew she was lovely, that was all. we were anxious to read something together, and so read the whole of a translation of _don quixote_, sitting cheek against cheek in the summer-house. of course, we did not understand one-half of it, and i remember that we tried in vain to get an explanation of the frequently recurring word "doxy"; but we laughed till we cried at what we did understand. and after all, it is this first reading of _don quixote_ which has dominated all my subsequent attempts to understand the book. but henrietta had ways that i did not understand in the least; she used to amuse herself by little machinations, was inventive and intriguing. one day she demanded that i should play the school children, small, white-haired boys and girls, all of whom we had long learnt to know, a downright trick. i was to write a real love-letter to a nine-year-old little girl named ingeborg, from an eleven or twelve-year-old boy called per, and then henrietta would sew a fragrant little wreath of flowers round it. the letter was completed and delivered. but the only result of it was that next day, as i was walking along the high road with henrietta, per separated himself from his companions, called me a dandy from copenhagen, and asked me if i would fight. there was, of course, no question of drawing back, but i remember very plainly that i was a little aghast, for he was much taller and broader than i, and i had, into the bargain, a very bad cause to defend. but we had hardly exchanged the first tentative blows before i felt overwhelmingly superior. the poor cub! he had not the slightest notion how to fight. from my everyday school life in copenhagen, i knew hundreds of tricks and feints that he had never learnt, and as soon as i perceived this i flung him into the ditch like a glove. he sprang up again, but, with lofty indifference, i threw him a second time, till his head buzzed. that satisfied me that i had not been shamed before henrietta, who, for that matter, took my exploit very coolly and did not fling me so much as a word for it. however, she asked me if i would meet her the same evening under the old may-tree. when we met, she had two long straps with her, and at once asked me, somewhat mockingly and dryly, whether i had the courage to let myself be bound. of course i said i had, whereupon, very carefully and thoroughly, she fastened my hands together with the one strap. could i move my arms? no. then, with eager haste, she swung the other strap and let it fall on my back. again and again. my first smart jacket was a well-thrashed one. she thoroughly enjoyed exerting her strength. naturally, my boyish ideas of honour would not permit me to scream or complain; i merely stared at her with the profoundest astonishment. she gave me no explanation, released my hands, we each went our own way, and i avoided her the rest of my stay. this was my first experience of woman's perfidy. still, i did not bear a grudge long, and the evening before i left we met once again, at her request, and then she gave me the first and only kiss, neither of us saying anything but the one word, "good-bye." i have never seen her since. i heard that she died twenty years ago in brazil. but two years after this, when i was feeling my first schoolboy affection for an eleven-year-old girl, she silenced me at a children's ball with the scoffing remark: "ah! it was you who let henrietta k. thrash you under the may-tree at farum." yes, it was i. so cruel had my fair lady been that she had not even denied herself the pleasure of telling her friends of the ignominious treatment to which she had subjected a comrade who, from pure feeling of honour, had not struck back. this was my first real experience of feminine nature. vii. for nearly ten years i went to one and the same school. i came to know the way there and back, to and from the three different places, all near together, where my parents lived during the time, as i knew no other. in that part of the town, all about the round tower, i knew, not only every house, but every archway, every door, every window, every paving-stone. it all gradually imprinted itself so deeply upon me that in after years, when gazing on foreign sights and foreign towns, even after i had been living for a long time in the same place, i had a curious feeling that, however beautiful and fascinating it all might be, or perhaps for that very reason, it was dreamland, unreality, which would one day elude me and vanish; reality was the round tower in copenhagen and all that lay about it. it was ugly, and altogether unattractive, but it was reality. that you always found again. similarly, though in a somewhat different sense, the wooded landscape in the neighbourhood of copenhagen, to be exact, the view over the hermitage meadows down to the sound, as it appears from the bench opposite the slesvig stone, the first and dearest type of landscape beauty with which i became acquainted, was endowed to me with an imprint of actuality which no other landscape since, be it never so lovely or never so imposing, has ever been able to acquire. viii. the instruction at school was out of date, inasmuch as, in every branch, it lacked intelligibility. the masters were also necessarily, in some instances, anything but perfect, even when not lacking in knowledge of their subject. nevertheless, the instruction as a whole, especially when one bears in mind how cheap it was, must be termed good, careful and comprehensive; as a rule it was given conscientiously. when as a grown up man i have cast my thoughts back, what has surprised me most is the variety of subjects that were instilled into a boy in ten years. there certainly were teachers so lacking in understanding of the proper way to communicate knowledge that the instruction they gave was altogether wasted. for instance, i learnt geometry for four or five years without grasping the simplest elements of the science. the principles of it remained so foreign to me that i did not even recognise a right-angled triangle, if the right angle were uppermost. it so happened that the year before i had to sit for my examinations, a young university student in his first year, who had been only one class in front of the rest of us, offered us afternoon instruction in trigonometry and spherical geometry gratis, and all who appreciated the help that was being offered to them streamed to his lessons. this young student, later pastor jörgen lund, had a remarkable gift for mathematics, and gave his instruction with a lucidity, a fire, and a swing that carried his hearers with him. i, who had never before been able to understand a word of the subject, became keenly interested in it, and before many lessons were over was very well up in it. as jörgen lund taught mathematics, so all the other subjects ought to have been taught. we were obliged to be content with less. lessons might have been a pleasure. they never were, or rather, only the danish ones. but in childhood's years, and during the first years of boyhood they were fertilising. as a boy they hung over me like a dread compulsion; yet the compulsion was beneficial. it was only when i was almost fourteen that i began inwardly to rebel against the time which was wasted, that the stupidest and laziest of the boys might be enabled to keep up with the industrious and intelligent. there was too much consideration shown towards those who would not work or could not understand. and from the time i was sixteen, school was my despair. i had done with it all, was beyond it all, was too matured to submit to the routine of lessons; my intellectual pulses no longer beat within the limits of school. what absorbed my interest was the endeavour to become master of the danish language in prose and verse, and musings over the mystery of existence. in school i most often threw up the sponge entirely, and laid my head on my arms that i might neither see nor hear what was going on around me. there was another reason, besides my weariness of it all, which at this latter period made my school-going a torture to me. i was by now sufficiently schooled for my sensible mother to think it would be good for me to make, if it were but a small beginning, towards earning my own living. or rather, she wanted me to earn enough to pay for my amusements myself. so i tried, with success, to find pupils, and gave them lessons chiefly on sunday mornings; but in order to secure them i had called myself _studiosus_. now it was an ever present terror with me lest i should meet any of my pupils as i went to school in the morning, or back at midday, with my books in a strap under my arm. not to betray myself, i used to stuff these books in the most extraordinary places, inside the breast of my coat till it bulged, and in all my pockets till they burst. ix. school is a foretaste of life. a boy in a large copenhagen school would become acquainted, as it were in miniature, with society in its entirety and with every description of human character. i encountered among my comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from goodness, uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness. in our quarter of an hour's playtime it was easy to see how cowardice and meanness met with their reward in the boy commonwealth. there was a jewish boy of repulsive appearance, very easy to cow, with a positively slavish disposition. every single playtime his schoolfellows would make him stand up against a wall and jump about with his feet close together till playtime was over, while the others stood in front of him and laughed at him. he became later a highly respected conservative journalist. in lesson time it was easy to see that the equality under one discipline, under the hierarchy of merit, which was expressed in the boys' places on the forms, from highest to lowest, was not maintained when opposed to the very different hierarchy of society. on the lowest form sat a boy whose gifts were exceedingly mediocre, and who was ignorant, moreover, from sheer laziness; to him were permitted things forbidden to all the others: he was the heir of a large feudal barony. he always came late to school, and even at that rode in followed by a groom on a second horse. he wore a silk hat and, when he came into the schoolroom, did not hang it up on the peg that belonged to him, where he was afraid it might be interfered with, but in the school cupboard, in which only the master was supposed to keep his things; and the tall hat crowning so noble a head impressed the masters to such an extent that not one of them asked for it to be removed. and they acquiesced like lambs in the young lord's departure half-way through the last lesson, if the groom happened to be there with his horse to fetch him. it seemed impossible to drive knowledge of any sort into the head of this young peer, and he was taken from school early. to what an extent he must have worked later to make up for lost time was proved by results. for he became nothing less than a minister. x. the reverence with which the boys, as youngsters, had looked up to the masters, disappeared with striking rapidity. the few teachers in whose lessons you could do what you liked were despised. the masters who knew how to make themselves respected, only in exceptional cases inspired affection. the love of mockery soon broke out. children had not been at school long before the only opinion they allowed scope to was that the masters were the natural enemies of the boys. there was war between them, and every stratagem was permissible. they were fooled, misled, and plagued in every conceivable manner. or they were feared and we flattered them. a little boy with a natural inclination to reverence and respect and who brought both industry and good-will to his work, felt confused by all the derogatory things he was constantly hearing about the masters, and, long before he was half grown up, formed as one result of it the fixed determination that, whatever he might be when he grew up, there was one thing he would never, under any circumstances be, and that was--master in a school. from twelve years of age upwards, contempt for the masters was the keynote of all conversation about them. the latin master, a little, insignificant-looking man, but a very good teacher, was said to be so disgracefully enfeebled by debauchery that an active boy could throw him without the least difficulty. the natural history master, a clever, outspoken young man, who would call out gaily: "silence there, or you'll get a dusting on the teapot that will make the spout fly off!" sank deeply in our estimation when one of the boys told us that he spent his evenings at music-halls. one morning there spread like wildfire through the class the report that the reason the natural history master had not come that day was because he had got mixed up the night before in a fight outside a music-pavilion. the contempt and the ridicule that were heaped upon him in the conversation of the boys were immeasurable. when he came next morning with a black, extravasated eye, which he bathed at intervals with a rag, he was regarded by most of us as absolute scum. the german master, a tall, good-looking man, was treated as utterly incompetent because, when he asked a question in grammar or syntax, he walked up and down with the book in front of him, and quite plainly compared the answer with the book. we boys thought that anyone could be a master, with a book in his hand. history and geography were taught by an old man, overflowing with good-humour, loquacious, but self-confident, liked for his amiability, but despised for what was deemed unmanliness in him. the boys pulled faces at him, and imitated his expressions and mannerisms. the danish master, professor h.p. holst, was not liked. he evidently took no interest in his scholastic labours, and did not like the boys. his coolness was returned. and yet, that which was the sole aim and object of his instruction he understood to perfection, and drilled into us well. the unfortunate part of it was that there was hardly more than one boy in the class who enjoyed learning anything about just that particular thing. instruction in danish was, for holst, instruction in the metrical art. he explained every metre and taught the boys to pick out the feet of which the verses were composed. when we made fun of him in our playtime, it was for remarks which we had invented and placed in his mouth ourselves; for instance: "scan my immortal poem, _the dying gladiator_." the reason of this was simply that, in elucidation of the composition of the antique distich, he made use of his own poem of the above name, which he had included in a danish reading-book edited by himself. as soon as he took up his position in the desk, he began: "hark ye the--storm of ap--plause from the--theatre's--echoing circle! go on, möller!" how could he find it in his heart, his own poem! xi. the french master knew how to command respect; there was never a sound during his lessons. he was altogether absorbed in his subject, was absolutely and wholly a frenchman; he did not even talk danish with the same accentuation as others, and he had the impetuous french disposition of which the boys had heard. if a boy made a mess of his pronunciation, he would bawl, from the depths of his full brown beard, which he was fond of stroking: "you speak french _comme un paysan d'amac_." when he swore, he swore like a true frenchman: _"sacrebleu-mops-carot-ten-rapée!"_ [footnote: needless to say, this is impossible french, composed chiefly of distorted danish words. (trans.)] if he got angry, and he very often did, he would unhesitatingly pick up the full glass of water that always stood in front of him on the desk, and in gallic exasperation fling it on the floor, when the glass would be smashed to atoms and the water run about, whereupon he would quietly, with his _grand seigneur_ air, take his purse out of his pocket and lay the money for the glass on the desk. for a time i based my ideas of the french mind and manner upon this master, although my uncle jacob, who had lived almost all his life in paris, was a very different sort of frenchman. it was only later that i became acquainted with a word and an idea which it was well i did not know, as far as the master's capacity for making an impression was concerned--the word _affected_. at last, one fine day, a little event occurred which was not without its effect on the master's prestige, and yet aroused my compassion almost as much as my surprise. the parents of one of my best friends were expecting a french business friend for the evening. as they knew themselves to be very weak in the language, they gave their son a polite note to the french master, asking him to do them the honour of spending the next evening at their house, on the occasion of this visit, which rendered conversational support desirable. the master took the note, which we two boys had handed to him, grew--superior though he usually was--rather red and embarrassed, and promised a written reply. to our astonishment we learnt that this reply was to the effect that he must unfortunately decline the honour, as he had never been in france, had never heard anyone speak french, and was not proficient in the language. thus this tiger of a savage frenchman suddenly cast his tiger's skin and revealed himself in his native wool. unfortunately, the instruction of this master left long and deep traces upon me. when i was fifteen and my french uncle began to carry on his conversations with me in french, the parisian was appalled at my abominable errors of pronunciation. the worst of them were weeded out in those lessons. but there were enough left to bring a smile many a time and oft to the lips of the refined young lady whom my friends procured me as a teacher on my first visit to paris. xii. among the delights of summer were picnics to the woods. there would be several during the course of the season. when the weather seemed to inspire confidence, a few phaetons would be engaged for the family and their relations and friends, and some sunday morning the seat of each carriage would be packed full of good things. we took tablecloth and serviettes with us, bread, butter, eggs and salmon, sausages, cold meat and coffee, as well as a few bottles of wine. then we drove to some keeper's house, where for money and fair words they scalded the tea for us, and the day's meal was seasoned with the good appetite which the outdoor air gave us. as a child i preserved an uncomfortable and instructive recollection of one of these expeditions. the next day my mother said to me: "you behaved very ridiculously yesterday, and made a laughing stock of yourself." "how?" "you went on in front of the grown-up people all the time, and sang at the top of your voice. in the first place, you ought not to go in front, and in the next place, you should not disturb other people by singing." these words made an indelible impression upon me, for i was conscious that i had not in the least intended to push myself forward or put on airs. i could only dimly recollect that i had been singing, and i had done it for my own pleasure, not to draw attention to myself. i learnt from this experience that it was possible, without being naughty or conceited, to behave in an unpleasing manner, understood that the others, whom i had not been thinking about, had looked on me with disfavour, had thought me a nuisance and ridiculous, my mother in particular; and i was deeply humiliated at the thought. it gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother. no one was more chary of praise than she, and she had a horror of all sentimentality. she met me with superior intelligence, corrected me, and brought me up by means of satire. it was possible to impress my aunts, but not her. the profound dread she had of betraying her feelings or talking about them, the shrewdness that dwelt behind that forehead of hers, her consistently critical and clear-sighted nature, the mocking spirit that was so conspicuous in her, especially in her younger days, gave me, with regard to her, a conviction that had a stimulating effect on my character--namely, that not only had she a mother's affection for me, but that the two shrewd and scrutinising eyes of a very clever head were looking down upon me. rational as she was through and through, she met my visionary inclinations, both religious and philosophical, with unshaken common sense, and if i were sometimes tempted, by lesser people's over-estimating of my abilities, to over-estimate them myself, it was she who, with inflexible firmness, urged her conviction of the limitations of my nature. none of my weaknesses throve in my mother's neighbourhood. this was the reason why, during the transitional years between boyhood and adolescence, the years in which a boy feels a greater need of sympathy than of criticism and of indulgence than of superiority, i looked for and found comprehension as much from a somewhat younger sister of my mother's as from the latter herself. this aunt was all heart. she had an ardent, enthusiastic brain, was full of tenderness and goodness and the keenest feeling for everything deserving of sympathy, not least for me, while she had not my mother's critical understanding. her judgment might be obscured by passion; she sometimes allowed herself to be carried to imprudent extremes; she had neither mother's equilibrium nor her satirical qualities. she was thus admirably adapted to be the confidant of a big boy whom she gave to understand that she regarded as extraordinarily gifted. when these transitional years were over, mother resumed undisputed sway, and the relations between us remained in all essentials the same, even after i had become much her superior in knowledge and she in some things my pupil. so that it affected me very much when, many years after, my younger brother said to me somewhat sadly: "has it struck you, too, that mother is getting old?" "no, not at all," i replied. "what do you think a sign of it?" "i think, god help me, that she is beginning to admire us." xiii. my mind, like that of all other children, had been exercised by the great problem of the mystery of our coming into the world. i was no longer satisfied with the explanation that children were brought by the stork, or with that other, advanced with greater seriousness, that they drifted up in boxes, which were taken up out of peblinge lake. as a child i tormented my mother with questions as to how you could tell whom every box was for. that the boxes were numbered, did not make things much clearer. that they were provided with addresses, sounded very strange. who had written the addresses? i then had to be content with the assurance that it was a thing that i was too small to understand; it should be explained to me when i was older. my thoughts were not directed towards the other sex. i had no little girl playfellows, and as i had no sister, knew very few. when i was eight or nine years old, it is true, there was one rough and altogether depraved boy whose talk touched upon the sexual question in expressions that were coarse and in a spirit coarser still. i was scoffed at for not knowing how animals propagated themselves, and that human beings propagated themselves like animals. i replied: "my parents, at any rate, never behaved in any such manner." then, with the effrontery of childhood, my schoolfellows went on to the most shameless revelations, not only about a morbid development of natural instincts, but actual crimes against nature and against the elementary laws of society. in other words, i was shown the most repulsive, most agitating picture of everything touching the relations of the sexes and the propagation of the species. it is probable that most boys in a big school have the great mystery of nature sullied for them in their tender years by coarseness and depravity. whereas, in ancient greek times, the mystery was holy, and with a pious mind men worshipped the force of nature without exaggerated prudery and without shamelessness, such conditions are impossible in a society where for a thousand years nature herself has been depreciated by religion, associated with sin and the devil, stamped as unmentionable and in preference denied, in which, for that very reason, brutality takes so much more terrible a satisfaction and revenge. as grown-up people never spoke of the forces of nature in a pure and simple manner, it became to the children a concealed thing. individual children, in whom the sexual impulse had awakened early, were taught its nature by bestial dispositions, and the knowledge was interpreted by them with childish shamelessness. these children then filled the ears of their comrades with filth. in my case, the nastiness hit, and rebounded, without making any impression. i was only infected by the tone of the other scholars in so far as i learnt from them that it was manly to use certain ugly words. when i was twelve years old, my mother surprised me one day, when i was standing alone on the stairs, shouting these words out. i was reproved for it, and did not do it again. xiv. i hardly ever met little girls except at children's balls, and in my early childhood i did not think further of any of them. but when i was twelve years old i caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary i was destined to be for life--namely, beauty. it was revealed to me for the first time in the person of a slender, light-footed little girl, whose name and personality secretly haunted my brain for many a year. one of my uncles was living that summer in america road, which at that time was quite in the country, and there was a beautiful walk thence across the fields to a spot called _the signal_, where you could watch the trains go by from copenhagen's oldest railway station, which was not situated on the western side of the town, where the present stations are. near here lived a family whose youngest daughter used to run over almost every day to my uncle's country home, to play with the children. she was ten years old, as brown as a gipsy, as agile as a roe, and from her childish face, from all the brown of her hair, eyes, and skin, from her smile and her speech, glowed, rang, and as it were, struck me, that overwhelming and hitherto unknown force, beauty. i was twelve, she was ten. our acquaintance consisted of playing touch, not even alone together, but with other children; i can see her now rushing away from me, her long plaits striking against her waist. but although this was all that passed between us, we both had a feeling as of a mysterious link connecting us. it was delightful to meet. she gave me a pink. she cut a queen of hearts out of a pack of cards, and gave it to me; i treasured it for the next five years like a sacred thing. that was all that passed between us and more there never was, even when at twelve years of age, at a children's ball, she confessed to me that she had kept everything i had given her--gifts of the same order as her own. but the impression of her beauty filled my being. some one had made me a present of some stuffed humming-birds, perched on varnished twigs under a glass case. i always looked at them while i was reading in the nursery; they stood on the bookshelves which were my special property. these birds with their lovely, shining, gay-coloured plumage, conveyed to me my first impression of foreign or tropical vividness of colouring. all that i was destined to love for a long time had something of that about it, something foreign and afar off. the girl was danish as far as her speech was concerned, but not really danish by descent, either on her father or her mother's side; her name, too, was un-danish. she spoke english at home and was called mary at my uncle's, though her parents called her by another name. all this combined to render her more distinctive. once a year i met her at a children's ball; then she had a white dress on, and was, in my eyes, essentially different from all the other little girls. one morning, after one of these balls, when i was fourteen, i felt in a most singular frame of mind, and with wonder and reverence at what i was about to do, regarding myself as dominated by a higher, incomprehensible force, i wrote the first poetry i ever composed. there were several strophes of this heavenly poetry. just because i so seldom met her, it was like a gentle earthquake in my life, when i did. i had accustomed myself to such a worship of her name that, for me, she hardly belonged to the world of reality at all. but when i was sixteen and i met her again, once more at a young people's ball, the glamour suddenly departed. her appearance had altered and corresponded no longer to my imaginary picture of her. when we met in the dance she pressed my hand, which made me indignant, as though it were an immodest thing. she was no longer a fairy. she had broad shoulders, a budding bust, warm hands; there was youthful coquetry about her--something that, to me, seemed like erotic experience. i soon lost sight of her. but i retained a sentiment of gratitude towards her for what, as a ten-year-old child, she had afforded me, this naturally supernatural impression, my first revelation of beauty. xv. the person upon whom the schoolboys' attention centred was, of course, the headmaster. to the very young ones, the headmaster was merely powerful and paternal, up above everything. as soon as the critical instinct awoke, its utterances were specially directed, by the evil-disposed, at him, petty and malicious as they were, and were echoed slavishly by the rest. as the head was a powerful, stout, handsome, distinguished-looking man with a certain stamp of joviality and innocent good-living about him, these malicious tongues, who led the rest, declared that he only lived for his stomach. in the next place, the old-fashioned punishment of caning, administered by the head himself in his private room, gave some cause of offence. it was certainly only very lazy and obdurate boys who were thus punished; for others such methods were never even dreamt of. but when they were ordered to appear in his room after school-time, and the head took them between his knees, thrashed them well and then afterwards caressed them, as though to console them, he created ill-feeling, and his dignity suffered. if there were some little sense in the disgust occasioned by this, there was certainly none at all in certain other grievances urged against him. it was the ungraceful custom for the boys, on the first of the month, to bring their own school fees. in the middle of one of the lessons the head would come into the schoolroom, take his seat at the desk, and jauntily and quickly sweep five-daler bills [footnote: five daler, a little over /--english money.] into his large, soft hat and thence into his pockets. one objection to this arrangement was that the few poor boys who went to school free were thus singled out to their schoolfellows, bringing no money, which they felt as a humiliation. in the next place, the sight of the supposed wealth that the head thus became possessed of roused ill-feeling and derision. it became the fashion to call him boy-dealer, because the school, which in its palmy days had scholars, was so well attended. this extraordinary influx, which in all common sense ought to have been regarded as a proof of the high reputation of the school, was considered a proof of the head's avarice. it must be added that there was in his bearing, which was evidently and with good reason, calculated to impress, something that might justly appear unnatural to keen-sighted boys. he always arrived with blustering suddenness; he always shouted in a stentorian voice, and, when he gave the elder boys a latin lesson, he always appeared, probably from indolence, a good deal behind time, but to make up, and as though there were not a second to waste, began to hurl his questions at them the moment he arrived on the threshold. he liked the pathetic, and was certainly a man with a naturally warm heart. on a closer acquaintance, he would have won much affection, for he was a clever man and a gay, optimistic figure. as the number of his scholars was so great, he produced more effect at a distance. xvi. neither he nor any of the other masters reproduced the atmosphere of the classical antiquity round which all the instruction of the latin side centred. the master who taught greek the last few years did so, not only with sternness, but with a distaste, in fact, a positive hatred for his class, which was simply disgusting. the head, who had the gift of oratory, communicated to us some idea of the beauty of latin poetry, but the rest of the instruction in the dead languages was purely grammatical, competent and conscientious though the men who gave it might have been. madvig's [translator's note: johan nicolai madvig ( - ), a very celebrated danish philologist, for fifty years professor at the university of copenhagen. he is especially noted for his editions of the ancient classics, with critical notes on the text, and for his latin grammar.] spirit brooded over the school. still, there was no doubt in the head's mind as to the greatness of virgil or horace, so that a boy with perception of stylistic emphasis and metre could not fail to be keenly interested in the poetry of these two men. being the boy in the class of whom the head entertained the greatest hopes, i began at once secretly to translate them. i made a danish version of the second and fourth books of the aeneid danicised a good part of the songs and epistles of horace in imperfect verse. xvii. nothing was ever said at home about any religious creed. neither of my parents was in any way associated with the jewish religion, and neither of them ever went to the synagogue. as in my maternal grandmother's house all the jewish laws about eating and drinking were observed, and they had different plates and dishes for meat and butter and a special service for easter, orthodox judaism, to me, seemed to be a collection of old, whimsical, superstitious prejudices, which specially applied to food. the poetry of it was a sealed book to me. at school, where i was present at the religious instruction classes as an auditor only, i always heard judaism alluded to as merely a preliminary stage of christianity, and the jews as the remnant of a people who, as a punishment for slaying the saviour of the world, had been scattered all over the earth. the present-day israelites were represented as people who, urged by a stiff-necked wilfulness and obstinacy and almost incomprehensible callousness, clung to the obsolete religious ideal of the stern god in opposition to the god of love. when i attempted to think the matter out for myself, it annoyed me that the jews had not sided with jesus, who yet so clearly betokened progress within the religion that he widened and unintentionally overthrew. the supernatural personality of jesus did not seem credible to me. the demand made by faith, namely, that reason should be fettered, awakened a latent rebellious opposition, and this opposition was fostered by my mother's steady rationalism, her unconditional rejection of every miracle. when the time came for me to be confirmed, in accordance with the law, i had advanced so far that i looked down on what lay before me as a mere burdensome ceremony. the person of the rabbi only inspired me with distaste; his german pronunciation of danish was repulsive and ridiculous to me. the abominable danish in which the lesson-book was couched offended me, as i had naturally a fine ear for danish. information about ancient jewish customs and festivals was of no interest to me, with my modern upbringing. the confirmation, according to my mocking summary of the impression produced by it, consisted mainly in the hiring of a tall silk hat from the hat-maker, and the sending of it back next day, sanctified. the silly custom was at that time prevalent for boys to wear silk hats for the occasion, idiotic though they made them look. with these on their heads, they went, after examination, up the steps to a balustrade where a priest awaited, whispered a few affecting words in their ear about their parents or grandparents, and laid his hand in blessing upon the tall hat. when called upon to make my confession of faith with the others, i certainly joined my first "yes," this touching a belief in a god, to theirs, but remained silent at the question as to whether i believed that god had revealed himself to moses and spoken by his prophets. i did not believe it. i was, for that matter, in a wavering frame of mind unable to arrive at any clear understanding. what confused me was the unveracious manner in which historical instruction, which was wholly theological, was given. the history masters, for instance, told us that when julian the apostate wanted to rebuild the temple at jerusalem, flames had shot out of the earth, but they interpreted this as a miracle, expressing the divine will. if this were true--and i was unable to refute it then--god had expressly taken part against judaism and the jews as a nation. the nation, in that case, seemed to be really cursed by him. still, christianity fundamentally repelled me by its legends, its dogmatism, and its church rites. the virgin birth, the three persons in the trinity, and the sacrament of the lord's supper in particular, seemed to me to be remnants of the basest barbarism of antiquity. under these circumstances, my young soul, feeling the need of something it could worship, fled from asia's to europe's divinities, from palestine to hellas, and clung with vivid enthusiasm to the greek world of beauty and the legends of its gods. from all the learned education i had had, i only extracted this one thing: an enthusiasm for ancient hellas and her gods; they were my gods, as they had been those of julian. apollo and artemis, athene and eros and aphrodite grew to be powers that i believed in and rejoiced over in a very different sense from any god revealed on sinai or in emmaus. they were near to me. and under these circumstances the antiquities room at charlottenburg, where as a boy i had heard höyen's lectures, grew to be a place that i entered with reverence, and thorwaldsen's museum my temple, imperfectly though it reproduced the religious and heroic life and spirit of the greeks. but at that time i knew no other, better door to the world of the gods than the museum offered, and thorwaldsen and the greeks, from fourteen to fifteen, were in my mind merged in one. thorwaldsen's museum was to me a brilliant illustration of homer. there i found my church, my gods, my soul's true native land. xviii. i had for several years been top of my class, when a boy was put in who was quite three years older than i, and with whom it was impossible for me to compete, so much greater were the newcomer's knowledge and maturity. it very soon became a settled thing for the new boy always to be top, and i invariably no. . however, this was not in the least vexatious to me; i was too much wrapped up in sebastian for that. the admiration which as a child i had felt for boys who distinguished themselves by muscular strength was manifested now for superiority in knowledge or intelligence. sebastian was tall, thin, somewhat disjointed in build, with large blue eyes, expressive of kindness, and intelligence; he was thoroughly well up in all the school subjects, and with the ripeness of the older boy, could infer the right thing even when he did not positively know it. the reason why he was placed at lessons so late was doubtless to be found in the narrow circumstances of his parents. they considered that they had not the means to allow him to follow the path towards which his talents pointed. but the head, as could be seen on pay days, was now permitting him to come to school free. he went about among his jacketed schoolfellows in a long frock coat, the skirts of which flapped round his legs. no. could not help admiring no. for the confidence with which he disported himself among the greek aorists, in the labyrinths of which i myself often went astray, and for the knack he had of solving mathematical problems. he was, moreover, very widely read in belles lettres, and had almost a grown-up man's taste with regard to books at a time when i still continued to admire p.p.'s [footnote: p.p. was a writer whose real name was rumohr. he wrote a number of historical novels of a patriotic type, but which are only read by children up to .] novels, and was incapable of detecting the inartistic quality and unreality of his popular descriptions of the exploits of sailor heroes. as soon as my eyes were opened to the other's advanced acquirements, i opened my heart to him, gave him my entire confidence, and found in my friend a well of knowledge and superior development from which i felt a daily need to draw. when at the end of the year the large number of newcomers made it desirable for the class to be divided, it was a positive blow to me that in the division, which was effected by separating the scholars according to their numbers, odd or even, sebastian and i found ourselves in different classes. i even took the unusual step of appealing to the head to be put in the same class as sebastian, but was refused. however, childhood so easily adapts itself to a fresh situation that during the ensuing year, in which i myself advanced right gaily, not only did i feel no lack, but i forgot my elder comrade. and at the commencement of the next school year, when the two parallel classes, through several boys leaving, were once more united, and i again found myself no. by the side of my one-time friend, the relations between us were altogether altered, so thoroughly so, in fact, that our rôles were reversed. if formerly the younger had hung upon the elder's words, now it was the other way about. if formerly sebastian had shown the interest in me that the half-grown man feels for a child, now i was too absorbed by my own interests to wish for anything but a listener in him when i unfolded the supposed wealth of my ideas and my soaring plans for the future, which betrayed a boundless ambition. i needed a friend at this stage only in the same sense as the hero in french tragedies requires a confidant, and if i attached myself as before, wholly and completely to him, it was for this reason. it is true that the other was still a good deal in front of me in actual knowledge, so that there was much i had to consult him about; otherwise our friendship would hardly have lasted; but the importance of this superiority was slight, inasmuch as sebastian henceforward voluntarily subordinated himself to me altogether; indeed, by his ready recognition of my powers, contributed more than anyone else to make me conscious of these powers and to foster a self-esteem which gradually assumed extraordinary forms. xix. this self-esteem, in its immaturity, was of a twofold character. it was not primarily a belief that i was endowed with unusual abilities, but a childish belief that i was one set apart, with whom, for mysterious reasons, everything must succeed. the belief in a personal god had gradually faded away from me, and there were times when, with the conviction of boyhood, i termed myself an atheist to my friend; my attitude towards the greek gods had never been anything more than a personification of the ideal forces upon which i heaped my enthusiasm. but i believed in my star. and i hypnotised my friend into the same belief, infected him so that he talked as if he were consecrating his life to my service, and really, as far as was possible for a schoolboy, lived and breathed exclusively for me, i, for my part, being gratified at having, as my unreserved admirer and believer, the one whom, of all people i knew, i placed highest, the one whose horizon seemed to me the widest, and whose store of knowledge was the greatest; for in many subjects it surpassed even that of the masters in no mean degree. under such conditions, when i was fifteen or sixteen, i was deeply impressed by a book that one might think was infinitely beyond the understanding of my years, lermontof's _a hero of our time_, in xavier marmier's french translation. the subject of it would seem utterly unsuited to a schoolboy who had never experienced anything in the remotest degree resembling the experiences of a man of the world, at any rate those which produced the sentiments pervading this novel. nevertheless, this book brought about a revolution in my ideas. for the first time i encountered in a book a chief character who was not a universal hero, a military or naval hero whom one had to admire and if possible imitate, but one in whom, with extreme emotion, i fancied that i recognised myself! i had certainly never acted as petsjórin did, and never been placed in such situations as petsjórin. no woman had ever loved me, still less had i ever let a woman pay with suffering the penalty of her affection for me. never had any old friend of mine come up to me, delighted to see me again, and been painfully reminded, by my coolness and indifference, how little he counted for in my life. petsjórin had done with life; i had not even begun to live. petsjórin had drained the cup of enjoyment; i had never tasted so much as a drop of it. petsjórin was as blasé as a splendid russian officer of the guards could be; i, as full of expectation as an insignificant copenhagen schoolboy could be. nevertheless, i had the perplexing feeling of having, for the first time in my life, seen my inmost nature, hitherto unknown even to myself, understood, interpreted, reproduced, magnified, in this unharmonious work of the russian poet who was snatched away so young. xx. the first element whence the imaginary figure which i fancied i recognized again in lermontof had its rise was doubtless to be found in the relations between my older friend and myself (in the reversal of our rôles, and my consequent new feeling of superiority over him). the essential point, however, was not the comparatively accidental shape in which i fancied i recognised myself, but that what was at that time termed _reflection_ had awaked in me, introspection, self-consciousness, which after all had to awake some day, as all other impulses awake when their time comes. this introspection was not, however, by any means a natural or permanent quality in me, but on the contrary one which made me feel ill at ease and which i soon came to detest. during these transitional years, as my pondering over myself grew, i felt more and more unhappy and less and less sure of myself. the pondering reached its height, as was inevitable, when there arose the question of choosing a profession and of planning the future rather than of following a vocation. but as long as this introspection lasted, i had a torturing feeling that my own eye was watching me, as though i were a stranger, a feeling of being the spectator of my own actions, the auditor of my own words, a double personality who must nevertheless one day become one, should i live long enough. after having, with a friend, paid a visit to kaalund, who was prison instructor at vridslöselille at the time and showed us young fellows the prison and the cells, i used to picture my condition to myself as that of a prisoner enduring the torture of seeing a watchful eye behind the peep-hole in the door. i had noticed before, in the malmö prison, how the prisoners tried to besmear this glass, or scratch on it, with a sort of fury, so that it was often impossible to see through it. my natural inclination was to act naïvely, without premeditation, and to put myself wholly into what i was doing. the cleavage that introspection implies, therefore, was a horror to me; all bisection, all dualism, was fundamentally repellent to me; and it was consequently no mere chance that my first appearance as a writer was made in an attack on a division and duality in life's philosophy, and that the very title of my first book was a branding and rejection of a _dualism_. so that it was only when my self-contemplation, and with it the inward cleavage, had at length ceased, that i attained to quietude of mind. xxi. thus violently absorbing though the mental condition here suggested was, it was not permanent. it was childish and child-like by virtue of my years; the riper expressions which i here make use of to describe it always seem on the verge of distorting its character. my faith in my lucky star barely persisted a few years unassailed. my childish idea had been very much strengthened when, at fifteen years of age, in the first part of my finishing examination, i received _distinction_ in all my subjects, and received a mighty blow when, at seventeen, i only had _very good_ in five subjects, thus barely securing distinction for the whole. i ceased to preoccupy myself about my likeness to petsjórin after having recovered from a half, or quarter, falling in love, an unharmonious affair, barren of results, which i had hashed up for myself through fanciful and affected reverie, and which made me realise the fundamental simplicity of my own nature,--and i then shook off the unnatural physiognomy like a mask. belief in my own unbounded superiority and the absolutely unmeasured ambition in which this belief had vented itself, collapsed suddenly when at the age of eighteen, feeling my way independently for the first time, and mentally testing people, i learnt to recognise the real mental superiority great writers possess. it was chiefly my first reading of the principal works of kierkegaard that marked this epoch in my life. i felt, face to face with the first great mind that, as it were, had personally confronted me, all my real insignificance, understood all at once that i had as yet neither lived nor suffered, felt nor thought, and that nothing was more uncertain than whether i might one day evince talent. the one certain thing was that my present status seemed to amount to nothing at all. xxii. in those boyhood's years, however, i revelled in ideas of greatness to come which had not so far received a shock. and i was in no doubt as to the domain in which when grown up i should distinguish myself. all my instincts drew me towards literature. the danish compositions which were set at school absorbed all my thoughts from week to week; i took the greatest pains with them, weighed the questions from as many sides as i could and endeavoured to give good form and style to my compositions. unconsciously i tried to find expressions containing striking contrasts; i sought after descriptive words and euphonious constructions. although not acquainted with the word style in any other sense than that it bears in the expression "style-book," the danish equivalent for what in english is termed an "exercise-book," i tried to acquire a certain style, and was very near falling into mannerism, from sheer inexperience, when a sarcastic master, to my distress, reminded me one day of heiberg's words: "the unguent of expression, smeared thickly over the thinness of thoughts." xxiii. together with a practical training in the use of the language, the danish lessons afforded a presentment of the history of our national literature, given intelligently and in a very instructive manner by a master named driebein, who, though undoubtedly one of the many heibergians of the time, did not in any way deviate from what might be termed the orthodoxy of literary history. protestantism carried it against roman catholicism, the young oehlenschläger against baggesen, romanticism against rationalism; oehlenschläger as the northern poet of human nature against a certain björnson, who, it was said, claimed to be more truly norse than he. in mr. driebein's presentment, no recognised great name was ever attacked. and in his course, as in thortsen's history of literature, literature which might be regarded as historic stopped with the year . the order in which in my private reading i became acquainted with danish authors was as follows: ingemann, oehlenschläger, grundtvig, poul möller, many books by these authors having been given me at christmas and on birthdays. at my grandfather's, i eagerly devoured heiberg's vaudevilles as well. as a child, of course, i read uncritically, merely accepting and enjoying. but when i heard at school of baggesen's treatment of oehlenschläger, thus realising that there had been various tendencies in literature at that time, and various opinions as to which was preferable, i read with enthusiasm a volume of selected poems by baggesen, which i had had one christmas, and the treatment of language in it fascinated me exceedingly, with its gracefulness and light, conversational tone. then, when hertz's [footnote: henrik hertz, a danish poet ( - ), published "ghost letters" anonymously, and called them thus because in language and spirit they were a kind of continuation of the long-deceased baggesen's rhymed contribution to a literary dispute of his day. hertz, like the much greater baggesen, laid great stress upon precise and elegant form.--[translator's note.]] _ghost letters_ fell into my hands one day, and the diction of them appealed to me almost more, i felt myself, first secretly, afterwards more consciously, drawn towards the school of form in danish literature, and rather enjoyed being a heretic on this point. for to entertain kindly sentiments for the man who had dared to profane oehlenschläger was like siding with loki against thor. poul möller's collected works i had received at my confirmation, and read again and again with such enthusiasm that i almost wore the pages out, and did not skip a line, even of the philosophical parts, which i did not understand at all. but hertz's lyrical poems, which i read in a borrowed copy, gave me as much pleasure as poul möller's verses had done. and for a few years, grace and charm, and the perfect control of language and poetic form, were in my estimation the supreme thing until, on entering upon my eighteenth year, a violent reaction took place, and resonance, power and grandeur alone seemed to have value. from hertz my sympathies went over to christian winther, from baggesen to homer, aeschylus, the bible, shakespeare, goethe. one of the first things i did as a student was to read the bible through in danish and the odyssey in greek. xxiv. the years of approaching maturity were still distant, however, and my inner life was personal, not real, so that an element of fermentation was cast into my mind when a copy of heine's _buch der lieder_ was one day lent to me. what took my fancy in it was, firstly, the combination of enthusiasm and wit, then its terse, pithy form, and after that the parts describing how the poet and his lady love, unable to overcome the shyness which binds their tongues, involuntarily play hide and seek with one another and lose each other; for i felt that i should be equally unable to find natural and simple expression for my feelings, should things ever come to such a pass with me. of heine's personality, of the poet's historic position, political tendencies or importance, i knew nothing; in these love-poems i looked more especially for those verses in which violent self-esteem and blasé superiority to every situation find expression, because this fell in with the petsjórin note, which, since reading lermontof's novel, was the dominant one in my mind. as was my habit in those years, when it was still out of the question for me to buy books that pleased me, i copied out of the _buch der lieder_ all that i liked best, that i might read it again. xxv. of all this life of artistic desire and seeking, of external impressions, welcomed with all the freshness and impulsiveness of a boy's mind, but most of self-study and self-discovery, the elder of the two comrades was a most attentive spectator, more than a spectator. he made use of expressions and said things which rose to my head and made me conceited. sebastian would make such a remark as: "it is not for your abilities that i appreciate you, it is for your enthusiasm. all other people i know are machines without souls, at their best full of affected, set phrases, such as one who has peeped behind the scenes laughs at; but in you there is a fulness of ideality too great for you ever to be happy." "fulness of ideality" was the expression of the time for the supremest quality of intellectual equipment. no wonder, then, that i felt flattered. and my older comrade united a perception of my mental condition, which unerringly perceived its immaturity, with a steadfast faith in a future for me which in spite of my arrogance, i thirsted to find in the one of all others who knew me best and was most plainly my superior in knowledge. one day, when i had informed him that i felt "more mature and clearer about myself," he replied, without a trace of indecision, that this was undoubtedly a very good thing, if it were true, but that he suspected i was laboring under a delusion. "i am none the less convinced," he added, "that you will soon reach a crisis, will overcome all obstacles and attain the nowadays almost giant's goal that you have set before you." this goal, for that matter, was very indefinite, and was to the general effect that i intended to make myself strongly felt, and bring about great changes in the intellectual world; of what kind, was uncertain. meanwhile, as the time drew near for us to enter the university, and i approached the years of manhood which the other, in spite of his modest position as schoolboy, had already long attained, sebastian grew utterly miserable. he had, as he expressed it, made up his mind to be my _melanchthon_. but through an inward collapse which i could not understand he now felt that the time in which he could be anything to me had gone by; it seemed to him that he had neglected to acquire the knowledge and the education necessary, and he reproached himself bitterly. "i have not been in the least what i might have been to you," he exclaimed one day, and without betraying it he endured torments of jealousy, and thought with vexation and anxiety of the time when a larger circle would be opened to me in the university, and he himself would become superfluous. his fear was thus far unfounded, that, naïve in my selfishness, as in my reliance on him, i still continued to tell him everything, and in return constantly sought his help when philological or mathematical difficulties which i could not solve alone presented themselves to me. but i had scarcely returned to copenhagen, after my first journey abroad (a very enjoyable four weeks' visit to göteborg), i had scarcely been a month a freshman, attending philosophical lectures and taking part in student life than the dreaded separation between us two so differently constituted friends came to pass. the provocation was trifling, in fact paltry. one day i was standing in the lecture-room with a few fellow-students before a lecture began, when a freshman hurried up to us and asked: "is it true, what sebastian says, that he is the person you think most of in the world?" my reply was: "did he say that himself?" "yes." and, disgusted that the other should have made such a remark in order to impress perfect strangers, though it might certainly very easily have escaped him in confidence, i said hastily: "oh! he's mad!" which outburst, bearing in mind young people's use of the word "mad," was decidedly not to be taken literally, but was, it is quite true, ill-naturedly meant. the same evening i received a short note from sebastian in which, though in polite terms, he repudiated his allegiance and fidelity; the letter, in which the polite form _you_ was used instead of the accustomed _thou_, was signed: "your 'mad' and 'foolish,' but respectful sebastian." the impression this produced upon me was exceedingly painful, but an early developed mental habit of always accepting a decision, and a vehement repugnance to renew any connection deliberately severed by another party, resulted in my never even for a moment thinking of shaking his resolution, and in my leaving the note unanswered. however, the matter was not done with, and the next few months brought me many insufferable moments, indeed hours, for sebastian, whose existence had for so long centred round mine that he was evidently incapable of doing without me altogether, continually crossed my path, planted himself near me on every possible occasion, and one evening, at a students' gathering, even got a chair outside the row round the table, sat himself down just opposite to me, and spent a great part of the evening in staring fixedly into my face. as may be supposed, i felt exceedingly irritated. three months passed, when one day i received a letter from sebastian, and at intervals of weeks or months several others followed. they were impressive letters, splendidly written, with a sort of grim humour about them, expressing his passionate affection and venting his despair. this was the first time that i had come in contact with passion, but it was a passion that without having any unnatural or sensual element in it, nevertheless, from a person of the same sex, excited a feeling of displeasure, and even disgust, in me. sebastian wrote: "i felt that it was cheating you to take so much without being able to give you anything in return; i thought it mean to associate with you; consequently, i believe that i did perfectly right to break with you. still, it is true that i hardly needed to do it. time and circumstances would have effected the breach." and feeling that our ways were now divided, he continued: hie locus est, partes ubi se via findit in ambas. dextera, quae ditis magni sub moenia tendit hac iter elysium nobis; at laeva malorum exercet poenas et ad impia tartara mittit. "i cannot kill myself at present, but as soon as i feel able i shall do so." or he wrote: "towards the end of the time when we were friends, i was not quite myself when talking to you; i was unbalanced; for i was convinced that you wasted your valuable time talking to me, and at the same time was oppressed with grief at the thought that we must part. then i tried to make you angry by pretending to question your abilities, by affecting indifference and scorn; but it was the dog baying at the moon. i had to bring about the severance that i did. that i should be so childish as to be vexed about a slight from you, you cannot yourself believe. i cannot really regret it, for i could no longer be of use to you; you doubtless think the same yourself; but i cannot do without you; my affection for you is the only vital thing in me; your life throbbed in mine." sometimes the letters ended with an outburst of a sort of despairing humour, such as: "vale! (fanfare! somersaults by pagliaccio.)" but whether sebastian assumed a serious or a desperate tone, the renewal of our old companionship was equally impossible to me. i could not ignore what had happened, and i could not have a friend who was jealous if i talked to others. since my intellectual entity had awakened, all jealousy had been an abomination to me, but jealousy in one man of another man positively revolted me. i recognised sebastian's great merits, respected his character, admired his wide range of knowledge, but i could not associate with him again, could not even so much as walk down the street by his side. all his affectionate and beautiful letters glanced off ineffectual from this repugnance. something in me had suddenly turned stony, like a plant plunged in petrifying water. six years passed before we saw each other again. we met then with simple and sincere affection. sebastian's old passion had evaporated without leaving a trace; he himself could no longer understand it. and, though far apart, and with nothing to connect us closely, we continued to think kindly of one another and to exchange reflections, until, after a few years, death carried him away, ere he had reached the years of real manhood, or fulfilled any of the promises of his gifted and industrious youth. transitional years schoolboy fancies--religion--early friends--_daemonic_ theory--a west indian friend--my acquaintance widens--politics--the reactionary party--the david family--a student society--an excursion to slesvig--temperament--the law--hegel--spinoza--love for humanity--a religious crisis--doubt--personal immortality--renunciation. i. my second schoolboy fancy dated from my last few months at school. it was a natural enough outcome of the attraction towards the other sex which, never yet encouraged, was lurking in my mind; but it was not otherwise remarkable for its naturalness. it had its origin partly in my love of adventure, partly in my propensity for trying my powers, but, as love, was without root, inasmuch as it was rooted neither in my heart nor in my senses. the object of it was again a girl from another country. her name and person had been well known to me since i was twelve years old. we had even exchanged compliments, been curious about one another, gone so far as to wish for a lock of each other's hair. there was consequently a romantic background to our first meeting. when i heard that she was coming to denmark i was, as by chance, on the quay, and saw her arrive. she was exactly the same age as i, and, without real beauty, was very good-looking and had unusually lovely eyes. i endeavoured to make her acquaintance through relatives of hers whom i knew, and had no difficulty in getting into touch with her. an offer to show her the museums and picture galleries in copenhagen was accepted. although i had very little time, just before my matriculation examination, my new acquaintance filled my thoughts to such an extent that i did not care how much of this valuable time i sacrificed to her. in the summer, when the girl went out near charlottenlund, whereas my parents were staying much nearer to the town, i went backwards and forwards to the woods nearly every day, in the uncertain but seldom disappointed hope of seeing her. sometimes i rowed her about in the sound. simple and straightforward though the attraction i felt might seem, the immature romance i built up on it was anything but simple. it was, as stated, not my senses that drew me on. split and divided up as i was just then, a merely intellectual love seemed to me quite natural; one might feel an attraction of the senses for an altogether different woman. i did not wish for a kiss, much less an embrace; in fact, was too much a child to think of anything of the sort. but neither was it my heart that drew me on; i felt no tenderness, hardly any real affection, for this young girl whom i was so anxious to win. she only busied my brain. in the condition of boyish self-inquisition in which i then found myself, this acquaintance was a fresh element of fermentation, and the strongest to which my self-examination had hitherto been subjected. i instinctively desired to engage her fancy; but my attitude was from myself through her to myself. i wanted less to please than to dominate her, and as it was only my head that was filled with her image, i wholly lacked the voluntary and cheerful self-humiliation which is an element of real love. i certainly wished with all my heart to fascinate her; but what i more particularly wanted was to hold my own, to avoid submission, and retain my independence. my boyish pride demanded it. the young foreigner, whose knowledge of the world was hardly greater than my own, had certainly never, during her short life, come in contact with so extraordinary a phenomenon; it afforded matter for reflection. she certainly felt attracted, but, woman-like, was on her guard. she was of a quiet, amiable disposition, innocently coquettish, naturally adapted for the advances of sound common sense and affectionate good-will, not for the volts of passion; she was, moreover, femininely practical. she saw at a glance that this grown-up schoolboy, who almost staggered her with his eloquence, his knowledge, his wild plans for the future, was no wooer, and that his advances were not to be taken too seriously. next, with a woman's unfailing intuition, she discovered his empty love of power. and first involuntarily, and then consciously, she placed herself in an attitude of defence. she did not lack intelligence. she showed a keen interest in me, but met me with the self-control of a little woman of the world, now and then with coolness, on one occasion with well-aimed shafts of mockery. our mutual attitude might have developed into a regular war between the sexes, had we not both been half-children. just as i, in the midst of a carefully planned assault on her emotions, occasionally forgot myself altogether and betrayed the craving to be near her which drove me almost every day to her door, she also would at times lose the equilibrium she had struggled for, and feverishly reveal her agitated state of mind. but immediately afterwards i was again at the assault, she once more on the alert, and after the lapse of four months our ways separated, without a kiss, or one simple, affectionate word, ever having passed between us. in my morbid self-duplication, i had been busy all this time fixing in my memory and writing down in a book all that i had said to her or she to me, weighing and probing the scope and effect of the words that had been uttered, laying plans for future methods of advance, noting actual victories and defeats, pondering over this inanity, bending over all this abnormality, like a strategist who, bending over the map, marks with his nail the movements of troops, the carrying or surrender of a fortified position. this early, unsatisfactory and not strictly speaking erotic experience had the remarkable effect of rendering me for the next seven years impervious to the tender passion, so that, undisturbed by women or erotic emotions, i was able to absorb myself in the world of varied research that was now opening up to me. ii. a school-friend who was keenly interested in astronomy and had directed my nightly contemplations of the heavens, drew me, just about this time, a very good map of the stars, by the help of which i found those stars i knew and extended my knowledge further. the same school-friend sometimes took me to the observatory, to see old professor d'arrest--a refined and sapient man--and there, for the first time, i saw the stellar heavens through a telescope. i had learnt astronomy at school, but had lacked talent to attain any real insight into the subject. now the constellations and certain of the stars began to creep into my affections; they became the nightly witnesses of my joys and sorrows, all through my life; the sight of them sometimes comforted me when i felt lonely and forsaken in a foreign land. the lyre, the swan, the eagle, the crown and boötes, auriga, the hyades and the pleiades, and among the winter constellations, orion; all these twinkling groups, that human eyes have sought for thousands of years, became distant friends of mine, too. and the thoughts which the sight of the countless globes involuntarily and inevitably evokes, were born in me, too,--thoughts of the littleness of the earth in our solar system, and of our solar system in the universe, of immeasurable distances--so great that the stars whose rays, with the rapidity of light's travelling, are striking against our eyes now, may have gone out in our childhood; of immeasurable periods of time, in which a human life, or even the lifetime of a whole people, disappears like a drop in the ocean. and whereas at school i had only studied astronomy as a subject, from its mathematical aspect, i now learnt the results of spectroscopic analysis, which showed me how the human genius of bunsen and kirchhoff had annihilated the distance between the earth and the sun; and at the same time i perceived the inherent improbability of the culture of our earth ever being transmitted to other worlds, even as the earth had never yet received communications from the civilisation of any of the stars. this circumstance, combined with the certainty of the gradual cooling and eventual death of the earth, gave me a conclusive impression of the finality of all earthly existence and of the merely temporary character of all progress. feeling that all religions built up on a belief in a god were collapsing, europe had long inclined towards the religion of progress as the last tenable. now i perceived as i raised my eyes to the starry expanse and rejoiced in my favourite stars, sirius in the great dog, and vega in the lyre or altair in the eagle, that it, too, was tottering, this last religion of all. iii. at school, i had known a score of boys of my own age, and naturally found few amongst them who could be anything to me. among the advantages that the freedom of student life afforded was that of coming in contact all at once with hundreds of similarly educated young men of one's own age. young men made each other's acquaintance at lectures and banquets, were drawn to one another, or felt themselves repulsed, and elective affinity or accident associated them in pairs or groups for a longer or shorter period. a young fellow whose main passion was a desire for intellectual enrichment was necessarily obliged to associate with many of the other young men of his own age, in order to learn to know them, in order, externally and internally, to gain as much experience as possible and thereby develop himself. in the case of many of them, a few conversations were enough to prove that any fruitful intimacy was out of the question. i came into fleeting contact with a number of suave, or cold, or too ordinary young students, without their natures affecting mine or mine theirs. but there were others who, for some months, engaged my attention to a considerable extent. the first of these was a type of the student of the time. vilsing was from jutland, tall, dark, neither handsome nor plain, remarkable for his unparalleled facility in speaking. he owed his universal popularity to the fact that at students' parties he could at any time stand up and rattle off at a furious rate an apparently unprepared speech, a sort of stump speech in which humorous perversions, distortions, lyric remarks, clever back-handed blows to right and left, astonishing incursions and rapid sorties, were woven into a whole so good that it was an entertaining challenge to common sense. the starting point, for instance, might be some travesty of sibbern's whimsical definition of life, which at that time we all had to learn by heart for the examination. it ran: "life altogether is an activity and active process, preceding from an inner source and working itself out according to an inner impulse, producing and by an eternal change of matter, reproducing, organising and individualising, and, since it by a certain material or substratum constitutes itself a certain exterior, within which it reveals itself, it simultaneously constitutes itself as the subsisting activity and endeavour in this, its exterior, of which it may further be inquired how far a soul can be said to live and subsist in it, as a living entity--appearing in such a life." it is not difficult to conceive what delightful nonsense this barbaric elucidation might suggest, if a carouse, or love, woman or drunkenness were defined in this vein; and he would weave in amusing attacks on earlier, less intrepid speakers, who, as vilsing put it, reminded one of the bashful forget-me-not, inasmuch as you could read in the play of their features: "forget me not! i, too, was an orator." vilsing, who had been studying for some years already, paid a freshman a compliment by desiring his acquaintance and seeking his society. he frequented the students' union, was on terms of friendship with those who led the fashion, and was a favourite speaker. it was a species of condescension on his part to seek out a young fellow just escaped from school, a fellow who would have sunk into the earth if he had had to make a speech, and who had no connection with the circle of older students. vilsing was a young man of moods, who, like many at that time, like albrecht, the chief character in schandorph's [footnote: sophus schandorph, b. , d. ; a prominent danish novelist, who commenced his literary activity in the sixties.--[translator's note.]] _without a centre_, would exhibit all the colours of the rainbow in one morning. he would give himself, and take himself back, show himself affectionate, cordial, intimate, confidential, full of affectionate anxiety for me his young friend, and at the next meeting be as cursory and cool as if he scarcely remembered having seen me before; for he would in the meantime have been attacked by vexation at his too great friendliness, and wish to assert himself, as knowing his own value. he impressed me, his junior, by revealing himself, not precisely as a man of the world, but as a much sought after society man. he told me how much he was asked out, and how he went from one party and one ball to another, which, to me, with my hankering after experiences, seemed to be an enviable thing. but i was more struck by what vilsing told me of the favour he enjoyed with the other sex. one girl--a charming girl!--he was engaged to, another loved him and he her; but those were the least of his erotic triumphs; wherever he showed himself, he conquered. and proofs were to hand. for one day, when he had dragged me up to his room with him, he bewildered me by shaking out before my eyes a profusion of embroidered sofa-cushions, fancy pillows, cigar-cases, match-holders, crocheted purses, worked waistcoats, etc.; presents from every description of person of the feminine gender. in every drawer he pulled out there were presents of the sort; they hung over chairs and on pegs. i was young enough to feel a certain respect for a man so sought after by the fair sex, although i thought his frankness too great. what first began to undermine this feeling was not doubt of the truth of his tales, or the genuineness of the gifts, but the fact that one after another of my comrades, when the first cool stages of acquaintance were passed, invariably found a favourable opportunity of confidentially informing me--he could not explain why it was himself, but it was a fact--that wherever he showed himself women were singularly fascinated by the sight of him; there must be something about him which vanquished them in spite of him. when at last one evening the most round-backed of all of them, a swain whose blond mustache, of irregular growth, resembled an old, worn-out toothbrush more than anything else, also confided in me that he did not know how it was, or what could really be the cause of it, but there must be something about him, etc.,--then my belief in vilsing's singularity and my admiration for him broke down. it must not be supposed that vilsing regarded himself as a sensual fiend. he did not pose as cold and impudent, but as heartfelt and instinct with feeling. he was studying theology, and cherished no dearer wish than eventually to become a priest. he constantly alternated between contrition and self-satisfaction, arrogance and repentance, enjoyed the consciousness of being exceptionally clever, an irresistible charmer, and a true christian. it seemed to him that, in the freshman whom he had singled out from the crowd and given a place at his side, he had found an intellectual equal, or even superior, and this attracted him; he met with in me an inexperience and unworldliness so great that the inferiority in ability which he declared he perceived was more than counterbalanced by the superiority he himself had the advantage of, both in social accomplishments and in dealing with women. it thus seemed as though many of the essential conditions of a tolerably permanent union between us were present. but during the first conversation in which he deigned to be interested in my views, there occurred in our friendship a little rift which widened to a chasm. vilsing sprang back horrified when he heard how i, greenhorn though i was, regarded life and men and what i considered right. "you are in the clutches of evil, and your desire is towards the evil. i have not time or inclination to unfold an entire christology now, but what you reject is the ideal, and what you appraise is the devil himself. god! god! how distressed i am for you! i would give my life to save you. but enough about it for the present; i have not time just now; i have to go out to dinner." this was our last serious conversation. i was not saved. he did not give his life. he went for a vacation tour the following summer holidays, avoided me on his return, and soon we saw no more of each other. iv. the theory, the intimation of which roused vilsing to such a degree, bore in its form witness to such immaturity that it could only have made an impression on a youth whose immaturity, in spite of his age, was greater still. to present it with any degree of clearness is scarcely possible; it was not sufficiently clear in itself for that. but this was about what it amounted to: the introspection and energetic self-absorption to which i had given myself up during my last few years at school became even more persistent on my release from the restraint of school and my free admission to the society of grown-up people. i took advantage of my spare time in copenhagen, and on the restricted travels that i was allowed to take, to slake my passionate thirst for life; firstly, by pondering ever and anon over past sensations, and secondly, by plunging into eager and careful reading of the light literature of all different countries and periods that i had heard about, but did not yet myself know at first hand. through all that i experienced and read, observed and made my own, my attitude towards myself was, that before all, i sought to become clear as to what manner of man i really, in my inmost being, was. i asked myself who i was. i endeavoured to discover the mysterious word that would break the charm of the mists in which i found myself and would answer my fundamental question, _what_ was i? and then at last, my ponderings and my readings resulted in my finding the word that seemed to fit, although nowadays one can hardly hear it without a smile, the word _daemonic_. i was daemonic in giving myself this reply it seemed to me that i had solved the riddle of my nature. i meant thereby, as i then explained it to myself, that the choice between good and evil did not present itself to me, as to others, since evil did not interest me. for me, it was not a question of a choice, but of an unfolding of my ego, which had its justification in itself. that which i called the _daemonic_ i had encountered for the first time outside my own mind in lermontof's hero. petsjórin was compelled to act in pursuance of his natural bent, as though possessed by his own being. i felt myself in a similar manner possessed. i had met with the word _daimon_ and _daimones_ in plato; socrates urges that by _daemons_ the gods, or the children of the gods, were meant. i felt as though i, too, were one of the children of the gods. in all the great legendary figures of the middle ages i detected the feature of divine possession, especially in the two who had completely fascinated the poets of the nineteenth century, don juan and faust. the first was the symbol of magic power over women, the second of the thirst for knowledge giving dominion over humanity and nature. among my comrades, in vilsing, even in the hunch-backed fellow with the unsuccessful moustache, i had seen how the don juan type which had turned their heads still held sway over the minds of young people; i myself could quite well understand the magic which this beautiful ideal of elementary irresistibility must have; but the faust type appealed to me, with my thirst for knowledge, very much more. still, the main thing for me was that in the first great and wholly modern poets that i made acquaintance with, byron and his intellectual successors, lermontof and heine, i recognised again the very fundamental trait that i termed _daemonic_, the worship of one's own originality, under the guise of an uncompromising love of liberty. i was always brooding over this idea of the _daemonic_ with which my mind was filled. i recorded my thoughts on the subject in my first long essay (lost, for that matter), _on the daemonic, as it reveals itself in the human character_. when a shrewdly intelligent young fellow of my own age criticised my work from the assumption that the _daemonic_ did not exist, i thought him ridiculous. i little dreamt that twenty-five years later relling, in _the wild duck_, would show himself to be on my friend's side in the emphatic words: "what the devil does it mean to be daemonic! it's sheer nonsense." v. the "daemonic" was also responsible for the mingled attraction that was exerted over me at this point by a young foreign student, and for the intercourse which ensued between us. kappers was born somewhere in the west indies, was the son of a well-to-do german manufacturer, and had been brought up in a north german town. his father, for what reason i do not know, wished him to study at copenhagen university, and there take his law examination. there was coloured blood in his veins, though much diluted, maybe an eighth or so. he was tall and slender, somewhat loose in his walk and bearing, pale-complexioned, with dark eyes and negro hair. his face, though not handsome, looked exceedingly clever, and its expression was not deceptive, for the young man had an astonishing intellect. he was placed in the house of a highly respected family in copenhagen, that of a prominent scientist, a good-natured, unpractical savant, very unsuited to be the mentor of such an unconventional young man. he was conspicuous among the native danish freshmen for his elegant dress and cosmopolitan education, and was so quick at learning that before very many weeks he spoke danish almost without a mistake, though with a marked foreign accent, which, however, lent a certain charm to what he said. his extraordinary intelligence was not remarkable either for its comprehensiveness or its depth, but it was a quicker intelligence than any his copenhagen fellow-student had ever known, and so keen that he seemed born to be a lawyer. kappers spent almost all his day idling about the streets, talking to his companions; he was always ready for a walk; you never saw him work or heard him talk about his work. nevertheless, he, a foreigner, who had barely mastered the language, presented himself after six months--before he had attended all the lectures, that is,--for the examination in philosophy and passed it with _distinction_ in all three subjects; indeed, rasmus nielsen, who examined him in propaedeutics, was so delighted at the foreigner's shrewd and ready answers that he gave him _specially excellent_, a mark which did not exist. his gifts in the juridical line appeared to be equally remarkable. when he turned up in a morning with his danish fellow-students at the coach's house it might occasionally happen that he was somewhat tired and slack, but more often he showed a natural grasp of the handling of legal questions, and a consummate skill in bringing out every possible aspect of each question, that were astonishing in a beginner. his gifts were of unusual power, but for the externalities of things only, and he possessed just the gifts with which the sophists of old time distinguished themselves. he himself was a young sophist, and at the same time a true comedian, adapting his behaviour to whomsoever he might happen to be addressing, winning over the person in question by striking his particular note and showing that side of his character with which he could best please him. endowed with the capacity of mystifying and dazzling those around him, exceedingly keen-sighted, adaptable but in reality empty, he knew how to set people thinking and to fascinate others by his lively, unprejudiced and often paradoxical, but entertaining conversation. he was now colder, now more confidential; he knew how to assume cordiality, and to flatter by appearing to admire. with a young student like myself who had just left school, was quite inexperienced in all worldly matters, and particularly in the chapter of women, but in whom he detected good abilities and a very strained idealism, he affected ascetic habits. with other companions he showed himself the intensely reckless and dissipated rich man's son he was; indeed, he amused himself by introducing some of the most inoffensive and foolish of them into the wretched dens of vice and letting them indulge themselves at his expense. intellectually interested as he was, he proposed, soon after our first meeting, that we should start a "literary and scientific" society, consisting of a very few freshmen, who, at the weekly meetings, should read a paper one of them had composed, whereupon two members who had previously read the paper should each submit it to a prepared criticism and after that, general discussion of the question. all that concerned the proposed society was carried out with a genuine kappers-like mystery, as if it were a conspiracy, and with forms and ceremonies worthy of a diplomat's action. laws were drafted for the society, although it eventually consisted only of five members, and elaborate minutes were kept of the meetings. among the members was v. topsöe, afterwards well known as an editor and author, at that time a cautious and impudent freshman, whose motto was: "it is protection that we people must live by." he read the society a paper _on the appearance_, dealing with how one ought to dress, behave, speak, do one's hair, which revealed powers of observation and a sarcastic tendency. amongst those who eagerly sought for admission but never secured it was a young student, handsome, and with no small love of study, but stupid and pushing, for whom i, who continued to see myself in lermontof's petsjórin, cherished a hearty contempt, for the curious reason that he in every way reminded me of petsjórin's fatuous and conceited adversary, gruchnitski. vilsing was asked to take part in the society's endeavours, but refused. "what i have against all these societies," he said, "is the self-satisfaction they give rise to; the only theme i should be inclined to treat is that of how the modern don juan must be conceived; but that i cannot do, since i should be obliged to touch on so many incidents of my own life." this was the society before which i read the treatise on _the daemonic_, and it was kappers who, with his well-developed intelligence, would not admit the existence of anything of the sort. the regular meetings went on for six months only, the machinery being too large and heavy in comparison with the results attained. kappers and his intimate friends, however, saw none the less of each other. the brilliant west indian continued to pursue his legal studies and to carry on his merry life in copenhagen for some eighteen months. but his studies gradually came to a standstill, while his gay life took up more and more of his time. he was now living alone in a flat which, to begin with, had been very elegantly furnished, but grew emptier and emptier by degrees, as his furniture was sold, or went to the pawnbroker's. his furniture was followed by his books, and when schou's "_orders in council_" had also been turned into money, his legal studies ceased of themselves. when the bookshelves were empty it was the turn of the wardrobe and the linen drawers, till one autumn day in , an emissary of his father, who had been sent to copenhagen to ascertain what the son was really about, found him in his shirt, without coat or trousers, wrapped up in his fur overcoat, sitting on the floor in his drawing-room, where there was not so much as a chair left. asked how it was that things had come to such a pass with him, he replied: "it is the curse that follows the coloured race." a suit of clothes was redeemed for kappers junior, and he was hurried away as quickly as possible to the german town where his father lived, and where the son explained to everyone who would listen that he had been obliged to leave copenhagen suddenly "on account of a duel with a gentleman in a very exalted position." vi. my first experiences of academic friendship made me smile in after years when i looked back on them. but my circle of acquaintances had gradually grown so large that it was only natural new friendships should grow out of it. one of the members of kappers' "literary and scientific" society, and the one whom the west indian had genuinely cared most for, was a young fellow whose father was very much respected, and to whom attention was called for that reason; he was short, a little heavy on his feet, and a trifle indolent, had beautiful eyes, was warm-hearted and well educated, had good abilities without being specially original, and was somewhat careless in his dress, as in other things. his father was c.n. david, well known in his younger days as a university professor and a liberal politician, who later became the head of the statistical department and a member of the senate. he had been in his youth a friend of johan ludvig heiberg, [footnote: j.l. heiberg, to whom such frequent allusion is made, was a well-known danish author of the last century ( - ). among many other things, he wrote a series of vaudevilles for the royal theatre at copenhagen, of which he was manager. in every piece he wrote there was a special part for his wife, johanne luise heiberg, who was the greatest danish actress of the th century.] and had been dramatic contributor to the latter's paper. he was a very distinguished satirist and critic and his influence upon the taste and critical opinion of his day can only be compared with that of holberg in the th century. now, in concert with bluhme and a few other of the elder politicians, he had formed a conservative fronde, opposed to the policy of the national liberals. one day as we two young men were sitting in his son's room, drafting the rules for the freshmen's society of five members, the old gentleman came through and asked us what we were writing. "rules for a society; we want to get them done as quickly as we can." "that is right. that kind of constitution may very well be written out expeditiously. there has not been very much more trouble or forethought spent on the one we have in this country." it was not, however, so much the internal policy of the national liberals that he objected to--it was only the election law that he was dissatisfied with--as their attitude towards germany. whenever a step was taken in the direction of the incorporation of slesvig, he would exclaim: "we are doing what we solemnly promised not to do. how can anyone be so childish as to believe that it will turn out well!" the son, whose home impressions in politics had been conservative, was a happy young man with a somewhat embarrassed manner, who sometimes hid his uncertainty under the cloak of a carelessness that was not altogether assumed. behind him stood his family, to whom he hospitably introduced those of his companions whom he liked, and though the family were not gentle of origin, they belonged, nevertheless, to the highest circles in the country and exercised their attraction through the son. i, whom ludvig david was now eagerly cultivating, had known him for many years, as we had been school-fellows and even classmates, although david was considerably older. i had never felt drawn to him as a boy, in fact, had not liked him. neither had david, in our school-days, ever made any advances to me, having had other more intimate friends. now, however, he was very cordial to me, and expressed in strong terms his appreciation of my industry and abilities; he himself was often teased at home for his lack of application. c.n. david was the first public personality with whom, as a student, i became acquainted and into whose house i was introduced. for many years i enjoyed unusual kindness and hospitality at the hands of the old politician, afterwards minister of finance. vii. i had hitherto been only mildly interested in politics. i had, of course, as a boy, attentively followed the course of the crimean war, which my french uncle, on one of his visits, had called the fight for civilisation against barbarism, although it was a fight for turkey! now, as a student, i followed with keen interest the italian campaign and the revolt against the austrian dukes and the neapolitan bourbons. but the internal policy of denmark had little attraction for me. as soon as i entered the university i felt myself influenced by the spirit of such men as poul möller, j.l. heiberg, sören kierkegaard, and distinctly removed from the belief in the power of the people which was being preached everywhere at that time. this, however, was hardly more than a frame of mind, which did not preclude my feeling myself in sympathy with what at that time was called broad thought (i.e., liberalism). although i was often indignant at the national liberal and scandinavian terrorism which obtained a hearing at both convivial and serious meetings in the students' union, my feelings in the matter of denmark's foreign policy with regard to sweden and norway, as well as to germany, were the same as those held by all the other students. i felt no intellectual debt to either sweden or norway, but i was drawn by affection towards the swedes and the norsemen, and in christian richardt's lovely song at the northern celebration in , _for sweden and norway_, i found the expression of the fraternal feelings that i cherished in my breast for our two northern neighbours. on the other hand, small as my store of knowledge still was, i had already acquired some considerable impression of german culture. nevertheless, the increasingly inimical attitude of the german people towards denmark, and the threatenings of war with germany, together with my childish recollections of the war of - , had for their effect that in the germany of that day i only saw an enemy's country. a violent affection that i felt at sixteen for a charming little german girl made no difference to this view. viii. the old men, who advocated the greatest caution in dealing with the impossible demands of the german federation, and were profoundly distrustful as to the help that might be expected from europe, were vituperated in the press. as _whole-state men_, they were regarded as unpatriotic, and as so-called _reactionaries_, accused of being enemies to freedom. when i was introduced into the house of one of these politically ill-famed leaders, in spite of my ignorance, i knew enough of politics, as of other subjects, to draw a sharp distinction between that which i could in a measure grasp, and that which i did not understand; i was sufficiently educated to place danish constitutional questions in the latter category, and consequently i crossed, devoid of prejudice, the threshold of a house whence proceeded, according to the opinion of the politically orthodox, a pernicious, though fortunately powerless, political heterodoxy. it must not be supposed that i came into close touch with anything of the sort. the old minister never opened his mouth on political matters in the bosom of his family. but the impression of superior intelligence and knowledge of men that he conveyed was enough to place him in a different light from that in which he was depicted in _the fatherland_, the paper whose opinions were swallowed blindly by the student body. and my faith in the infallibility of the paper was shaken even more one day, when i saw the leader of the reactionary party himself, privy councillor bluhme, at the house, and sat unnoticed in a corner, listening to his conversation. he talked a great deal, although, like the master of the house, he did not allude to his public work. like a statesman of the old school, he expressed himself with exquisite politeness and a certain ceremony. but of the affectation of which _the fatherland_ accused him, there was not a trace. what profoundly impressed me was the danish the old gentleman spoke, the most perfect danish. he told of his travels in india--once upon a time he had been governor of trankebar--and you saw before you the banks of the ganges and the white troops of women, streaming down to bathe in the river, as their religion prescribed. i never forgot the words with which bluhme rose to go: "may i borrow the english blue-books for a few days? there might be something or other that the newspapers have not thought fit to tell us." i started at the words. it dawned upon me for the first time, though merely as a remote possibility, that the press might purposely and with intent to mislead keep silence about facts that had a claim upon the attention of the public. ix. young david had once asked me to read ovid's elegiacs with him, and this was the beginning of our closer acquaintance. in town, in the winter, we two younger ones were only rarely with the rest of the family, but in summer it was different. the minister had built a house at rungsted, on a piece of land belonging to his brother, who was a farmer and the owner of rungstedgaard, rungstedlund and folehavegaard, a shrewd and practical man. to this villa, which was in a beautiful situation, overlooking the sea, i was often invited by my friend to spend a few days in the summer, sometimes even a month at a time. at first, of course, i was nothing to the rest of the family; they received me for the son's sake; but by degrees i won a footing with them, too. the handsome, clever and sprightly mistress of the house took a motherly interest in me, and the young daughters showed me kindness for which i was very grateful. the master of the house sometimes related an anecdote, as, for instance, about heiberg's mad pranks as a young man. when he went off into the woods and got hungry, he used to take provisions from the stores in the lockers of the phaetons that put up at klampenborg, while the people were walking about in the park, and the coachmen inside the public-house. one day, with möhl and david, he got hold of a huge layer-cake. the young fellows had devoured a good half of it and replaced it under the seat of the carriage, when the family came back, caught sight of heiberg, whom they knew, and invited the young men to have a piece of cake and a glass of wine. when they made the horrifying discovery of the havoc that had been wrought, they themselves would not touch it, and the robbers, who were stuffed already, were obliged to consume the remainder of the cake between them. there was often music at the villa; sometimes i was asked to read aloud, and then i did my best, choosing good pieces not well known, and reading carefully. the pleasant outdoor life gave me a few glimpses of that rare and ardently desired thing, still contentment. it was more particularly alone with nature that i felt myself at home. a loose page from my diary of those days will serve to indicate the untried forces that i felt stirring within me: on the way down, the sky was dappled with large and many-coloured clouds. i wandered about in the woods to-day, among the oaks and beeches, and saw the sun gilding the leaves and the tree-trunks, lay down under a tree with my greek homer and read the first and second books of the odyssey. went backwards and forwards in the clover field, revelled in the clover, smelt it, and sucked the juice of the flowers. i have the same splendid view as of old from my window. the sea, in all its flat expanse, moved in towards me to greet me, when i arrived. it was roaring and foaming mildly. hveen could be seen quite clearly. now the wind is busy outside my window, the sea is stormy, the dark heavens show streaks of moonlight.... east wind and rain. went as far as valloröd in a furious wind. the sky kept clear; a dark red patch of colour showed the position of the sun on the horizon. the moon has got up hurriedly, has turned from red to yellow, and looks lovely. i am drunk with the beauties of nature. go to folehave and feel, like the gods in homer, without a care.... i can never get sleepy out in the open country on a windy night. rested a little, got up at four o'clock, went at full speed along soaked roads to humlebaek, to gurre ruins and lake, through the woods to fredensborg park, back to humlebaek, and came home to rungsted by steamer. then went up on the hill. quiet beauty of the landscape. feeling that nature raises even the fallen into purer, loftier regions. took the odyssey and went along the field-path to the stone table; cool, fresh air, harmony and splendour over nature. "wildly soars the hawk." went up into the sunlit wood at hörsholm, gazed at the melancholy expression in the faces of the horses and sheep. i made ducks and drakes and asked the others riddles. a woman came and begged for help to bury her husband; he had had such an easy death. (she is said to have killed him with a blow from a wooden shoe.) sat under a giant beech in rungsted wood; then had a splendid drive after the heavy rain up to folehave and thence to hörsholm. everything was as fresh and lovely as in an enchanted land. what a freshness! the church and the trees mirrored themselves in the lake. the device on my shield shall be three lucky peas. [footnote: there seems to be some such legendary virtue attached in denmark to a pea-pod containing _three_ or _nine_ peas, as with us to a four-leaved clover.--[translator's note.]] to vedbaek and back. we were going for a row. my hostess agreed, but as we had a large, heavy and clumsy boat, they were all nervous. then ludvig's rowlock snapped and he caught a crab. it was no wonder, as he was rowing too deep. so i took both sculls myself. it was tiring to pull the heavy boat with so many, but the sea was inexpressibly lovely, the evening dead calm. silver sheen on the water, visible to the observant and initiated nature-lover. ripple from the west wind (greek: phrhix). grubbed in the shingle, and went to folehave. gathered flowers and strawberries. my fingers still smell of strawberries. went out at night. pictures of my fancy rose around me. a summer's night, but as cold as winter, the clouds banked up on the horizon. suppose in the wind and cold and dark i were to meet one i know! over the corn the wind whispered or whistled a name. the waves dashed in a short little beat against the shore. it is only the sea that is as nature made it; the land in a thousand ways is robbed of its virginity by human hands, but the sea now is as it was thousands of years ago. a thick fog rose up. the birches bent their heads and went to sleep. but i can hear the grass grow and the stars sing. gradually my association with ludvig david grew more and more intimate, and the latter proved himself a constant friend. a few years after our friendship had begun, when things were looking rather black for me, my father having suffered great business losses, and no longer being able to give me the same help as before, ludvig david invited me to go and live altogether at his father's house, and be like a son there--an offer which i of course refused, but which affected me deeply, especially when i learnt that it had only been made after the whole family had been consulted. x. in november, , at exactly the same time as kappers' "literary and scientific" society was started, a fellow-student named grönbeck, from falster, who knew the family of caspar paludan-müller, the historian, proposed my joining another little society of young students, of whom grönbeck thought very highly on account of their altogether unusual knowledge of books and men. in the old students' union in boldhusgade, the only meeting-place at that time for students, which was always regarded in a poetic light, i had not found what i wanted. there was no life in it, and at the convivial meetings on saturday night the punch was bad, the speeches were generally bad, and the songs were good only once in a way. i had just joined one new society, but i never rejected any prospect of acquaintances from whom i could learn anything, and nothing was too much for me. so i willingly agreed, and one evening late in november i was introduced to the society so extolled by grönbeck, which called itself neither "literary" nor "scientific," had no other object than sociability, and met at ehlers' college, in the rooms of a young philological student, frederik nutzhorn. expecting as i did something out of the ordinary, i was very much disappointed. the society proved to be quite vague and indefinite. those present, the host, a certain jens paludan-müller, son of the historian, a certain julius lange, son of the professor of pedagogy, and a few others, received me as though they had been waiting for me to put the society on its legs; they talked as if i were going to do everything to entertain them, and as if they themselves cared to do nothing; they seemed to be indolent, almost sluggish. first we read aloud in turns from björnson's _arne_, which was then new; a lagging conversation followed. nutzhorn talked nonsense, paludan-müller snuffled, julius lange alone occasionally let fall a humorous remark. the contrast between nutzhorn's band, who took sociability calmly and quietly, and kappers' circle, which met to work and discuss things to its utmost capacity, was striking. the band seemed exceedingly phlegmatic in comparison. this first impression was modified at subsequent meetings. as i talked to these young men i discovered, first and foremost, how ignorant i was of political history and the history of art; in the next place, i seemed, in comparison with them, to be old in my opinions and my habits. they called themselves republicans, for instance, whereas republicanism in denmark had in my eyes hitherto been mere youthful folly. then again, they were very unconventional in their habits. after a party near christmas time, which was distinguished by a pretty song by julius lange, they proposed--at twelve o'clock at night!--that we should go to frederiksborg. and extravagances of this kind were not infrequent. still it was only towards midsummer that i became properly merged into the new circle and felt myself at home in it. it had been increased by two or three first-rate fellows, harald paulsen, at the present time lord chief justice, a courageous young fellow, who was not afraid of tackling any ruffian who interfered with him in a defile; troels lund, then studying theology, later on the esteemed historian, who was always refined, self-controlled, thoughtful, and on occasion caustic, great at feints in the fencing class; and emil petersen, then studying law (died in , as departmental head of railways), gentle, dreamy, exceedingly conscientious, with a marked lyric tendency. one evening, shortly before midsummer's eve, when we had gone out to vedbaek, fetched emil petersen from tryggeröd and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery, we had a wrestling match out in the water off skodsborg and a supper party afterwards at which, under the influence of the company, the gaiety rose to a wild pitch and eventually passed all bounds. we made speeches, sang, shouted our witticisms at each other all at once, seized each other round the waist and danced, till we had to stop for sheer tiredness. then we all drank pledges of eternal friendship, and trooped into the town together, and hammered at the doors of the coffee-houses after midnight to try to get in somewhere where we could have coffee. we had learnt all at once to know and appreciate each other to the full; we were united by a feeling of brotherhood and remained friends for life. the life allotted to several of the little band was, it is true, but short; jens paludan-müller fell at sankelmark three and a half years later; nutzhorn had only five years and a half to live. of the others, emil petersen and julius lange are dead. but, whether our lives were long or short, our meetings frequent or rare, we continued to be cordially attached to one another, and no misunderstanding or ill-feeling ever cropped up between us. xi. among my danish excursions was one to slesvig in july, . the copenhagen students had been asked to attend a festival to be held at angel at the end of july for the strengthening of the sparse danish element in that german-minded region. there were not many who wished to go, but several of those who did had beautiful voices, and sang feelingly the national songs with which it was hoped the hearts of the angel people, and especially of the ladies, might be touched. several gentlemen still living, at that time among the recognised leaders of the students, went with us. we sailed from korsör to flensborg one exquisite summer night; we gave up the berths we had secured and stayed all night on deck with a bowl of punch. it was a starlight night, the ship cut rapidly through the calm waters, beautiful songs were sung and high-flown speeches made. one speech was held in a whisper, the one in honour of general de meza, who was still a universal favourite, and who was sitting in his stateroom, waked up out of his sleep, with his white gloves and gaufred lace cuffs on and a red and white night-cap on his head. we young ones only thought of him as the man who, during the battle of fredericia, had never moved a muscle of his face, and when it was over had said quietly: "the result is very satisfactory." unfriendly and sneering looks from the windows at flensborg very soon showed the travellers that danish students' caps were not a welcome sight there. the angel peasants, however, were very pleasant. the festival, which lasted all day and concluded with dancing and fireworks, was a great success, and a young man who had been carousing all night, travelling all day, and had danced all the evening with pretty girls till his senses were in a whirl, could not help regarding the scene of the festival in a romantic light, as he stood there alone, late at night, surrounded by flaring torches, the fireworks sputtering and glittering about him. some few of the students sat in the fields round flaming rings of pitch, an old angel peasant keeping the fires alight and singing danish songs. absolutely enraptured, and with tears in his eyes, he went about shaking hands with the young men and thanking them for coming. it was peculiarly solemn and beautiful. next day, when i got out at egebaek station on my way from flensborg, intending to go to idsted, it seemed that three other young men had had the same idea, so we all four walked together. they were young men of a type i had not met with before. the way they felt and spoke was new to me. they all talked in a very affectionate manner, betrayed at once that they worshipped one another, and seemed to have strong, open natures, much resembling each other. they were ernst trier, nörregaard, and baagöe, later the three well-known high school men. the little band arrived at a quick pace on idsted's beautiful heath, all tufts of ling, the red blossoms of which looked lovely in the light of the setting sun. we sat ourselves down on the hill where baudissin and his staff had stood. then baagöe read aloud hammerich's description of the battle of idsted, while each of us in his mind's eye saw the seething masses of troops advance and fall upon one another, as they had done just ten years before. our time was short, if we wanted to get under a roof that night. at o'clock we were still eight miles from slesvig. we did the first four at a pace that was novel to me. three-parts of the way we covered in forty-five minutes, the last two miles took us twenty. when we arrived at the hotel, there stood madam esselbach, of war renown, in the doorway, with her hands on her hips, as in her portrait; she summed up the arrivals with shrewd, sharp eyes, and exclaimed: "_das ist ja das junge dänemark_." inside, officers were sitting, playing cards. major sommer promised us young men to show us gottorp at o'clock next morning; we should then get a view of the whole of the town from hersterberg beforehand. the major, who was attacked in the newspapers after the war, and whose expression "my maiden sword," was made great fun of, showed us younger ones the magnificent church, and afterwards the castle, which, as a barracks, was quite spoilt. he acted as the father of the regiment, and, like poul möller's artist, encouraged the efficient, and said hard words to the slighty, praising or blaming unceasingly, chatted danish to the soldiers, low german to the cook, high german to the little housekeeper at the castle, and called the attention of his guests to the perfect order and cleanliness of the stables. he complained bitterly that a certain senior lieutenant he pointed out to us, who in had flung his cockade in the gutter and gone over to the germans, had been reinstated in the regiment, and placed over the heads of brave second-lieutenants who had won their crosses in the war. here i parted with my grundtvigian friends. when i spoke of them to julius lange on my return, he remarked: "they are a good sort, who wear their hearts in their buttonholes as decorations." the society i fell in with for the rest of my journey was very droll. this consisted of borup, later mayor of finance, and a journalist named falkman (really petersen), even at that time on the staff of _the dally paper_. i little guessed then that my somewhat vulgar travelling companion would develop into the cato who wished ibsen's _ghosts_ "might be thrust into the slime-pit, where such things belong," and would write articles by the hundred against me. neither had i any suspicion, during my acquaintance with topsöe, that the latter would one day be one of my most determined persecutors. without exactly being strikingly youthful, the large, broad-shouldered borup was still a young man. falkman wrote good-humouredly long reports to bille about slesvig, which i corrected for him. borup and falkman generally exclaimed the moment i opened my mouth: "not seraphic, now!" we travelled together to glücksborg, saw the camp there, and, as we had had nothing since our morning coffee at o'clock, ate between the three of us a piece of roast meat six pounds weight. we spent the night at flensborg and drove next day to graasten along a lovely road with wooded banks on either side. it was pouring with rain, and we sat in dead silence, trying to roll ourselves up in horse-cloths. when in an hour's time the rain stopped, and we put up at an inn, our enforced silence gave place to the wildest merriment. we three young fellows--the future finance minister as well--danced into the parlour, hopped about like wild men, spilt milk over ourselves, the sofa, and the waitress; then sprang, waltzing and laughing, out through the door again and up into the carriage, after having heaped the girl with small copper coins. from graasten we proceeded to sönderborg. the older men lay down and slept after the meal. i went up to dybbölmölle. on the way back, i found on a hill looking out over als a bench from which there was a beautiful view across to slesvig. i lay down on the seat and gazed up at the sky and across the perfect country. the light fields, with their tall, dark hedges, which give the slesvig scenery its peculiar stamp, from this high-lying position looked absolutely lovely. xii. i was not given to looking at life in a rosy light. my nature, one uninterrupted endeavour, was too tense for that. although i occasionally felt the spontaneous enjoyments of breathing the fresh air, seeing the sun shine, and listening to the whistling of the wind, and always delighted in the fact that i was in the heyday of my youth, there was yet a considerable element of melancholy in my temperament, and i was so loth to abandon myself to any illusion that when i looked into my own heart and summed up my own life it seemed to me that i had never been happy for a day. i did not know what it was to be happy for a whole day at a time, scarcely for an hour. i had only known a moment's rapture in the companionship of my comrades at a merry-making, in intercourse with a friend, under the influence of the beauties of nature, or the charm of women, or in delight at gaining intellectual riches--during the reading of a poem, the sight of a play, or when absorbed in a work of art. any feeling that i was enriching my mind from those surrounding me was unfortunately rare with me. almost always, when talking to strangers, i felt the exact opposite, which annoyed me exceedingly, namely, that i was being intellectually sucked, squeezed like a lemon, and whereas i was never bored when alone, in the society of other people i suffered overwhelmingly from boredom. in fact, i was so bored by the visits heaped upon me by my comrades and acquaintances, who inconsiderately wasted my time, in order to kill a few hours, that i was almost driven to despair; i was too young obstinately to refuse to see them. by degrees, the thought of the boredom that i suffered at almost all social functions dominated my mind to such an extent that i wrote a little fairy tale about boredom, by no means bad (but unfortunately lost), round an idea which i saw several years later treated in another way in sibbern's well-known book of the year . this fairy tale was read aloud to nutzhorn's band and met with its approval. but although i could thus by no means be called of a happy disposition, i was, by reason of my overflowing youth, in a constant state of elation, which, as soon as the company of others brought me out of my usual balance, acted like exuberant mirth and made me burst out laughing. i was noted, among my comrades, and not always to my advantage, for my absolutely ungovernable risibility. i had an exceedingly keen eye for the ridiculous, and easily influenced as i still was, i could not content myself with a smile. not infrequently, when walking about the town, i used to laugh the whole length of a street. there were times when i was quite incapable of controlling my laughter; i laughed like a child, and it was incomprehensible to me that people could go so soberly and solemnly about. if a person stared straight at me, it made me laugh. if a girl flirted a little with me, i laughed in her face. one day i went out and saw two drunken labourers, in a cab, each with a wreath on his knee; i was obliged to laugh; i met an old dandy whom i knew, with two coats on, one of which hung down below the other; i had to laugh at that, too. sometimes, walking or standing, absorbed in thoughts, i was outwardly abstracted, and answered mechanically, or spoke in a manner unsuited to my words; if i noticed this myself, i could not refrain from laughing aloud at my own absent-mindedness. it occasionally happened that at an evening party, where i had been introduced by the son of the house to a stiff family to whom i was a stranger, and where the conversation at table was being carried on in laboured monosyllables, i would begin to laugh so unrestrainedly that every one stared at me in anger or amazement. and it occasionally happened that when some sad event, concerning people present, was being discussed, the recollection of something comical i had seen or heard the same day would crop up in my mind to the exclusion of all else, and i would be overtaken by fits of laughter that were both incomprehensible and wounding to those round me, but which it was impossible to me to repress. at funeral ceremonies, i was in such dread of bursting out laughing that my attention would involuntarily fix itself on everything it ought to avoid. this habit of mine was particularly trying when my laughter had a ruffling effect on others in a thing that i myself was anxious to carry through. thus i spoilt the first rehearsals of sophocles' greek play _philoctetes_, which a little group of students were preparing to act at the request of julius lange. some of them pronounced the greek in an unusual manner, others had forgotten their parts or acted badly--and that was quite enough to set me off in a fit of laughter which i had difficulty in stopping. thus i often laughed, when i was tormented at being compelled to laugh, in reality feeling melancholy, and mentally worried; i used to think of oechlenschläger's oervarodd, who does not laugh when he is happy, but breaks into a guffaw when he is deeply affected. these fits of laughter were in reality the outcome of sheer youthfulness; with all my musings and reflection, i was still in many ways a child; i laughed as boys and girls laugh, without being able to stop, and especially when they ought not. but this painful trait in myself directed my thoughts to the nature proper of laughter; i tried to sum up to myself why i laughed, and why people in general laughed, pondered, as well as i was capable of doing the question of what the comical consisted of, and then recorded the fruits of my reflections in my second long treatise, _on laughter_, which has been lost. as i approached my twentieth year, these fits of laughter stopped. "i have," wrote i at the time, "seen into that realm of sighs, on the threshold of which i--like parmeniscus after consulting the oracle of trophonius--have suddenly forgotten how to laugh." xiii. meanwhile i had completed my eighteenth year and had to make my choice of a profession. but what was i fitted for? my parents, and those other of my relations whose opinions i valued, wished me to take up the law; they thought that i might make a good barrister; but i myself held back, and during my first year of study did not attend a single law lecture. in july, , after i had passed my philosophical examination (with _distinction_ in every subject), the question became urgent. whether i was likely to exhibit any considerable talent as a writer, it was impossible for me to determine. there was only one thing that i felt clear about, and that was that i should never be contented with a subordinate position in the literary world; better a hundred times be a judge in a provincial town. i felt an inward conviction that i should make my way as a writer. it seemed to me that a deathlike stillness reigned for the time being over european literature, but that there were mighty forces working in the silence. i believed that a revival was imminent. in august, , i wrote in my private papers: "we danes, with our national culture and our knowledge of the literatures of other countries, will stand well equipped when the literary horn of the gods resounds again through the world, calling fiery youth to battle. i am firmly convinced that that time will come and that i shall be, if not the one who evokes it in the north, at any rate one who will contribute greatly towards it." one of the first books i had read as a student was goethe's _dichtung und wahrheit_, and this career had extraordinarily impressed me. in my childlike enthusiasm i determined to read all the books that goethe says that he read as a boy, and thus commenced and finished winckelmann's collected works, lessing's _laocoon_ and other books of artistic and archaeological research; in other words, studied the history and philosophy of art in the first instance under aspects which, from the point of view of subsequent research, were altogether antiquated, though in themselves, and in their day, valuable enough. goethe's life fascinated me for a time to such an extent that i found duplicates of the characters in the book everywhere. an old language master, to whom i went early in the morning, in order to acquire from him the knowledge of english which had not been taught me at school, reminded me vividly, for instance, of the old dancing master in goethe, and my impression was borne out when i discovered that he, too, had two pretty daughters. a more important point was that the book awoke in me a restless thirst for knowledge, at the same time that i conceived a mental picture of goethe's monumental personality and began to be influenced by the universality of his genius. meanwhile, circumstances at home forced me, without further vacillation, to take up some special branch of study. the prospects literature presented were too remote. for physics i had no talent; the logical bent of my abilities seemed to point in the direction of the law; so jurisprudentia was selected and my studies commenced. the university lectures, as given by professors aagesen and gram, were appalling; they consisted of a slow, sleepy dictation. a death-like dreariness brooded always over the lecture halls. aagesen was especially unendurable; there was no trace of anything human or living about his dictation. gram had a kind, well-intentioned personality, but had barely reached his desk than it seemed as though he, too, were saying: "i am a human being, everything human is alien to me." we consequently had to pursue our studies with the help of a coach, and the one whom i, together with kappers, ludvig david and a few others, had chosen, otto algreen-ussing, was both a capable and a pleasant guide. five years were yet to elapse before this man and his even more gifted brother, frederik, on the formation of the loyal and conservative society of august, were persecuted and ridiculed as reactionaries, by the editors of the ascendant press, who, only a few years later, proved themselves to be ten times more reactionary themselves. otto was positively enthusiastic over law; he used to declare that a barrister "was the finest thing a man could be." however, he did not succeed in infecting me with his enthusiasm. i took pains, but there was little in the subject that aroused my interest. christian the fifth's _danish law_ attracted me exclusively on account of its language and the perspicuity and pithiness of the expressions occasionally made use of. with this exception what impressed me most of all that i heard in the lessons was anders sandöe oersted's _interpretation of the law_. when i had read and re-read a passage of law which seemed to me to be easily intelligible, and only capable of being understood in one way, how could i do other than marvel and be seized with admiration, when the coach read out oersted's interpretation, proving that the law was miserably couched, and could be expounded in three or four different ways, all contradicting one another! but this oersted very often did prove in an irrefutable manner. in my lack of receptivity for legal details, and my want of interest in positive law, i flung myself with all the greater fervour into the study of what in olden times was called natural law, and plunged again and again into the study of legal philosophy. xiv. about the same time as my legal studies were thus beginning, i planned out a study of philosophy and aesthetics on a large scale as well. my day was systematically filled up from early morning till late at night, and there was time for everything, for ancient and modern languages, for law lessons with the coach, for the lectures in philosophy which professors h. bröchner and r. nielsen were holding for more advanced students, and for independent reading of a literary, scientific and historic description. one of the masters who had taught me at school, a very erudite philologian, now dr. oscar siesbye, offered me gratuitous instruction, and with his help several of the tragedies of sophocles and euripides, various things of plato's, and comedies by plautus and terence were carefully studied. frederik nutzhorn read the _edda_ and the _niebelungenlied_ with me in the originals; with jens paludan-müller i went through the new testament in greek, and with julius lange, aeschylus, sophocles, pindar, horace and ovid, and a little of aristotle and theocritus. catullus, martial and caesar i read for myself. but i did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until i approached my nineteenth year. in philosophy i had hitherto mastered only a few books by sören kierkegaard. but now i began a conscientious study of heiberg's philosophical writings and honestly endeavoured to make myself familiar with his speculative logic. as heiberg's _prose writings_ came out, in the edition, they were studied with extreme care. heiberg's death in was a great grief to me; as a thinker i had loved and revered him. the clearness of form and the internal obscurity of his adaptation of hegel's teachings, gave one a certain artistic satisfaction, at the same time that it provoked an effort really to understand. but in the nature of things, heiberg's philosophical life-work could not to a student be other than an admission into hegel's train of thought, and an introduction to the master's own works. i was not aware that by europe had long passed his works by in favour of more modern thinking. with a passionate desire to reach a comprehension of the truth, i grappled with the system, began with the encyclopaedia, read the three volumes of aesthetics, the philosophy of law, the philosophy of history, the phenomenology of the mind, then the philosophy of law again, and finally the logic, the natural philosophy and the philosophy of the mind in a veritable intoxication of comprehension and delight. one day, when a young girl towards whom i felt attracted had asked me to go and say good-bye to her before her departure, i forgot the time, her journey, and my promise to her, over my hegel. as i walked up and down my room i chanced to pull my watch out of my pocket, and realised that i had missed my appointment and that the girl must have started long ago. hegel's philosophy of law had a charm for me as a legal student, partly on account of the superiority with which the substantial quality of hegel's mind is there presented, and partly on account of the challenge in the attitude of the book to accepted opinions and expressions, "morality" here being almost the only thing hegel objects to. but it was the book on aesthetics that charmed me most of all. it was easy to understand, and yet weighty, superabundantly rich. again and again while reading hegel's works i felt carried away with delight at the new world of thought opening out before me. and when anything that for a long time had been incomprehensible to me, at last after tenacious reflection became clear, i felt what i myself called "an unspeakable bliss." hegel's system of thought, anticipatory of experience, his german style, overburdened with arbitrarily constructed technical words from the year , which one might think would daunt a young student of another country and another age, only meant to me difficulties which it was a pleasure to overcome. sometimes it was not hegelianism itself that seemed the main thing. the main thing was that i was learning to know a world-embracing mind; i was being initiated into an attempt to comprehend the universe which was half wisdom and half poetry; i was obtaining an insight into a method which, if scientifically unsatisfying, and on that ground already abandoned by investigators, was fruitful and based upon a clever, ingenuous, highly intellectual conception of the essence of truth; i felt myself put to school to a great intellectual leader, and in this school i learnt to think. i might, it is true, have received my initiation in a school built up on more modern foundations; it is true that i should have saved much time, been spared many detours, and have reached my goal more directly had i been introduced to an empirical philosophy, or if fate had placed me in a school in which historical sources were examined more critically, but not less intelligently, and in which respect for individuality was greater. but such as the school was, i derived from it all the benefit it could afford to my _ego_, and i perceived with delight that my intellectual progress was being much accelerated. consequently it did not specially take from my feeling of having attained a measure of scientific insight, when i learnt--what i had not known at first--that my teachers, hans bröchner, as well as rasmus nielsen, were agreed not to remain satisfied with the conclusions of the german philosopher, had "got beyond hegel." at the altitude to which the study of philosophy had now lifted me, i saw that the questions with which i had approached science were incorrectly formulated, and they fell away of themselves, even without being answered. words that had filled men's minds for thousands of years, god, infinity, thought, nature and mind, freedom and purpose, all these words acquired another and a deeper meaning, were stamped with a new character, acquired a new value, and the depurated ideas which they now expressed opposed each other, and combined with each other, until the universe was seen pierced by a plexus of thoughts, and resting calmly within it. viewed from these heights, the petty and the every-day matters which occupied the human herd seemed so contemptible. of what account, for instance, was the wrangling in the senate and the parliament of a little country like denmark compared with hegel's vision of the mighty march, inevitable and determined by spiritual laws, of the idea of freedom, through the world's history! and of what account was the daily gossip of the newspapers, compared with the possibility now thrown open of a life of eternal ideals, lived in and for them! xv. i had an even deeper perception of my initiation when i went back from hegel to spinoza and, filled with awe and enthusiasm, read the _ethica_ for the first time. here i stood at the source of modern pantheistic philosophy. here philosophy was even more distinctly religion, since it took religion's place. though the method applied was very artificial, purely mathematical, at least philosophy had here the attraction of a more original type of mind, the effect being much the same as that produced by primitive painting, compared with a more developed stage. his very expression, _god or nature_, had a fascinating mysticism about it. the chapter in the book which is devoted to the natural history of passions, surprised and enriched one by its simple, but profound, explanation of the conditions of the human soul. and although his fight against superstition's views of life is conducted with a keenness that scouts discussion, whereas in modern philosophy the contention is merely implied, it seemed as though his thoughts travelled along less stormy paths. in hegel, it had been exclusively the comprehensiveness of the thoughts and the mode of the thought's procedure that held my attention. with spinoza it was different. it was his personality that attracted, the great man in him, one of the greatest that history has known. with him a new type had made its entrance into the world's history; he was the calm thinker, looking down from above on this earthly life, reminding one, by the purity and strength of his character, of jesus, but a contrast to jesus, inasmuch as he was a worshipper of nature and necessity, and a pantheist. his teaching was the basis of the faith of the new age. he was a saint and a heathen, seditious and pious, at the same time. xvi. still, while i was in this way making a purely mental endeavour to penetrate into as many intellectual domains as i could, and to become master of one subject after another, i was very far from being at peace with regard to my intellectual acquisitions, or from feeling myself in incontestable possession of them. while i was satisfying my desire for insight or knowledge and, by glimpses, felt my supremest happiness in the delight of comprehension, an ever more violent struggle was going on in my emotions. as my being grew and developed within me and i slowly emerged from the double state of which i had been conscious, in other words, the more i became one and individual and strove to be honest and true, the less i felt myself to be a mere individual, the more i realised that i was bound up with humanity, one link in the chain, one organ belonging to the universe. the philosophical pantheism i was absorbed by, itself worked counter to the idea of individualism inherent in me, taught me and presented to me the union of all beings in nature the all-divine. but it was not from pantheism that the crisis of my spiritual life proceeded; it was from the fountains of emotion which now shot up and filled my soul with their steady flow. a love for humanity came over me, and watered and fertilised the fields of my inner world which had been lying fallow, and this love of humanity vented itself in a vast compassion. this gradually absorbed me till i could hardly bear the thought of the suffering, the poor, the oppressed, the victims of injustice. i always saw them in my mind's eye, and it seemed to be my duty to work for them, and to be disgraceful of me to enjoy the good things of life while so many were being starved and tortured. often as i walked along the streets at night i brooded over these ideas till i knew nothing of what was passing around me, but only felt how all the forces of my brain drew me towards those who suffered. there were warm-hearted and benevolent men among my near relatives. the man whom my mother's younger sister had married had his heart in the right place, so much indeed that he no sooner saw or heard of distress than his hand was in his pocket, although he had little from which to give. my father's brother was a genuinely philanthropic man, who founded one beneficent institution or society after the other, had an unusual power of inducing his well-to-do fellow-townsmen to carry his schemes through, and in the elaboration of them showed a perception and practical sense that almost amounted to genius; this was the more surprising since his intelligence was not otherwise remarkable for its keenness and his reasoning methods were confused. but what i felt was quite different. my feelings were not so easily roused as those of the first-mentioned; i was not so good-natured or so quick to act as he. neither did they resemble those of my other uncle, who merely represented compassion for those unfortunately situated, but was without the least vestige of rebellious feeling against the conditions or the people responsible for the misery; my uncle was always content with life as it was, saw the hand of a loving providence everywhere and was fully and firmly convinced that he himself was led and helped by this same providence, which specially watched over the launching of his projects for the welfare of mankind. no, my feeling was of quite another kind. nothing was farther removed from me than this sometimes quite childish optimism. it was not enough for me to advertise the sufferings of a few individuals and, when possible, alleviate them; i sought the causes of them in brutality and injustice. neither could i recognise the finger of a universal ruler in a confusion of coincidences, conversations, newspaper articles, and advice by prudent men, the outcome of all which was the founding of a society for seamstresses or the erection of a hospital to counteract the misery that the controlling power had itself occasioned. i was a child no longer, and in that sense never had been childish. but my heart bled none the less with sympathy for society's unfortunates. i did not as yet perceive the necessity of that selfishness which is self-assertion, and i felt oppressed and tormented by all that i, in my comparatively advantageous position as a non-proletarian, enjoyed, while many others did not. then another mood, with other promptings, asserted itself. i felt an impulse to step forward as a preacher to the world around me, to the thoughtless and the hardhearted. under the influence of strong emotion i wrote an edifying discourse, _the profitable fear_. i began to regard it as my duty, so soon as i was fitted for it, to go out into the town and preach at every street-corner, regardless of whether a lay preacher, like myself, should encounter indifference or harvest scorn. this course attracted me because it presented itself to me under the guise of the most difficult thing, and, with the perversity of youth, i thought difficulty the only criterion of duty. i only needed to hit upon something that seemed to me to be the right thing and then say to myself: "you dare not do it!" for all the youthful strength and daring that was in me, all my deeper feelings of honour and of pride, all my love of grappling with the apparently insurmountable to unite, and in face of this _you dare not_, satisfy myself that i did dare. as provisionally, self-abnegation, humility, and asceticism seemed to me to be the most difficult things, for a time my whole spiritual life was concentrated into an endeavour to attain them. just at this time--i was nineteen--my family was in a rather difficult pecuniary position, and i, quite a poor student, was cast upon my own resources. i had consequently not much of this world's goods to renounce. from a comfortable residence in crown prince's street, my parents had moved to a more modest flat in the exceedingly unaristocratic salmon street, where i had an attic of limited dimensions with outlook over roofs by day and a view of the stars by night. quiet the nights were not, inasmuch as the neighbouring houses re-echoed with screams and shrieks from poor women, whom their late-returning husbands or lovers thrashed in their cups. but never had i felt myself so raised, so exhilarated, so blissfully happy, as in that room. my days slipped by in ecstasy; i felt myself consecrated a combatant in the service of the highest. i used to test my body, in order to get it wholly under my control, ate as little as possible, slept as little as possible, lay many a night outside my bed on the bare floor, gradually to make myself as hardy as i required to be. i tried to crush the youthful sensuality that was awakening in me, and by degrees acquired complete mastery over myself, so that i could be what i wished to be, a strong and willing instrument in the fight for the victory of truth. and i plunged afresh into study with a passion and a delight that prevented my perceiving any lack, but month after month carried me along, increasing in knowledge and in mental power, growing from day to day. xvii. this frame of mind, however, was crossed by another. the religious transformation in my mind could not remain clear and unmuddied, placed as i was in a society furrowed through and through by different religious currents, issued as i was from the european races that for thousands of years had been ploughed by religious ideas. all the atavism, all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual, leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without. it was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me. all my more intimate friends were orthodox christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them julius lange, and jens paludan-müller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought without making any impression. i was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hide. to set my mind in vibration, there was needed a brain that i felt superior to my own; and i did not find it in them. i found it in the philosophical and religious writings of sören kierkegaard, in such works, for instance, as _sickness unto death_. the struggle within me began, faintly, as i approached my nineteenth year. my point of departure was this: one thing seemed to me requisite, to live in and for _the idea_, as the expression for the highest at that time was. all that rose up inimical to _the idea_ or ideal merited to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation. and one day i penned this outburst: "heine wept over _don quixote_. yes, he was right. i could weep tears of blood when i think of the book." but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal. heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals. but i was quite sure myself that education afforded no criterion. and i could find no other criterion of devotion to the ideal than a willingness to make sacrifices. if, i said, i prove myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches i am fighting, i shall myself incur well-merited scorn. but if self-sacrifice were the criterion, then jesus, according to the teachings of tradition, was the ideal, for who as self-sacrificing as he? this was an inclined plane leading to the christian spiritual life, and a year later, when i was nearly twenty, i had proceeded so far on this plane that i felt myself in all essentials in agreement with the christian mode of feeling, inasmuch as my life was ascetic, and my searching, striving, incessantly working mind, not only found repose, but rapture, in prayer, and was elated and fired at the idea of being protected and helped by "god." but just as i was about to complete my twentieth year, the storm broke out over again, and during the whole of the ensuing six months raged with unintermittent violence. was i, at this stage of my development, a christian or not? and if not, was it my duty to become a christian? the first thought that arose was this: it is a great effort, a constant effort, sometimes a minutely recurring effort, to attain moral mastery over one's self, and though this certainly need not bring with it a feeling of self-satisfaction, much less _ought_ to do so, it does bring with it a recognition of the value of this self-mastery. how strange, then, that christianity, which commands its attainment, at the same time declares it to be a matter of indifference to the revealed god whether a man has lived morally or not, since faith or lack of faith is the one condition upon which so-called salvation depends! the next thought was this: it is only in the writings of kierkegaard, in his teachings concerning paradox, that christianity appears so definite that it cannot be confused with any other spiritual trend whatever. but when one has to make one's choice between pantheism and christianity, then the question arises, are kierkegaard's teachings really historic christianity, and not rather a rational adaptation? and this question must be answered in the negative, since it is possible to assimilate it without touching upon the question of the revelation of the holy ghost in the shape of a dove, to the voice from the clouds, and the whole string of miracles and dogmas. the next thought again was this: pantheism does not place any one unconditional goal in front of man. the unbeliever passes his life interested in the many aims that man, as man, has. the pantheist will therefore have difficulty in living a perfect ethical life. there are many cases in which, by deviating from the strictly ethic code, you do not harm anyone, you only injure your own soul. the non-believer will in this case only hardly, for the sake of impersonal truth, make up his mind to the step which the god-fearing man will take actuated by his passionate fear of offending god. thus was i tossed backwards and forwards in my reflections. xviii. what i dreaded most was that if i reached a recognition of the truth, a lack of courage would prevent me decisively making it my own. courage was needed, as much to undertake the burdens entailed by being a christian as to undertake those entailed by being a pantheist. when thinking of christianity, i drew a sharp distinction between the cowardice that shrunk from renunciation and the doubt that placed under discussion the very question as to whether renunciation were duty. and it was clear to me that, on the road which led to christianity, doubt must be overcome before cowardice--not the contrary, as kierkegaard maintains in his _for self-examination_, where he says that none of the martyrs doubted. but my doubt would not be overcome. kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that christianity was not horror or madness. for me it was sometimes both. i concluded therefrom that i had no consciousness of sin, and found this idea confirmed when i looked into my own heart. for however violently at this period i reproached myself and condemned my failings, they were always in my eyes weaknesses that ought to be combatted, or defects that could be remedied, never sins that necessitated forgiveness, and for the obtaining of this forgiveness, a saviour. that god had died for me as my saviour,--i could not understand what it meant; it was an idea that conveyed nothing to me. and i wondered whether the inhabitants of another planet would be able to understand how on the earth that which was contrary to all reason was considered the highest truth. xix. with pantheism likewise i was on my guard against its being lack of courage, rather than a conviction of its untruth, which held me back from embracing it. i thought it a true postulate that everything seemed permeated and sustained by a reason that had not human aims in front of it and did not work by human means, a divine reason. nature could only be understood from its highest forms; the ideal, which revealed itself to the world of men at their highest development, was present, in possibility and intent, in the first germ, in the mist of primeval creation, before it divided itself into organic and inorganic elements. the whole of nature was in its essence divine, and i felt myself at heart a worshipper of nature. but this same nature was indifferent to the weal or woe of humans. it obeyed its own laws regardless of whether men were lost thereby; it seemed cruel in its callousness; it took care that the species should be preserved, but the individual was nothing to it. now, like all other european children, i had been brought up in the theory of personal immortality, a theory which, amongst other things, is one way of expressing the immense importance, the eternal importance, which is attributed to each individual. the stronger the feeling of his own _ego_ that the individual has, the more eagerly he necessarily clings to the belief that he cannot be annihilated. but to none could the belief be more precious than to a youth who felt his life pulsate within, as if he had twenty lives in himself and twenty more to live. it was impossible to me to realise that i could die, and one evening, about a year later, i astonished my master, professor bröchner, by confessing as much. "indeed," said bröchner, "are you speaking seriously? you cannot realise that you will have to die one day? how young! you are very different from me, who always have death before my eyes." but although my vitality was so strong that i could not imagine my own death, i knew well enough that my terrestrial life, like all other men's, would come to an end. but i felt all the more strongly that it was impossible everything could be at an end then; death could not be a termination; it could only, as the religions preached and as eighteenth-century deism taught, be a moment of transition to a new and fuller existence. in reward and punishment after death i could not believe; those were mediaeval conceptions that i had long outgrown. but the dream of immortality i could not let go. and i endeavoured to hold it fast by virtue of the doctrine of the impossibility of anything disappearing. the quantity of matter always remained the same; energy survived every transformation. still, i realised that this could not satisfy one, as far as the form which we term individuality was concerned. what satisfaction was it to alexander that his dust should stop a bung-hole? or to shakespeare that romeo and juliet were acted in chicago? so i took refuge in parallels and images. who could tell whether the soul, which on earth had been blind to the nature of the other life, did not, in death, undergo the operation which opened its eyes? who could tell whether death were not, as sibbern had suggested, to be compared with a birth? just as the unborn life in its mother's womb would, if it were conscious, believe that the revolution of birth meant annihilation, whereas it was for the first time awakening to a new and infinitely richer life, so it was perhaps for the soul in the dreaded moment of death.... but when i placed before my master these comparisons and the hopes i built upon them, they were swept away as meaningless; he pointed out simply that nothing went to prove a continuation of personality after death, while on the contrary everything argued against it,--and to this i could not refuse my assent. then i understood that in what i called pantheism, the immortality of the individual had no place. and a slow, internal struggle commenced for renunciation of the importance and value of the individual. i had many a conversation on this point with my teacher, a man tired of life and thoroughly resigned. he always maintained that the desire of the individual for a continuation of personality was nothing but the outcome of vanity. he would very often put the question in a comical light. he related the following anecdote: in summer evenings he used to go for a walk along the philosopher's avenue (now west rampart street). here he had frequently met, sitting on their benches, four or five old gentlemen who took their evening ramble at the same time; by degrees they made each other's acquaintance and got into conversation with one another. it turned out that the old gentlemen were candle-makers who had retired from business and now had considerable difficulty in passing their time away. in reality they were always bored, and they yawned incessantly. these men had one theme only, to which they always recurred with enthusiasm--their hope in personal immortality for all eternity. and it amused bröchner that they, who in this life did not know how to kill so much as one sunday evening, should be so passionately anxious to have a whole eternity to fill up. his pupil then caught a glimpse himself of the grotesqueness of wishing to endure for millions of centuries, which time even then was nothing in comparison with eternity. xx. but in spite of it all, it was a hard saying, that in the pantheistic view of life the absorption of the individual into the great whole took the place of the continued personal existence which was desired by the _ego_. but what frightened me even more was that the divine all was not to be moved or diverted by prayer. but pray i had to. from my earliest childhood i had been accustomed, in anxiety or necessity, to turn my thoughts towards a higher power, first forming my needs and wishes into words, and then later, without words, concentrating myself in worship. it was a need inherited from many hundreds of generations of forefathers, this need of invoking help and comfort. nomads of the plains, bedouins of the desert, ironclad warriors, pious priests, roving sailors, travelling merchants, the citizen of the town and the peasant in the country, all had prayed for centuries, and from the very dawn of time; the women, the hundreds and hundreds of women from whom i was descended, had centred all their being in prayer. it was terrible, never to be able to pray again.... never to be able to fold one's hands, never to raise one's eyes above, but to live, shut in overhead, alone in the universe! if there were no eye in heaven that watched over the individual, no ear that understood his plaint, no hand that protected him in danger, then he was placed, as it were, on a desolate steppe where the wolves were howling. and in alarm i tried once more the path towards religious quietude that i had recently deemed impracticable,--until the fight within me calmed again, and in renunciation i forced my emotion to bow to what my reason had acknowledged as the truth. adolescence julius lange--a new master--inadaption to the law--the university prize competition--an interview with the judges--meeting of scandinavian students--the paludan-müllers--björnstjerne björnson--magdalene thoresen--the gold medal--the death of king frederik vii--the political situation--my master of arts examination--war--_admissus cum laude praecipua_--academical attention--lecturing--music--nature--a walking tour--in print--philosophical life in denmark--death of ludwig david--stockholm. i. among my many good comrades, there was one, julius lange, with whom comradeship had developed into friendship, and this friendship again assumed a passionate character. we were the two, who, of them all, were most exactly suited to one another, completed one another. fundamentally different though we were, we could always teach each other something. we grew indispensable to one another; for years there seldom a day went by that we did not meet. the association with his junior cannot possibly have given julius lange a delight corresponding to that which his society gave me. intellectually equal, we were of temperaments diametrically opposed. having the same love of art and the same enthusiasm for art,--save that the one cared more for its pictorial and the other for its literary expression,--we were of mutual assistance to one another in the interchange of thoughts and information. entirely at variance in our attitude towards religious tradition, in our frequent collisions we were both perpetually being challenged to a critical inspection of our intellectual furniture. but i was the one who did the worshipping. when julius lange, on december , , after having twice been to see me and found me out, the third time met with me and informed me: "i have received an invitation to go to italy on saturday and be away five months," was, though surprised, exceedingly glad for my friend's sake, but at the same time i felt as if i had received a blow in the face. what would become of me, not only during the interval, but afterwards? who could say whether lange would ever come back, or whether he would not come back changed? how should i be able to endure my life! i should have to work tremendously hard, to be able to bear the loss of him. i could hardly understand how i should be able to exist when i could no longer, evening after evening, slip up to my friend's little room to sit there in calm, quiet contentment, seeing pictures and exchanging thoughts! it was as though a nerve had been cut. i only then realised that i had never loved any man so much. i had had four eyes; now i had only two again; i had had two brains; now i had only one; in my heart i had felt the happiness of two human beings; now only the melancholy of one was left behind. there was not a painting, a drawing, a statue or a bas-relief in the galleries and museums of copenhagen that we had not studied together and compared our impressions of. we had been to thorwaldsen's museum together, we went together to bissen's studio, where in november, , i met for the first time my subsequent friends, vilhelm bissen and walter runeberg. the memory of julius lange was associated in my mind with every picture of hobbema, dubbels or ruysdael, rembrandt or rubens, every reproduction of italian renaissance art, every photograph of church or castle. and i myself loved pictures even more ardently than poetry. i was fond of comparing my relations with literature to affection for a being of the same sex; my passion for pictures to the stormy passion of a youth for a woman. it is true that i knew much less about art than about poetry, but that made no difference. i worshipped my favourite artists with a more impetuous enthusiasm than any of my favourite authors. and this affection for pictures and statuary was a link between my friend and myself. when we were sitting in my room together, and another visitor happened to be there, i positively suffered over the sacrifice of an hour's enjoyment and when lange got up to go, i felt as though a window had been slammed to, and the fresh air shut out. ii. i had for a long time pursued my non-juridic studies as well as i could without the assistance of a teacher. but i had felt the want of one. and when a newly appointed docent at the university, professor h. bröchner, offered instruction in the study of philosophy to any who cared to present themselves at his house at certain hours, i had felt strongly tempted to take advantage of his offer. i hesitated for some time, for i was unwilling to give up the least portion of my precious freedom; i enjoyed my retirement, the mystery of my modest life of study, but on the other hand i could not grapple with plato and aristotle without the hints of a competent guide as to the why and wherefore. i was greatly excited. i had heard professor bröchner speak on psychology, but his diction was handled with such painful care, was so monotonous and sounded so strange, that it could not fail to alarm. it was only the professor's distinguished and handsome face that attracted me, and in particular his large, sorrowful eyes, with their beautiful expression, in which one read a life of deep research--and tears. now, i determined to venture up to bröchner. but i had not the courage to mention it to my mother beforehand, for fear speaking of it should frighten me from my resolution, so uneasy did i feel about the step i was taking. when the day which i had fixed upon for the attempt arrived--it was the nd of september, ,--i walked up and down in front of the house several times before i could make up my mind to go upstairs; i tried to calculate beforehand what the professor would say, and what it would be best for me to reply, interminably. the tall, handsome man with the appearance of a spanish knight, opened the door himself and received the young fellow who was soon to become his most intimate pupil, very kindly. to my amazement, as soon as he heard my name, he knew which school i had come from and also that i had recently become a student. he vigorously dissuaded me from going through a course of plato and aristotle, saying it would be too great a strain--said, or implied, that i should be spared the difficult path he had himself traversed, and sketched out a plan of study of more modern philosophy and aesthetics. his manner inspired confidence and left behind it the main impression that he wished to save the beginner all useless exertion. all the same, with my youthful energy, i felt, as i went home, a shade disappointed that i was not to begin the history of philosophy from the beginning. my visit was soon repeated, and a most affectionate intimacy quickly sprang up between master and pupil, revealed on the side of the elder, in an attitude of fatherly goodwill to which the younger had hitherto been a stranger, the teacher, while instructing his pupil and giving him practical guidance, constantly keeping in view all that could further his well-being and assist his future; my attitude was one of reverence and affection, and of profound gratitude for the care of which i was the object. i certainly, sometimes, in face of my master's great thoroughness and his skill in wrestling with the most difficult thoughts, felt a painful distrust of my own capacity and of my own intellectual powers, compared with his. i was also not infrequently vexed by a discordant note, as it were, being struck in our intercourse, when bröchner, despite the doubts and objections i brought forward, always took it for granted that i shared his pantheistic opinions, without perceiving that i was still tossed about by doubts, and fumbling after a firm foothold. but the confidential terms upon which i was with the maturer man had an attraction for me which my intimacy with undecided and youthfully prejudiced comrades necessarily lacked; he had the experience of a lifetime behind him, he looked down from superior heights on the sympathies and antipathies of a young man. to me, for instance, ploug's _the fatherland_ was at that time denmark's most intellectual organ, whereas bille's _daily paper_ disgusted me, more particularly on account of the superficiality and the tone of finality which distinguished its literary criticisms. bröchner, who, with not unmixed benevolence, and without making any special distinction between the two, looked down on both these papers of the educated mediocrity, saw in his young pupil's bitterness against the trivial but useful little daily, only an indication of the quality of his mind. bröchner's mere manner, as he remarked one day with a smile, "you do not read _the daily paper_ on principle," made me perceive in a flash the comicality of my indignation over such articles as it contained. my horizon was still sufficiently circumscribed for me to suppose that the state of affairs in copenhagen was, in and of itself, of importance. i myself regarded my horizon as wide. one day, when making a mental valuation of myself, i wrote, with the naïveté of nineteen, "my good qualities, those which will constitute my personality, if i ever become of any account, are a mighty and ardent enthusiasm, a thorough authority in the service of truth, _a wide horizon_ and philosophically trained thinking powers. these must make up for my lack of humour and facility." it was only several years after the beginning of our acquaintance that i felt myself in essential agreement with hans bröchner. i had been enraptured by a study of ludwig feuerbach's books, for feuerbach was the first thinker in whose writings i found the origin of the idea of god in the human mind satisfactorily explained. in feuerbach, too, i found a presentment of ideas without circumlocution and without the usual heavy formulas of german philosophy, a conquering clarity, which had a very salutary effect on my own way of thinking and gave me a feeling of security. if for many years i had been feeling myself more conservative than my friend and master, there now came a time when in many ways i felt myself to be more liberal than he, with his mysterious life in the eternal realm of mind of which he felt himself to be a link. iii. i had not been studying jurisprudence much more than a year before it began to weigh very heavily upon me. the mere sight of the long rows of _schou's ordinances_, which filled the whole of the back of my writing-table, were a daily source of vexation. i often felt that i should not be happy until the ordinances were swept from my table. and the lectures were always so dreary that they positively made me think of suicide--and i so thirsty of life!--as a final means of escape from the torment of them. i felt myself so little adapted to the law that i wasted my time with hamlet-like cogitations as to how i could give up the study without provoking my parents' displeasure, and without stripping myself of all prospects for the future. and for quite a year these broodings grew, till they became a perfect nightmare to me. i had taken a great deal of work upon myself; i gave lessons every day, that i might have a little money coming in, took lessons myself in several subjects, and not infrequently plunged into philosophical works of the past, that were too difficult for me, such as the principal works of kant. consequently when i was nineteen, i begun to feel my strength going. i felt unwell, grew nervous, had a feeling that i could not draw a deep breath, and when i was twenty my physical condition was a violent protest against overwork. one day, while reading kant's _kritik der urteilskraft_, i felt so weak that i was obliged to go to the doctor. the latter recommended physical exercises and cold shower-baths. the baths did me good, and i grew so accustomed to them that i went on taking them and have done so ever since. i did my gymnastic exercises with a swede named nycander, who had opened an establishment for swedish gymnastics in copenhagen. there i met, amongst others, the well-known icelandic poet and diplomatist, grimur thomsen, who bore the title of counsellor of legation. his compatriots were very proud of him. icelandic students declared that grimur possessed twelve dress shirts, three pairs of patent leather boots, and had embraced a marchioness in paris. at gymnastics, grimur thomsen showed himself audacious and not seldom coarse in what he said and hinted. it is true that by reason of my youth i was very susceptible and took offence at things that an older man would have heard without annoyance. iv. i continued to be physically far from strong. mentally, i worked indefatigably. the means of deciding the study question that, after long reflection, seemed to me most expedient, was this: i would compete for one of the university prizes, either the aesthetic or the philosophical, and then, if i won the gold medal, my parents and others would see that if i broke with the law it was not from idleness, but because i really had talents in another direction. as early as i had cast longing eyes at the prize questions that had been set, and which hung up in the entrance hall of the university. but none of them were suited to me. in i made up my mind to attempt a reply, even if the questions in themselves should not be attractive. there was amongst them one on the proper correlation between poetic fiction and history in the historical romances. the theme in itself did not particularly fascinate me; but i was not ignorant of the subject, and it was one that allowed of being looked at in a wide connection, i.e., the claims of the subject as opposed to the imagination of the artist, in general. i was of opinion that just as in sculpture the human figure should not be represented with wings, but the conception of its species be observed, so the essential nature of a past age should be unassailed in historic fiction. throughout numerous carefully elaborated abstractions, extending over folio pages, and in which i aimed at scientific perspicuity, i endeavoured to give a soundly supported theory of the limits of inventive freedom in historical romance. the substructure was so painstaking that it absorbed more than half of the treatise. quite apart from the other defects of this tyro handiwork, it lauded and extolled an aesthetic direction opposed to that of both the men who were to adjudicate upon it. hegel was mentioned in it as "the supreme exponent of aesthetics, a man whose imposing greatness it is good to bow before." i likewise held with his emancipated pupil, fr. th. vischer, and vindicated him. of danish thinkers, j.l. heiberg and s. kierkegaard were almost the only ones discussed. heiberg was certainly incessantly criticised, but was treated with profound reverence and as a man whose slightest utterance was of importance. sibbern's artistic and philosophical researches, on the other hand, were quite overlooked, indeed sometimes vischer was praised as being the first originator of psychological developments, which sibbern had suggested many years before him. i had, for that matter, made a very far from sufficient study of sibbern's researches, which were, partly, not systematic enough for me, and partly had repelled me by the peculiar language in which they were couched. neither was it likely that this worship of heiberg, which undeniably peeped out through all the proofs of imperfections and self-contradictions in him, would appeal to hauch. when i add that the work was youthfully doctrinaire, in language not fresh, and that in its skeleton-like thinness it positively tottered under the weight of its definitions, it is no wonder that it did not win the prize. the verdict passed upon it was to the effect that the treatise was thorough in its way, and that it would have been awarded the prize had the question asked been that of determining the correlation between history and fiction in general, but that under the circumstances it dwelt too cursorily on romance and was only deemed deserving of "a very honourable mention." favourable as this result was, it was nevertheless a blow to me, who had made my plans for the following years dependent on whether i won the prize or not. julius lange, who knocked at my door one evening to tell me the result, was the witness of my disappointment. "i can understand," he said, "that you should exclaim: _'oleum et operam perdidi!'_, but you must not give up hope for so little. it is a good thing that you prohibited the opening of the paper giving your name in the event of the paper not winning the prize, for no one will trouble their heads about the flattering criticism and an honourable mention would only harm you in people's eyes; it would stamp you with the mark of mediocrity." v. the anonymous recipient of the honourable mention nevertheless determined to call upon his judges, make their acquaintance, and let them know who he was. i went first to hauch, who resided at that time at frederiksberg castle, in light and lofty rooms. hauch appeared exaggeratedly obliging, the old man of seventy and over paying me, young man as i was, one compliment after the other. the treatise was "extraordinarily good," they had been very sorry not to give me the prize; but i was not to bear them any ill-will for that; they had acted as their consciences dictated. in eighteen months i should be ready to take my magister examination; the old poet thought he might venture to prophesy that i should do well. he was surprised at his visitor's youth, could hardly understand how at my age i could have read and thought so much, and gave me advice as to the continuation of my studies. sibbern was as cordial as hauch had been polite and cautious. it was very funny that, whereas hauch remarked that he himself had wished to give me the prize with an _although_ in the criticism, but that sibbern had been against it, sibbern declared exactly the reverse; in spite of all its faults he had wanted to award the medal, but hauch had expressed himself adverse. apparently they had misunderstood one another; but in any case the result was just, so there was nothing to complain of. sibbern went into the details of the treatise, and was stricter than hauch. he regretted that the main section of the argument was deficient; the premises were too prolix. he advised a more historic, less philosophical study of literature and art. he was pleased to hear of the intimate terms i was on with bröchner, whereas hauch would have preferred my being associated with rasmus nielsen, whom he jestingly designated "a regular brown-bread nature." when the treatise was given back to me, i found it full of apt and instructive marginal notes from sibbern's hand. little as i had gained by my unsuccessful attempt to win this prize, and unequivocally as my conversation with the practical sibbern had proved to me that a post as master in my mother tongue at a grammar-school was all that the magister degree in aesthetics was likely to bring me, whereas from my childhood i had made up my mind that i would never be a master in a school, this conversation nevertheless ripened my determination to give up my law studies, but of course only when by successfully competing for the prize the next year i had satisfactorily proved my still questionable ability. vi. the meeting of scandinavian students at copenhagen in june, , taught me what it meant to be a scandinavian. like all the other undergraduates, i was scandinavian at heart, and the arrangements of the meeting were well calculated to stir the emotions of youth. although, an insignificant danish student, i did not take part in the expedition to north zealand specially arranged for our guests, consequently neither was present at the luncheon given by frederik vii to the students at fredensborg (which was interrupted by a heavy shower), i was nevertheless deeply impressed by the meeting. it was a fine sight to behold the students from the three other scandinavian universities come sailing across the sound from malmö to copenhagen. the norwegians were especially striking, tall and straight, with narrow faces under tasseled caps, like a wood of young fir trees; the national type was so marked that at first i could hardly see any difference between them. for me, there were three perfect moments during the festivities. the first was at the meeting of all the students in the square of our lady, after the arrival of the visitors, when the scholars of the metropolitan school, crowding the windows of the building, greeted them with a shout of delight. there was such a freshness, such a childish enthusiasm about it, that some of us had wet eyes. it was as though the still distant future were acclaiming the young ones now advancing to the assault, and promising them sympathy and conquest. the second was when the four new flags embroidered by danish ladies for the students were consecrated and handed over. clausen's speech was full of grandeur, and addressed, not to the recipients, but to the flags as living beings: "thou wilt cross the baltic to the sanctuary at upsala. thou wilt cross the cattegat to the land of rocks...." and the address to each of the flags concluded: "fortune and honour attend thee!" the evening after the consecration of the flags, there was a special performance at the royal theatre for the members of the meeting, at which heiberg, radiant as she always was, and saluted with well-merited enthusiasm, played _sophie_ in the vaudeville "_no_," with a rosette of the scandinavian colours at her waist. then it was that paludan-müller's prologue, recited by our idolised actor, michael wiehe, caused me the third thrilling moment. listening to the words of the poet from a bad place in the gallery, i was hardly the only one who felt strangely stirred, as wiehe, letting his eyes roam round the theatre, said: oh! that the young of the north might one day worthily play their part! oh that each one might do his best for the party he has chosen! that never there be lack of industry, fidelity, strength and talents! and may he firm step forth, the mighty genius (_mayhap, known only to the secret power within him, seated amongst us now_), the mighty genius, who, as fate hath willed it, is to play the mighty part and do the mighty things. involuntarily we looked round, seeking for the one to whom the poet's summons referred. the general spirit of this meeting has been called flat in comparison with that pervading former meetings. it did not strike the younger participants so. a breath of scandinavianism swept over every heart; one felt borne along on a historic stream. it seemed like a bad dream that the peoples of the north had for so many centuries demolished and laid waste each other, tapped one another for blood and gold, rendered it impossible for the north to assert herself and spread her influence in europe. one could feel at the meeting, though very faintly, that the swedes and norwegians took more actual pleasure in each other, and regarded themselves as to a greater extent united than either of them looked upon themselves as united with the danes, who were outside the political union. i was perhaps the only dane present who fancied i detected this, but when i mentioned what i thought i observed to a gifted young norwegian, so far was he from contradicting me that he merely replied: "have you noticed that, too?" notwithstanding, during the whole of the meeting, one constantly heard expressed on every hand the conviction that if germany were shortly to declare war against denmark--which no one doubted--the swedes and norwegians would most decidedly not leave the danes in the lurch. the promise was given oftener than it was asked. only, of course, it was childish on the part of those present at the meeting to regard such promises, given by the leaders of the students, and by the students themselves in festive mood, as binding on the nations and their statesmen. i did not make any intellectually inspiring acquaintances through the meeting, although i was host to two upsala students; neither of them, however, interested me. i got upon a friendly footing through mutual intellectual interests with carl von bergen, later so well known as an author, he, like myself, worshipping philosophy and hoping to contribute to intellectual progress. carl von bergen was a self-confident, ceremonious swede, who had read a great many books. at that time he was a new rationalist, which seemed to promise one point of interest in common; but he was a follower of the boström philosophy, and as such an ardent theist. at this point we came into collision, my researches and reflections constantly tending to remove me farther from a belief in any god outside the world, so that after the meeting carl von bergen and i exchanged letters on theism and pantheism, which assumed the width and thickness of treatises. for very many years the swedish essayist and i kept up a friendly, though intermittent intercourse. meanwhile von bergen, whose good qualities included neither character nor originality, inclined, as years went on, more and more towards conservatism, and at forty years old he had attained to a worship of what he had detested, and a detestation of what he had worshipped. his vanity simultaneously assumed extraordinary proportions. in a popular encyclopaedia, which he took over when the letter b was to be dealt with, and, curiously enough, disposed of shortly afterwards, _von bergen_ was treated no less in detail than _buonaparte_. he did battle with some of the best men and women in sweden, such as ellen key and knut wicksell, who did not fail to reply to him. when in his old friend from the students' meeting gave some lectures on goethe in stockholm, he immediately afterwards directed some poor opposition lectures against him, which neither deserved nor received any reply. it had indeed become a specialty of his to give "opposition lectures." when he died, some few years later, what he had written was promptly forgotten. there was another young swedish student whom i caught a glimpse of for the first time at the students' meeting, towards whom i felt more and more attracted, and who eventually became my friend. this was the darling of the gods, carl snoilsky. at a fête in rosenborg park, amongst the songs was one which, with my critical scent, i made a note of. it was by the then quite unknown young count snoilsky, and it was far from possessing the rare qualities, both of pith and form, that later distinguished his poetry; but it was a poet's handiwork, a troubadour song to the danish woman, meltingly sweet, and the writer of it was a youth of aristocratic bearing, regular, handsome features, and smooth brown hair, a regular adonis. the following year he came again, drawn by strong cords to christian winther's home, loving the old poet like a son, as swinburne loved victor hugo, sitting at mistress julie winther's feet in affectionate admiration and semi-adoration, although she was half a century old and treated him as a mother does a favourite child. it was several years, however, before there was any actual friendship between the swedish poet and myself. he called upon me one day in my room in copenhagen, looking exceedingly handsome in a tight-fitting waistcoat of blue quilted silk. in the absence of the swedo-norwegian ambassador, he was chargé d'affaires in copenhagen, after, in his capacity as diplomatic attaché, having been stationed in various parts of the world and, amongst others, for some time in paris. he could have no warmer admirer of his first songs than myself, and we very frequently spent our evenings together in bauer's wine room--talking over everything in scandinavian, english, or french literature which both of us had enthusiastically and critically read. on many points our verdicts were agreed. there came a pause in snoilsky's productive activity; he was depressed. it was generally said, although it sounded improbable, that he had had to promise his wife's relations to give up publishing verse, they regarding it as unfitting the dignity of a noble. in any case, he was at that time suffering under a marriage that meant to him the deprivation of the freedom without which it was impossible to write. still, he never mentioned these strictly personal matters. but one evening that we were together, snoilsky was so overcome by the thought of his lack of freedom that tears suddenly began to run down his cheeks. he was almost incapable of controlling himself again, and when we went home together late at night, poured out a stream of melancholy, half-despairing remarks. a good eighteen months later we met again in stockholm; snoilsky was dignified and collected. but when, a few years later, so-called public opinion in sweden began to rave against the poet for the passion for his second wife which so long made him an exile from his country, i often thought of that evening. as years passed by, his outward bearing became more and more reserved and a trifle stiff, but he was the same at heart, and no one who had known him in the heyday of his youth could cease to love him. vii. a month after the students' meeting, at the invitation of my friend jens paludan-müller, i spent a few weeks at his home at nykjöbing, in the island of falster, where his father, caspar paludan-müller, the historian, was at the time head master of the grammar-school. those were rich and beautiful weeks, which i always remembered later with gratitude. the stern old father with his leonine head and huge eyebrows impressed one by his earnestness and perspicacity, somewhat shut off from the world as he was by hereditary deafness. the dignified mistress of the house likewise belonged to a family that had made its name known in danish literature. she was a rosenstand-göiske. jens was a cordial and attentive host, the daughters were all of them women out of the ordinary, and bore the impress of belonging to a family of the highest culture in the country; the eldest was womanly and refined, the second, with her roman type of beauty and bronze-coloured head, lovely in a manner peculiarly her own; the youngest, as yet, was merely an amiable young girl. the girls would have liked to get away from the monotony of provincial life, and their release came when their father was appointed to a professorship at copenhagen university. there was an ease of manner and a tone of mental distinction pervading the whole family. two young, handsome counts reventlow were being brought up in the house, still only half-grown boys at that time, but who were destined later to win honourable renown. one of them, the editor of his ancestress's papers, kept up his acquaintance with the guest he had met in the paludan-müller home for over forty years. there often came to the house a young dane from caracas in venezuela, of unusual, almost feminine beauty, with eyes to haunt one's dreams. he played uncommonly well, was irresistibly gentle and emotional. after a stay of a few years in denmark he returned to his native place. the previously mentioned grönbeck, with his pretty sister, and other young people from the town, were frequent guests during the holidays, and the days passed in games, music, wanderings about the garden, and delightful excursions to the woods. on every side i encountered beauty of some description. i said to jens one day: "one kind of beauty is the glow which the sun of youth casts over the figure, and it vanishes as soon as the sun sets. another is stamped into shape from within; it is mind's expression, and will remain as long as the mind remains vigorous. but the supremest beauty of all is in the unison of the two harmonies, which are contending for existence. in the bridal night of this supremest beauty, mind and nature melt into one." a few years later the old historian was called upon to publish the little book on gulland, with its short biography prefixed, as a memorial to his only son, fallen at sankelmark, and again, a few years later, to edit frederik nutzhorn's translation of apuleius in memory of his son's friend, his elder daughter's fiancé. during the preparation of these two little books, our relations became more intimate, and our friendship continued unbroken until in the month of february, , a remark in one of my defensive articles caused him to take up his pen against me. my remark was to the effect that there were men of the same opinions as myself even among the priests of the established church. caspar paludan-müller declared it my public duty to mention of whom i was thinking at the time, since such a traitor was not to be tolerated in the lap of the church. as i very naturally did not wish to play the part of informer, i incurred, by my silence, the suspicion of having spoken without foundation. the danish man whom i had in my thoughts, and who had confided his opinions to me, was still alive at the time. this was the late dean ussing, at one time priest at mariager, a man of an extraordinarily refined and amiable disposition, secretly a convinced adherent of ernest renan. a norwegian priest, who holds the same opinions, is still living. viii. in august, , on a walking tour through north sjaelland, julius lange introduced me to his other celebrated uncle, frederik paludan-müller, whose summer residence was at fredensborg. in appearance he was of a very different type from his brother caspar. the distinguishing mark of the one was power, of the other, nobility. for frederik paludan-müller as a poet i cherished the profoundest admiration. he belonged to the really great figures of danish literature, and his works had so fed and formed my inmost nature that i should scarcely be the same had i not read them. it was unalloyed happiness to have access to his house and be allowed to enjoy his company. it was a distinction to be one of the few he vouchsafed to take notice of and one of the fewer still in whose future he interested himself. do the young men of denmark to-day, i wonder, admire creative intellects as they were admired by some few of us then? it is in so far hardly possible, since there is not at the present time any northern artist with such a hall-mark of refined delicacy as frederik paludan-müller possessed. the young people who came to his house might have wished him a younger, handsomer wife, and thought his choice, mistress charite, as, curiously enough, she was called, not quite worthy of the poet. unjustly so, since he himself was perfectly satisfied with her, and was apparently wholly absorbed by a union which had had its share in isolating him from the world. his wife was even more theologically inclined than himself, and appeared anonymously--without anyone having a suspicion of the fact--as a religious authoress. still, she was exceedingly kind to anyone, regardless of their private opinions, who had found favour in the poet's eyes. the dry little old lady was the only one of her sex with whom paludan-müller was intimate. he regarded all other women, however young and beautiful, as mere works of art. but his delight in them was charming in him, just because of its freedom from sense. one evening that he was giving a little banquet in honour of a swedish lady painter, named ribbing, a woman of rare beauty, he asked her to stand by the side of the bust of the venus of milo, that the resemblance, which really existed between them, might be apparent. his innocent, enthusiastic delight in the likeness was most winning. ix. two other celebrated personages whom i met for the first time a little later were björnstjerne björnson and magdalene thoresen. i became acquainted with björnstjerne björnson at the nutzhorns, their son, ditlev, being a passionate admirer of his. his _king sverre_ of had been a disappointment, but _sigurd slembe_ of the following year was new and great poetry, and fascinated young people's minds. björnson, socially, as in literature, was a strong figure, self-confident, loud-voiced, outspoken, unique in all that he said, and in the weight which he knew how to impart to all his utterances. his manner jarred a little on the more subdued copenhagen style; the impression he produced was that of a great, broad-shouldered, and very much spoilt child. in the press, all that he wrote and did was blazoned abroad by the leading critics of the day, who had a peculiar, challenging way of praising björnson, although his ability was not seriously disputed by anyone. the national liberal leaders, alfred hage, carl ploug, etc., had opened their hearts and houses to him. it is said that at one time heiberg had held back; the well-bred old man, a little shocked by the somewhat noisy ways of the young genius, is said to have expressed to his friend krieger some scruples at inviting him to his house. to krieger's jesting remark: "what does it matter! he is a young man; let him rub off his corners!" heiberg is credited with having replied: "very true! let him! but not in my drawing-room! that is not a place where people may rub anything off." heiberg's wife, on the other hand, admired him exceedingly, and was undoubtedly very much fascinated by him. in a circle of younger people, björnson was a better talker than conversationalist. sometimes he came out with decidedly rash expressions of opinion, conclusively dismissing a question, for instance, with severe verdicts over danish music, heyse's excepted, judgments which were not supported by sufficient knowledge of the subject at issue. but much of what he said revealed the intellectual ruler, whose self-confidence might now and again irritate, but at bottom was justified. he narrated exceptionally well, with picturesque adjectives, long remembered in correct copenhagen, spoke of the _yellow_ howl of wolves, and the like. take it all in all, his attitude was that of a conqueror. he upheld poetry that was actual and palpable, consequently had little appreciation for poetry, that, like paludan-müller's, was the perfection of thought and form, and boldly disapproved of my admiration for it. x. it was likewise through frederik nutzhorn that i, when a young beginner in the difficult art of life, became acquainted with madame magdalene thoresen. our first conversation took place in the open air one summer day, at the klampenborg bathing establishment. although magdalene thoresen was at that time at least forty-six years old, her warm, brownish complexion could well stand inspection in the strongest light. her head, with its heavy dark hair, was southern in its beauty, her mouth as fresh as a young girl's; she had brilliant and very striking eyes. her figure was inclined to be corpulent, her walk a trifle heavy, her bearing and movements full of youth and life. she was remarkably communicative, open and warmhearted, with a propensity towards considerable extravagance of speech. originally incited thereto by björnson's peasant stories, she had then published her first tales, _the student and signe's story_, which belonged, half to norwegian, half to danish literature, and had been well received. she was the daughter of a fisherman at fredericia, and after having known both the buffets and the smiles of fortune, had come to be on terms of friendship with many men and women of importance, now belonging to the recognised personalities of the day. she was also very well received and much appreciated in the heiberg circle. in comparison with her, a woman, i might have been called erudite and well-informed. her own knowledge was very desultory. she was interested in me on account of my youth, and her warm interest attached me to her for the next five years,--as long, that is, as she remained in denmark. she very soon began to confide in me, and although she scarcely did so unreservedly, still, no woman, at least no mature and gifted woman, had told me so much about herself before. she was a woman who had felt strongly and thought much; she had lived a rich, and eventful life; but all that had befallen her she romanticised. her poetic tendency was towards the sublime. she was absolutely veracious, and did not really mean to adorn her tales, but partly from pride, partly from whimsicality, she saw everything, from greatest to least, through beautifully coloured magnifying-glasses, so that a translation of her communications into every-day language became a very difficult matter, and when an every-day occurrence was suspected through the narrative, the same could not be reproduced in an every-day light, and according to an every-day standard, without wounding the narrator to the quick. for these reasons i never ventured to include among my collected essays a little biographical sketch of her (written just as she herself had idealised its events to me), one of the first articles i had printed. she saw strong natures, rich and deep natures, in lives that were meagre or unsuccessful. again, from lack of perspicacity, she sometimes saw nothing but inefficiency in people with wide intellectual gifts; thus, she considered that her son-in-law, henrik ibsen, who at that time had not become either known or celebrated, had very imperfect poetic gifts. "what he writes is as flat as a drawing," she would say. or she would remark: "he ought to be more than a collaborator of kierkegaard." it was only much later that she discovered his genius. björnson, on the other hand, she worshipped with an enthusiastic love; it was a trouble to her that just about this time he had become very cool to her. vague feelings did not repel her, but all keen and pointed intelligence did. she was wholly and entirely romantic. gallicism she objected to; the clarity of the french seemed to her superficial; she saw depth in the reserved and taciturn northern, particularly the norwegian, nature. she had groped her way forward for a long time without realising what her gifts really were. her husband, who had done all he could to assist her education, had even for a time imagined, and perhaps persuaded her, that her gifts lay in the direction of baggesen's. now, however, she had found her vocation and her path in literature. on all questions of thought, pure and simple, she was extremely vague. she was a christian and a heathen with equal sincerity, a christian with her overflowing warm-heartedness, with her honest inclination to believe, a heathen in her averseness to any negation of either life or nature. she used to say that she loved christ and eros equally, or rather, that to her, they both meant the same. to her, christianity was the new, the modern, in contrast to the rationalism of a past age, so that christianity and modern views of life in general merged in her eyes into one unity. hers was a deeply feminine nature, and a productive nature. her fertile character was free from all taint of over-estimation of herself. she only revealed a healthy and pleasing self-satisfaction when she imagined that some person wished to set up himself or herself over her and misjudge acts or events in her life with respect to which she considered herself the only person qualified to judge. at such times she would declare in strong terms that by her own unassisted strength she had raised herself from a mean and unprotected position to the level of the best men and women of her day. herself overflowing with emotion, and of a noble disposition, she craved affection and goodwill, and gave back a hundredfold what she received. if she felt herself the object of cold and piercing observation, she would be silent and unhappy, but if she herself were at ease and encountered no coolness, she was all geniality and enthusiasm, though not to such an extent that her enthusiasm ceased to be critical. she could over-value and under-value people, but was at the same time a keen, in fact a marvellous psychologist, and sometimes astonished one by the pertinent things she said, surprising one by her accurate estimate of difficult psychological cases. for instance, she understood as few others did the great artist, the clever coquette, and the old maid in heiberg's wife, the actress. she had no moral prejudices, and had written _signe's story_ as a protest against conventional morality; but she was none the less thoroughly permeated by christian and humane ideas of morality, and there was no element of rebellion in her disposition. on the whole, she was more a woman than an authoress. her nature was tropical in comparison with mrs. charite paludan-müller's north pole nature. she lived, not in a world of ideas remote from reality, but in a world of feeling and passion, full of affection and admiration, jealousy and dislike. being a woman, she was happy at every expression of pleasure over one of her books that she heard or read of, and liked to fancy that the solitary young man who sent her an enthusiastic letter of thanks was only one of hundreds who thought as he did. like a woman, also, she was hurt by indifference, which, however, her warm heart rarely encountered. this richly endowed woman made me appear quite new to myself, inasmuch as, in conversations with my almost maternal friend, i began to think i was of a somewhat cold nature, a nature which in comparison with hers seemed rather dry, unproductive and unimaginative, a creature with thoughts ground keen. magdalene thoresen compared me one day to an unlighted glass candelabra, hanging amid several others all lighted up, which had the gleam of the fire on the countless facets of its crystals, but was itself nothing but cold, smooth, polished, prisms. thus during my association with magdalene thoresen i came to regard myself in a new light, when i saw myself with her eyes, and i was struck more than ever by how different the verdicts over me would be were my various friends and acquaintances each to describe me is i appeared to them. to magdalene thoresen i was all mind, to others all passion, to others again all will. at the nutzhorns' i went by the name of the modest b., elsewhere i was deemed conceitedly ambitious, some people thought me of a mild temper, others saw in me a quarrelsome unbeliever. all this was a challenge to me to come to a clear understanding about my real nature. the fruits of my work must show me what sort of man i was. xi. i continued my legal studies with patient persistence, and gradually, after having made myself master of civil proceedings, i worked my way through the whole of the juridic system, roman law excluded. but the industry devoted to this was purely mechanical. i pursued my other studies, on the contrary, with delight, even tried to produce something myself, and during the last months of elaborated a very long paper on _romeo and juliet_, chiefly concerning itself with the fundamental problems of the tragedy, as interpreted in the aesthetics of the day; it has been lost, like so much else that i wrote during those years. i sent it to professor bröchner and asked his opinion of it. simultaneously i began to work upon a paper on the idea of fate in greek tragedy, a response to the prize question of the year - , and on december , , had finished the introduction, which was published for the first time about six years later, under the title _the idea of tragic fate_. appended to this was a laborious piece of work dealing with the conceptions of fate recorded in all the greek tragedies that have come down to us. this occupied the greater part of the next six months. the published introduction gives a true picture of the stage of my development then, partly because it shows the manner in which i had worked together external influences, the kierkegaardian thoughts and the hegelian method, partly because with no little definiteness it reveals a fundamental characteristic of my nature and a fundamental tendency of my mind, since it is, throughout, a protest against the ethical conception of poetry and is a proof of how moral ideas, when they become part of an artistic whole, lose their peculiar stamp and assume another aspect. in november, , i joined a very large recently started undergraduates' society, which met once a fortnight at borch's college to hear lectures and afterwards discuss them together. it numbered full fifty members, amongst them most of the men of that generation who afterwards distinguished themselves in denmark. the later known politician, octavius hansen, was speaker of the meetings, and even then seemed made for the post. his parliamentary bearing was unrivalled. it was not for nothing he was english on the mother's side. he looked uncommonly handsome on the platform, with his unmoved face, his beautiful eyes, and his brown beard, curled like that of pericles in the greek busts. he was good-humoured, just, and well-informed. of the numerous members, wilhelm thomsen the philologist was certainly the most prominent, and the only one whom i later on came to value, that is, for purely personal reasons; in daily association it was only once in a way that thomsen could contribute anything from his special store of knowledge. one day, when we had been discussing the study of cuneiform inscriptions, the young philologist had said, half in jest, half in earnest: "if a stone were to fall down from the sun with an inscription in unknown signs, in an unknown language, upon it, we should be able to make it out,"--a remark which i called to mind many years later when thomsen deciphered the ancient turkish inscriptions in the mountains of siberia. a great many political lectures were given. i gave one on heiberg's aesthetics. on january , , i received a new year's letter from bröchner, in which he wrote that the essay on romeo and juliet had so impressed him that, in his opinion, no one could dispute my fitness to fill the chair of aesthetics, which in the nature of things would soon be vacant, since hauch, at his advanced age, could hardly continue to occupy it very long. thus it was that my eager patron first introduced what became a wearisome tangle, lasting a whole generation, concerning my claims to a certain post, which gradually became in my life what the french call _une scie_, an irritating puzzle, in which i myself took no part, but which attached itself to my name. that letter agitated me very much; not because at so young an age the prospect of an honourable position in society was held out to me by a man who was in a position to judge of my fitness for it, but because this smiling prospect of an official post was in my eyes a snare which might hold me so firmly that i should not be able to pursue the path of renunciation that alone seemed to me to lead to my life's goal. i felt myself an apostle, but an apostle and a professor were, very far apart. i certainly remembered that the apostle paul had been a tent-maker. but i feared that, once appointed, i should lose my ideal standard of life and sink down into insipid mediocrity. if i once deviated from my path, i might not so easily find it again. it was more difficult to resign a professorship than never to accept it. and, once a professor, a man soon got married and settled down as a citizen of the state, not in a position to dare anything. to dispose of my life at bröchner's request would be like selling my soul to the devil. so i replied briefly that i was too much attached to hauch to be able or willing to speculate on his death. but to this bröchner very logically replied: "i am not speculating on his death, but on his life, for the longer he lives, the better you will be prepared to be his successor." by the middle of june, , the prize paper was copied out. in september the verdict was announced; the gold medal was awarded to me with a laudatory criticism. the gold medal was also won by my friend jens paludan-müller for a historic paper, and in october, at the annual ceremony at the university, we were presented with the thin medal bearing the figure of athene, which, for my part, being in need of a winter overcoat, i sold next day. clausen, the rector, a little man with regular features, reserved face and smooth white hair, said to us that he hoped this might prove the first fruits of a far-reaching activity in the field of danish literature. but what gave me much greater pleasure was that i was shaken hands with by monrad, who was present as minister for education. although clausen was well known, both as a theologian and an important national liberal, i cared nothing for him. but i was a little proud of monrad's hand-pressure, for his political liberality, and especially his tremendous capacity for work, compelled respect, while from his handsome face with its thoughtful, commanding forehead, there shone the evidence of transcendent ability. xii. on the morning of november th, , julius lange and i went together to offer our congratulations to frederik nutzhorn, whose birthday it was. his sisters received me with their usual cheerfulness, but their father, the old doctor, remarked as i entered: "you come with grave thoughts in your mind, too," for the general uneasiness occasioned by frederik vii's state of health was reflected in my face. there was good reason for anxiety concerning all the future events of which an unfavourable turn of his illness might be the signal. i went home with julius lange, who read a few wild fragments of his "system" to me. this turned upon the contrasting ideas of _contemplation_ and _sympathy_, corresponding to the inhaling and exhaling of the breath; the resting-point of the breathing was the moment of actual consciousness, etc.; altogether very young, curious, and confused. in the afternoon came the news of the king's death. in the evening, at the students' union, there was great commotion and much anxiety. there were rumours of a change of ministry, of a bluhme-david-ussing ministry, and of whether the new king would be willing to sign the constitution from which people childishly expected the final incorporation of slesvig into denmark. that evening i made the acquaintance of the poet christian richardt, who told me that he had noticed my face before he knew my name. julius lange was exceedingly exasperated and out of spirits. ploug went down the stairs looking like a man whose hopes had been shattered, and whom the blow had found unprepared. his paper had persistently sown distrust of the prince of denmark. the proclamation was to take place in front of christiansborg castle on december th, at o'clock. i was fetched to it by a student of the same age, the present bishop frederik nielsen. the latter had made my acquaintance when a free-thinker, but fortunately he recognised his errors only a very few years later, and afterwards the valiant theologian wrote articles and pamphlets against the heretic he had originally cultivated for holding the same opinions as himself. there is hardly anyone in denmark who persists in error; people recognise their mistakes in time, before they have taken harm to their souls; sometimes, indeed, so much betimes that they are not even a hindrance to their worldly career. the space in front of the castle was black with people, most of whom were in a state of no little excitement. hall, who was then prime minister, stepped out on the balcony of the castle, grave and upright, and said, first standing with his back to the castle, then looking to the right and the left, these words: "king frederik vii is dead. long live king christian ix!" then the king came forward. there were loud shouts, doubtless some cries of "long live the king," but still more and louder shouts of: "the constitution forever!" which were by no means loyally intended. at a distance, from the castle balcony, the different shouts could, of course, not be distinguished. as the king took them all to be shouts of acclamation, he bowed politely several times, and as the shouts continued kissed his hand to right and left. the effect was not what he had intended. his action was not understood as a simple-hearted expression of pure good-will. people were used to a very different bearing on the part of their king. with all his faults and foibles, frederik vii was always in manner the father of his people; always the graceful superior; head up and shoulders well back, patronisingly and affectionately waving his hand: "thank you, my children, thank you! and now go home and say 'good-morning' to your wives and children from the king!" one could not imagine frederik vii bowing to the people, much less kissing his hand to them. there was a stormy meeting of the students' union that evening. vilhelm rode made the principal speech and caustically emphasised that it took more than a "kiss of the hand and a parade bow" to win the hearts of the danish people. the new dynasty, the head of which had been abused for years by the national liberal press, especially in _the fatherland_, who had thrown suspicion of german sympathies on the heir-presumptive, was still so weak that none of the students thought it necessary to take much notice of the change of sovereigns that had taken place. this was partly because since frederik vii's time people had been accustomed to indiscriminate free speech concerning the king's person--it was the fashion and meant nothing, as he was beloved by the body of the people--partly because what had happened was not regarded as irrevocable. all depended on whether the king signed the constitution, and even the coolest and most conservative, who considered that his signing it would be a fatal misfortune, thought it possible that christian ix. would be dethroned if he did not. so it is not difficult to form some idea of how the hotspurs talked. the whole town was in a fever, and it was said that prince oscar was in scania, ready at the first sign to cross the sound and allow himself to be proclaimed king on behalf of charles xv. men with scandinavian sympathies hoped for this solution, by means of which the three kingdoms would have been united without a blow being struck. in the middle of the meeting, there arrived a message from crone, the head of police, which was delivered verbally in this incredibly irregular form--that the head of police was as good a scandinavian as anyone, but he begged the students for their own sakes to refrain from any kind of street disturbance that would oblige him to interfere. i, who had stood on the open space in front of the castle, lost in the crowd, and in the evening at the meeting of the students was auditor to the passionate utterances let fall there, felt my mood violently swayed, but was altogether undecided with regard to the political question, the compass of which i could not fully perceive. i felt anxious as to the attitude of foreign powers would be in the event of the signing of the constitution. old c.n. david had said in his own home that if the matter should depend on him, which, however, he hoped it would not, he would not permit the signing of the constitution, were he the only man in denmark of that way of thinking, since by so doing we should lose our guarantee of existence, and get two enemies instead of one, russia as well as germany. the same evening i wrote down: "it is under such circumstances as these that one realises how difficult it is to lead a really ethical existence. i am not far-sighted enough to perceive what would be the results of that which to me seems desirable, and one cannot conscientiously mix one's self up in what one does not understand. nevertheless, as i stood in the square in front of the castle, i was so excited that i even detected in myself an inclination to come forward as a political speaker, greenhorn though i be." xiii. on the th of november, the fever in the town was at its height. from early in the morning the space in front of the castle was crowded with people. orla lehmann, a minister at the time, came out of the castle, made his way through the crowd, and shouted again and again, first to one side, then to the other: "he has signed! he has signed!" he did not say: "the king." the people now endured seven weeks of uninterrupted change and kaleidoscopic alteration of the political situation. relations with all foreign powers, and even with sweden and norway, presented a different aspect to the danish public every week. sweden's withdrawal created a very bitter impression; the public had been induced to believe that an alliance was concluded. then followed the "pressure" in copenhagen by the emissaries of all the powers, to induce the government to recall the november constitution, then the czar's letter to the duke of augustenborg, finally the occupation of holstein by german troops, with all the censure and disgrace that the danish army had to endure, for holstein was evacuated without a blow being struck, and the duke, to the accompanyment of scorn and derision heaped on the danes, was proclaimed in all the towns of holstein. on christmas eve came tidings of the convocation of the senate, simultaneously with a change of ministry which placed monrad at the head of the country, and in connection with this a rumour that all young men of twenty-one were to be called out at once. this last proved to be incorrect, and the minds of the young men alternated between composure at the prospect of war and an enthusiastic desire for war, and a belief that there would be no war at all. the first few days in january, building on the rumour that the last note from england had promised help in the event of the eider being passed, people began to hope that the war might be avoided, and pinned their faith to monrad's dictatorship. frederik nutzhorn, who did not believe there would be a war, started on a visit to rome; jens paludan-müller, who had been called out, was quartered at rendsborg until the german troops marched in; julius lange, who, as he had just become engaged, did not wish to see his work interrupted and his future prospects delayed by the war, had gone to islingen, where he had originally made the acquaintance of his fiancée. under these circumstances, as a twenty-one-year-old student who had completed his university studies, i was anxious to get my examination over as quickly as possible. at the end of i wrote to my teacher, professor bröchner, who had promised me a short philosophical summary as a preparation for the university test: "i shall sit under a conjunction of all the most unfavourable circumstances possible, since for more than a month my head has been so full of the events of the day that i have been able neither to read nor think, while the time of the examination itself promises to be still more disquiet. still, i dare not draw back, as i should then risk--which may possibly happen in any case--being hindered from my examination by being called out by the conscription and perhaps come to lie in my grave as _studiosus_ instead of _candidatus magisterii_, which latter looks infinitely more impressive and is more satisfying to a man as greedy of honour as your respectful and heartily affectionate, etc." xiv. shortly before, i had paid my first visit to professor rasmus nielsen. he was exceedingly agreeable, recognised me, whom perhaps he remembered examining, and accorded me a whole hour's conversation. he was, as always, alert and fiery, not in the least blasé, but with a slight suggestion of charlatanism about him. his conversation was as lively and disconnected as his lectures; there was a charm in the clear glance of his green eyes, a look of genius about his face. he talked for a long time about herbart, whose aesthetics, for that matter, he betrayed little knowledge of, then of hegel, heiberg, and kierkegaard. to my intense surprise, he opened up a prospect, conflicting with the opinions he had publicly advocated, that science, "when analyses had been carried far enough," might come to prove the possibility of miracles. this was an offence against my most sacred convictions. nielsen had recently, from the cathedra, announced his renunciation of the kierkegaard standpoint he had so long maintained, in the phrase: "the kierkegaard theory is impracticable"; he had, perhaps influenced somewhat by the queen dowager, who about that time frequently invited him to meet grundtvig, drawn nearer to grundtvigian ways of thinking,--as bröchner sarcastically remarked about him: "the farther from kierkegaard, the nearer to the queen dowager." in the midst of my final preparations for the examination, i wrestled, as was my wont, with my attempts to come to a clear understanding over duty and life, and was startled by the indescribable irony in the word by which i was accustomed to interpret my ethically religious endeavours,--_himmelspraet_. [footnote: word implying one who attempts to spring up to heaven, and of course falls miserably to earth again. the word, in ordinary conversation, is applied to anyone tossed in a blanket.] i handed in, then, my request to be allowed to sit for my master of arts examination; the indefatigable bröchner had already mentioned the matter to the dean of the university, who understood the examinee's reasons for haste. but the university moved so slowly that it was some weeks before i received the special paper set me, which, to my horror, ran as follows: "determine the correlation between the pathetic and the symbolic in general, in order by that means to elucidate the contrast between shakespeare's tragedies and dante's _divina commedia_, together with the possible errors into which one might fall through a one-sided preponderance of either of these two elements." this paper, which had been set by r. nielsen, is characteristic of the purely speculative manner, indifferent to all study of history, in which aesthetics were at that time pursued in copenhagen. it was, moreover, worded with unpardonable carelessness; it was impossible to tell from it what was to be understood by the correlation on which it was based, and which was assumed to be a given conclusion. even so speculative a thinker as frederik paludan-müller called the question absolutely meaningless. it looked as though its author had imagined shakespeare's dramas and dante's epic were produced by a kind of artistic commingling of pathetic with symbolic elements, and as though he wished to call attention to the danger of reversing the correct proportions, for instance, by the symbolic obtaining the preponderance in tragedy, or pathos in the epopee, or to the danger of exaggerating these proportions, until there was too much tragic pathos, or too much epic symbolism. but a scientific definition of the expressions used was altogether lacking, and i had to devote a whole chapter to the examination of the meaning of the problem proposed to me. the essay, for the writing of which i was allowed six weeks, was handed in, folio pages long, at the right time. by reason of the sheer foolishness of the question, it was never published. in a postscript, i wrote: "i beg my honoured examiners to remember the time during which this treatise was written, a time more eventful than any other young men can have been through, and during which i, for my part, have for days at a time been unable to work, and should have been ashamed if i could have done so." in explanation of this statement, the following jottings, written down at the time on a sheet of paper: _sunday, jan. th_. received letter telling me i may fetch my leading question to-morrow at o'clock. _monday, feb. st_. heard to-day that the germans have passed the eider and that the first shots have been exchanged. _saturday, feb. th_. received to-day the terrible, incomprehensible, but only too certain news that the danevirke has been abandoned without a blow being struck. this is indescribable, overwhelming. _thursday, feb. th_. we may, unfortunately, assume it as certain that my dear friend jens paludan-müller fell at oversö on feb. th. _feb. th_. heard definitely to-day.--at half-past one this night finished my essay. xv. i thought about this time of nothing but my desire to become a competent soldier of my country. there was nothing i wanted more, but i felt physically very weak. when the first news of the battles of midsunde and bustrup arrived, i was very strongly inclined to follow julius lange to the reserve officers' school. when tidings came of the abandonment of the danevirke my enthusiasm cooled; it was as though i foresaw how little prospect of success there was. still, i was less melancholy than lange at the thought of going to the war. i was single, and delighted at the thought of going straight from the examination-table into a camp life, and from a book-mad student to become a lieutenant. i was influenced most by the prospect of seeing lange every day at the officers' school, and on the field. but my comrades explained to me that even if lange and i came out of the school at the same time, it did not follow that we should be in the same division, and that the thing, moreover, that was wanted in an officer, was entire self-dependence. they also pointed out to me the improbability of my being able to do the least good, or having the slightest likelihood in front of me of doing anything but quickly find myself in hospital. i did not really think myself that i should be able to stand the fatigue, as the pupils of the military academy went over to the army with an equipment that i could scarcely have carried. i could not possibly suppose that the conscription would select me as a private, on account of my fragile build; but like all the rest, i was expecting every day a general ordering out of the fit men of my age. all this time i worked with might and main at the development of my physical strength and accomplishments. i went every day to fencing practice, likewise to cavalry sword practice; i took lessons in the use of the bayonet, and i took part every afternoon in the shooting practices conducted by the officers--with the old muzzle-loaders which were the army weapons at the time. i was very delighted one day when mr. hagemeister, the fencing-master, one of the many splendid old holstein non-commissioned officers holding the rank of lieutenant, said i was "a smart fencer." xvi. meanwhile, the examination was taking its course. as real curiosities, i here reproduce the questions set me. the three to be replied to in writing were: . to what extent can poetry be called the ideal history? . in what manner may the philosophical ideas of spinoza and fichte lead to a want of appreciation of the idea of beauty? . in what relation does the comic stand to its limitations and its various contrasts? the three questions which were to be replied to in lectures before the university ran as follows: . show, through poems in our literature, to what extent poetry may venture to set itself the task of presenting the idea in a form coinciding with the philosophical understanding of it? . point out the special contributions to a philosophical definition of the idea made by aesthetics in particular. . what are the merits and defects of schiller's tragedies? these questions, in conjunction with the main question, may well be designated a piece of contemporary history; they depict exactly both the science of the time and the peculiar philosophical language it adopted. hardly more than one, or at most two, of them could one imagine set to-day. after the final (and best) lecture, on schiller, which was given at six hours' notice on april th, the judges, hauch, nielsen and bröchner, deliberated for about ten minutes, then called in the auditors and r. nielsen read aloud the following verdict: "the candidate, in his long essay, in the shorter written tests, and in his oral lectures, has manifested such knowledge of his subject, such intellectual maturity, and such originality in the treatment of his themes, that we have on that account unanimously awarded him the mark: _admissus cum laude praecipua_." xvii. the unusually favourable result of this examination attracted the attention of academical and other circles towards me. the mark _admissus cum praecipua laude_ had only very rarely been given before. hauch expressed his satisfaction at home in no measured terms. his wife stopped my grandfather in the street and informed him that his grandson was the cleverest and best-read young man that her husband had come across during his university experience. when i went to the old poet after the examination to thank him, he said to me (these were his very words): "i am an old man and must die soon; you must be my successor at the university; i shall say so unreservedly; indeed, i will even say it on my death-bed." strangely enough, he did say it and record it on his death-bed seven years later, exactly as he had promised to do. in bröchner's house, too, there was a great deal said about my becoming a professor. i myself was despondent about it; i thought only of the war, only wished to be fit for a soldier. hauch was pleased at my wanting to be a soldier. "it is fine of you, if you can only stand it." when hauch heard for certain that i was only years old (he himself was ), he started up in his chair and said: "why, it is incredible that at your age you can have got so far." rasmus nielsen was the only one of the professors who did not entertain me with the discussion of my future academic prospects; but he it was who gave me the highest praise: "according to our unanimous opinions," said he, "you are the foremost of all the young men." i was only the more determined not to let myself be buried alive in the flower of my youth by accepting professorship before i had been able to live and breathe freely.--i might have spared myself any anxiety. xviii. a few days later, on may both, a month's armistice was proclaimed, which was generally construed as a preliminary to peace, if this could be attained under possible conditions. it was said, and soon confirmed, that at the conference of london, denmark had been offered north slesvig. most unfortunately, denmark refused the offer. on june th, the war broke out again; two days later alsen was lost. when the young men were called up to the officers' board for conscription, "being too slight of build," i was deferred till next year. were the guerilla war which was talked about to break out, i was determined all the same to take my part in it. but the bluhme-david ministry succeeded to monrad's, and concluded the oppressive peace. i was very far from regarding this peace as final; for that, i was too inexperienced. i correctly foresaw that before very long the state of affairs in europe would give rise to other wars, but i incorrectly concluded therefrom that another fight for slesvig, or in any case, its restoration to denmark, would result from them. in the meantime peace, discouraging, disheartening though it was, opened up possibilities of further undisturbed study, fresh absorption in scientific occupations. when, after the termination of my university studies, i had to think of earning my own living, i not only, as before, gave private lessons, but i gave lectures, first to a circle before whom i lectured on northern and greek mythology, then to another, in david's house, to whom i unfolded the inner history of modern literature to interested listeners, amongst them several beautiful young girls. i finally engaged myself to my old arithmetic master as teacher of danish in his course for national school-mistresses. i found the work horribly dull, but there was one racy thing about it, namely, that i, the master, was three years younger than the youngest of my pupils; these latter were obliged to be at least , and consequently even at their youngest were quite old in my eyes. but there were many much older women amongst them, one even, a priest or schoolmaster's widow, of over fifty, a poor thing who had to begin--at her age!--from the very beginning, though she was anything but gifted. it was not quite easy for a master without a single hair on his face to make himself respected. but i succeeded, my pupils being so well-behaved. it was an exciting moment when these pupils of mine went up for their teacher's examination, i being present as auditor. i continued to teach this course until the autumn of . when i left, i was gratified by one of the ladies rising and, in a little speech, thanking me for the good instruction i had given. xix. meanwhile, i pursued my studies with ardour and enjoyment, read a very great deal of _belles-lettres_, and continued to work at german philosophy, inasmuch as i now, though without special profit, plunged into a study of trendelenburg. my thoughts were very much more stimulated by gabriel sibbern, on account of his consistent scepticism. it was just about this time that i made his acquaintance. old before his time, bald at forty, tormented with gout, although he had always lived a most abstemious life, gabriel sibbern, with his serene face, clever eyes and independent thoughts, was an emancipating phenomenon. he had divested himself of all danish prejudices. "there is still a great deal of phlogiston in our philosophy," he used to say sometimes. i had long been anxious to come to a clear scientific understanding of the musical elements in speech. i had busied myself a great deal with metrical art. brücke's _inquiries_ were not yet in existence, but i was fascinated by apel's attempt to make use of notes (crotchets, quavers, dotted quavers, and semi-quavers) as metrical signs, and by j.l. heiberg's attempt to apply this system to danish verse. but the system was too arbitrary for anything to be built up upon it. and i then made up my mind, in order better to understand the nature of verse, to begin at once to familiarise myself with the theory of music, which seemed to promise the opening out of fresh horizons in the interpretation of the harmonies of language. with the assistance of a young musician, later the well-known composer and concert director, victor bendix, i plunged into the mysteries of thorough-bass, and went so far as to write out the entire theory of harmonics. i learnt to express myself in the barbaric language of music, to speak of minor scales in fifths, to understand what was meant by enharmonic ambiguity. i studied voice modulation, permissible and non-permissible octaves; but i did not find what i hoped. i composed a few short tunes, which i myself thought very pretty, but which my young master made great fun of, and with good reason. one evening, when he was in very high spirits, he parodied one of them at the piano in front of a large party of people. it was a disconcerting moment for the composer of the tune. a connection between metrical art and thorough-bass was not discoverable. neither were there any unbreakable laws governing thorough-bass. the unversed person believes that in harmonics he will find quite definite rules which must not be transgressed. but again and again he discovers that what is, as a general rule, forbidden, is nevertheless, under certain circumstances, quite permissible. thus he learns that in music there is no rule binding on genius. and perhaps he asks himself whether, in other domains, there are rules which are binding on genius. xx. i had lived so little with nature. the spring of , the first spring i had spent in the country--although quite near to copenhagen--meant to me rich impressions of nature that i never forgot, a long chain of the most exquisite spring memories. i understood as i had never done before the inborn affection felt by every human being for the virgin, the fresh, the untouched, the not quite full-blown, just as it is about to pass over into its maturity. it was in the latter half of may. i was looking for anemones and violets, which had not yet gone to seed. the budding beech foliage, the silver poplar with its shining leaves, the maple with its blossoms, stirred me, filled me with spring rapture. i could lie long in the woods with my gaze fastened on a light-green branch with the sun shining through it, and, as if stirred by the wind, lighted up from different sides, and floating and flashing as if coated with silver. i saw the empty husks fall by the hundred before the wind. i followed up the streams in the wood to their sources. for a while a rivulet oozed slowly along. then came a little fall, and it began to speak, to gurgle and murmur; but only at this one place, and here it seemed to me to be like a young man or woman of twenty. now that i, who in my boyhood's days had gone for botanical excursions with my master and school-fellows, absorbed myself in every plant, from greatest to least, without wishing to arrange or classify any, it seemed as though an infinite wisdom in nature were being revealed to me for the first time. as near to copenhagen as söndermarken, stood the beech, with its curly leaves and black velvet buds in their silk jackets. in the gardens of frederiksberg avenue, the elder exhaled its fragrance, but was soon over; the hawthorn sprang out in all its splendour. i was struck by the loveliness of the chestnut blooms. when the blossom on the cherry-trees had withered, the lilac was out, and the apple and pear-trees paraded their gala dress. it interested me to notice how the colour sometimes indicated the shape, sometimes produced designs quite independently of it. i loitered in gardens to feast my eyes on the charming grouping of the rhubarb leaves no less than on the exuberance of their flowers, and the leaves of the scorzonera attracted my attention, because they all grew in one plane, but swung about like lances. and as my habit was, i philosophised over what i saw and had made my own, and i strove to understand in what beauty consisted. i considered the relations between beauty and life; why was it that artificial flowers and the imitation of a nightingale's song were so far behind their originals in beauty? what was the difference between the beauty of the real, the artificial and the painted flower? might not herbart's aesthetics be wrong, in their theory of form? the form itself might be the same in nature and the imitation, in the rose made of velvet and the rose growing in the garden. and i reflected on the connection between the beauty of the species and that of the individual. whether a lily be a beautiful flower, i can say without ever having seen lilies before, but whether it be a beautiful lily, i cannot. the individual can only be termed beautiful when more like than unlike to the ideal of the species. and i mused over the translation of the idea of beauty into actions and intellectual conditions. was not the death of socrates more beautiful than his preservation of alcibiades' life in battle?--though this was none the less a beautiful act. xxi. in the month of july i started on a walking tour through jutland, with the scenery of which province i had not hitherto been acquainted; travelled also occasionally by the old stage-coaches, found myself at skanderborg, which, for me, was surrounded by the halo of mediaeval romance; wandered to silkeborg, entering into conversation with no end of people, peasants, peasant boys, and pretty little peasant girls, whose speech was not always easy to understand. i studied their juttish, and laughed heartily at their keen wit. the country inns were often over-full, so that i was obliged to sleep on the floor; my wanderings were often somewhat exhausting, as there were constant showers, and the night rain had soaked the roads. i drove in a peasant's cart to mariager to visit my friend emil petersen, who was in the office of the district judge of that place, making his home with his brother-in-law and his very pretty sister, and i stayed for a few days with him. here i became acquainted with a little out-of-the-world danish town. the priest and his wife were an interesting and extraordinary couple. the priest, the before-mentioned pastor ussing, a little, nervous, intelligent and unworldly man, was a pious dreamer, whose religion was entirely rationalistic. renan's recently published _life of jesus_ was so far from shocking him that the book seemed to him in all essentials to be on the right track. he had lived in the danish west indies, and there he had become acquainted with his wife, a lady with social triumphs behind her, whose charms he never wearied of admiring. the mere way in which she placed her hat upon her head, or threw a shawl round her shoulders, could make him fall into ecstasies, even though he only expressed his delight in her in half-facetious terms. this couple showed me the most cordial kindness; to their unpractised, provincial eyes, i seemed to be a typical young man of the world, and they amazed me with the way in which they took it for granted that i led the dances at every ball, was a lion in society, etc. i was reminded of the student's words in hostrup's vaudeville: "goodness! how innocent they must be to think _me_ a dandy!" and vainly assured them that i lived an exceedingly unnoticed life in copenhagen, and had never opened a ball in my life. the priest asked us two young men to go and hear his sunday sermon, and promised that we should be pleased with it. we went to church somewhat expectant, and the sermon was certainly a most unusual one. it was delivered with great rapture, after the priest had bent his head in his hands for a time in silent reflection. with great earnestness he addressed himself to his congregation and demanded, after having put before them some of the cures in the new testament, generally extolled as miracles, whether they dared maintain that these so-called miracles could not have taken place according to nature's laws. and when he impressively called out: "darest thou, with thy limited human intelligence, say, 'this cannot happen naturally?'" it was in the same tone and style in which another priest would have shouted out: "darest thou, with thy limited human intelligence, deny the miracle?" the peasants, who, no doubt, understood his words quite in this latter sense, did not understand in the least the difference and the contrast, but judged much the same as a dog to whom one might talk angrily with caressing words or caressingly with abusive words, simply from the speaker's tone; and both his tone and facial expression were ecstatic. they perceived no heresy and felt themselves no less edified by the address than did the two young copenhagen graduates. xxii. my first newspaper articles were printed in _the fatherland_ and the _illustrated times_; the very first was a notice of paludan-müller's _fountain of youth_, in which i had compressed matter for three or four lectures; a commissioned article on dante was about the next, but this was of no value. but it was a great event to see one's name printed in a newspaper for the first time, and my mother saw it not without emotion. about this time henrik ibsen's first books fell into my hands and attracted my attention towards this rising poet, who, among the leading danish critics, encountered a reservation of appreciation that scarcely concealed ill-will. from norway i procured ibsen's oldest dramas, which had appeared there. frederik algreen-ussing asked me to contribute to a large biographical dictionary, which he had for a long time been planning and preparing, and which he had just concluded a contract for with the largest danish publishing firm of the time. a young man who hated the august association and all its deeds could not fail to feel scruples about engaging in any collaboration with its founder. but algreen-ussing knew how to vanquish all such scruples, inasmuch as he waived all rights of censorship, and left it to each author to write as he liked upon his own responsibility. and he was perfectly loyal to his promise. moreover, the question here was one of literature only, and not politics. as the danish authors were to be dealt with in alphabetical order, the article that had to be set about at once was an account of the only danish poet whose name began with _aa_. thus it was that emil aarestrup came to be the first danish poet of the past of whom i chanced to write. i heard of the existence of a collection of unprinted letters from aarestrup to his friend petersen, the grocer, which were of very great advantage to my essay. a visit that i paid to the widow of the poet, on the other hand, led to no result whatever. it was strange to meet the lady so enthusiastically sung by aarestrup in his young days, as a sulky and suspicious old woman without a trace of former beauty, who declared that she had no letters from her husband, and could not give me any information about him. it was only a generation later that his letters to her came into my hands. in september, , the article on aarestrup was finished. it was intended to be quickly followed up by others on the remaining danish authors in a. but it was the only one that was written, for algreen-ussing's apparently so well planned undertaking was suddenly brought to a standstill. the proprietors of the national liberal papers declared, as soon as they heard of the plan, that they would not on any account agree to its being carried out by a man who took up such a "reactionary" position in danish politics as ussing, and in face of their threat to annihilate the undertaking, the publishers, who were altogether dependent on the attitude of these papers, did not dare to defy them. they explained to algreen-ussing that they felt obliged to break their contract with him, but were willing to pay him the compensation agreed upon beforehand for failure to carry it out. he fought long to get his project carried through, but his efforts proving fruitless, he refused, from pride, to accept any indemnity, and was thus compelled to see with bitterness many years' work and an infinite amount of trouble completely wasted. shortly afterwards he succumbed to an attack of illness. xxiii. a young man who plunged into philosophical study at the beginning of the sixties in denmark, and was specially engrossed by the boundary relations between philosophy and religion, could not but come to the conclusion that philosophical life would never flourish in danish soil until a great intellectual battle had been set on foot, in the course of which conflicting opinions which had never yet been advanced in express terms should be made manifest and wrestle with one another, until it became clear which standpoints were untenable and which could be maintained. although he cherished warm feelings of affection for both r. nielsen and bröchner the two professors of philosophy, he could not help hoping for a discussion between them of the fundamental questions which were engaging his mind. as bröchner's pupil, i said a little of what was in my mind to him, but could not induce him to begin. then i begged gabriel sibbern to furnish a thorough criticism of nielsen's books, but he declined. i began to doubt whether i should be able to persuade the elder men to speak. a review in the _fatherland_ of the first part of nielsen's _logic of fundamental ideas_ roused my indignation. it was in diametric opposition to what i considered irrefutably true, and was written in the style, and with the metaphors, which the paper's literary criticisms had brought into fashion, a style that was repugnant to me with its sham poetical, or meaninglessly flat expressions ("matter is the hammer-stroke that the ideal requires"--"spontaneity is like food that has once been eaten"). in an eleven-page letter to bröchner i condensed all that i had thought about the philosophical study at the university during these first years of my youth, and proved to him, in the keenest terms i could think of, that it was his duty to the ideas whose spokesman he was, to come forward, and that it would be foolish, in fact wrong, to leave the matter alone. i knew well enough that i was jeopardising my precious friendship with bröchner by my action, but i was willing to take the risk. i did not expect any immediate result of my letter, but thought to myself that it should ferment, and some time in the future might bear fruit. the outcome of it far exceeded my expectations, inasmuch as bröchner was moved by my letter, and not only thanked me warmly for my daring words, but went without delay to nielsen and told him that he intended to write a book on his entire philosophical activity and significance. nielsen took his announcement with a good grace. however, as bröchner immediately afterwards lost his young wife, and was attacked by the insidious consumption which ravaged him for ten years, the putting of this resolution into practice was for several years deferred. at that i felt that i myself must venture, and, as a beginning, julius lange and i, in collaboration, wrote a humorous article on schmidt's review of _the logic of fundamental ideas_, which lange was to get into _the daily paper_, to which he had access. three days after the article was finished lange came to me and told me that to his dismay it was--gone. it was so exactly like him that i was just as delighted as if he had informed me that the article was printed. for some time we hoped that it might be on lange's table, for, the day before, he had said: "i am not of a curious disposition, but i should like to know what there really is on that table!" however, it had irrevocably disappeared. i then came forward myself with a number of shorter articles which i succeeded in getting accepted by the _fatherland_. when i entered for the first time ploug's tiny little office high up at the top of a house behind höjbro place, the gruff man was not unfriendly. surprised at the youthful appearance of the person who walked in, he merely burst out: "how old are you?" and to the reply: "twenty-three and a half," he said smilingly, "don't forget the half." the first article was not printed for months; the next ones appeared without such long delay. but ploug was somewhat uneasy about the contents of them, and cautiously remarked that there was "not to be any fun made of religion," which it could not truthfully be said i had done. but i had touched upon dogmatic belief and that was enough. later on, ploug had a notion that, as he once wrote, he had excluded me from the paper as soon as he perceived my mischievous tendency. this was a failure of memory on his part; the reason i left the paper was a different one, and i left of my own accord. bold and surly, virile and reliable as ploug seemed, in things journalistic you could place slight dependence on his word. his dearest friend admitted as much; he gave his consent, and then forgot it, or withdrew it. nothing is more general, but it made an overweening impression on a beginner like myself, inexperienced in the ways of life. when ibsen's _brand_ came out, creating an unusual sensation, i asked ploug if i might review the book and received a definite "yes" from him. i then wrote my article, to which i devoted no little pains, but when i took it in it was met by him, to my astonishment, with the remark that the paper had now received another notice from their regular reviewer, whom he "could not very well kick aside." ploug's promise had apparently been meaningless! i went my way with my article, firmly resolved never to go there again. from to i sought and found acceptance for my newspaper articles (not very numerous) in bille's _daily paper_, which in its turn closed its columns to me after my first series of lectures at the university of copenhagen. bille as an editor was pleasant, a little patronising, it is true, but polite and invariably good-tempered. he usually received his contributors reclining at full length on his sofa, his head, with its beautifully cut features, resting against a cushion and his comfortable little stomach protruding. he was scarcely of medium height, quick in everything he did, very clear, a little flat; very eloquent, but taking somewhat external views; pleased at the great favour he enjoyed among the copenhagen bourgeoisie. if he entered tivoli's concert hall in an evening all the waiter's ran about at once like cockroaches. they hurried to know what he might please to want, and fetched chairs for him and his party. gay, adaptable, and practised, he was the principal speaker at every social gathering. in his editorial capacity he was courteous, decided, and a man of his word; he did not allow himself to be alarmed by trifles. when björnson attacked me (i was at the time his youngest contributor), he raised my scale of pay, unsolicited. the first hitch in our relations occurred when in i published a translation of mill's subjection of women. this book roused bille's exasperation and displeasure. he forbade it to be reviewed in his paper, refused me permission to defend it in the paper, and would not even allow the book in his house, so that his family had to read it clandestinely, as a dangerous and pernicious work. xxiv. in the beginning of the year ludvig david died suddenly in rome, of typhoid fever. his sorrowing parents founded in memory of him an exhibition for law-students which bears and perpetuates his name. the first executors of the fund were, in addition to his most intimate friend, two young lawyers named emil petersen and emil bruun, who had both been friends of his. the latter, who has not previously been mentioned in these pages, was a strikingly handsome and clever young man, remarkable for his calm and superior humour, and exceedingly self-confident and virile. his attitude towards ludvig david in his early youth had been somewhat that of a protector. unfortunately he was seriously wounded during the first storming of the dybböl redoubts by the germans; a bullet crushed one of the spinal vertebrae; gradually the wound brought on consumption of the lungs and he died young. ludvig david's death was a great loss to his friends. it was not only that he took such an affectionate interest in their welfare and happiness, but he had a considerable gift for mathematics and history, and, from his home training, an understanding of affairs of state which was considerably above that of most people. peculiarly his own was a combination of keen, disintegrating intelligence, and a tendency towards comprehensive, rounded off, summarising. he had strong public antipathies. in his opinion the years of peace that had followed the first war in slesvig had had an enervating effect; public speakers and journalists had taken the places of brave men; many a solution of a difficulty, announced at first with enthusiasm, had in course of time petrified into a mere set phrase. he thought many of the leading men among the liberals superficial and devoid of character, and accused them, with the pitilessness of youth, of mere verbiage. influenced as he was by kierkegaard, such a man as bille was naturally his aversion. he considered--not altogether justly--that bille cloaked himself in false earnestness. he himself was profoundly and actively philanthropic, with an impulse--by no means universal--to relieve and help. society life he hated; to him it was waste of time and a torture to be obliged to figure in a ballroom; he cared very little for his appearance, and was by no means elegant in his dress. he was happy, however, in the unconstrained society of the comrades he cared about, enjoyed a merry chat or a frolicsome party, and in intimate conversation he would reveal his inmost nature with modest unpretension, with good-natured wit, directed against himself as much as against others, and with an understanding and sympathetic eye for his surroundings. his warmest outburst had generally a little touch of mockery or teasing about it, as though he were repeating, half roguishly, the feelings of another, rather than unreservedly expressing his own. but a heartfelt, steadfast look would often come into his beautiful dark eyes. xxv. his death left a great void in his home. his old father said to me one day: "strange how one ends as one begins! i have written no verses since my early youth, and now i have written a poem on my grief for ludvig. i will read it to you." there was an art and industrial exhibition in stockholm, that summer, which c.n. david was anxious to see. as he did not care to go alone, he took me in his son's place. it was my first journey to a foreign capital, and as such both enjoyable and profitable. i no longer, it is true, had the same intense boyish impressionability as when i was in sweden for the first time, seven years before. the most trifling thing then had been an experience. in göteborg i had stayed with a friend of my mother's, whose twelve-year-old daughter, bluma alida, a wondrously charming little maiden, had jokingly been destined by the two mothers for my bride from the child's very birth. and at that time i had assimilated every impression of people or scenery with a voracious appetite which rendered these impressions ineffaceable all my life long. that summer month, my fancy had transformed every meeting with a young girl into an adventure and fixed every landscape on my mental retina with an affection such as the landscape painter generally only feels for a place where he is specially at home. then i had shared for a whole month göteborg family and social life. now i was merely travelling as a tourist, and as the companion of a highly respected old man. i was less entranced at stockholm by the industrial exhibition than by the national museum and the royal theatre, where the lovely hyasser captivated me by her beauty and the keen energy of her acting. i became exceedingly fond of stockholm, this most beautifully situated of the northern capitals, and saw, with reverence, the places associated with the name of bellman. i also accompanied my old friend to ulriksdal, where the swedish queen dowager expected him in audience. more than an hour before we reached the castle he threw away his cigar. "i am an old courtier," he remarked. he had always been intimately associated with the danish royal family; for a long time the crown prince used to go regularly to his flat in queen's crossway street, to be instructed by him in political economy. he was consequently used to court ceremonial. beautiful were those summer days, lovely the light nights in stockholm. one recollection from these weeks is associated with a night when the sky was overcast. i had wandered round the town, before retiring to rest, and somewhere, in a large square, slipping my hand in my pocket, and feeling it full of bits of paper, could not remember how they got there, and threw them away. when i was nearly back at the hotel it flashed upon me that it had been small swedish notes--all the money that i had changed for my stay in stockholm--that i had been carrying loose in my pocket and had so thoughtlessly thrown away. with a great deal of trouble, i found the square again, but of course not a sign of the riches that in unpardonable forgetfulness i had scattered to the winds. i was obliged to borrow six rigsdaler (a sum of a little over thirteen shillings) from my old protector. that my requirements were modest is proved by the fact that this sum sufficed. the danish ambassador was absent from stockholm just at this time, and the chargé d'affaires at the legation had to receive the danish ex-minister in his stead. he was very attentive to us, and took the travellers everywhere where c.n. david wished his arrival to be made known. he himself, however, was a most unfortunate specimen of danish diplomacy, a man disintegrated by hideous debauchery, of coarse conversation, and disposition so brutal that he kicked little children aside with his foot when they got in front of him in the street. abnormities of too great irregularity brought about, not long afterwards, his dismissal and his banishment to a little danish island. this man gave a large dinner-party in honour of the danish ex-minister, to which, amongst others, all the swedish and norwegian ministers in stockholm were invited. it was held at hasselbakken, [footnote: a favourite outdoor pleasure resort at stockholm.] and the arrangements were magnificent. but what highly astonished me, and was in reality most out of keeping in such a circle, was the tone that the conversation at table gradually assumed, and especially the obscenity of the subjects of conversation. it was not, however, the ministers and diplomats present, but a danish roué, a professor of physics, who gave this turn to the talk. he related anecdotes that would have made a sailor blush. neither count manderström, nor any of the other ministers, neither malmgren, nor the dignified and handsome norwegian minister bretteville, seemed to be offended. manderström's expression, however, changed very noticeably when the professor ventured to make some pointed insinuations regarding the swedish attitude, and his personal attitude in particular, previous to the dano-german war and during its course. he suddenly pretended not to understand, and changed the subject of conversation. it produced an extremely painful impression upon me that not only the danish chargé d'affaires, but apparently several of these fine gentlemen, had determined on the additional amusement of making me drunk. everybody at table vied one with the other to drink my health, and they informed me that etiquette demanded i should each time empty my glass to the bottom; the contrary would be a breach of good form. as i very quickly saw through their intention, i escaped from the difficulty by asking the waiter to bring me a very small glass. by emptying this i could, without my manners being affected, hold my own against them all. but,--almost for the first time in my life,--when the company rose from table i felt that i had been in exceedingly bad company, and a disgust for the nominally highest circles, who were so little capable of acting in accordance with the reputation they enjoyed, and the polish imputed to them, remained with me for many years to come. first long sojourn abroad my wish to see paris--_dualism in our modern philosophy_--a journey--impressions of paris--lessons in french--mademoiselle mathilde--taine. i. i had wished for years to see paris, the city that roused my most devout feelings. as a youth i had felt a kind of reverent awe for the french revolution, which represented to me the beginning of human conditions for all those who were not of the favoured among men,--and paris was the city of the revolution. moreover, it was the city of napoleon, the only ruler since caesar who had seriously fascinated me, though my feelings for him changed so much that now admiration, now aversion, got the upper hand. and paris was the city, too, of the old culture, the city of julian the apostate, the city of the middle ages, that victor hugo had portrayed in _notre dame de paris_--the first book i had read in french, difficult though it was with its many peculiar expressions for gothic arches and buttresses--and it was the city where alfred de musset had written his poems and where delacroix had painted. the louvre and the luxembourg, the théâtre français and the gymnase were immense treasuries that tempted me. in the autumn of , when gabriel sibbern started to paris, somewhat before i myself could get away, my last words to him: "till we meet again in the holy city!" were by no means a jest. ii. before i could start, i had to finish the pamphlet which, with sibbern's help, i had written against nielsen's adjustment of the split between protestant orthodoxy and the scientific view of the universe, and which i had called _dualism in our modern philosophy_. i was not troubled with any misgivings as to how i should get the book published. as long ago as a polite, smiling, kindly man, who introduced himself to me as frederik hegel, the bookseller, had knocked at the door of my little room and asked me to let him print the essay which i had written for my master of arts examination, and if possible he would also like the paper which had won the university gold medal; and in fact, anything else i might wish published. to my amazed reply that those essays were not worth publishing, and that in general i did not consider what i wrote sufficiently mature for publication, hegel had first suggested that i should leave that question to the publisher, and then, when he saw that my refusal was honestly meant, had simply asked me to take my work to him when i myself considered that the moment had arrived. on this occasion, as on many others, the acute and daring publisher gave proof of the _flair_ which made him the greatest in the north. he accepted the little book without raising any difficulties, merely remarking that it would have to be spread out a little in the printing, that it might not look too thin. even before the pamphlet was mentioned in the press, its author was on his way to foreign parts. iii. on one of the first days of november, i journeyed, in a tremendous storm, to lübeck, the characteristic buildings of which (the church of mary, the exchange, the town-hall), together with the remains of the old fortifications, aroused my keen interest. in this hanse town, with its strongly individual stamp, i found myself carried back three hundred years. i was amazed at the slave-like dress of the workmen, the pointed hats of the girls, and the wood pavements, which were new to me. i travelled through germany with a portuguese, a little doctor from the university of coimbra, in whose queer french fifteen was _kouss_ and goethe _shett_. a practical american, wrapped up in a waterproof, took up three places to lie down in one evening, pretended to sleep, and never stirred all night, forcing his inexperienced fellow-travellers to crowd up into the corners of the carriage, and when the day broke, chatted with them as pleasantly as if they and he were the best friends in the world. at cologne, where i had stood, reverential, in the noble forest of pillars in the cathedral, then afterwards, in my simplicity, allowed someone to foist a whole case of eau de cologne upon me, i shortened my stay, in my haste to see paris. but, having by mistake taken a train which would necessitate my waiting several hours at liège, i decided rather to continue my journey to brussels and see that city too. the run through belgium seemed to me heavenly, as for a time i happened to be quite alone in my compartment and i walked up and down, intoxicated with the joy of travelling. brussels was the first large french town i saw; it was a foretaste of paris, and delighted me. never having been out in the world on my own account before, i was still as inexperienced and awkward as a child. it was not enough that i had got into the wrong train; i discovered, to my shame, that i had mislaid the key of my box, which made me think anxiously of the customs officials in paris, and i was also so stupid as to ask the boots in the brussels hotel for "a little room," so that they gave me a miserable little sleeping-place under the roof. but at night, after i had rambled about the streets of brussels, as i sat on a bench somewhere on a broad boulevard, an overwhelming, terrifying, transporting sense of my solitariness came over me. it seemed to me as though now, alone in a foreign land, at night time, in this human swarm, where no one knew me and i knew no one, where no one would look for me if anything were to happen to me, i was for the first time thrown entirely on my own resources, and i recognised in the heavens, with a feeling of reassurance, old friends among the stars. with a guide, whom in my ignorance i thought necessary, i saw the sights of the town, and afterwards, for the first time, saw a french play. so little experience of the world had i, that, during the interval, i left my overcoat, which i had not given up to the attendant, lying on the seat in the pit, and my neighbour had to explain to me that such great confidence in my fellow-men was out of place. everything was new to me, everything fascinated me. i, who only knew "indulgence" from my history lessons at school, saw with keen interest the priest in a brussels church dispense "_indulgence plénière_," or, in flemish, _vollen aflaet_. i was interested in the curious names of the ecclesiastical orders posted up in the churches, marvelled, for instance, at a brotherhood that was called "st. andrew avellin, patron saint against apoplexy, epilepsy and sudden death." in the carriage from brussels i had for travelling companion a pretty young belgian girl named marie choteau, who was travelling with her father, but talked all the time to her foreign fellow-traveller, and in the course of conversation showed me a belgian history and a belgian geography, from which it appeared that belgium was the centre of the globe, the world's most densely built over, most religious, and at the same time most enlightened country, the one which, in proportion to its size, had the most and largest industries. i gave her some of my bountiful supply of eau de cologne. iv. the tiring night-journey, with its full four hours' wait at liège, was all pure enjoyment to me, and in a mood of mild ecstasy, at last, at half-past ten on the morning of november th , i made my entry into paris, and was received cordially by the proprietors of a modest but clean little hotel which is still standing, no. rue notre dame des victoires, by the proprietors, two simple lorrainers, françois and müller, to whom gabriel sibbern, who was staying there, had announced my arrival. the same morning sibbern guided my first steps to one of pasdeloup's great classical popular concerts. in the evening, in spite of my fatigue after travelling all night, i went to the théâtre français for the first time, and there, lost in admiration of the masterly ensemble and the natural yet passionate acting, with which i had hitherto seen nothing to compare, i saw girardin's _le supplice d'une femme_, and beaumarchais' _le mariage de figaro_, in one evening making the acquaintance of such stars as régnier, madame favart, coquelin and the sisters brohan. régnier especially, in his simple dignity, was an unforgettable figure, being surrounded, moreover, in my eyes by the glory which the well-known little poem of alfred de musset, written to comfort the father's heart, had shed upon him. of the two celebrated sisters, augustine was all wit, madeleine pure beauty and arch, melting grace. these first days were rich days to me, and as they did not leave me any time for thinking over what i had seen, my impressions overwhelmed me at night, till sometimes i could not sleep for sheer happiness. this, to me, was happiness, an uninterrupted garnering of intellectual wealth in association with objects that all appealed to my sympathies, and i wrote home: "to be here, young, healthy, with alert senses, keen eyes and good ears, with all the curiosity, eagerness to know, love of learning, and susceptibility to every impression, that is youth's own prerogative, and to have no worries about home, all that is so great a happiness that i am sometimes tempted, like polycrates, to fling the handsome ring i had from christian richardt in the gutter." for the rest, i was too fond of characteristic architecture to feel attracted by the building art displayed in the long, regular streets of napoleon iii, and too permeated with national prejudices to be able at once to appreciate french sculpture. i was justified in feeling repelled by many empty allegorical pieces on public monuments, but during the first weeks i lacked perception for such good sculpture as is to be found in the _foyer_ of the théâtre français. "you reel at every step," i wrote immediately after my arrival, "that france has never had a thorwaldsen, and that denmark possesses an indescribable treasure in him. we are and remain, in three or four directions, the first nation in europe. this is pure and simple truth." to my youthful ignorance it was the truth, but it hardly remained such after the first month. being anxious to see as much as possible and not let anything of interest escape me, i went late to bed, and yet got up early, and tried to regulate my time, as one does a blanket that is too short. i was immensely interested in the art treasures from all over the world collected in the louvre. every single morning, after eating my modest breakfast at a _crêmerie_ near the château, i paid my vows in the _salon carré_ and then absorbed myself in the other halls. the gallery of the louvre was the one to which i owe my initiation. before, i had seen hardly any italian art in the original, and no french at all. in copenhagen i had been able to worship all the dutch masters. leonardo and the venetians spoke to me here for the first time. french painting and sculpture, puget and houdon, clouet and delacroix, and the french art that was modern then, i learnt for the first time to love and appreciate at the luxembourg. i relished these works of art, and the old-time art of the greeks and egyptians which the museum of the louvre contained, in a mild intoxication of delight. and i inbreathed paris into my soul. when on the broad, handsome place de la concorde, i saw at the same time, with my bodily eyes, the beautifully impressive obelisk, and in my mind's eye the scaffold on which the royal pair met with their death in the revolution; when in the latin quarter i went upstairs to the house in which charlotte corday murdered marat, or when, in the highest storey of the louvre, i gazed at the little gray coat from marengo and the three-cornered hat, or from the arc de triomphe let my glance roam over the city, the life that pulsated through my veins seemed stimulated tenfold by sight and visions. yet it was not only the city of paris, its appearance, its art gems, that i eagerly made my own, and with them much that intellectually belonged to italy or the netherlands; it was french culture, the best that the french nature contains, the fragrance of her choicest flowers, that i inhaled. and while thus for the first time learning to know french people, and french intellectual life, i was unexpectedly admitted to constant association with men and women of the other leading romance races, italians, spaniards, portuguese, brazilians. bröchner had given me a letter of introduction to costanza testa, a friend of his youth, now married to count oreste blanchetti and living in paris, with her somewhat older sister virginia, a kind-hearted and amiable woman of the world. the latter had married in brazil, as her second husband, the italian banker pagella, and to their house came, not only italians and other european southerners, but members of the south american colony. so warm a reception as i met with from the two sisters and their husbands i had never had anywhere before. after i had known the two families one hour, these people treated me as though i were their intimate friend; costanza's younger brother, they called me. i had a seat in their carriage every day, when the ladies drove out in the bois de boulogne; they never had a box at the italian opera, where adelina patti's first notes were delighting her countrymen, without sending me a seat. they expected me every evening, however late it often might be when i came from the theatre, in their drawing-room, where, according to the custom of their country, they always received the same circle of friends. i was sincerely attached to the two sisters, and felt myself at ease in their house, although the conversation there was chiefly carried on in a language of which i understood but little, since french was spoken only on my account. the only shadow over my pleasure at spending my evenings in the rue valois du roule was the fact that this necessitated my missing some acts at the théâtre français, for which the danish minister, through the embassy, had procured me a free pass. certainly no dane was ever made so happy by the favour. they were enraptured hours that i spent evening after evening in the french national theatre, where i became thoroughly acquainted with the modern, as well as the classical, dramatic repertoire,--an acquaintance which was further fortified during my long stay in paris in . i enjoyed the moderation of the best actors, their restraint, and subordination of self to the rôle and the general effect. it is true that the word genius could only be applied to a very few of the actors, and at that time i saw none who, in my opinion, could be compared with the great representatives of the danish stage, such as michael wiehe, johanne luise heiberg, or phister. but i perceived at once that the mannerisms of these latter would not be tolerated here for a moment; here, under the influence of this artistic whole-harmony, they would never have been able to give free vent to individuality and peculiarity as they did at home. i saw many hundred performances in these first years of my youth at the théâtre français, which was then at its zenith. there, if anywhere, i felt the silent march of the french muses through time and space. v. a capable journalist named grégoire, a sickly, prematurely aged, limping fellow, with alert wits, an alsatian, who knew danish and regularly read bille's _daily paper_, had in many ways taken me up almost from the first day of my sojourn on french soil. this man recommended me, on my expressing a wish to meet with a competent teacher, to take instruction in the language from a young girl, a friend of his sister, who was an orphan and lived with her aunt. she was of good family, the daughter of a colonel and the granddaughter of an admiral, but her own and her aunt's circumstances were narrow, and she was anxious to give lessons. when i objected that such lessons could hardly be really instructive, i was told that she was not only in every way a nice but a very gifted and painstaking young girl. the first time i entered the house, as a future pupil, i found the young lady, dressed in a plain black silk dress, surrounded by a circle of toddlers of both sexes, for whom she had a sort of school, and whom on my arrival she sent away. she had a pretty figure, a face that was attractive without being beautiful, a large mouth with good teeth, and dark brown hair. her features were a little indefinite, her face rather broad than oval, her eyes brown and affectionate. she had at any rate the beauty that twenty years lends. we arranged for four lessons a week, to begin with. the first dragged considerably. my teacher was to correct any mistakes in pronunciation and grammar that i made in conversation. but we could not get up any proper conversation. she was evidently bored by the lessons, which she had only undertaken for the sake of the fees. if i began to tell her anything, she only half listened, and yawned with all her might very often and very loudly, although she politely put her hand in front of her large mouth. there only came a little animation into her expression when i either pronounced as badly as i had been taught by my french master at school, or made some particularly ludicrous mistake, such as _c'est tout égal_ for _bien égal_. at other times she was distracted, sleepy, her thoughts elsewhere. after having tried vainly for a few times to interest the young lady by my communications, i grew tired of the lessons. moreover, they were of very little advantage to me, for the simple reason that my youthful teacher had not the very slightest scientific or even grammatical knowledge of her own tongue, and consequently could never answer my questions as to _why_ you had to pronounce in such and such a way, or by virtue of what _rule_ you expressed yourself in such and such a manner. i began to neglect my lessons, sometimes made an excuse, but oftener remained away without offering any explanation. on my arrival one afternoon, after having repeatedly stayed away, the young lady met me with some temper, and asked the reason of my failures to come, plainly enough irritated and alarmed at my indifference, which after all was only the reflection of her own. i promised politely to be more regular in future. to insure this, she involuntarily became more attentive. she yawned no more. i did not stay away again. she began to take an interest herself in this eldest pupil of hers, who at years of age looked and who was acquainted with all sorts of things about conditions, countries, and people of which she knew nothing. she had been so strictly brought up that nearly all secular reading was forbidden to her, and she had never been to any theatre, not even the théâtre français. she had not read victor hugo, lamartine, or musset, had not even dared to read _paul et virginie_, only knew expurgated editions of corneille, racine and molière. she was sincerely clerical, had early been somewhat influenced by her cousin, later the well-known roman catholic author, ernest hello, and in our conversations was always ready to take the part of the jesuits against pascal; what the latter had attacked were some antiquated and long-abandoned doctrinal books; even if there were defects in the teaching of certain catholic ecclesiastics, their lives at any rate were exemplary, whereas the contrary was the case with the free-thinking men of science; their teaching was sometimes unassailable, but the lives they led could not be taken seriously. when we two young people got into a dispute, we gradually drew nearer to one another. our remarks contradicted each other, but an understanding came about between our eyes. one day, as i was about to leave, she called me back from the staircase, and, very timidly, offered me an orange. the next time she blushed slightly when i came in. she frequently sent me cards of admission to the athénée, a recently started institution, in which lectures were given by good speakers. she began to look pleased at my coming and to express regret at the thought of my departure. on new year's day, as a duty gift, i had sent her a bouquet of white flowers, and the next day she had tears in her eyes as she thanked me: "i ask you to believe that i highly appreciate your attention." from that time forth she spoke more and more often of how empty it would be for her when i was gone. i was not in love with her, but was too young for her feelings, so unreservedly expressed, to leave me unaffected, and likewise young enough to imagine that she expected me before long to ask for her hand. so i soon informed her that i did not feel so warmly towards her as she did towards me, and that i was not thinking of binding myself for the present. "do you think me so poor an observer?" she replied, amazed. "i have never made any claims upon you, even in my thoughts. but i owe you the happiest month of my life." vi. this was about the state of affairs between mademoiselle louise and me, when one evening, at pagella's, where there were southerners of various races present, i was introduced to a young lady, mademoiselle mathilde m., who at first sight made a powerful impression upon me. she was a young spanish brazilian, tall of stature, a proud and dazzling racial beauty. the contours of her head were so impeccably perfect that one scarcely understood how nature could have made such a being inadvertently, without design. the rosy hue of her complexion made the carnation even of a beautiful woman's face look chalky or crimson by the side of hers. at the same time there was a something in the colour of her skin that made me understand better the womanish appearance of zurbaran and ribera, a warm glow which i had never seen in nature before. her heavy, bluish-black hair hung down, after the fashion of the day, in little curls over her forehead and fell in thick ringlets upon her shoulders. her eyebrows were exquisitely pencilled, arched and almost met over her delicate nose, her eyes were burning and a deep brown; they conquered, and smiled; her mouth was a little too small, with white teeth that were a little too large, her bust slender and full. her manner was distinguished, her voice rich; but most marvellous of all was her hand, such a hand as parmeggianino might have painted, all soul, branching off into five delightful fingers. mentally i unhesitatingly dubbed her the most marvelous feminine creature i had ever seen, and that less on account of her loveliness than the blending of the magnificence of her bearing with the ardour, and often the frolicsomeness, of her mode of expression. she was always vigorous and sometimes daring in her statements, cared only for the unusual, loved only "the impossible," but nevertheless carefully observed every established custom of society. to my very first remark to her, to the effect that the weakness of women was mostly only an habitual phrase; they were not weak except when they wished to be, she replied: "young as you are, you know women very well!" in that she was quite wrong. besides spanish and portuguese, she spoke french perfectly and english not badly, sang in a melodious contralto voice, drew well for an amateur, carved alabaster vases, and had all kinds of talents. she did not care to sing ballads, only cared for grand pathos. she was just twenty years of age, and had come into the world at rio, where her father represented the spanish government. the family were descended from cervantes. as she had early been left motherless, her father had sent her over in her fifteenth year to her aunt in paris. this latter was married to an old monstrosity of a spaniard, religious to the verge of insanity, who would seem to have committed some crime in his youth and now spent his whole day in the church, which was next door to his house, imploring forgiveness for his sins. he was only at home at mealtimes, when he ate an alarming amount, and he associated only with priests. the aunt herself, however, in spite of her age, was a pleasure-seeking woman, rarely allowed her niece to stay at home and occupy herself as she liked, but dragged her everywhere about with her to parties and balls. in her aunt's company she sometimes felt depressed, but alone she was cheerful and without a care. at the pagellas' she was like a child of the house. she had the spanish love of ceremony and magnificence, the ready repartee of the parisian, and, like a well-brought-up girl, knew how to preserve the balance between friendliness and mirth. she was not in the least prudish, and she understood everything; but there was a certain sublimity in her manner. while mademoiselle louise, the little parisian, had been brought up in a convent, kept from all free, intelligent, mundane conversation, and all free artistic impressions, the young spaniard, at the same age, had the education and the style of a woman of the world in her manner. we two young frequenters of the pagella salon, felt powerfully drawn to one another. we understood one another at once. of course, it was only i who was fascinated. when, in an evening, i drove across paris in the expectation of seeing her, i sometimes murmured to myself henrik hertz's verse: "my beloved is like the dazzling day, brazilia's summer!" my feelings, however, were much more admiration than love or desire. i did not really want to possess her. i never felt myself quite on a level with her even when she made decided advances to me. i rejoiced over her as over something perfect, and there was the rich, foreign colouring about her that there had been about the birds of paradise in my nursery. she seldom disturbed my peace of mind, but i said to myself that if i were to go away then, i should in all probability never see her again, as her father would be taking her the next year to brazil or madrid, and i sometimes felt as though i should be going away from my happiness forever. she often asked me to stay with such expressions and with such an expression that i was quite bewildered. and then she monopolised my thoughts altogether, like the queenly being she was. a danish poet had once called the beautiful women of the south "large, showy flowers without fragrance." was she a large, showy flower? forget-me-nots were certainly by no means showy, but they were none the more odorous for that. now that i was seeing the radiant mathilde almost every day, my position with regard to louise seemed to me a false one. i did not yet know how exceedingly rare an undivided feeling is, did not understand that my feelings towards mathilde were just as incomplete as those i cherished for louise. i looked on mademoiselle mathilde as on a work of art, but i came more humanly close to mademoiselle louise. she did not evoke my enthusiastic admiration; that was quite true, but mademoiselle mathilde evoked my enthusiastic admiration only. if there were a great deal of compassion mingled with my feelings for the parisian, there was likewise a slight erotic element. the young frenchwoman, in her passion, found expressions for affection and tenderness, in which she forgot all pride. she lived in a commingling, very painful for me, of happiness at my still being in paris, and of horror at my approaching departure, which i was now about to accelerate, merely to escape from the extraordinary situation in which i found myself, and which i was too young to carry. although mathilde, whom i had never seen alone, was always the same, quite the great lady, perfectly self-controlled, it was the thought of saying good-bye to her that was the more painful to me. every other day, on the other hand, louise was trembling and ill, and i dreaded the moment of separation. vii. i had not left off my daily work in paris, but had read industriously at the imperial library. i had also attended many lectures, some occasionally, others regularly, such as those of janet, caro, lévêque and taine. of all contemporary french writers, i was fondest of taine. i had begun studying this historian and thinker in copenhagen. the first book of his that i read was _the french philosophers of the nineteenth century_, in a copy that had been lent to me by gabriel sibbern. the book entranced me, and i determined to read every word that i could get hold of by the same author. in the imperial library in paris i read first of all _the history of english literature_, of which i had hitherto only been acquainted with a few fragments, which had appeared in the _revue des deux mondes_. taine was to me an antidote to german abstraction and german pedantry. through him i found the way to my own inmost nature, which my dano-german university education had covered over. shortly after my arrival in paris, therefore, i had written to taine and begged for an interview. by a singular piece of ill-luck his reply to me was lost, and it was only at the very end of my stay that i received a second invitation to go to him. although this one conversation could not be of any vast importance to me, it was nevertheless the first personal link between me and the man who was and remained my greatly loved master and deliverer, even though i mistrusted his essential teachings. i was afraid that i had created a bad impression, as i had wasted the time raising objections; but taine knew human nature well enough to perceive the personality behind the clumsy form and the admiration behind the criticism. in reality, i was filled with passionate gratitude towards taine, and this feeling remained unaltered until his latest hour. during this my first stay in paris i added the impression of taine's personality to the wealth of impressions that i took back with me from paris to copenhagen. early manhood feud in danish literature--riding--youthful longings--on the rack--my first living erotic reality--an impression of the miseries of modern coercive marriage--researches on the comic--dramatic criticism--a trip to germany--johanne louise heiberg--magdalene thoresen--rudolph bergh--the sisters spang--a foreign element--the woman subject--orla lehmann--m. goldschmidt--public opposition--a letter from björnstjerne björnson--hard work. i. after my return from france to denmark, in , my thoughts were taken up once more by the feud that had broken out in danish literature between science and so-called revelation (in the language of the time, faith and knowledge). more and more had by degrees entered the lists, and i, who centred my greatest intellectual interest in the battle, took part in it with a dual front, against the orthodox theologians, and more especially against r. nielsen, the assailant of the theologians, whom i regarded as no less theologically inclined than his opponents. i thereby myself became the object of a series of violent attacks from various quarters. these did not have any appreciable effect on my spirits, but they forced me for years into a somewhat irritating attitude of self-defence. still i was now arrived at that period of my youth when philosophy and art were unable to keep temperament in check. ii. this manifested itself first in a fresh need for physical exercise. during the first two years after the decision of , while things were leading up to war between prussia and austria, and while the young blood of denmark imagined that their country would be drawn into this war, i had taken part, as a member of the academic shooting society, in drill and shooting practice. after the battle of königgratz these occupations lost much of their attraction. i was now going in for an exercise that was new to me and which i had long wished to become proficient in. this was riding. up to that time i had never been able to afford to ride. but just then a captain of the dragoons offered to teach me for a very low fee, and in the queen's riding-school i was initiated during the spring months into the elementary stages of the art, in order that in summer i might be able to ride out. these riding-lessons were the keenest possible delight to me. i, who so seldom felt happy, and still more seldom jubilant, was positively exultant as i rode out in the morning along the strand road. even if i had had an almost sleepless night i felt fresh on horseback. it was no pleasure to me to ride the same horse often, if i knew its disposition. i liked to change as often as possible, and preferred rather difficult horses to mares too well broken in. i felt the arrogant pride of youth seethe in my veins as i galloped briskly along. i was still far from an accomplished horseman when an examination of my finances warned me that i must give up my riding lessons. when i informed my instructor that i could no longer allow myself the pleasure of his lessons, and in reply to his "why?" had mentioned the reason, the captain answered that it would be very easy to settle that matter: he had a sister, an elderly maiden lady, who was passionately fond of literature and literary history. lessons in that subject could to our mutual satisfaction balance the riding lessons, which could thus go on indefinitely. it is unnecessary to say how welcome the proposition was to me. it was such a relief! the captain was a pleasant, good-natured man, quite uneducated in literary matters, who confidingly communicated his bachelor experiences to his pupil. these were summed up in the reflection that when womenkind fall in love, they dread neither fire nor water; the captain himself, who yet, in his own opinion, only looked well on horseback, had once had an affair with a married lady who bombarded him with letters, and who, in her ardour, began writing one day without noticing that her husband, who was standing behind her chair, was looking over her shoulder. since then the captain had not felt the need of women, so to speak, preferred to be without them, and found his greatest pleasure in his horses and his skill as an equestrian. the sister was a maiden lady of forty, by no means devoid of intellectual ability, with talent for observation and an appreciation of good books, but whose development had been altogether neglected. she now cherished an ambition to write. she wrote in secret little tales that were not really stupid but had not the slightest pretensions to style or literary talent. she was very plain and exceedingly stout, which produced a comical effect, especially as she was inclined to exaggeration both of speech and gesture. there was a disproportion between the ages of the master and the pupil; in my eyes she was quite an old person, in her eyes, being her intellectual equal, i was likewise her equal in age. in the natural order of things she felt more personal sympathy for me than i for her. consequently, i involuntarily put a dash of teasing into my instruction, and occasionally made fun of her sentimentality, and when the large lady, half angry, half distressed, rose to seize hold of me and give me a shaking, i would run round the table, pursued by her, or shoot out a chair between her and myself,--which indubitably did not add to the dignity of our lessons. there was no question of thorough or connected instruction. what the lady wanted more particularly was that i should go through her literary attempts and correct them, but corrections could not transform them into art. and so it came about that after no very long time i gave up these arduous lessons, although obliged to give up my precious riding lessons at the same time. consequently i never became a really expert rider, although during the next few years i had a ride now and then. but after a severe attack of phlebitis following upon typhoid fever, in - , i was compelled to give up all the physical exercises that i loved best. iii. my temperament expressed itself in a profusion of youthful longings, as well as in my love of athletics. during my university studies, in my real budding manhood, i had voluntarily cut myself away from the usual erotic diversions of youth. precocious though i was in purely intellectual development, i was very backward in erotic experience. in that respect i was many years younger than my age. on my return, my paris experiences at first exercised me greatly. between the young french lady and myself an active correspondence had sprung up, while the young spaniard's radiant figure continued to retain the same place in my thoughts. then my surroundings claimed their rights, and it was not without emotion that i realised how charming the girls at home were. for i was only then entering upon the cherubino stage of my existence, when the sight of feminine grace or beauty immediately transports a youth into a mild state of love intoxication. it was incredible how rich the world was in bewitching creatures, and the world of copenhagen especially. if you walked down crown princess street, at a window on the ground floor you saw a dark girl with a grecian-shaped head and two brown eyes, exquisitely set, beneath a high and noble forehead. she united the chaste purity of pallas athene with a stern, attractive grace. if you went out towards the north side of the town, there was a house there on the first floor of which you were very welcome, where a handsome and well-bred couple once a week received young men for the sake of the lady's young niece. the master of the house was a lean and silent man, who always looked handsome, and was always dignified; he had honourably filled an exalted official post. his wife had been very attractive in her youth, had grown white while still quite young, and was now a handsome woman with snow-white curls clustering round her fresh-coloured face. to me she bore, as it were, an invisible mark upon her forehead, for when quite a young girl she had been loved by a great man. she was sincerely kind and genuinely pleasant, but the advantage of knowing her was not great; for that she was too restless a hostess. when it was her at home she never remained long enough with one group of talkers properly to understand what was being discussed. after about a minute she hurried off to the opposite corner of the drawing-room, said a few words there, and then passed on to look after the tea. it was neither to see her nor her husband that many of the young people congregated at the house. it was for the sake of the eighteen-year-old fairy maiden, her niece, whose face was one to haunt a man's dreams. it was not from her features that the witchery emanated, although in shape her face was a faultless oval, her narrow forehead high and well-shaped, her chin powerful. neither was it from the personality one obtained a glimpse of through her features. the girl's character and mental quality seemed much the same as that of other girls; she was generally silent, or communicative about trifles, and displayed no other coquetry than the very innocent delight in pleasing which nature itself would demand. but all the same there was a fascination about her, as about a fairy maiden. there was a yellow shimmer about her light hair; azure flames flashed from her blue eyes. these flames drew a magic circle about her, and the dozen young men who had strayed inside the circle flocked round her aunt the evening in the week that the family were "at home" and sat there, vying with each other for a glance from those wondrous eyes, hating each other with all their hearts, and suffering from the ridiculousness of yet meeting like brothers, week after week, as guests in the same house. the young girl's male relatives, who had outgrown their enthusiasm for her, declared that her character was not good and reliable--poor child! had she to be all that, too? others who did not ask so much were content to enjoy the sound of her voice. she was not a copenhagen girl, only spent a few winters in the town, then disappeared again. some years after, it was rumoured, to everybody's astonishment, that she had married a widower in a provincial town--she who belonged to the realms of poesy! then there was another young girl, nineteen. whereas the fairy maiden did not put herself out to pretend she troubled her head about the young men whom she fascinated with the rhythm of her movements or the radiation of her loveliness, was rather inclined to be short in her manner, a little staccato in her observations, too accustomed to admiration to attract worshippers to herself by courting them, too undeveloped and impersonal to consciously assert herself--this other girl was of quite another sort. she had no innate irresistibility, but was a shrewd and adaptable human girl. her face did not attract by its beauty, though she was very much more beautiful than ugly, with a delicately hooked nose, a mouth full of promise, an expression of thoughtfulness and determination. when she appeared at a ball, men's eyes lingered on her neck, and even more on her white back, with its firm, smooth skin, and fine play of the muscles; for if she did not allow very much of her young bust to be seen, her dress at the back was cut down nearly to her belt. her voice was a deep contralto, and she knew how to assume an expression of profound gravity and reflection. but she captivated most by her attentiveness. when a young man whom she wished to attract commenced a conversation with her, she never took her eyes from his, or rather she gazed into his, and showed such a rapt attention to his words, such an interest in his thoughts and his occupations, that after meeting her once he never forgot her again. her coquetry did not consist of languishing glances, but of a pretended sympathy, that flattered and delighted its object. iv. these danish girls were likely to appeal to a young man just returned from travels abroad, during which his emotions had been doubly stirred, for the first time, by feminine affection and by enthusiasm for a woman. they influenced me the more strongly because they were danish, and because i, who loved everything danish, from the language to the monuments, had, since the war, felt something lacking in everyone, man or woman, who was foreign to denmark. but in the midst of all these visitations of calf-love, and their vibrations among undefined sensations, i was pulled back with a jerk, as it were, to my earlier and deepest impression, that of the loveliness and exalted person of the young spaniard. letters from paris furrowed my mind like steamers the waters of a lake, made it foam, and the waves run high, left long streaks across its wake. not that mlle. mathilde sent letters to me herself, but her italian lady and gentlemen friends wrote for her, apparently in her name, loudly lamenting my unreasonable departure, wishing and demanding my return, telling me how she missed me, sometimes how angry she was. i was too poor to be able to return at once. i did what i could to procure money, wrote to those of my friends whom i thought could best afford it and on whom i relied most, but met with refusals, which made me think of the messages timon of athens received in response to similar requests. then i staked in the lottery and did not win. urged from france to return, and under the high pressure of my own romantic imagination, it seemed clear to me all at once that i ought to unite my lot for good to that of this rare and beautiful woman, whom, it is true, i had never spoken to one minute alone, who, moreover, had scarcely anything in common with me, but who, just by the dissimilarity of her having been born of spanish parents in rio, and i of a danish father and mother in copenhagen, seemed destined by fate for me, as i for her. the palm and the fir-tree had dreamed of one another, and could never meet; but men and women could, however far apart they might have been born. in the middle of the summer of i was as though possessed by the thought that she and i ought to be united. the simplest objection of all, namely, that i, who was scarcely able to support myself, could not possibly support a wife, seemed to me altogether subordinate. my motives were purely chivalric; i could not leave her in the lurch, as the miserable hero of andersen's _only a player_ did noomi. and a vision of her compelling loveliness hovered before my eyes. the whole of the month of july and part of the month of august i was on the rack, now passionately desiring a successful issue of my plans, now hoping just as ardently that they would be stranded through the opposition of the foreign family; for i was compelled to admit to myself that the beautiful spaniard would be very unsuited to copenhagen, would freeze there, mentally as well as literally. and i said to myself every day that supposing the war expected in denmark were to break out again, and the young men were summoned to arms, the most insignificant little danish girl would make me a better valkyrie; all my feelings would be foreign to her, and possibly she would not even be able to learn danish. any other woman would understand more of my mind than she. and yet! yet she was the only one for me. thus i was swayed by opposing wishes the whole of the long time during which the matter was pending and uncertain. i was so exhausted by suspense that i only kept up by taking cold baths twice a day and by brisk rides. the mere sight of a postman made my heart beat fast. the scorn heaped upon me in the danish newspapers had a curious effect upon me under these circumstances; it seemed to me to be strangely far away, like blows at a person who is somewhere else. i pondered all day on the painful dilemma in which i was placed; i dreamt of my dulcinea every night, and began to look as exhausted as i felt. one day that i went to fredensborg, in response to an invitation from frederik paludan-müller, the poet said to me: "have you been ill lately? you look so pale and shaken." i pretended not to care; whatever i said or did in company was incessant acting. i experienced revulsions of feeling similar to those that troubled don quixote. now i saw in my distant spanish maiden the epitome of perfection, now the picture melted away altogether; even my affection for her then seemed small, artificial, whimsical, half-forgotten. and then again she represented supreme happiness. when the decision came, when,--as everyone with the least experience of the world could have foretold,--all the beautiful dreams and audacious plans collapsed suddenly, i felt as though this long crisis had thrown me back indescribably; my intellectual development had been at a standstill for months. it was such a feeling as when the death of some loved person puts an end to the long, tormenting anxiety of the foregoing illness. i, who had centred everything round one thought, must now start joylessly along new paths. my outburst,--which astonished myself,--was: "how i wanted a heart!" v. i could not at once feel it a relief that my fancies had all been dissipated into thin air. physically i was much broken down, but, with my natural elasticity, quickly recovered. yet in my relations towards the other sex i was torn as i had never been before. my soul, or more exactly, that part of my psychical life bordering on the other sex, was like a deep, unploughed field, waiting for seed. it was not much more than a month before the field was sown. amongst my danish acquaintances there was only one, a young and very beautiful widow, upon whom, placed as i was with regard to mile. mathilde, i had definitely counted. i should have taken the young spaniard to her; she alone would have understood her--they would have been friends. there had for a long time been warm feelings of sympathy between her and me. it so chanced that she drew much closer to me immediately after the decisive word had been spoken. she became, consequently, the only one to whom i touched upon the wild fancies to which i had given myself up, and confided the dreams with which i had wasted my time. she listened to me sympathetically, no little amazed at my being so devoid of practical common sense. she stood with both feet on the earth; but she had one capacity that i had not met with before in any young woman--the capacity for enthusiasm. she had dark eyes, with something melancholy in their depths; but when she spoke of anything that roused her enthusiasm, her eyes shone like stars. she pointed out how preposterous it was in me to wish to seek so far away a happiness that perhaps was very close to me, and how even more preposterous to neglect, as i had done, my studies and intellectual aims for a fantastic love. and for the first time in my life, a young woman spoke to me of my abilities and of the impression she had received of them, partly through the reading of the trifles that i had had printed, partly, and more particularly, through her long talks with me. neither the little french girl nor the young spanish lady had ever spoken to me of myself, my talents, or my future; this danish woman declared that she knew me through and through. and the new thing about it all, the thing hitherto unparalleled in my experience, was that she believed in me. more than that: she had the highest possible conception of my abilities, asserted in contradiction to my own opinion, that i was already a man of unusual mark, and was ardently ambitious for me. just at this moment, when so profoundly disheartened, and when in idle hopes and plans i had lost sight of my higher goal, by her firm belief in me she imparted to me augmented self-respect. her confidence in me gave me increasing confidence in myself, and a vehement gratitude awoke in me for the good she thus did me. then it happened that one day, without preamble, she admitted that the interest she felt in me was not merely an intellectual one; things had now gone so far that she could think of nothing but me. my whole nature was shaken to its foundations. up to this time i had only regarded her as my friend and comforter, had neither felt nor fought against any personal attraction. but she had scarcely spoken, before she was transformed in my eyes. the affection i had thirsted for was offered to me here. the heart i had felt the need of was this heart. and it was not only a heart that was offered me, but a passion that scorned scruples. in my austere youth hitherto, i had not really had erotic experiences whatever. i had led the chaste life of the intellectual worker. my thoughts had been the thoughts of a man; they had ascended high and had delved deep, but my love affairs had been the enthusiasms and fancies of a half-grown boy, chimeras and dreams. this young woman was my first living erotic reality. and suddenly, floodgates seemed to open within me. streams of lava, streams of molten fire, rushed out over my soul. i loved for the first time like a man. the next few days i went about as if lifted above the earth; in the theatre, in the evening, i could not follow the performance, but sat in the pit with my face in my hands, full of my new destiny, as though my heart would burst. and yet it was more a physical state, an almost mechanical outcome of what to me was overwhelmingly new, association with a woman. it was not because it was just this particular woman. for my emotional nature was so composite that even in the first moment of my bliss i did not regard this bliss as unmixed. from the very first hour, i felt a gnawing regret that it was not i who had desired her, but she who had chosen me, so that my love in my heart of hearts was only a reflection of hers. vi. about this time it so happened that another woman began to engage my thoughts, but in an altogether different manner. circumstances resulted in my being taken into the secret of unhappy and disturbing domestic relations in a well-to-do house to which i was frequently invited, and where to all outward seeming all the necessary conditions of domestic happiness were present. the master of the house had in his younger days been a very handsome man, lazy, not clever, and of an exceedingly passionate temper. he was the son of a man rich, worthy and able, but of a very weak character, and of a kept woman who had been the mistress of a royal personage. through no fault of his own, he had inherited his mother's professional vices, persistent untruthfulness, a comedian's manner, prodigality, a love of finery and display. he was quite without intellectual interests, but had a distinguished bearing, a winning manner, and no gross vices. his wife, who, for family reasons, had been married to him much too young, had never loved him, and never been suited to him. as an innocent, ignorant girl, she had been placed in the arms of a man who was much the worse for a reckless life, and suffering from an illness that necessitated nursing, and made him repulsive to her. every day that passed she suffered more from being bound to a man whose slightest movement was objectionable to her and whose every remark a torture. in the second decade of her marriage the keenest marital repulsion had developed in her; this was so strong that she sometimes had to pull herself together in order, despite her maternal feelings, not to transfer her dislike to the children, who were likewise his, and in whom she dreaded to encounter his characteristics. towards her, the man was despotic and cunning, but not unkind, and in so far excusable that, let him have done what he might, she could not have got rid of the hatred that plagued him and consumed her. so dissimilar were their two natures. her whole aim and aspiration was to get the bond that united them dissolved. but this he would not hear of, for many reasons, and more especially from dislike of scandal. he regarded himself, and according to the usual conception of the words, justly so, as a good husband and father. he asked for no impossible sacrifice from his wife, and he was affectionate to his children. he could not help her detesting him, and indeed, did not fully realise that she did. and yet, it was difficult for him to misunderstand. for his wife scarcely restrained her aversion even when there were guests in the house. if he told an untruth, she kept silence with her lips, but scarcely with her expression. and she would sometimes talk of the faults and vices that she most abhorred, and then name his. the incessant agitation in which she lived had made her nervous and restless to excess. as the feminine craving to be able, in marriage, to look up to the man, had never been satisfied, she only enacted the more vehemently veracity, firmness and intellect in men. but undeveloped as she was, and in despair over the dissatisfaction, the drowsiness, and the darkness in which her days glided away, whatever invaded the stagnation and lighted up the darkness: sparkle, liveliness, brilliance and wit, were estimated by her more highly than they deserved to be. at first when, in the desolation of her life, she made advances to me, this repelled me somewhat. the equestrian performer in heiberg's madame voltisubito cannot sing unless she hears the crack of a whip. thus it seemed to me that her nature could not sing, save to the accompaniment of all the cart, carriage and riding whips of the mind. but i saw how unhappy she was, and that the intense strain of her manner was only an expression of it. she could not know the beauty of inward peace, and in spite of her protestant upbringing she had retained all the unaffectedness and sincerity of the natural human being, all the obstinate love of freedom, unmoved in the least by what men call discipline, ethics, christianity, convention. she did not believe in it all, she had seen what it resulted in, and what it covered up, and she passed her life in unmitigated despair, which was ordinarily calm to all appearance, but in reality rebellious: what she was enduring was the attempted murder of her soul. to all that she suffered purely mentally from her life with her husband in the home that was no home at all, there had of late been added circumstances which likewise from a practical point of view made interference and alteration necessary. her lord and master had always been a bad manager, in fact worse than that; in important matters, thoroughly incapable and fatuous. that had not mattered much hitherto, since others had looked after his affairs; but now the control of them had fallen entirely into his own hands, and he managed them in such a way that expenses increased at a terrific rate, while his income diminished with equal rapidity, and the question of total ruin only seemed a matter of time. his wife had no outside support. she was an orphan and friendless. her husband's relations did not like her and did not understand her. and yet just at this time she required as a friend a man who understood her and could help her to save her own and the children's fortunes from the shipwreck, before it was too late. she felt great confidence in me, whom she had met, at intervals, from my boyhood, and she now opened her heart to me in conversation more and more. she confided in me fully, gave me a complete insight into the torture of her life, and implored me to help her to acquire her freedom. thus it was that while still quite a young man a powerful, never-to-be-effaced impression of the miseries of modern coercive marriage was produced upon me. the impression was not merely powerful, but it waked, like a cry of distress, both my thinking powers and my energy. as through a chink in the smooth surface of society, i looked down into the depths of horror. behind the unhappiness of one, i suspected that of a hundred thousand, knew that of a hundred thousand. and i felt myself vehemently called upon, not only to name the horror by its name, but to step in, as far as i was able, and prevent the thing spreading unheeded. scales had fallen from my eyes. under the semblance of affection and peace, couples were lacerating one another by the thousand, swallowed up by hatred and mutual aversion. the glitter of happiness among those higher placed dazzled the thoughtless and the credulous. he who had eyes to see, observed how the wretchedness due to the arrangement of society, wound itself right up to its pinnacles. the vices and paltrinesses of the individual could not be directly remedied; inherited maladies and those brought upon one's self, stupidity and folly, brutality and malice, undeniably existed. but the institutions of society ought to be so planned as to render these destructive forces inoperative, or at least diminish their harmfulness, not so as to give them free scope and augment their terrors by securing them victims. in marriage, the position of the one bound against his or her will was undignified, often desperate, but worst in the case of a woman. as a mother she could be wounded in her most vulnerable spot, and what was most outrageous of all, she could be made a mother against her will. one single unhappy marriage had shown me, like a sudden revelation, what marriage in countless cases is, and how far from free the position of woman still was. but that woman should be oppressed in modern society, that the one-half of the human race could be legally deprived of their rights, revealed that justice in society, as it at present stood, was in a sorry state. in the relations between the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the same legalised disproportion would necessarily prevail as between man and woman. my thought pierced down into the state of society that obtained and was praised so highly, and with ever less surprise and ever greater disquiet, found hollowness everywhere. and this called my will to battle, armed it for the fight. vii. from this time forth i began to ponder quite as much over life as over art, and to submit to criticism the conditions of existence in the same way as i had formerly done with faith and law. in matters concerning life, as in things concerning art, i was not a predetermined radical. there was a great deal of piety in my nature and i was of a collecting, retentive disposition. only gradually, and step by step, was i led by my impressions, the incidents i encountered, and my development, to break with many a tradition to which i had clung to the last extremity. it was in the spirit of the aesthetics of the time, that, after having been engaged upon the tragic idea, i plunged into researches on the comic, and by degrees, as the material ordered itself for me, i tried to write a doctor's thesis upon it, abstract researches were regarded as much more valuable than historic investigation. in comic literature aristophanes in particular delighted me, and i was thinking of letting my general definitions merge into a description of the greatness of the greek comedian; but as the thread broke for me, i did not get farther than the theory of the comic in general. it was not, like my previous treatise on the tragic, treated under three headings, according to the hegelian model, but written straight ahead, without any subdivision into sections. whilst working at this paper i was, of course, obliged constantly to consult the national comedies and lighter plays, till i knew them from cover to cover. consequently, when gotfred rode, the poet, who was connected with a well-known educational establishment for girls, asked me whether i would care to give a course of public lectures for ladies, i chose as my subject _the danish comedy_. the lectures were attended in force. the subject was supremely innocent, and it was treated in quite a conservative manner. at that time i cherished a sincere admiration, with only slight reservations, for heiberg, hertz, hostrup and many others as comic playwriters, and was not far short of attributing to their works an importance equal to those of holberg. and yet i was unable to avoid giving offence. i had, it appears, about heiberg's _klister and malle_, an inseparable betrothed couple, used what was, for that matter, an undoubtedly kierkegaardian expression, viz., _to beslobber a relation_. this expression was repeated indignantly to the headmistress, and the thoughtless lecturer was requested to call upon the principal of the college. when, after a long wait, and little suspecting what was going to be said to me, i was received in audience, it appeared that i had been summoned to receive a polite but decided admonition against wounding the susceptibilities of my listeners by expressions which were not "good form," and when i, unconscious of wrongdoing, asked which expression she alluded to, the unfortunate word "beslobber" was alleged; my young hearers were not "'arriets" for whom such expressions might be fitting. i was not asked again to give lectures for young ladies. viii. hitherto, when i had appeared before the reading public, it had only been as the author of shorter or longer contributions to the philosophical discussion of the relations between science and faith; when these had been accepted by a daily paper it had been as its heaviest ballast. i had never yet written anything that the ordinary reader could follow with pleasure, and i had likewise been obliged to make use of a large number of abstruse philosophical words. the proprietors of the _illustrated times_ offered me the reviewing of the performances at the royal theatre in their paper, which had not hitherto printed dramatic criticisms. i accepted the offer, because it afforded me a wished-for opportunity of further shaking off the dust of the schools. i could thus have practice with my pen, and get into touch with a section of the reading public who, without caring for philosophy, nevertheless had intellectual interests; and these articles were in reality a vent for what i had at heart about this time touching matters human and artistic. they were written in a more colloquial style than anything i had written before, or than it was usual to write in denmark at that time, and they alternated sometimes with longer essays, such as those on andersen and goldschmidt. regarded merely as dramatic criticisms, they were of little value. the royal theatre, the period of whose zenith was nearly at an end, i cared little for, and i was personally acquainted with next to none of the actors, only meeting, at most, phister and adolf rosenkilde and of ladies, södring in society. i found it altogether impossible to brandish my cane over the individual actor in his individual part. but the form of it was merely a pretext. i wanted to show myself as i was, speak out about dramatic and other literature, reveal how i felt, show what i thought about all the conditions of life represented or touched upon on the stage. my articles were read with so much interest that the editors of the _illustrated times_ raised the writer's scale of remuneration to kr. a column (about _s_. _d_.), which at that time was very respectable pay. unfortunately, however, i soon saw that even at that, if i wrote in the paper all the year round, i could not bring up my yearly income from this source to more than kroner of our money, about i _l_. _s_. _d_. in english money; so that, without a university bursary, i should have come badly off, and even with it was not rolling in riches. the first collection of my articles, which i published in under the title of _studies in aesthetics_, augmented my income a little, it is true, but for that, as for the next collection, _criticisms and portraits_, i only received kroner ( _s_. _d_.) per sheet of sixteen pages. very careful management was necessary. ix. with the first money i received for my books, i went in the middle of the summer of for a trip to germany. i acquired some idea of berlin, which was then still only the capital of prussia, and in population corresponded to the copenhagen of our day; i spent a few weeks in dresden, where i felt very much at home, delighted in the exquisite art collection and derived no small pleasure from the theatre, at that time an excellent one. i saw prague for the first time, worshipped rubens in munich, and, with him specially in my mind, tried to realise how the greatest painters had regarded life. switzerland added to my store of impressions with grand natural spectacles. i saw the alps, and a thunderstorm in the alps, passed starlit nights on the swiss lakes, traced the courses of foaming mountain streams such as the tamina at pfäffers, ascended the rigi at a silly forced march, and from the kulm saw a procession of clouds that gripped my fancy like the procession of the vanir in northern mythology. many years afterwards i described it in the fourth volume of _main currents_. from interlaken i gazed on the whiteness of the jungfrau, but scarcely with greater emotion than once upon a time when i had gazed at the white cliffs of möen. on my homeward journey i saw heidelberg's lovely ruins, to which charles v.'s castle, near the al-hambra, makes a marvellous pendant, strassburg's grave cathedral, and goethe's house at frankfurt. my travels were not long, but were extraordinarily instructive. i made acquaintance with people from the most widely different countries, with youthful frankness engaged in conversation with germans and frenchmen, englishmen and americans, poles and russians, dutchmen, belgians and swiss, met them as travelling companions, and listened attentively to what they narrated. they were, moreover, marvellously frank towards the young man who, with the curiosity of his age, plied them with questions. young dutchmen, studying music in dresden, gave me some idea of the ill-will felt in their country towards the prussians, an ill-will not unmingled with contempt. on the other hand, i was astonished, during a half day's excursion on foot with a few leipzig students, to learn how strong was the feeling of the unity of germany and of the necessity of the supremacy of prussia, even in the states which in the war had been on the side of austria. the students felt no grief over having been defeated, the victors were germans too; everything was all right so long as the german empire became one. these and similar conversations, which finally brought me to the conclusion that the whole of the bourgeoisie was satisfied with the dominance of prussia, had for result that in i did not for a moment share the opinion of the danes and the french, that the defeated german states would enter into an alliance with france against prussia. english undergraduates told me what philosophical and historical works were being most read in the universities of great britain; bohemian students explained to me that in the german philosophical world kant had quite outshone hegel and put him in the background. the lady members of an american family from boston treated me quite maternally; the wife suggested almost at once, in the railway-carriage, that i should give her when we reached the hotel whatever linen or clothes i had that wanted repairs; she would be very pleased to mend them for me. the husband, who was very pious and good-natured, had all his pockets full of little hymn-books and in his memorandum book a quantity of newspaper cuttings of devotional verse, which he now and then read aloud enthusiastically. but i also met with americans of quite a different cast. a young student from harvard university, who, for that matter, was not in love with the germans and declared that the united states could with difficulty absorb and digest those who were settled there, surprised me with his view that in the future bismarck would come to be regarded as no less a figure than cavour. the admiration of contemporary educated thought was then centred around cavour, whereas bismarck had hitherto only encountered passionate aversion outside germany, and even in germany was the object of much hatred. this student roused me into thinking about bismarck for myself. having lain down, all bathed in perspiration, during the ascent without a guide of a mountain in switzerland, i was accosted by a woman, who feared i had come to some harm. i walked on up with her. she turned out to be a young peasant woman from normandy, who lived half-way up the mountain. she had accompanied her husband to switzerland, but cursed her lot, and was always longing to be back in france. when i remarked that it must be some consolation to live in so lovely a place, she interrupted me with the most violent protests. a beautiful place! this! the steep mountain, the bristly fir-trees and pine-trees, the snow on the top and the lake deep down below--anything uglier it would be hard to conceive. no fields, no pasture-land, no apple-trees! no indeed! if she had to mention a country that really was beautiful, it was normandy. there was plenty of food for all there, you did not need to go either up or down hill; there, thank god, it was flat. did i think stones beautiful, perhaps? she had not been down in the valley for five months, and higher than her house she had never been and would never go; no, thank you, not she! she let her husband fetch what they required for the house; she herself sat and fretted all through the winter; life then was almost more than she could bear. on one of the steamers on the lake of lucerne, i caught, for the first time, a glimpse of berthold auerbach, who was very much admired by my comrades in copenhagen and by myself. at the hotel table at lucerne i made the acquaintance of a dutch captain from batavia, an acquaintance productive of much pleasure to me. before the soup was brought round i had pulled out a letter i had just received, opened it and begun to read it. a voice by my side said in french: "happy man! you are reading a letter in a woman's writing!" with that our acquaintance was made. the captain was a man of forty, who in the course of an active life had had many and varied experiences and met with prosperity, but was suffering from a feeling of great void. his society was exceedingly attractive to me, and he related to me the main events of his life; but after one day's association only, we were obliged to part. all through my trip i had a curious feeling of every farewell on the journey being in all human probability a farewell for life, but had not realised it painfully before. but when next day the brave captain, whose home was far away in another quarter of the globe, held his hand out to say good-bye, i was much affected. "till we meet again" said the captain. "and where?" "till we meet again all and everywhere, for we live an eternal life; till we meet again in time and space, or outside time and space!" i reflected sadly that i should never again see this man, who, the last twenty-four hours had shown me, was in extraordinary sympathy and agreement with me. separated from those dearest to me, the whole of the journey, for that matter, was a sort of self-torment to me, even though a profitable one. like every other traveller, i had many a lonely hour, and plenty of time to ponder over my position and vocation in life. i summed up my impressions in the sentence: "the powers have designated me the champion of great ideas against great talents, unfortunately greater than i." x. there was only one distinguished person outside my circle of acquaintance to whom i wished to bring my first descriptive book, as a mark of homage, johanne louise heiberg, the actress. i had admired her on the stage, even if not to the same extent as michael wiehe; but to me she was the representative of the great time that would soon sink into the grave. in addition, i ventured to hope that she, being a friend of frederik paludan-müller, magdalene thoresen and others who wished me well, would be at any rate somewhat friendly inclined towards me. a few years before, it had been rumoured in copenhagen after the publication of my little polemical pamphlet against nielsen, that at a dinner at the heiberg's there had been a good deal of talk about me; even bishop martensen had expressed himself favourably, and it also attracted attention that a short time afterwards, in a note to his book _on knowledge and faith_, he mentioned me not unapprovingly, and contented himself with a reminder to me not to feel myself too soon beyond being surprised. when the bishop of zealand, one of the actress's most faithful adherents, had publicly spoken thus mildly of the youthful heretic, there was some hope that the lady herself would be free from prejudice. my friends also eagerly encouraged me to venture upon a visit to her home. i was admitted and asked to wait in a room through the glass doors of which i was attentively observed for some time by the lady's adopted children. then she came in, in indoor dress, with a stocking in her hand, at which she uninterruptedly continued to knit during the following conversation: she said: "well! so you have collected your articles." i was simple enough to reply--as if that made any difference to the lady--that the greater part of the book had not been printed before. she turned the conversation upon björnson's _fisher girl_, which had just been published, and which had been reviewed by _the fatherland_ the evening before, declaring that she disagreed altogether with the reviewer, who had admired in the _fisher girl_ a psychological study of a scenic genius. "it is altogether a mistake," said mrs. heiberg, absorbed in counting her stitches, "altogether a mistake that genius is marked by restlessness, refractoriness, an irregular life, or the like. that is all antiquated superstition. true genius has no connection whatever with excesses and caprices, in fact, is impossible without the strict fulfilment of one's duty. (knitting furiously.) genius is simple, straightforward, domesticated, industrious." when we began to speak of mutual acquaintances, amongst others, magdalene thoresen, feeling very uncomfortable in the presence of the lady, i blurted out most tactlessly that i was sure that lady was much interested in me. it was a mere nothing, but at the moment sounded like conceit and boasting. i realised it the moment the words were out of my mouth, and instinctively felt that i had definitely displeased her. but the conversational material was used up and i withdrew. i never saw johanne louise heiberg again; henceforth she thought anything but well of me. xi. magdalene thoresen was spending that year in copenhagen, and our connection, which had been kept up by correspondence, brought with it a lively mutual interchange of thoughts and impressions. our natures, it is true, were as much unlike as it was possible for them to be; but magdalene thoresen's wealth of moods and the overflowing warmth of her heart, the vivacity of her disposition, the tenderness that filled her soul, and the incessant artistic exertion, which her exhausted body could not stand, all this roused in me a sympathy that the mistiness of her reasoning, and the over-excitement of her intellectual life, could not diminish. besides which, especially when she was away from copenhagen, but when she was there, too, she needed a literary assistant who could look through her mss. and negotiate over them with the publishers of anthologies, year-books, and weekly papers, and for this purpose she not infrequently seized upon me, innocently convinced, like everybody else for that matter, that she was the only person who made a similar demand upon me. still, it was rather trying that, when my verdict on her work did not happen to be what she wished, she saw in what i said an unkindness, for which she alleged reasons that had nothing whatever to do with art. magdalene thoresen could not be otherwise than fond of rasmus nielsen; they were both lively, easily enraptured souls, who breathed most freely in the fog. that, however, did not come between her and me, whom she often thought in the right. with regard to my newspaper activity, she merely urged the stereotyped but pertinent opinion, that i ought not to write so many small things; my nature could not stand this wasting, drop by drop. i had myself felt for a long time that i ought to concentrate my forces on larger undertakings. xii. there were not many of the upper middle class houses in copenhagen at that time, the hospitality of which a young man with intellectual interests derived any advantage from accepting. one of these houses, which was opened to me, and with which i was henceforward associated, was that of chief physician rudolph bergh. his was the home of intellectual freedom. the master of the house was not only a prominent scientist and savant, but, at a time when all kinds of prejudices ruled unassailed, a man who had retained the uncompromising radicalism of the first half of the century. the spirit of knowledge was the holy spirit to him; the profession of doctor had placed him in the service of humanity, and to firmness of character he united pure philanthropy. the most despised outcasts of society met with the same consideration and the same kindness from him as its favoured ones. his wife was well calculated, by her charm of manner, to be the centre of the numerous circle of talented men who, both from denmark and abroad, frequented the house. there one met all the foreign natural scientists who came to copenhagen, all the esteemed personalities denmark had at the time, who might be considered as belonging to the freer trend of thought, and many neutrals. actors such as höedt and phister went there, favourite narrators such as bergsöe, painters like kröyer, distinguished scientists like j.c. schiödte, the entomologist. this last was an independent and intellectual man, somewhat touchy, and domineering in his manner, a master of his subject, a man of learning, besides, ceremonious, often cordial, ready to listen to anything worth hearing that was said. he had weaknesses, never would admit that he had made a mistake, and was even very unwilling to own he had not read a book that was being spoken of. besides which, he had spent too great a part of his life in virulent polemics to be devoid of the narrowing of the horizon which is the concomitant of always watching and being ready to attack the same opponent. but he was in the grand style, which is rare in denmark, as elsewhere. xiii. the house of the sisters spang was a pleasant one to go to; they were two unmarried ladies who kept an excellent girls' school, at which julius lange taught drawing. benny spang, not a beautiful, but a brilliant girl, with exceptional brains, daughter of the well-known pastor spang, a friend of sören kierkegaard, adopted a tone of good-fellowship towards me that completely won my affection. she was cheerful, witty, sincere and considerate. not long after we became acquainted she married a somewhat older man than herself, the gentle and refined landscape painter, gotfred rump. the latter made a very good sketch of me. the poet paludan-müller and the lange family visited at the house; so did the two young and marvellously beautiful girls, alma trepka and clara rothe, the former of whom was married later to carl bloch the painter, the other to her uncle, mr. falbe, the danish minister in london. it was hard to say which of the two was the more beautiful. both were unusually lovely. alma trepka was queenly, her movements sedate, her disposition calm and unclouded--carl bloch could paint a madonna, or even a christ, from her face without making any essential alteration in the oval of its contours. clara rothe's beauty was that of the white hart in the legend; her eyes like a deer's, large and shy, timid, and unself-conscious, her movements rapid, but so graceful that one was fascinated by the harmony of them. xiv. just about this time a foreign element entered the circle of copenhagen students to which i belonged. one day there came into my room a youth with a nut-brown face, short and compactly built, who after only a few weeks' stay in copenhagen could speak danish quite tolerably. he was a young armenian, who had seen a great deal of the world and was of very mixed race. his father had married, at ispahan, a lady of dutch-german origin. up to his seventh year he had lived in batavia. when the family afterwards moved to europe, he was placed at school in geneva. he had there been brought up, in french, to trade, but as he revealed an extraordinary talent for languages, was sent, for a year or eighteen months at a time, to the four german universities of halle, erlangen, göttingen and leipzig. now, at the age of , he had come to copenhagen to copy palahvi and sanscrit manuscripts that rask and westergaard had brought to europe. he knew a great many languages, and was moreover very many-sided in his acquirements, sang german student songs charmingly, was introduced and invited everywhere, and with his foreign appearance and quick intelligence was a great success. he introduced new points of view, was full of information, and brought with him a breath from the great world outside. industrious though he had been before, copenhagen social life tempted him to idleness. his means came to an end; he said that the annual income he was in the habit of receiving by ship from india had this year, for some inexplicable reason, failed to arrive, dragged out a miserable existence for some time under great difficulties, starved, borrowed small sums, and disappeared as suddenly as he had come. xv. knowing this armenian made me realise how restricted my own learning was, and what a very general field of knowledge i had chosen. i wrote my newspaper articles and my essays, and i worked at my doctor's thesis on french aesthetics, which cost me no little pains; it was my first attempt to construct a consecutive book, and it was only by a vigorous effort that i completed it at the end of . but i had then been casting over in my mind for some years thoughts to which i never was able to give a final form, thoughts about the position of women in society, which would not let me rest. a woman whose thought fired mine even further just about this time, a large-minded woman, who studied society with an uncompromising directness that was scarcely to be met with in any man of the time in denmark, was the wife of the poet carsten hauch. when she spoke of danish women, the stage of their development and their position in law, their apathy and the contemptibleness of the men, whether these latter were despots, pedants, or self-sufficient christians, she made me a sharer of her point of view; our hearts glowed with the same flame. rinna hauch was not, like certain old ladies of her circle, a "woman's movement" woman before the name was invented. she taught no doctrine, but she glowed with ardour for the cause of freedom and justice. she saw through the weak, petty men and women of her acquaintance and despised them. she too passionately desired a thorough revolution in modern society to be able to feel satisfied merely by an amelioration of the circumstances of women of the middle classes; and yet it was the condition of women, especially in the classes she knew well, that she thought most about. she began to place some credence in me and cherished a hope that i should do my utmost to stir up the stagnation at home, and during the long conversations we had together, when, in the course of these summers, i now and again spent a week at a time with the hauchs at hellebaek, she enflamed me with her ardour. in september, , after wandering with my old friend up and down the shore, under the pure, starlit heaven, and at last finding myself late at night in my room, i was unable to go to rest. all that had been talked of and discussed in the course of the day made my head hot and urged me to reflection and action. often i seized a piece of paper and scribbled off, disconnectedly, in pencil, remarks corresponding to the internal agitation of my mind, jottings like the following, for example: s.r., that restive fanatic, has a wife who cannot believe, and wishes for nothing but to be left in peace on religious matters. he _forces her_ to go to communion, though he knows the words of scripture, that he who partakes unworthily eats and drinks to his own damnation. there is not one sound, healthy sentiment in the whole of our religious state of being. you frequently hear it said: "everyone can't be a hypocrite." true enough. but begin, in the middle classes, to deduct hypocrisy, and gross affectation and cowardly dread of hell, and see what is left! if we have young people worthy the name, i will tell them the truth; but this band of backboneless creatures blocks up the view. women whom life has enlightened and whom it has disappointed! you i can help. i see two lovers hand in hand, kissing the tears away from each other's eyes. i can only rouse the wakeful. nothing can be done with those who are incapable of feeling noble indignation. i have known two women prefer death to the infamy of conjugal life. open the newspapers!--hardly a line that is not a lie. and poets and speakers flatter a people like that. christianity and humanity have long wished for divorce. now this is an accomplished fact. and the priests are honoured. they plume themselves on not having certain vices, for which they are too weak. i know that i shall be stoned, that every boy has his balderdash ready against that to which the reflection of years and sleepless nights has given birth. but do you think i am afraid of anyone? stupidity was always the bodyguard of lies. a people who have put up with the oldenborgs for four hundred years and made loyalty to them into a virtue! they do not even understand that here there is no antichrist but common sense. abandoned by all, except unhappiness and me. when did god become man? when nature reached the point in its development at which the first man made his appearance; when nature became man, then god did. women say of the beloved one: "a bouquet he brings smells better than one another brings." you are weak, dear one, god help you! and you help! and i help! these thoughts have wrought a man of me, have finally wrought me to a man. i procured all that was accessible to me in modern french and english literature on the woman subject. in the year my thoughts on the subordinate position of women in society began to assume shape, and i attempted a connected record of them. i adopted as my starting point sören kierkegaard's altogether antiquated conception of woman and contested it at every point. but all that i had planned and drawn up was cast aside when in john stuart mill's book on the subject fell into my hands. i felt mill's superiority to be so immense and regarded his book as so epoch-making that i necessarily had to reject my own draft and restrict myself to the translation and introduction of what he had said. in november, , i published mill's book in danish and in this manner introduced the modern woman's movement into denmark. the translation was of this advantage to me that it brought me first into epistolary communication, and later into personal contact with one of the greatest men of the time. xvi. there was one of the political figures of the time whom i often met during these years. this was the man most beloved of the previous generation, whose star had certainly declined since the war, but whose name was still one to conjure with, orla lehmann. i had made his acquaintance when i was little more than a boy, in a very curious way. in the year i had given a few lectures in c.n. david's house, on runeberg, whom i had glorified exceedingly, and as the david and lehmann houses, despite the political differences between them, were closely related one to the other, and intimately connected, orla lehmann had heard these lectures very warmly spoken of. at that time he had just founded a people's society as a counterpoise to the supremely conservative society of august, and, looking out for lecturers for it, hit upon the twenty-three-year-old speaker as upon a possibility. i was then living in a little cupboard of a room on the third floor in crystal street, and over my room was one, in the attic, inhabited by my seventeen-year-old brother, who had not yet matriculated. orla lehmann, who had been told that the person he was seeking lived high up, rapidly mounted the four storeys, and knocked, a little out of breath, at the schoolboy's door. when the door opened, he walked in, and said, still standing: "you are brandes? i am lehmann." without heeding the surprise he read in the young fellow's face, he went on: "i have come to ask you to give a lecture to the people's society in the casino's big room." as the addressee looked about to speak, he continued, drowning every objection, "i know what you are going to say. that you are too young. youth is written in your face. but there is no question of seniority here. i am accustomed to accomplish what i determine upon, and i shall take no notice of objections. i know that you are able to give lectures, you have recently given proof of it." at last there was a minute's pause, permitting the younger one to interpose: "but you are making a mistake, it is not i you mean. it must be my elder brother." "oh! very likely. where does your brother live?" "just underneath." a minute later there was a knock at the third-storey door beneath; it was opened, and without even stopping to sit down, the visitor began: "you are brandes? i am lehmann. you recently gave some lectures on runeberg. will you kindly repeat one of them before the people's society in the casino's big room?" "won't you sit down? i thank you for your offer. but my lecture was not good enough to be repeated before so large a gathering. i do not know enough about runeberg's life, and my voice, moreover, will not carry. i should not dare, at my age, to speak in so large a room." "i expected you to reply that you are too young. your youth is written in your face. but there is no question of seniority about it. i am accustomed to carry through anything that i have determined upon, and i take no notice of objections. what you do not know about runeberg's life, you can read up in a literary history. and if you can give a successful lecture to a private audience, you can give one in a theatre hall. i am interested in you, i am depending on you, i take your promise with me. good-bye!" this so-called promise became a regular nightmare to me, young and absolutely untried as i was. it did not even occur to me to work up and improve my lecture on runeberg, for the very thought of appearing before a large audience alarmed me and was utterly intolerable to me. during the whole of my first stay in paris i was so tormented by the consent that orla lehmann had extorted from me, that it was a shadow over my pleasure. i would go happy to bed and wake up in the middle of the night with the terror of a debtor over something far off, but surely threatening, upon me, seek in my memory for what it was that was troubling me, and find that this far-off, threatening thing was my promise to lehmann. it was only after my return home that i summoned up courage to write to him, pleading my youth and unfitness, and begging to be released from the honourable but distasteful duty. orla lehmann, in the meantime, had in all probability not bestowed a thought on the whole matter and long since forgotten all about it. in any case he never referred to the subject again in after years, when we frequently met. among bröchner's private pupils was a young student. kristian möller, by name, who devoted himself exclusively to philosophy, and of whom bröchner was particularly fond. he had an unusually keen intelligence, inclined to critical and disintegrating research. his abilities were very promising, inasmuch as it seemed that he might be able to establish destructive verdicts upon much that was confused, or self-contradicting, but nevertheless respected; in other respects he had a strangely infertile brain. he had no sudden inspirations, no imagination. it could not be expected that he would ever bring forward any specially new thoughts, only that he would penetrate confusion, think out errors to the bottom, and, with the years, carry out a process of thorough cleansing. but before he had accomplished any independent work his lungs became affected. it was not at once perceived how serious the affection was, and orla lehmann, who, with the large-mindedness and open-handedness of a patriot, had taken him up, as well as sundry other young men who promised well or were merely poor, not only invited him to his weekly dinner-parties at frederiksberg, but sent him to upsala, that he might study swedish philosophy there. möller himself was much inclined to study boströmianism and write a criticism of this philosophy, which was at that time predominant in sweden. he ought to have been sent south, or rather to a sanatorium; orla lehmann's scandinavian sympathies, however, determined his stay in the north, which proved fatal to his health. in he returned to copenhagen, pale, with hollow cheeks, and a stern, grave face, that of a marked man, his health thoroughly undermined. his friends soon learnt, and doubtless he understood himself, that his condition was hopeless. the quite extraordinary strength of character with which he submitted, good-temperedly and without a murmur, to his fate, had for effect that all who knew him vied with each other in trying to lessen the bitterness of his lot and at any rate show him how much they cared for him. as he could not go out, and as he soon grew incapable of connected work, his room became an afternoon and evening meeting-place for many of his comrades, who went there to distract him with whatever they could think of to narrate, or discuss. if you found him alone, it was rarely long before a second and a third visitor came, and the room filled up. orla lehmann, his patron, was also one of kristian möller's frequent visitors. but whenever he arrived, generally late and the last, the result was always the same. the students and graduates, who had been sitting in the room in lively converse, were struck dumb, awed by the presence of the great man; after the lapse of a few minutes, one would get up and say good-bye; immediately afterwards the next would remember that he was engaged elsewhere just at that particular time; a moment later the third would slip noiselessly out of the room, and it would be empty. there was one, however, who, under such circumstances, found it simply impossible to go. i stayed, even if i had just been thinking of taking my leave. under the autocracy, orla lehmann had been the lyrical figure of politics; he had voiced the popular hopes and the beauty of the people's will, much more than the political poets did. they wrote poetry; his nature was living poetry. the swing of his eloquence, which so soon grew out of date, was the very swing of youth in men's souls then. at the time i first knew him, he had long left the period of his greatness behind him, but he was still a handsome, well set-up man, and, at years of age, had lost nothing of his intellectual vivacity. he had lost his teeth and spoke indistinctly, but he was fond of telling tales and told them well, and his enemies declared that as soon as a witty thought struck him, he took a cab and drove round from house to house to relate it. passionately patriotic though orla lehmann was, he was very far from falling into the then usual error of overestimating denmark's historical exploits and present importance. he related one day that when he was in paris, as a young man, speaking under an impression very frequent among his travelled compatriots, he had, in a conversation with sainte-beuve, reproached the french with knowing so shamefully little of the danes. the great critic, as was his habit, laid his head a little on one side, and with roguish impertinence replied: "_eh! bien, faites quelque chose! on parlera de vous_." he approved of the reply. we younger ones looked upon him as belonging to another period and living in another plane of ideas, although, being a liberal-minded man, he was not far removed from us. he was supposed to be a freethinker, and it was told of him that when his old housekeeper repeatedly, and with increasing impatience, requested him to come to table, he would reply, in the presence of students--a rallying allusion to the lady's christian disposition: "get help from religion, little bech, get help from religion!"--a remark that in those days would be regarded as wantonly irreligious! people felt sorry for lehmann because his politics had so wholly miscarried, and somewhat sore against him because he wanted to lay all the blame on the old despotism and the unfavourable circumstances of the time. take him altogether, to those who were not intimately associated with him, and did not share the strong dislike felt against him in certain circles, he was chiefly a handsome and attractive antiquity. kristian möller died in , and his death was deeply lamented. he was one of the few comrades admired by the younger ones alike for his gifts and his stoicism. with his death my opportunities of frequently meeting orla lehmann ceased. but that the latter had not quite lost sight of me, he proved by appearing, at the end of february, , at my examination upon my doctor's thesis at the university. as on this occasion lehmann arrived a little late, he was placed on a chair in front of all the other auditors, and very imposing he looked, in a mighty fur coat which showed off his stately figure. he listened very attentively to everything, and several times during the discussion showed by a short laugh that some parrying reply had amused him. six months afterwards he was no more. xvii. during those years i came into very curious relations with another celebrity of the time. this was m. goldschmidt, the author, whose great talent i had considerable difficulty in properly appreciating, so repelled was i by his uncertain and calculating personality. i saw goldschmidt for the first time, when i was a young man, at a large ball at a club in copenhagen. a man who had emigrated to england as a poor boy returned to copenhagen in the sixties at the age of fifty, after having acquired a considerable fortune. he was uneducated, kind, impeccably honourable, and was anxious to secure acquaintances and associates for his adopted daughter, a delicate young girl, who was strange to copenhagen. with this object in view, he invited a large number of young people to a ball in the rooms of the king's club, provided good music and luxurious refreshments. this man was a cousin of goldschmidt's, and as he himself was unable to make more of a speech than a short welcome to table, he begged "his cousin, the poet," to be his spokesman on this occasion. one would have thought that so polished a writer, such a master of language, as goldschmidt, would be able, with the greatest ease, to make an after-dinner speech, especially when he had had plenty of time to prepare himself; but the gift of speaking is, as everyone knows, a gift in itself. and a more unfortunate speaker than goldschmidt could not be. he had not even the art of compelling silence while he spoke. that evening he began rather tactlessly by telling the company that their host, who was a rich man, had earned his money in a strictly honourable manner; it was always a good thing to know "that one had clear ground to dance upon"; then he dwelt on the jewish origin of the giver of the feast, and, starting from the assumption that the greater number of the invited guests were young jews and jewesses, he formulated his toast in praise of "the jewish woman, who lights the sabbath candles." the young jewesses called out all at once: "the danish woman i the danish woman! we are danish!" they were irritated at the dead romanticism into which goldschmidt was trying to push them back. they lighted no sabbath candles! they did not feel themselves jewish either by religion or nationality. the day of antisemitism had not arrived. consequently there was still no zionist movement. they had also often felt vexed at the descriptions that goldschmidt in his novels frequently gave of modern jews, whose manners and mode of expression he screwed back fifty years. these cries, which really had nothing offensive about them, made goldschmidt lose his temper to such an extent that he shouted, in great exasperation: "will you keep silence while i speak! what manners are these! i will teach you to keep silence!" and so forth,--which evoked a storm of laughter. he continued for some time to rebuke their exuberant mirth in severe terms, but was so unsuccessful that he broke off his speech and, very much out of humour, sat down. not long afterwards, perhaps in the year , i came into contact with goldschmidt once only, when walking one evening with magdalene thoresen. on meeting this lady, whom he knew, he turned round, walking with her as far as her house on the shores of the lakes, after which his way led towards the town, as did mine. as long as mrs. thoresen was present, he naturally addressed his conversation to her and expressed himself, as his habit was, without much ceremony. for instance, he said: "i don't as a rule care for women writers, not even for those we have; but i will concede that, of all the ladies who write, you are the freshest." when mrs. thoresen brought the conversation round to her favourite subject, love, he said, banteringly: "my heart is like the flags of the zouave regiments, so pierced with holes that it is almost impossible to tell what the material originally looked like." on the whole, he was animated and polite, but his glance was somewhat stinging. goldschmidt had greater difficulty in hitting on the right manner to adopt towards a much younger man. he used expressions which showed that he was standing on his dignity, and was all the time conscious of his own superiority. "people have spoken about you to me," he said, "and i know you by name." the word here rendered _people_ had a strangely foreign sound, as though translated, or affected. "have you read taine's history of english literature?" he asked. "no, i don't know it." "ah, perhaps you are one of those who regard it as superfluous to learn about anything foreign. we have enough of our own, is it not so? it is a very widespread opinion, but it is a mistake." "you judge too hastily; that is not my opinion." "oh,--ah. yes. good-bye." and our ways parted. i did not like goldschmidt. he had dared to profane the great sören kierkegaard, had pilloried him for the benefit of a second-rate public. i disliked him on kierkegaard's account. but i disliked him much more actively on my master, professor bröchner's account. bröchner had an intense contempt for goldschmidt; intellectually he thought him of no weight, as a man he thought him conceited, and consequently ridiculous. he had not the slightest perception of the literary artist in him. the valuable and unusual qualities of his descriptive talent he overlooked. but the ignorance goldschmidt had sometimes shown about philosophy, and the incapacity he had displayed with regard to art, his change of political opinion, his sentimentality as a wit, all the weaknesses that one danish critic had mercilessly dragged into the light, had inspired bröchner with the strongest aversion to goldschmidt. add to this the personal collisions between the two men. at some public meeting bröchner had gazed at goldschmidt with such an ironic smile that the latter had passionately called him to account. "don't make a scene now!" replied bröchner. "i am ready to make a scene anywhere," the answer is reported to have been. "that i can believe; but keep calm now!" shortly afterwards, in _north and south_, goldschmidt, on the occasion of bröchner's candidature for parliament, had written that the well-known atheist, h. bröchner, naturally, as contributor to _the fatherland_, was supported by the "party." now, there was nothing that annoyed bröchner so much as when anyone called him an atheist, and tried to make him hated for that reason,--the word, it is true, had a hundred times a worse sound then than now,--he always maintaining that he and other so-called atheists were far more religious than their assailants. and although goldschmidt's sins against bröchner were in truth but small, although the latter, moreover--possibly unjustifiably--had challenged him to the attack, bröchner nevertheless imbued me with such a dislike of goldschmidt that i could not regard him with quite unprejudiced eyes. goldschmidt tried to make personal advances to me during my first stay in paris in . besides the maternal uncle settled in france, of whom i have already spoken, i had still another uncle, my father's brother, who had gone to france as a boy, had become naturalised, and had settled in paris. he was a little older than my father, a somewhat restless and fantastic character, whom goldschmidt frequently met at the houses of mutual friends. he let me know through this man that he would like to make my acquaintance, gave him his address and mentioned his receiving hours. as i held back, he repeated the invitation, but in vain. bröchner's influence was too strong. a few years later, in some dramatic articles, i had expressed myself in a somewhat satirical, offhand manner about goldschmidt, when one day an attempt was made to bring the poet and myself into exceedingly close connection. one spring morning in , a little man with blue spectacles came into my room and introduced himself as goldschmidt's publisher, bookseller steen. he had come on a confidential errand from goldschmidt, regarding which he begged me to observe strict silence, whatever the outcome of the matter might be. goldschmidt knew that, as a critic, i was not in sympathy with him, but being very difficultly placed, he appealed to my chivalry. for reasons which he did not wish to enter into, he would be obliged, that same year, to sever his connection with denmark and settle down permanently in england. for the future he should write in english. but before he left he wished to terminate his literary activity in his native country by an edition of his collected works, or at any rate a very exhaustive selection from them. he would not and could not direct so great an undertaking himself, from another country; he only knew one man who was capable of doing so, and him he requested to undertake the matter. he had drawn up a plan of the edition, a sketch of the order in which the writings were to come out, and what the volume was to contain, and he placed it before me for approval or criticism. the edition was to be preceded by an account of goldschmidt as an author and of his artistic development; if i would undertake to write this, i was asked to go to see goldschmidt, in order to hear what he himself regarded as the main features and chief points of his literary career. the draft of what the projected edition was to include made quite a little parcel of papers; besides these, steen gave me to read the actual request to me to undertake the task, which was cautiously worded as a letter, not to me, but to bookseller steen, and which steen had been expressly enjoined to bring back with him. although i did not at all like this last-mentioned item, and although this evidence of distrust was in very conspicuous variance with the excessive and unmerited confidence that was at the same time being shown me, this same confidence impressed me greatly. the information that goldschmidt, undoubtedly the first prose writer in the country, was about to break off his literary activity and permanently leave denmark, was in itself overwhelming and at once set my imagination actively at work. what could the reason be? a crime? that was out of the question. what else could there be but a love affair, and that had my entire sympathy. it was well known that goldschmidt admired a very beautiful woman, who was watched the more jealously by her husband, because the latter had for a great number of years been paralysed. he would not allow her to go to the theatre to sit anywhere but in the mirror box [footnote: the mirror box was a box in the first royal theatre, surrounded by mirrors and with a grating in front, where the stage could be seen, reflected in the mirrors, but the occupants were invisible. it was originally constructed to utilise a space whence the performance could not otherwise be seen, and was generally occupied by actresses, etc.], where she could not be seen by the public. the husband met with no sympathy from the public; he had always been a characterless and sterile writer, had published only two books, written in a diametrically opposite spirit, flatly contradicting one another. as long as he was able to go out he had dyed his red hair black. he was an insignificant man in every way, and by his first marriage with an ugly old maid had acquired the fortune which alone had enabled him to pay court to the beautiful woman he subsequently won. it had leaked out that she was the original of the beautiful woman in the inheritance, and that some of the letters that occur in it were really notes from goldschmidt to her. what more likely than the assumption that the position of affairs had at last become unbearable to goldschmidt, and that he had determined on an elopement to london? in a romantic purpose of the sort goldschmidt could count upon the sympathy of a hot-blooded young man. i consequently declared myself quite willing to talk the matter over with the poet and learn more particulars as to what was expected of me; meanwhile, i thought i might promise my assistance. it was easter week, i believe maunday thursday; i promised to call upon goldschmidt on one of the holidays at a prearranged time. good friday and easter sunday i was prevented from going to him, and i had already made up my mind to pay my visit on easter monday when on monday morning i received a letter from bookseller steen which made me exceedingly indignant. the letter, which exhibited, as i considered, (incorrectly, as it turned out), unmistakably signs of having been dictated to him, bore witness to the utmost impatience. steen wrote that after undertaking to pay a visit to goldschmidt i had now let two days elapse without fulfilling my promise. there was "no sense in keeping a man waiting" day after day, on such important business; in steen's "personal opinion," it had not been at all polite of me, as the younger author, not to inform goldschmidt which day i would go to see him. i was very much cooled by reading this letter. i saw that i had wounded goldschmidt's vanity deeply by not going to him immediately upon receipt of his communication; but my chief impression was one of surprise that goldschmidt should reveal himself such a poor psychologist in my case. how could he believe that i would allow myself to be terrified by rough treatment or won by tactless reprimands? how could he think that i regarded the task he wished to allot me as such an honour that for that reason i had not refused it? could not goldschmidt understand that it was solely the appeal to my better feelings from an opponent, struck by an untoward fate, that had determined my attitude? simultaneously, though at first very faintly, a suspicion crossed my mind. was it possible that the whole touching story which had been confided to me was a hoax calculated to disarm my antagonism, arouse my sympathy and secure goldschmidt a trumpeting herald? was it possible that the mysterious information about the flight to london was only an untruth, the sole purpose of which was to get me into goldschmidt's service? i dismissed the thought at once as too improbable, but it recurred, for i had learnt from experience that even distinguished authors sometimes did not shrink from very daring means of securing the services of a critic. a critic is like the rich heiress, who is always afraid of not being loved for herself alone. even then, i was very loth to believe that any recognised author, much less a writer whose position was a vexed question, would make advances to me from pure benevolence, for the sake of my beautiful eyes, as they say in french. at any rate, i had now made up my mind not to have anything whatever to do with the matter. i replied emphatically: "lessons in politeness i take from no one, consequently return you the enclosed papers. be kind enough to appeal to some one else." this reply was evidently not the one the letter had been intended to evoke. steen rushed up to me at once to apologise, but i did not see him. twice afterwards he came with humble messages from goldschmidt asking me to "do him the honour" of paying him a visit. but my pride was touchy, and my determination unwavering. undoubtedly steen's letter was sent at goldschmidt's wish, but it is equally undoubted that its form had not been approved by him. that the alliance so cleverly led up to came to nothing was evidently as unexpected by the poet as unpalatable to him. not long afterwards, i accidentally had strong confirmation of my suspicion that the story of a flight from denmark was merely an invention calculated to trap me, and after the lapse of some time i could no longer harbour a doubt that goldschmidt had merely wished to disarm a critic and secure himself a public crier. this did not make me feel any the more tenderly disposed towards goldschmidt, and my feeling lent a sharper tone than it would otherwise have had to an essay i wrote shortly afterwards about him on the production of his play _rabbi and knight_ at the royal theatre. three years passed before our paths crossed again and a short-lived association came about between us. xviii. in my public capacity about this time, i had many against me and no one wholly for me, except my old protector bröchner, who, for one thing, was very ill, and for another, by reason of his ponderous language, was unknown to the reading world at large. among my personal friends there was not one who shared my fundamental views; if they were fond of me, it was in spite of my views. that in itself was a sufficient reason why i could not expect them, in the intellectual feud in which i was still engaged, to enter the lists on my behalf. i did not need any long experience to perceive that complete and unmixed sympathy with my endeavours was a thing i should not find. such a sympathy i only met with in reality from one of my comrades, emil petersen, a young private individual with no connection whatever with literature, and without influence in other directions. moreover, i had learnt long ago that, as a literary beginner in a country on a liliputian scale, i encountered prompt opposition at every step, and that ill-will against me was always expressed much more forcibly than good-will, was quickly, so to say, organised. i had against me at once every literary or artistic critic who already held an assured position, from the influential men who wrote in _the fatherland_ or the _berlin times_ to the small fry who snapped in the lesser papers, and if they mentioned me at all it was with the utmost contempt, or in some specially disparaging manner. it was the rival that they fought against. thus it has continued to be all my life. certain "critics," such as falkman in denmark and wirsen in sweden, hardly ever put pen to paper for some forty years without bestowing an affectionate thought upon me. (later, in norway, i became collin's _idée fixe_.) add to these all who feared and hated a train of thought which in their opinion was dangerous to good old-fashioned faith and morality. definite as were the limits of my articles and longer contributions to the dispute concerning faith and science, and although, strictly speaking, they only hinged upon an obscure point in rasmus nielsen's philosophy, they alarmed and excited a large section of the ecclesiastics of the country. i had carefully avoided saying anything against faith or piety; i knew that orthodoxy was all-powerful in denmark. however, i did not meet with refutations, only with the indignation of fanaticism. as far back as björnson had come forward in print against me, had reproached the daily paper with giving my contributions a place in their columns, and reported their contents to the editor, who was away travelling, on the supposition that they must have been accepted against his wishes; and although the article did not bear björnson's name, this attack was not without weight. the innocent remark that sören kierkegaard was the tycho brahe of our philosophy, as great as tycho brahe, but, like him, failing to place the centre of our solar system in its sun, gave björnson an opportunity for the statement,--a very dangerous one for a young author of foreign origin to make,--that the man who could write like that "had no views in common with other danes, no danish mind." the year after i was astonished by inflammatory outbursts on the part of the clergy. one day in the much-respected pastor hohlenberg walked into my friend benny spang's house, reprimanded her severely for receiving such an undoubted heretic and heathen under her roof, and demanded that she should break off all association with me. as she refused to do so and turned a deaf ear to his arguments, losing all self-control, he flung his felt hat on the floor, continued to rage and rail against me, and, no result coming of it, dashed at last, in a towering passion, out through the door, which he slammed behind him. there was a farcical ending to the scene, since he was obliged to ring at the door again for his hat, which, in his exasperation, he had forgotten. this was a kind of private prologue to the ecclesiastical drama which from the year upwards was enacted in most of the pulpits of the country. only the parsons instead of flinging their hats upon the floor, beat their hands against the pulpit. but what surprised me, a literary beginner, still more, was the gift i discovered in myself of hypnotising, by my mere existence, an ever-increasing number of my contemporaries till they became as though possessed by a hatred which lasted, sometimes a number of years, sometimes a whole life long, and was the essential determining factor in their careers and actions. by degrees, in this negative manner, i succeeded in engaging the attentions of more than a score of persons. for the time being, i encountered the phenomenon in the person of one solitary genius-mad individual. for a failure of a poet and philosopher, with whom i had nothing to do, and who did not interest me in the least, i became the one enemy it was his business to attack. rudolf schmidt, who was a passionate admirer of rasmus nielsen, in whose examination lectures he coached freshmen, was enraged beyond measure by the objections, perfectly respectful, for that matter, in form, which i had raised against one of the main points in nielsen's philosophy. in he published a pamphlet on the subject; in a second, which, so possessed was he by his fury against his opponent, he signed with the latter's own initials, gb. and from this time forth, for at least a generation, it became this wretch's task in life to persecute me under every possible pseudonym, and when his own powers were not sufficient, to get up conspiracies against me. in particular, he did all he could against me in germany. meanwhile, he started a magazine in order to bring before the public himself and the ideas he was more immediately serving, viz.: those of r. nielsen; and since this latter had of late drawn very much nearer to the grundtvigian way of thinking, partly also those of grundtvig. the magazine had three editors, amongst them r. nielsen himself, and when one of them, who was the critic of the _fatherland_, suddenly left the country, björnstjerne björnson took his place. the three names, r. nielsen, b. björnson, and rudolph schmidt, formed a trinity whose supremacy did not augur well for the success of a beginner in the paths of literature, who had attacked the thinker among them for ideal reasons, and who had been the object of violent attacks from the two others. the magazine _idea and reality_, was, as might be expected, sufficiently unfavourable to my cause. the sudden disappearance of the critic of _the fatherland_ from the literary arena was, under the conditions of the time, an event. he had no little talent, attracted by ideas and fancies that were sometimes very telling, repelled by mannerisms and a curious, far-fetched style, laid chief emphasis, in the spirit of the most modern danish philosophy, on the will, and always defended ethical standpoints. from the time of björnson's first appearance he had attached himself so enthusiastically and inviolably to him that by the general public he was almost regarded as björnson's herald. at every opportunity he emphatically laid down björnson's importance and as a set-off fell upon those who might be supposed to be his rivals. ibsen, in particular, received severe handling. his departure was thus a very hard blow for björnson, but for that matter, was also felt as a painful loss by those he opposed. xix. not long after this departure, and immediately after the publication of my long article on goldschmidt, i received one day, to my surprise, a letter of eight closely written pages from björnstjerne björnson, dated april th, . what had called it forth was my remark, in that article, that björnson, like goldschmidt, sometimes, when talent failed, pretended to have attained the highest, pretended that obscurity was the equivalent of profundity. when writing this, i was thinking of the obscure final speech about god in heaven in björnson's _mary stuart_, which i still regard as quite vague, pretentious though it be as it stands there; however, it was an exaggeration to generalise the grievance, as i had done, and björnson was right to reply. he considered that i had accused him of insincerity, though in this he was wrong; but for that matter, with hot-tempered eloquence, he also denied my real contention. his letter began: although i seldom read your writings, so that possibly i risk speaking of something you have elsewhere developed more clearly, and thus making a mistake, i nevertheless wish to make a determined protest against its being called a characteristic of mine, in contrast to oehlenschläger (and hauch!!), to strain my powers to reach what i myself only perceive unclearly, and then intentionally to state it as though it were clear. i am quite sure that i resemble oehlenschläger in one thing, namely, that the defects of my book are open to all, and are not glossed over with any sort or kind of lie; anything unclear must for the moment have seemed clear to me, as in his case. my motto has always been: "be faithful in _small_ things, and god shall make you ruler over great things." and never, no, never, have i snatched after great material in order to seem great, or played with words in order to seem clever, or been silent, in order to appear deep. never. the examples around me have been appalling to me, and i am sure that they have been so because i have from the very beginning been on my guard against lies. there are passages in every work which will not yield immediately what one impatiently demands of them;--and then i have always waited, never tried; the thing has had to come itself unforced, and it is possible that what i have received has been a deception; but i have believed in it; to me it has been no deception. before i finally conclude, i always, it is true, go over again what i have written (as in the case of _synnöve_, and _a happy boy, between the fights_, etc). i wish to have the advantage of a better perception. thus far, in what i have gone through, i have seen weak places which i can no longer correct. lies i have never found. unfortunately one is often exposed to the danger of being untrue; but it is in moments of surprise and absolute passion, when something happens to one's eye or one's tongue, that one feels is half mad, but when the beast of prey within one, which shrinks at nothing, is the stronger. untrue in one's beautiful, poetic calm, one's confessional silence, at one's work, i think very few are. this summing up, which does honour to björnson and is not only a striking self-verdict, but a valuable contribution to poetic psychology in general, in its indication of the strength of the creative imagination and its possibilities of error, was followed by a co-ordinate attempt at a characterisation and appreciation of goldschmidt: you are likewise unjust to goldschmidt on this point, that i know with certainty. goldschmidt is of a naïve disposition, susceptible of every noble emotion. it is true that he often stages these in a comic manner, and what you say about that is true; he does the same in private life, but you have not recognised the source of this. in the last instance, it is not a question of what we think, but of what we do. just as this, on the whole, is an error that you fall persistently into, it is in particular an error here, where, for instance, his two brothers, with the same qualifications and with the same dual nature, have both developed into characters, the one indeed into a remarkable personality. but goldschmidt began as a corsair captain at seventeen; his courage was the courage behind a pen that he fancied was feared, his happiness that of the flatterer, his dread that of being vapid; and there were many other unfavourable circumstances, for that matter.... he is now striving hard towards what he feels has, during his life, been wasted in his ability, both moral and intellectual qualities, and for my part, i respect this endeavour more than his decisive success within narrow limits. in this passage the distinction and contrast between contemplative life and actual existence was quite in the rasmus nielsen spirit; the use that was made of it here was strange. one would suppose that the example adduced established that similar natural qualifications, similar family and other conditions, in other words, the actual essential conditions of life, were of small importance compared with one's mode of thought, since the brothers could be so different; björnson wished to establish, hereby, that the mode of life was more important than the mode of thought, although the former must depend on the latter. for the rest, he alluded to goldschmidt's weak points, even if in somewhat too superior a manner, and without laying stress upon his great artistic importance, with leniency and good-will. but if, in other things he touched upon, he had an eye for essentials, this failed him sadly when the letter proceeded to a characterisation of the addressee, in which he mixed up true and false in inextricable confusion. amongst other things, he wrote: here, i doubtless touch upon a point that is distinctive of your criticism. it is an absolute beauty worship. with that you can quickly traverse our little literature and benefit no one greatly; for the poet is only benefited by the man who approaches him with affection and from his own standpoint; the other he does not understand, and the public will, likely enough, pass with you through this unravelling of the thousand threads, and believe they are growing; but no man or woman who is sound and good lays down a criticism of this nature without a feeling of emptiness. i chanced to read one of your travel descriptions which really became a pronouncement upon some of the greatest painters. it was their nature in their works (not their history or their lives so much as their natural dispositions) that you pointed out,--also the influence of their time upon them, but this only in passing; and you compared these painters, one with another. in itself, much of this mode of procedure is correct, but the result is merely racy. a single one of them, seized largely and affectionately, shown in such manner that the different paintings and figures became a description of himself, but were simultaneously the unfolding of a culture, would have been five times as understandable. a contrast can be drawn in when opportunity arises, but that is not the essential task. yes, this is an illustration of the form of your criticism. it is an everlasting, and often very painful, juxtaposition of things appertaining and contrasting, but just as poetry itself is an absorption in the one thing that it has extracted from the many, so comprehension of it is dependent on the same conditions. the individual work or the individual author whom you have treated of, you have in the same way not brought together, but disintegrated, and the whole has become merely a piquant piece of effectiveness. hitherto one might have said that it was at least good-natured; but of late there have supervened flippant expressions, paradoxical sentences, crude definitions, a definite contumacy and disgust, which is now and again succeeded by an outburst of delight over the thing that is peculiarly danish, or peculiarly beautiful. i cannot help thinking of p.l. möller, as i knew him in paris. there are a thousand things between heaven and earth that you understand better than i. but for that very reason you can listen to me. it seems to me now as if the one half of your powers were undoing what the other half accomplishes. i, too, am a man with intellectual interests, but i feel no cooperation. might there not be other tasks that you were more fitted for than that of criticism? i mean, that would be less of a temptation to you, and would _build_ up on your personality, at the same time as you yourself were building? it strikes me that even if you do choose criticism, it should be more strongly in the direction of our educating responsibilities and less as the arranger of technicalities, the spyer out of small things, the dragger together of all and everything which can be brought forward as a witness for or against the author, which is all frightfully welcome in a contemporary critical epidemic in copenhagen, but, god help me, is nothing and accomplishes nothing. this part of the letter irritated me intensely, partly by the mentor's tone assumed in it, partly by a summing up of my critical methods which was founded simply and solely on the reading of three or four articles, more especially those on rubens and goldschmidt, and which quite missed the point. i was far from feeling that i had been understood, and for that reason warned against extremes; on the contrary, i saw myself only caricatured, without even wit or humour, and could not forget that the man who had sketched this picture of me had done his utmost to injure me. and he compared me with p.l. möller! the fact that the conclusion of the letter contained much that was conciliatory and beautiful consequently did not help matters. björnson wrote: when you write about the jews, although i am not in agreement with you, _altogether_ in agreement, you yet seem to me to touch upon a domain where you might have much to offer us, many beautiful prospects to open to us. in the same way, when you interpret shakespeare (not when you make poetry by the side of him), when you tranquilly expound, i seem to see the beginnings of greater works, in any case of powers which i could imagine essentially contributing to the introduction into our culture of greater breadth of view, greater moral responsibility, more affection. when i now read these words, i am obliged to transport myself violently back, into the feelings and to the intellectual standpoint that were mine at the time, in order to understand how they could to such a pitch incense me. it was not only that, like all young people of any account, i was irritable, sensitive and proud, and unwilling to be treated as a pupil; but more than that, as the way of youth is, i confused what i knew myself capable of accomplishing with what i had already accomplished; felt myself rich, exuberantly rich, already, and was indignant at perceiving myself deemed still so small. but the last straw was a sentence which followed: i should often have liked to talk all this over with you, when last i was in copenhagen, but i noticed i was so pried after by gossips that i gave it up. the last time björnson was in copenhagen he had written that article against me. besides, i had been told that some few times he had read my first articles aloud in public in friends' houses, and made fun of their forced and tyro-like wording. and now he wanted me to believe that he had at that time been thinking of visiting me, in order to come to an understanding with me. and worse still, the fear of gossip had restrained him! this hero of will-power so afraid of a little gossip! he might go on as he liked now, i had done with him. he did go on, both cordially and gracefully, but condescendingly, quite incapable of seeing how wounding the manner of his advances was. he wished to make advances to me and yet maintain a humiliating attitude of condescension: there are not many of us in literature who are in earnest; the few who are ought not to be daunted by the accidental separation that opposed opinions can produce, when there is a large field for mutual understanding and co-operation. i sometimes get violently irate for a moment; if this in lesser men, in whom there really is something base, brings about a lifelong separation, it does not greatly afflict me. but i should be very sorry if it should influence the individuals in whom i feel there are both ability and will. and as far as you are concerned, i have such a strong feeling that you must be standing at a parting of the ways, that, by continuing your path further, you will go astray, that i want to talk to you, and consequently am speaking from my heart to you now. if you do not understand, i am sorry; that is all i can say. in the summer i am going to finmark, and involuntarily, as i write this, the thought occurs to me what a journey it would be for you; away from everything petty and artificial to a scenery which in its magnificent loneliness is without parallel in the world, and where the wealth of birds above us and fish beneath us (whales, and shoals of herrings, cod and capelans often so close together that you can take them up in your hands, or they press against the sides of the boat) are marvel upon marvel, in the light of a sun that does not set, while human beings up there live quiet and cowed by nature. if you will come with me, and meet me, say, at trondhjem, i know that you would not regret it. and then i should get conversation again; here there are not many who hit upon just that which i should like them to. think about it. a paragraph relating to magdalene thoresen followed. but what is here cited is the essential part of the letter. had its recipient known björnson better, he would in this have found a foundation to build upon. but as things were, i altogether overlooked the honestly meant friendliness in it and merely seized upon the no small portion of it that could not do other than wound. my reply, icy, sharp and in the deeper sense of the word, worthless, was a refusal. i did not believe in björnson, saw in the letter nothing but an attempt to use me as a critic, now that he had lost his former advocate in the press. the prospect of the journey to the north did not tempt me; in björnson's eyes it would have been thor's journey with loki, and i neither was loki nor wished to be. but even had i been capable of rising to a more correct and a fuller estimate of björnson's character, there was too much dividing us at this time for any real friendship to have been established. björnson was then still an orthodox protestant, and in many ways hampered by his youthful impressions; i myself was still too brusque to be able to adapt myself to so difficult and masterful a personality. eight years elapsed before the much that separated me from björnson crumbled away. but then, when of his own accord he expressed his regret on a public occasion at the rupture between us, and spoke of me with unprejudiced comprehension and good-will, i seized with warmth and gratitude the hand stretched out to me. a hearty friendship, bringing with it an active and confidential correspondence, was established between us and remained unshaken for the next ten years, when it broke down, this time through no fault of mine, but through distrust on björnson's part, just as our intimacy had been hindered the first time through distrust on mine. the year passed in steady hard work. among the many smaller articles i wrote, one with the title of _the infinitely small and the infinitely great in poetry_, starting with a representment of shakespeare's harry percy, contained a criticism of the hitherto recognised tendency of danish dramatic poetry and pointed out into the future. the paper on h.c. andersen, which came into being towards midsummer, and was read aloud in a clover field to a solitary listener, was representative of my critical abilities and aims at that date. i had then known andersen socially for a considerable time. my cordial recognition of his genius drew us more closely together; he often came to see me and was very ready to read his new works aloud to me. it is hardly saying too much to declare that this paper secured me his friendship. the fundamental principles of the essay were influenced by taine, the art philosopher i had studied most deeply, and upon whom i had written a book that was to be my doctor's thesis. lightly and rapidly though my shorter articles came into being, this larger task was very long in hand. not that i had little heart for my work; on the contrary, no question interested me more than those on which my book hinged; but there were only certain of them with which, as yet, i was equal to dealing. first and foremost came the question of the nature of the producing mind, the possibility of showing a connection between its faculties and deriving them from one solitary dominating faculty, which would thus necessarily reveal itself in every aspect of the mind. it puzzled me, for example, how i was to find the source whence pascal's taste, both for mathematics and religious philosophy, sprang. next came the question of the possibility of a universally applicable scientific method of criticism, regarded as intellectual optics. if one were to define the critic's task as that of understanding, through the discovery and elucidation of the dependent and conditional contingencies that occur in the intellectual world, then there was a danger that he might approve everything, not only every form and tendency of art that had arisen historically, but each separate work within each artistic section. if it were no less the critic's task to distinguish between the genuine and the spurious, he must at any rate possess a technical standard by which to determine greater or lesser value, or he must be so specially and extraordinarily gifted that his instinct and tact estimate infallibly. further, there was the question of genius, the point on which taine's theory roused decisive opposition in me. he regarded genius as a summing up, not as a new starting-point; according to him it was the assemblage of the original aptitudes of a race and of the peculiarities of a period in which these aptitudes were properly able to display themselves. he overlooked the originality of the man of genius, which could not be explained from his surroundings, the new element which, in genius, was combined with the summarising of surrounding particles. before, when studying hegel, i had been repelled by the suggestion that what spoke to us through the artist was only the universally valid, the universal mind, which, as it were, burnt out the originality of the individual. in taine's teaching, nation and period were the new (although more concrete) abstractions in the place of the universally valid; but here, too, the particularity of the individual was immaterial. the kernel of my work was a protest against this theory. i was even more actively interested in the fundamental question raised by a scientific view of history. for some years i had been eagerly searching comte and littré, buckle, mill and taine for their opinions on the philosophy of history. here, too, though in another form, the question of the importance of the individual versus the masses presented itself. statistics had proved to what extent conscious actions were subordinated to uniform laws. we could foresee from one year to another how many murders would be committed and how many with each kind of instrument. the differences between men and men neutralised each other, if we took the average of a very large number. but this did not prove that the individual was not of considerable importance. if the victory of salamis depended on themistocles, then the entire civilisation of europe henceforth depended on him. another aspect of the question was: did the consistent determinism of modern science, the discovery of an unalterable interdependency in the intellectual, as in the physical worlds, allow scope for actions proceeding otherwise than merely illusorily from the free purpose or determination of the individual? very difficult the question was, and i did not feel confident of solving it; but it was some consolation to reflect that the doubt as to the possibility of demonstrating a full application of the law in the domain in which chance has sway, and ethics its sphere, was comparatively infinitesimal in the case of those domains in which men make themselves felt by virtue of genius or talent as producers of literary and artistic works. here, where natural gifts and their necessary deployment were of such extraordinary weight, the probability of a demonstration of natural laws was, of course, much greater. the general fundamental question was: given a literature, a philosophy, an art, or a branch of art, what is the attitude of mind that produces it? what are its sufficing and necessary conditions? what, for instance, causes england in the sixteenth century to acquire a dramatic poetry of the first rank, or holland in the seventeenth century a painting art of the first rank, without any of the other branches of art simultaneously bearing equally fine fruit in the same country? my deliberations resulted, for the time being, in the conviction that all profound historical research was psychical research. that old piece of work, revised, as it now is, has certainly none but historic interest; but for a doctor's thesis, it is still a tolerably readable book and may, at any rate, introduce a beginner to reflection upon great problems. after the fundamental scientific questions that engaged my attention, i was most interested in artistic style. there was, in modern danish prose, no author who unreservedly appealed to me; in german heinrich kleist, and in french mérimée, were the stylists whom i esteemed most. the latter, in fact, it seemed to me was a stylist who, in unerring sureness, terseness and plasticism, excelled all others. he had certainly not much warmth or colour, but he had a sureness of line equal to that of the greatest draughtsmen of italian art. his aridity was certainly not winning, and, in reading him, i frequently felt a lack of breadth of view and horizon, but the compelling power of his line-drawing captivated me. when my doctor's thesis was finished, towards the middle of december, , both it and the collection of articles bearing the name _criticisms and portraits_ were placed in the printer's hands. in the beginning of two hitherto unprinted pieces were added, of which one was a paper written some time before on kamma rahbek, which had been revised, the other, a new one on mérimée, which in general shows what at that time i admired in style. it had long been settled that as soon as i had replied to the critics of my thesis i should start on prolonged travels, the real educational travels of a young man's life. i had a little money lying ready, a small bursary, and a promise of a travelling allowance from the state, which promise, however, was not kept. this journey had for a long time been haunting my fancy. i cherished an ardent wish to see france again, but even more especially to go to italy and countries still farther south. my hope of catching a glimpse of northern africa was only fulfilled thirty-five years later; but i got as far as italy, which was the actual goal of my desires. i knew enough of the country, its history from ancient days until then, and was sufficiently acquainted with its art from roman times upwards and during the renaissance, to be regarded as passed for intellectual consecration in the south. when the thesis was done with and the printing of the second book was nearing completion, not anxiety to travel, but melancholy and heavy-heartedness at the thought of my departure, gained the upper hand. it had been decided that i was to remain away at least a year, and it was less to myself than to others whom i must necessarily leave behind, that the time seemed immeasurably long. professor schiödte advised me rather to take several short journeys than one long one; but that was impracticable. i wanted to get quite away from the home atmosphere. as, however, there were some who thought of my journey with disquiet and dread, and from whom it was difficult for me to tear myself, i put off my departure as long as i could. at last the remnant of work that still bound me to copenhagen was finished, and then all the new and enriching prospects my stay in foreign countries was to bring me shone in a golden light. full of undaunted hope, i set out on my travels at the beginning of april, . second longer stay abroad hamburg--my second fatherland--ernest hello--_le docteur noir_--taine--renan--marcelin--gleyre--taine's friendship--renan at home--philarète chasles' reminiscences--_le théâtre français_--coquelin--bernhardt--beginnings of _main currents_--the tuileries--john stuart mill--london--philosophical studies--london and paris compared--antonio gallenga and his wife--don juan prim--napoleon iii--london theatres--gladstone and disraeli in debate--paris on the eve of war--first reverses--flight from paris--geneva, switzerland--italy--pasquale villari--vinnie ream's friendship--roman fever--henrik ibsen's influence--scandinavians in rome. i. the first thing that impressed me was hamburg, and by that i mean the european views prevalent there. at that time, doubtless mainly for national reasons, denmark hated hamburg. different danish authors had recently written about the town, and in as depreciatory a strain as they could. the description of one amounted to an assertion that in hamburg people only talked of two things, money and women; that of another commenced: "of all the places i have ever seen in my life, hamburg is the most hideous." the situation of the town could not be compared with that of copenhagen, but the alster quarter was attractive, the architecture and the street life not uninteresting. what decided me, however, was not the externals of the town, but the spirit i noticed pervading the conversation. the idea underlying things was that a young man must first and foremost learn to keep himself well and comfortably; if he could not do this in hamburg, then as soon as possible he must set off to some place across the sea, to rio, or new york, to the argentine, or cape colony, and there make his way and earn a fortune. the sons of the families i was invited to visit, or heard talked about, had long been away; in the houses i went to, the head of the family had seen other parts of the world. the contrast with copenhagen was obvious; there the young sons of the middle classes were a burden on their families sometimes until they were thirty, had no enterprise, no money of their own to dispose of, were often glued, as it were, to the one town, where there was no promotion to look forward to and no wide prospect of any sort. it was a long time since i had been so much struck by anything as by an expression that a hamburg lady, who had been to copenhagen and had stayed there some time, used about the young danish men, namely, that they had _l'apparence chétive_. i tried to persuade her that life in copenhagen had only accidentally appeared so wretched to her; but i did not convince her in the least. she demonstrated to me, by numerous examples, to what an extent enterprise was lacking in denmark, and i was obliged to restrict myself to explaining that the tremendous pressure of political pettiness and weakness had brought a general slackness with it, without people feeling or suspecting it, and had robbed nearly every one of daring and success. the result of the conversation was that denmark was shown to me in a fresh light. a hamburg merchant who had lived for a long time in mexico invited me to dinner, and at his house i had the same impression of apparent happiness, comfort, enterprise and wide outlook, in contrast to the cares and the narrowness at home, where only the few had travelled far or collected material which might by comparison offer new points of view and give one a comprehensive experience of life. my psychological education in danish literature, with its idolising of "thoroughness" had imprinted on my mind that whoever thoroughly understood how to observe a man, woman and child in a copenhagen backyard had quite sufficient material whence to brew a knowledge of human nature. it now dawned upon me that comparative observation of a mexican and a north german family, together with their opinions and prejudices, might nevertheless considerably advance one's knowledge of human nature, should such comparisons constantly obtrude themselves upon one. the same man let fall an observation which set me thinking. when the conversation turned upon the strained relations between france and prussia since the battle of königgratz, and i expressed myself confident that, in the event of a war, france would be victorious, as she generally was victorious everywhere, he expressed well-supported doubts. prussia was a comparatively young state, extremely well organised and carefully prepared for war; antiquated routine held great sway in the french army; the emperor himself, the esteem in which he was held, and his management were on the down grade. these were words that i had never heard in denmark. the possibility of france being defeated in a war with prussia was not even entertained there. this merchant showed me an original photograph of the execution of the emperor maximilian, taken on the spot a moment before the word to fire was given, and a second taken immediately afterwards. the calm bearing of the emperor and the two generals compelled admiration. this was the first time i had seen photography taken into the service of history. in the hamburg zoological gardens i was fascinated by the aquarium, with its multitudes of aquatic animals and fish. there, for the first time in my life, i saw an elephant, and did not tire of gazing at the mighty beast. i was struck by the strange caprice with which the great being we call nature goes to work, or, more correctly, by the contrast between the human point of view and nature's mode of operations. to us, the elephant's trunk was burlesque, its walk risibly clumsy; the eagle and the kite seemed to us, as they sat, to have a severe appearance and a haughty glance; the apes, picking lice from one another and eating the vermin, were, to our eyes, contemptible and ridiculous at the same time; but nature took everything equally seriously, neither sought nor avoided beauty, and to her one being was not more central than another. that must be deemed nature's central point which is equidistant from the lowest and from the highest being; it was not impossible, for instance, that the _harefish_, a great, thick, odd-looking creature, was the real centre of terrestrial existence, in the same way as our celestial sphere has its centre, through which a line reaches the pole of the zodiac in the constellation of the dragon. and i smiled as i thought of r. nielsen and his pupils always speaking as if they stood on the most intimate footing with the "central point" of existence, and pouring contempt on others who, it was to be supposed, could not approach it. i was very unfavourably impressed in hamburg by german drama and german dramatic art. at the town theatre, hebbel's _judith_ was being performed, with clara ziegler in the leading part. at that time this lady enjoyed a considerable reputation in germany, and was, too, a tall, splendid-looking female, with a powerful voice, a good mimic, and all the rest of it, but a mere word-machine. the acting showed up the want of taste in the piece. holofernes weltered knee-deep in gore and bragged incessantly; judith fell in love with his "virility," and when he had made her "the guardian of his slumbers" murdered him, from a long disremembered loyalty to the god of israel. at the thalia theatre, raupach's _the school of life_ was being produced, a lot of silly stuff, the theme of it, for that matter, allied to the one dealt with later by drachmann in _once upon a time_. a princess is hard-hearted and capricious. to punish her, the king, her father, shuts a man into her bedroom, makes a feigned accusation against her, and actually drives her out of the castle. she becomes a waiting-maid, and passes through various stages of civil life. the king of navarra, whose suit she had haughtily rejected, disguised as a goldsmith, marries her, then arrays himself in silks and velvets, to tempt her to infidelity. when she refuses, he allows every possible injustice to be heaped upon her, to try her, makes her believe that the king, on a false accusation, has had her husband's eyes put out, and then himself goes about with a bandage before his eyes, and lets her beg. she believes everything and agrees to everything, until at last, arrived at honour and glory, she learns that it has all been only play-acting, trial, and education. this nonsense was exactly on a par with taste in germany at the time, which was undeniably considerably below the level of that in france and denmark, and it was acted by a group of actors, some very competent, at the chief theatre of hamburg. slowly though business life pulsated in denmark, we were superior to germany in artistic perception. the low stage of artistic development at which hamburg had then arrived could not, however, efface the impression its superiority over copenhagen in other respects had made upon me. take it all together, my few days in hamburg were well spent. ii. and then i set foot once more in the country which i regarded as my second fatherland, and the overflowing happiness of once more feeling french ground under my feet returned undiminished and unchanged. i had had all my letters sent to mlle. louise's address, so fetched them shortly after my arrival and saw the girl again. her family invited me to dinner several times during the very first week, and i was associated with french men and women immediately upon my arrival. they were well-brought-up, good-natured, hospitable bourgeois, very narrow in their views. not in the sense that they took no interest in politics and literature, but in that questions for them were decided once and for all in the clerical spirit. they did not regard this as a party standpoint, did not look upon themselves as adherents of a party; their way of thinking was the right one; those who did not agree with them held opinions they ought to be ashamed of, and which they probably, in private, were ashamed of holding and expressing. mlle. louise had a cousin whom she used to speak of as a warm-hearted man with peculiar opinions, eager and impetuous, who would like to make the acquaintance of her friend from the north. the aunts called him a passionate catholic, and an energetic writer in the service of the church militant. shortly after my arrival, i met him at dinner. he was a middle-aged, pale, carelessly dressed man with ugly, irregular features, and a very excitable manner. with him came his wife, who though pale and enthusiastic like himself, yet looked quite terrestrial. he introduced himself as ernest hello, contributor to veuillot's then much talked of romish paper, _l'univers_, which, edited with no small talent by a noted stylist, adopted all sorts of abusive methods as weapons in every feud in which the honour of the church was involved. it was against veuillot that augier had just aimed the introduction to his excellent comedy, _le fils de giboyer_, and he made no secret of the fact that in the déodat mentioned in the piece he had had this writer of holy abuse in his mind. hello was in everything veuillot's vassal. he was one of the martial believers who despised and hated the best free research men, and who knew himself in a position to confute them. he possessed some elements of culture, and had early had thoroughly drilled into him what, in comparison with the views of later times on history and religion, was narrow and antiquated in voltaire's education, and for this reason regarded, not only voltaire's attack on the church, but all subsequent philosophy inimical to the church, as belonging to a bygone age. he was a fanatic, and there was a sacristy odour about all that he said. but there was in his disposition an enthusiastic admiration for weakness in fighting against external strength, and for courage that expressed itself in sheer defiance of worldly prudence, that made him feel kindly towards the young dane. denmark's taking up arms, with its two million inhabitants, against a great power like prussia, roused his enthusiasm. "it is great, it is spartan!" he exclaimed. it must certainly be admitted that this human sympathy was not a prominent characteristic, and he wearied me with his hateful verdicts over all those whom i, and by degrees, all europe, esteemed and admired in france. as an instance of the paradoxicalness to which huysmans many years later became addicted, the latter tried to puff up hello as being a man of remarkable intellect; and an instance of the want of independence with which the new catholic movement was carried on in denmark is to be found in the fact that the organ of young denmark, _the tower_, could declare: "hello is one of the few whom all men of the future are agreed to bow before.... hello was,--not only a catholic burning with religious ardour,--but a genius; these two things explain everything." when hello invited me to his house, i regarded it as my duty to go, that i might learn as much as possible, and although his circle was exceedingly antipathetic to me, i did not regret it; the spectacle was highly instructive. next to hello himself, who, despite his fanaticism and restlessness, impressed one as very inoffensive at bottom, and not mischievous if one steered clear of such names as voltaire or renan, the chief member of his circle was the black doctor, (_le docteur noir_,) so much talked of in the last years of the empire, and who is even alluded to in taine's _graindorge_. his real name was vries. he was a negro from the dutch west indies, a veritable bull, with a huge body and a black, bald physiognomy, made to stand outside a tent at a fair, and be his own crier to the public. his conversation was one incessant brag, in atrocious french. although he had lived seventeen years in france, he spoke almost unintelligibly. he persuaded himself, or at least others, that he had discovered perpetual motion, vowed that he had made a machine which, "by a simple mechanism," could replace steam power and had been declared practicable by the first engineers in paris; but of course he declined to speak freely about it. columbus and fulton only were his equals; he knew all the secrets of nature. he had been persecuted--in he had been imprisoned for eleven months, on a charge of quackery--because all great men were persecuted; remember our lord jesus christ! he himself was the greatest man living. _moi vous dire le plus grand homme d'universe_. hello and the ladies smiled admiringly at him, and never grew tired of listening to him. this encouraged him to monopolise the conversation: he, vries, was a man possessed of courage and wisdom; he understood phrenology, allopathy, homoeopathy, engineering science, metereology--like molière's doctors and holberg's oldfux. his greatest and most special gift was that of curing cancer. like writing-masters, who hang out specimens of how people wrote when they came to them, and of their caligraphy after they had benefited by their instruction, he had his cancer patients photographed before and after his treatment, looking ghastly the first time, and as fresh as a flower the second, and these pictures hung on view in his house. no wonder, therefore, that napoleon iii--so vries said--had his portrait in an album containing, besides, only portraits of european sovereigns. he pretended that he had made many important prophecies. this was a bond between him and hello, who claimed the same extraordinary power, and had foretold all sorts of singular events. he performed miraculous cures; this appealed to hello, who was suspicious of all rational science and ready to believe any mortal thing. he could read everybody's characters in their faces. this was a pretext for the most barefaced flattery of hello, his wife, and their friends of both sexes, and of course everything was swallowed with alacrity. to me he said: "monsieur is gentle, very calm, very indulgent, and readily forgives an injury." hideous though he was, his powerful brutality had a great effect on the ladies of the circle. they literally hung upon his words. he seized them by the wrists, and slid his black paws up their bare arms. the married women whispered languishingly: "you have a marvellous power over women." the husbands looked on smilingly. now when hello and he and their friends and the ladies began to talk about religious matters and got steam up, it was a veritable witches' sabbath, and no mistake, every voice being raised in virulent cheap jack denunciation of freedom, and common sense. satan himself had dictated voltaire's works; now voltaire was burning in everlasting fire. unbelievers ought to be exterminated; it would serve them right. renan ought to be hanged on the first tree that would bear him; the black doctor even maintained that in manila he would have been shot long ago. it was always the doctor who started the subject of the persecution of heretics. hello himself persecuted heretics with patronising scorn, but was already ready to drop into a hymn of praise to the madonna. i had then read two of hello's books, _le style_ and _m. renan, l'allemagne et l'athéisme au me siècle_. such productions are called books, because there is no other name for them. as a matter of fact, idle talk and galimatias of the sort are in no wise literature. hello never wrote anything but roman catholic sermons, full of theological sophistries and abuse of thinking men. in those years his books, with their odour of incense, made the small, flat inhabitants of the sacristy wainscotting venture out of their chinks in the wall in delight; but they obtained no applause elsewhere. it was only after his death that it could occur to a morbid seeker after originality, with a bitter almond in place of a heart, like huysmans, to make his half-mad hero, des esseintes, who is terrified of the light, find satisfaction in the challenges to common sense that hello wrote. hello was a poor wretch who, in the insane conviction that he himself was a genius, filled his writings with assertions concerning the marvellous, incomprehensible nature of genius, and always took up the cudgels on its behalf. during the empire, his voice was drowned. it was only a score of years later that the new catholic reaction found it to their advantage to take him at his word and see in him the genius that he had given himself out to be. he was as much a genius as the madman in the asylum is the emperor. iii. a few days after my arrival, i called upon taine and was cordially received. he presented me with one of his books and promised me his great work, _de l'intelligence_, which was to come out in a few days, conversed with me for an hour, and invited me to tea the following evening. he had been married since i had last been at his house, and his wife, a young, clear-skinned lady with black plaits, brown eyes and an extremely graceful figure, was as fresh as a rose, and talked with the outspoken freedom of youth, though expressing herself in carefully selected words. after a few days, taine, who was generally very formal with strangers, treated me with conspicuous friendliness. he offered at once to introduce me to renan, and urgently advised me to remain six months in paris, in order to master the language thoroughly, so that i might enlighten frenchmen on the state of things in the north, as well as picture the french to my fellow-countrymen. why should i not make french my auxiliary language, like turgenieff and hillebrandt! taine knew nothing of german belles lettres. as far as philosophy was concerned, he despised german aesthetics altogether, and laughed at me for believing in "aesthetics" at all, even one day introducing me to a stranger as "a young dane who does not believe in much, but is weak enough to believe in aesthetics." i was not precisely overburdened by the belief. but a german aesthetic, according to taine's definition, was a man absolutely devoid of artistic perception and sense of style, who lived only in definitions. if you took him to the theatre to see a sad piece, he would tear his hair with delight, and exclaim: "_voilà das tragische!_" of the more modern german authors, taine knew only heine, of whom he was a passionate admirer and whom, by reason of his intensity of feeling, he compared with dante. a poem like the _pilgrimage to kevlaar_ roused his enthusiasm. goethe's shorter poems, on the other hand, he could not appreciate, chiefly no doubt because he did not know german sufficiently well. he was not even acquainted with the very best of goethe's short things, and one day that i asked him to read one poem aloud, the words in his mouth rang very french. _lieber dur laydénn möcht ee mee schlag'e, als so feel frödenn des laybengs airtrah'ge_, was intended to be-- lieber durch leiden, möcht ich mich schlagen als so viel freuden des lebens ertragen. goethe's prose he did not consider good, but heavy and prolix, and lacking in descriptive power. he would praise voltaire's prose at his expense. "you perceive the figure and its movements far more clearly," he said. the german romanticists disgusted him; their style, also, was too inartistic for him (_ils ne savent pas écrire, cela me dégoûte d'eux_). i frequently met friends at his house, amongst others, marcelin, who had been his friend from boyhood, and upon whom, many years later, he wrote a melancholy obituary. this man, the proprietor of that supremely worldly paper, _la vie parisienne_, was a powerful, broad-shouldered, ruddy-cheeked man, who looked the incarnation of health and very unlike one's preconception of the editor of the most frivolous and fashionable weekly in paris. he was a draughtsman and an author, had studied the history of the last few centuries in engravings, and himself owned a collection of no fewer than , . what taine had most admired in him was the iron will with which, left, at nineteen years of age, penniless, and defectively educated, as head of his family, he had kept his mother and brothers and sisters by his work. next to that taine admired his earnestness. marcelin, who was generally looked upon as belonging to gay paris, was a solitary-minded man, an imaginative recreator of the peoples of the past, as they were and went about, of their ways and customs. he it was who opened taine's eyes to the wealth of contributions to history locked up in collections of engravings, more especially perhaps as regarded people's external appearance, and what the exterior revealed. another friend who came to taine at all sorts of times was gleyre, the old painter, who had been born in french switzerland, but was otherwise a parisian. and he was not the only deeply idealistic artist with whom taine was connected in the bonds of friendship. although a fundamental element of taine's nature drew him magnetically to the art that was the expression of strength, tragic or carnal strength, a swelling exuberance of life, there was yet room in his soul for sympathy with all artistic endeavour, even the purely emotional. that which drew him to the idealistic painters was, at bottom, the same quality as drew him to beethoven and chopin. gleyre's best-known picture is the painting in the louvre, somewhat weak in colouring, but showing much feeling, a nile subject representing a man sitting on the banks of the river and watching the dreams of his youth, represented as beautiful women, fleeing from him on a decorated dahabeah, which is disappearing. the title is _lost illusions_. there is more strength in the painting, much reproduced in engraving, of a roman army, conquered by divico the helvetian, passing under the yoke--a picture which, as an expression of the national pride of the swiss, has been placed in the museum at lausanne. still, it was the man himself, rather than his pictures, that taine thought so much of. intellectually, taine was in his inmost heart an admirer of the italian and the english renaissance, when most pagan and most unrestrained; his intellectual home was the venice of the sixteenth century; he would have been in his right place at one of the festivals painted by veronese, and should have worn the rich and tasteful costume of that period. but socially, and as a citizen, he was quite different, was affectionate and subdued and calm, excessively conventional; temperate in all his judgments, as in his life. if i succeeded in winning his good-will, it was most emphatically not because i had written a book about him, which, for that matter, he could not understand; he barely glanced through it; he read, at most, the appreciative little review that gaston paris did me the honour to write upon it in the _revue critique_. but it appealed to him that i had come to france from pure love of knowledge, that i might become acquainted with men and women and intellectual life, and that i had spent my youth in study. he grew fond of me, advised me as a father or an elder brother might have done, and smiled at my imprudences--as for instance when i almost killed myself by taking too strong a sleeping draught--(_vous êtes imprudent, c'est de votre âge_). he sometimes reproached me with not jotting down every day, as he did, whatever had struck me; he talked to me about his work, about the projected essay on schiller that came to nothing on account of the war, of his _notes sur l'angleterre_, which he wrote in a little out-of-the-way summer-house containing nothing save the four bare whitewashed walls, but a little table and a chair. he introduced into the book a few details that i had mentioned to him after my stay in england. when we walked in the garden at his country-house at châtenay, he sometimes flung his arm round my neck--an act which roused great astonishment in the frenchmen present, who could scarcely believe their eyes. they knew how reserved he usually was. it quite irritated taine that the danish minister did nothing for me, and introduced me nowhere, although he had had to procure me a free pass to the theatre. again and again he reverted to this, though i had never mentioned either the minister or the legation to him. but the revolutionary blood in him was excited at what he regarded as a slight to intellectual aristocracy. "what do you call a man like that? a junker?" i said no. "never mind! it is all the same. one feels that in your country you have had no revolution like ours, and know nothing about equality. a fellow like that, who has not made himself known in any way whatever, looks down on you as unworthy to sit at his table and does not move a finger on your behalf, although that is what he is there for. when i am abroad, they come at once from the french embassy to visit me, and open to me every house to which they have admittance. i am a person of very small importance in comparison with benedetti, but benedetti comes to see me as often as i will receive him. we have no lording of it here." these outbursts startled me, first, because i had never in the least expected or even wished either to be received by the danish minister or to be helped by him; secondly, because it revealed to me a wide difference between the point of view in the romance countries, in france especially, and that in the north. in denmark, i had never had the entrée to court or to aristocratic circles, nor have i ever acquired it since, though, for that matter, i have not missed it in the least. but in the romance countries, where the aristocratic world still occasionally possesses some wit and education, it is taken as a matter of course that talent is a patent of nobility, and, to the man who has won himself a name, all doors are open, indeed, people vie with one another to secure him. that a caste division like that in the north was quite unknown there, i thus learnt for the first time. iv. through taine, i very soon made the acquaintance of renan, whose personality impressed me very much, grand and free of mind as he was, without a trace of the unctuousness that one occasionally meets in his books, yet superior to the verge of paradox. he was very inaccessible, and obstinately refused to see people. but if he were expecting you, he would spare you several hours of his valuable time. his house was furnished with exceeding simplicity. on one wall of his study hung two chinese water-colours and a photograph of gérôme's _cleopatra before caesar_; on the opposite wall, a very beautiful photograph of what was doubtless an italian picture of the last day. that was all the ornamentation. on his table, there always lay a virgil and a horace in a pocket edition, and for a long time a french translation of sir walter scott. what surprised me most in renan's bearing was that there was nothing solemn about it and absolutely nothing sentimental. he impressed one as being exceptionally clever and a man that the opposition he had met with had left as it found him. he enquired about the state of things in the north. when i spoke, without reserve, of the slight prospect that existed of my coming to the front with my opinions, he maintained that victory was sure. (_vous l'emporterez! vous l'emporterez_!) like all foreigners, he marvelled that the three scandinavian countries did not try to unite, or at any rate to form an indissoluble union. in the time of gustavus adolphus, he said, they had been of some political importance; since then they had retired completely from the historical stage. the reason for it must very probably be sought for in their insane internecine feuds. renan used to live, at that time, from the spring onwards, at his house in the country, at sèvres. so utterly unaffected was the world-renowned man, then already forty-seven years of age, that he often walked from his house to the station with me, and wandered up and down the platform till the train came. his wife, who shared his thoughts and worshipped him, had chosen her husband herself, and, being of german family, had not been married after the french manner; still, she did not criticise it, as she thought it was perhaps adapted to the french people, and she had seen among her intimate acquaintances many happy marriages entered into for reasons of convenience. they had two children, a son, ary, who died in after having made a name for himself as a painter, and written beautiful poems (which, however, were only published after his death), and a daughter, noémi (madame psichari) who, faithfully preserving the intellectual heritage she has received from her great father, has become one of the centres of highest paris, a soul of fire, who fights for justice and truth and social ideas with burning enthusiasm. v. a source of very much pleasure to me was my acquaintance with the old author and collège de france professor, philarète chasles. grégoire introduced me to him and i gradually became at home, as it were, in his house, was always a welcome visitor, and was constantly invited there. in his old age he was not a man to be taken very seriously, being diffusive, vague and vain. but there was no one else so communicative, few so entertaining, and for the space of fifty years he had known everybody who had been of any mark in france. he was born in ; his father, who was a jacobin and had been a member of the convention, did not have him baptised, but brought him up to believe in truth, (hence the name philarète,) and apprenticed him to a printer. at the restoration of the royal family, he was imprisoned, together with his father, but released through the influence of chateaubriand; he then went to england, where he remained for full seven years ( - ), working as a typographer, and made a careful study of english literature, then almost unknown in france. after having spent some further time in germany, he returned to paris and published a number of historical and critical writings. philarète chasles, as librarian to the mazarin library, had his apartments in the building itself, that is, in the very centre of paris; in the summer he lived in the country at meudon, where he had had his veranda decorated with pictures of pompeian mosaic. he was having a handsome new house with a tower built near by. he needed room, for he had a library of , volumes. his niece kept house for him; she was married to a german from cologne, schulz by name, who was a painter on glass. the pair lived apart. madame schulz was pretty, caustic, spiteful, and blunt. her daughter, the fourteen-year-old nanni, was enchantingly lovely, as developed and mischievous as a girl of eighteen. everyone who came to the house was charmed with her, and it was always full of guests, young students from alsace and provence, young negroes from hayti, young ladies from jerusalem, and poetesses who would have liked to read their poems aloud and would have liked still better to induce chasles to make them known by an article. chasles chatted with everyone, frequently addressing his conversation to me, talking incessantly about the very men and women that i most cared to hear about, of those still living whom i most admired, such as george sand, and mérimée, and, in fact, of all the many celebrities he had known. as a young man, he had been taken to the house of madame récamier, and had there seen chateaubriand, an honoured and adored old man, and sainte-beuve an eager and attentive listener, somewhat overlooked on account of his ugliness, in whom there was developing that lurking envy of the great, and of those women clustered round, which he ought to have combatted, to produce just criticism. chasles had known personally michelet and guizot, the elder dumas and beyle, cousin and villemain, musset and balzac; he knew the comtesse d'agoult, for so many years the friend of liszt, and madame colet, the mistress, first of cousin, then of musset, and finally of flaubert, of whom my french uncle, who had met her on his travels, had drawn me a very unattractive picture. chasles was on terms of daily intimacy with jules sandeau; even as an old man he could not forget george sand, who had filched the greater part of his name and made it more illustrious than the whole became. sandeau loved her still, forty years after she had left him. chasles was able, in a few words, to conjure up very vividly the images of the persons he was describing to his listener, and his anecdotes about them were inexhaustible. he took me behind the scenes of literature and i saw the stage from all its sides. the personal history of his contemporaries was, it is quite true, more particularly its chronicle of scandals, but his information completed for me the severe and graceful restraint of all taine said. and side by side with his inclination for gay and malicious gossip, chasles had a way of sketching out great synopses of intellectual history, which made one realise, as one reflected,' the progress of development of the literatures with which one was familiar. those were pleasant evenings, those moonlight spring evenings in the open veranda out there at meudon, when the old man with the sharp-pointed beard and the little skull-cap on one side of his head, was spokesman. he had the aptest and most amusing way of putting things. for instance, to my question as to whether guizot had really been as austere by nature as he was in manner, he replied: "it is hard to say; when one wishes to impress, one cannot behave like a harlequin." although i had a keen enough eye for philarète chasles' weaknesses, i felt exceedingly happy in his house. there i could obtain without difficulty the information i wished for, and have the feeling of being thoroughly "in paris." paris was and still is the only city in the world that is and wishes to be the capital not only of its own country but of europe; the only one that takes upon itself as a duty, not merely to meet the visitor half-way by opening museums, collections, buildings, to him, but the only one where people habitually, in conversation, initiate the foreigner in search of knowledge into the ancient, deep culture of the nation, so that its position with regard to that of other races and countries is made clear to one. vi. i had not let a single day elapse before i took my seat again in the _théâtre français_, to which i had free admission for an indefinite period. the first time i arrived, the doorkeeper at the theatre merely called the sub-officials together; they looked at me, noted my appearance, and for the future i might take my seat wherever i liked, when the man at the entrance had called out his _entrée_. they were anything but particular, and in the middle of the summer, after a visit of a month to london, i found my seat reserved for me as before. the first evening after my arrival, i sat, quietly enjoying _hernani_ (the lyric beauty of which always rejoiced my heart), with mounet-sully in the leading rôle, bressant as charles v, and as doña sol, mlle. lloyd, a minor actress, who, however, at the conclusion of the piece, rose to the level of the poetry. the audience were so much in sympathy with the spirit of the piece that a voice from the gallery shouted indignantly: "_le roi est un lâche!_" afterwards, during the same evening, i saw, in a transport of delight, mme. de girardin's charming little piece, _la joie fait peur_. a certain family believe that their son, who is a young naval officer, fallen in the far east, has been cruelly put to death. he comes back, unannounced, to his broken-hearted mother, his despairing bride, his sister, and an old man-servant. this old, bent, faithful retainer, a stock dramatic part, was played by régnier with the consummate art that is nature itself staged. he has hidden the returned son behind a curtain for fear that his mother, seeing him unexpectedly, should die of joy. the sister comes in. humming, the servant begins to dust, to prevent her going near the curtain; but unconsciously, in his delight, his humming grows louder and louder, until, in a hymn of jubilation, tratara-tratara! he flings the broom up over his head, then stops short suddenly, noticing that the poor child is standing there, mute with astonishment, not knowing what to think. capital, too, was the acting of a now forgotten actress, mlle. dubois, who played the young girl. her exclamation, as she suddenly sees her brother, "_je n'ai pas peur, va_!" was uttered so lightly and gaily, that all the people round me, and i myself, too, burst into tears. i was much impressed by edmond thierry, then director of the _théâtre français_. i thought him the most refined man i had so far met, possessed of all the old french courtesy, which seemed to have died out in paris. a conversation with him was a regular course in dramaturgy, and although a young foreigner like myself must necessarily have been troublesome to him, he let nothing of this be perceptible. i was so charmed by him that nearly two years later i introduced a few unimportant words of his about molière's _misanthrope_ into my lectures on the first part of _main currents in european literature_, simply for the pleasure of mentioning his name. it was, moreover, a very pleasant thing to pay him a visit, even when he was interrupted. for actors streamed in and out of his house. one day, for instance, the lovely agar burst into the room to tell her tale of woe, being dissatisfied with the dress that she was to wear in a new part. i saw her frequently again when war had been declared, for she it was who, every evening, with overpowering force and art, sang the _marseillaise_ from before the footlights. the theatrical performances were a delight to me. i had been charmed as much only by michael wiehe and johanne luise heiberg in my salad days when they played together in hertz's _ninon_. but my artistic enjoyment went deeper here, for the character portrayal was very much more true to life. the best impressions i had brought with me of danish art were supremely romantic, michael wiehe as henrik in _the fairies_, as the chevalier in _ninon_, as mortimer in schiller's _mary stuart_. but this was the real, living thing. one evening i saw _ristori_ play the sleep-walking scene in macbeth with thrilling earnestness and supreme virtuosity. you felt horror to the very marrow of your bones, and your eyes filled with tears of emotion and anxiety. masterly was the regular breathing that indicated slumber, and the stiff fingers when she washed her hands and smelt them to see if there were blood upon them. but mme. favart, who with artistic self-restraint co-ordinated herself into the whole, without any virtuosity at all, produced no less an effect upon me. as the leading character in feuillet's _julie_, she was perfection itself; when i saw her, it seemed to me as though no one at home in denmark had any idea of what feminine characterisation was. what had been taken for such (heiberg's art, for instance,) only seemed like a graceful and brilliant convention, that fell to pieces by the side of this. the performances at the _théâtre français_ lasted longer than they do now. in one evening you could see gozlan's _tempête dans un verre d'eau_, augier's _gabrielle_, and banville's _gringoire_. when i had seen mme. favart and régnier in _gabrielle_, lafontaine as louis xi, his wife as loyse, mlle. ponsin as nicole, and coquelin, at that time still young and fresh, as gringoire, i felt that i had enjoyed one of the greatest and most elevating pleasures the world had to offer. i went home, enraptured and enthusiastic, as much edified as the believer returning from his church. i could see _gringoire_ a dozen times in succession and find only one expression for what i felt: "this is holy." the piece appealed to me so much, no doubt, because it was more in agreement than the rest with what in denmark was considered true poetry. but during the three years since i had last seen him, coquelin had made immense strides in this rôle. he rendered it now with an individuality, a heartfelt sincerity and charm, that he had not previously attained; in contrast to harsh king louis and unfeeling loyse, was so poor, and hungry, and ill and merry and tender and such a hero and such a genius--that i said to myself: "who, ever has seen this, has lived." quite a short while after my arrival--april , --i saw for the first time sarah bernhardt, who had just begun to make a name at the odéon. she was playing in george sand's beautiful and mutinous drama _l'autre_, from which the great-grandmother in björnson's _leonarda_ is derived. the piece is a plea for the freedom of love, or rather, for indulgence with regard to what are branded by society as the sins of love. sarah bernhardt was the young girl who, in her innocence, judges all moral irregularities with the utmost severity, until her eyes are opened to what the world really is. she is, without knowing it, the child of unlawful love, and the father's curse is that of not daring to be anything to his child--whom he has educated and over whom he watches--not daring to claim his right to her affection, as he would otherwise stain her mother's memory. in his presence, the young girl utters all the hard words that society has for those who break her laws; she calls her unknown father false and forsworn. george sand has collected all the justified protests and every prejudice for this young girl to utter, because in her they inspire most respect, and are to their best advantage.--so far her father has not revealed himself. then at last it dawns upon her that it is he, her benefactor, who is the _other one_ whom she has just condemned, and as the curtain falls she flings herself, melted, into his arms. sarah played the part with great modesty, with what one might assume to be the natural melancholy of the orphan, and the enthusiasm of the young virgin for strict justice, and yet in such wise that, through all the coldness, through the expressive uncertainty of her words, and especially through the lovely, rich ring of her voice, one suspected tenderness and mildness long held back. vii. i tried, while i was in paris, to understand something of the development of french literature since the beginning of the century, to arrange it in stages, and note the order of their succession; i wanted, at the same time, to form for myself a similar general view of danish literature, and institute parallels between the two, being convinced beforehand that the spirit of the age must be approximately the same in two european countries that were, so to speak, intellectually allied. this was my first naïve attempt to trace the main currents in nineteenth century literature. the french poetry of the nineteenth century seemed to me to fall into three groups: romanticism, the school of common sense, the realistic art. i defined them as follows: i. what the french call _romanticism_ has many distinguishing marks. it is, firstly, a _break with graeco-roman antiquity_. it therefore harks back to the gallic, and to the middle ages. it is a resurrection of the poets of the sixteenth century. but the attempt is a failure, for ronsard and the pleiad [footnote: the poets who formed the first and greater pleiad were, besides ronsard, dubellay, remi, belleau, jodelle, dorat, baif and pontus de thiard.] are also greek-taught, are anacreontics. if we except the _chanson de roland_, there is no original mediaeval literature that can be compared with the icelandic. for that reason the choice of subjects is extended from the middle ages in france to the middle ages in other countries, for instance, germany, whence victor hugo derives his drama _les burgraves_. the poets select foreign matter, alfred de vigny treats chatterton and musset italian and spanish themes. mérimée harks back to the french middle ages (the peasant rising), but as he there finds too little originality, he flees, as a poet, to less civilised nationalities, spaniards, south americans, corsicans, russians, etc. romanticism becomes ethnographical. its second distinguishing mark is _tempestuous violence_. it is connected with the revolution. it attacks society and the conditions of property (saint simon, fourier, proudhon), attacks marriage and the official verdict upon sexual relations (dumas) antony rousseau's old doctrine that nature is good, the natural state the right one, and that society alone has spoilt everything. george sand in particular worships rousseau, and writes in essential agreement with him. in the later french literature the influence of voltaire and that of rousseau are alternately supreme. voltaire rules until , rousseau again until , then voltaire takes the reins once more with about, taine, and sarcey. in renan voltaire is merged with rousseau, and now, later still, diderot has taken the place of both. ii. the _school of common sense_ (_l'école de bon sens_) follows upon romanticism. as the latter worshipped passion, so the school of common sense pays homage to sound human intelligence. in certain individuals it is possible to trace the transition--musset's _un caprice_ in contrast with the wanton works of his youth. george sand's village novels, in contrast with her novels on marriage. the popular tone and the landscape drawing here, which, for that matter, are all derived from rousseau, lead on into a tranquil idyl. works like ponsard's _lucrèce_ and augier's _gabrielle_ show the reaction from romanticism. in the tragedy it is lucrèce, in the modern play, gabrielle, upon whom the action hinges. in ponsard and augier common sense, strict justice, and a conventional feeling of honour, are acclaimed. marriage is glorified in all of ponsard, augier and octave feuillet's dramas. literature has no doubt been influenced in some degree by the ruling orders of the monarchy of july. louis philippe was the bourgeois king. an author like scribe, who dominates the stages of europe, is animated by the all-powerful bourgeois spirit, educated and circumscribed as it was. cousin, in his first manner, revolutionary schellingism, corresponded to romanticism; his eclecticism as a moralising philosopher corresponds to the school of common sense. the distinctive feature which they have in common becomes a so-called idealism. ponsard revives the classical traditions of the seventeenth century. in criticism this endeavour in the direction of the sensible and the classical, is represented by nisard, planche, and sainte-beuve in his second manner. iii. the third tendency of the century is _realistic art_, with physiological characteristics. it finds its support in positivist philosophy; herbart in germany, bentham and mill in england, comte and littré in france. in criticism, sainte-beuve's third manner. on the stage, the younger dumas. in novels, the brothers goncourt, and flaubert. in art, a certain brutality in the choice of subject, _gérôme and régnault_. in politics, the accomplished fact (_le fait accompli_), the empire, the brutal pressure from above and general levelling by universal suffrage from below. in lyric poetry, the strictly technical artists of form of the _parnasse_, coppée, who describes unvarnished reality, and the master workmen (_les maîtres de la facture_), leconte delisle, gautier and his pupils, who write better verse than lamartine and hugo, but have no new thoughts or feelings--the poetic language materialists. in conclusion, a great many indistinct beginnings, of which it is as yet impossible to say whither they are tending. this, my first attempt to formulate for myself a general survey of one of the great literatures of the nineteenth century, contained much that was true enough, but revealed very plainly the beginner's lack of ability to estimate the importance of phenomena, an inclination to over-estimate purely evanescent apparitions, and a tendency to include that which was merely externally similar, under one heading. the insignificant school of common sense could not by any means be regarded as marking an epoch. neither, with any justice, could men like augier and dumas be placed in different groups. the attempt to point out realism in the lyric art was likewise exceedingly audacious. however, this division and grouping seemed to me at that time to be a great discovery, and great was my disappointment when one day i consulted chasles on the subject and he thought it too forced, and another day submitted it to renan, who restricted himself to the reply: "no! no! things do not proceed so systematically!" as this survey of the literature of france was also intended to guide me with regard to the danish, i groped my way forward in the following manner: i. _romanticism_. oehlenschläger's attitude towards the past corresponds exactly to victor hugo's; only that the resurrection of the middle ages in poetry is much more successful (_earl hakon, the gods of the north_), by reason of the fresh originality in snorre and the _edda_. grundtvig's _scenes from the lives of the warriors of the north_ likewise owes all its value to the edda and the sagas. oehlenschläger's _aladdin_ is the northern pendant to hugo's _les orientales_. gautier, as a poet, delacroix as a painter, affect the east, as oehlenschläger does in _ali and gulhyndi_. steffens and sibbern, as influenced by schelling, correspond to cousin. hauch not infrequently seeks his poetic themes in germany, as do nodier and gérard de nerval. ingemann's weak historical novels correspond to the french imitations of sir walter scott (alfred de vigny's _cinq-mars_, dumas' _musketeers_). oehlenschläger's tragedies correspond to the dramas of victor hugo. with the danes, as with the french, hatred of intelligence, as cold; only that the danes glorify imagination and enthusiasm, the french, passion. romanticism lasts in denmark (without revolutions and restorations) until about , as in france. ii. the _school of common sense_ is in denmark partly a worship of the sound sense of the people, partly a moralising tendency. grundtvig, with his popular manner, his appreciation of the unsophisticated peasant nature, had points of contact with the pupils of rousseau. moralising works are heiberg's _a soul after death_, paludan-müller's _adam homo_, and kierkegaard's _either-or_. the funny thing about the defence of marriage contained in this last book is that it defends what no one in denmark attacks. it can only be understood from the contemporary movement in the intellectual life of europe, which is now asserting the universal validity of morality, as it formerly did the right of passion. its defence of protestantism corresponds to octave feuillet's defence of catholicism, only that feuillet is conciliatory, kierkegaard vehement. björnson's peasant novels, which are a continuation of grundtvig and blicher, are, by their harmony and their peaceable relations to all that is, an outcome of love of common sense; they have the same anti-byronic stamp as the school of common sense. the movement comes to us ten years later. but björnson has simultaneously something of romanticism and something of realism. we have not men to place separately in the various frames. iii. _realistic art_. there is so far only an attempt at a realistic art. thus, in björnson's _arne_ and _sigurd slembe_. note also an attempt in bergsöe's clumsy use of realistic features, and in his seeking after effect. richardt corresponds in our lyric art as an artist in language to the poets of the _parnasse_, while heiberg's philosophy and most of his poetry may be included in the school of common sense. bröchner's _ideal realism_ forms the transitional stage to the philosophy of reality. ibsen's attack upon the existing state of things corresponds to realism in the french drama. he is dumas on northern soil. in the _love comedy_, as a scoffer he is inharmonious. in _peer gynt_, he continues in the moralising tendency with an inclination to coarse and brutal realistic effects (relations with anitra). in germany we find ourselves at the second stage still, sinking deeper and deeper into dialect and popular subjects (from auerbach to claus groth and fritz reuter). it is unnecessary to point out to readers of the present day how incomplete and arbitrary this attempt at a dissection of danish literature was. i started from the conviction that modern intellectual life in europe, in different countries, must necessarily in all essentials traverse the same stages, and as i was able to find various unimportant points of similarity in support of this view, i quite overlooked the fact that the counterbalancing weight of dissimilarities rendered the whole comparison futile. ix. as, during my first stay in paris, i had frequently visited madame victorine, the widow of my deceased uncle, and her children, very cordial relations had since existed between us, especially after my uncle's faithless friend had been compelled to disgorge the sums sent from denmark for her support, which he had so high-handedly kept back. there were only faint traces left of the great beauty that had once been hers; life had dealt hardly with her. she was good and tender-hearted, an affectionate mother, but without other education than was usual in the parisian small bourgeois class to which she belonged. all her opinions, her ideas of honour, of propriety, of comfort and happiness, were typical of her class. partly from economy, partly from a desire not to waste the precious time, i often, in those days, restricted my midday meal. i would buy myself, at a provision dealer's, a large veal or ham pie and eat it in my room, instead of going out to a restaurant. one day victorine surprised me at a meal of this sort, and exclaimed horrified: _"comment? vous vous nourrissez si mal!"_ to her, it was about the same as if i had not had any dinner at all. to sit at home without a cloth on the table, and cut a pie in pieces with a paper knife, was to sink one's dignity and drop to poor man's fare. her thoughts, like those of most poor people in france and elsewhere, centred mostly on money and money anxieties, on getting on well in the world, or meeting with adversity, and on how much this man or the other could earn, or not earn, in the year. her eldest son was in st. petersburg, and he was doing right well; he was good and kind and sent his mother help when he had a little to spare. he had promised, too, to take charge of his next brother. but she had much anxiety about the little ones. one of them was not turning out all that he should be, and there were the two youngest to educate. there was a charming celebration in the poor home when little emma went to her first communion, dressed all in white, from head to foot, with a long white veil and white shoes, and several other little girls and boys came just as smartly dressed, and presents were given and good wishes offered. little henri looked more innocent than any of the little girls. victorine had a friend whom she deemed most happy; this was jules clarétie's mother, for, young though her son was, he wrote in the papers, wrote books, too, and earned money, so that he was able to maintain his mother altogether. he was a young man who ought to be held in high estimation, an author who was all that he should be. there was another author whom she detested, and that was p.l. möller, the dane: "jacques, as you know, was always a faithful friend of monsieur möller; he copied out a whole book for him, [footnote: _the modern drama in france and denmark_, which won the university gold medal for möller.] when he himself was very busy. but then when jacques died--_pauvre homme!_--he came and paid visits much too often and always at more and more extraordinary times, so that i was obliged to forbid him the house." x. in a students' hotel near the odéon, where a few scandinavians lived, i became acquainted with two or three young lawyers and more young abbés and priests. if you went in when the company were at table in the dining room, the place rang again with their noisy altercations. the advocates discussed politics, literature and religion with such ardour that the air positively crackled. they were apparently practising to speak one day at the bar or in the chamber. it was from surroundings such as these that gambetta emerged. the young abbés and priests were very good fellows, earnest believers, but so simple that conversations with them were only interesting because of their ignorance and lack of understanding. scandinavians in paris who knew only roman catholic priests from _tartufe_ at the theatre, had very incorrect conceptions regarding them. bressant was the cold, elegant hypocrite, lafontaine the base, coarse, but powerful cleric, leroux the full-blooded, red-faced, voluptuary with fat cheeks and shaking hands, whose expression was now angry, now sickly sweet. northern protestants were very apt to classify the black-coated men whom they saw in the streets and in the churches, as belonging to one of these three types. but my ecclesiastical acquaintances were as free from hypocrisy as from fanaticism. they were good, honest children of the commonalty, with, not the cunning, but the stupidity, of peasants. many a day i spent exploring the surroundings of paris in their company. we went to st. cloud and sèvres, to versailles and st. germain, to saint denis, to montmorency and enghien, or to monthléry, a village with an old tower from the thirteenth century, and then breakfasted at longjumeau, celebrated for its postillion. there abbé leboulleux declared himself opposed to cremation, for the reason that it rendered the resurrection impossible, since god himself could not collect the bones again when the body had been burnt. it was all so amiable that one did not like to contradict him. at the same meal another was giving a sketch of the youth of martin luther; he left the church--_on se demande encore pourquoi_. in the innocence of his heart this abbé regarded the rebellion of luther less as an unpermissible than as an inexplicable act. xi. the society of the italian friends of my first visit gave me much pleasure. my first call at the pagellas' was a blank; at the next, i was received like a son of the house and heaped with reproaches for not having left my address; they had tried to find me at my former hotel, and endeavoured in vain to learn where i was staying from scandinavians whom they knew by name; now i was to spend all the time i could with them, as i used to do in the old days. they were delighted to see me again, and when i wished to leave, drove me home in their carriage. i resumed my former habit of spending the greater part of my spare time with southerners; once more i was transported to southern europe and south america. the very first day i dined at their house i met a jovial old spaniard, a young italian, who was settled in egypt, and a very coquettish young brazilian girl. the spaniard, who had been born in venezuela, was an engineer who had studied conditions in panama for eleven years, and had a plan for the cutting of the isthmus. he talked a great deal about the project, which lesseps took up many years afterwards. pagella, too, was busy with practical plans, setting himself technical problems, and solving them. thus he had discovered a new method of constructing railway carriages on springs, with a mechanism to prevent collisions. he christened this the _virginie-ressort_, after his wife, and had had offers for it from the russian government. an italian engineer, named casellini, who had carried out the construction for him, was one of the many bold adventurers that one met with among the southerners in paris. he had been sent to spain the year before by napoleon iii to direct the counter-revolution there. being an engineer, he knew the whole country, and had been in constant communication with queen isabella and the spanish court in paris. he gave illuminating accounts of spanish corruptibility. he had bribed the telegraph officials in the south of spain, where he was, and saw all political telegrams before the governor of the place. in malaga, where he was leading the movement against the government, he very narrowly escaped being shot; he had been arrested, his despatches intercepted and , rifles seized, but he bribed the officials to allow him to make selection from the despatches and destroy those that committed him. in madrid he had had an audience of serrano, after this latter had forbidden the transmission from the town of any telegrams that were not government telegrams; he had taken with him a telegram drawn up by the french party, which sounded like an ordinary business letter, and secured its being sent off together with the government despatches. casellini had wished to pay for the telegram, but serrano had dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand, rung a bell and given the telegram to a servant. it was just as in scribe's _queen marguerite's novels_, the commission was executed by the enemy himself. such romantic adventures did not seem to be rare in spain. prim himself had told the pagellas how at the time of the failure of the first insurrection he had always, in his flight, (in spite of his defective education, he was more magnanimous and noble-minded than any king), provided for the soldiers who were sent out after him, ordered food and drink for them in every inn he vacated, and paid for everything beforehand, whereas the government let their poor soldiers starve as soon as they were eight or ten miles from madrid. i often met a very queer, distinguished looking old spaniard named don josé guell y rente, who had been married to a sister of king francis, the husband of king isabella, but had been separated from her after, as he declared, she had tried to cut his throat. as witness to his connubial difficulties, he showed a large scar across his throat. he was well-read and, amongst other things, enthusiastically admired scandinavian literature because it had produced the world's greatest poet, ossian, with whom he had become acquainted in cesarotti's italian translation. it was useless to attempt to explain to him the difference between scandinavia and scotland. they are both in the north, he would reply. xii. a young american named olcott, who visited chasles and occasionally looked me up, brought with him a breath from the universities of the great north american republic. a young german, dr. goldschmidt, a distinguished sanscrit scholar, a man of more means than i, who had a pretty flat with a view over the place du châtelet, and dined at good restaurants, came, as it were, athwart the many impressions i had received of romance nature and romance intellectual life, with his violent german national feeling and his thorough knowledge. as early as the spring, he believed there would be war between germany and france and wished in that event to be a soldier, as all other german students, so he declared, passionately wished. he was a powerfully built, energetic, well-informed man of the world, with something of the rich man's habit of command. he seemed destined to long life and quite able to stand fatigue. nevertheless, his life was short. he went through the whole of the war in france without a scratch, after the conclusion of peace was appointed professor of sanscrit at the university of conquered strasburg, but died of illness shortly afterwards. a striking contrast to his reticent nature was afforded by the young frenchmen of the same age whom i often met. a very rich and very enthusiastic young man, marc de rossiény, was a kind of leader to them; he had , francs a year, and with this money had founded a weekly publication called "_l'impartial_," as a common organ for the students of brussels and paris. the paper's name, _l'impartial_, must be understood in the sense that it admitted the expression of every opinion with the exception of defence of so-called revealed religion. the editorial staff was positivist, michelet and chasles were patrons of the paper, and behind the whole stood victor hugo as a kind of honorary director. the weekly preached hatred of the empire and of theology, and seemed firmly established, yet was only one of the hundred ephemeral papers that are born and die every day in the latin quarter. when it had been in existence a month, the war broke out and swept it away, like so many other and greater things. xiii. of course i witnessed all that was accessible to me of parisian public life. i fairly often found my way, as i had done in , to the palais de justice to hear the great advocates plead. the man i enjoyed listening to most was jules favre, whose name was soon to be on every one's lips. the younger generation admired in him the high-principled and steadfast opponent of the empire in the chamber, and he was regarded as well-nigh the most eloquent man in france. as an advocate, he was incomparable. his unusual handsomeness,--his beautiful face under a helmet of grey hair, and his upright carriage,--were great points in his favour. his eloquence was real, penetrating, convincing, inasmuch as he piled up fact upon fact, and was at the same time, as the french manner is, dramatic, with large gesticulations that made his gown flutter restlessly about him like the wings of a bat. it was a depressing fact that afterwards, as the minister opposed to bismarck, he was so unequal to his position. i was present at the _théâtre français_ on the occasion of the unveiling of ponsard's bust. to the romanticists, ponsard was nothing less than the ass's jawbone with which the philistines attempted to slay hugo. but Émile chasles, a son of my old friend, gave a lecture upon him, and afterwards _le lion amoureux_ was played, a very tolerable little piece from the revolutionary period, in which, for one thing, napoleon appears as a young man. there are some very fine revolutionary tirades in it, of which princess mathilde, after its first representation, said that they made her _republican_ heart palpitate. the ceremony in honor of this little anti-pope to victor hugo was quite a pretty one. once, too, i received a ticket for a reception at the french academy. the poet auguste barbier was being inaugurated and silvestre de sacy welcomed him, in academic fashion, in a fairly indiscreet speech. barbier's _jamber_ was one of the books of poems that i had loved for years, and i knew many of the strophes by heart, for instance, the celebrated ones on freedom and on napoleon; i had also noticed how barbier's vigour had subsided in subsequent collections of poems; in reality, he was still living on his reputation from the year , and without a doubt most people believed him to be dead. and now there he stood, a shrivelled old man in his palm uniform, his speech revealing neither satiric power nor lofty intellect. it was undoubtedly owing to his detestation of napoleon (_vide_ his poem _l'idole_) that the academy, who were always agitating against the empire, had now, so late in the day, cast their eyes upon him. bald little silvestre de sacy, the tiny son of an important father, reproached him for his verses on freedom, as the bold woman of the people who was not afraid to shed blood. "that is not freedom as i understand it," piped the little man,--and one believed him,--but could not refrain from murmuring with the poet: c'est que la liberté n'est pas une comtesse du noble faubourg st. germain, une femme qu'un cri fait tomber en faiblesse, qui met du blanc et du carmin; c'est une forte femme. xiv. a very instructive resort, even for a layman, was the record office, for there one could run through the whole history of france in the most entertaining manner with the help of the manuscripts placed on view, from the most ancient papyrus rolls to the days of parchment and paper. you saw the documents of the feudal lords' and priests' conspiracies under the merovingians and the capets, the decree of divorce between philip augustus and ingeborg, and letters from the most notable personages of the middle ages and the autocracy. the period of the revolution and the first empire came before one with especial vividness. there was charlemagne's monogram stencilled in tin, and that of robert of paris, reproduced in the same manner, those of louis xiv. and molière, of francis the catholic and mary stuart. there were letters from robespierre and danton, requests for money and death-warrants from the reign of terror, charlotte corday's last letters from prison and the original letters of napoleon from st. helena. in june i saw the annual races at longchamps for the first time. great was the splendour. from two o'clock in the afternoon to six there was an uninterrupted stream of carriages, five or six abreast, along the champs elysées; there were thousands of _lorettes_ (as they were called at that time) in light silk gowns, covered with diamonds and precious stones, in carriages decorated with flowers. coachmen and footmen wore powdered wigs, white or grey, silk stockings and knee-breeches and a flower in the buttonhole matching the colour of their livery and the flowers which hung about the horses' ears. some of the carriages had no coachman's box or driver, but were harnessed to four horses ridden by postillions in green satin or scarlet velvet, with white feathers in their caps. the only great _demi-mondaine_ of whom i had hitherto caught a glimpse was the renowned madame de païva, who had a little palace by the side of the house in which frölich the painter lived, in the champs elysées. her connection with count henckel v. donnersmark permitted her to surround herself with regal magnificence, and, to the indignation of princess mathilde, men like gautier and renan, sainte-beuve and goncourt, saint-victor and taine, sat at her table. the ladies here were younger and prettier, but socially of lower rank. the gentlemen went about among the carriages, said _tu_ without any preamble to the women, and squeezed their hands, while their men-servants sat stolid, like wood, seeming neither to hear nor see. this race-day was the last under the empire. it is the one described in zola's _nana_. the prize for the third race was , francs. after english horses had been victorious for several years in succession, the prize was carried off in --as in _nana_--by a native-born horse, and the jubilation was great; it was a serious satisfaction to national vanity. at that time, the tuileries were still standing, and i was fond of walking about the gardens near closing time, when the guard beat the drums to turn the people out. it was pleasant to hear the rolling of the drums, which were beaten by two of the grenadier guard drummers and a turco. goldschmidt had already written his clever and linguistically very fine piece of prose about this rolling of the drums and what it possibly presaged: napoleon's own expulsion from the tuileries and the humiliation of french grandeur before the prussians, who might one day come and drum this grandeur out. but goldschmidt had disfigured the pretty little piece somewhat by relating that one day when, for an experiment, he had tried to make his way into the gardens after the signal for closing had sounded, the zouave had carelessly levelled his bayonet at him with the words: _"ne faites pas des bêtises!"_ this levelling of the bayonet on such trivial provocation was too tremendous, so i made up my mind one evening to try myself. the soldier on guard merely remarked politely: "_fermé, monsieur, on va sortir._" i little dreamed that only a few months later the empress would steal secretly out of the palace, having lost her crown, and still less that only six months afterwards, during the civil war, the tuileries would be reduced to ashes, never to rise again. xv. at that time the eyes of the danes were fixed upon france in hope and expectation that their national resuscitation would come from that quarter, and they made no distinction between france and the empire. although the shortest visit to paris was sufficient to convince a foreigner not only that the personal popularity of the emperor was long since at an end, but that the whole government was despised, in denmark people did not, and would not, know it. in the danish paper with the widest circulation, the daily paper, foreign affairs were dealt with by a man of the name of prahl, a wildly enthusiastic admirer of the empire, a pleasant man and a brainy, but who, on this vital point, seemed to have blinkers on. from all his numerous foreign papers, he deduced only the opinions that he held before, and his opinions were solely influenced by his wishes. he had never had any opportunity of procuring information at first hand. he said to me one day: "i am accused of allowing my views to be influenced by the foreign diplomatists here, i, who have never spoken to one of them. i can honestly boast of being unacquainted with even the youngest attaché of the portuguese ministry." his remarks, which sufficiently revealed this fact, unfortunately struck the keynote of the talk of the political wiseacres in denmark. though the danes were so full of the french, it would be a pity to say that the latter returned the compliment. it struck me then, as it must have struck many others, how difficult it was to make people in france understand that danes and norsemen were not germans. from the roughest to the most highly educated, they all looked upon it as an understood thing, and you could not persuade them of anything else. as soon as they had heard northerners exchange a few words with each other and had picked up the frequently recurring _ja_, they were sufficiently edified. even many years after, i caught the most highly cultured frenchmen (such as edmond de concourt), believing that, at any rate on the stage, people spoke german in copenhagen. one day in june i began chatting on an omnibus with a corporal of grenadiers. when he heard that i was danish, he remarked: "german, then." i said: "no." he persisted in his assertion, and asked, cunningly, what _oui_ was in danish. when i told him he merely replied, philosophically, "ah! then german is the mother tongue." it is true that when danes, norwegians and swedes met abroad they felt each other to be compatriots; but this did not prevent them all being classed together as germans; that they were not englishmen, you saw at a glance. even when there were several of them together, they had difficulty in asserting themselves as different and independent; they were a germanic race all the same, and people often added, "of second-class importance," since the race had other more pronounced representatives. the only strong expression of political opinion that was engineered in france then was the so-called plebiscite of may, ; the government challenged the verdict of the entire male population of france upon the policy of napoleon iii. during the past eighteen years, and did so with the intention, strangely enough not perceived by prime minister ollivier, of re-converting the so-called constitutional empire which had been in existence since january , , into an autocracy. sensible people saw that the plebiscite was only an objectionable comedy; a favourable reply would be obtained all over the country by means of pressure on the voters and falsification of votes; the oppositionist papers showed this up boldly in articles that were sheer gems of wit. disturbances were expected in paris on the th of may, and here and there troops were collected. but the parisians, who saw through the farce, remained perfectly indifferent. the decision turned out as had been expected; the huge majority in paris was _against_, the provincial population voted _for_, the emperor. xvi. on july th i saw john stuart mill for the first time. he had arrived in paris the night before, passing through from avignon, and paid a visit to me, unannounced, in my room in the rue mazarine; he stayed two hours and won my affections completely. i was a little ashamed to receive so great a man in so poor a place, but more proud of his thinking it worth his while to make my acquaintance. none of the french savants had ever had an opportunity of conversing with him; a few days before, renan had lamented to me that he had never seen him. as mill had no personal acquaintances in paris, i was the only person he called upon. to talk to him was a new experience. the first characteristic that struck me was that whereas the french writers were all assertive, he listened attentively to counter-arguments; it was only when his attitude in the woman question was broached that he would not brook contradiction and overwhelmed his adversaries with contempt. at that time mill was without any doubt, among europe's distinguished men, the greatest admirer of french history and french intellectual life to be found outside of france; but he was of quite a different type from the french, even from those i esteemed most highly. the latter were comprehensive-minded men, bold and weighty, like taine, or cold and agile like renan, but they were men of intellect and thought, only having no connection with the practical side of life. they were not adapted to personal action, felt no inclination to direct interference. mill was different. although he was more of a thinker than any of them, his boldness was not of the merely theoretic kind. he wished to interfere and re-model. none of those frenchmen lacked firmness; if, from any consideration, they modified their utterances somewhat, their fundamental views, at any rate, were formed independently; but their firmness lay in defence, not in attack; they wished neither to rebuke nor to instigate; their place was the lecturer's platform, rather than the tribune. mill's firmness was of another kind, hard as steel; both in character and expression he was relentless, and he went to work aggressively. he was armed, not with a cuirass, but a glaive. thus in him i met, for the first time in my life, a figure who was the incarnation of the ideal i had drawn for myself of the great man. this ideal had two sides; talent and character: great capacities and inflexibility. the men of great reputation whom i had met hitherto, artists and scientists, were certainly men richly endowed with talents; but i had never hitherto encountered a personality combining talents with gifts of character. shortly before leaving home, i had concluded the preface to a collection of criticisms with these words: "my watchword has been: as flexible as possible, when it is a question of understanding, as inflexible as possible, when it is a question of speaking," and i had regarded this watchword as more than the motto of a little literary criticism. now i had met a grand inflexibility of ideas in human form, and was impressed for my whole life long. unadapted though i was by nature to practical politics, or in fact to any activity save that of ideas, i was far from regarding myself as mere material for a scholar, an entertaining author, a literary historian, or the like. i thought myself naturally fitted to be a man of action. but the men of action i had hitherto met had repelled me by their lack of a leading principle. the so-called practical men at home, lawyers and parliamentarians, were not men who had made themselves masters of any fund of new thoughts that they wished to reduce to practical effect; they were dexterous people, well-informed of conditions at their elbow, not thinkers, and they only placed an immediate goal in front of themselves. in mill i learnt at last to know a man in whom the power of action, disturbance, and accomplishment were devoted to the service of modern sociological thought. he was then sixty-four years old, but his skin was as fresh and clear as a child's, his deep blue eyes young. he stammered a little, and nervous twitches frequently shot over his face; but there was a sublime nobility about him. to prolong the conversation, i offered to accompany him to the windsor hotel, where he was staying, and we walked the distance. as i really had intended to go over to england at about that time, mill proposed my crossing with him. i refused, being afraid of abusing his kindness, but was invited to visit him frequently when i was in england, which i did not fail to do. a few days afterwards i was in london. xvii. my french acquaintances all said the same thing, when i told them i wanted to go over to england: "what on earth do you want there?" though only a few hours' journey from england, they had never felt the least curiosity to see the country. "and london! it was said to be a very dull city; it was certainly not worth putting one's self out to go there." or else it was: "if you are going to london, be careful! london is full of thieves and rascals; look well to your pockets!" only a few days later, the parisians were shaken out of their calm, without, however, being shaken out of their self-satisfaction. the duc de grammont's speech on the th of july, which amounted to the statement that france was not going to stand any hohenzollern on the throne of spain, made the people fancy themselves deeply offended by the king of prussia, and a current of martial exasperation ran through the irritable and misled people, who for four years had felt themselves humiliated by prussia's strong position. all said and believed that in a week there would be war, and on both sides everything was so ordered that there might be. there was still hope that common sense might get the better of warlike madness in the french government; but this much was clear, there was going to be a sudden downfall of everything. between dover and calais the waves beat over the ship. from dover, the train went at a speed of sixty miles an hour, and made one think him a great man who invented the locomotive, as great as aristotle and plato together. it seemed to me that john stuart mill was that kind of man. he opened, not roads, but railroads; his books were like iron rails, unadorned, but useful, leading to their goal. and what will there was in the english locomotive that drew our train,--like the driving instinct of england's character! two things struck me on my journey across, a type of mechanical protestant religiosity which was new to me, and the knowledge of the two languages along the coasts. a pleasant english doctor with whom i got into conversation sat reading steadily in a little gospel of st. john that he carried with him, yawning as he read. the seamen on the ship and the coast dwellers both in england and france spoke english and french with about equal ease. it is probably the same in all border countries, but it occurred to me that what came about here quite naturally will in time be a possibility all over the world, namely, the mastery of a second and common language, in addition to a people's own. i drove into london through a sea of houses. when i had engaged a room, changed my clothes, and written a letter that i wanted to send off at once, the eighteen-year-old girl who waited on me informed me that no letters were accepted on sundays. as i had some little difficulty in making out what she said, i supposed she had misunderstood my question and thought i wanted to speak to the post-official. for i could not help laughing at the idea that even the letterboxes had to enjoy their sabbath rest. but i found she was right. at the post-office, even the letter-box was shut, as it was sunday; i was obliged to put my letter in a pillar-box in the street. in paris the summer heat had been oppressive. in london, to my surprise, the weather was fresh and cool, the air as light as it is in denmark in autumn. my first visit was to the greek and assyrian collections in the british museum. in the kensington museum and the crystal palace at sydenham, i added to my knowledge of michael angelo, to whom i felt drawn by a mighty affection. the admiration for his art which was to endure undiminished all my life was even then profound. i early felt that although michael angelo had his human weaknesses and limitations, intellectually and as an artist he is one of the five or six elect the world has produced, and scarcely any other great man has made such an impression on my inner life as he. in the british museum i was accosted by a young dane with whom i had sometimes ridden out in the days of my riding lessons; this was carl bech, now a landed proprietor, and in his company i saw many of the sights of london and its environs. he knew more english than i, and could find his way anywhere. that the english are rigid in their conventions, he learnt one day to his discomfort; he had put on a pair of white trousers, and as this was opposed to the usual precedent and displeased, we were stared at by every man, woman and child we met, as if the young man had gone out in his underclothing. i had a similar experience one day as i was walking about the national gallery with a young german lady whose acquaintance i had made. an englishwoman stopped her in one of the rooms to ask: "was it you who gave up a check parasol downstairs?" and receiving an answer in the affirmative, she burst out laughing in her face and went off. on july th came the great daily-expected news. war was declared, and in face of this astounding fact and all the possibilities it presented, people were struck dumb. the effect it had upon me personally was that i made up my mind to return as soon as possible to france, to watch the movement there. in london, where napoleon iii. was hated, and in a measure despised, france was included in the aversion felt for him. everywhere, when i was asked on which side my sympathies were, they broke in at once: "we are all for prussia." xviii. as often as i could, i took the train to blackheath to visit john stuart mill. he was good and great, and i felt myself exceedingly attracted by his greatness. there were fundamental features of his thought and mode of feeling that coincided with inclinations of my own; for instance, the utilitarian theory, as founded by bentham and his father and developed by him. i had written in : "what we crave is no longer to flee from society and reality with our thoughts and desires. on the contrary, we wish to put our ideas into practice in society and life. that we may not become a nation of poetasters, we will simply strive towards actuality, the definite goal of utility, which the past generation mocked at. who would not be glad to be even so little useful?" thus i found myself mentally in a direction that led me towards mill, and through many years' study of comte and littré, through an acquaintance with mill's correspondence with comte, i was prepared for philosophical conversations concerning the fundamental thoughts of empiric philosophy as opposed to speculative philosophy, conversations which, on mill's part, tended to represent my entire university philosophical education at copenhagen as valueless and wrong. but what drew me the most strongly to mill was not similarity of thought, but the feeling of an opposed relationship. all my life i had been afraid of going further in a direction towards which i inclined. i had always had a passionate desire to perfect my nature--to make good my defects. julius lange was so much to me because he was so unlike me. now i endeavoured to understand mill's nature and make it my own, because it was foreign to mine. by so doing i was only obeying an inner voice that perpetually urged me. when others about me had plunged into a subject, a language, a period, they continued to wrestle with it to all eternity, made the thing their speciality. that i had a horror of. i knew french well; but for fear of losing myself in french literature, which i could easily illustrate, i was always wrestling with english or german, which presented greater difficulties to me, but made it impossible for me to grow narrow. i had the advantage over the european reading world that i knew the northern languages, but nothing was further from my thoughts than to limit myself to opening up northern literature to europe. thus it came about that when the time in my life arrived that i felt compelled to settle outside denmark i chose for my place of residence berlin, the city with which i had fewest points in common, and where i could consequently learn most and develop myself without one-sidedness. mill's verbally expressed conviction that empiric philosophy was the only true philosophy, made a stronger impression upon me than any assertion of the kind that i had met with in printed books. the results of empiric philosophy seemed to me much more firmly based than those of the newer german philosophy. at variance with my teachers, i had come to see that hume had been right rather than kant. but i could not conform to the principle of empiric philosophy. after all, our knowledge is not ultimately based merely on experience, but on that which, prior to experience, alone renders experience possible. otherwise not even the propositions of mathematics can be universally applicable. in spite of my admiration for mill's philosophical works, i was obliged to hold to the rationalistic theory of cognition; mill obstinately held to the empiric. "is not a reconciliation between the two possible?" i said. "i think that one must _choose_ between the theories," replied mill. i did not then know herbert spencer's profoundly thoughtful reconciliation of the teachings of the two opposing schools. he certainly maintains, as does the english school, that all our ideas have their root in experience, but he urges at the same time, with the germans, that there are innate ideas. the conscious life of the individual, that cannot be understood from the experience of the individual, becomes explicable from the inherited experience of the race. even the intellectual form which is the condition of the individual's apprehension is gradually made up out of the experience of the race, and consequently innate without for that reason being independent of foregoing experiences. but i determined at once, incited thereto by conversations with mill, to study, not only his own works, but the writings of james mill, bain, and herbert spencer; i would endeavour to find out how much truth they contained, and introduce this truth into denmark. i was very much surprised when mill informed me that he had not read a line of hegel, either in the original or in translation, and regarded the entire hegelian philosophy as sterile and empty sophistry. i mentally confronted this with the opinion of the man at the copenhagen university who knew the history of philosophy best, my teacher, hans bröchner, who knew, so to speak, nothing of contemporary english and french philosophy, and did not think them worth studying. i came to the conclusion that here was a task for one who understood the thinkers of the two directions, who did not mutually understand one another. i thought that in philosophy, too, i knew what i wanted, and saw a road open in front of me. however, i never travelled it. the gift for abstract philosophical thought which i had possessed as a youth was never developed, but much like the tendency to verse-making which manifested itself even earlier, superseded by the historio-critical capacity, which grew strong in me. at that time i believed in my natural bent for philosophy, and did so even in july, , when i sketched out and began a large book: "_the association of ideas, conceived and put forward as the fundamental principle of human knowledge_," but the book was never completed. the capacity for abstraction was too weak in me. still, if the capacity had no independent development, it had a subservient effect on all my criticism, and the conversations with mill had a fertilising and helpful influence on my subsequent intellectual life. xix. some weeks passed in seeing the most important public buildings in london, revelling in the treasures of her museums and collections, and in making excursions to places in the neighbourhood and to oxford. i was absorbed by st. paul's, saw it from end to end, and from top to bottom, stood in the crypt, where sir christopher wren lies buried,--_si monumentum requiris, circumspice_--mentally compared wellington's burial-place here with that of napoleon on the other side of the channel, then went up to the top of the building and looked out to every side over london, which i was already so well acquainted with that i could find my way everywhere alone, take the right omnibuses, and the right trains by the underground, without once asking my way. i spent blissful hours in the national gallery. this choice collection of paintings, especially the italian ones, afforded me the intense, overwhelming delight which poetry, the masterpieces of which i knew already, could no longer offer me. at the crystal palace i was fascinated by the tree-ferns, as tall as fruit-trees with us, and by the reproductions of the show buildings of the different countries, an egyptian temple, a house from pompeii, the lions' den from the alhambra. here, as everywhere, i sought out the zoological gardens, where i lingered longest near the hippopotami, who were as curious to watch when swimming as when they were on dry land. their clumsiness was almost captivating. they reminded me of some of my enemies at home. oxford, with the moss-grown, ivy-covered walls, with all the poetry of conservatism, fascinated me by its dignity and its country freshness; there the flower of the english nature was expressed in buildings and trees. the antiquated and non-popular instruction, however, repelled me. and the old classics were almost unrecognisable in english guise, for instance, the anglicised _veni, vidi, vici_, which was quoted by a student. the contrast between the english and the french mind was presented to me in all its force when i compared windsor castle with versailles. the former was an old northern hall, in which the last act of oehlenschläger's _palnatoke_ would have been well staged. i saw all that i could: the houses of parliament, westminster hall and abbey, the tower and the theatres, the picture gallery at dulwich with rembrandt's _girl at the window_, the one at hampton court, with the portrait of loyola ascribed to titian, sailed down the river to greenwich and lingered in the lovely gardens at kew, which gave me a luxuriant impression of english scenery. i also saw the queen's model farm. every animal was as splendid a specimen as if it had been intended for an agricultural show, the dairy walls were tiled all over. the bailiff regretted that prince albert, who had himself made the drawings for a special kind of milk containers, had not lived to see them made. it was not without its comic aspect to hear him inform you sadly, concerning an old bullock, that the queen herself had given it the name of _prince albert_. for me, accustomed to the gay and grotesque life deployed in an evening at the dancing-place of the parisian students in the _closerie des lilas_, it was instructive to compare this with a low english dancing-house, the holborn casino, which was merely sad, stiff, and repulsive. poverty in london was very much more conspicuous than in paris; it spread itself out in side streets in the vicinity of the main arteries in its most pitiable form. great troops, regular mobs of poor men, women and children in rags, dispersed like ghosts at dawn, fled away hurriedly and vanished, as soon as a policeman approached and made sign to them to pass on. there was nothing corresponding to it to be seen in paris. crime, too, bore a very different aspect here. in paris, it was decked out and audacious, but retained a certain dignity; here, in the evening, in thickly frequented streets, whole swarms of ugly, wretchedly dressed, half or wholly drunken women could be seen reeling about, falling, and often lying in the street. both the tendency of the english to isolate themselves and their social instincts were quite different from those of the french. i was permitted to see the comfortably furnished athenaeum club in pall mall, membership of which was so much desired that people of high standing would have their names on the list for years beforehand, and these clubs corresponded to the cafés in paris, which were open to every passer-by. i noticed that in the restaurants the tables were often hidden behind high screens, that the different parties who were dining might not be able to see one another. xx. the house in london where i was happiest was antonio gallenga's. a letter from the hauchs was my introduction there, and i was received and taken up by them as if they had known me and liked me for years. antonio gallenga, then a man of seventy, who nevertheless gave one an impression of youthfulness, had a most eventful life behind him. he had been born at parma, was flung into prison at the age of twenty as a conspirator under mazzini, was banished from piedmont, spent some time at malta, in the united states and in england, where he earned his living as a journalist and teacher of languages, and in returned to italy, where he was active as a liberal politician. after the battle of novara, he was again obliged to take refuge in london; but he was recalled to piedmont by cavour, who had him elected deputy for castellamonte. he wrote an italian grammar in english, and, likewise in english, the _history of piedmont_, quarrelled with mazzini's adherents, withdrew from parliamentary life, and in preference to settling down permanently in italy elected to be war correspondent to the _times_. in that capacity he took part from onwards in the campaigns in italy, in the north american states, in denmark, and in spain. his little boy was still wearing the spanish national costume. now he had settled down in london, on the staff of the _times_, and had just come into town from the country, as the paper wished him to be near, on account of the approaching war. napoleon iii., to whom gallenga had vowed an inextinguishable hatred, had been studied so closely by him that the emperor might be regarded as his specialty. he used the energetic, violent language of the old revolutionary, was with all his heart and soul an italian patriot, but had, through a twenty years' connection with england, acquired the practical english view of political affairs. towards denmark, where he had been during the most critical period of the country's history, he felt kindly; but our war methods had of course not been able to excite his admiration; neither had our diplomatic negotiations during the war. gallenga was a well-to-do man; he owned a house in the best part of london and a house in the country as well. he was a powerful man, with passionate feelings, devoid of vanity. it suited him well that the _times_, as the english custom is, printed his articles unsigned; he was pleased at the increased influence they won thereby, inasmuch as they appeared as the expression of the universal paper's verdict. his wife was an englishwoman, pleasant and well-bred, of cosmopolitan education and really erudite. not only did she know the european languages, but she wrote and spoke hindustani. she was a splendid specimen of the english housekeeper, and devoted herself enthusiastically to her two exceedingly beautiful children, a boy of eleven and a little girl of nine. the children spoke english, italian, french, and german with equal facility and correctness. mrs. gallenga had a more composite and a deeper nature than her husband, who doubted neither the truth of his ideas, nor their salutary power. she shared his and my opinions without sharing our confidence in them. when she heard me say that i intended to assert my ideas in denmark, and wage war against existing prejudices, she would say, in our long conversations: "i am very fond of denmark; the people there seem to me to be happy, despite everything, and the country not to be over-populated. in any case, the population finds ample means of outlet in sea-life and emigration. denmark is an idyllic little country. now you want to declare war there. my thoughts seek down in dark places, and i ask myself whether i really believe that truth does any good, whether in my secret heart i am convinced that strife is better than stagnation? i admire oliver cromwell, but i sympathise with falkland, who died with 'peace! peace!' [footnote: sir lucius cary, second viscount falkland, who fell at newbury, sept. , .] on his lips. i am afraid that you will have to bear a great deal. you will learn that the accoutrements of truth are a grievously heavy coat of mail. you will call forth reaction. even that is the least. but reaction will come about in your own mind; after a long time, i mean. still, you are strong; it will be a reaction of the kind that keeps aloof in order to spring farther and better. your unity will not go to pieces. you are a kind of cosmos." when the conversation turned upon england and english conditions, she protested against the opinion prevalent on the continent since byron's day, that english society was infested with hypocrisy. "i do not think that hypocrisy is characteristic of english thought. we have, of course, like every serious people, our share of hypocrites; in a frivolous nation hypocrisy has no pretext for existence. but its supremacy amongst us is over. apathetic orthodoxy, and superficial ideas of the correct thing, ruled england during the first half of the century. the intellectual position of the country is different now. no one who has not lived in england has any idea how serious and real the belief here is in the tough doctrine of the trinity, who, in human form, walked about in galilee. good men, noble men, live and work for this dogma, perform acts of love for it. we, you and i, have drunk from other sources; but for these people it is the fountain of life. only it is depressing to see this doctrine in its roman catholic form winning greater power everywhere every day. in denmark, intellectual stagnation has hindered it hitherto; you have political, but not yet religious, freedom. belgium has both, and belgium is at the present time the most fiery catholic power there is. france is divided between extreme materialism and madonna worship. when european thought--between and , let us say--rebelled against every kind of orthodoxy, and, as always happens with rebellion, made mistakes and went too far, france played a wretched rôle. it is a celtic land, and celtic it will remain; it desires, not personal freedom, but a despotic levelling, not equality before the law, but the base equality which is inimical to excellence, not the brotherhood that is brotherly love, but that which gives the bad the right to share with the good. that is why the empire could be victorious in france, and that is why the roman catholic church, even in its most modern, byzantine form, is triumphant there." so thoroughly english was anna gallenga's way of looking at things, in spite of an education which had included the chief countries in europe. so blindly did she share the prejudice that the french are essentially celtic. and so harshly did she judge, in spite of a scepticism, feminine though it was, that was surprising in a woman. xxi. don juan prim, count of reus, marques de los castillejos, would now be forgotten outside spain were it not that régnault's splendid equestrian picture of him, as he is receiving the homage of the people (on a fiery steed, reminding one of velasquez), keeps his memory green in everyone who visits the gallery of the louvre. at that time his name was on every tongue. the victorious general and revolutionary of many years' standing had since been prime minister of spain, and had eagerly endeavoured to get a foreign prince for the throne who would be dependent upon him and under whom he would be able to keep the power in his own hands. he had now offered the throne of spain to leopold of hohenzollern, but without having assured himself of the consent of the powers. that of prussia was of course safe enough, and for six weeks napoleon had looked on benevolently at the negotiations, and acted as though the arrangement had his approval, which prim had the more reason to suppose since leopold was related to the murat family, and the emperor had raised no objection to a hohenzollern ascending the throne of roumania. consequently, prim was thunderstruck when france suddenly turned round and seized upon this trivial pretext for a breach of the peace. he was in regular correspondence with the gallengas, whom he had seen a good deal of during the years, after the unsuccessful rebellion against queen isabella, that he had spent in london. at that time he had been a man of fifty, and, with his little body and large head, had looked very strange among englishmen. he was of modest birth, but denied the fact. he was now a spanish grandee of the first class, but this was through a patent bestowed on him for courage in the war with morocco; he had little education, did not know a word of english, wrote french with a purely fantastic orthography, but had excellent qualities as a liberal, an army chief, and a popular leader. still, he was not pleased that régnault had painted him greeted by the enthusiastic cheers of an untidy, ragged mob of rebels; he would have preferred to be receiving the acclamations of regular troops, and of the highest men and women in the nation, as now, at the conclusion of his career, he really was. only a few months later (in december, ), he was shot by an assassin in the streets of madrid. in prim's communications to gallenga, the attitude of the french government appeared to me in a most unfavourable light. ollivier, the premier, i had long despised; it did not need much political acumen to see that he was an ambitious and conceited phrase-monger, who would let himself be led by the nose by those who had disarmed him. the emperor himself was a wreck. i had had no doubt of that since i had one day seen him at very close quarters in the louvre, where he was inspecting some recently hung, decorative paintings. it was quite evident that he could not walk alone, but advanced, half-sliding, supported by two tall chamberlains, who each gave him an arm. his eyes were half-closed and his gaze absolutely dulled. the dressed and waxed moustache, which ran to a needle-like point, looked doubly tasteless against his wax mask of a face. he was the incarnation of walking decrepitude, vapid and slack. quite evidently he had committed the blunder of trusting to a split in germany. in his blindness he explained that he had come to free the germans, who had, against their will, been incorporated into prussia, and all germany rose like one man against him. and in his foolish proclamation he declared that he was waging this war for the sake of the civilising ideals of the first republic, as if germany were now going to be civilised for the first time, and as if he, who had made an end of the second republic by a _coup d'état_, could speak in the name of republican freedom. his whole attitude was mendacious and mean, and the wretched pretext under which he declared war could not but prejudice europe against him. in addition to this, as they knew very well in england, from the earlier wars of the empire, he had no generals; his victories had been soldier victories. i was very deeply impressed, in the next place, by the suicide of prévost-paradol. i had studied most carefully his book, _la france nouvelle_; i had seen in this friend and comrade of taine and of renan the political leader of the future in france. no one was so well acquainted with its resources as he; no one knew better than he what policy ought to be followed. if he had despaired, it was because he foresaw that the situation was hopeless. he had certainly made mistakes; first, in believing that in january it had been napoleon's serious intention to abrogate personal control of the state, then that of retaining, despite the long hesitation so well known to me, his position as french envoy to north america, after the plebiscite. that he should now have turned his pistol against his own forehead told me that he regarded the battle as lost, foresaw inevitable collapse as the outcome of the war. when at first all the rumours and all the papers announced the extreme probability of denmark's taking part in the war as france's ally, i was seized with a kind of despair at the thought of the folly she seemed to be on the verge of committing. i wrote to my friends, would have liked, had i been permitted, to write in every danish paper a warning against the martial madness that had seized upon people. it was only apparently shared by the french. even now, only a week after the declaration of war, and before a single collision had taken place, it was clear to everyone who carefully followed the course of events that in spite of the light-hearted bragging of the parisians and the press, there was deep-rooted aversion to war. and i, who had always counted voltaire's _micromégas_ as one of my favourite tales, thought of where sirius, the giant, voices his supposition that the people on the earth are happy beings who pass their time in love and thought, and of the philosopher's reply to him: "at this moment there are a hundred thousand animals of our species, who wear hats, engaged in killing a hundred thousand more, who wear turbans, or in being killed by them. and so it has been all over the earth from time immemorial." only that this time not a hundred thousand, but some two million men were being held in readiness to exterminate each other. what i saw in london of the scenic art at the adelphi theatre, the prince of wales' theatre and the royal strand theatre was disheartening. molière was produced as the lowest kind of farce, sheridan was acted worse than would be permitted in denmark at a second-class theatre; but the scenic decorations, a greensward, shifting lights, and the like, surpassed anything that i had ever seen before. more instructive and more fascinating than the theatres were the parliamentary debates and the trials in the law courts. i enjoyed in particular a sitting of the commons with a long debate between gladstone and disraeli, who were like representatives of two races and two opposed views of life. gladstone was in himself handsomer, clearer, and more open, disraeli spoke with a finer point, and more elegantly, had a larger oratorical compass, more often made a witty hit, and evoked more vigorous response and applause. their point of disagreement was the forthcoming war; disraeli wished all the documents regarding it to be laid before parliament; gladstone declared that he could not produce them. in england, as elsewhere, the war that was just breaking out dominated every thought. xxii. the paris i saw again was changed. even on my way from calais i heard, to my astonishment, the hitherto strictly forbidden _marseillaise_ hummed and muttered. in paris, people went arm in arm about the streets singing, and the _marseillaise_ was heard everywhere. the voices were generally harsh, and it was painful to hear the song that had become sacred through having been silenced so long, profaned in this wise, in the bawling and shouting of half-drunken men at night. but the following days, as well, it was hummed, hooted, whistled and sung everywhere, and as the french are one of the most unmusical nations on earth, it sounded for the most part anything but agreeable. in those days, while no collision between the masses of troops had as yet taken place, there was a certain cheerfulness over paris; it could be detected in every conversation; people were more lively, raised their voices more, chatted more than at other times; the cabmen growled more loudly, and cracked their whips more incessantly than usual. assurance of coming victory was expressed everywhere, even among the hotel servants in the rue racine and on the lips of the waiters at every restaurant. everybody related how many had already volunteered; the number grew from day to day; first it was ten thousand, then seventy-five thousand, then a hundred thousand. in the quartier latin, the students sat in their cafés, many of them in uniform, surrounded by their comrades, who were bidding them good-bye. it was characteristic that they no longer had their womenfolk with them; they had flung them aside, now that the matter was serious. every afternoon a long stream of carriages, filled with departing young soldiers, could be seen moving out towards the gare du nord. from every carriage large flags waved. women, their old mothers, workwomen, who sat in the carriages with them, held enormous bouquets on long poles. the dense mass of people through which one drove were grave; but the soldiers for the most part retained their gaiety, made grimaces, smoked and drank. nevertheless, the emperor's proclamation had made a very poor impression. it was with the intention of producing an effect of sincerity that he foretold the war would be long and grievous, (_longue et pénible_); with a people of the french national character it would have been better had he been able to write "terrible, but short." even now, when people had grown accustomed to the situation, this proclamation hung like a nightmare over them. i was all the more astonished when an old copy of the _daily paper_ for the th of july fell into my hands, and i read that their correspondent (topsöe, recently arrived in paris) had seen a bloused workman tear off his hat, after reading the proclamation, and heard him shout, "_vive la france_!" so thoughtlessly did people continue to feed the danish public with the food to which it was accustomed. towards the th or th of august i met repeatedly the author of the article. he told me that the duc de cadore had appeared in copenhagen on a very indefinite errand, but without achieving the slightest result. topsöe, for that matter, was extraordinarily ignorant of french affairs, had only been four weeks in france altogether, and openly admitted that he had touched up his correspondence as well as he could. he had never yet been admitted to the _corps législatif_, nevertheless he had related how the tears had come into the eyes of the members and the tribunes the day when the duc de grammont "again lifted the flag of france on high." he said: "i have been as unsophisticated as a child over this war," and added that bille had been more so than himself. xxiii. one could hardly praise the attitude of the french papers between the declaration of war and the first battles. their boasting and exultation over what they were going to do was barely decent, they could talk of nothing but the victories they were registering beforehand, and, first and last, the entry into berlin. the insignificant encounter at saarbrücken was termed everywhere the _première victoire!_ the caricatures in the shop-windows likewise betrayed terrible arrogance. one was painfully reminded of the behaviour of the french before the battle of agincourt in shakespeare's _henry v._ it was no matter for surprise that a populace thus excited should parade through the streets in an evening, shouting _"a berlin! a berlin!"_ national enthusiasm could vent itself in the theatres, in a most convenient manner, without making any sacrifice. as soon as the audience had seen the first piece at the théâtre français, the public clamoured for _la marseillaise_, and brooked no denial. a few minutes later the lovely mlle. agar came in, in a greek costume. two french flags were held over her head. she then sang, quietly, sublimely, with expression at the same time restrained and inspiring, the _marseillaise_. the countless variations of her voice were in admirable keeping with her animated and yet sculptural gesticulation, and the effect was thrilling, although certain passages in the song were hardly suitable to the circumstances of the moment, for instance, the invocation of freedom, the prayer to her to fight for her defenders. when the last verse came, she seized the flag and knelt down; the audience shouted, "_debout_!" all rose and listened standing to the conclusion, which was followed by mad applause. people seized upon every opportunity of obtruding their patriotism. one evening _le lion amoureux_ was given. in the long speech which concludes the second act, a young republican describes the army which, during the revolution, crossed the frontier for the first time and utterly destroyed the prussian armies. the whole theatre foamed like the sea. xxiv. those were summer days, and in spite of the political and martial excitement, the peaceful woods and parks in the environs of paris were tempting. from the quartier latin many a couple secretly found their way to the forests of st. germain, or the lovely wood at chantilly. in the morning one bought a roast fowl and a bottle of wine, then spent the greater part of the day under the beautiful oak-trees, and sat down to one's meal in the pleasant green shade. now and again one of the young women would make a wreath of oak leaves and twine it round her companion's straw hat, while he, bareheaded, lay gazing up at the tree-tops. for a long time i kept just such a wreath as a remembrance, and its withered leaves roused melancholy reflections some years later, for during the war every tree of the chantilly wood had been felled; the wreath was all that remained of the magnificent oak forest. xxv. the news of the battle of weissenburg on august th was a trouble, but this chiefly manifested itself in profound astonishment. what? they had suffered a defeat? but one did not begin to be victorious at once; victory would soon follow now. and, indeed, next morning, the news of a victory ran like lightning about the town. it had been so confidently expected that people quite neglected to make enquiries as to how and to what extent it was authenticated. there was bunting everywhere; all the horses had flags on their heads, people went about with little flags in their hats. as the day wore on it turned out to be all a false report, and the depression was great. next evening, as i came out of the _théâtre français_, there stood the emperor's awful telegram to read, several copies of it posted up on the columns of the porch: "macmahon has lost a battle. frossard is retreating. put paris in a condition of defence as expeditiously as possible!" then, like everyone else, i understood the extent of the misfortune. napoleon had apparently lost his head; it was very unnecessary to publish the conclusion of the telegram. immediately afterwards was issued the empress' proclamation, which was almost silly. "i am with you," it ran--a charming consolation for the parisians. astonishment produced a kind of paralysis; anger looked round for an object on which to vent itself, but hardly knew whom to select. besides, people had really insufficient information as to what had happened. the _siècle_ printed a fairly turbulent article at once, but no exciting language in the papers was required. even a foreigner could perceive that if it became necessary to defend paris after a second defeat, the empire would be at an end. the exasperation which had to vent itself was directed at first against the ministers, and ridiculously enough the silence imposed on the press concerning the movements of the troops (_le mutisme_) was blamed for the defeat at weissenburg; then the exasperation swung back and was directed against the generals, who were dubbed negligent and incapable, until, ponderously and slowly, it turned against the emperor himself. but with the haste that characterises french emotion, and the rapidity with which events succeeded one another, even this exasperation was of short duration. it raged for a few days, and then subsided for want of contradiction of its own accord, for the conviction spread that the emperor's day was irrevocably over and that he continued to exist only in name. a witness to the rapidity of this _volte face_ were three consecutive articles by edmond about in _le soir_. the first, written from his estate in saverne, near strassburg. was extremely bitter against the emperor; it began: "_napoleone tertio feliciter regnante_, as people said in the olden days, i have seen with my own eyes, what i never thought to see: alsace overrun by the enemy's troops." the next article, written some days later, in the middle of august, when about had come to paris, called the emperor, without more ado, "the last bonaparte," and began: "i see that i have been writing like a true provincial; in the provinces at the moment people have two curses on their lips, one for the prussians, and one for those who began the war; in paris, they have got much farther; there they have only one curse on their lips, one thought, and one wish; there are names that are no more mentioned in paris than if they belonged to the twelfth century." what he wrote was, at the moment, true and correct. i was frequently asked in letters what the french now said about the government and the emperor. the only answer was that all that side of the question was antiquated in paris. if i were to say to one of my acquaintances: _"eh! bien, que dites-vous de l'empereur_?" the reply would be: _"mais, mon cher, je ne dis rien de lui. vous voyez si bien que moi, qu'il ne compte plus. c'est un homme par terre. tout le monde le sait; la gauche même ne l'attaque plus."_ even general trochu, the governor of the capital, did not mention napoleon's name in his proclamation to paris. he himself hardly dared to send any messages. after having been obliged to surrender the supreme command, he followed the army, like a mock emperor, a kind of onlooker, a superfluous piece on the board. people said of him: "_on croit qu'il se promène un peu aux environs de châlons._" as can be seen from this, the deposition of the emperor had taken place in people's consciousness, and was, so to speak, publicly settled, several weeks before the battle of sedan brought with it his surrender to the king of prussia and the proclamation of the french republic. the revolution of september th was not an overturning of things; it was merely the ratification of a state of affairs that people were already agreed upon in the capital, and had been even before the battle of gravelotte. in paris preparations were being made with the utmost energy for the defence of the city. all men liable to bear arms were called up, and huge numbers of volunteers were drilled. it was an affecting sight to see the poor workmen drilling on the place du carrousel for enrolment in the volunteer corps. really, most of them looked so bloodless and wretched that one was tempted to think they went with the rest for the sake of the franc a day and uniform. xxvi. anyone whose way led him daily past the fortifications could see, however technically ignorant he might be, that they were exceedingly insignificant. constantly, too, one heard quoted trochu's words: "i don't delude myself into supposing that i can stop the prussians with the matchsticks that are being planted on the ramparts." strangely enough, paris shut herself in with such a wall of masonry that in driving through it in the bois de boulogne, there was barely room for a carriage with two horses. they bored loop-holes in these walls and ramparts, but few doubted that the german artillery would be able to destroy all their defences with the greatest ease. distribute arms to the civil population, as the papers unanimously demanded, from readily comprehensible reasons, no one dared to do. the empress' government had to hold out for the existing state of things; nevertheless, in paris,--certainly from about the th august,--people were under the impression that what had been lost was lost irrevocably. i considered it would be incumbent upon my honour to return to denmark, if we were drawn into the war, and i lived with this thought before my eyes. i contemplated with certainty an approaching revolution in france; i was vexed to think that there was not one conspicuously great and energetic man among the leaders of the opposition, and that such a poor wretch as rochefort was once more daily mentioned and dragged to the front. of gambetta no one as yet thought, although his name was respected, since he had made himself felt the last season as the most vehement speaker in the chamber. but it was not speakers who were wanted, and people did not know that he was a man of action. the ministry that followed ollivier's inspired me with no confidence. palikao, the prime minister, was termed in the papers an _iron man_ (the usual set phrase). it was said that he "would not scruple to clear the boulevards with grape"; but the genius needed for such a performance was not overwhelming. what he had to do was to clear france of the germans, and that was more difficult. renan had had to interrupt the journey to spitzbergen which he had undertaken in prince napoleon's company; the prince and his party had only reached tromsöe, when they were called back on account of the war, and renan was in a state of the most violent excitement. he said: "no punishment could be too great for that brainless scoundrel ollivier, and the ministry that has followed his is worse. every thinking man could see for himself that the declaration of this war was madness. (_a-t-on jamais vu pareille folie, mon dieu, mon dieu, c'est navrant. nous sommes un peuple désarçonné._)" in his eyes, palikao was no better than a robber, jérôme david than a murderer. he considered the fall of strasburg imminent. he was less surprised than i at the unbounded incapacity shown by the french fleet under the difficult conditions; all plans for a descent on northern germany had already been given up, and the french fleet was unable to set about even so much as a blockade of the ports, such as the danes had successfully carried out six years before. taine was as depressed as renan. he had returned from germany, where he had gone to prepare a treatise on schiller, on account of the sudden death of madame taine's mother. as early as august d, when no battle had as yet been fought, he felt exceedingly anxious, and he was the first frenchman whom i heard take into consideration the possibility of the defeat of france; he expressed great sorrow that two nations such as france and germany should wage national war against each other as they were doing. "i have just come from germany," he remarked, "where i have talked with many brave working-men. when i think of what it means for a man to be born into the world, nursed, brought up, instructed, and equipped; when i think what struggling and difficulties he must go through himself to be fit for the battle of life, and then reflect how all that is to be flung into the grave as a lump of bleeding flesh, how can i do other than grieve! with two such statesmen as louis philippe, war could certainly have been averted, but with two quarrelsome men like bismarck and napoleon at the head of affairs, it was, of course, inevitable." philarète chasles saw in the defeats a confirmation of the theory that he proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the latin races were on the rapid down-grade; spain and portugal, italy, roumania, the south american republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral putrefaction, france a sheer byzantium. it had been a piece of foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial struggle between the nation that, as protestant, brought free research in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the pope and political despotism. now france was paying the penalty. out in the country at meudon, where he was, there had--probably from carelessness--occurred repeated explosions, the last time on august th. twenty cases of cartridges had just been sent to bazaine; a hundred still remained, which were to start the day that they were urgently required. they blew up, and no one in the town doubted that the explosion was the work of prussian spies. for things had come to such a pass that people saw prussian spies everywhere. (during the first month of the war all germans were called prussians.) importance was attached to the fact that general frossard's nephew, a young lieutenant who lay wounded in chasles' tower-house, from a sword-thrust in the chest, and was usually delirious, at the crash had jumped up and come to his senses, crying out: "it is treachery! it is chamber no. blowing up!" as a matter of fact, that was where the cartridges were. it was said that at meudon traces had been found of the same explosive as had been used in bombs against the emperor during the first days of may (a plot that had probably been hatched by the police). the perpetrator, however,--doubtless for good reasons--was not discovered. whatever vanity there was about old philarète chasles left him altogether during this critical time, which seemed to make good men better still. his niece, too, who used to be loud-voiced and conceited, was quite a different person. one day that i was at their house at meudon, she sat in a corner for a long time crying quietly. out there, they were all feverishly anxious, could not rest, craved, partly to hear the latest news, partly to feel the pulse of paris. one day after dinner, chasles invited me to go into town with him, and when we arrived he took a carriage and drove about with me for two hours observing the prevailing mood. we heard countless anecdotes, most of them apocryphal, but reflecting the beliefs of the moment: the empress had sent three milliards (!) in french gold to the bank of england. the emperor, who was jealous of macmahon since the latter had rescued him at magenta, had taken the command of the turcos from the marshal, although the latter had said in the council of war: "the turcos must be given to me, they will not obey anyone else." and true it was that no one else had any control over them. if one had committed theft, or misbehaved himself in any other way, and macmahon. whom they called only "our marshal," rode down the front of their lines and scolded them, they began to cry, rushed up and kissed his feet, and hung to his horse, like children asking for forgiveness. and now someone had made the great mistake of giving them to another general. and, the commander being anxious to dazzle the germans with them, they and the zouaves had been sent first into the fire, in spite of bazaine's very sensible observation: "when you drive, you do not begin at a galop." and so these picked troops were broken up in their first engagement. it was said that of , turcos, only were left. an anecdote like the following, which was told to us, will serve to show how popular legends grow up, in virtue of the tendency there is to reduce a whole battle to a collision between two generals, just as in the homeric age, or in shakespeare: the crown prince of prussia was fighting very bravely at wörth, in the front ranks. that he threw the turcos into confusion was the result of a ray of sunlight falling on the silver eagle on his helmet. the arabs thought it a sign from heaven. macmahon, who was shooting in the ranks, was so near the crown prince that the latter shouted to him in french: "_voilà un homme!_" but the frenchman surpassed him in chivalrous politeness, for he saluted, and replied: "_voilà un héros!_" xxvii. after my return to paris, i had taken lessons from an excellent language teacher, mademoiselle guémain, an old maid who had for many years taught french to scandinavians, and for whom i wrote descriptions and remarks on what i saw, to acquire practise in written expression. she had known most of the principal northerners who had visited paris during the last twenty years, had taught magdalene thoresen, amongst others, when this latter as a young woman had stayed in paris. she was an excellent creature, an unusual woman, intellectual, sensitive, and innocent, who made an unforgettable impression upon one. besides the appointed lesson-times, we sometimes talked for hours together. how sad that the lives of such good and exceptional women should vanish and disappear, without any special thanks given to them in their life-times, and with no one of the many whom they have benefitted to tell publicly of their value. she possessed all the refinement of the french, together with the modesty of an old maid, was both personally inexperienced, and by virtue of the much that she had seen, very experienced in worldly things. i visited her again in , after the lapse of nineteen years, having learned her address through jonas lie and his wife, who knew her. i found her older, but still more charming, and touchingly humble. it cut me to the heart to hear her say: _"c'est une vraie charité que vous me faites de venir me voir."_ mlle. guémain was profoundly affected, like everyone else, by what we were daily passing through during this time of heavy strain. as a woman, she was impressed most by the seriousness which had seized even the most frivolous people, and by the patriotic enthusiasm which was spreading in ever wider circles. she regarded it as deeper and stronger than as a rule it was. xxviii. the temper prevailing among my italian friends was very different. the italians, as their way was, were just like children, laughed at the whole thing, were glad that the prussians were "drubbing" the french, to whom, as good patriots, they wished every misfortune possible. the french had behaved like tyrants in italy; now they were being paid out. besides which, the prussians would not come to paris. but if they did come, they would be nice to them, and invite them to dinner, like friends. sometimes i attempted to reply, but came off badly. one day that i had ventured a remark to a large and ponderous roman lady, on the ingratitude of the italians towards the french, the good lady jumped as if a knife had been stuck into her, and expatiated passionately on the infamy of the french. the romans were,--as everyone knew,--the first nation on earth. the french had outraged them, had dared to prevent them making their town the capital of italy, by garrisoning it with french soldiers who had no business there, so that they had themselves asked for the nemesis which was now overtaking them, and which the italians were watching with flashing eyes. she said this, in spite of her anger, with such dignity, and such a bearing, that one could not but feel that, if she were one day called upon to adorn a throne, she would seat herself upon it as naturally, and as free from embarrassment, as though it were nothing but a roman woman's birthright. xxix. in the meantime, defeats and humiliations were beginning to confuse the good sense of the french, and to lead their instincts astray. the crowd could not conceive that such things could come about naturally. the prussians could not possibly have won by honourable means, but must have been spying in france for years. why else were so many germans settled in paris! the french were paying now, not for their faults, but for their virtues, the good faith, the hospitality, the innocent welcome they had given to treacherous immigrants. they had not understood that the foreigner from the north was a crafty and deceitful enemy. it gradually became uncomfortable for a foreigner in paris. i never went out without my passport. but even a passport was no safeguard. it was enough for someone to make some utterly unfounded accusation, express some foolish, chance suspicion, for the non-frenchman to be maltreated as a "spy." both in metz and in paris, in the month of august, people who were taken for "prussians" were hanged or dismembered. in the latter part of august the papers reported from the dordogne that a mob there had seized a young man, a m. de moneys, of whom a gang had asserted that he had shouted _"vive la prusse!"_ had stripped him, bound him with ropes, carried him out into a field, laid him on a pile of damp wood, and as this would not take fire quick enough, had pushed trusses of straw underneath all round him, and burnt him alive. from the _quartier la vilette_ in paris, one heard every day of similar slaughter of innocent persons who the people fancied were prussian spies. under such circumstances, a trifle might become fatal. one evening at the end of august i had been hearing _l'africaine_ at the grand opera, and at the same time marie sass' delivery of the _marseillaise_--she sang as though she had a hundred fine bells in her voice, but she sang the national anthem like an aria. outside the opera-house i hailed a cab. the coachman was asleep; a man jogged him to wake him, and he started to drive. i noticed that during the drive he looked at his watch and then drove on for all that he was worth, as fast as the harness and reins would stand. when i got to the hotel i handed him his fare and a four sous' tip. he bawled out that it was not enough; he had been _de remise_; he had taken me for someone else, being waked so suddenly; he had been bespoken by another gentleman. i laughed and replied that that was his affair, not mine; what had it got to do with me? but as all he could demand, if he had really been _de remise_, was two sous more, and as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, i gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and i had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a _pourboire_, and, seeing that did not help matters, as i simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first _"vous n'êtes pas français!"_ and then _"vous êtes prussien!"_ no sooner had he said it than all the hotel servants who were standing in the doorway disappeared, and the people in the street listened, stopped, and turned round. i grasped the danger, and flew into a passion. in one bound i was in the road, i rushed at the cabman, seized him by the throat and shook my hand, with its knuckle-duster upon it, threateningly at his head. then he forgot to abuse me and suddenly whined: _"ne frappez pas, monsieur!"_ mounted his box, and drove very tamely away. in my exasperation i called the hotel waiters together and poured scorn on them for their cowardice. in spite of the season, it was uncomfortable weather, and the temper of the town was as uncomfortable as the weather. as time went on, few people were to be seen about the streets, but there was a run on the gunmakers' and sword-smiths'. by day no cheerful shouts or songs rang out, but children of six or seven years of age would go hand in hand in rows down the street in the evenings, singing _"mourir pour la patrie,"_ to its own beautiful, affecting melody. but these were the only gentle sounds one heard. gradually, the very air seemed to be reeking with terror and frenzy. exasperation rolled up once more, like a thick, black stream, against the emperor, against the ministers and generals, and against the prussians, whom people thought they saw everywhere. xxx. foreigners were requested to leave paris, so that, in the event of a siege, the city might have no unnecessary mouths to feed. simultaneously, in trochu's proclamation, it was announced that the enemy might be outside the walls in three days. under such circumstances, the town was no longer a place for anyone who did not wish to be shut up in it. one night at the end of august, i travelled from paris to geneva. at the departure station the thousands of german workmen who had been expelled from paris were drawn up, waiting, herded together like cattle,--a painful sight. these workmen were innocent of the war, the defeats, and the spying service of which they were accused; now they were being driven off in hordes, torn from their work, deprived of their bread, and surrounded by inimical lookers-on. as it had been said that trains to the south would cease next day, the geneva train was overfilled, and one had to be well satisfied to secure a seat at all. my travelling companions of the masculine gender were very unattractive: an impertinent and vulgar old swiss who, as it was a cold night, and he had no travelling-rug, wrapped himself up in four or five of his dirty shirts--a most repulsive sight; a very precise young frenchman who, without a vestige of feeling for the fate of his country and nation, explained to us that he had long had a wish to see italy, and had thought that now, business being in any case at a standstill, the right moment had arrived. the female travellers in the compartment were a parisian, still young, and her bright and charming fifteen-year-old daughter, whose beauty was not unlike that of mlle. massin, the lovely actress at the _théâtre du gymnase_. the mother was all fire and flame, and raved, almost to tears, over the present pass, cried shame on the cowardice of the officers for not having turned out the emperor; her one brother was a prisoner at königsberg; all her male relations were in the field. the daughter was terror-struck at the thought that the train might be stopped by the enemy--which was regarded as very likely--but laughed at times, and was divided between fear of the prussians and exceeding anxiety to see them: _"j'aimerais bien pouvoir dire que j'aie vu des prussiens!"_ at one station some soldiers in rout, with torn and dusty clothes, got into our carriage; they looked repulsive, bespattered with mud and clay; they were in absolute despair, and you could hear from their conversation how disorganised discipline was, for they abused their officers right and left, called them incapable and treacherous, yet themselves gave one the impression of being very indifferent soldiers. the young sergeant major who was leading them was the only one who was in anything like spirits, and even he was not much to boast of. it was curious what things he believed: marshal leboeuf had had a prussian officer behind his chair, disguised as a waiter, at metz, and it had only just been discovered. russia had lent troops to prussia, and put them into prussian uniforms; otherwise there could not possibly be so many of them. but rome, too, was responsible for the misfortunes of france; the jesuits had planned it all, because the country was so educated; they never liked anybody to learn anything. after culoz commenced the journey through the lovely jura mountains. on both sides an immense panorama of high, wooded mountain ridges, with poverty-stricken little villages along the mountain sides. at bellegarde our passports were demanded; no one was allowed to cross the frontier without them--a stupid arrangement. the alps began to bound our view. the train went on, now through long tunnels, now between precipices, now again over a rocky ridge, whence you looked down into the valley where the blue-green rhone wound and twined its way between the rocks like a narrow ribbon. the speed seemed to be accelerating more and more. the first maize-field. slender poplars, without side-branches, but wholly covered with foliage, stood bent almost into spirals by the strong wind from the chinks of the rocks. the first swiss house. xxxi. there was geneva, between the alps, divided by the southern extremity of lake leman, which was spanned by many handsome bridges. in the centre, a little isle, with rousseau's statue. a little beyond, the rhone rushed frothing and foaming out of the lake. from my window i could see in the distance the dazzling snow peak of mont blanc. after paris, geneva looked like a provincial town. the cafés were like servants' quarters or corners of cafés. there were no people in the streets, where the sand blew up in clouds of dust till you could hardly see out of your eyes, and the roads were not watered. in the hotel, in front of the mirror, the new testament in french, bound in leather; you felt that you had come to the capital of calvinism. the streets in the old part of the town were all up and down hill. in the windows of the booksellers' shops there were french verses against france, violent diatribes against napoleon iii. and outbursts of contempt for the nation that had lost its virility and let itself be cowed by a tyrant. by the side of these, portraits of the freethinkers and liberals who had been driven from other countries and found a refuge in switzerland. i sailed the lake in every direction, enraptured by its beauty and the beauty of the surrounding country. its blueness, to which i had never seen a parallel, altogether charmed me in the changing lights of night and day. on the lake i made the acquaintance of a very pleasant greek family, the first i had encountered anywhere. the eldest daughter, a girl of fourteen, lost her hat. i had a new silk handkerchief packed amongst my things, and offered it to her. she accepted it and bound it round her hair. her name was maria kumelas. i saw for the first time an absolutely pure greek profile, such as i had been acquainted with hitherto only from statues. one perfect, uninterrupted line ran from the tip of her nose to her hair. xxxii. i went for excursions into savoy, ascended la grande salève on donkey-back, and from the top looked down at the full length of the leman. i drove to the valley of chamounix, sixty-eight miles, in a diligence and four; about every other hour we had relays of horses and a new driver. whenever possible, we went at a rattling galop. half-way i heard the first italian. it was only the word _quattro_; but it filled me with delight. above the high, wooded mountains, the bare rock projected out of the earth, at the very top. the wide slopes up which the wood ascended, until it looked like moss on stone, afforded a view miles in extent. the river arve, twisting itself in curves, was frequently spanned by the roadway; it was of a greyish white, and very rapid, but ugly. splendid wooden bridges were thrown over it, with abysms on both sides. midway, after having for some time been hidden behind the mountains, mont blanc suddenly appeared in its gleaming splendour, positively tiring and paining the eye. it was a new and strange feeling to be altogether hemmed in by mountains. it was oppressive to a plain-dweller to be shut in thus, and not to be able to get away from the immutable sheet of snow, with its jagged summits. along the valley of the stream, the road ran between marvellously fresh walnut-trees, plane-trees, and avenues of apple trees; but sometimes we drove through valleys so narrow that the sun only shone on them two or three hours of the day, and there it was cold and damp. savoy was plainly enough a poor country. the grapes were small and not sweet; soil there was little of, but every patch was utilised to the best advantage. in one place a mountain stream rushed down the rocks; at a sharp corner, which jutted out like the edge of a sloping roof, the stream was split up and transformed into such fine spray that one could perceive no water at all; afterwards the stream united again at the foot of the mountain, and emptied itself with frantic haste into the river, foaming greyish white, spreading an icy cold around. the changes of temperature were striking. under shelter, hot summer, two steps further, stern, inclement autumn, air that penetrated to the very marrow of your bones. you ran through every season of the year in a quarter of an hour. the other travellers were english people, all of one pattern, unchangeable, immovable. if one of them had buttoned up his coat at the beginning of the drive, he did not unbutton it on the way, were he never so warm, and if he had put leather gloves on, for ten hours they would not be off his hands. the men yawned for the most part; the young ladies jabbered. the english had made the whole country subservient to them, and at the hotels one englishman in this french country was paid more attention to than a dozen frenchmen. here i understood two widely different poems: hauch's swiss peasant, and björnson's over the hills and far away. hauch had felt this scenery and the nature of these people, by virtue of his norwegian birth and his gift of entering into other people's thought; björnson had given unforgettable expression to the feeling of imprisoned longing. but for the man who had been breathing street dust and street sweepings for four months, it was good to breathe the strong, pure air, and at last see once more the clouds floating about and beating against the mountain sides, leaning, exhausted, against a declivity and resting on their journey. little children of eight or ten were guarding cattle, children such as we know so well in the north, when they come with their marmots; they looked, without exception, like tiny rascals, charming though they were. i rode on a mule to montanvert, and thence on foot over the mer de glace, clambered up the steep mountain side to chapeau, went down to the crystal grotto and rode from there back to chamounix. the ride up in the early hours of the morning was perfect, the mountain air so light; the mists parted; the pine-trees round the fresh mountain path exhaled a penetrating fragrance. an american family with whom i had become acquainted took three guides with them for four persons. one worthy old gentleman who was travelling with his young daughter, would not venture upon this feat of daring, but his daughter was so anxious to accompany us that when i offered to look after her she was entrusted to my care. i took two mules and a guide, thinking that sufficient. from montanvert and down to the glacier, the road was bad, a steep, rocky path, with loose, rolling stones. when we came to the ice sea, the young lady, as was natural, took the guide's hand, and i, the last of the caravan, strode cautiously along, my alpenstock in my hand, over the slippery, billow-like ice. but soon it began to split up into deep crevasses, and farther on we came to places where the path you had to follow was no wider than a few hands' breadth, with yawning precipices in the ice on both sides. i grew hot to the roots of my hair, and occasionally my heart stood still. it was not that i was actually afraid. the guide shouted to me: "look neither to right nor left; look at your feet, and turn out your toes!" i had only one thought--not to slip!--and out on the ice i grew burningly hot. when at last i was across, i noticed that i was shaking. strangely enough, i was trembling at the _thought_ of the blue, gaping crevasses on both sides of me, down which i had barely glanced, and yet i had passed them without a shudder. the beginning of the crossing had been comparatively easy; it was only that at times it was very slippery. but in the middle of the glacier, progress was very uncomfortable; moraines, and heaps of gigantic blocks lay in your path, and all sorts of stone and gravel, which melted glaciers had brought down with them, and these were nasty to negotiate. when at last you had them behind you, came le _mauvais pas_, which corresponded to its name. you climbed up the precipitous side of the rock with the help of an iron railing drilled into it. but foothold was narrow and the stone damp, from the number of rivulets that rippled and trickled down. finally it was necessary at every step to let go the railing for a few seconds. the ascent then, and now, was supposed to be quite free from danger, and the view over the glaciers which one gained by it, was a fitting reward for the inconvenience. even more beautiful than the summit of mont blanc itself, with its rounded contours, were the steep, gray, rocky peaks, with ice in every furrow, that are called _l'aiguille du dru_. these mountains, which as far as the eye could range seemed to be all the same height, although they varied from , to , feet, stretched for miles around the horizon. the ice grotto here was very different from the sky-blue glacier grotto into which i had wandered two years earlier at grindelwald. here the ice mass was so immensely high that not the slightest peep of daylight penetrated through it into the excavated archway that led into the ice. it was half-dark inside, and the only light proceeded from a row of little candles stuck into the crevices of the rock. the ice was jet black in colour, the light gleaming with a golden sheen from all the rounded projections and jagged points. it was like the gilt ornamentation on a velvet pall. when i returned from chamounix to geneva, the proprietor of the hotel was standing in the doorway and shouted to me: "the whole of the french army, with the emperor, has been taken prisoner at sedan!"--"impossible!" i exclaimed. "it is quite certain," he replied; "it was in the german telegrams, and so far there has not come a single unveracious telegram from the germans." the next day a genevese paper published the news of the proclamation of the republic in france. simultaneously arrived a letter from julius lange, attacking me for my "miserly city politics," seriously complaining that "our declaration of war against prussia had come to nothing," and hoping that my stay in france had by now made me alter my views. in his opinion, we had neglected "an opportunity of rebellion, that would never recur." xxxiii. lake leman fascinated me. all the scenery round looked fairy-like to me, a dream land, in which mighty mountains cast their blue-black shadows down on the turquoise water, beneath a brilliant, sparkling sunshine that saturated the air with its colouring. my impressions of lausanne, chillon, vevey, montreux, were recorded in the first of my lectures at the university the following year. the instruments of torture at chillon, barbaric and fearsome as they were, made me think of the still worse murderous instruments being used in the war between france and germany. it seemed to me that if one could see war at close quarters, one would come to regard the earth as peopled by dangerous lunatics. political indifference to human life and human suffering had taken the place of the premeditated cruelty of the middle ages. still, if no previous war had ever been so frightful, neither had there ever been so much done to mitigate suffering. while fanatic frenchwomen on the battlefields cut the noses off wounded germans, and mutilated them when they could, and while the germans were burning villages and killing their peaceful inhabitants, if one of them had so much as fired a shot, in all quietness the great societies for the care of the wounded were doing their work. and in this switzerland especially bore the palm. there were two currents then, one inhuman and one humane, and of the two, the latter will one day prove itself the stronger. under louis xiv. war was still synonymous with unlimited plundering, murder, rape, thievery and robbery. under napoleon i. there were still no such things as ambulances. the wounded were carted away now and again in waggons, piled one on the top of each other, if any waggons were to be had; if not, they were left as they lay, or were flung into a ditch, there to die in peace. things were certainly a little better. xxxiv. in geneva, the news reached me that--in spite of a promise hall, as minister, had given to hauch, when the latter asked for it for me--i was to receive no allowance from the educational department. to a repetition of the request, hall had replied: "i have made so many promises and half-promises, that it has been impossible to remember or to keep them." this disappointment hit me rather hard; i had in all only about £ left, and could not remain away more than nine weeks longer without getting into debt, i, who had calculated upon staying a whole year abroad. circumstances over which i had no control later obliged me, however, to remain away almost another year. but that i could not foresee, and i had no means whatever to enable me to do so. several of my acquaintances had had liberal allowances from the ministry; krieger and martensen had procured heegaard £ at once, when he had been anxious to get away from rasmus nielsen's influence. it seemed to me that this refusal to give me anything augured badly for the appointment i was hoping for in denmark. i could only earn a very little with my pen: about _s_. _d_. for ten folio pages, and as i did not feel able, while travelling, to write anything of any value, i did not attempt it. it was with a sort of horror that, after preparing for long travels that were to get me out of the old folds, i thought of the earlier, narrow life i had led in copenhagen. all the old folds seemed, at this distance, to have been the folds of a strait-waistcoat. xxxv. with abominable slowness, and very late, "on account of the war," the train crawled from geneva, southwards. among the travellers was a rhetorical italian master-mason, from lyons, an old garibaldist, the great event of whose life was that garibaldi had once taken lunch alone with him at varese. he preserved in his home as a relic the glass from which the general had drunk. he was talkative, and ready to help everyone; he gave us all food and drink from his provisions. other travellers told that they had had to stand in queue for fully twelve hours in front of the ticket office in paris, to get away from the town. the train passed the place where rousseau had lived, at madame de warens'. in an official work on savoy, written by a priest, i had recently read a summary dismissal of rousseau, as a calumniator of his benefactress. according to this author, it certainly looked as though, to say the least of it, rousseau's memory had failed him amazingly sometimes. the book asserted, for instance, that the claude of whom he speaks was no longer alive at the time when he was supposed to be enjoying madame de warens' favours. we passed french volunteers in blouses bearing a red cross; they shouted and were in high good humour; passed ten districts, where numbers of cretins, with their hideous excrescences, sat by the wayside. at last we arrived,--several hours behind time,--at st. michel, at the foot of mont cenis; it was four o'clock in the afternoon, and i was beginning to feel tired, for i had been up since four in the morning. at five o'clock we commenced the ascent, to the accompaniment of frightful groanings from the engine; all the travellers were crowded together in three wretched little carriages, the small engine not being able to pull more. gay young french girls exulted at the idea of seeing "italy's fair skies." they were not particularly fair here; the weather was rough and cloudy, in keeping with abysms and mountain precipices. but late at night the journey over mont cenis was wonderful. high up on the mountain the moonlight gleamed on the mountain lake. and the way was dominated, from one rocky summit, by the castle of bramans with its seven imposing forts. the locomotive stopped for an hour, for want of water. we were thus obliged to sleep at the little italian town of susa (in a glorious valley under mont cenis), the train to turin having left three hours before. susa was the first italian town i saw. when the train came in next morning to the station at turin, a crowd of italian soldiers, who were standing there, shouted: "the prussians for ever!" and winked at me. "what are they shouting for?" i asked a young turin fellow with whom i had had some long conversations. "it is an ovation to you," he replied. "people are delighted at the victory of the prussians, and they think you are a prussian, because of your fair moustache and beard." xxxvi. an overwhelming impression was produced upon me by the monuments of turin, the river po, and the lovely glee-singing in the streets. for the first time, i saw colonnades, with heavy curtains to the street, serve as pavements, with balconies above them. officers in uniforms gleaming with gold, ladies with handkerchiefs over their heads instead of hats, the mild warmth, the brown eyes, brought it home to me at every step that i was in a new country. i hurried up to costanza blanchetti. _madame la comtesse est à la campagne. monsieur le comte est sorti._ next morning, as i was sitting in my room in the hotel trombetta, blanchetti rushed in, pressed me to his bosom, kissed me on both cheeks, would not let me go, but insisted on carrying me off with him to the country. we drove round the town first, then went by rail to alpignano, where costanza was staying with a relative of the family, count buglioni di monale. here i was received like a son, and shown straight to my room, where there stood a little bed with silk hangings, and where, on the pillow, there lay a little, folded-up thing, likewise of white silk, which was an enigma to me till, on unfolding it, i found it was a night-cap, the classical night-cap, tapering to a point, which you see at the theatre in old comedies. the buglionis were gentle, good-natured people, rugged and yet refined, an old, aristocratic country gentleman and his wife. nowhere have i thought grapes so heavy and sweet and aromatic as there. the perfume from the garden was so strong and fragrant. impossible to think of a book or a sheet of paper at alpignano. we walked under the trees, lay among the flowers, enjoyed the sight and the flavour of the apricots and grapes, and chatted, expressing by smiles our mutual quiet, deep-reaching sympathy. one evening i went into turin with blanchetti to see the play. the lover in _la dame aux camélias_ was played by a young italian named lavaggi, as handsome as an antinous, a type which i often encountered in piedmont. with his innate charm, restful calm, animation of movement and the fire of his beauty, he surpassed the acting of all the young lovers i had seen on the boards of the french theatres. the very play of his fingers was all grace and expression. xxxvii. on my journey from turin to milan, i had the mighty mont rosa, with its powerful snow mass, and the st. bernard, over which buonaparte led his tattered troops, before my eyes. we went across maize fields, through thickets, over the battlefield of magenta. from reading beyle, i had pictured milan as a beautiful town, full of free delight in life. only to see it would be happiness. and it was,--the cupola gallery, the dome, from the roof of which, immediately after my arrival, i looked out over the town, shining under a pure, dark-blue sky. in the evening, in the public gardens, i revelled in the beauty of the milanese women. italian ladies at that time still wore black lace over their heads instead of hats. their dresses were open in front, the neck being bare half-way down the chest. i was struck by the feminine type. upright, slender-waisted women; delicate, generally bare hands; oval faces, the eyebrows of an absolutely perfect regularity; narrow noses, well formed, the nostrils curving slightly upwards and outwards--the models of leonardo and luini. the _last supper_, in the church of st. maria delle grazie, and the drawings in the ambrose library, brought me closer to leonardo than i had ever been able to get before, through reproductions; i saw the true expression in the face of the christ in the _last supper_, which copies cannot avoid distorting. xxxviii. a violent affection for correggio, and a longing to see his works where they are to be found in greatest number, sent me to parma. i reached the town at night; no gas, no omnibus from any hotel. an out-porter trotted with my portmanteau on his back through wide, pitch-dark, deserted, colonnaded streets, past huge palaces, until, after half an hour's rapid walk, we arrived at the hotel. the day before my arrival dall'ongaro had unveiled the beautiful and beautifully situated statue of correggio in the market square. i first investigated the two domes in the cathedral and san giovanni evangelista, then the ingratiating pictorial decoration of the convent of san paolo. in the museum, where i was pretty well the only visitor, i was so eagerly absorbed in studying correggio and jotting down my impressions, that, in order to waste no time, i got the attendant to buy my lunch, and devoured it,--bread, cheese, and grapes,--in the family's private apartments. they were pleasant, obliging people, and as i bought photographs for a considerable amount from them, they were very hospitable. they talked politics to me and made no secret of their burning hatred for france. there were other things to see at parma besides correggio, although for me he dominated the town. there was a large exhibition of modern italian paintings and statuary, and the life of the people in the town and round about. in the streets stood carts full of grapes. four or five fellows with bare feet would stamp on the grapes in one of these carts; a trough led from the cart down to a vat, into which the juice ran, flinging off all dirt in fermentation. it was pleasant to walk round the old ramparts of the town in the evening glow, and it was lively in the ducal park. one evening little knots of italian soldiers were sitting there. one of them sang in a superb voice, another accompanied him very nicely on the lute; the others listened with profound and eager attention. xxxix. after this came rich days in florence. everything was a delight to me there, from the granite paving of the streets, to palaces, churches, galleries, and parks. i stood in reverence before the medici monuments in michael angelo's sanctuary. the people attracted me less; the women seemed to me to have no type at all, compared with the lovely faces and forms at milan and parma. the fleas attracted me least of all. dall 'ongaro received every sunday evening quite an international company, and conversation consequently dragged. with the charming japanese wife of the english consul, who spoke only english and japanese, neither of her hosts could exchange a word. there were dutchmen and swiss there with their ladies; sugar-sweet and utterly affected young italian men; handsome young painters and a few prominent italian scientists, one of whom, in the future, was to become my friend. i had a double recommendation to the danish minister at florence, from the ministry of foreign affairs, and from an old and intimate friend of his in copenhagen. when i presented my letters, he exclaimed, in annoyance: "these special recommendations again! how often must i explain that they are unnecessary, that all danes, as such, are welcome to my house!"--this was the delicate manner in which he let me understand that he was not inclined to do anything whatever for me. moreover, he began at once with regrets that his family were absent, so that he was not in housekeeping, and could not entertain anyone. at a production of Émile augier's _le fils de giboyer_, at which all the foreign diplomatists were present, he, too, turned up. while the other diplomatists greeted each other silently with a nod, he made more of the meeting than any one else did, went from place to place in the stalls, shook hands, spoke french, german, english and italian by turns, was all things to all men, then came and sat down by me, made himself comfortable, and in a moment was fast asleep. when he began to snore, one after another of his colleagues turned their heads, and smiled faintly. he slept through two acts and the intervals between them, in spite of the voices from the stage and the loud talking between the acts, and woke up in the middle of the third act, to mumble in my ear, "it is not much pleasure to see the piece played like this." at my favourite restaurant, _trattoria dell'antiche carrozze_, i was one day witness to a violent dispute between a polish noble who, for political reasons, had fled from russian poland, and hans semper, a prussian, author of a book on donatello. the latter naturally worshipped bismarck, the former warmly espoused the cause of denmark. when i left, i said politely to him: "i thank you for having so warmly defended my country; i am a dane." the next day the pole came to look for me at the restaurant, and a closer acquaintance resulted. we went for many walks together along the riverside; he talking like a typical polish patriot, i listening to his dreams of the resuscitated poland that the future was to see. i mention this only because it affords an example of the remarkable coincidences life brings about, which make one so easily exclaim: "how small the world is!" this pole became engaged several years afterwards to a young polish girl and left her, without any explanation, having got entangled with a russian ballet dancer. i made her acquaintance at warsaw fifteen years after i had met him at florence. she was then twenty-six years of age, and is one of the women who have taught me most; she told me the story of her early youth and of the unengaging part my acquaintance of had played in it. at florence i saw rossi as hamlet. the performance was a disappointment to me, inasmuch as rossi, with his purely italian nature, had done away with the essentially english element in hamlet. the keen english humour, in his hands, became absurd and ridiculous. hamlet's hesitation to act, he overlooked altogether. hamlet, to him, was a noble young man who was grieved at his mother's ill-behaviour. the details he acted like a virtuoso. for instance, it was very effective during the mimic play, when, lying at ophelia's feet, he crushes her fan in his hands at the moment when the king turns pale. i derived my chief enjoyment, not from the acting, but from the play. it suddenly revealed itself to me from other aspects, and i fell prostrate in such an exceeding admiration for shakespeare that i felt i should never rise again. it was touching to hear the italians' remarks on _hamlet_. the piece was new to them. you frequently heard the observation: "it is a very philosophical piece." as people changed from place to place, and sat wherever they liked, i overheard many different people's opinions of the drama. the suicide monologue affected these fresh and alert minds very powerfully. that evening, moreover, i had occasion to observe human cowardice, which is never accounted so great as it really is. there was a noise behind the scene during the performance, and immediately afterwards a shout of _fuoco!_ the audience were overmastered by terror. more than half of them rushed to the doors, pulled each other down, and trampled on the fallen, in their endeavours to get out quickly enough; others rushed up on the stage itself. as there was not the least sign of fire visible, i of course remained in my seat. a few minutes later one of the actors came forward and explained that there had been no fire; a fight between two of the scene-shifters had been the cause of all the alarm. the good-humoured italians did not even resent the fellows having thus disturbed and interrupted the performance. john stuart mill had given me an introduction to pasquale villari, who, even at that time, was _commendatore professore_, and held a high position on the board of education, but was still far from having attained the zenith of his fame and influence. when the reserve of the first few days had worn off, he was simply splendid to me. when anything i said struck him as being to the point, he pressed my hands with all the ardour of youth, and he applauded every joke i attempted with uproarious laughter. some twenty years were to elapse before i saw him again. then he called upon me in copenhagen, wishing to make my acquaintance, without in the least suspecting that i was the young man who, so long before, had come to him from mill. he looked with amazement at books in which he had written with his own hand, and at old letters from himself which i produced. i visited him again in . his books on machiavelli and savonarola entitle him to rank among the foremost students and exponents of italy. i went one day to the great annual fair at fiesole. shouting and shrieking, the people drove down the unspeakably dusty road with such haste, carelessness and high spirits that conveyances struck against each other at every moment. it was the life represented in marstrand's old-time pictures. in crowded fiesole, i saw the regular tuscan country type, brown eyes, yellow or clear, white skin, thin, longish face, brown or fair, but never black hair, strong, healthy bodies. the masculine type with which i was acquainted from the soldiers, was undeniably handsomer than our own, in particular, was more intelligent; the young women were modest, reserved in their manner, seldom entered into conversation with the men, and despite the fire in their eyes, manifested a certain peasant bashfulness, which seems to be the same everywhere. xl. vines twine round the fruit-trees; black pigs and their families make their appearance in tribes; the lake of thrasymene, near which hannibal defeated the romans, spreads itself out before us. the train is going from florence to rome. towards mid-day a girl enters the carriage, apparently english or north american, with brown eyes and brown hair, that curls naturally about her head; she has her guitar-case in her hand, and flings it up into the net. her parents follow her. as there is room in the compartment for forty-eight persons without crowding, she arranges places for her parents, and after much laughter and joking the latter settle off to sleep. the italians stare at her; but not i. i sit with my back to her. she sits down, back to back with me, then turns her head and asks me, in italian, some question about time, place, or the like. i reply as best i can. she (in english): "you are italian?" on my reply, she tells me: "i hardly know twenty words in italian; i only speak english, although i have been living in rome for two years." she then went on to relate that she was an american, born of poor parents out on the indian frontier; she was twenty-six years old, a sculptor, and was on her way from carrara, where she had been superintending the shipment of one of her works, a statue of lincoln, which the congress at washington had done her the honour of ordering from her. it was only when she was almost grown up that her talent had been discovered by an old sculptor who happened to pay a visit and who, when he saw her drawing, had, half in jest, given her a lump of clay and said: "do a portrait of me!" she had then never seen a statue or a painting, but she evinced such talent that before long several distinguished men asked her to do busts of them, amongst others, lincoln. she was staying at his house that th april, , when he was murdered, and was consequently selected to execute the monument after his death. she hesitated for a long time before giving up the modest, but certain, position she held at the time in a post-office; but, as others believed in her talent, she came to europe, stayed first in paris, where, to her delight, she made the acquaintance of gustave doré, and where she modelled a really excellent bust of père hyacinthe, visited london, berlin, munich, florence, and settled down in rome. there she received plenty of orders, had, moreover, obtained permission to execute a bust of cardinal antonelli, was already much looked up to, and well-to-do. in a few weeks she was returning to america. as she found pleasure in talking to me, she exclaimed without more ado: "i will stay with you," said a few polite things to me, and made me promise that i would travel with her to rome from the place where we were obliged to leave the train, the railway having been broken up to prevent the italian troops entering the papal states. at treni a danish couple got into the train, a mediocre artist and his wife, and with national astonishment and curiosity watched the evident intimacy between the young foreigner and myself, concerning which every scandinavian in rome was informed a few days later. from monte rotondo, where the bridge had been blown up, we had to walk a long distance, over bad roads, and were separated in the throng, but she kept a place for me by her side. thus i drove for the first time over the roman campagna, by moonlight, with two brown eyes gazing into mine. i felt as though i had met one of sir walter scott's heroines, and won her confidence at our first meeting. xli. vinnie ream was by no means a scott heroine, however, but a genuine american, and doubly remarkable to me as being the first specimen of a young woman from the united states with whom i became acquainted. even after i had seen a good deal of her work, i could not feel wholly attracted by her talent, which sometimes expressed itself rather in a pictorial than a plastic form, and had a fondness for emotional effects. but she was a true artist, and a true woman, and i have never, in any woman, encountered a will like hers. she was uninterruptedly busy. although, now that the time of her departure was so near, a few boxes were steadily being packed every day at her home, she received every day visits from between sixteen and twenty-five people, and she had so many letters by post that i often found three or four unopened ones amongst the visiting cards that had been left. those were what she had forgotten, and if she had read them, she had no time to reply to them. every day she sat for a few hours to the clever american painter healy, who was an admirer of her talent, and called her abilities genius. every day she worked at antonelli's bust. to obtain permission to execute it, she had merely, dressed in her most beautiful white gown, asked for an audience of the dreaded cardinal, and had at once obtained permission. her intrepid manner had impressed the hated statesman of the political and ecclesiastical reaction, and in her representation of him he appeared, too, in many respects nobler and more refined than he was. but besides modelling the cardinal's bust, she put the finishing touches to two others, saw to her parents' household affairs and expenses, and found time every day to spend a few hours with me, either in a walk or wandering about the different picture-galleries. she maintained the family, for her parents had nothing at all. but when the statue of lincoln had been ordered from her, congress had immediately advanced ten thousand dollars. so she was able to live free from care, though for that matter she troubled not at all about money. she was very ignorant of things outside her own field, and the words _my work_ were the only ones that she spoke with passion. what she knew, she had acquired practically, through travel and association with a multiplicity of people. she hardly knew a dozen words of any language besides english, and was only acquainted with english and american writers; of poets, she knew shakespeare and byron best; from life and books she had extracted but few general opinions, but on the other hand, very individual personal views. these were based upon the theory that the lesser mind must always subordinate itself to the higher, and that the higher has a right to utilise freely the time and strength of the lesser, without being called to account for doing so. she herself was abjectly modest towards the artists she looked up to. other people might all wait, come again, go away without a reply. rather small of stature, strong and healthy,--she had never been ill, never taken medicine,--with white teeth and red cheeks, quick in everything, when several people were present she spoke only little and absently, was as cold, deliberate and composed as a man of strong character; but at the same time she was unsuspecting and generous, and in spite of her restlessness and her ambitious industry, ingratiatingly coquettish towards anyone whose affection she wished to win. it was amusing to watch the manner in which she despatched the dutifully sighing italians who scarcely crossed the threshold of her studio before they declared themselves. she replied to them with a superabundance of sound sense and dismissed them with a jest. one day that i went to fetch her to the casino borghese, i found her dissolved in tears. one of the two beautiful doves who flew about the house and perched on her shoulders, and which she had brought with her from washington, had disappeared in the night. at first i thought that her distress was half jest, but nothing could have been more real; she was beside herself with grief. i realised that if philologians have disputed as to how far catullus' poem of the girl's grief over the dead sparrow were jest or earnest, it was because they had never seen a girl weep over a bird. catullus, perhaps, makes fun a little of the grief, but the grief itself, in his poem too, is serious enough. in the lovely gardens of the villa borghese, vinnie ream's melancholy frame of mind was dispersed, and we sat for a long time by one of the handsome fountains and talked, among other things, of our pleasure in being together, which pleasure was not obscured by the prospect of approaching parting, because based only on good-fellowship, and with no erotic element about it. later in the evening, she had forgotten her sorrow altogether in the feverish eagerness with which she worked, and she kept on, by candle-light, until three o'clock in the morning. a poor man, an italian, who kept a little hotel, came in that evening for a few minutes; he sometimes translated letters for vinnie ream. as he had no business with me, i did not address any of my remarks to him; she, on the contrary, treated him with extreme kindness and the greatest respect, and whispered to me: "talk nicely to him, as you would to a gentleman, for that he is; he knows four languages splendidly; he is a talented man. take no notice of his plain dress. we americans do not regard the position, but the man, and he does honour to his position." i had not been actuated by the prejudices she attributed to me, nevertheless entered into conversation with the man, as she wished, and listened with pleasure to his sensible opinions. (he spoke, among other things, of northern art, and warmly praised carl bloch's _prometheus_.) xlii. vinnie ream's opinion of me was that i was the most impolitic man that she had ever known. she meant, by that, that i was always falling out with people (for instance, i had at once offended the danes in rome by some sharp words about the wretched danish papers), and in general made fewer friends and more enemies all the time. she herself won the affection of everyone she wished, and made everyone ready to spring to do her bidding. she pointed out to me how politic she had had to be over her art. when she had wished to become a sculptor, everyone in her native place had been shocked at the un-femininity of it, and people fabled behind her back about her depraved instincts. she, for her part, exerted no more strength than just enough to carry her point, let people talk as much as they liked, took no revenge on those who spread calumnies about her, showed the greatest kindliness even towards the evil-disposed, and so, she said, had not an enemy. there was in her a marvellous commingling of determination to progress rapidly, of self-restraint and of real good-heartedness. on october th there was a great festival in rome to celebrate the first monthly anniversary of the entry of the italians into the town. young men went in the evening with flags and music through the streets. everybody rushed to the windows, and the ladies held out lamps and candles. in the time of the popes this was only done when the host was being carried in solemn procession to the dying; it was regarded therefore as the greatest honour that could be paid. everyone clapped hands and uttered shouts of delight at the improvised illumination, while the many beautiful women looked lovely in the flickering lamplight. the d again was a gala day, being the anniversary of the death of enrico cairoli--one of the celebrated brothers; he fell at mentana;--and i had promised vinnie ream to go to see the fête with her; but she as usual having twenty callers just when we ought to have started, we arrived too late. vinnie begged of me to go with her instead to the american chapel; she must and would sing hymns, and really did sing them very well. the chapel was bare. on the walls the ten commandments and a few other quotations from holy writ, and above a small altar, "do this in remembrance of me," in gothic lettering. i had to endure the hymns, the sermon (awful), and the reading aloud of the ten commandments, with muttered protestations and amens after each one from the reverent americans. when we went out i said nothing, as i did not know whether vinnie might not be somewhat moved, for she sang at the end with great emotion. however, she merely took my arm and exclaimed: "that minister was the most stupid donkey i have ever heard in my life; but it is nice to sing." then she began a refutation of the sermon, which had hinged chiefly on the words: "_thy sins are forgiven thee_," and of the unspeakable delight it should be to hear this. vinnie thought that no rational being would give a fig for forgiveness, unless there followed with it a complete reinstatement of previous condition. what am i benefitted if ever so many heavenly beings say to me: "i _pretend_ you have not done it" if i know that i have! the last week in october we saw marvellous northern lights in rome. the northern half of the heavens, about nine o'clock in the evening, turned a flaming crimson, and white streaks traversed the red, against which the stars shone yellow, while every moment bluish flashes shot across the whole. when i discovered it i went up to the reams' and fetched vinnie down into the street to see it. it was an incredibly beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. next evening it manifested itself again, on a background of black clouds, and that was the last beautiful sight upon which vinnie and i looked together. next evening i wrote: vinnie ream leaves to-morrow morning; i said good-bye to her this evening. unfortunately a great many people were there. she took my hand and said: "i wish you everything good in the world, and i know that you wish me the same." and then: good-bye. a door opens, and a door closes, and people never meet again on this earth, never again, never--and human language has never been able to discover any distinction between good-bye for an hour, and good-bye forever. people sit and chat, smile and jest. then you get up, and the story is finished. over! over! and that is the end of all stories, says andersen. all one's life one quarrels with people as dear to one as ploug is to me. i have a well-founded hope that i may see rudolph schmidt's profile again soon, and a hundred times again after that; but vinnie i shall never see again. i did not understand her at first; i had a few unpleasant conjectures ready. i had to have many conversations with her before i understood her ingenuousness, her ignorance, her thorough goodness, in short, all her simple healthiness of soul. over! when i was teasing her the other day about all the time i had wasted in her company, she replied: "_people do not waste time with their friends_," and when i exclaimed: "what do i get from you?" she answered, laughing: "_inspiration_." and that was the truth. those great brown eyes, the firm eyebrows, the ringleted mass of chestnut brown hair and the fresh mouth--all this that i still remember, but perhaps in three months shall no longer be able to recall, the quick little figure, now commanding, now deprecating, is to me a kind of inspiration. i have never been in love with vinnie; but most people would think so, to hear the expressions i am now using. but i love her as a friend, as a mind akin to my own. there were thoughts of our brains and strings of our hearts, which always beat in unison. peace be with her! may the cursed world neither rend her nor devour her; may she die at last with the clear forehead she has now! i am grateful to her. she has communicated to me a something good and simple that one cannot see too much of and that one scarcely ever sees at all. finally, she has shown me again the spectacle of a human being entirely happy, and good because happy, a soul without a trace of bitterness, an intellect whose work is not a labour. it is not that vinnie is--or rather was, since she is dead for me--an educated girl in the copenhagen sense of the word. the verdict of the danish educational establishments upon her would be that she was a deplorably uneducated girl. she was incomprehensibly dull at languages. she would be childishly amused at a jest or joke or compliment as old as the hills (such as the italians were fond of using), and think it new, for she knew nothing of the european storehouse of stereotyped remarks and salted drivel. her own conversation was new; a breath of the independence of the great republic swept through it. she was no fine lady, she was _an american girl_, who had not attained her rank by birth, or through inherited riches, but had fought for it herself with a talent that had made its way to the surface without early training, through days and nights of industry, and a mixture of enthusiasm and determination. she was vain; she certainly was that. but again like a child, delighted at verses in her honour in the american papers, pleased at homage and marks of distinction, but far more ambitious than vain of personal advantages. she laughed when we read in the papers of vinnie ream, that, in spite of the ill-fame creative lady artists enjoy, far from being a monster with green eyes, she ventured to be beautiful. she was a good girl. there was a certain deep note about all that her heart uttered. she had a mind of many colours. and there was the very devil of a rush and forward! march! about her, _always in a hurry_. and now--no roman elegy--i will hide her away in my memory: here lies vinnie ream sculptor of washington, u.s.a. six-and-twenty years of age this recollection of her is retained by one who knew her for seventeen days and will never forget her. i have really never seen vinnie ream since. we exchanged a few letters after her departure, and the rest was silence. her statue of abraham lincoln stands now in a rotunda on the capitol, for which it was ordered. later, a congress committee ordered from her a statue of admiral farragut, which is likewise erected in washington. these are the only two statues that the government of the united states has ever ordered from a woman. other statues of hers which i have seen mentioned bear the names of _miriam, the west, sappho, the spirit of carnival_, etc. further than this, i only know that she married richard l. hoxie, an engineer, and only a few years ago was living in washington. xliii. it was a real trouble to me that the pope, in his exasperation over the conquest of rome--in order to make the accomplished revolution recoil also on the heads of the foreigners whom he perhaps suspected of sympathy with the new order of things--had closed the vatican and all its collections. rome was to me first and foremost michael angelo's sistine chapel, raphael's stanzas and loggias, and now all this magnificent array, which i had travelled so far to see, was closed to me by an old man's bad temper. but there was still enough to linger over in rome. the two palaces that seemed to me most deserving of admiration were the farnese and the cancellaria, the former michael angelo's, the latter bramante's work, the first a perpetuation in stone of beauty and power, the second, of grace and lightness. i felt that if one were to take a person with no idea of architecture and set him in front of these buildings, there would fall like scales from his eyes, and he would say: "now i know what the building art means." luini's exquisite painting, _vanity and modesty_, in the galleria sciarra, impressed me profoundly. it represented two women, one nun-like, the other magnificently dressed. the latter is leonardo's well-known type, as a magically fascinating personality. its essential feature is a profoundly serious melancholy, but the beauty of the figure is seductive. she is by no means smiling, and yet she looks as though a very slight alteration would produce a smile, and as though the heavens themselves would open, if smile she did. the powerful glance of the dark blue eyes is in harmony with the light-brown hair and the lovely hands. "it would be terrible to meet in real life a woman who looked like that," i wrote; "for a man would grow desperate at his inability to win her and desperate because the years must destroy such a marvel. that is why the gracious gods have willed it otherwise; that is why she does not exist. that is why she is only a vision, a revelation, a painting, and that is why she was conceived in the brain of leonardo, the place on earth most favoured by the gods, and executed by luini, that all generations might gaze at her without jealousy, and without dread of the molestations of time." one day, at the museo kircheriano, where i was looking at the admirable antiquities, i made acquaintance with a jesuit priest, who turned out to be exceedingly pleasant and refined, a very decent fellow, in fact. he spoke latin to me, and showed me round; at an enquiry of mine, he fetched from his quarters in the collegio romano a book with reproductions from the pagan section of the lateran museum, and explained to me some bas-reliefs which i had not understood. his obligingness touched me, his whole attitude made me think. hitherto i had only spoken to one solitary embryo jesuit,--a young englishman who was going to rome to place himself at the service of the pope, and who was actuated by the purest enthusiasm; i was struck by the fact that this second jesuit, too, seemed to be a worthy man. it taught me how independent individual worth is of the nature of one's convictions. most of the italians i had so far been acquainted with were simple people, my landlord and his family, and those who visited them, and i sometimes heard fragments of conversation which revealed the common people's mode of thought to me. in one house that i visited, the mistress discovered that her maid was not married to her so-called husband, a matter in which, for that matter, she was very blameless, since her parents had refused their consent, and she had afterwards allowed herself to be abducted. her mistress reproached her for the illegal relations existing. she replied, "if god wishes to plunge anyone into misery, that person is excused."--"we must not put the blame of everything upon god," said the mistress.--"yes, yes," replied the girl unabashed; "then if the devil wishes to plunge a person into misery, the person is excused."--"nor may we put the blame of our wrongdoing on the devil," said the mistress.--"good gracious," said the girl, "it must be the fault of one or other of them, everybody knows that. if it is not the one, it is the other." at the house of the blanchettis, who had come to rome, i met many turin and roman gentlemen. they were all very much taken up by an old sicilian chemist of the name of muratori, who claimed that he had discovered a material which looked like linen, but was impervious to bullets, sword-cuts, bayonet-thrusts, etc. blanchetti himself had fired his revolver at him at two paces, and the ball had fallen flat to the ground. there could be no question of juggling; muratori was an honourable old garibaldist who had been wounded in his youth, and now went about on crutches, but, since we have never heard of its being made practical use of, it would seem that there was nothing in it. i did not care to look up all the italians to whom i had introductions from villari. but i tried my luck with a few of them. the first was dr. pantaleoni, who had formerly been banished from the papal states and who left the country as a radical politician, but now held almost conservative views. he had just come back, and complained bitterly of all the licentiousness. "alas!" he said, "we have freedom enough now, but order, order!" pantaleoni was a little, eager, animated man of fifty, very much occupied, a politician and doctor, and he promised to introduce me to all the scholars whose interests i shared. as i felt scruples at taking up these gentlemen's time, he exclaimed wittily: "my dear fellow, take up their time! to take his time is the greatest service you can render to a roman; he never knows what to do to kill it!" the next man i went to was prince odescalchi, one of the men who had then recently risen to the surface, officially termed the hero of the young liberals. pantaleoni had dubbed him a blockhead, and he had not lied. he turned out to be a very conceited and frothy young man with a parting all over his head, fair to whiteness, of strikingly northern type, with exactly the same expressionless type of face as certain of the milksops closely connected with the court in denmark. xliv. there were a great many scandinavians in rome; they foregathered at the various eating-houses and on a saturday evening at the scandinavian club. some of them were painters, sculptors and architects, with their ladies, there were some literary and scientific men and every description of tourists on longer or shorter visits to the eternal city. i held myself aloof from them. most of them had their good qualities, but they could not stand the test of any association which brought them into too close contact with one another, as life in a small town does. they were divided up into camps or hives, and in every hive ruled a lady who detested the queen bee of the next one. so it came about that the scandinavians lived in perpetual squabbles, could not bear one another, slandered one another, intrigued against one another. when men got drunk on the good roman wine at the _osterie_, they abused one another and very nearly came to blows. moreover, they frequently got drunk, for most of them lost their self-control after a few glasses. strangely enough, in the grand surroundings, too much of the northern pettiness came to the surface in them. one was continually tempted to call out to the ladies, in holberg's words: "hold your peace, you good women!" and to the men: "go away, you rapscallions, and make up your quarrels!" there were splendid young fellows among the artists, but the painters, who were in the majority, readily admitted that technically they could learn nothing at all in rome, where they never saw a modern painting; they said themselves that they ought to be in paris, but the authorities in christiania and copenhagen were afraid of paris: thence all bad and dangerous influences proceeded, and so the painters still journey to rome, as their fathers did before them. xlv. towards the middle of november the pope opened the vatican. but in face of the enormous conflux of people, it was not easy to get a _permesso_ from the consul, and that could not be dispensed with. i had just made use of one for the vatican sculpture collection, one day, when i felt very unwell. i ascribed my sensations at first to the insufferable weather of that month, alternately sirocco and cold sleet, or both at once; then i was seized with a dread of the climate, of rome, of all these strange surroundings, and i made up my mind to go home as quickly as possible. the illness that was upon me was, without my knowing it, the cause of my fear. the next day i was carried downstairs by two vile-smelling labourers and taken by vilhelm rosenstand the painter, who was one of the few who had made friends with me and shown me kindness, to the prussian hospital on the tarpeian rock, near the capitol. here a bad attack of typhoid fever held me prisoner in my bed for some few months, after a compatriot, who had no connection whatever with me, had been so inconsiderate as to inform my parents by telegraph how ill i was, and that there was little hope for me. the first month i was not fully conscious; i suffered from a delusion of coercion. thus it seemed to me that the left side of my bed did not belong to me, but to another man, who sometimes took the place; and that i myself was divided into several persons, of which one, for instance, asked my legs to turn a little to the one side or the other. one of these persons was imperialist, and for that reason disliked by the others, who were republicans; nevertheless, he performed great kindnesses for them, making them more comfortable, when it was in his power. another strangely fantastic idea that held sway for a long time was that on my head, the hair of which had been shorn by the hospital attendant rather less artistically than one cuts a dog's, there was a clasp of pearls and precious stones, which i felt but could not see. afterwards, all my delusions centred on food. i was very much neglected at the hospital. the attendance was wretched. the highly respected german doctor, who was appointed to the place, had himself an immense practice, and moreover was absolutely taken up by the franco-prussian war. consequently, he hardly ever came, sometimes stayed away as long as thirteen days at a stretch, during all which time a patient who might happen to be suffering, say, from constipation, must lie there without any means of relief. my bed was as hard as a stone, and i was waked in the night by pains in my body and limbs; the pillow was so hard that the skin of my right ear was rubbed off from the pressure. there were no nurses. there was only one custodian for the whole hospital, a russian fellow who spoke german, and who sometimes had as many as fourteen patients at a time to look after, but frequently went out to buy stores, or visit his sweetheart, and then all the patients could ring at once without any one coming. after i had passed the crisis of my illness, and consequently began to suffer terribly from hunger, i was ordered an egg for my breakfast; i sometimes had to lie for an hour and a half, pining for this egg. once, for three days in succession, there were no fresh eggs to be had. so he would bring for my breakfast nothing but a small piece of dry bread. one day that i was positively ill with hunger, i begged repeatedly for another piece of bread, but he refused it me. it was not malice on his part, but pure stupidity, for he was absolutely incapable of understanding how i felt. and to save fuel, he let me suffer from cold, as well as from hunger; would never put more than one wretched little stick at a time into the stove. everything was pinched to an incredible extent. thus it was impossible for me to get a candle in the evening before it was absolutely dark, and then never more than one, although it made my eyes water to try to read. candles and firing, it appears, were not put down in the bill. and yet this hospital is kept up on subscriptions from all the great powers, so there must be someone into whose pockets the money goes. most of us survived it; a few died who possibly might have been kept alive; one was preserved for whom the danish newspapers have beautiful obituaries ready. over my head, in the same building, there lived a well-known german archaeologist, who was married to a russian princess of such colossal physical proportions that roman popular wits asserted that when she wished to go for a drive she had to divide herself between two cabs. this lady had a great talent for music. i never saw her, but i became aware of her in more ways than one: whenever she crossed the floor on the third story, the ceiling shook, and the boards creaked, in a manner unbearable to an invalid. and just when i had settled myself off, and badly wanted to sleep, towards eleven o'clock at night, the heavy lady above would sit down at her grand piano, and make music that would have filled a concert hall resound through the place. after a month had passed, the doctor declared that i had "turned the corner," and might begin to take a little food besides the broth that up till then had been my only nourishment. a little later, i was allowed to try to get up. i was so weak that i had to begin to learn to walk again; i could not support myself on my legs, but dragged myself, with the help of the custodian, the four or five steps from the bed to a sofa. just at this time i received two letters from copenhagen, containing literary enquiries and offers. the first was from the editor of the _illustrated times_, and enquired whether on my return home i would resume the theatrical criticisms in the paper; in that case they would keep the position open for me. i gave a negative reply, as i was tired of giving my opinion on a danish drama. the second letter, which surprised me more, was from the editor of the, at that time, powerful _daily paper_, steen bille, offering me the entire management of the paper after the retirement of molbech, except so far as politics were concerned, the editor naturally himself retaining the latter. as danish things go, it was a very important offer to a young man. it promised both influence and income, and it was only my profound and ever-increasing determination not to give myself up to journalism that made me without hesitation dictate a polite refusal. i was still to weak to write. my motive was simply and solely that i wished to devote my life to knowledge. but bille, who knew what power in a little country like denmark his offer would have placed in my hands, hardly understood it in this way, and was exceedingly annoyed at my refusal. it gave the first impulse to his altered feeling toward me. i have sometimes wondered since whether my fate in denmark might not have been different had i accepted the charge. it is true that the divergence between what the paper and i, in the course of the great year , came to represent, would soon have brought about a split. the commune in paris caused a complete _volte face_ of the liberal bourgeoisie in denmark, as elsewhere. xlvi. while i was still too weak to write, i received a letter from henrik ibsen (dated december , ), which impressed me greatly. henrik ibsen and i had been on friendly terms with one another since april, , but it was only about this time that our intimacy began to emit sparks, an intimacy which was destined to have a very widening influence upon me, and which is perhaps not without traces on the stages of his poetical progress. ibsen thought i had already recovered, and wrote to me as to a convalescent. he complained bitterly of the conquest of rome by the italians: rome was now taken from "us men" and given over to the "politicians"; it had been a spot sacred to peace, and was so no longer.--this assertion was at variance with my religion. it seemed to me unpermissible to desire, for aesthetic reasons, to see the restoration of an ecclesiastical régime, with its remorseless system of oppression. human happiness and intellectual progress were worth more than the retention of the idylls of naiveté. i replied to him by declaring my faith in freedom and soon he outdid me in this, as in other domains. but there was one other part of the letter that went to my heart and rejoiced me. it was where ibsen wrote that what was wanted was a revolt in the human mind, and in that i ought to be one of the leaders. these words, which were in exact agreement with my own secret hope, fired my imagination, ill though i was. it seemed to me that after having felt myself isolated so long, i had at last met with the mind that understood me and felt as i did, a real fellow-fighter. as soon as i was once more fit to use my pen, i wrote a flaming reply in verse (headed, the hospital in rome, the night of january , ). in it i described how solitary i had been, in my intellectual fight and endeavour, and expressed my contentment at having found a brother in him. xlvii. among the danes, and there were not many of them, who frequently came to see me at the hospital, i must mention the kind and tactful musician niels ravnkilde, whom i had known when i was a child. he had been living in rome now for some twenty years. he was gentle and quiet, good-looking, short of stature, modest and unpretending, too weak of character not to be friends with everyone, but equipped with a natural dignity. when a young music master in copenhagen, he had fallen in love with a young, wealthy girl, whose affections he succeeded in winning in return, but he was turned out of the house by her harsh, purse-proud father, and in desperation had left denmark to settle down in rome. as his lady-love married soon after and became a contented wife and mother, he remained where he was. he succeeded in making his way. he gradually became a favourite teacher of music among the ladies of the roman aristocracy, who sometimes invited him to their country-houses in the summer. he was on a good footing with the native maestros most in request, who quickly understood that the modest dane was no dangerous rival. graceful as ravnkilde was in his person, so he was in his art; there was nothing grand about him. but he was clever, and had a natural, unaffected wit. his difficult position as a master had taught him prudence and reserve. he was obligingness personified to travelling scandinavians, and was proud of having, as he thought, made the acquaintance in rome of the flower of the good society of the northern countries. even long after he had come to the front, he continued to live in the fourth storey apartment of the via ripetta, where he had taken up his abode on his arrival in rome, waited upon by the same simple couple. his circumstances could not improve, if only for the reason that he sent what he had to spare to relatives of his in copenhagen, who had a son who was turning out badly, and lived by wasting poor ravnkilde's savings. after having been the providence of all danish travellers to rome for thirty years, certain individuals who had influence with the government succeeded in obtaining a distinction for him. the government then gave him, not even the poor little decoration that he ought to have had twenty years before, but--brilliant idea!--awarded him the title of _professor_, which in italian, of course, he had always been, and which was a much more insignificant title than _maestro_, by which he was regularly called. ravnkilde wrote my letters at the hospital for me, and the day i came out we drove away together to the french restaurant to celebrate the occasion by a dinner. i went from there up to monte pincio in a glorious sunshine, rejoiced to see the trees again, and the people in their sunday finery, and the lovely women's faces, as well as at being able to talk to people once more. it was all like new life in a new world. i met a good many scandinavians, who congratulated me, and a young savant, giuseppe saredo, who, as professor of law, had been removed from siena to rome, and with whom, at the house of dall'ongaro at florence, i had had some delightful talks. we decided that we would keep in touch with one another. xlviii. it was only this one day, however, that happiness and the sun shone upon me. on the morrow pains in my right leg, in which there was a vein swollen, made me feel very unwell. so ignorant was the doctor that he declared this to be of no importance, and gave me a little ointment with which to rub my leg. but i grew worse from day to day, and after a very short time my leg was like a lump of lead. i was stretched once more for some months on a sick-bed, and this weakened me the more since very heroic measures were used in the treatment of the complaint, a violent attack of phlebitis. the leg was rubbed every day from the sole of the foot to the hip with mercury ointment, which could not be without its effect on my general health. still, i kept up my spirits finely. among the scandinavians who showed me kindness at this time i gratefully remember the danish painters rosenstand and mackeprang, who visited me regularly and patiently, and my friend walter runeberg, the finnish sculptor, whose cheerfulness did me good. other scandinavians with whom i was less well acquainted came to see me now and again, but they had one very annoying habit. it was customary at that time for all letters to be addressed, for greater security, to the danish consulate, which served the purpose of a general scandinavian consulate. anyone who thought of coming to see me would fetch what letters had arrived for me that day and put them in his pocket to bring me. the letters i ought to have had at ten o'clock in the morning i generally received at seven in the evening. but these gentlemen often forgot to pay their visit at all, or did not get time, and then it would happen that after having gone about with the letters in their pockets for a few days, they took them back to the consulate, whence they were sent to me, once, three days late. as my whole life on my sick-bed was one constant, painful longing for letters from home, the more so as my mother, all the time i was in bed, was lying dangerously ill, i felt vexed at the thoughtless behaviour of my compatriots. however, i had not travelled so far to meet northmen, and i learnt far more from the one italian who sat by my bedside day after day, giuseppe saredo. it was amusing to note the difference between his ways and the northmen's. he did not come in; he exploded. at six o'clock in the evening, he would rush in without knocking at the door, shouting at one and the same time italian to the people of the house, and french to me. he talked at a furious rate, and so loudly that people who did not know might have fancied we were quarrelling, and he changed his seat once a minute, jumped up from the easy chair and seated himself half in the window, began a sentence there and finished it sitting on my bed. and every second or third day he either himself brought books to entertain me or sent large parcels by a messenger. he had risen to be professor at the university of the the capital, without ever having been either student or graduate. his family were too poor for him to study. for many years, when a lad, he had never eaten dinner. his occupation, when at last he began to get on, was that of proof-reader in a printing establishment, but he tried to add to his income by writing melodramas for the boulevard theatres in turin. he thought he had written over fifty. he told me: "the manager generally came to me on a sunday, when we were at liberty, and said: 'we must have a new play for next sunday.' on monday the first act was finished, on tuesday the second, etc.; and every act was delivered as it was written, and the parts allotted. sometimes the last act was only finished on saturday morning, which, however, would not prevent the piece being played on sunday evening." in a number of the _revue des deux mondes_ for we found saredo mentioned among the melodramatists of italy. this must have been ferreted out privately, since he always wrote these melodramas anonymously, he having determined, with naïve conceit, "not to stain his future reputation." when he was twenty-one, he tried to raise himself from this rank to that of a journalist, and succeeded; he sent all sorts of articles to three newspapers. from his twenty-first to his twenty-fourth year he wrote for the daily papers, and wrote gay accounts of the volatile lives of young italian journalists with the ladies of the theatres. then he fell in love with the lady who later became his wife (known as a novelist under the pseudonym of ludovico de rosa), and from that time forth never looked at another woman. all his life he cherished a great admiration for his wife and gratitude towards her. when he had commenced his legal work, he strained every nerve to the utmost, and obtained his professorships in the various towns through competition, without having followed the usual university path. "i have always had the most unshaken faith in my star," he said one day, "even when, from hunger or despair, thoughts of suicide occurred to me. when i broke my black bread, i said to myself: 'the day will come when i shall eat white.'" like all italians at that time, saredo detested and despised modern france. as far as reconquered rome was concerned, he regarded her with sorrowful eyes. "there are only nobility, ecclesiastics, and workmen here," he said; "no middle classes, no industry and no trade. absurd tariff laws have up till now shut off the papal states from the surrounding world. and what a government! a doctor, who after his second visit did not make his patient confess to a priest, lost his official post, if he happened to hold one, and was in any case sent to prison for five months. a doctor who did not go to mass a certain number of times during the week was prohibited practising. the huge number of tied-up estates made buying and selling very difficult. the new government has struck the nobility a fatal blow by abolishing entailed property and lands. the calling in of the ecclesiastical property by the state is giving the towns a chance to breathe." whenever i revisited italy, i saw saredo. his heroism during the inquiries into the irregularities in naples in - made his name beloved and himself admired in his native country. he died in , the highest life official in italy; since he had been president of the council. xlix. i came under an even greater debt of gratitude than to saredo, to the good-natured people in whose house i lay ill. i was as splendidly looked after as if i had made it a specified condition that i should be nursed in case of illness. my landlady, maria, especially, was the most careful nurse, and the best creature in the world, although she had the physiognomy of a regular italian criminal, when her face was in repose. the moment she spoke, however, her features beamed with maternal benevolence. after the hospital, it was a decided change for the better. i was under no one's tyranny and did not feel as though i were in prison; i could complain if my food was bad, and change _trattoria_, when i myself chose. everything was good. as long as i was well, i had taken hardly any notice of the people in the house, hardly exchanged a word with them; i was out all day, and either hastily asked them to do my room, or to put a little on the fire. it was only when i fell ill that i made their acquaintance. let me quote from my notes at the time: maria is forty, but looks nearly sixty. her husband is a joiner, a stout, good-looking man, who works all day for his living, and has a shop. then there is maria's niece, the nineteen-year-old filomena, a tall, handsome girl. every evening they have fine times, laugh, sing, and play cards. on sunday evening they go out to the fair (_alla fiera_) and look at the things without buying. others have to pay a lire to go in, but they go in free, as they know some of the people. on festival occasions maria wears a silk dress. there is a crucifix over my bed, an oleograph of the madonna and child and a heart, embroidered with gold on white, horribly pierced by the seven swords of pain, which were supposed to be nails; on the centre of the heart, you read, partly in latin, partly in greek letters: jesu xpi passio. all the same, maria is very sceptical. yesterday, on the evening of my birthday, we had the following conversation: _myself_: "here you celebrate your saints' day; not your birthday; but, you know, up in the north we have not any saints"--and, thinking it necessary to add a deep-drawn religious sigh, i continued: "we think it enough to believe in god." "oh! yes," she said slowly, and then, a little while after: "that, too, is his own business." "how?" "well," she said, "you know that i am dreadfully ignorant; i know nothing at all, but i think a great deal. there are these people now who are always talking about the lord. i think it is all stuff. when i married, they said to me: 'may it please the lord that your husband be good to you.' i thought: if i had not been sensible enough to choose a good husband, it would not help me much what should please the lord. later on they said: 'may it please the lord to give you sons.' i had some, but they died when they were little ones. then i thought to myself: 'if my husband and i do not do something in the matter, it won't be much use for the lord to be pleased to give them to us. nature, too, has something to say to it. (_anche la natura è una piccola cosa_.) you have no idea, sir, how we have suffered from priests here in the papal state. everyone had to go to confession, and as of course they did not wish to confess their own sins, they confessed other people's,--and told lies, too,--and in that way the priests knew everything. if the priest had heard anything about a person, he or she would get a little ticket from him: 'come to me at such and such a time! 'then, when the person went, he would say: 'are you mad to live with such and such a person without being married!'--and all the while he himself had a woman and a nest full of children. then he would say: 'i won't have you in my parish,' and he would publish the poor thing's secret to the whole world. or, if he were more exasperated, he would say: 'out of the pope's country!' and send for a few carabineers; they would take one to a cart and drive one to the frontier; there, there were fresh carabineers, who took one farther--and all without trial, or any enquiry. often the accusation was false. but we were ruled by spies, and all their power was based on the confessional, which is nothing but spying. shortly before easter, a priest came and counted how many there were in the house. if afterwards there were one who did not go to mass, then his name was stuck up on the church door as an infidel, in disgrace. it is many years now since i have been to any confessor. when i die, i shall say: 'god, forgive me my sins and my mistakes,' and shall die in peace without any priest." whatever we talk about, maria always comes back to her hatred of the priests. the other day, we were speaking of the annoyance i had been subjected to by a compatriot of mine, k.b., who came to see me, but looked more particularly at a large _fiasco_ i had standing there, containing four bottles of chianti. he tasted the wine, which was very inferior, declared it 'nice,' and began to drink, ten glasses straight off. at first he was very polite to me, and explained that it was impossible to spend a morning in a more delightful manner than by visiting the sistine chapel first, and me in my sick-room afterwards, but by degrees he became ruder and ruder, and as his drunkenness increased i sank in his estimation. at last he told me that i was intolerably conceited, and started abusing me thoroughly. lying defenceless in bed, and unable to move, i was obliged to ring for maria, and whisper to her to fetch a few gentlemen from the scandinavian club, who could take the drunken man home, after he had wasted fully six hours of my day. i managed in this way to get him out of the door. he was hardly gone than maria burst out: "_che porcheria!_" and then added, laughing, to show me her knowledge of languages: "_cochonnerie, schweinerei!_" she has a remarkable memory for the words she has heard foreigners use. she knows a number of french words, which she pronounces half like italian, and she also knows a little russian and a little german, having, when a young girl, kept house for a russian prince and his family. "i feel," she said to me, "that i could have learnt both french and german easily, if i could have _compared_ them in a book. but i can neither read nor write. these wretched priests have kept us in ignorance. and now i am old and good for nothing. i was forty a little while ago, and that is too old to learn the alphabet. do you know, signore, how it originally came about that i did not believe, and despised the priests? i was twelve years old, and a tall girl, and a very good-looking girl, too, though you cannot see that, now that i am old and ugly." (you can see it very plainly, for her features are haughty and perfectly pure of line; it is only that her expression, when she sits alone, is sinister.) "i lost my father when i was five years old. about that time my mother married again, and did not trouble herself any more about me, as she had children with her new husband. so i was left to myself, and ran about the streets, and became absolutely ungovernable, from vivacity, life, and mischief, for i was naturally a very lively child. then one day i met a mule, alone; the man had left it; i climbed up, and seated myself upon it, and rode about, up and down the street, until a dog came that frightened the mule and it kicked and threw me over its head. there i lay, with a broken collar-bone, and some of the bone stuck out through the skin. then a doctor came and wanted to bind it up for me, but i was ashamed for him to see my breast, and would not let him. he said: 'rubbish! i have seen plenty of girls.' so i was bound up and for six weeks had to lie quite still. in the meantime a priest, whom they all called don carlo--i do not know why they said don--came to see me, and when i was a little better and only could not move my left arm, he said to me one day, would i go and weed in his garden, and he would give me money for it. so i went every day into the garden, where i could very well do the work with one arm. he came down to me, brought me sweets and other things, and asked me to be his friend. i pretended not to understand. he said, too, how pretty i was, and such things. then at last one day, he called me into his bedroom, and first gave me sweets, and then set me on his knee. i did not know how to get away. then i said to him: 'it is wrong, the madonna would not like it.' do you know, sir, what he replied? he said: 'child! there is no madonna (_non c'è madonna_) she is only a bridle for the common people' (_è un freno per il populo basso_). then i was anxious to run away, and just then my mother passed by the garden, and as she did not see me there, called, 'anna maria! anna maria!' i said: 'mother is calling me,' and ran out of the room. then mother said to me: 'what did the priest say to you, and what did he do to you? you were in his bedroom.' i said: 'nothing'; but when my mother went to confession, instead of confessing her sins, she said over and over again to him: 'what have you done to my daughter? i will have my daughter examined, to see what sort of a man you are.' he declared: 'i will have you shot if you do' (_una buona schioppettata_). so mother did not dare to go farther in the matter. but she would not believe me." here we were interrupted by the russian woman from next door coming in; she is married, more or less, to a waiter, and she complained of his volatility, and cried with jealousy. "once i was just as weak," said maria. "when i was newly married i was so jealous of my husband, that i could neither eat nor drink if any one came to me and said: 'this evening he is with such and such a one.' if i tried to eat, i was sick at once. i am just as fond of him as i was then, but i am cured now. if i saw his infidelity with my own eyes, i should not feel the least bit hurt about it. then, i could have strangled him." filomena italian landladies--the carnival--the moccoli feast--filomena's views filomena sings lustily from early morning till late at night, and her name suits her. the greek philomela has acquired this popular form, and in use is often shortened to filomé. the other day i made her a present of a bag of english biscuits. her face beamed as i have never besides seen anything beam but the face of my _cafetière_--he is a boy of twelve--when now and again he gets a few _soldi_ for bringing me my coffee or tea. anyone who has only seen the lighting up of northern faces has no conception,--as even painters admit,--of such transfiguration. yes, indeed! filomena's tall figure and fresh mountain blood would freshen up the goldschmidtian human race to such an extent that they would become better men and women in his next books. i have seen a little of the carnival. this morning filomena came to my room, to fetch a large italian flag which belongs there. "i am going to wave it on thursday," she said, and added, with blushing cheeks, "then i shall have a mask on." but this evening she could not restrain herself. for the first time during the five months i have lived here, and for the first time during the month i have been ill, she came in without my having called or rung for her. she had a red silk cap on, with a gold border. "what do you say to that, sir!" she said, and her clear laughter rang through the room. it revived my sick self to gaze at ease at so much youth, strength and happiness; then i said a few kind words to her, and encouraged by them she burst into a stream of eloquence about all the enjoyment she was promising herself. this would be the first carnival she had seen; she came from the mountains and was going back there this spring. she was in the seventh heaven over her cap. she always reminds me, with her powerful frame, of the young giantess in the fairy tale who takes up a peasant and his plough in the hollow of her hand. filomena is as tall as a moderately tall man, slenderly built, but with broad shoulders. she impresses one as enjoying life thoroughly. she has herself made all she wears--a poor little grey woollen skirt with an edging of the italian colours, which has been lengthened some nine inches at the top by letting in a piece of shirting. a thin red-and-black-striped jacket that she wears, a kind of loose garibaldi, is supposed to hide this addition, which it only very imperfectly does. her head is small and piquant; her hair heavy, blue-black; her eyes light brown, of exquisite shape, smiling and kind. she has small, red lips, and the most beautiful teeth that i remember seeing. her complexion is brown, unless she blushes; then it grows darker brown. her figure is unusually beautiful, but her movements are heavy, so that one sees at once she is quite uneducated. still, she has a shrug of the shoulders, ways of turning and twisting her pretty head about, that are absolutely charming. i have sent filomena into the town to buy a pound of figs for me and one for herself. while she is away, i reflect that i cannot sufficiently congratulate myself on my excellent landlady, and the others. as a rule, these roman lodging-house keepers are, judging by what one hears, perfect bandits. when f., the norwegian sculptor, lay dangerously ill, the woman in whose house he was did not even speak to him; she went out and left him alone in the house. when the danish dilettante s. was at death's door, his landlady did not enter his room once a day, or give him a drink of water, and he was obliged to keep a servant. v.'s landlady stole an opera-glass, a frock-coat, and a great deal of money from him. most foreigners are swindled in a hundred different ways; if they make a stain on the carpet, they must pay for a new one. maria looks after me like a mother. every morning she rubs me with the ointment the doctor has prescribed. when i have to have a bath, she takes me in her arms, without any false shame, and puts me in the water; then takes me up and puts me to bed again; after my sojourn in the hospital, i am not very heavy. what i am most astonished at is the indulgent delicacy of these people. for instance, maria has forbidden her good-natured husband, whom, like filomena, i like to call _zio_ (uncle), to eat garlic (the favourite food of the romans) while i am ill, that i may not be annoyed in my room by the smell. i have only to say a word, and she and her niece run all my errands for me. indeed, the other day, maria exclaimed, quite indignantly: "sir, do not say '_when_ you go into the town, will you buy me this or that?' are we robbers, are we scoundrels? only say, 'go,' and i will go." i never say to her: "will you do me a favour?" without her replying: "two, sir." yes, and she heaps presents upon me; she and filomena bring me, now a bundle of firewood, now a glass of good wine, now macaroni, etc. all the danes who come here are astonished, and say: "you have got deucedly good people to look after you." maria's greatest pleasure is talking. she has no time for it in the day. in the evening, however, she tidies my room slowly, entertaining me all the time. when she has quite finished, at the time of day when others are drowsy or go to bed, she still likes to have just a little more conversation, and she knows that when i see she has put the last thing into its place, her task for the day is ended, and i shall dismiss her with a gracious _buona sera, bon riposo!_ to put off this moment as long as possible, she will continue to hold some object in her hand, and, standing in the favourite position of the romans, with her arms akimbo, and some toilet article under her arm, will hold a long discourse. she sometimes looks so indescribably comic that i almost choke with suppressed laughter as we talk. to-day is the first day of the carnival. so even filomena has been out this evening in tri-coloured trousers. ... i am interrupted by the inmates of all the floors returning from the carnival, all talking at once, and coming straight in to me to show me their dress. amongst them from the carnival, all talking at once, and coming straight in to me to show me their dress. amongst them are guests from the mountains, tall, dark men, in exceedingly fantastic garb. they tell me how much they have enjoyed themselves. filomena has naïvely made me a present of a few burnt almonds with sugar upon them, that she has had in her trouser pockets, and informs me with impetuous volubility how she has talked to all the people she met, "who do not know her and whom she does not know." she has had one of my white shirts on, which she had embroidered all over with ribbons till it looked like a real costume. she is beaming with happiness. the tambourine tinkles all the evening in the street; they are dancing the tarantella to it down below, and it is difficult to go to sleep. maria stays behind, when the others have gone, to finish her day's work. it is a sight for the gods to see her doing it with a gold brocade cap on her head, and in red, white and green trousers! none of them guess what a torment it is to me to lie and hear about the carnival, which is going on a few streets from where i am lying, but which i cannot see. when shall i spend a winter in rome again? and no other carnival will be to compare with this one after the romans for ten years have held altogether aloof from it, and one hardly even on _moccoli eve_ saw more than two carriages full of silly americans pelting one another with confetti, while the porters and the french soldiers flung jibes and dirt at each other. now rome is free, jubilation breaks out at all the pores of the town, and i, although i am in rome, must be content to see the reflection of the festival in a few ingenuous faces. it is morning. i have slept well and am enjoying the fresh air through the open windows. heavens! what a lovely girl is standing on the balcony nearly opposite, in a chemise and skirt! i have never seen her there before. olive complexion, blue-black hair, the most beautiful creature; i cannot see her features distinctly. now they are throwing something across to her from the house next door to us, on a piece of twine; i think they are red flowers. they almost touch her, and yet she cannot catch them, and laughing stretches out both hands a second, a third and fourth time, equally unsuccessfully. why, it is our filomena, visiting the model the other side the street. she gives up the attempt with a little grimace, and goes in. loud voices are singing the bersagliere hymn as a duet under my window. verily, things are alive in _purificazione_ to-day. the contagion of example affects a choir of little boys who are always lying outside the street door, and they begin to sing the garibaldi march for all they are worth. our singers at the theatre at home would be glad of such voices. the whole street is ringing now; all are singing one of verdi's melodies. i am sitting up in bed. at the side of my bed, filomena, with her black, heavy hair well dressed, and herself in a kind of transitional toilette; her under-garment fine, the skirt that of a festival gown, on account of the preparations for the carnival; her top garment the usual red jacket. she is standing with her hand on her hip, but this does not make her look martial or alarming. _i_--you ate _magro_ to-day? (it was a fast day.) _she_--good gracious! _magro_ every day just now! _i_--do you know, filomena, that i eat _grasso_? _she_--yes, and it is your duty to do so. _i_--why? _she_--because you are ill, and you must eat meat; the pope himself ate meat when he was ill. religion does not mean that we are to injure our health. _i_--how do you know, filomena, what religion means? _she_--from my confessor. i had a little headache the other day, and he ordered me at once to eat meat. _i_--the worst of it is that i have no confessor and do not go to church. shall i be damned for that? _she_--oh! no, sir, that does not follow! do you think i am so stupid as not to see that you others are far better christians than we? you are good; the friends who come to see you are good. the romans, on the other hand, who go to church one day, kill people the next, and will not let go about the streets in peace. i am quite sorry that she is to go home at easter; i shall miss her face about the house. but i have missed more. late evening. they have come back from the carnival. filomena came in and presented me with an object the use of which is an enigma to me. a roll of silver paper. now i see what it is, a carnival cap. my danish friend r. declares she has got it into her head that when i am better i shall marry her, or rather that maria has put it into her head. i thought i would see how matters stood. i began talking to maria about marriages with foreigners. maria mentioned how many girls from rome and capri had married foreigners, but added afterwards, not without significance, addressing me: "it is not, as you believe, and as you said once before, that a girl born in a warm country would complain of being taken to a cold one. if she did, she would be stupid. but a roman girl will not do for a foreign gentleman. the roman girls learn too little." much, the lower classes certainly do not learn. before i came, filomena did not know what ink was. now i have discovered that she does not know what a watch is. she reckons time by the dinner and the ave maria. not long ago her uncle spent a week in trying to teach this great child to make and read figures, but without success. not long ago she had to write to her mother in the mountains, so went to a public writer, and had it done for her. she came in to me very innocently afterwards to know whether the right name and address were upon it. i told her that she could very well have let me write the letter. since then, all the people in the house come to me when there is anything they want written, and ask me to do it for them. the news of my skill has spread. apropos of letters, i have just read the four letters that i received to-day. filomena is perpetually complaining of my sweetheart's uncontrollable passion as revealed in this writing madness. she imagines that all the letters i receive from denmark are from one person, and that person, of course, a woman. she herself hardly receives one letter a year. i have (after careful consideration) committed a great imprudence, and escaped without hurt. i had myself carried down the stairs, drove to the corso, saw the carnival, and am back home again. i had thought first of driving up and down the corso in a carriage, but did not care to be wholly smothered with confetti, especially as i had not the strength to pelt back. nor could i afford to have the horses and carriage decorated. so i had a good seat in a first-floor balcony engaged for me, first row. at o'clock i got up, dressed, and was carried down. i was much struck by the mild summer air out of doors (about the same as our late may), and i enjoyed meeting the masked people in the streets we passed through. the few but rather steep stairs up to the balcony were a difficulty. but at last i was seated, and in spite of sickness and weakness, enjoyed the carnival in rome on its most brilliant day. i was sitting nearly opposite to the high box of princess margharita, from which there was not nearly so good a view as from my seat. this was what i saw: all the balconies bedecked with flags; red, white and green predominating. in the long, straight street, the crowd moving in a tight mass. in between them, an up and a down stream of carriages, drawn at a walking pace by two horses, and forced at every moment to stop. the streets re-echoed with the jingle of the horses' bells, and with shouts of glee at a magnificently decorated carriage, then at some unusually beautiful women, then at a brisk confetti fight between two carriages, or a carriage and a balcony. and this air, re-echoing with the ring of bells, with shouting, and with laughter, was no empty space. anyone reaching the corso, as i had done, after the play had only been going on for an hour and a half, found themselves in the midst of a positive bombardment of tiny little aniseed balls, or of larger plaster balls, thrown by hand, from little tin cornets, or half-bushel measures, and against which it is necessary to protect one's self by a steel wire mask before the face. for whilst some gentle young ladies almost pour the confetti down from their carriages, so that it falls like a soft shower of rain, many of the romans fling it with such force that without a mask the eyes might suffer considerably. the brim of one's hat, and every fold in one's clothes, however, are full of little balls. most people go about with a huge, full bag by their side, others on the balconies have immense baskets standing, which are hardly empty before they are re-filled by eager sellers. all the ladies standing in the windows, who were disguised as turkish ladies, or workwomen from the port, had a deep wooden trough, quite full, brought outside their windows, and into this supply dipped continually--in the street, which had been covered with soil for the sake of the horse-racing, was a crowd of people in fancy dress, many of them having great fun, and being very amusing. one old woman in a chemise was amongst the best. a young fellow, dressed entirely in scarlet, more particularly amused himself by putting the officers of the national guard, who were walking about to keep order, out of countenance. when they were looking especially stern, he would go up to them and tickle them on the cheeks, and talk baby talk to them, and they had to put the best face they could on it. the street life and the pedestrians, however, did not attract much attention. all the interest was centred on the carriages, and the games between them and the windows and balconies. the people in carriages were all in fancy dress. amongst them one noticed charming groups of roman ladies in light cloaks of red silk with a red steel wire mask before their faces, through which one could catch a glimpse of their features; there was a swarm of delightful figures, certainly half of them in men's clothes, armed young sailors, for instance. fine, happy faces! and the young men, how handsome! not flashing eyes, as people affectedly say, but happy eyes; a good, healthy physique, an expression which seemed to say that they had breathed in sunshine and happiness and all the beatitude of laziness, all the mild and good-humoured comfort of leisure, all their lives long. one party had a colossal cart with outriders and postilions, and hung in the yards and stood on the thwarts of a large cutter poised upon it, in becoming naval officers' dress, flinging magnificent bouquets to all the beautiful ladies who drove past. the bouquets would have cost several lire each, and they flung them by the hundred, so they must have been young fellows of means. the throwing of confetti is merely bellicose and ordinary. infinitely more interesting is the coquettish, ingratiating, genuinely italian flinging backwards and forwards of bouquets. the grace and charm of the manner in which they are flung and caught, nothing can surpass; there may be real passion in the way in which six or seven bouquets in succession are flung at one and the same lady, who never omits to repay in similar coin. one carriage was especially beautiful; it had a huge square erection upon it, entirely covered with artificial roses and greenery, which reached almost to the second storey of the houses, and upon it, in two rows, facing both sides of the streets, stood the loveliest roman girls imaginable, flinging bouquets unceasingly. most of the carriages have tall poles sticking up with a crossway bar at the top, and there are bouquets on every bar, so there is a constant supply to draw from. beautiful princess margharita was, of course, the object of much homage, although her balcony was on the second floor. one form this took was very graceful. a few young gentlemen in blue and white drove slowly past; one of them had a large flat basket filled with lovely white roses; he stuck a long halberd through the handle and hoisted the basket up to the princess, being richly rewarded with bouquets. one wag hit upon an idea that was a brilliant success. at five o'clock he sent a bladder, in the shape of a huge turkey, up in the flickering sunlight. it was so fixed up as to move its head about, with an expression of exceedingly ridiculous sentimentality, now to the right, now caressingly to the left, as it ascended. the whole corso rang again with laughter and clapping. the horse-racing at the end was not of much account. the horses start excited by the rocket let off at their tails, and by all the sharp pellets hanging around about them, to say nothing of the howling of the crowd. at six o'clock i was at home and in bed. k.b. has been here to see me; filomena hates and despises him from the bottom of her heart since the day that he got drunk on my wine. when he was gone she said: "_brutta bestia_, i forgot to look whether he was clean to-day." she and maria declare that he is the only one of all my acquaintances who does not wear clean linen. this point of cleanliness is a mild obsession of filomena's just now. she prides herself greatly on her cleanliness, and asks me every day whether she is clean or not. she is a new convert to cleanliness, and renegades or newly initiated people are in all religions the most violent. when i came to the house, her face was black and she washed her hands about once a day. r--- then remarked about her--which was a slight exaggeration--that if one were to set her up against the wall, she would stick fast. she noticed with unfeigned astonishment how many times i washed myself, and asked for fresh water, how often i had clean shirts, etc. this made a profound impression on her young mind, and after i came back from the hospital she began in earnest to rub her face with a sponge and to wash herself five or six times a day, likewise to wash the handkerchiefs she wears round her neck. maria looks on at all this with surprise. she says, like the old woman in tonietta, by henrik hertz: "a great, strong girl like that does not need to wash and splash herself all over like an englishwoman." the lectures she has given me every time i have wanted to wash myself, on the harm water does an invalid, are many and precious. whenever i ask for water i might be wanting to commit suicide; it is only after repeated requests that she brings it, and then with a quiet, resigned expression, as if to say: "i have done my best to prevent this imprudence: i wash my hands of all responsibility." filomena, in her new phase of development, is quite different. she looks at my shirt with the eyes of a connoisseur, and says: "it will do for to-morrow; a clean one the day after to-morrow!" or, "did you see what beautiful cuffs the tall, dark man (m. the painter) had on yesterday?" or, "excuse my skirt being so marked now, i am going to have a clean one later in the day," or, "is my cheek dirty? i don't think so, for i have washed myself twice to-day; you must remember that i am very dark-complexioned, almost like a moor." or else there will be a triumphal entry into my room, with a full water-can in her hand, one of the very large ones that are used here. "what is that, filomena? what am i to do with that?" "look, sir, it is full." "well, what of that?" "it is the waiter's water-can; it has been standing there full for ten days (scornfully): he is afraid of water; he only uses it for his coffee." she has forgotten how few months it is since she herself was afraid of water. she came in while i was eating my supper, and remarked: "you always read at your meals; how can you eat and read at the same time? i do not know what reading is like, but i thought it was more difficult than that. it is a great misfortune for me that i can neither read nor write. supposing i were to be ill like you, how should i pass away the time! there was no school at camarino, where i was born, and i lived in the country till i was eighteen, and learnt nothing at all. we were nine brothers and sisters; there was seldom any food in the house; sometimes we worked; sometimes we lay on the ground. it is unfortunate that i cannot read, for i am not at all beautiful; if i could only do something, i should be able to get a husband." "don't you know any of the letters, filomena?" "no, sir." "don't trouble about that. you are happier than i, who know a great deal more than you. you laugh and sing all day long; i neither laugh nor sing." "dear sir, you will laugh, and sing as well, when you get home. then your little girl (_ragazza_) who is so _appassionato_ that she writes four letters a day, will make _fête_ for you, and i think that when you go to the _osteria_ with your friends you laugh. it is enough now for you to be patient." as she had spoken about getting a husband, i asked: "are your sisters married?" "they are all older than i, and married." (saving her pride in the first part of her reply.) after a few minutes' reflection she went on: "i, for my part, will not have a husband under thirty; the young ones all beat their wives." shortly afterwards, i put an end to the audience. we had had a few short discussions, and i had been vanquished, apparently by her logic, but chiefly by reason of her better mastery of the language, and because i defended all sorts of things in joke. at last i said: "have you noticed, filomena, that when we argue it is always you who silence me? so you can see, in spite of all my reading, that you have better brains than i." this compliment pleased her; she blushed and smiled, without being able to find a reply. she realises the northern ideal of the young woman not spoilt by novel-reading. nor does she lack intelligence, although she literally does not know what north and south mean; she is modest, refined in her way, and happy over very little. for the moment she is engaged in making the little dog bark like mad by aggravatingly imitating the mewing of a cat. later. the boy from the café brings me my supper. what has become of filomena? i wonder if she is out? i cannot hear her having her evening fight with the boy in the passage. she likes to hit him once a day for exercise. maria comes in. "do you hear the cannon, sir? what do you think it is?" i reply calmly: "it is war; the zouaves (papal troops) are coming." maria goes out and declares the reply of the oracle in the next room. some cannon salutes really were being fired. maria hurries down into the street to hear about it and filomena comes in to me. "i am afraid," she says. "do you mean it?" she was laughing and trembling at the same time. i saw that the fear was quite real. "is it possible that you can be so afraid? there is not really any war or any zouaves, it was only a joke." that pacified her. "i was afraid, if you like," said she, "when the italians (the romans never call themselves italians) marched into rome. one shell came after another; one burst on the roof of the house opposite." "who are you for, the pope or vittorio?" "for neither. i am a stupid girl; i am for the one that will feed and clothe me. but i have often laughed at the zouaves. one of them was standing here one day, taking pinch after pinch of snuff, and he said to me: 'the italians will never enter rome.' i replied: 'not if they take snuff, but they will if they storm the town.'" "do you think that the pope will win?" "no, i think his cause is lost. perhaps there will even come a time when no one goes to churches here." _she_: "who goes to church! the girls to meet their lovers; the young men to see a pretty shop-girl. we laugh at the priests." "why?" "because they are ridiculous: if it thunders, they say at once that it is a sign from god. the sky happens to be flaming red, like it was last october. that was because the italians entered rome in september. everything is a sign from god, a sign of his anger, his exasperation. he is not angry, that is clear enough. if he had not wanted the italians to come in, they would not have come, but would all have died at once." she said this last with great earnestness and pathos, with an upward movement of her hand, and bowed her head, like one who fears an unknown power. maria returned, saying people thought the shots meant that garibaldi had come. said i: "there, he is a brave man. try to be like him, filomena. it is not right for a big strong girl to tremble." _she_: "i am not strong, but still, i am stronger than you, who have been weakened so much by your illness,--and yet, who knows, you have been much better the last few days. shall we try?" i placed my right hand in hers, first tested her strength a little, and then found to my surprise that her arm was not much stronger than that of an ordinary lady; then i bent my fingers a little, and laid her very neatly on the floor. i was sitting in bed; she was on her knees in front of the bed, but i let her spring up. it was a pretty sight; the blue-black hair, the laughing mouth with the fine, white teeth, the brown, smiling eyes. as she got up, she said: "you are well now; i am not sorry to have been conquered." * * * * * have taken my second flight. i have been at the moccoli fête, had myself carried and driven there and back, like last time. saredo had taken a room on the corso; i saw everything from there, and now i have the delightful impressions of it all left. what exuberant happiness! what jubilation! what childlike gaiety! it is like going into a nursery and watching the children play, hearing them shout and enjoy themselves like mad, as one can shout and enjoy things one's self no longer. i arrived late and only saw the end of the processions; far more carriages, wilder shouting, more madness,--bacchantic, stormy,--than last time. the whole length of the corso was one shriek of laughter. and how many lovely faces at the windows, on the balconies and verandas! large closed carriages with hidden music inside and graceful ladies on the top. as _i preti_ (the catholic papers) had said that all who took part in the carnival were paid by the government, a number of men and women, in the handsomest carriages--according to the _nuova roma_ for to-day, more than , --had the word _pagato_ (paid) fastened to their caps, which evoked much amusement. then the lancers cleared the street at full galop for the horse races (_barberi_), and at once an immense procession of polichinelli and ridiculous equestrians in don quixote armour organised itself and rode down the corso at a trot in parody. then came the mad, snorting horses. then a few minutes,--and night fell over the seven heights of rome, and the corso itself lay in darkness. then the first points of light began to make their appearance. here below, one little shimmer of light, and up there another, and two there, and six here, and ten down there to the left, and hundreds on the right, and then thousands, and many, many thousands. from one end of the great long street to the other, from the first floor to the roof of every house and every palace, there is one steady twinkling of tiny flames, of torches, of large and small lights; the effect is surprising and peculiar. as soon as the first light appeared, young men and girls ran and tried to blow each other's candles out. even the children took part in the game; i could see into several houses, where it was going on briskly. then, from every side-street decorated carriages began to drive on to the corso again, but this time every person held a candle in his hand. yes, and that was not all! at least every other of the large waggons--they were like immense boxes of flowers--had, on poles, or made fast, bengal fire of various colours, which lighted up every house they went past, now with a red, now with a green flare. and then the thousands of small candles, from every one in the throng, from carriages, balconies, verandas, sparkled in the great flame, fighting victoriously with the last glimmer of daylight. people ran like mad down the corso and fanned out the lights in the carriages. but many a roman beauty found a better way of lighting up her features without exposing herself to the risk of having her light put out. opposite me, for instance, on the second floor, a lovely girl was standing in a window. in the shutter by her side she had fixed one of those violent red flares so that she stood in a bright light, like sunlight seen through red glass, and it was impossible not to notice her. meanwhile, the people on the balconies held long poles in their hands, with which they unexpectedly put out the small candles in the carriages. you heard incessantly, through the confusion, the shouts of individuals one to another, and their jubilation when a long-attempted and cleverly foiled extinguishing was at length successful, and the clapping and shouts of _bravo!_ at an unusually brightly lighted and decorated carriage. the pickpockets meanwhile did splendid business; many of the danes lost their money. at eight o'clock i was in bed again, and shortly afterwards the people of the house came home for a moment. filomena looked splendid, and was very talkative. "_lei é ingrassato_," she called in through the door. it is her great pleasure that the hollows in my cheeks are gradually disappearing. she was now ascribing a special efficacy in this direction to moccoli eve. * * * * * at half-past ten in the morning, there is a curious spectacle in the street here. at that time domenico comes and the lottery begins. lotteries are forbidden in rome, but domenico earns his ten lire a day by them. he goes about this and the neighbouring streets bawling and shouting until he has disposed of his ninety tickets. girls and women lean out through the windows and call out the numbers they wish to have--in this respect they are boundlessly credulous. they do not believe in the pope; but they believe that there are numbers which they must become possessed of that day, even at the highest price, which is two soldi. the soldi are thrown out through the window, and each one remembers her own number. then domenico goes through all the numbers in a loud voice, that there may be no cheating. a child draws a number out of the bag, and domenico shouts: "listen, all purificazione, no. has won, listen, purificazione, ... ." the disappointed faces disappear into the houses. all those who have had , and rail against unjust fate, in strong terms. at the first rattle of the lottery bag, filomena rushes in here, opens the window, and calls for a certain number. if anyone else wants it, she must manage to find two soldi in her pocket. if i fling a few soldi from my bed towards the window, this facilitates the search. however, we never win. filomena declares that i have indescribable ill-luck in gambling, and suggests a reason. * * * * * she was again singing outside. i called her, wanting to know what it was she kept singing all the time. "they are songs from the mountains," she replied, "all _canzone d'amore_." "say them slowly, filomena. i will write them down." i began, but was so delighted at the way she repeated the verses, her excellent declamatory and rhythmic sense, that i was almost unable to write. and to my surprise, i discovered that they were all what we call ritornellos. but written down, they are dull larvae, compared with what they are with the proper pronunciation and expression. what is it byron says?: i love the language, that soft bastard latin, which melts like kisses from a female mouth, and sounds as if it should be writ on satin. i shall really feel a void when filomena goes away. the unfortunate part of it is that her dialect pronunciation is so difficult to make out, and that she swallows so many syllables in order to make the metre right, as there are generally too many feet, and it is only the delicacy of her declamation that makes up for the incorrectness of the rhymes and the verses. for instance, she constantly says _lo_ instead of _il_ (_lo soldato_), and she can never tell me how many words there are in a line, since neither she nor maria knows what a single word, as opposed to several, is, and because it is no use spelling the word to her and asking: "is that right?" since she cannot spell, and does not recognise the letters. saredo tells me that a driver who once drove him and his wife about for five days in tuscany sang all day long like filomena, and improvised all the time. this is what she, too, does continually; she inserts different words which have about the same meaning, and says: "it is all the same" (_c'è la stessa cosa_). on the other hand, she always keeps to the metre, and that with the most graceful intonation; never a faulty verse: fior di giacinto! la donna che per l'uomo piange tanto-- il pianto delle donne è pianto finto. amore mio! non prendite le fiori di nessuno, se vuoi un garofletto, lo do io. fior di limone! limone è agra, e le fronde son' amare, ma son' più' amare le pene d'amor'. lo mi' amore che si chiama peppe, lo primo giuocatore delle carte prende 'sto cuore e giuoca a tre-sette. [footnote: flower of the hyacinth! the woman who weeps so much for the man's sake-- yet, the complaint of women is a feigned one. my love! do not accept flowers from anyone. if thou wilt have a wall-flower, i will give it thee. flower of the lemon! the lemon is sharp, and its leaves are bitter; but more bitter are the torments of love. my beloved, whose name is peppe, he is the first to play cards, he has taken this heart and is playing a game of three to seven with it.] in this way i wrote out some scores. * * * * * spent an hour teaching filomena her large letters up to n, and making her say them by rote, and with that end in view have divided them into three portions--abcd--efg--ilmn. she manages all right, except that she always jumps e and l. lesson closed: "were you at church to-day, filomena?" "no, i have nothing to confess." "did you go to church last sunday?" "no, i have not been for six weeks now. i have committed no sin. what wrong do i do? i have no love affair, nothing." "what used you to confess?" "a few bad words, which had slipped out. now i do nothing wrong." "but one can go wrong, without committing any sin, when one is high-minded, for instance." "i am not high-minded. if you, on the other hand, were to imagine yourself better than the friends who come to visit you, that would be quite natural; for you are better." * * * * * the day has been long. this evening the girl had errands to do for me. she came in here after her sunday walk in the campagna. i said: "shall we read?" (just then a band of young people passed along the street with a harmonica and a lot of castanets, and commenced a song in honour of garibaldi. with all its simplicity, it sounded unspeakably affecting; i was quite softened.) she replied: "with pleasure." i thought to myself: "now to see whether she remembers a word of what i said to her yesterday." but she went on at once: "signore, i have been industrious." she had bought herself an abc and had taught herself alone not only all the large letters, but also all the little ones, and had learnt them all off by heart as well. i was so astonished that i almost fell back in the bed. "but what is this, filomena? have you learnt to read from someone else?" "no, only from you yesterday. but for five years my only wish has been to learn to read, and i am so glad to be able to." i wanted to teach her to spell. "i almost think i can a little." and she was already so far that--without spelling first--she read a whole page of two-letter spellings, almost without a mistake. she certainly very often said: "da--ad," or read _fo_ for _of_, but her progress was amazing. when she spells, she takes the words as a living reality, not merely as words, and adds something to them, for instance, _s--a, sa; l--i, li; r--e, re; salire alle scale_, (jump down the stairs.) "filomena, i could teach you to read in three weeks." _she_: "i have always thought it the greatest shame for a man or woman not to be able to read." i told her something about the progress of the human race, that the first men and women had been like animals, not at all like adam and eve. "do you think i believe that eve ate an apple and that the serpent could speak? _non credo mente_. such things are like _mal'occhi_ (belief in the evil eye)." and without any transition, she begins, _sempre allegra_, as she calls herself--to sing a gay song. just now she is exceedingly delighted with a certain large red shawl. there came a pedlar to the door; she sighed deeply at the sight of the brilliant red; so i gave it her. she is a great lover and a connoisseur of wine, like myself. we taste and drink together every dinner-time. as she always waits upon me, i often give her a little cake and wine while i am eating. now we have begun a new wine, white roman muscat. but i change my wine almost every other day. filomena had taken the one large bottle and stacked up newspapers round it on the table, so that if k.b. came he should not see it. it so happened that he came to-day, whilst i was dining and she eating with me. there was a ring; she wanted to go. "stay; perhaps it is not for me at all; and in any case, i do not ask anyone's permission for you to be here." he came in, and said in danish, as he put his hat down: "oh, so you let the girl of the house dine with you; i should not care for that." filomena, who noticed his glance in her direction, and his gesture, said, with as spiteful a look, and in as cutting a voice as she could muster: "_il signore prende il suo pranzo con chi lui pare e piace._" (the gentleman eats with whomsoever he pleases.) "does she understand danish?" he asked, in astonishment. "it looks like it," i replied. when he had gone, her _furia_ broke loose. i saw her exasperated for the first time, and it sat very comically upon her. "did you ask him whom _he_ eats with? did he say i was ugly? did you ask him whether his _ragazza_ was prettier?" (she meant a danish lady, a married woman, with whom she had frequently met k.b. in the street.) she said to me yesterday: "there is one thing i can do, sir, that you cannot. i can carry pounds' weight on my head. i can carry two _conchas_, or, if you like to try me, all that wood lying there." she has the proud bearing of the romans. read with filomena for an hour and a half. she can now spell words with three letters fairly well. this language has such a sweet ring that her spelling is like music. and to see the innocent reverence with which she says _g-r-a, gra_,--it is what a poet might envy me. and then the earnest, enquiring glance she gives me at the end of every line. it is marvellous to see this complete absorption of a grown-up person in the study of _a-b, ab_, and yet at the same time there is something almost great in this ravenous thirst for knowledge, combined with incredulity of all tradition. it is a model such as this that the poets should have had for their naïve characters. in goethe's _roman elegies_, the roman woman's figure is very inconspicuous; she is not drawn as a genuine woman of the people, she is not naïve. he knew a faustina, but one feels that he afterwards slipped a german model into her place. filomena has the uncompromising honesty and straightforwardness of an unspoilt soul. her glance is not exactly pure, but free--how shall i describe it? full, grand, simple. with a _concha_ on her head, she would look like a caryatid. if i compare her mentally with a feminine character of another poet, lamartine's graziella, an italian girl of the lower classes, like herself, i cannot but think graziella thin and poetised, down to her name. the narrator, if i remember rightly, teaches her to read, too; but graziella herself does not desire it; it is he who educates her. filomena, on the contrary, with her anxiety to learn, is an example and a symbol of a great historic movement, the poor, oppressed roman people's craving for light and knowledge. of italy's population of twenty-six millions, according to the latest, most recent statistics, seventeen millions can neither read nor write. she said to me to-day: "what do you really think, sir, do you not believe that the holy ghost is _una virtù_ and cannot be father of the child?" "you are right, filomena." "that is why i never pray." "some day, when you are very unhappy, perhaps you will pray." "i have been very unhappy; when i was a child i used to suffer horribly from hunger. i had to get up at five o'clock in the morning to work and got eight _soldi_ for standing all day long in a vineyard in the sun and digging with a spade, and as corn was dear and meat dear, we seven children seldom had a proper meal. last year, too, i was hungry often, for it was as the proverb says: 'if i eat, i cannot dress myself, and if i dress myself i cannot eat.' (what a sad and illuminating proverb!) sir, if there were any paradise, you would go there, for what you do for me. if i can only read and write, i can earn twice as much as i otherwise could. then i can be a _cameriera_, and bring my mistress a written account of expenditure every week." filomena knows that saredo is a professor at the university. but she does not know what a professor or a university is. she puts her question like this: "probably my idea of what a university is, may not be quite correct?" no one comes now. an invalid is very interesting at first, and arouses sympathy. if he continue ill too long, people unconsciously think it impossible for him to get well, and stay away. so the only resource left me all day is to chat with filomena, to whom maria has entrusted the nursing of me. every evening i read with her; yesterday she had her fourth lesson, and could almost read straight off. her complexion and the lower part of her face are like a child's; her undeveloped mental state reveals itself, thus far, in her appearance. i told her yesterday, as an experiment, that there were five continents and in each of them many countries, but she cannot understand yet what i mean, as she has no conception of what the earth looks like. she does not even know in what direction from rome her native village, camerino, lies. i will try to get hold of a map, or a globe. yesterday, we read the word _inferno_. she said: "there is no hell; things are bad enough on earth; if we are to burn afterwards, there would be two hells." "good gracious! filomena, is life so bad? why, you sing all day long." "i sing because i am well; that is perfectly natural, but how can i be content?" "what do you wish for then?" "so much money (_denari_) that i should be sure of never being hungry again. you do not know how it hurts. then there is one other thing i should like, but it is impossible. i should like not to die; i am so horribly afraid of death. i should certainly wish there were a paradise. but who can tell! still, my grandmother lived to be a hundred all but three years, and she was never ill for a day; when she was only three years from being a hundred she still went to the fields like the rest of us and worked, and was like a young woman (_giovanotta_). mother is forty-two, but although she is two years older than my aunt, she looks quite young. _chi lo sa!_ perhaps i may live to be a hundred too, never be ill--i never have been yet, one single day,--and then go in and lie down on the bed like she did and be dead at once." "she really is sweet!" said r. this evening. the word does not fit. her laugh, her little grimaces, her witticisms, quaint conceits and gestures are certainly very attractive, but her mode of expression, when she is talking freely, is very unreserved, and if i were to repeat some of her remarks to a stranger, he would perhaps think her coarse or loose. "we shall see what sort of a girl you bring home to us when you are well again, and whether you have as good taste as our frenchman. or perhaps you would rather visit her? i know how a fine gentleman behaves, when he visits his friend. she is often a lady, and rich. he comes, knocks softly at the door, sits down, and talks about difficult and learned things. then he begs for a kiss, she flings her arms round his neck; _allora, il letto rifatto, va via."_ she neither blushes nor feels the slightest embarrassment when she talks like this. "how do you know such things, when you have no experience?" "people have told me; i know it from hearsay. i myself have never been in love, but i believe that it is possible to love one person one's whole life long, and never grow tired of him, and never love another. you said the other day (for a joke?) that people ought to marry for a year or six months; but i believe that one can love the same person always." in such chat my days pass by. i feel as though i had dropped down somewhere in the sabine mountains, been well received in a house--maria is from camarino, too,--and were living there hidden from the world among these big children. yesterday, uncle had his national guard uniform on for the first time. he came in to show himself. i told him that it suited him very well, which delighted him. filomena exhibited him with admiration. when maria came home later on, she asked the others at once: "has the _signore_ seen him? what did he say? does not he want to see him again?" written down a score of ritornellos; i have chosen the best of them. many of them are rather, or very, indecent. but, as filomena says: "you do not go to hell for singing _canzone_; you cannot help what they are like." the indecent ones she will only say at a terrific rate, and not a second time. but if one pay attention, they are easy to understand. they are a mixture of audacity and simple vulgarity. they all begin with flowers. she is too undeveloped to share the educated girl's abhorrence of things that are in bad taste; everything natural, she thinks, can be said, and she speaks out, quite unperturbed. still, now she understands that there are certain things--impossible things--that i do not like to hear her say. i was sitting cutting a wafer (to take powders with) into oblates. _she_: "you must not cut into consecrated things, not even put the teeth into it. the priest says: 'thou shalt not bite christ.'" unfortunately, she has not any real impression of religion, either of its beauty or its underlying truth. none of them have any idea of what the new testament is or contains; they do not know its best-known quotations and stories. religion, to them, is four or five rigmaroles, which are printed in our _abecedario_, the creed, the ave maria, the various sacraments, etc., which they know by heart. these they reject, but they have not the slightest conception of what christianity is. if i quote a text from the new testament, they have never heard it. but they can run the seven cardinal virtues, and the seven other virtues, off by rote. one of these last, that of instructing the ignorant, is a virtue which the priesthood (partly for good reasons) have not practised to any remarkable extent in this country. yesterday maria came home in a state of great delight, from a _trattoria_, where a gentleman had spoken _tanto bene, tanto bene_ against religion and the pope and the priests; there were a few _caccialepri_ present (a derogatory expression for adherents of the priests), who had just had to come down a peg or two. when she had finished, to my astonishment, she said to me, _exactly this_: "it is nature that is god, is it not so?" an expression almost symbolical of the ignorance and credulity of the romans is their constant axiom, _chi lo sa?_ (who knows?) i said to maria the other day, after she had said it for the fourth time in a quarter of an hour: "my good maria! the beginning of wisdom is not to fear god, but to say _perche_? (why?), instead of _chi lo sa_?" yesterday, while i was eating my dinner, i heard filomena's story. she came to rome last december: "you think i came because maria wanted to help mother. i came to rome because there was a man who wanted to marry me." "what was his name?" "his name was peppe." _"lo mi' amore, che si chiama peppe."_... "ah, i do not love him at all. no, the thing is that at camerino all the men beat their wives. my sister, for instance, has always a black eye, and red stripes on her back. my friend marietta always gets beaten by her husband, and the more he beats her, the more she loves him: sometimes she goes away from him for a few days to her sister, but she always goes back again." "what has that to do with our friend peppe?" "well, you see, mother knew that peppe's brother beat his wife all day and all night; so she would not give me to him." "yes, it was bad, if it were a family failing." "so one evening father said to me: 'your aunt has written to us from rome, to ask whether you will pay her a visit of a few days.' and he showed me a false letter. aunt cannot write and knew nothing about any letter. i did not want to, much, said i would not, but came here all the same, and found that i was to stay here, and that mother did not want me to have peppe. so i began to cry, and for five whole days i cried all the time and would neither eat nor drink. then i thought to myself: it is all over between peppe and me. shall i cry myself to death for a man? so i left off crying, and very soon forgot all about him. and after a week's time i did not care anything about the whole matter, and sang and was happy, and now i want to stay in rome always." last night i got up for a little, read with filomena, and determined to go in and have supper with the family in their little room. filomena opened the door wide, and called out along the corridor: _"eccolo!"_ and then such a welcome as there was for the invalid, now that he had at last got up! and i was obliged to drink two large beer-glasses of the home-grown wine. first maria told how it was that i had always had everything so punctually whilst i was ill. it was because filomena had made the little boy from the _café_ believe that i was going to give him my watch when i got well, if he never let anything get cold. so the boy ran as though possessed, and once fell down the stairs and broke everything to atoms. "he is delirious," said filomena one day, "and talks of nothing but of giving you his watch." "how can he be so ill," said the boy suspiciously, "when he eats and drinks?" "do you want the watch or not?" said filomena, and off the lad ran. i let the others entertain me. maria said: "you told filomena something yesterday about savages; i know something about them, too. savage people live in china, and the worst of all are called mandarins. do you know what one of them did to an italian lady? she was with her family over there; suddenly there came a mandarin, carried her off, and shut her up in his house. they never found her again. then he had three children by her; but one day he went out and forgot to shut the door; she ran quickly out of the house, down to the water, and saw a ship far away. do you know what the mandarin did, sir, when he came home and found that his wife was gone? he took the three children, tore them through the middle, and threw the pieces out into the street." it reminded one of lucidarius, and other mediaeval legends. then our good _zio_, the honest uncle, began, and told maria and filomena the history of napoleon i., fairly correctly. he had heard it from his master leonardo, who taught him his trade; the man had taken part in five of the campaigns. the only egregious mistake he made was that he thought the austrians had gradually poisoned the duke of reichstadt, because he threatened to become even more formidable than his father. but that the old grenadier might easily have believed. the thing that astonished me was that the narrative did not make the slightest impression upon either maria or filomena. i asked filomena if she did not think it was very remarkable. but she clearly had a suspicion that it was all lies, besides, what has happened in the world before her day is of as little importance to her as what goes on in another planet; finally, she abominates war. _zio_ concluded his story with childlike self-satisfaction: "when i learnt about all this, i was only an apprentice; now i am _mastro nino_." these last few days that i have been able to stumble about the room a little, i have had a feeling of delight and happiness such as i have hardly experienced before. the very air is a fête. the little black-haired youngsters, running about this picturesquely steep street, are my delight, whenever i look out of the window. all that is in front of me: the splendours of rome, the summer, the art of italy, naples in the south, venice in the north, makes my heart beat fast and my head swim. i only need to turn round from the window and see filomena standing behind me, knitting, posed like a living picture by küchler to feel, with jubilation: i am in rome. saredo came to-day at twelve o'clock, and saw me dressed for the first time. i had put on my nicest clothes. i called filomena, had three dinners fetched, and seated between him and her, i had my banquet. i had just said: "i will not eat any soup to-day, unless it should happen to be _zuppa d'herba_." filomena took the lid off and cried: _"a punto."_ this is how all my wishes are fulfilled now. i had a fine, light red wine. it tasted so good that if the gods had known it they would have poured their nectar into the washtub. filomena poured it out, singing: l'acqua fa mare, il vino fa cantare; il sugo della gresta fa gira' la testa. (water is bad for one; wine makes one sing; the juice of the grape makes the head swim.) to-morrow i may go out. after sunday, i shall leave off dining at home. on sunday filomena goes to camerino. second longer stay abroad (_continued_) reflections on the future of denmark--conversations with giuseppe saredo--frascati--native beauty--new susceptibilities--georges noufflard's influence--the sistine chapel and michael angelo--raphael's loggias--a radiant spring. i saredo said to me one day: "i am not going to flatter you--i have no interest in doing so; but i am going to give you a piece of advice, which you ought to think over. stay in italy, settle down here, and you will reach a far higher position than you can possibly attain in your own country. the intellectual education you possess is exceedingly rare in italy; what i can say, without exaggeration, is that in this country it is so extraordinary that it might be termed an active force. within two years you would be a power in italy, at home, you will never be more than a professor at a university. stay here! villari and i will help you over your first difficulties. write in french, or italian, which you like, and as you are master of the entire range of germanic culture, which scarcely any man in italy is, you will acquire an influence of which you have not the least conception. a prophet is never honoured in his own country. we, on the other hand, need you. so stay here! take max müller as an example. it is with individuals as with nations; it is only when they change their soil that they attain their full development and realise their own strength." i replied: "i am deaf to that sort of thing. i love the danish language too well ever to forsake it. only in the event of my settlement in denmark meeting with opposition, and being rendered impossible, shall i strap on my knapsack, gird up my loins, and hie me to france or italy; i am glad to hear that the world is not so closed to me as i had formerly believed." my thoughts were much engaged on my sick-bed by reflections upon the future of denmark. the following entry is dated march , : what do we mean by _our national future_, which we talk so much about? we do not purpose to extend our borders, to make conquests, or play any part in politics. for that, as is well comprehensible, we know we are too weak. i will leave alone the question as to whether it is possible to live without, in one way or another, growing, and ask: what do we want? _to continue to exist_. how exist? we want to get slesvig back again, for as it is we are not _existing_; we are sickening, or else we are living like those lower animals who even when they are cut in pieces, are quite nimble; but it is a miserable life. we are in a false position with regard to germany. the centripetal force that draws the individual members of one nationality together, and which we in denmark call danishness, that which, further, draws nationalities of the same family together, and which in denmark is called _scandinavianism_, must logically lead to a sympathy for the merging of the entire race, a kind of _gothogermanism_. if we seek support from france, we shall be behaving like the poles, turning for help to a foreign race against a nation of our own. i accuse us, not of acting imprudently, but of fighting against a natural force that is stronger than we. we can only retard, we cannot annihilate, the attraction exerted by the greater masses on the lesser. we can only hope that we may not live to feel the agony. holland and denmark are both threatened by germany, for in this geography is the mighty ally of germany. the most enlightened dane can only cherish the hope that denmark, conquered, or not conquered, will brave it out long enough for universal civilisation, by virtue of the level it has reached, to bring our independence with it. as far as the hope which the majority of danes cherish is concerned (including the noble professors of philosophy), of a time when nemesis (reminiscence of theology!), shall descend on prussia, this hope is only an outcome of foolishness. and even a nemesis upon prussia will never hurt germany, and thus will not help us. but the main question is this: if we--either through a peaceable restoration of slesvig, or after fresh wars, or through the dawning of an era of peace and civilisation--regain our integrity and independence, shall we exist then? not at all. then we shall sicken again. a country like denmark, even including slesvig, is nowadays no country at all. a tradesman whose whole capital consists of ten rigsdaler is no tradesman. the large capitals swallow up the small. the small must seek their salvation in associations, partnerships, joint-stock companies, etc. our misfortune lies in the fact that there is no other country with which we can enter into partnership except sweden and norway, a little, unimportant state. by means of this association, which for the time being, is our sheet-anchor, and which, by dint of deploying enormous energy, might be of some importance, we can at best retard our destruction by a year or two. but the future! has denmark any future? it was france who, to her own unspeakable injury, discovered, or rather, first proclaimed, the principle of nationality, a principle which at most could only give her belgium and french switzerland, two neutral countries, guaranteed by europe, but which gave italy to piedmont, germany to prussia, and which one day will give russia supremacy over all the slavs. even before the war, france was, as it were, squeezed between bucklers; she had no possible chance of gaining anything through her own precious principle, and did not even dare to apply it to the two above-mentioned points. while she fearfully allowed herself to be awarded savoy and nice, prussia grew from nineteen million inhabitants to fifty millions; and probably in a few years the germans of austria will fall to germany as well. then came the war, and its outcome was in every particular what prévost-paradol, with his keen foresight, had predicted: "afterwards," he wrote, "france, with paris, will take up in europe the same position as hellas with athens assumed in the old roman empire; it will become the city of taste and the noble delights; but it will never be able to regain its power." it has, in fact, been killed by this very theory of nationality; for the only cognate races, spain and italy, are two countries of which the one is rotten, the other just entered upon the convalescent stage. thus it is clear that germany will, for a time, exercise the supreme sway in europe. but the future belongs neither to her nor to russia, but, if not to england herself, at any rate to the anglo-saxon race, which has revealed a power of expansion in comparison with which that of other nations is too small to count. germans who go to north america, in the next generation speak english. the english have a unique capacity for spreading themselves and introducing their language, and the power which the anglo-saxon race will acquire cannot be broken in course of time like that of ancient rome; for there are no barbarians left, and their power is based, not on conquest, but on assimilation, and the race is being rejuvenated in north america. how characteristic it is of our poor little country that we always hear and read of it as "one of the oldest kingdoms in the world." that is just the pity of it. if we were only a young country! there is only one way by which we can rejuvenate ourselves. first, to merge ourselves into a scandinavia; then, when this is well done and well secured, to approach the anglo-saxon race to which we are akin. moral: become an anglo-saxon and study john stuart mill! and i studied mill with persevering attention, where he was difficult, but instructive, to follow, as in the _examination of hamilton's philosophy_, which renews berkeley's teachings, and i read him with delight where, accessible and comprehensible, he proclaims with freshness and vigour the gospel of a new age, as in the book _on liberty_ and the one akin to it, _representative government_. ii during the months of february and march, my conversations with giuseppe saredo had been all i lived for. we discussed all the questions which one or both of us had at heart, from the causes of the expansion of christianity, to the method of proportionate representation which saredo knew, and correctly traced back to andrae. when i complained that, by reason of our different nationality, we could hardly have any recollections in common, and by reason of our different languages, could never cite a familiar adage from childhood, or quote a common saying from a play, that the one could not thoroughly enjoy the harmony of verses in the language of the other, saredo replied: "you are no more a dane than i am an italian; we are compatriots in the great fatherland of the mind, that of shakespeare and goethe, john stuart mill, andrae, and cavour. this land is the land of humanity. nationality is milk, humanity is cream. what is there in all the world that we have not in common? it is true that we cannot enjoy together the harmony of some northern verses, but we can assimilate together all the great ideas, and we have for each other the attraction of the relatively unknown, which fellow-countrymen have not." he very acutely characterised his italian compatriots: "our intelligence amounts to prudence and common sense. at a distance we may appear self-luminous; in reality we are only passivity and reflected light. solferino gave us lombardy, sadowa gave us venice, sedan gave us rome. we were just active enough to take advantage of fortunate circumstances, and passively clever enough not to wreck our advantage by stupidity. in foreign novels we are scoundrels of the deepest dye, concocters of poisons and wholesale swindlers. in reality we are indifferent and indolent. _dolce far niente_, these words, which, to our shame, are repeated in every country in italian, are our watchword. but things shall be different, if it means that the few amongst us who have a little share of head and heart have to work themselves to death--things shall be different. massimo d'azeglio said: 'now we have created an italy; there remains to create italians.' that was a true saying. now we are creating the new people, and what a future there is before us! now it is we who are taking the leadership of the latin race, and who are giving back to our history its brilliance of the sixteenth century. at present our art is poor because we have no popular type; but wait! in a few years italy will show a profile no less full of character than in the days of michael angelo, and benvenuto cellini." iii then the moment arrived when all abstract reflections were thrust aside once more by convalescence. i was well again, after having been shut up for over four months. i still felt the traces of the mercury poisoning, but i was no longer tied to my bed, and weak though i was, i could walk. and on the very first day,--it was march th--armed with a borrowed stick (i possessed none, having never used a stick before), and equipped with a little camp-stool, i took the train to frascati, where there was a madonna fête. it was life opening out before me again. all that i saw, witnessed to its splendour. first, the scenery on the way, the campagna with its proud ruins, and the snow-covered sabine mountains, the whole illuminated by a powerful summer sun; the villas of old romans, with fortress-like thick walls, and small windows; then the fertile lava soil, every inch of which was under vineyard cultivation. at last the mountains in the neighborhood of frascati. a convent crowned the highest point; there, in olden days, the first italian temple to jupiter had stood, and there hannibal had camped. underneath, in a hollow, like an eagle's nest, lay rocca di papa. by the roadside, fruit-trees with violet clusters of blossoms against a background of stone-pines, cypresses, and olive-groves. i reached frascati station. there was no carriage to be had up to the town, so i was obliged to ascend the hill slowly on foot, a test which my leg stood most creditably. in the pretty market-place of frascati, with its large fountain which, like acqua paola, was divided into three and flung out a tremendous quantity of water, i went into an _osteria_ and asked for roast goat with salad and frascati wine, then sat down outside, as it was too close within. hundreds of people in gay costumes, with artificial flowers and silver feathers in their headgear, filled the square in front of me, crowded the space behind me, laughed and shouted. the people seemed to be of a grander type, more lively, animated and exuberant, than at the fair at fiesole. the women were like junos or venuses, the men, even when clad in abominable rags, looked like vulcans, blackened in their forges; they were all of larger proportions than northern men and women. a roman beau, with a riding-whip under his arm, was making sheep's eyes at a young local beauty, his courtship accompanied by the whines of the surrounding beggars. a _signora_ from albano was lecturing the waiter with the dignity of a queen for having brought her meat that was beneath all criticism, yes, she even let the word _porcheria_ escape her. a brown-bearded fellow came out of the inn with a large bottle of the heavenly frascati wine, which the landlords here, even on festival occasions, never mix with water, and gave a whole family, sitting on donkeys, to drink out of one glass; then he went to two little ones, who were holding each other round the waist, sitting on the same donkey; to two youths who were riding another; to a man and wife, who sat on a third, and all drank, like the horsemen in wouwerman's pictures, without dismounting. i got into an old, local omnibus, pulled by three horses, to drive the two miles to grotta ferrata, where the fair was. but the vehicle was hardly about to start up-hill when, with rare unanimity, the horses reared, behaved like mad, and whirled it round four or five times. the driver, a fellow with one eye and a grey cap with a double red camelia in it, being drunk, thrashed the horses and shouted, while an old american lady with ringlets shrieked inside the omnibus, and bawled out that she had paid a franc beforehand, and now wanted to get out. the road was thronged with people walking, and there was just as many riding donkeys, all of them, even the children, already heated with wine, singing, laughing, and accosting everybody. many a worthy woman supported her half-drunk husband with her powerful arm. many a substantial _signora_ from rocca di papa sat astride her mule, showing without the least bashfulness her majestic calves. at grotta ferrata, the long, long street presented a human throng of absolute density without the slightest crush, for no one stuck his elbows into his neighbour's sides. the eye could only distinguish a mass of red, yellow and white patches in the sunlight, and in between them a few donkeys' heads and mules' necks. the patches were the kerchiefs on the women's heads. folk stood with whole roast pigs in front of them on a board, cutting off a piece with a knife for anyone who was hungry; there were sold, besides, fruits, knives, ornaments, provisions, and general market wares. one _osteria_, the entrance to which was hung all over with sausages, onions and vegetables, in garlands, had five huge archways open to the street. inside were long tables, at which people sat, not on benches, but on trestles, round bars supported by two legs, and ate and drank in the best of good spirits, and the blackest filth, for the floor was the black, sodden, trampled earth. just over the way, arbours had been made from trees, by intertwining their branches and allowing them to grow into one another; these were quite full of gay, beautiful girls, amongst them one with fair hair and brown eyes, who looked like a tuscan, and from whom it was difficult to tear one's eyes away. after having inspected the courtyard of an old monastery, the lovely pillars of which rejoiced my heart, i sat down a little on one side in the street where the fair was, on my little camp-stool, which roused the legitimate curiosity of the peasant girls. they walked round me, looked at me from behind and before, and examined with grave interest the construction of my seat. in front of me sat an olive and lemon seller. girls bargained with him as best they could in the press, others stood and looked on. i had an opportunity here of watching their innate statuesque grace. when they spoke, the right arm kept time with their speech. when silent, they generally placed one hand on the hip, bent, but not clenched. there were various types. the little blonde, blue-eyed girl with the mild madonna smile, and absolutely straight nose, and the large-made, pronounced brunette. but the appearance of them all was such that an artist or a poet could, by a slight transformation, have portrayed from them whatever type of figure or special characteristic he required. in my opinion, the form italian beauty took, and the reason of the feeling one had in italy of wading in beauty, whereas one hardly ever saw anything in the strict sense of the word beautiful in copenhagen, and rarely in paris, was, that this beauty was the beauty of the significant. all these women looked to be unoppressed, fullblown, freely developed. all that makes woman ugly in the north: the cold, the thick, ugly clothes that the peasant women wear, the doublet of embarrassment and vapidity which they drag about with them, the strait-waistcoat of christiansfeldt morality in which they are confined by the priests, by protestantism, by fashion, by custom and convention--none of this oppressed, confined or contracted women here. these young peasant girls looked as if they had never heard such words as "you must not," or "you shall not," and as here in italy there is none of the would-be witty talk, the grinning behind people's backs, which takes the life out of all intrepidity in the north, no one thought: "what will people say?" everyone dressed and deported himself with complete originality, as he, or rather as she, liked. hence eyes were doubly brilliant, blood coursed twice as red, the women's busts were twice as rounded and full. iv from this time forth i had a strange experience. i saw beauty everywhere. if i sat at the window of a café on the corso on a sunday morning, as the ladies were going to mass, it seemed to me that all the beauty on earth was going past. a mother and her three daughters went by, a mere grocer's wife from the corso, but the mother carried herself like a duchess, had a foot so small that it could have lain in the hollow of my hand, and the youngest of the three daughters was so absolutely lovely that people turned to look after her; she might perhaps have been fifteen years of age, but there was a nobility about her austere profile, and she had a way of twisting her perfect lips into a smile, that showed her to be susceptible to the sweetest mysteries of poetry and music. my long illness had so quickened the susceptibility of my senses to impressions of beauty that i lived in a sort of intoxication. in the scandinavian club i was received with endless expressions of sympathy, courteous remarks, and more or less sincerely meant flatteries, as if in compensation for the suffering i had been through. all spoke as though they had themselves been deeply distressed, and especially as though copenhagen had been sitting weeping during my illness. i certainly did not believe this for a moment, but all the same it weighed down a little, the balance of my happiness, and the first meetings with the northern artists in these glorious surroundings were in many respects very enjoyable. the scandinavian club was in the building from which you enter the mausoleum of augustus, a colossal building in the form of a cross, several storeys in height. a festival had been got up on the flat roof for a benevolent object one of the first evenings in april. you mounted the many flights of stairs and suddenly found yourself, apparently, in an immense hall, but with no roof save the stars, and brilliantly illuminated, but with lights that paled in the rays of the italian moon. we took part in the peculiarly italian enjoyment of watching balloons go up; they rose by fire, which exhausted the air inside them and made them light. round about the moon we could see red and blue lights, like big stars; one balloon ignited up in the sky, burst into bright flames, and looked very impressive. troops of young women, too, were sitting there, and dazzled anew a young man who for a second time had given the slip to the old gentleman with the scythe. there was one young servant girl from the country, in particular, a child of thirteen or fourteen, to whom i called the attention of the painters, and they went into ecstasies over her. the type was the same as that which raphael has reproduced in his sistine madonna. her clear, dark blue eyes had a look of maidenly shyness, and of the most exquisite bashfulness, and yet a look of pride. she wore a string of glass beads round her lovely neck. we ordered two bottles of wine to drink her health, and, while we were drinking it, the rotunda was lighted up from a dozen directions with changing bengal fire. the ladies looked even handsomer, the glass lamps dark green in the gleam, the fire-borne balloons rose, the orchestra played, the women smiled at the homage of their friends and lovers--all on the venerable mausoleum of augustus. v i made the acquaintance that evening of a young and exceedingly engaging frenchman, who was to become my intimate friend and my travelling companion. he attracted me from the first by his refined, reserved, and yet cordial manner. although only thirty-five years of age, georges noufflard had travelled and seen surprisingly much. he was now in italy for the second time, knew france and germany, had travelled through mexico and the united states, had visited syria, egypt, tunis, and algiers to the last oasis. when the conversation touched upon art and music, he expressed himself in a manner that revealed keen perception, unusual knowledge, and a very individual taste. the following morning, when we met on the corso, he placed himself at my disposal, if he could be of use to me; there was nothing he had arranged to do. he asked where i was thinking of going; as he knew rome and its neighbourhood as well as i knew my mother's drawing-room, i placed myself in his hands. we took a carriage and drove together, first to the baths of caracalla, then to the catacombs, where we very nearly lost our way, and thought with a thrill of what in olden times must have been the feelings of the poor wretches who fled there, standing in the dark and hearing footsteps in the distance, knowing that it was their pursuers coming, and that they were inevitably going to be murdered, where there was not even room to raise a weapon in their own defence. next we drove to _san paolo fuori le mure_, of the burning of which thorwaldsen's museum possesses a painting by leopold robert, but which at that time had been entirely re-built in the antique style. it was the most beautiful basilica i had ever seen. we enjoyed the sight of the courtyard of the monastery nearly , years old, with its fine pillars, all different, and so well preserved that we compared, in thought, the impressions produced by the two mighty churches, san paolo and san pietro. then we dined together and plunged into interminable discussions until darkness fell. from that day forth we were inseparable. our companionship lasted several months, until i was obliged to journey north. but the same cordial relations continued to subsist between us for more than a quarter of a century, when death robbed me of my friend. georges noufflard was the son of a rich cloth manufacturer at roubaix, and at an early age had come into possession of a considerable fortune. this, however, was somewhat diminished through the dishonesty of those who, after the death of his father, conducted the works in his name. he had wanted to become a painter, but the weakness of his eyes had obliged him to give up art; now he was an art lover, and was anxious to write a book on the memorials and works of art in rome, too great an undertaking, and for that reason never completed; but at the same time, he pursued with passion the study of music, played beethoven, gluck and berlioz, for me daily, and later on published books on berlioz and richard wagner. as a youth he had been an enthusiast such as, in the germanic countries, they fancy is impossible elsewhere, to such an extent indeed as would be regarded even there as extraordinary. at seventeen years of age he fell in love with a young girl who lived in the same building as himself. he was only on terms of sign language with her, had not even secured so much as a conversation with her. none the less, his infatuation was so great that he declared to his father that he wished to marry her. the father would not give his consent, and her family would not receive him unless he was presented by his father. the latter sent him to america with the words: "forget your love and learn what a fine thing industrialism is." he travelled all over the united states, found all machinery loathsome, since he had not the most elementary knowledge of the principles of mechanics, and no inclination for them, and thought all the time of the little girl from whom they wished to separate him. it did not help matters that the travelling companion that had been given him lived and breathed in an atmosphere of the lowest debauchery, and did his best to initiate the young man into the same habits. on his return home he declared to his father that he persisted in his choice. "good," said his father, "asia minor is a delightful country, and so is northern africa; it will also do you good to become acquainted with italy." so he set off on his travels again, and this time was charmed with everything he saw. then his father died, and he became pretty much his own master and free to do as he liked. then he learned that the father of the girl had been guilty of a bank fraud. his family would not receive hers, if, indeed, herself. so he gave up his intention; he did not wish to expose her to humiliation and did not wish himself to have a man of ill-fame for his father-in-law; he set off again on his travels, and remained a long time away. "the proof that i acted wisely by so doing," he said in conclusion, "is that i have completely forgotten the girl; my infatuation was all fancy." when he commenced by telling me that for three years he had loved, and despite all opposition, wished to marry a girl to whom he had never spoken, i exclaimed: "why, you are no frenchman!" when he concluded by telling me that after remaining constant for three years he had abandoned her for a fault that not she, but her father, had committed, i exclaimed: "how french you are, after all!" while mutual political, social, and philosophical interests drew me to giuseppe saredo, all the artistic side of my nature bound me to georges noufflard. saredo was an italian from a half-french part,--he was born at savona, near chambéry,--and his culture was as much french as italian; noufflard was a frenchman possessed by such a love for italy that he spoke the purest florentine, felt himself altogether a southerner, and had made up his mind to take up his permanent abode in italy. he married, too, a few years afterwards, a lovely florentine woman, and settled down in florence. what entirely won my heart about him was the femininely delicate consideration and unselfish devotion of his nature, the charm there was about his manner and conversation, which revealed itself in everything he did, from the way in which he placed his hat upon his head, to the way in which he admired a work of art. but i could not have associated with him day after day, had i not been able to learn something from him. when we met again ten years later, it turned out that we had nothing especially new to tell each other. i had met him just at the right moment. it was not only that noufflard was very well and widely informed about the artistic treasures of italy and the places where they were to be found, but his opinions enriched my mind, inasmuch as they spurred me on to contradiction or surprised me and won my adherence. fresh as julius lange's artistic sense had been, there was nevertheless something doctrinaire and academic about it. an artist like bernini was horrible, and nothing else to him; he had no sympathy for the sweet, half-sensual ecstasy of some of bernini's best figures. he was an enemy of eighteenth-century art in france, saw it through the moral spectacles which in the germanic countries had come into use with the year . it was easy for noufflard to remain unbiased by northern doctrines, for he did not know them; he had the free eye of the beauty lover for every revelation of beauty, no matter under what form, and had the intellectual kinship of the italianised frenchman for many an artist unappreciated in the north. on the other hand, he naturally considered that we northmen very much over-estimated our own. it was impossible to rouse any interest in him for thorwaldsen, whom he considered absolutely academic. "you cannot call him a master in any sense," he exclaimed one day, when we had been looking at thorwaldsen bas-reliefs side by side with antiques. i learnt from my intimacy with noufflard how little impression thorwaldsen's spirit makes on the romance peoples. that indifference to him would soon become so widespread in germany, i did not yet foresee. noufflard had a very alert appreciation of the early renaissance, especially in sculpture; he was passionately in love with the natural beauties of italy, from north to south, and he had a kind of national-psychological gift of singling out peculiarly french, italian or german traits. he did not know the german language, but he was at home in german music, and had studied a great deal of german literature in translation; just then he was reading hegel's "aesthetics," the abstractions in which veritably alarmed him, and to which he very much preferred modern french art philosophy. in english science, he had studied darwin, and he was the first to give me a real insight into the darwinian theory and a general summary of it, for in my younger days i had only heard it attacked, as erroneous, in lectures by rasmus nielsen on teleology. georges noufflard was the first frenchman of my own age with whom i had been intimate and whose character i partly understood and entered into, partly absorbed into my own. if many of the various opinions evident in my first lectures were strikingly emancipated from danish national prejudices which no one hitherto had attempted to disturb, i owed this in a great measure to him. our happy, harmonious intimacy in the sabine hills and in naples was responsible, before a year was past, for whole deluges of abuse in danish newspapers. vi one morning, the consul's man-servant brought me a _permesso_ for the collection of sculpture in the vatican for the same day, and a future _permesso_ for the loggias, stanzas, and the sistine chapel. i laid the last in my pocket-book. it was the key of paradise. i had waited for it so long that i said to myself almost superstitiously: "i wonder whether anything will prevent again?" the anniversary of the day i had left copenhagen the year before, i drove to the vatican, went at one o'clock mid-day up the handsome staircase, and through immense, in part magnificently decorated rooms to the sistine chapel. i had heard so much about the disappointment it would be that not the very slightest suggestion of disappointment crossed my mind. only a feeling of supreme happiness shot through me: at last i am here. i stood on the spot which was the real goal of my pilgrimage. i had so often examined reproductions of every figure and i had read so much about the whole, that i knew every note of the music beforehand. now i heard it. a voice within me whispered: so here i stand at last, shut in with the mind that of all human minds has spoken most deeply home to my soul. i am outside and above the earth and far from human kind. this is his earth and these are his men, created in his image to people his world. for this one man's work is a world, which, though that of one man only, can be placed against the productions of a whole nation, even of the most splendid nation that has ever lived, the greeks. michael angelo felt more largely, more lonely, more mightily than any other. he created out of the wealth of a nature that in its essence was more than earthly. raphael is more human, people say, and that is true; but michael angelo is more divine. after the lapse of about an hour, the figures detached themselves from the throng, to my mental vision, and the whole composition fixed itself in my brain. i saw the ceiling, not merely as it is to-day, but as it was when the colours were fresh, for in places there were patches, the bright yellow, for instance, which showed the depth of colouring in which the whole had been carried out. it was michael angelo's intention to show us the ceiling pierced and the heavens open above it. up to the central figures, we are to suppose that the walls continue straight up to the ceiling, as though the figures sat upright. then all confusion disappears, and all becomes one perfect whole. the principal pictures, such as the creation of adam, michael angelo's most philosophical and most exquisite painting, i had had before my eyes upon my wall every day for ten years. the expression in adam's face was not one of languishing appeal, as i had thought; he smiled faintly, as if calmly confident of the dignity of the life the finger of god is about to bestow upon him. the small, bronze-painted figures, expressed the suspension and repose of the ceiling; they were architectonic symbols. the troops of young heroes round about the central pillars were michael angelo's ideals of youth, beauty and humanity. the one resting silently and thoughtfully on one knee is perhaps the most splendid. there is hardly any difference between his build and that of adam. adam is the more spiritual brother of these young and suffering heroes. i felt the injustice of all the talk about the beginnings of grotesqueness in michael angelo's style. there are a few somewhat distorted figures, haman, the knot of men and women adoring the snake, jonas, as he flings himself backwards, but except these, what calm, what grandiose perfection! and which was still more remarkable, what imposing charm! eve, in the picture of "the fall," is perhaps the most adorable figure that art has ever produced; her beauty, in the picture on the left, was like a revelation of what humanity really ought to have been. it sounded almost like a lie that one man had created this in twenty-two months. would the earth ever again produce frescoes of the same order? the years that had passed over it had damaged this, the greatest pictorial work on earth, far less than i had feared. a large aristocratic english family came in: man, wife, son, daughter, another daughter, the governess, all expensively and fashionably dressed. they stood silent for a moment at the entrance to the hall. then they came forward as far as about the middle of the hall, looked up and about a little, said to the custodian: "will you open the door for us?" and went out again very gracefully. vii i knew raphael's loggias from copies in _l'École des beaux arts_ in paris. but i was curious to see how they would appear after this, and so, although there was only three-quarters of an hour left of the time allotted to me on my _permesso_, i went up to look at them. my first impression, as i glanced down the corridor and perceived these small ceiling pictures, barely two feet across, was: "good gracious! this will be a sorry enjoyment after michael angelo!" i looked at the first painting, god creating the animals, and was quite affected: there goes the good old man, saying paternally: "come up from the earth, all of you, you have no idea how nice it is up here." my next impression was: "how childish!" but my last was: "what genius!" how charming the picture of the fall, and how lovely eve! and what grandeur of style despite the smallness of the space. a god a few inches high separates light from darkness, but there is omnipotence in the movement of his arm. jacob sees the ladder to heaven in his dream; and this ladder, which altogether has six angels upon it, seems to reach from earth to heaven, infinitely long and infinitely peopled; above, we see god the father, at an immense distance, spread his gigantic embrace (which covers a space the length of two fingers). there was the favourite picture of my childhood, abraham prostrated before the angels, even more marvellous in the original than i had fancied it to myself, although it is true that the effect of the picture is chiefly produced by its beauty of line. and there was lot, departing from sodom with his daughters, a picture great because of the perfect illusion of movement. they go on and on, against the wind and storm, with horror behind them and hope in front, at the back, to the right, the burning city, to the left, a smiling landscape. how unique the landscapes on all these pictures are, how marvellous, for instance, that in which moses is found on the nile! this river, within the narrow limits of the picture, looked like a huge stream, losing itself in the distance. it was half-past five. my back was beginning to ache in the place which had grown tender from lying so long; without a trace of fatigue i had been looking uninterruptedly at pictures for four hours and a half. viii noufflard's best friend in rome was a young lieutenant of the bersaglieri named ottavio cerrotti, with whom we were much together. although a roman, he had entered the italian army very young, and had consequently been, as it were, banished. now, through the breach at porta pia, he had come back. he was twenty-four years of age, and the naïvest don juan one could possibly meet. he was beloved by the beautiful wife of his captain, and noufflard, who frequented their house, one day surprised the two lovers in tears. cerrotti was crying with his lady-love because he had been faithless to her. he had confessed to her his intimacy with four other young ladies; so she was crying, and the end of it was that he cried to keep her company. at meals, he gave us a full account of his principal romance. he had one day met her by chance in the gardens of the palazzo corsini, and since that day, they had had secret meetings. but the captain had now been transferred to terni, and tragedy had begun. letters were constantly within an ace of being intercepted, they committed imprudences without count. he read aloud to us, without the least embarrassment, the letters of the lady. the curious thing about them was the moderation she exercised in the expression of her love, while at the same time her plans for meetings were of the most foolhardy, breakneck description. another fresh acquaintance that i made in those days was with three french painters, hammon, sain and benner, who had studios adjoining one another. hammon and sain both died long since, but benner, whom i met again in paris in , died, honoured and respected, in . i was later on at capri in company with sain and benner, but hammon i saw only during this visit to rome. his pretty, somewhat sentimental painting, _ma soeur n'y est pas_, hung, reproduced in engraving, in every shop-window, even in copenhagen. he was painting just then at his clever picture, _triste rivage_. hammon was born in brittany, of humble, orthodox parents, who sent him to a monastery. the prior, when he surprised him drawing men and women out of his head, told him that painting was a sin. the young man himself then strongly repented his inclination, but, as he felt he could not live without following it, he left the monastery, though with many strong twinges of conscience. now that he was older, he was ruining himself by drink, but had manifested true talent and still retained a humorous wit. one day that i was with him, a young man came to the studio and asked for his opinion of a painting; the man talked the whole time of nothing but his mother, of how much he loved her and all that he did for her. hammon's patience gave out at last. he broke out: "and do you think, sir, that _i_ have murdered my mother? i love her very much, i assure you, _not enough to marry her_, i grant, but pretty well, all the same." after that he always spoke of him as "the young man who loves his mother." ix i felt as though this april, this radiant spring, were the most glorious time in my life, i was assimilating fresh impressions of art and nature every hour; the conversations i was enjoying with my italian and french friends set me day by day pondering over new thoughts; i saw myself restored to life, and a better life. at the beginning of april, moreover, some girls from the north made their triumphal entry into the scandinavian club. without being specially beautiful or remarkable, they absolutely charmed me. it was a full year since the language of home had sounded in my ears from the lips of a girl, since i had seen the smile in the blue eyes and encountered the heart-ensnaring charm, in jest, or earnest, of the young women of the north. i had recently heard the entrancing castrato singing at st. peter's, and, on conquering my aversion, could not but admire it. now i heard once more simple, but natural, danish and swedish songs. merely to speak danish again with a young woman, was a delight. and there was one who, delicately and unmistakably and defencelessly, showed me that i was not indifferent to her. that melted me, and from that time forth the beauties of italy were enhanced tenfold in my eyes. all that i was acquainted with in rome, all that i saw every day with georges noufflard, i could show her and her party, from the most accessible things, which were nevertheless fresh to the newcomers, such as the pantheon, acqua paola, san pietro in montorio, the grave of cecilia metella, and the grottoes of egeria, to the great collections of art in the vatican, or the capitol, or in the wonderful galleria borghese. all this, that i was accustomed to see alone with noufflard, acquired new splendour when a blonde girl walked by my side, asking sensible questions, and showing me the gratitude of youth for good instruction. with her nineteen years i suppose she thought me marvellously clever. but the works of art that lay a little outside the beaten track, i likewise showed to my compatriots. i had never been able to tolerate guido reni; but his playing angels in the chapel of san gregorio excited my profound admiration, and it was a satisfaction to me to pour this into the receptive ear of a girl compatriot. these angels delighted me so that i could hardly tear myself away from them. the fine malice, the mild coquetry, even in the expression of the noblest purity and the loftiest dignity, enchanted us. i had been in the habit of going out to the environs of rome with georges noufflard, for instance, to the large, handsome gardens of the villa doria pamfili, or the villa madama, with its beautiful frescoes and stucco-work, executed by raphael's pupils, giulio romano and others, from drawings by that master. but it was a new delight to drive over the campagna with a girl who spoke danish by my side, and to see her northern complexion in the sun of the south. with my french friend, i gladly joined the excursions of her party to nemi, albano, tivoli. never in my life had i felt so happy as i did then. i was quite recovered. only a fortnight after i had risen from a sick-bed that had claimed me four months and a half, i was going about, thanks to my youth, as i did before i was ill. for my excursions, i had a comrade after my own heart, well-bred, educated, and noble-minded; i fell in love a little a few times a week; i saw lakes, fields, olive groves, mountains, scenery, exactly to my taste. i had always a _permesso_ for the vatican collections in my pocket. i felt intoxicated with delight, dizzy with enjoyment. it seemed to me that of all i had seen in the world, tivoli was the most lovely. the old "temple of the sibyl" on the hill stood on consecrated ground, and consecrated the whole neighbourhood. i loved those waterfalls, which impressed me much more than trollhättan [footnote: trollhättan, a celebrated waterfall near göteborg in sweden.], had done in my childhood. in one place the water falls down, black and boiling, into a hollow of the rock, and reminded me of the descent into tartarus; in another the cataract runs, smiling and twinkling with millions of shining pearls, in the strong sunlight. in a third place, the great cascade rushes down over the rocks. there, where it touches the nether rocks, rests the end of the enormous rainbow which, when the sun shines, is always suspended across it. noufflard told me that niagara itself impressed one less. we scrambled along the cliff until we stood above the great waterfall, and could see nothing but the roaring, foaming white water, leaping and dashing down; it looked as though the seething and spraying masses of water were springing over each other's heads in a mad race, and there was such power, such natural persuasion in it, that one seemed drawn with it, and gliding, as it were, dragged into the abyss. it was as though all nature were disembodied, and flinging herself down. like a latin, noufflard personified it all; he saw the dance of nymphs in the waves, and their veils in the clouds of spray. my way of regarding nature was diametrically opposite, and pantheistic. i lost consciousness of my own personality, felt myself one with the falling water and merged myself into nature, instead of gathering it up into figures. i felt myself an individuality of the north, conscious of my being. x one afternoon a large party of us had taken our meal at an inn on the lake of nemi. the evening was more than earthly. the calm, still, mountain lake, the old, filled-up crater, on the top of the mountain, had a fairy-like effect. i dropped down behind a boulder and lay for a long time alone, lost in ecstasy, out of sight of the others. all at once i saw a blue veil fluttering in the breeze quite near me. it was the young danish girl, who had sat down with me. the red light of the evening, nemi and she, merged in one. not far away some people were setting fire to a blaze of twigs and leaves; one solitary bird warbled across the lake; the cypresses wept; the pines glowered; the olive trees bathed their foliage in the mild warmth; one cloud sailed across the sky, and its reflection glided over the lake. one could not bear to raise the voice. it was like a muffled, muffled concert. here were life, reality and dreams. here were sun, warmth and light. here were colour, form and line, and in this line, outlined by the mountains against the sky, the artistic background of all the beauty. noufflard and i accompanied our northern friends from albano to the station; they were going on as far as naples, and thence returning home. we said good-bye and walked back to albano in the mild summer evening. the stars sparkled and shone bright, cassiopaeia showed itself in its most favourable position, and charles's wain stood, as if in sheer high spirits, on its head, which seemed to be its recreation just about this time. it, too, was evidently a little dazed this unique, inimitable spring. index aagesen, professor aarestrup, emil about, edmond adam _adam homo_ _adventures on a walking tour_ aeneid, the aeschylus agar, mlle. _aladdin_ alcibiades algreen-ussing, frederik algreen-ussing, otto _ali and gulhyndi_ alibert, mr. andersen, h.c. _angelo_ angelo, michael _antony_ apel aristotle _arne_ arrest, professor d' art, danish, french, german dramatic astronomy auerbach, berthold augier augustenborg, duke of baagöe baggesen bain banville barbier, auguste bazaine beaumarchais bech, carl bendix, victor benner bentham bergen, carl von bergh, rudolp bergsöe bernhardt, sarah bible, the bille bismarck bissen, wilhelm björnson blanchetti, costanza blicher bluhme, geheimeraad borup bov _boy, a happy_ _brand_ bretteville bröchner, h. brohan, the sisters brussels bruun, emil _buch der lieder_ _burgraves, les_ byron caesar _caprice, un_ caro casellini catullus cerrotti, ottavio chamounix chanson de roland chasles, Émile chasles, philarète chatterton choteau, marie christian viii. christian ix. christianity cinq-mars clarétie, jules clausen cologne comte copenhagen coppée coquelin corday, charlotte correggio cousin criticisms and portraits crone dame aux camélias, la danish literature dante darwin david, c.n. david, ludvig delacroix delisle devil, the dichtung und wahrheit disraeli, divina commedia don juan don quixote dörr, dr. drachmann drama, german driebein dualism in our modern philosophy dubbels dubois, mlle. dumas dumas, the younger eckernförde edda, the edward, uncle either-or esselbach, madam ethica euripides falkman farum faust favart, madame favre, jules feuerbach, ludwig feuillet, octave fights, between the filomena fils de giboyer, le fisher girl, the flaubert florence fontane, m. for self-examination for sweden and norway fourier france nouvelle, la frascati frederik vii french literature french philosophers of the nineteenth century, the french revolution frithiof's saga frossard _gabrielle_ gallenga, antonio gambetta gautier _geneva_ gerhard germany gérôme _gerusalemme liberata_, tasso's _ghost letters_ _ghosts_ girardin gladstone gleyre god _gods of the north, the_ goethe goldschmidt, dr. goldschmidt, m. goncourt, the brothers; edmond de _government, representative_ gram, professor grammont, the duc de grégoire _gringoire_ grönbeck, groth, claus grundtvig guell y rente, don josé guémain, mademoiselle guizot hage, alfred hagemeister, mr. _hakon, earl_ hall hamburg _hamilton's philosophy, examination of_ _hamlet_ hammerich hammon hansen, octavius hauch; rinna hebbel hegel heiberg, johan ludvig heiberg, johanne louise heine hello, ernest henrietta herbart _hernani_ _hero of our time, a_ hertz, henrik history, the philosophy of _history of english literature,_ hobbema hohlenberg, pastor holberg holst, professor h.p. homer hoppe, mr. horace höyen hugo, victor hume huysmann hvasser ibsen _indiana_ ingeborg ingemann inger _inheritance, the_ _intelligence, de l'_ jacob, uncle _jacques_ _jamber_ janet jens. jesus. _jesus, life of_. jews. _joie fait peur, la_. judaism. _judith_. julius, uncle. jutland. kaalund. kant. kappers. karoline. key, ellen. kierkegaard, sören. _king svorre_. krieger. klareboderne. kleist, heinrich. _knowledge and faith, on_. lafontaine, mr. lamartine. lange, julius. _laocoon_. _last supper, leonardo's_. lavaggi. law. _law, interpretation of the_. leconte. lehmann, orla. leman, lake. leonardo. leopold of hohenzollern. lermontof. lessing. lévêque. _liberty, on_. _lion amoureux, le_. literature; danish; european; french. _literature, history of_, thortsen's. little red riding-hood. littré. logic of fundamental ideas. louise, mademoiselle. _love comedy_. _lucrèce_. ludvig. luini. lund, jörgen. lund, troels. m., mademoiselle mathilde. _macbeth_. machiavelli. mackeprang. macmahon. _madvig_. malgren. manderström, count. marat. marcelin. maren. margharita, princess. maria. _mariage de figaro, le_. marmier, xavier. martensen, bishop. martial. mary. mathilde, princess. maximilian, emperor. mérimée. meza, general de. michelet. micromégas. milan. mill, james. mill, john stuart _misanthrope, le_ möhl molière möller, kristian möller, poul möller, p.l. monrad mounet-sully muddie _musketeers, les trois_ musset, alfred de _nana_ napoleon iii nerval, gérard de _niebelungenlied, the_ niels nielsen, frederik nielsen, rasmus nina k. nisard nodier nörregaard _notes sur l'angleterre_ _notre dame de paris_ noufflard, georges nutzhorn, frederick nybböl nycander odescalchi, prince odyssey, the oehlenschläger oersted, anders sandöe olcott ollivier, prime minister _once upon a time_ _orientales, les_ _over the hills and far away_ ovid p.p. pagella païva, madame de palikao paludan-müller, caspar paludan-müller, frederick paludan-müller, jens pantaleoni, dr. pantheism paris paris, gaston pascal patti, adelina paulsen, harald peer _peer gynt_ per petersen, emil philippe, louis philoctetes philosophy piedmont, history of pilgrimage to kevlaar pindar planche plato plautus ploug, carl _poetry, the infinitely small and the infinitely great in_ ponsard prahl prévost-paradol prim, don juan prose writings, heiberg's proudhon _rabbi and knight_ raphael raupach ravnkilde, niels realism, ideal ream, vinnie régnault régnier relling rembrandt renan renan, m., l'allemagne et l'athéisme au me siècle reuter, fritz reventlow, counts ribbing richardt, christian ristori rochefort rode, gotfred rode, vilhelm roman elegies rome rosenstand, vilhelm rosette, aunt rosiény, marc de rossi rothe, clara rousseau rubens runeberg, walter ruysdael sacy, silvestre de sain saint simon saint-victor sainte-beuve sand, george sarah, aunt saredo, giuseppe savonarola savoy scenes from the lives of the warriors of the north schandorph schätzig schelling schiödte, j.c. schleswig schmidt, rudolf school of life, the scott, sir walter scribe sebastian serrano shakespeare sheridan sibbern sickness unto death signe's story sigurd slembe slesvig snoilsky, carl snorre socrates sofus sommer, major sophocles soul after death, a spang, pastor spang, the sisters spencer, herbert spendthrift, a spinoza stebbins steen, bookseller stockholm stuart, mary student, the studies in aesthetics style, le subjection of women supplice d'une femme, le swiss peasant switzerland synnöve taine _tartuffe_ tasso terence testa, costanza theocritus thierry, edmond thomsen, grimur thomsen, wilhelm. thoresen, magdalene thortsen thorwaldsen _tonietta_ topsöe, v. _tragic fate, the idea of_ trepka, alma trier, ernst trochu, general ussing, dean valdemar _valentine_ _vanity and modesty_, luini's veuillot victorine, aunt vigny, alfred de villari, pasquale vilsing virgil vischer, fr. th. voltaire voltelen vries wickseil, knut wiehe, michael _wild duck_ winckelmann winther, christian wirsen _without a center_ ziegler, clara zola proofreading team. the gentleman from everywhere by james henry foss illustrated to my beloved, on earth and in heaven, this book is most affectionately dedicated in the earnest hope that by its perusal many sailing o'er life's solemn main, forlorn and shipwrecked brothers, may take heart again. contents chapter i. launching of my life boat ii. my first voyage iii. near to nature's heart iv. joys and sorrows of school-days v. career of a dominie-pedagogue vi. dreams of my youth vii. a disenchanted collegian-preacher viii. in shadow land ix. sunlight and darkness in palace and cottage xi. adventures in mosquito land xi. in arcadie xii. from philistine to benedict and a honeymoon xiii. the angels of life and death xiv. tribulations of a widower xv. faith sees a star xvi. on the political stump xvii. that _eddyfying_ christian science xviii. in the land of flowers xix. sunbeam, the seminole xx. a founder of towns and clubs xxi. a million dollar business with a one dollar capital xxii. pendulum 'twixt smiles and tears xxiii. monarch of all he surveyed: then deposed, xxiv. foregleams of immortality xxv. a practical socialist and colonizer xxvi. hand in hand with angels xxvii. among the law-sharks xxviii. campaigning in wonderland xxix. among the clouds xxx. disenchanted: home again xxxi. the florida crackers xxxii. looking forward [illustration: [cursive] your friend, the author james h. foss] chapter i. launching of my life-boat. wild was the night, yet a wilder night hung around o'er the mother's pillow; in her bosom there waged a fiercer fight than the fight on the wrathful billow. already there were more children than potatoes in her hut of logs, and yet, another unwelcome guest was coming, to whom fate had ordained that it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born. a sympathizing neighbor held over the suffering woman an umbrella to shield her from the rain which poured through the dilapidated roof, and when the dreary light of that sunday morning dawned, my frail bark was launched on the stormy, sullen sea of life. my father, a good man, but a ne'er-do-well financially, had loaned his best clothes, watch and pocketbook to a friend to enable him to call on his best girl in captivating style, and said friend expressed his gratitude by eloping with the girl and all the borrowed finery. that same night the boom broke, and allowed all the savings of our family invested in logs, cut by my father and his lumbermen, to float down the river and be lost in the sea. thus storm, flood, calamity and sorrow, far in advance heralded the future of myself, the fourth son of a fourth son who, on that sunday, in the dog-days of , reluctantly came into this world. the howling of the wolves in the surrounding wild-woods, the screaming of the catamounts in the near-by tree-tops, the sterile dog-star drying up the crops, the marching of my father to fight in the threatened aroostook war, all conspired for months before this fateful night to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloomy forebodings in the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the mind of the baby yet unborn. all through that wretched summer, scorching drought alternating with cloud-bursts vied with each other in blasting the hopes of the farmers, and premature frost destroyed the few remaining stalks of corn, so that when the winter snows came, gaunt famine stared our family fiercely in the face. my father and three brothers faced the withering storms bravely, unpacking their internal stores of sunshine, as the camel in the desert draws refreshment from his inner tank when outward water fails. we were isolated from human companionship, except when occasionally the doctor came on the tops of the fences and branches of the pine-trees to soothe the pains of my sickly mother. at this time the snow was so deep that a tunnel was cut to the neighboring hovel where shivered our ancient horse and cow. my father and brothers tramped with snare and gun on snow-shoes through the woods, securing occasionally a partridge or squirrel, and semi-occasionally a deer, or pickerel from the lake. on one of these occasions, two of my brothers and the dog met with an adventure which nearly gave them deliverance from all earthly sorrows. as they faced the terrible cold of a january morning, the wailing of the winds in the tree-tops, and the few flying snowflakes foreboded a storm which burst upon them in great fury while about two miles from home. bewildered and benumbed, they dug a hole in the snow down to the earth, and were soon buried many feet deep, thus affording them some relief from the cold; but they nearly famished with hunger and gave themselves up for lost. suddenly, the dog, who was huddled with them for warmth, jumped away whining and scratching in great excitement. he refused to obey their orders to be still and die in peace, but, digging for some minutes, his claws struck a tree, then, rushing over the boys and back again to the trees repeatedly, he roused them from their lethargy to follow him; but nothing was visible but a hole in a tree through which the dog jumped and barked furiously. cutting the hole larger with their axe, they found the interior to be dry punk, which at once suggested the exhilarating thought of a fire, and soon a delightful heat from the burning drywood permeated their snow cave, the smoke being more endurable than the previous cold. all at once they heard a strange snorting and scratching above in the tree with whines which drove the dog wild with excitement, then, with burning embers and suffocating smoke, down came a huge animal, well-nigh breaking the necks of frantic dog and "rubbering" boys. after this came the tug of war. teeth, axe, gun, fire, dog, bear, and boys all mixed up in a fight to the finish. finally, as bruin was not fully recovered from the comatose state of his winter hibernating, after many scratches and thumps, cuts and shots, came the survival of the fittest. not even imperial caesar, with the world at his feet, could have been prouder than were boys and dog when they looked at their prostrate foe, and reflected that this conquest meant the physical salvation of our entire family. soon the chips flew from the tree, and over a cheerful fire they roasted and devoured bear steaks to repletion. digging to the surface, they found that the storm had subsided, and rigging a temporary sled from the boughs of the tree, they dragged home this "meat in due season." all through the hours of the following night the wolves, attracted by the scent of blood, howled and scratched frantically around the hut, calling for their share in that "chain of destruction," by which the laws of the universe have ordained that all creatures shall subsist. the infant, of course, joined lustily in the chorus until the boys almost wished themselves back in their shroud of snow. so, with alternate feasting and fasting we passed the long weeks of that arctic winter until the frogs in the neighboring swamp crying: "knee deep, knee deep," and "better go round, better go round," proclaimed the season of freshets when the vast plain below us was traversible only in boats. then the birds returned from the far south, but brought no seed-time or harvest, for that was the ever to be remembered "year without a summer," and but for the wild ducks and geese shot on the lake, and the wary and uncertain fish caught with the hook, all human lives in that region would have returned to the invisible from whence they came. it seemed as if chaos and dark night had come back to those wild woods. the migratory fever seized upon us all, and my parents determined to seek some unknown far away, to sail to the beautiful land of somewhere, for they felt sure that-- somewhere the sun is shining, elsewhere the song-birds dwell; and they hushed their sad repining in the faith that somewhere all is well. somewhere the load is lifted close by an open gate; out there the clouds are rifted, somewhere the angels wait. chapter ii. my first voyage. my father and brothers constructed a "prairie schooner" from our scanty belongings, and one forlorn morning in early autumn, with the skeleton horse and cow harnessed tandem for motive power, we all set sail for far-off massachusetts. we slept beneath our canopy of canvas and blankets; those of our number able to do so worked occasionally for any who would hire, but employers were few, as this was one of the crazy seasons in the history of our republic when the people voted for semi-free trade, and the mill wheels were nearly all silent for the benefit of the mills of foreign nations. they shot squirrels and partridges when ammunition could be obtained, forded rivers, narrowly escaping drowning in the swift currents, and suffered from chills and fever. one dark night some gypsies stole our antediluvian horse and cow. the barking of the faithful dog awakened father and brothers who rushed to the rescue, leaving mother half dead with fear; but at length the marauders were overtaken, shots were exchanged, heads were broken, and after a fierce struggle and long wandering, lost in the woods, our fiery steeds were once more chained to our chariot wheels. the next day we came to a wide river which it was impossible to ford, but mercy, which sometimes "tempers the blast to the shorn lamb," sent us relief in the shape of an antiquated gundalow floating on the tide. like noah and family of old, we managed to embark on this ancient ark, and paddled to the further shore. there we miraculously escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk. while painfully making our way through the primeval forest, we were suddenly saluted by the ferocious war-whoop, and a dozen indians barred our way, flourishing their primitive implements of warfare. a shot from father's double-barreled gun sent them flying to cover, our steeds rushed forward with a speed hitherto unknown, the prairie schooner rocked like a boat in a cyclone, the mother shrieked, the _enfant terrible_ howled like a bull of bashan, and just as the "red devils" were closing in from the rear, the mouth of a cave loomed up in the hillside into which dashed "pegasus and mooly cow" pell-mell. our red admirers halted almost at the muzzle of the gun and the blades of my brothers' axes. luckily the indians had neither firearms nor bows and arrows. they made rushes occasionally, but the shotgun wounded several, the axes intimidated, and they seemed about to settle down to a siege when, with a tremendous shouting and singing of "tippecanoe and tyler too," a band of picturesquely arrayed white men came marching along the trail. the enemy took to their heels, and we learned that our rescuers had been to a william henry harrison parade and barbecue, for this was the time of the famous "hard cider" campaign. the indians had been there too and, filling up with "fire water," their former war-path proclivities had returned to their "empty, swept, and garnished" minds, to the extent that they yearned to decorate their belts with our scalps. our preservers scattered to their homes, and the would-be scalpers were seen no more, leaving the world to darkness and to us in the woods. the woods, where adam and eve lived and loved, where pan piped, and satyrs danced, the opera house of birds; the woods, green, imparadisaical, mystic, tranquillizing--to the poet perhaps when all is well--but to us, they seemed haunted by spirits of evil, the yells of the demons seemed to echo and reecho; but an indefinable something seemed to sympathize with the infinite pathos of our lives, and at last sleep, "the brother of death," folded us in his arms, and the curtain fell. "there is a place called pillow-land, where gales can never sweep across the pebbles on the strand that girds the sea of sleep. 'tis here where grief lets loose the rein, and age forgets to weep, for all are children once again, who cross the sea of sleep. the gates are ope'd at daylight close, when weary ones may creep, lulled in the arms of sweet repose, across the sea of sleep. oh weary heart, and toil-worn hand, at eve comes rest to thee, when ply the boats to pillow-land, across the sleepy sea. thank god for this sweet pillow-land, where weary ones may creep, and breathe the perfume on the strand that girds the sea of sleep." it is pleasant in this sunset of life, to recall the testimony of my brothers that through all those troublous scenes, father and mother were soothed and consoled by an unfaltering faith in the ultimate triumph of the good and true, that their faces were often illumined as they repeated to each other those priceless words of the sweet singer, "drifting over a sunless sea, cold dreary mists encircling me, toiling over a dusty road with foes within and foes abroad, weary, i cast my soul on thee, mighty to save even me, jesus thou son of god." at last the "perils by land and perils by sea, and perils from false brethren," this long, long journey ended and we reached the promised land. we halted in old byfield, in the state of massachusetts, with worldly goods consisting of a bushel of barberries, threadbare toilets, and the ancient equipage dilapidated as aforesaid. after much tribulation, father took a farm "on shares," which was found to result in endless toil to us, and the lion's share of the crops going to the owners, who toiled not, neither did they spin, but reaped with gusto where we had sown. after a few years of this profitless drudgery, my father bought an old run-down farm with dilapidated buildings in the neighboring town of r----, mortgaging all, and our souls and bodies besides, for its payment. we hoped we had rounded the cape of storms which sooner or later looms up before every ship which sails the sea of life, for we had fully realized the truth of the poem-- we may steer our boats by the compass, or may follow the northern star; we may carry a chart on shipboard as we sail o'er the seas afar; but, whether by star or by compass we may guide our boats on our way, the grim cape of storms is before us, and we'll see it ahead some day. how the prow may point is no matter, nor of what the cargo may be, if we sail on the northern ocean, or away on the southern sea; it matters not who is the pilot, to what guidance our course conforms; no vessel sails o'er the sea of life but must pass the cape of storms. sometimes we can first sight the headland on the distant horizon's rim; we enter the dangerous waters with our vessels taut and trim; but often the cape in its grimness will before us suddenly rise, because of the clouds that have hid it or the blinding sun in our eyes. our souls will be caught in the waters that are hurled at the storm cape's face; our pleasures and joys, our hopes and fears, will join in the maddening race. our prayers, desires, our penitent griefs, our longings and passionate pain, be dashed to spray on the stormy cape and fly in our faces like rain. but there's always hope for the sailor, there is ever a passage through; no life goes down at the cape of storms, if the life and the heart lie true. if in purpose the soul is steadfast, if faithful in mind and in will, the boat will glide to the other side, where the ocean of life is still. [illustration: "it was a fair scene of tranquillity."] chapter iii. near to nature's heart. it seems but yesterday, although more than a half century ago, that i, a puny boy, stood on the hilltop and looked for the first time upon this, the earliest home of which i have any vivid recollection. it was a fair scene of rustic tranquillity, where a contented mind might delight to spend a lifetime mid hum of bees and low of kine. along the eastern horizon's rim loomed the blue sea beyond the sandy dunes of old plum island; the lazy river born in babbling brooks and bubbling springs flowing languidly mid wooded islands, and picturesque stacks of salt hay, representing the arduous toil of farmers and dry-as-dust fodder for reluctant cows. nearer, the two church spires of the little village, striving to lift the sordid minds of the natives from earthly clods to the clouds, and where beckoning hands strove vainly to inspire them with heavenly hopes; around them, glistening in the sunlight, the marble slabs where sleep the rude forefathers of the hamlet, some mute inglorious miltons who came from england in the early sixties, whose tombstones are pierced by rifle bullets fired at the maraudering red skins. these are the cities of the dead, far more populous than the town of the living. nearer, the willowy brook that turns the mill; to the south the dense pine woods, peopled in our imaginations, with fairy elves, owls, and hobgoblins--now, alas, owing to the rapacity of the sawmills, naught but a howling wilderness of stumps and underbrush. directly below me, stands our half-century old house with its eaves sloping to the ground, down which generations of boys had ruined their pants in hilarious coasting; near by, the ancient well-swipe, and the old oaken bucket which rose from the well; beyond this, of course, as usual, the piggery and hennery to contaminate the water and breed typhoid fever, and in the house cellar, the usual dampness from the hillside to supply us all with rheumatism and chills. there existed apparently in the early dawn of the nineteenth century, an unwritten law which required the farmers to violate all the laws of sanitation, and then to ascribe all ills the flesh is heir to, to the mysterious will of an inscrutable providence whose desire it was to make the heart better by the sorrows of the countenance, and to save the soul from hell by the punishment of the body. vegetables were allowed to rot in the cellars, and to make everybody sick with their noxious odors so that we might not be too much wedded to this transitory existence. pork, beans, and cabbage must be devoured in enormous quantities just before going to bed for the purpose of inspiring midnight groans and prayers to be delivered from the pangs of the civil war in the inner man. this moralizing is inspired by the pessimism of disenchanted age; but on that beautiful morning of the long ago, naught occurred to me save the wedlock of earth and heaven: i was near to nature's heart, listening to the ecstatic songs of the robins, the orioles and sweetest of all the bobolink. "oh, winged rapture, feathered soul of spring: blithe voice of woods, fields, waters, all in one, pipe blown through by the warm, mild breath of june, shepherding her white flocks of woolly clouds, the bobolink has come, and climbs the wind with rippling wings that quiver not for flight but only joy, or yielding to its will runs down, a brook of laughter through the air." after the charm of the novelty of the scene had vanished, i descended from my perch to explore this sleepy hollow: the barn door hung suspended on a single hinge, like a bird with but one unbroken wing to soar upon. the swallows twittered their love-songs under the eaves; chipmunks scolded my intrusion and threw nuts at my head from the beams; a lone, lorn hen proclaimed her triumph over a new laid egg, and then, with fiery eyes, assaulted me with profanity as i filled my hat with her choicest treasures. a litter of pigs scampered away, wedging themselves into a hole in the wall, and hung there kicking and squealing, while their indignant mother chased me up a ladder where she hurled at me the vilest imprecations; a solitary phoebe bird wailed out her plaintive "pee wee, pee wee, pee whi itt," and a newly-married pair of sandpipers chanted their song of the sea on the edge of a mud puddle in the yard. at last the infuriated sow went to liberate her wedged-in offspring, leaving me to flee to the house where i cooked my eggs and some ancient potatoes in the ashes of a fire smoldering in the wide old fireplace. i have since eaten royal dinners in palatial hotels, but nothing has ever tasted half as good as this extemporized lunch of my boyhood. here the rest of the family found me later when they came bringing their household goods; here i might have laid, broad and deep, the foundations of a useful life, had i possessed even a modicum of the stick-to-itiveness so essential to success. a limited amount of discontent is a powerful stimulus to more strenuous endeavor; but when you have intensity without continuity of mental action, beware of imitating my example of progressing along the lines of the least resistance; for if you do you will never attain to that persistency of effort which can come only from overcoming obstacles. when my father gave me a moderate task of weeding onions, i soon became tired of crawling on hands and knees under a scorching sun, inundating the earth with perspiration and tears, so i substituted a hoe for fingers, tearing up onions with the weeds that i might the sooner secure unlimited rheumatism by bathing in the brook. had my father given me what he earnestly desired, and what i richly deserved,--a sound spanking, and more weeding to do,--i might have developed much needed perseverance, but spanking was never allowed by my fond mother, and i became a shirk. i was set to picking berries to replenish the family larder; but this soon became monotonous, and i appropriated the old grain-sieve, placing it beside the bushes, and pounding the huckleberries into it with a stick; the result was a heterogeneous conglomeration of worms, leaves, bugs, and crushed berries; but i succeeded in eliminating the refuse by throwing the whole mass into a tub of water, and skimming off the risings. i would then descant to buyers upon the freshness of the berries wet with the dews of heaven, but my ruse was soon discovered, and people refused to purchase such mucilaginous pulp. our widowed hired woman was possessed of a baby, and i was assigned the task of rocking the cradle; but i soon sighed for the apple blossoms and songs of birds,--we had no english sparrows then--so i drove a nail into the cradle, tied to it the clothes-line, and went out of doors and began pulling at the cord. soon agonizing screams were heard, and baby was found on the floor with the cradle pounding on top of him. i was sent to drive home the cows from pasture, but left the task to the dog, who chased them over the wall into the corn-field where they devastated the crop, and ruined the milk by devouring green apples, while i, skylarking in a neighbor's pasture, was treed by an angry bull, who kept me in the branches until i caught a violent cold and became for weeks a family burden. i was set to milking the cows, but i tied their tails to the beams, applied a lemon-squeezer to their udders until everybody was aroused by the bellowings of the infuriated beasts, and the milk and myself were found carpeting the dirty floor. at last all patience was exhausted, and as i was born on sunday, and was good for nothing else my parents, good, pious church-members, concluded i must become a minister, consequently they sent me to school. school! what memories come back to us over the arid wastes of life at the very mention of this magic word! there is the place where immortal minds are filled with loathing at the very sight of books, or where the torch of learning is kindled, which burns on with ever-increasing brightness forever more, and when i think of some of the teachers of my youth i am reminded of what the wise pastor said to a "stupid lunk-head" who had conceived the preposterous idea that he was called to be a preacher. "what, you be a minister?" "yes," said the dunce, "are we not commanded in the holy book to preach the gospel to every critter?" "verily," was the reply; "but every critter is not commanded to preach the gospel." so long as percentages obtained after "cramming" for examinations are the criterions which decide the accepting or rejecting of candidates for teaching positions, we must expect "critters" for the school guides of our children, who, like some of my own tutors, will "ram it in, cram it in-- children's heads are hollow; rap it in, tap it in-- bang it in, slam it in ancient archaeology, aryan philology, prosody, zoology, physics, climatology, calculus and mathematics, rhetoric and hydrostatics. stuff the school children, fill up the heads of them, send them all lesson-full home to the beds of them; when they are through with the labor and show of it, what do they care for it, what do they know of it?" chapter iv. joys and sorrows of school-days. it was the custom in r----, and is now to quite an extent elsewhere, to elect as school committee those especially noted for their ignorance and unfitness for the duties, perhaps to keep them out of the almshouse, or to educate them by the absorption process while hearing pupils recite. these men were paid two dollars for each call they made at schools, consequently they "called" early and often, especially when the school ma'ams were young and pretty. here, as elsewhere, there was always a great fight at town-meetings for these school board positions, especially when the school-book agents became numerous, for these committees could secure from said agents unlimited free books, and get high prices for all their spavined horses, dried up cows, and sick pigs in return for voting for rival text-books. as the committees were often unequal to the task of making out a course of study, pupils selected what studies they pleased, as suicidal a policy as it would be if, when you were sick and went to the physician for relief, he should point to a lot of different medicines, and tell you to pay your money, and take your choice. as there was a cramming machine close by called an academy, whose sole object was to push students into harvard college, of course the common schools must be "crammers" for the academy, and the result was, that we had no educational institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of nothing. as well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound it down with a ramrod, and expect healthful physical growth. hundreds of poor parents are working themselves to death to send their children to such schools with a view to elevating them to "higher positions" than they themselves occupy, and soon we will have none to do the honest physical labor of life, but the world will be full of kid-gloved hangers on for soft jobs, who regard working with the hands to be a disgrace. well do i remember going to a neighbor, whose farm was mortgaged for all it was worth to buy finery and pay tuition bills in said academy, and begging for the services of the daughter to help my sick mother. i was refused with insult and scorn. "do you think," shrieked the irate virago, "that i will allow my daughter who is studying french, latin, greek, and german to wash your dirty dishes?" i was driven from the house at the point of the boot. that daughter is to-day shaking and twitching with st. vitus's dance, a physical and mental wreck from overstudy, causing nervous exhaustion and despair. hundreds of girls throughout our country who might have been good housekeepers, are to-day useless invalids, made so by what is called "higher education." hundreds of boys, who might have become successful farmers and mechanics, are now dissipating in beer shops while waiting in vain for lily-fingered positions as bookkeepers or teachers. in scores of new england towns, one man, employed to fill the heads of a reluctant few with the dead languages, receives more salary than all the other teachers combined. it seems to require a surgical operation to get the fact through our thick heads, that our school system demands radical reform from top to bottom to the end that hands as well as heads may receive technical bread-and-butter, practical education. i was a victim of this elective-study craze, and with the usual stupidity displayed by a child when left to decide what he shall do, i chose latin as my principal study in this common district school, because i fancied it smacked of erudition. the teacher, knowing no more than myself of the language, set me to committing to memory the whole of andrews' latin grammar. i gained the important information that "_sto, fido, confido, assuesco_, and _preditus_" govern the ablative, and other valuable lore; but when i asked the teacher where the latin vernacular came in, she replied that that would come to me later--that i must "open my mouth and shut my eyes while she gave me something to make me wise." a solemn awe not unmixed with envy pervaded the schoolroom as i, parrot-like, rattled off this valueless jargon of a people dead for hundreds of years. as this study possessed no interest for me, i naturally dropped into mischief, and being caught one day with a distorted picture of the teacher on my slate with the following suggestive poem lines beneath it:--"savage by name and savage by nature, i hope the lord will take your breath before you lick us all to death,"--i was chased about the room by the angry pedagoguess until i leaped through the back window, and the hole made in the bank by my head is pointed out to this day as a warning to recalcitrant pupils. [illustration: "floating 'neath the trees of mill river."] i refused to return to this temple of wisdom, and digging a hole into the haymow, secreted myself therein, pulling the hole in after me. here i would remain during school hours, watching through a crevice cut in the side of the barn, my father who made the air resound with threats of what he would do if i did not at once return to my education mill. here i was often joined by a congenial spirit, and we played cards which were regarded as the emissaries of satan by my religious parents; then we would sally forth with masked faces and wooden guns, and inspired by dime novels, overthrow the walls of children's playhouses, throw rocks against the schoolhouse, bully the small boys almost into fits, hook the neighbors' eggs, corn, melons and apples, which we devoured at leisure in a hidden hut in the woods. when the spirit moved, we would "swipe" a neighbor's skiff and go floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of mill river, lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes for a mud-eel for its dinner. then we would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. it was delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the flute-like melodies of the mockingbird of the north. we would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel, everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him; the turtles, snapping at everything in sight with impunity relying upon the impregnable defense of their coats-of-mail. on one of these occasions we were aroused from our arcadian dream by a frightful roar, and the destruction of all things seemed at hand. a young cyclone had struck the fire over which we had cooked our fish, fanning it into a furious conflagration. we climbed a tall oak, and soon, as far as the eye could reach, all the hills and woodlands seemed wrapped in flames. frantic farmers were seen flagellating the excited oxen and horses, who, with tails in air, were dragging the ploughs, making furrows around the houses and barns, which were nearly all located in pastures rendered dry as tinder by that extraordinary summer's heat. the cause of this disturbance was traced to us, and we barely escaped coats of tar and feathers at the hands of the infuriated neighbors, by the pleadings of our ever-loving mothers who promised we should go every day to the academy and sin no more. we were thoroughly sobered by our dangers, and commenced our careers at this ancient institution founded by the first lieutenant-governor of massachusetts. here reigned supreme a fiery autocrat, a fervent admirer of greek and latin, a cordial hater of mathematics--my weakest point--a d.d., ll.d., who was determined to drive everybody into college. he had heard of my escapades, and was fully prepared to lay upon my devoted head all the pranks of a restless fun-loving crowd of students. on the first day of my initiation, while the professor was invoking the divine blessing, the sight of a big dinner pail belonging to the fat boy in front of me, proved too much of a temptation, and i hurled it down the aisle, scattering pork, pickles, doughnuts, and so forth in its wake, and ending with a loud bang against the platform. of course i was the suspect, and cutting off prayer abruptly, down he rushed, and banged my head till i saw more stars than ever shone in heaven. my academy "_alma mater_" has graduated but few who have-- "climbed fame's ladder so high from the round at the top they have stepped to the sky," and it is sad to recall that many of the most gifted, acquired in college secret societies the alcohol habit, and now sleep in drunkards' graves. brilliant charlie, my chum, who mastered languages and sciences as easy as "rolling off a log." i saw him last summer, a wreck--wine and bad women did it. the idolized son of pious parents, whose youth was surrounded at home with the halo of bible and prayer; but like esau, he "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage" and afterwards "found no space for repentance, though he sought it earnestly and with many tears." it seems but yesterday that he and i were enjoying a game of "pickknife," lacerating the top of a new desk, when in rushed the "d.d." with his feet encased in the thinnest of slippers and with which he gave me a kick which broke his toe, then clasping it in his hand, danced on one leg, whooping unconsciously cuss word ejaculations till we shrieked with laughter; then he bumped our heads together until my big brother shook the dominie-pedagogue as a dog would a rat, and threatened that if he ever struck my head again he would drown him in the horsepond. dear, good brother, he always was, and is now my guardian angel, although now he comes from heaven to shield me, for i am the last on earth of my father's family. alas, how many of those academy classmates, each of whom was then the soul of honor and the heart of truth, drowned their intellects in the flowing bowl. _eheu, eheu, fugaces anni labuntur!_ but surely it was only this morning oh, beautiful, star-eyed harry, that you and i, wearied with the frantic vain attempts of the unmathematical professor to elucidate by appalling triangles and hieroglyphics on the blackboard the perplexities of cube root, ousted each other from the seat, sprawling upon the floor, and were chased by the ll.d. out of doors, never to return until we apologized and promised "to do so no more." although i had been as "prone to mischief" as the sparks to fly upward--ringing the academy bell at midnight by means of a string tied to the tongue, bringing the professor in his night shirt from his bed to chase me, covering his chimney with a board till he was well-nigh suffocated with smoke, hitching his horse to a boat in mill river, pillaging his coop and scattering his hens to the four winds of heaven, crawling under his bed at night and nearly frightening him to death with unearthly groans, catching him by the legs as he jumped out and leaving him kicking on the floor as i leaped through the window amid applauding students--i was appointed assistant teacher at the beginning of my senior year. then at once great dignity was assumed by me which, being resented by my former cronies, i secured order by licking them at recess one by one, though i suffered from many "nasal hemorrhages" while engaged in fistic rough and tumbles to assert my authority; i conquered, but secured many black eyes and bedewed the campus with much "claret" for the good of the order. at length we were declared sufficiently crammed to enter college, and on graduation day i discoursed in stentorian tones upon "true heroism," amid the applause of the fair sex, and convulsed the audience with laughter by prancing, in my enthusiastic eloquence, upon the sore toe of one of the reverend trustees on the stage who fairly yelled with pain: "_sic transit gloria mundi_." among the sins of my youth, which i confess with "shame and confusion of face" were the pranks played by me and some fellow-sinners upon our nearest neighbors. these worthies consisted of an old man and what appeared to be his much older daughter, the two most unaccountable cranks that dame nature ever presented to my notice. the father was possessed of the insane hallucination that he was the greatest poet that ever lived. often i have seen him drop his hoe in the potato field, and run for the house so that you could hardly see his heels for dust, looking for all the world like an animated pair of tongs. as he expressed it, "an idee had struck him," and all mankind would die of intellectual starvation unless he at once embodied said "idee" in a poem. his greatest delight was to gather about him of an evening a crowd of young folks and read to us his preposterous "lines." on such occasions, some of us would quietly steal away up into his garret, and roll down over the stairs, with a thunderous uproar, a huge gilded ball which had decorated a post outside a tavern where he formerly dispensed much "fire water," to the impoverishment of his customers and to the enrichment of himself. then our host, with much profanity, would rush to the rescue armed with an ancient bayonet and a fish trumpet which, like the bugle-horn of roderic dhu, summoned all the neighbors to his assistance; but some sympathizing friend would always upset the table holding the candle so that they could never decide who were the guilty absentees. at other times while the great poet was singing his sweetest songs, we would seize his ancient roosters by their tails, and while they were making night hideous with their lamentations, the angry couple would bombard the hen-roosts with shovels, hoes and other weapons in the hope of slaughtering the marauders. these pleasantries made much fun for us, and varied the monotony of the lives of our entertainers. the ancient daughter firmly believed that she possessed the fatal gift of beauty, although her elongated face was of the thickness and color of sole leather, and one eye was hideously closed, while the other was of spotless green. it was wonderful to see her cork-screw curls and languishing smirks when the young men took turns in pretending to court her, while an admiring crowd gazed at their amours through the window. i can recall but two of the greatest of the poems of this man who delighted in the full belief that shakespeare could not "hold a candle to him." these i take pleasure in handing down through the ages. no. . "a youth of parts, a witty blade to college went and progress made sounding round his logick; the prince of hell wide spread his net, and caught him by one lucky hit and dragged him down to tophet." no. . "in the year i, enoch b----, was born without any shirt on." chapter v. career of a dominie-pedagogue. dear old fathers and mothers! of all the people in this world, they look through the rubbish of our imperfections, and see in us the divine ideal of our natures, love in us not perhaps the men we are, but the angels we may be in the evolution of the "sweet by and by," like the mother of st. augustine, who, even while he was wild and reckless, beheld him standing clothed in white a ministering priest at the right hand of god. they see through us as michel angelo saw through the block of marble, declaring that an angel was imprisoned within it. they are soul artists. they can never acknowledge our faults, only our divine possibilities; so, when i left the academy, my parents, with strong yearning and with tears, entreated me to become a minister. i had not the heart to disappoint them and as one hypnotized, on a sabbath morning during that summer, the clergyman immersed me in the river, while a wondering crowd watched from the shore. the very waters seemed to protest, for as i gasped for breath at the cold backward plunge, i imbibed copious draughts of the briny deep, and was well-nigh strangled. i survived the ordeal, and that afternoon preached in the church to nearly the entire population of the town on the "final state of the impenitent dead." oh, the terrors of this my first sermon, horrors to preacher as well as to "preachees." as i sat in the pulpit beside our pastor, listening to the tremulous tones of the organ which followed the prayer, and gazing at the sea of upturned faces, they seemed taunting me with all the wild pranks of my boyhood, and crying "oh fool and hypocrite." all my schoolmates were there shaking with ill-concealed merriment. every pore poured forth perspiration, and my hair seemed to stand on end like quills upon the back of the fretful porcupine. i thought of the experience of the first sermon by a theological student which i had recently read in a comic paper, and i trembled lest history was to repeat itself. this theologue, like many of his cloth, was possessed of the insane impression that he was gifted with the sublime inspiration of eloquence, and being invited to preach on his return to the old home for vacation, he selected the somewhat startling text "and the dumb ass opened his mouth and spake." on this elevating theme he wrote a sensational sermon and committed it to memory in order that he might electrify his audience with eye power as well as by verbal flow of soul. the awful day arrived, but when the young apostle arose to preach, stage fright banished from his mind all but the thrilling text. "my friends," said he, "we are informed by the holy book that this dumb ass opened his mouth and spake." then pulling his hair in desperation, he repeated the text several times, when he was interrupted by the disgusted pastor, who jumped to his feet and shouted: "well, friends, as the dumb ass has nothing to say, let us pray." this awful example well nigh converted me into another specimen of this historic animal, but at last the pent up cave of the winds was opened, and a gust of sound came forth which so stunned the listening ears of my hearers that they dazedly mistook it for eloquence. i painted to them the picture of the incorrigible sinner "on flames of burning brimstone tossed, forever, oh forever lost." i did not intend to be a hypocrite; but drifted with the revival tide. i discoursed often that summer to audiences that crowded the church to the doors. i was but fifteen years of age, and was called: "the wonderful boy preacher." one sunday the village crank came to hear me, honoring the occasion by wearing a new stove-pipe hat of prodigious proportions, which he deposited on the seat as he arose during prayer. when the amen was pronounced, perhaps paralyzed by the fervor, he sat down upon said stove-pipe, crushing it to a pie, then leaped from the wreck uttering a blasphemous yell which convulsed the crowd with laughter, and thus broke up the meeting without the benediction and passing of the contribution-box, much to the delight of all who "steal their preaching" on all possible occasions. i soon found that however anxious people were to save their souls, they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being impecunious, i was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the "prudential committee," to teach the district school in barrington, n.h., for the generous stipend of $ per month and what board i could secure by going from house to house of my pupils. on arriving there i was ushered into the imposing presence of the free-will baptist minister for examination; then i was made aware that although i had plenty of greek and latin, i was woefully uninstructed in the rudiments of our mother tongue, and was saved only by the fact that my cousin was the largest contributor to the dominie's salary. the reverend superintendent had prepared an appalling array of "posers" in accordance with the laws of the state, but my cousin at my urgent request, assured him that i was an alumnus of one of the greatest institutions in the world, that i was a clergyman of his own denomination, that it was a waste of time to examine so distinguished a scholar, that dinner was ready, and the hungry dominie was seduced to the table where he partook of so much solid and liquid good cheer, that he quite forgot his official duty, and gave me the required certificate: thus i was saved from utter destruction. in this isolated country town the coming of the schoolmaster in his tour of boarding around, was the great social event of the year to each family in this barrington, so called from the numerous children which the mothers bear. the fatted pig was invariably killed in his honor, and he was regaled with fried pork, roast pig, broiled hog, sausages, and doughnuts reeking with swine fat _ad nauseam_, galore. the teacher was thus made bilious, dyspeptic and so ugly, that he tried to get even with his carnivorous tormentors by making it "as hot" as possible for their offspring. at the opening of the school, this long and lank fifteen year old pedagogue faced sixty pupils from the "a, b, c, tot" to the brawny twenty-one-year-older, spoiling for a fight. when i assayed to take a seat, the half-sawed-off hind legs of the chair gave way, and i fell heels in air upon the dirty floor amid the yells and cat-calls of this tumultuous army; then the stalwart ringleader came forward to throw me into the snow bank, where my predecessor was nearly smothered with his head under the snow and his feet uplifted to heaven. i quickly pulled a concealed ruler, and with a blow on the head, knocked the young giant sprawling, then utilizing all my athletic training, i tripped and banged his followers till they fled pell-mell to their benches. finally, i hypnotized my audience with great eloquence, stating that i would give them teaching or clubbing as they might prefer. my sweet sixteen, black-eyed girl cousin gave efficient aid, winning the girls to my side; they secured the alliance of their sweethearts, and the victory was complete. i soon found that some of the bright country lads and lasses knew more than myself about the "three r's," but by getting a key to the arithmetic, and trimming the midnight candle i managed to keep ahead of the game. in this strictly agricultural town, i found every type of the genuine unadulterated yankee stock. when i called on mrs. jones to furnish her share of the perambulating schoolmaster's provisions, she remarked, "i can eat you, but i can't sleep you, because i have no spare bedroom." with feigned terror, i said that i feared i would not be a very toothsome subject for a cannibal, thereupon she gave me the glad hand, "come right in, my poor thing, and we will fat you up for our thanksgiving dinner." i entered, and ate my hog and doughnuts with gladness of heart, for she was the most buxom, joyous, and hospitable betsy imaginable. it was she who cheered the house and the hearth more than all the christmas fires, an old-fashioned, thoroughly good woman, entirely happy without the aid of diamonds, finery, or long-tailed gowns to trail through the mud and sweep the streets. it was extremely refreshing to see this really sensible, natural human being, as rare in this age as an oasis in the desert. her husband came in smiling, a veritable brother jonathan, hale and hearty, though tired, for he had arisen from bed at three o'clock that morning, milked a dozen cows, done chores enough to kill a dozen dapper city clerks, and then tramped beside his oxen through the deep snow, taking a load of wood to sell in dover nearly twenty miles away. this load he had labored hard for two days to cut on the mountainside, and it brought him the munificent sum of three dollars, yet he was happier than any multi-millionaire i ever saw. there were stumps he had dug out, and rocks he had picked on his farm, enough to fence his hundred acres almost sky-high; but even then he said he had to shoot his corn and potatoes out of a gun to get them through the stones into the ground. this family was the life of every husking-bee, where each red ear of corn led to rollicking fun, resounding smacks on rosy cheeks, and of paring-bees when even numbered apple-seeds were the match-makers for bachelors and maids. they often took prizes in my spelling-matches, when the bashful swains were allowed to clasp hands with their sweethearts, which led to many lifelong hand and heart clasps in this good old-fashioned town where there were no despairing old maids nor lone, lorn, grouty unmated men. they went every sunday to whittle sticks, swap jack-knives and horses, and to listen to the white-haired parson who led them by the resistless rhetoric of a blameless life, as well as by his heartfelt prayers and exhortations in those "ways which are ways of pleasantness and those paths which are paths of peace." "one hot summer's day," the farmer told me, "the elder was preaching to a very drowsy crowd after a hard week's work in the hayfield, when suddenly he stopped and shouted: 'fire! fire!' at the top of his lungs. 'where? where?' cried some ex-snorers jumping to their feet. 'in hell,' cried the indignant parson, 'for those who sleep under the sound of the gospel.'" this model minister was dear to every heart, for it was he who had blessed them when they first saw the light of day, had baptized them when first his kindly teachings had awakened their aspirations to walk in the straight and narrow way. it was he who married them when they found each the _alter ego_, to whom they could say: "thou art all to me love for which my heart did pine a green isle in the sea love, a fountain and a shrine." it was he who had lifted their souls on the breath of prayer, when their loved ones had "fallen asleep in jesus, blessed sleep, from which none ever wake to weep." they loved him though they gave him from their scanty earnings but $ a year, and half the fish he could catch, yet they liberally supplied his larder with their sweetest butter, freshest eggs, and the choicest cuts from their flocks. when a city minister once said to him: "you have a poor salary, brother," he at once replied: "ah, but i give them mighty poor preaching, you know." grand old man, he followed closely in the footsteps of his master, and accomplished much more good than many famous ones who wander far from the precepts of the lowly nazarene, and deliver featureless sermons to unresponsive, gaily-attired dives under the arches of great cathedrals. but the trail of the serpent is everywhere found, even in this sequestered spot. there was, in the outskirts of the town, the inevitable rumshop, fed, it was said, by an illicit still in the woods, and there as usual satan held high carnival among families dead in trespasses and sins. there we assayed to hold temperance prayer-meetings, but they loved darkness rather than light, and we cast our pearls before swine, who turned and rent us. on one occasion we tried to hold services in the little old deserted schoolhouse, and found it, much to our surprise, packed with the inhabitants of sodom; a more villainous looking crowd i never saw not even in darkest new york. beetle-browed, mop-haired men, whose faces, if tapped, would apparently give forth as much fire-water as a rum barrel. for a short time they listened to the singing: but when the aged minister attempted with earnest words to inspire to a better life it seemed as if all the fiends from heaven that fell, had pealed the banner cry of hell. then a decayed cabbage struck him full in the face, ancient and unfragrant turnips and potatoes filled the air, our little band crowded around to shield him, but unmercifully assailed, we were obliged to wield the chairs vigorously over their heads to fight our way to the door. one of our number left to guard the sleigh, luckily had it ready, in we jumped and drove for our lives, pursued by invectives too horrible to mention. this attack was inspired by the keeper of the den of iniquity as he feared he would be deprived of his evil gains, and that night he rewarded them with unlimited free drinks until they drowned their consciences in a prolonged debauch. one of my patrons became my implacable enemy because i gave his chip-of-the-old-block son some much merited discipline. this man, sampson by name, was the most malignant fellow i ever saw. one night when with my pupils i was enjoying a skating party, he appeared with some "sodomites" threatening to chuck me under the ice, and they might have succeeded but for two of my friends who, when the enemy were close upon my heels, suddenly stretched a rope across their path which tripped them up, nearly breaking their heads in the concussion with the ice. on another occasion, several of us crawled into a long hole to explore a cave in the woods. while laboriously making our way on all fours, carrying torches, we were suddenly horrified by fiendish hisses. visions of snakes danced before our minds, the girls shrieked, the torches fell in our frantic scramble and we were left in stygian darkness. a mocking, demoniacal laugh was heard, winged creatures dashed against our faces scratching and lacerating. after much confusion and terror, we succeeded in relighting our torches, and found ourselves in a wizard-like cave. the bats, for such were our assailants, fled away like lost spirits, grotesque shapes were seen formed from the rocks by dripping waters during long ages, fantastic icicles like the stalactites and stalagmites of the famous mammoth cave hung suspended from the arching roof, but a resistless longing to reach the air of heaven urged us on, and we crawled to the opening through which we entered. i was in the advance, and on reaching the entrance was horrified to find it nearly closed by a large rock, and behind it appeared the malignant face of sampson, who danced in satanic glee, laughing and shouting. "i've got you rats in a hole, and there you'll stay till you die!" he shouted. we knew our enemy too well to expect any mercy, and painfully made our way backwards to the main cavern. none had ever explored it further. i at last saw a glimmer of light, and drawing nearer i discovered an opening to the upper world through which, with great exertions, we dragged ourselves back to the sweet air of heaven. the delight of the reaction was exquisite like that of escaping from paradise lost to paradise regained. when the ferocious sampson heard of our deliverance, he fled, and was never heard of again, yet this demon in human form had a twin brother who was one of the best men in the town. "from the same cradle's side, from the same mother's knee, one to long darkness and the frozen tide, and one to the peaceful sea." chapter vi. dreams of my youth. in the early spring came the close of school term, and teacher, pupils and parents parted with mutual regrets. my pecuniary reward was small; but i shall always remember with pleasure the kind assurances received that i left the intellectual status of that town much higher than i found it. i have visited the place only once since, but my old friends had all passed on to the higher life, and my young ones were scattered to the four winds of heaven in search of that happiness and wealth which is seldom found beneath the stars. i reached the old home under the hill, delighted to see once more the eyes which looked love to eyes that spoke again, to hear the familiar spring chorus from the river, the first robins and bluebirds rejoicing over the resurrection of nature, to explore each sheltered nook for the early cowslips, violets, pussy-willows, dandelions, and crocuses; to gossip with my old friends the chipmunks, the muskrats, and the woodchucks; to revisit each mossy hollow and sequestered retreat in my much loved pine woods; to whittle again the willow whistles, to caress the opening buds and tiny green growing blades of grass; to float once more in my little boat under the embracing arms of my chums, the oaks, birches, and hemlocks i loved so well; to watch the first flight of psyche, the butterfly, so emblematic of the soaring of the immortal soul from the body dead. the wood duck seemed to smile upon me as of old as she sailed gracefully into the little coves in my river, the woodpeckers beat their drums in my honor, and the heron, the "shu-shugah"--screamed welcome oh, my lover. the rapture of the returning life to nature thrilled my inmost being. blue waves are tossing, white wings are crossing, the earth springs forth in the beauty of green, and the soul of the beautiful chanted to all, the sweet refrain: come to me, come to me, oh my god, oh, come to me everywhere, let the earth mean thee, and the mountain sod, the ocean and the air, for thou art so far that i sometimes fear, as on every side i stare searching within, and looking without, if thou art anywhere. my mother brought out all her choicest treasures for her "long lost baby"; my father and brothers "killed the fatted calf" for the "prodigal returned," the wide old fireplace sent forth its cheering warmth, the neighbors gathered round to swap stories, and the apples, walnuts and home-brewed juice of the fruit contributed their inspiration to the hearty good cheer. within and without the genial spirit of springtime cheered the heart of man and the heart of nature, and all things animate and inanimate sang the words of the poet. "doves on the sunny eaves are cooing, the chip-bird trills from the apple-tree; blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing, and the crocus darts up the spring to see. spring has come with a smile of blessing, kissing the earth with her soft warm breath, till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing, and wakes from the winter's dream of death." that summer my services were frequently utilized as substitute preacher by our good pastor, who was much afflicted with what mrs. partington calls "brown creeturs." he had harped on one string of his vocal apparatus so long that like jeshuran of old "it waxed fat and kicked." exceedingly monotonous and soporific was his voice, and it was necessary to strain every nerve to tell whether he was preaching, praying or reading, the words were much the same in each case. the long cramming of hebrew, greek, latin and all things dead had driven out all the vim and enthusiasm of his youth; the dry-as-dust drill of the theological institution had filled his mind with arguments for the destruction of all other denominations to the entire exclusion of all common sense. he forcibly reminded me of the scotch dominie who stopped at the stove to shake off the water one rainy morning, and to rebuke the sexton for not having a fire. "niver mind, yer riverince," replied the indignant serving man, "ye'll be dry enough soon as ye begin praiching." one hot sunday when our clergyman was droning away as usual, a well-to-do fat brother, who once said he had such entire confidence in our clergyman's orthodoxy that he didn't feel obliged to keep awake to watch him, commenced to snore like a fog horn, nearly drowning the speaker's voice. the reverend stopped, and thinking innocently, that some animal was making the disturbance, said: "will the sexton please put that dog out." this aroused fatty, who left the church in a rage, and his subscription was lost forever. our pious pastor was a fair sample of the "wooden men" turned out by the educational mills of the day; to an assembly of whom edwin booth is reported to have said: "the difference between the theatre and the church is this, you preach the gospel as if it were fiction, while we speak fiction as if it were the gospel truth. when you give less attention to dry theological disquisitions and much more to the graces of elocution, you may expect to do some good in the world." his pastoral calls were appalling; arm extended like a pump handle to shake hands, one up and down motion, a "how do you do?"--"fine day," then a solemn pause, generally followed by his one story; "the day my wife and i were married it rained, but it cleared off pleasant soon after, and it has been pleasant ever since," then suspended animation, finally, "let us pray," and when the same old prayer with few variations was ended, once more the pump-handle operation and he departed, wearing the same hopeless face. he was not a two-faced man, for had he another face, he would surely have worn it. this sad-eyed man was much tormented by a brother minister in the pews, who seemed to have a strong desire to secure our pastor's poor little salary for his own private use and behoof. his plan evidently was to throw the stigma of heresy upon the incumbent, and to this end, when our preacher was one day laboring hard to show us exactly where foreordination ends and free moral agency begins, the ex-minister arose, excitedly declaring such talk to be rank arminianism, and denounced it as misleading sinners to the belief that they could be saved even if they were not so predestinated in the eternal mind of an all-wise, all-loving jehovah, who had foredoomed some to heaven and others to hell. the regular speaker was dumbfounded. an argumentative duett followed, much to the scandal of the saints and the hilariousness of the sinners, until the pitying organist struck up with great force: "from whence doth this union arise?" when the disgruntled disturber left the church vowing he would never pay another cent for such heretical sermons. later, a heated discussion arose among the church members as to whether fermented wine should be used at the sacrament of the lord's supper, and when a vote was taken in favor of the unfermented, the senior deacon withdrew in disgust and joined the "pedo baptist" church where he could have alcohol in his. all this of course made the judicious grieve, and the cause of religion to languish. this was the time, famous in church history, when a great reaction set in against cotton mather theology, who proclaimed that the pleasure of the elect would be greatly enhanced by looking down from the sublime heights of heaven upon the non-elect writhing in hell. unitarianism grew apace, and henry ward beecher immortalized himself by saying: "many preachers act like the foolish angler who goes to the trout brook with a big pole, ugly line and naked hook, thrashes the waters into a foam, shouting, bite or be damned, bite or be damned! result; they are not what their great master commanded them to be--successful fishers of men." our pastor was a good man despite his peculiarities, and led a blameless though colorless life; but his "hard shell" theology, his long years of monkish seclusion in the training schools, engendering gloomy views as to the final misery of the majority of human beings, his poverty and lack of adaptation, banished all cheerfulness from his demeanor, and when i recall his sad, solemn face, made so largely by his views in regard to the horrors awaiting the most of us in the next world, i find myself repeating the words of harriet beecher stowe in the "minister's wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted by the old theology; "oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? brides should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of despair, and only one in a thousand escapes." when i semi-occasionally peruse one of the sermons i preached in those days of my youth, i am strongly inclined to crawl into a den and pull the hole in after me. i can fully believe the orator who said that a stupid speech once saved his life. "i went back home," he said, "last year to spend thanksgiving with the old folks. while waiting for the turkey to cook, i went into the woods gunning--it would amuse me, and wouldn't hurt the game, for i couldn't hit the broadside of a barn at ten paces. while promenading, it commenced to rain, and not wishing to wet my best sunday-go-to-meetings, i crawled into a hollow log for shelter; at last the clouds rolled by and i attempted to pull out, but to my horror, the log had contracted so that i was stuck fast in the hole, and i gave myself up for lost. i remembered all the sins of my youth, and conscience assured me that i richly deserved my fate; finally, i thought of a certain unspeakably asinine speech which i once inflicted upon a suffering audience, and i felt so small that i rattled round in that old log like a white bean in a washtub, and slipped like an eel out of the little pipe-stem end of that old tree. i was saved; but the audience had been ruined for life." thus often in this cruel world do the innocent suffer, while the guilty go unscathed to torture a confiding public with what the great apostle calls the "foolishness of preaching." this summer brought our family few smiles but many tears, and the death-angel passed close to our doors. my eldest brother, while at work in the hayfield, was smitten by the sun, causing a mental aberration which made him a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and finally led him to cut the thread of life with his own hand; my second brother was pulled by his coat entangled in a wheel, beneath a heavy load which crushed his thigh. this left the rest of us to struggle as best we could with multitudinous weeds striving to choke the crops, and the many trials incidental to wresting sustenance from the reluctant bosom of mother earth. my brother mark, about this time took upon himself the joys and sorrows of a family and home of his own, while i assumed the care of a family of forty school children in the neighboring town of i----. i was but "unsweetened sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot correctly." the usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary pranks were resorted to by young america to settle the oft mooted question as to who is master; the inevitable interference of parents followed, who as usual, regarded their children as cherubs whose wings they seemed to think would soon appear were it not for the tyrannical spanks of the unworthy teacher. i survived the fiery ordeal after a fashion, and that winter entered a college in the state of maine. the same old unrest came to me there, wearied with the dry-as-dust lectures by the faculty of superannuated ministers, but i graduated after a two weeks' course, and vainly endeavored for three weeks to catch the divine afflatus at the theological institution, which was supposed to be necessary to enable me to rescue the perishing as a preacher of the gospel. then at the suggestion of the president, who quickly discovered my mental deficiencies, i was matriculated as a student at another university founded by the brethren of the same "hard-shell persuasion." i was but a dreamer, in the middle of my teens, dazed by conflicting opinions, but anxious to walk "_quo dews vocat_." "here i stood with reluctant feet, where the brook and the river meet, manhood and childhood sweet. "i saw shadows sailing by, as the dove, with startled eye, sees the falcon downward fly. "to me, a child of many prayers, life had quicksands, and many snares, foes, and tempters came unawares. "oh, let me bear through wrong and ruth, in my heart the dew of youth, on my lips the smile of truth." with this prayer of the poet upon our lips, many of us entered these "classic halls," hoping to find there in communion with the good and great of the past and the present, that mental and spiritual "manna" from heaven which would inspire us to lead ourselves and others to the sublime heights of heroic endeavor. chapter vii. a disenchanted collegian-preacher. previous to my arrival at this ancient seat of learning, founded and endowed for the perpetuation and propagation of the doctrines of our denomination, i had never entertained the faintest shadow of doubt as to the infallibility of our creed; but now all faith in it vanished like the baseless fabric of a dream. here at the fountain head of wisdom, from which streams were supposed to flow for the healing of the nations, my faith in the beliefs of my ancestors fled, nevermore to return; here, where lived the great high priests of the sect, i had expected to find the whole air roseate with divine love and grace, all souls lifted to sublime heights on the breath of unceasing prayer and praise. the disenchantment was appalling; my brothers in christ, the grave and reverend professors, were cold as icebergs, evidently caring nothing for the souls or bodies of their christian or pagan students; the preacher at the college church was an ecclesiastical icicle, who, in his manner at least, continually cried: "_procul, procul_, oh, _profani_!" the prayer meetings were dead and formal, no enthusiasm; it was like being in a spiritual refrigerator--with perhaps one exception, when, through the cracks in the floor from the room of a frugal freshman who boarded himself, came the overwhelming stench of cooking onions, and a wag brother who was quoting scripture to the lord in prayer, suddenly opened his eyes, and sniffing the unctuous odors, shouted: "brethren, let us now sing 'from whence doth this onion (union) arise?'" and roars of laughter would put an end to the solemn farce. within the dismal college dormitories were herded a few hundred youths, entirely free from all moral and social restraints, abandoned to all orgies into which many characters in the formative state are most likely to drift. i frequently saw a professing christian teacher torture with biting sarcasm his brother church-member, who had done his best, though he failed to grasp some intricate mathematical problem, until the poor fellow abandoned the college in despair. is it strange that i and many others lost all faith in a religion that brought forth such bitter fruit? when i strayed from the lifeless dulness of the college church into the light and warmth of the "liberal sanctuary," where the old man eloquently discoursed of the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy clothes when i delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is it strange that i embrace his darwinian theory instead of the mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden of eden? i usually preached on sundays, during my four years' course, in the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would walk in the footsteps of the only perfect one ever seen on earth. by trimming the midnight lamp and ruining my eyes, i won a scholarship which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that i was released from the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. the usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who insisted upon wearing stove-pipe hats and the forbidden canes; we tore each others' clothes to the verge of nakedness, and broke each others' heads in frantic football rushes; we indulged in ghost-like sheet and pillow-case parades, during which we fought the police and made night hideous with yells and scrimmages with the "townies"; we burned unsightly shanties, and thus improved the appearance of the city. we tripped up unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with dull thuds against the barber shop on south main street; we of course stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or recitations; we howled for hours under their respective windows: "here's to old harkness, for he is an imp of darkness! here's to old cax., for his nose is made of wax! here's to old prex--for he likes his double x!" until some of us were thrust by the police into the nauseating dens of the stationhouse. thus, like pendulums, we swung twixt studies and pranks till the boom of the rebel cannon bombarding fort sumpter thundered upon our ears. suddenly our books were forgotten: the university cadets unanimously tendered their services to the government; were at once accepted, and it was the proudest day of my life when, as an officer in our battalion, i marched with the rest to the drill camp on the historic training ground. the citizens turned out en masse to do us honor, and frantically cheered us on our way to do or die; every house was gay with old glory; our best girls, inspired with patriotic fervor, applauded while they bedewed the streets with their tears; the air resounded with martial music and the boom of saluting cannon; the young war governor, who went up like a rocket and down like a stick, led the way on a prancing charger; the people vied with each other in tendering hospitalities, and every corner afforded its liquid refreshments. we thought it lemonade, but it "had a stick in it" and, presto!--we were no longer seedy theologues, but young heroes all, resplendent with brilliant uniforms and flashing bayonets, marching to defend our great and glorious republic. we, unsuspecting, imbibed freely the seductive fluids, and soon our heads were in a whirl. we wildly sang the war songs and gave the college yells. it is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. that night, jupiter pluvius burst upon our frail tents in all his fury, and i awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a raging fever. i was taken to the hospital, and as i was a minor my father took me from the service. for weeks i was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished, alas,--like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart. before i regained the little strength i ever had, the war was over, but i had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. the few remaining students plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us. in my senior year i was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in bristol, conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final examinations. for days and nights the merciless grind went on until, as by a miracle, i escaped the lunatic asylum. i knew but little of the higher mathematics, but the "green" professor was a strong sectarian if not an humble christian, and when the hour for my private examination arrived, i contrived to waste the most of it telling him about the bristol church. it was near his dinner hour, and he yearned for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in copying the "_pons asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said: "that's right, i suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to his walnuts and his wine. the good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing engagement, as i well knew, when i called for his examination, he asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers were correct, passed me, and my "a.b." was won. we spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our "mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_" conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. i had acquired here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from this "pierian spring," but i rejoiced in the fact that i had cast away forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that in "adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in cain's murder, we sin-ned furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full assurance that there lies in the centre of each man's heart a longing and love for the good and pure, and if but an atom, or larger part, i know that this shall forever endure. after the body has gone to decay-- yes, after the world has passed away. the longer i live and the more i see of the struggles of souls towards heights above, the stronger this truth comes home to me, that the universe rests on the shoulders of love-- a love so limitless, deep and broad that men have renamed it, and called it god. chapter viii. in shadow land. i had cherished the delusive hope that my university diploma would be the open sesame to any exalted position to which i might aspire; but i found there was a multitude of competitors for every professional emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to secure any prize. my change in religious sentiments debarred me from the pulpit, and i had no friends influential enough to give me a profitable position as a teacher in new england. after making many applications, and enduring many hopes deferred which make the heart sick, i struck out for new york one dark, rainy night, with only $ in my pocket to seek my fortune in that so-called "modern sodom and gomorrah." i knew no one in that great city, and on my arrival before daylight in a dismal drenching storm, i entered the nearest hotel to obtain some much needed sleep. a villainous looking servitor showed me to a cold barn-like room where i found no way of locking the door, so i barricaded the entrance with the bureau, placing the chair on top as a burglar alarm. the scant bedclothes were so short that one extremity or the other must freeze, so i compromised by protecting the "midway plaisance," and in my cramped quarters, thought with envy of dr. root of byfield, who was said to stretch his long legs out the window to secure plenty of room for himself, and a roost on his pedal extremities for his favorite turkeys. i was on the point of falling into the arms of morpheus in the land of nod, when a stealthy attempt to open the door sent the chair with a crash to the floor. yelling at the top of my voice, "get out of that, or i'll put a bullet through you!" i heard a form tumble down the steep stairs, and muffled curses which reminded me of the lines in the hohenlinden poem: "it is iser (i sir) rolling rapidly." at the first dawn of a dismal day i crept down the dirty stairs, and out of the door of what i learned to be one of the most dangerous houses in that sin-cursed city. the days immediately following while seeking for employment were forlorn and miserable; i was the fifth wheel of a coach which no one wanted. finally, when i had spent my last cent for a beggarly meal, i saw an advertisement for a teacher in the reform school, and called on a mr. atterbury, the trustee. he regarded me with a pitying eye; told me two teachers had recently been driven from the prison by the kicks and cuffs of the toughest boys that ever went unhung; but if i wished to try it, he would pass me to that "den of thieves." i grasped at the chance like a drowning man at a straw, and that very night found myself facing nearly , hard looking specimens from the slums of all nations. the schoolroom was a huge hall, in which, at a tap of the bell, great doors were rolled on iron tracks to subdivide it into many small class sections, each in charge of a lady assistant. the organ pealed out the notes for the opening song which was given fairly well; but when i attempted to read the master's beginning of the responsive ritual, a stalwart young giant hurled a book at my head, and bedlam broke loose. i jumped from the platform, seized the ringleader by the hair and collar, and with a strength hitherto undreamed of by me, dragged him before he could collect his thoughts to a closet door, hurled him headlong and turned the key. the boys said afterwards that fire flashed from my eyes, and they thought the devil had come. i grasped a heavy stick, used for raising the windows, and told them in stentorian tones of a desperate man, that i would break the heads of all who were not instantly in their seats. the schoolma'ams quivered with fear, but the boys slunk to their places and i harangued them to the effect, that they could have peace or war; if peace, they would be treated kindly and be taught to become successful men; if war, they alone would suffer, for i had come there to stay. i tried to inspire these poor vicious boys, conceived in sin and born in iniquity, with the thought that knowledge is power; that many of the greatest and best of earth had risen from their ranks by persistent endeavor into the light and liberty of the children of god; that they could become happy and successful by being and doing good; that if they would set their faces resolutely towards the better life, i would gladly help to the utmost of my ability. one by one their eyes kindled with the light that is never seen on sea or shore. one touch of nature makes the whole world kin. they had never been appealed to in that way before, and the spark of goodness lying dormant in even the most depraved natures, responded to the breath of kindly words. i touched the bell, the great subdividing doors were rolled, and my assistants quietly proceeded to the work of instruction, confident that the war was over. when i had marched my regiment to their cells that night, and retired to my room, i reflected that every human existence has its moments of fate, when the apples of the hesperides hang ready upon the bough, but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. the decision of an hour may open to us the gates of the enchanted garden where are flowers and sunshine, or it may condemn us, tantalus-like, to reach evermore after some far-off and unattainable good. i dreamed that the clock of fate had struck the hour for me, that i had found my mission on earth, and that henceforth the "peace be still" of the master would calm life's troubled sea. in reconnoitring the island the next day, i found much to admire. the great domes of the massive buildings towered aloft above the encircling walls, like aerial sentinels warning us to lift our thoughts to the blessings that come from on high. the great ships went sailing by to lands beyond the sea; in front was a veritable bower of paradise, apple and peach-trees fruited deep, green lawns, rippling waters, fair as the garden of the lord. every prospect pleases and naught but man is vile. the signal was given from the harlem shore for the institution's boat. i jumped on board, and the strong arms of the uniformed boys of our boat's crew propelled us across the river, where two policemen stood on the pier guarding a girl about eighteen years of age. quick as a flash she pushed one of them into the water, his head stuck in the mud, his legs kicking in the air; then she shrieked with laughter and ran like a deer up the street. the other policeman and myself jumped into an express wagon, seized the reins from the astonished, protesting black driver, plied the whip to his horse and gave chase. "what for you dune dar?" cried the darky. "shut up!" was the only reply, and away we went, gilpin-like, with the horse on the run. we headed off the girl, and after a rough-and-tumble scrimmage threw her into the wagon, kicking, screaming, and scratching like a wild-cat. we took her by main force to the girls' wing of the prison and put her into a cell. scarcely was i seated at the table when the alarm-bell rang, and, being officer of the day i ran over to inquire the cause, and found the powerful young virago, our prisoner, enjoying herself hugely. when the matron had been handing her some food through a hole in the cell, the girl shot out her arm, grabbed her by the hair and with the other hand was now pulling out the hairs by the roots, sometimes a few at a time, sometimes by the handful, then she would bang the official's nose against the wall, then knockout blows on the face. the matron was in awful agony and faint from loss of blood. entreaty availed nothing, so i seized a dipper of hot water and dashed it on the girl's naked arm; the matron fell heels over head on one side, and the prisoner executed a somersault in the opposite direction, then jumped to her feet, shook her fist at me and swore like a pirate. this young amazon had been arrested in a vile den kept on a house-boat in the harbor, and long made life a burden for our women officials. a careful study of the five hundred girls in this reform school as compared with the one thousand boys, proved clearly that women, there as elsewhere, are either the best or the worst of the human race. when a girl cuts loose from the angel she was intended to be, she usually descends to the lowest possible pit of degradation; as soon as this girl in question found there was nothing to be gained by her fiendish outbursts of fury, she cunningly changed her tactics with her pious teacher, and pretended to "be born again." she ostensibly chose the bible for her favorite reading, prayed fervently, and became so circumspect in her deportment that she was promoted to the position of assistant cook in the good girls division. here she contrived to bake into a cake a letter which she gave to a visitor, who took it to one of her former companions in sin, and one day, while walking with her confiding teacher in the garden, a boat appeared rowed by four men. into this the young hypocrite jumped, and like a "sow that was washed, returned to wallowing in the mire." in contrast to her ungrateful depravity, the boy i had chucked into the closet on my first night here became my firm friend, and the stroke oar of my private boat crew. one day i was taking a boat ride in the harbor with two of my lady assistants and six stalwart boy oarsmen, when a boat shot out at us from blackwell's island with four villainous men and two degraded women. coming alongside, one of the women said to the boys: "throw that officer overboard, and come with us; we will get you $ a piece as bounty, then you can desert from the army, and have a jolly good time." my teachers fainted with fear; my crew rested on their oars, wild with desire to escape; it was a crisis. i looked them steadily in the eyes. "boys," i said, quietly, "when sinners entice thee, consent thou not--row." "we won't hurt you," said my leader; "you have been good to us; let us get into that boat." "never," said i. "you shall not go to hell, pull!" the men grabbed at me, my boys pounded them off with their oars, and one of the men fired two shots which whistled close to my head, but the boys pulled vigorously, and we sailed away amid the jeers and curses of our enemies. "sherman," said i, to my stroke oarsman, as we landed on our island, "why didn't you throw me overboard?" "you have been kind to us," he replied, "and we never go back on our friends." i had the pleasure before i left this school, to secure good positions for all my crew, and they became useful men. i was soon after this promoted to the vice-principalship of the institution, and an ex-minister was appointed my first assistant, a good man, but quite absent-minded. he recalled to my memory the story of a man who came home in a pouring rain, put his wet umbrella into bed with his wife, and stood himself up behind the door where he remained all night. one day, when i was off duty, i went sailing with two ladies through "little hell gate," which rushes with great fury by our island, to the sea. all at once the alarm bell rang. in my haste to get ashore, i ran the boat onto a partially submerged rock, and it would have been capsized, had i not jumped out onto the rock and pushed it off. down i went under the rushing tide. when i came to the surface i saw the white belly of a shark, as he turned to seize me in his jaws. i could almost feel his sharp teeth. my head struck the side of the boat, just as the ladies, with great presence of mind, grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me on board. we landed and i rushed, puffing and dripping like a porpoise, to the wall gate, unlocked it and entered. a frightful scene was before me. williams, my assistant, was on the ground, covered with blood, and around him was a crowd of the worst boys in the prison, pounding, kicking, and trying to snatch his keys so as to escape by unlocking the gate. luckily my bat with which i had played baseball with the boys stood in the corner, and grabbing this i struck out with all my strength, knocking down the boys right and left. just then the guard came up on the run, the wounded man was carried to the hospital, and his assailants locked up. williams, it appeared, had, in his absent-mindedness, unlocked the jail instead of the wall gates, and let out upon him this horde of ruffians who had been put in there for safe-keeping. he finally recovered, but left the island through fear of his life. the discipline of the school was much benefited by forming a school regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of the boys themselves. they were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of napoleon, and their ambition was stimulated by merited promotions from the ranks. for more than a year i thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the influence of kindly words and acts, even as the aeolian harp yields its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven. it was an inspiration to watch the blossoming of purer thoughts and higher aspirations, and to feel that we were cooperating with the invisible spirits in developing the hidden angels in this youthful army. all at once the shadows fell, the baneful greed of that organized appetite called "tammany hall," reached out its devil-fish tentaculae, which neither fear god, nor have any mercy on men, to seek our blood. evil looking shylock-faced trustees began to supplant those noble men who had made this refuge a veritable gate of heaven to so many more sinned against than sinning,--children of the vile. these avaricious, beastly emissaries of "tammany," soon snarled at us poor teachers that we must divide our small salaries with them or give place to those that would. not a school book, or a shin-bone for soup, could be bought unless these leeches had a commission from it; they brought enormous baskets and filled them with fruit practically stolen from our children, and carted them home for their own cubs. our superintendent and chaplain were strong sectarians, but very weak christians, and they readily made friends of the "mammon of unrighteousness." one hot sunday, when i was in command at chapel, the somnolent tones of the chaplain, who, as usual, was pouring forth a stream of mere words--words almost devoid of thought, lulled a large number of my fifteen hundred boys and girls into the land of dreams. as soon as the services were over and i had surrendered my flock to the yard master, i was summoned before the superintendent where the pious chaplain accused me of insulting him by not keeping the children awake. i quietly asked him how this could be done. "go among them with a rattan," said he. i told him i thought the preacher deserved the rattan much more than the children, that they would listen gladly if he would give them anything worth hearing. from that moment he was my malicious foe. one day while returning from a row in the harbor, i treated my boat's crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the superintendent's whistle sounded, and i was called before the trustees then in session. "are you aware," said he, savagely, "that the rules direct that all fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?" "yes," was my reply. "well, then, you were stealing, just now." "i was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a thief." the trustees roared with laughter. the president of the board then asked if i had seen others stealing the fruit. "yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees." "well," said he, "this is a den of thieves." "all except the convicts, sir," i replied. these incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power for good that i reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the romantic county of berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the stars. among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many "wharf rats"--so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like topsy, they had simply "growed," and slept under the wharves of the city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to assuage the pangs of hunger. they were vicious to a degree, and at first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an abundant meal obtained honestly. they would rather fight than eat, and prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling the truth. some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of surprising acuteness. i once asked one of these why he was sent to the reform school. "oh," was the reply, "i stole a sawmill, and when i went back after the water dam the copper scooped me in." another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was a, he called out: "how do you know that is a?" "why, when i went to school my teacher told me it was a." "well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller lied?" at one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a speaker, a man by the name of holmes, and wishing to impress the boys favorably, he announced him as professor holmes. the orator was annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced by saying: "i am not professor holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass--" at this point, quick as a flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "well, if you ain't professor holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?" then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect imitation of holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into the coon song:-- "de bigger dat you see de smoke de less de fire will be, and de leastest kind ob possum climbs de biggest kind ob tree. "de nigger at de camp-groun' dat kin loudest sing an' shout, am gwine ter rob some hen-roos' befo' de week am out." thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and unprecedented attractiveness. chapter ix. sunlight and darkness in palace and cottage. my pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the bowery, while those at s---- were from the palaces of fifth avenue; but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. i was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the millionaire parents of my scholars, and i verily believe that i saw as much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the poor. on my arrival in berkshire county, i found both of my employers were off on a spree, and that i was ordered to do the work of receiving and organizing. one day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondholder" and his wife, arrayed in purple, fine linen, and diamonds, pulled a flashily appareled, humpbacked boy up to me, every lineament of whose face showed depravity and cunning. "there," said the father, "is my d---- d son, he drinks, swears, and breaks all the commandments every day. take him, and send the bill to me." he handed me his card and away they went. this was not an isolated case. i did my best for them; but they were satiated with luxury, hated books, and seemed to care for nothing but debauchery. the very next day several of these scamps obtained permission to visit the cave in "bear mountain," where ice could be found throughout the year. as they did not return on time, i went in search and found them all drunk. they had no appreciation of the sun-kissed mountains, waving forests, or verdure-clad valleys; the grand scenery awakened no responsive smiles, no ennobling aspirations; they were intent upon nothing but drowning their ignoble souls in the noxious fumes of tobacco and alcohol. i tumbled them into the wagon, drove them to their dormitory and put them to bed, lower than the beasts they seemed to be in their depravity; not all to be sure, for there were a few choice spirits like julian hawthorn, who followed to some extent the example of his illustrious father, and has won his spurs in literature. i found to my disgust that bad eggs would ruin the good ones; but that many good ones could not take the rottenness from even one of the bad. it seemed a hopeless task to endeavor to inspire such impoverished souls, and i retired in despair, to accept the principalship of the ancient academy in the village. here i met the children of the so-called middle class, the very bone and sinew of the republic; here i was monarch of all i surveyed, and untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, i pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. e and duco is the etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of the mind. i had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all were intent upon acquiring thorough, practical education. when i saw their enthusiasm lagging from want of physical exercise, at the tap of the bell, we would all rush out upon the beautiful campus and kick football, or run races until, with glowing faces and invigorated energies, they would follow me back to our studies, sometimes into the cheerful academy hall, sometimes under the shade of the noble oaks, where we would study botany close to nature's heart amid the songs of birds and the sublime chanting of the tree-tops. we gave musical and dramatic entertainments, securing ample funds to decorate the walls of our hall with works of art; we went on rides together in barges, drank in long draughts of inspiration from the glorious scenery, and studied geology, practically, like, if not equal to hugh miller, among the rocks and boulders. i was doing good, and here i should have remained; but the old unrest came back to me, and i unwisely accepted a much larger salary in teaching in my native county of essex. as soon as i took command of my two hundred boys and girls in b----, i realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of the public school system. many children are so crammed with everything that they really know nothing. in proof of this, read these veritable specimens of definitions, written by public school children that very year in another school of this town. "stability is the taking care of a stable." "a mosquito is the child of black and white parents." "monastery is the place for monsters." "tocsin is something to do with getting drunk." "expostulation is to have the smallpox." "cannible is two brothers who killed each other in the bible." "anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head, the chist and the stummick. the head contains the eyes and brains, if any; the chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver. the stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w, and y." every teacher was rated according to his ability to secure from his pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion. i grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the board, considered a unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious life of the young. i grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic lloyd ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und korrid in a kort by the wimmun o' marrble ed." here i had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. they had been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. on the first morning, i was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard as brickbats, and i at once reciprocated these favors by knocking down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later i was busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful instrument. these owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile, saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then stalked out, leaving me to my fate. a young hercules fisherman at once suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the window as they had so many of my predecessors. to this i stoutly objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, i swung it fiercely close to their heads. this was more than they had bargained for, and the uproar pro tem subsided. this was the winter famed in the history of massachusetts, as producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week i was snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils. one day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor, himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was drowned. the loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his followers, and _vi et armis_, i managed to survive the fourteen weeks' term. at the close of the first session of the last day, i threw a football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off, kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, i was in the "hub of the universe." i afterwards learned that my discretion was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to davy jones' locker. i had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until i met in the city, the veritable judas iscariot, ready and anxious to sell anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper, or any old thing he could pick up. this jew pretended to wish to sell one-half interest in his commercial school for $ , . i had some negotiations with him, but found out, by careful investigation, that he had already sold several confiding teachers, who ascertained too late to save their money, that this fraud was collector and treasurer of all funds of the company, that he required his partner to do all the drudgery, and that his report always claimed that all collections had been paid out for expenses. he reminded me of the legend, that when the devil took christ to the top of a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the earth, and said: "all these things will i give you to fall down and worship me." suddenly, the face of a shylock appeared, saying: "shentlemen, peeshness ish peeshness, and if you can't trade, i will take dat offer." i mention this little incident hoping it may prove a warning to the unwary who, like myself, may fall among the sharpers of the modern athens. disgusted with this business experience, and wishing to do good and get good, i advertised, offering $ for an acceptable position as teacher, and i at once received many responses from thrifty committeemen, and retiring teachers. i interviewed a clergyman who wanted the reward in advance; but when the time came for him to deliver the goods, he had suddenly decamped in the night to avoid a coat of tar and feathers from indignant parents whose children's morals had been basely ruined by this wolf in sheep's clothing. others extended itching palms for the money, but failed to secure for me the "_sine qua non_." at last, an impecunious teacher in w----, who was retiring to accept a "louder" call in boston, introduced me to his board as a particular friend whom he had known for many years, (he had never seen me before), and vouched for me as one of the greatest of living instructors. when the three doctors, constituting the school board, were about to give me a searching examination, which doubtless would have floored me, prearranged calls summoned them to see pretended patients, and on the mercenary pedagogue's assurance that i was a university graduate, they hastily signed my commission and i was saved. i shall always remember my two years' experience in this beautiful town, with much pleasure and pride. on the opening of the school i found myself looking upon over one hundred of the finest appearing boys and girls i had ever beheld, seated in a noble new hall well equipped with organ and all the apparatus which wealth could procure. soon after the opening exercises, the usual trial of the new master commenced, and a stifling, choking odor threw all into convulsions of coughing, almost to strangulation. some one had thrown a large quantity of cayenne pepper down the register. i quietly opened the windows, and when the noxious fumes had passed away, the new principal said: "i feel sure that the pleasant outward appearance of my family here is an expression of the inward goodness and honor of you all, and i am confident that the perpetrator of this disagreeable mischief will take pride in removing suspicion from his companions by rising in his seat and apologizing for his thoughtless rudeness." a fine, manly looking boy at once arose. "come up here, my friend, and let us talk it over," i said, and he came and stood by my side. "we are all brothers and sisters here, and i have no doubt you, arthur, will now express your regrets for what you have done." he did so, the audience applauded, and the incident was closed. the new master's manner was such a decided contrast to that of his "knock down and drag out" predecessor, that it captivated his protégés at the start, and this was the only unpleasant episode in my delightful intercourse with these charming children. i established a society called the "class of honor," which soon comprised my entire family. every pupil who had no marks against him or her for failures in scholarship or deportment, was decorated with a blue ribbon, and when he had earned and worn this for one month, he was presented with a handsome diamond shaped pin on which was engraved the words "class of honor." they were prouder of this decoration than ever were the imperial guard of napoleon of the cross of the legion. if a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public libraries. each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. the high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a successful career. we had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave grace and erectness to the carriage, and every friday afternoon, the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all went merry as a marriage bell. my salary was raised voluntarily every six months; i enjoyed their games with them in our ample playgrounds. we often, on holidays, roamed the woods and seashore together; i often dined with them in their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions i was one of the principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save one. for some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated with moisture from the sluggish abajona, kept my throat in an almost chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, i could hardly speak above a whisper. had it not been for this one serious handicap, i think i would gladly have remained there for life. i kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for myself and pupils. one incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my efforts in their behalf. during the first campaign of general grant for the presidency, many of my pupils and i joined the w--battalion of uniformed and torch bearing "tanners." we marched to the city as an escort for speakers at a republican rally. when the hoodlums smashed our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished statesman, retreated; but i lost my head and charged the rioters, using my torch handle vigorously; i was cut off from my company of which i was lieutenant, and captured by the democrats. as soon as my men realized this, they rushed upon my captors _en masse_; many heads were broken, but i was rescued and carried to the train on the shoulders of my heroic defenders. if my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, i would never have left w----, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a much larger salary from n----, and i foolishly accepted. the change from w--to n----, was like that from breezy, sunny green fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and unsavory fertilizers. in the former the people were social, natural and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank account and the number of your horses and servants. in the one the teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board. in the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. in the one you were free from all social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial orthodox church. i was early told that i would fail if i persisted in attending the little unitarian church; but i preferred failure to hypocrisy, and would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth because i was an advocate of the liberal faith. the venomous spite of one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name: "old aunt dunk is a mean old skunk." she flew into a furious rage, declared that some unitarian must have perpetrated this insult, and that i must find the culprit. she never forgave me because i failed to do so, and at her urgent solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that i chewed tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. as i easily proved that i never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was unanimously refused by the school board. it would have been laughable had it not been so serious and pitiful, to see the frantic attempts of the poor in this town to keep up appearances, and counterfeit the style of those who had grown rich by cheating widows and orphans in bucket shops and stock gambling. the little minnows put on all the snobbish airs of the whales who had grown so large by devouring all the small fish in their business seas. one pillar of the church, who was a cashier, ruined his bank by stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. for a time he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a tower upon it to look down in contempt upon all the lesser shrines. he barely escaped the sheriff at night-time, and fled beyond the seas, leaving his showy family to poverty and the ill-concealed derision of those who worshipped them while they were supposed to be rich. such as these made life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of my year, i left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in which i had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. my life seemed a failure; i reflected long upon the question of the psalmist, "what is man?" and here are the answers which i culled from many thoughtful poets, whose names are appended to their several replies. in this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made all;-- (_brome_.) he who climbs high, endangers many a fall;--(_chaucer_.) a passing gleam called life is o'er us thrown,--(_story_.) it glimmers, like a meteor, and is gone.--(_rogers_.) to-morrow's sun to thee may never rise--(_congreve_.) the flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow dies--(_shelly_.) and what do we, by all our bustle gain?--(_pomfret_.) a drop of pleasure in a sea of pain.--(_tupper_.) tired of beliefs, we dread to live without;--(_holmes_.) yet who knows most, the more he knows to doubt.--(_daniel_.) princes and lords are but the breath of kings.--(_burns_.) and trifles make the sum of human things.--(_more_.) if troubles overtake thee, do not wail;--(_herbert_.) our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail.--(_percival_.) the fiercest agonies have shortest reign;--(_bryant_.) great sorrows have no leisure to complain.--(_gaffe_.) one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--(_shakespeare_.) for we the same are that our sires have been;--(_knox_.) nor is a true soul ever born for naught,--(_lowell_.) yet millions never think a noble thought.--(_bailey_.) good actions crown themselves with lasting bays,--(_heath_.) and god fulfils himself in many ways.--(_tennyson_.) the world's a wood in which all lose their way--(_buckingham_.) a fair where thousands meet, but none can stay;--(_fawkes_.) to sport their season, and be seen no more,--(_cowper_.) till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.--(_pope_.) chapter x. adventures in mosquito-land. at the close of the school in july, , a friend of mine, doctor b----, of boston, and i, attracted by the alluring prospectus of a new town near plymouth, north carolina, visited that place via the merchant's and miner's steamship line. i wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied by northern newspapers in which i figured as the professor and he as the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "shoo-fly club." i quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable excursion. "on the early morning after our arrival in the southland, doctor and professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of morpheus, awoke to a contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. "mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them, black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed with a vengeance. we lay under our netting appalled at the profanity and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed to be no escape. the breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would starve though we were slain. "at length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor. 'the shoo-fly--the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that? and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies stabbing him for dear life. we then proceeded to anoint our bodies with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth to the crusade. down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors. "regardless of mrs. grundy, regardless of everything save life, the professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant girls, for the bath-house--here at length plunged beneath the flood he found relief. after copious ablutions the professor went back for his friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved there to starve rather than again to face his foes. "after much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. here two servant girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints, while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the flies of the season. at length our appetites or rather we ourselves, were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their dead and divide the spoils of war. "our host, who is a true gentleman from pennsylvania, then ordered the darkies to harness the span. after the inevitable delays which always attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. our host had a lame hand, and the professor volunteered to drive; our friends, the varmints, now confined their kind attentions almost exclusively to the horses, which they butchered unmercifully. oh, such roads! boys of new england, if you sigh for 'sunny' north carolina, go; go by all means, and you will return satisfied that old massachusetts, with all its east winds is a paradise compared with what we saw in the 'old north state,' or in the 'old dominion.' "but to our journey. the horses floundered through quagmires covered in some places with logs, which toss and tumble you till every bone aches, floundered and swam through streams reeking with scum from the cypress swamps; the roads are about six inches wider than your carriage, and the professor found himself obliged to avoid the sharp corners of fences, on either side the deep ditches on whose very edge ran the wheels; to urge his horses over stumps and fallen trees; to whip them over long snouts of prostrate pigs who refused to budge an inch; to jump them over chasms running dark and deep across his path and to spur them down sharp, perpendicular pitches which threatened to break every bone in his body. "here and there we saw a few logs piled up together, flanked by mud and sticks, and dignified by the name of house; the naked piccaninnies rolled in the dust, and the poor-white scowled as he lifted his hat, while we worried our miserable way along. "now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for enjoyment. after shooting at the wild pigs for a while, finding there was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they threw off their clothes, and regardless of moccasins, regardless of spiders and the whole race of poisonous vermin, they plunged to their necks into the ditch by the roadside. for long weary hours we wallowed till the welcome form of our host appeared, and we recommenced the pitching and stumbling of the dangerous return voyage of this, our pleasure trip. "for miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with moss and enormous scuppernong grape-vines, were unbroken by a single clearing or a single shanty. the scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a great luxury; from these are made a wine equal to anything that can be found (we believe) in the world. one vine is found on roanoke island, which is two miles in length, covers several acres of land, and was planted by sir walter raleigh's expedition, centuries ago. for miles that afternoon, we wandered up and down the country seeking for water fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking darkies, making collections of souvenirs, gazing at the good-looking crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the aborigines, the flies. "we have seen some toothsome things in the south, some beautiful scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times defiled the feast of the wandering trojans. "the great gala-day of jamesville has dawned, to-day the great norfolk steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more) comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. here are groups of 'f.f.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd--n nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured doctor b. and professor f., looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off mecca. a scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that is. "the _astoria_, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved new england. never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. all day--all night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty roanoke. "hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long trailing mosses, looking like the pale sickly shrouds enveloping a dead and ruined world. here and there we saw huge nests of the size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a lightning-struck tree, perched on its topmost bough, the great bald eagle of the south, keeping his sleepless watch and ward, while the wife-bird tended the household gods below. deadly moccasins and huge turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of blackberries were wasting their sweetness on the desert air. now and then there came to us like an inspiration from heaven the ecstatic music of the mockingbird, carrying shame and despair to the breasts of all the other warblers of the aerial choir. "nothing could be more inspiring than the notes of this charming singer, as we listened to them here amid these melancholy swamps exhaling the sickly miasma beneath this blighting sun, with not a breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trumpet creepers, or to cool the fevered brow. melancholy waitings are heard from the swamps, and the waves in parting, look like fields of fire. the winds come to us, but with them no refreshing, for they came over mile after mile of suffocating, reeking lagoons, stifling with the hot breath of the miasma. "every now and then the rip van winkle machinery breaks down, and for hours we are motionless, listening per force to the terrific cursing and pounding in the vulcanic realms below. at length the sun, not like the rosy-fingered aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red monster intent on devouring the world, shoots at us his blighting, withering lances of scorching heat. we touch once more at plymouth, which greets us with its usual entertainment of murderous fleas, death-dealing watermelons and chain-lightning whiskey. our ten minute touch here lengthened into three horrid sweltering hours owing to the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for 'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at length we enter the great canal leading to the north river of norfolk. "with chat and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering in the mud. 'no moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' and so for three mortal hours we lay stuck in the mud at the edge of the great dismal swamp of virginia. 'ah,' said the mate, 'there is the scene of many a horror, there the nigger was torn limb from limb by the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation and death amid deadly snakes and miasma rather than comfort in bondage; there i myself saw crowds of black men swinging from limb to limb like monkeys over reeking scums to their fever-haunted dens to escape the lash.' "thus was the story of mrs. harriet beecher stowe verified by one of virginia's own sons. all the fearful word paintings of dred floated again before our mental vision, and we thanked god that the old horror of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.' "but these hours of waiting, like all things earthly, at length had their end, and just as the moon gilded the cypress-trees with golden glory, the wheels began to move and we again worried our tortuous way up the north river. 'ah,' said the melancholy-looking man who had been long gazing in silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here i am, friendless and alone in this wretched country, peddling beeswax and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but i was once a schoolmaster with $ , a year, down in connecticut; wine and women did it. but,' said he, 'i'll be rich yet--i've got it--i've discovered perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet.' "'wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions of coming glory. just then we were electrified by a cheer from the doctor, as the lights of norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, yet to float the commerce of a great city. "we bade farewell without a single regret to the old tub _astoria_, and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand and one stenches, stumbling over the prostrate forms of sleeping negroes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a bath, which the nasty water of north carolina had forbidden for many weary days. suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of drums and the shouts of hundreds, calling to a mass meeting in court house square. thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'mother of presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a white man's government amidst the shouts of the great unwashed; while the sons of ham looked silently and sullenly on. "we gladly responded to the steamer's shrill call and sailed away to our home in the great and glorious north." chapter xi. in arcadie. i gladly returned, like a tired child, to the kindly faces and hearty greetings of my loving and much loved father, mother, brothers, green fields, and all the beautiful children of summer. "born where the night owl hooted to the stars, cradled where sunshine crept through leafy bars; reared where wild roses bloomed most fair, and songs of meadow larks made glad the summer air, "each dainty zephyr whispers follow me, ten thousand leaflets beckon from each tree; all say, 'why give a life to longings vain? leave fame and gold: come home: come home again.' "i hear the forest murmuring 'he has come' a feathered chorus' joyous welcome home; each flower that nods a greeting seems a part of nature's welcome back to nature's heart." the old home was much changed, and for the better. with much patient toil, the unsightly rocks and stumps had been removed from the fields which sloped gracefully to the little river and were covered with tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and daisies. the dilapidated house and barn had given place to modern buildings; apple, pear, and peach-trees, covered with fragrant blossoms were substituted for their decayed and skeleton prototypes; the narrow, crooked, muddy lane, where horses and wagons had struggled through the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had become a firm and fairly straight highway. my house in the tree on the hilltop, where i had often rehearsed my orations and sermons in such stentorian tones that the amazed cows lifted their tails on high and took to their heels, welcomed me back embowered in leafy new-grown branches. my second brother, realizing that as "unto the bow the cord is, as unto the child the mother, so unto man the woman is--useless one without the other," had taken unto himself a good wife, the daughter of the deacon, our next neighbor. my mother thus had a much needed helper, as their farms, like their owners, were joined in wedlock. [illustration: i rehearsed my orations with startling effect.] the worthy deacon and my deeply religious father alternately led the family devotions, and peace and comfort prevailed. the mowing machine, horse-hoe, corn-planter and power-rake dispensed with the drudgery of the scythe and back-breaking hand tools. a protective tariff had set the mill wheels rolling in the neighboring cities, thus furnishing excellent markets for all the products of the farm. the sky-scraping shoe manufactories, where men, like automatons, delved night and day for a few weeks and then leaving them to semi-starvation for the rest of the year, had not yet arrived. one of my brothers had, like most of the farmers of that day, his little shop where in winter he coined a few hundred dollars making boots and shoes, and where i earned many precious pennies, blackballing the edges and occasionally pegging by hand, all of which is now done by machinery. we could now afford occasional holidays, when we all gaily sailed down the river, dug clams, caught lobsters in nets, regaled ourselves with toothsome chowders, broils and stews in the open air, and had many rollicking good times swimming in the breakers, frolicking, old and young, like children. we pitched our tents on old bar island, slept on the fragrant hay at night, played ball, and renewed our youth inhaling deep draughts of the salty wind which bloweth in from the sea. when sailing home one day with a wet sheet, a flowing main, and a breeze following far abaft, we espied a boat submerged to the gunwhale floating out to sea. throwing our yacht up into the wind, we took the craft in tow to the landing, and were surprised and delighted beyond measure to find it nearly half full of fine large lobsters, held there by a wire netting. for weeks we and all the neighbors held high carnival boiling and eating the luscious crustaceans. we had much merriment one day on a fishing excursion at the expense of a parsimonious member of our crew. at first he alone pulled in the much prized tomcods and flounders. "well," said he, "i think we better go in, each one for himself." "all right," was the reply, but soon stingy ceased to catch any, while the rest of us pulled in the fish as fast as we could throw the hooks. mr. greedy looked very solemn, and at last, unable to repress his selfishness longer, shouted: "i think we better share all alike!" "too late," was the chorus, and while he carried home but a beggarly string, the rest rejoiced in our great abundance. these seem like little incidents, light as airy nothings, but they come back to memory in the twilight of life when other and greater events are all forgotten. when the crops were all harvested, and the winds and snows of winter shut me out from my woodland, river, and seashore haunts, i grew weary of the monotony of the indoor country life, and once more went to the city of boston in the endless quest of the unattainable. restless as the sea, we are never satisfied this side the stars; but we are all looking forward to that sweet by and by, "as the hart panteth for the water brook." i shall be satisfied, not here, not here not where the sparkling waters fade into mocking sands as we draw near, where in the wilderness each footstep falters, i shall be satisfied; but, oh, not here. not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us, where the worn spirit never finds its goal, but haunted ever by thoughts that grieve us, across our souls floods of bitter memories roll. satisfied, satisfied, the soul's vague longing, the aching void, which nothing earthly fills, oh, what desires upon my mind are thronging, as my eyes turn upward to the heavenly hills! shall they be satisfied, the spirit's yearning, for sweet communion with kindred minds? the silent love that here meets no returning, the inspiration, which no language finds? there is a land, where every pulse is thrilling, with rapture, earth's sojourners may not know, where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, and peacefully earth's storm-tossed currents flow. far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us, lies that fair country, where our hearts abide, and, of its bliss, naught more wondrous is told us, than these few words, i shall be satisfied. chapter xii. from philistine to benedict and a honeymoon. the fates, who lead the willing-and drive the unwilling, guided me to the old time firm of b. & t. publishers. they were overwhelmed with applications from the great army of the impecunious, and did not wish to pay any more salaries; but "mercy tempers the blast to the shorn lamb," and they persuaded me, by a tender of large profits on their worcester's dictionaries, to strike out on my own hook and endeavor to induce a reluctant public to buy these instead of the popular dictionaries written by "noah webster who came over in the ark." the special prices granted by the publishers enabled me to undersell the wholesalers, and by securing their adoption as regular text-books by school boards, i made more money than ever before in my life, sometimes from $ to $ per day, consequently the firm finding i was filling the markets and my own pockets so that they had no sales at regular prices, hired me at a liberal salary as representative of all their publications. in this business i won my "double stars," although the competition was intense. i often found as many as twenty agents at the same time and in the same town, log-rolling with school committees for the adoption of their books, the merits of the publications "cut but little ice." nearly every school official "had his price," wanting to know what there was in his vote for him, and the agent who best concealed the bribery hook by dining and wining teachers and committeemen, filling their libraries with complimentary books and their pockets with secret commissions, "caught the most fish." when among romans, i was, much to my disgust, obliged to do as romans did. i would often go to cities where my opponent's readers or arithmetics had been adopted the night before, point out the defects of rival publications, give an unabridged dictionary to each official, offer a ten per cent. commission to the "king pin," take the board in a hack to their headquarters, secure a reconsideration, telegraph for my books, and the next day with express wagons and helpers, put our readers into every school in the town. this was sharp practice, prices were cut, until finally, we gave new books in even exchange for old ones, trusting to future sales to reimburse us, but when they needed another supply, they would swap even with another publisher, so that our bread cast upon the waters never returned. we often secured "louder calls" for influential teachers and clergymen in reciprocation for their votes, bought anything they had to sell at their own prices until many publishers became bankrupt; the big fish swallowing the little ones, and then came the survival of the longest purse. one evening, after my day's work in the city of g--was ended, being lonesome in my hotel, i thought of a family residing there who had a summer residence in r----, and concluded to renew my acquaintance with the eldest daughter with whom i had enjoyed many rides and sails, and to whom i had quoted many romantic poems the previous season. with fear and trembling, for i was always a bashful youth, i rang the door bell, and was ushered into the parlor where i caught my first glimpse of a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked, graceful younger sister to whom, at a glance, i knew i was married in heaven. whence came that vital spark blending our souls in one? had we lived and loved on some fairer shore? who can tell? had our spirits been wandering through the universe millions of years seeking each the other, nor finding rest until we met? only the angels know. all we knew and all we seemed to care to know was that at last each had found the "alter ego" for which it pined. there were no others on earth--father, mother, sister, brothers, came and went almost unheeded. strange as it may seem, on this evening of our first meeting, we told each other the old, old story, first told in eden, reiterated by millions since, and will continue to be rehearsed until gabriel through his trumpet sounds the final love song to the world. with favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, we sailed for the hesperides, the land where golden apples grow; but that, ah that was long ago. how far, since then, the ocean streams have swept us from that land of dreams, that land of fiction and of truth, the lost atlantis of our youth. ultima thule, utmost isle, here in thy harbors for a while, we lower our sails; awhile we rest from the unceasing, endless quest. for a long time i had divided homes and a divided heart, one at the old home with the old folks, the other in the city by the sea. in our new-born and first-born enthusiasm, we applied to mary's parents for an early union of hands as well as hearts; but they wisely insisted upon a year's interim, promising that, if at the end of this trial time our ardor had not cooled, they and the minister would "bless you my children," and our hearts should beat as one forevermore. the course of true love never did run smooth, and when the claiming day arrived, mary's mother told me that she had been credibly informed that another girl had a prior claim to my promised hand. i protested in vain, and, as the daughter was invisible, i left the house in a rage. a week, which seemed like a century, passed by on leaden wings in which i strove to drown my sorrows in the "flowing bowl" of hard work, and foolish declarations that "i didn't care"; then came a kind letter from alderman b----, gracefully apologizing for his wife's mistaken assertions, stating that "mary was giving them no peace day or night," and inviting me to call at my earliest convenience. the very next train took me to the old familiar trysting-place, once more the white-winged dove of peace brooded over the b--mansion, and we all, especially the parents, fully realized that in order to appreciate heaven we must have at least seven days of hell. shortly after, at the home of the bride's parents, we twain were made one in the presence of numerous friends and presents; the old shoes and rice were duly showered, and we were off for a month's tour, and a lifelong honeymoon. during this wedding tour, at the request of my employers, i combined business with pleasure, the firm generously paying all our expenses, and continuing my salary. we visited many cities, greatly enjoying their varied attractions; but the business part of our journey, which was collecting large sums of money due for books, was not particularly delightful, as the banks had all suspended specie payments as a result of the "green back craze," and i was often obliged to resort to legal measures and attachments of property, to secure from reluctant book sellers the sums long overdue. at one hotel we met with an adventure which well-nigh proved serious. i was awakened at night by the flash from a bull's eye lantern, a sense of suffocation and a scream from my wife. a masked burglar was before me, pressing to my face a handkerchief saturated with chloroform, and endeavoring to take from under the mattress a large sum of money which i had collected the day before. "no noise," said he, "your money or your life." "all right," said i quietly, "i'll get it for you." he stepped back a pace, i quickly pulled from under the pillow my self-cocking revolver, and fired in rapid succession. his pistol exploded at nearly the same time, he dropped to the floor, his light vanished, and for a time all was darkness and suspense. i expected another bullet any moment, and seeing nothing to fire at myself, feared to jump from the bed lest i be seized by invisible hands of the desperate villain. then came shouts and pounding upon the door by neighbors aroused by the uproar. encouraged by the reinforcements, i struck a light but the ruffian had escaped through the open window on to a piazza roof, thence by a pillar to the ground. then we were besieged by excited inquirers, and the rosy-fingered aurora, daughter of the dawn, appeared before the calm which succeeded the storm. shortly after our return from this journey, a great light went out on earth to shine in heaven. my wife's father suddenly left the body,--he did not die, for there is no death, what seems so is transition, this life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life elysian, whose portal we call death. alderman b---- was a gentleman of the old school, a loving father, a very successful business man, managing marine railways, ship-building and repairing, as well as grain mills. we missed him sadly; but were consoled by the reflection that our great loss was his eternal gain. my eldest brother, and two of my brother mark's children, at about this time crossed the same bright river and rested under the shade of the celestial trees. myself and wife had intended to live in g----, but as her father was gone, and as she had formed a strong mutual attachment for my family, my wife the following summer took much pleasure in building a handsome cottage nearly opposite my father's house, and on a beautiful lot of land given us by my brother. we formed a literary and musical club, which met weekly at our house, making it the social centre of the entire town. i was elected chairman of the school committee, and proceeded vigorously in a crusade against ignorance; but soon found that the life of a reformer is crowned with more thorns than roses, a thousandfold! i removed incompetent teachers who, by their silly question and answer methods, were producing parrots--not scholars. on one occasion, when i substituted a trained normal school graduate for a useless dancing doll who had made herself popular by flattering parents and coddling their children, all pupils were withdrawn from the school. i told the new teacher to ring the bell, take in sewing if she wished, and draw her salary even if she was left alone in her glory; then i notified the parents that unless they at once sent their children to the school, i should have the pupils arrested for truancy, and themselves fined for violating the laws of the state. moral suasion had failed; but the strong arm of the law prevailed, and they soon acknowledged that the new instruction was the best they had ever had in the district. much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains, descriptions of all the frog ponds in ethiopia, and other useless trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic; long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc. i issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study, substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles, and in this, also, i met with opposition from the "moss-backs," who insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough for their children; they wanted no "new-fangled" notions. they reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser sort. he always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "we will sing together the one thousand three hundred and forty 'leventh hime." "'all around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the weasel--'" he was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded. taking off his spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again, gazed at the book in consternation: "well," said he, "i never seed that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the lord put it in, and we'll sing it whir or no," and proceeded: "'the preacher kissed the cobbler's wife, pop goes the weasel.'" as i have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used freely by me, and i had the satisfaction as well as the odium of infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my two years' service as school superintendent in this town. a few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the "little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump" of the ancient hell fire theology. it is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and reviled by your neighbors whose feeble intellects fail to appreciate your strenuous efforts to push forward the car of progress in their midst; but the consolations expressed in this poem bring balm to every wounded spirit. "i know as my life grows older, and mine eyes have clearer sight, that under each rank wrong, somewhere, there lies the root of right. that each sorrow has its purpose by the suffering oft unguessed; but as sure as the sun brings morning, whatever is, is best. "i know that each sinful action, as sure as the night brings shade, is some time, somewhere punished, though the hour be long delayed. i know that the soul is aided sometimes, by the heart's unrest, and to grow, means often to suffer; but whatever is, is best. "i know there are no errors in the great eternal plan, and all things work together for the final good of man. and i know when my soul speeds onward in the grand eternal quest, i shall say, as i look earthward, whatever is, is best." chapter xiii. the angels of life and death. by and by unwonted silence and anxiety reigned in our house. the family doctor remained all night, then a faint cry was heard, and little baby may came into this world of ours, "the gates of heaven were left ajar; with clasping hands and dreamy eyes, wandering out of paradise, she saw this planet, like a star; we felt we had a link between this real world and that unseen." these beautiful lines of one of the sweetest of earth's singers, came to us like a new revelation at the advent of our first-born, as also those other immortal words-- "our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from heaven, which is our home." our little vocalist commenced rehearsing for her chosen profession the very minute that she first saw the light, and she certainly continued the development of her lungs with marvelous persistency. then her numerous grandparents, uncles, and aunts all vied with each other in petting and spoiling the one pet lamb of the several families, and she basked in the sunshine of unlimited affection. a few bright years sped by, all roseate with love, prosperity and contentment in this happy valley. then two little cherubs, just alike as "two peas in a pod" came to us at dawn of day, like twin rays from the rising sun, their blue eyes beaming with smiles which have continued ever since. we named them ada and ida: but were obliged to label them to tell "which was which," and said label is essential for distinguishment to this very day, though twenty-four bright summers have passed since the sight of them first gladdened our hearts. but almost with the sunbeams came the terrible cloud overspreading all our lives. the mother had scarcely welcomed the twin buds of promise, when she faded away like a flower and was "gone beyond the darksome river, only left us by the way; gone beyond the night forever, only gone to endless day; gone to meet the angel faces, where our lovely treasures are; gone awhile from our embraces, gone within the gates ajar." there seemed to be no light left on earth; the sun was blotted out forever, oh glory of our youth that so suddenly decays! oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze! oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air scatters a moment's sweetness, and flies we know not where! "a boat at midnight sent alone to drift upon the moonless sea; a lute whose leading chord is gone; a wounded bird that hath but one imperfect wing to soar upon, are like me oh loved one, without thee;" but the pitiful wailings of the twin girl babies called me back to earth again, and i took up the cares of existence, though they seemed greater than i could bear. the largest church in the village was filled to overflowing with sincere mourners, for the sweet face of the departed had brought good cheer into many darkened households in our town. all sectarian barriers were for the time burned away by the flame of sympathy, and wonderful to tell, the universalist clergyman who married us was allowed to pronounce the eulogy in an orthodox congregational church. when the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear words of the hymn-- "only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown," and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore. "faith sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing." infinitely sad was the passing of our beloved, to those left in the earth-life; but soothingly comes to us the song chanted by the choir invisible whenever a soul escapes the mortal coil: "passing out of the shadow, into a purer light; stepping behind the curtain, getting a clearer sight. "laying aside a burden, this weary mortal coil; done with the world's vexations-- done with its tears and toil. "tired of all earth's playthings, heartsick and ready to sleep-- ready to bid our friends farewell, wondering why they weep. "passing out of the shadow into eternal day-- why do we call it dying, this sweet going away?" chapter xiv. tribulations of a widower. but we must descend from the sublime to the stern realities of this workaday world. of all the people on this earth, a lone, lorn widower with three babies on his hands, is the most forlorn and miserable. take care of them himself he cannot, and if he hires the ordinary woman to do so, she immediately sets her cap for him, and leaves no stone unturned to secure him for a husband, especially if he is possessed of some of this world's goods which she covets with all her mind and soul. words are inadequate to describe the annoyances i endured for two weary years from this class of women, who seemed to be the only ones who would come to a lonely country home to assume such responsibilities and endless labors. the world seemed full of these anxious but not aimless women, who claimed to adore little children; but who really cared for nothing except to capture a "widower with means." one nurse carelessly slipped on the stairs, and the twins went flying from her arms through the air down the long passageway, apparently to their death; only a miracle saved them. i picked up the little wingless cherubs, scarcely bigger than my fist, and their blue eyes smiled at me, as if they had really enjoyed their aerial flight. they seemed to have a charmed and charming existence; they were the admiration of all the people far and wide who flocked to our house to see and fondle the really "heavenly twins." my business kept me from home nearly all the time; but my father, mother, brother, and sister-in-law kindly watched my caretakers with argus eyes, and the so-called triplets throve wonderfully day by day. whenever in my absence, my good childless brother and his wife found one of my hired women unworthy, he would tell her to pack her trunk, then he would drive her to the depot, banish her from the town over which he long reigned as chairman of the selectmen and state representative, telegraph me to hunt up another one, and thus the road to the station was nearly worn out, and the railroad receipts were greatly augmented. one of these women, while i was far away, greatly scandalized the whole town by leaving the "light infantry" to their fate one sunday, and indulging in the pious delights of shooting wood-chucks. my indignant brother and his father-in-law deacon disarmed the jezabel, made her sleep in the barn that night, sent her off flying the next morning, and personally, tenderly as mothers, watched over the children until i arrived with another nurse. one woman whipped little may secretly with a stick; but the victim's wonderful lungs aroused my mother who, reinforced by the entire family, overpowered the virago, and sent her off on the next train. it is evident from these thrilling recitals that i was not a good mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when i was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight. i vowed in my wrath that i would never again speak to a woman outside my own immediate family. i tried in vain to hire men nurses, and i sympathized with paolo orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck of isabella di medici, and strangled her; i almost envied curzon of simopetra who had never seen a woman. but i soon found that this misanthropy was unjust, that i misjudged the pure depths of life's river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface. women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can be. there is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between the extremes marked by miriam beating her timbrels, and cleopatra applying the asp; cornelia, caring for nothing but her roman jewels; guyon, rapt in god; lucrezia borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and florence nightingale sweetening the memory of the crimean war with philanthropic deeds. what group of men can be brought together more distinct in individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny, than such women as eve in the garden of eden, mary at the foot of the cross, rebecca by the well, semiramis on her throne, ruth among the corn, jezabel in her chariot, lais at a banquet, joan of arc in battle, tomyris striding over the field with the head of cyrus in a bag of blood, perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre, martha cumbered with many cares, pocahontas under the shadow of the woods, saint theresa in the convent, madame roland on the scaffold, mother agnes at port royal, exiled destael wielding her pen as a sceptre, and mrs. fry lavishing her existence on outcasts? chapter xv. faith sees a star. one day i was introduced by a friend to a very attractive lady school-teacher, who combined with superior domestic training, elocutionary and musical accomplishments. she was so sincere and sympathetic that i found myself almost unconsciously expressing the same sentiments that i had spoken to another long ago in the city by the sea. the love which i supposed had passed on forever to the other world, seemed to be sent back to me through the opening clouds of evening by my self-sacrificing spirit bride, to give to another who would love and cherish the helpless little ones who so needed a mother's care. i poured forth all my sorrows, troubles, perplexities and needs to a congenial, sympathetic spirit, and she consented to go to my home and take up the burdens which the ascended mother had been required by the angel-world to lay down. on the arrival of the new housekeeper, order was evolved out of chaos; the children received the best of care, and the horse a much needed rest after his arduous labors in carting to and from the depot the numerous hired women who had been "weighed in the balance and found wanting." in the following month of roses, lillian concluded that my "first glance" attachment was reciprocated; we were married in her father's house at allston; we enjoyed a brief tour of the white mountains, and then settled down in our cottage to our life work. the peace of god, which always comes, sooner or later to those who strive to do their duty, was ours, and the inspiration of whittier's sweet poem "my psalm" brought infinite consolation to our blended lives. "i mourn no more my vanished years; beneath a tender rain, an april rain of smiles and tears, my heart is young again. "all as god wills, who wisely heeds to give or to withhold, and knoweth more of all my needs than all my prayers have told. "all the jarring notes of life seem blending in a psalm, and all the angles of its strife slow rounding into calm. "and so the shadows fall apart, and so the sunbeams play; and all the windows of my heart i open to the day." chapter xvi. on the political stump. i had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being president of the republican club in our town, and that autumn i was hired by dr. george b. loring to conduct his campaign for the position of representative in congress; this i accomplished so successfully that judge thayer, the chairman of the state committee, hired me to stump the commonwealth against general butler and in favor of the hon. george d. robinson as candidate for governor. this campaign will long be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the political history of massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the endurance. one will suffice by way of illustration. free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of republican orators were the strongest arguments used by the general's admirers to combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. at a meeting of our state committee in boston, judge thayer announced that general hall of maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours. rockport was almost solid for butler, and his friends had declared that no republican should speak there, consequently no one volunteered. at last, the judge, in despair, said: "foss, will you go?" "i shall obey orders," was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved shirkers, and i bolted for the train. on arriving at my destination, i found the station crowded with a howling mob, and the republican town committee were frantically shouting: "general hall, general hall!" "here," said i, and only by the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was i hustled through the embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where i walked on the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which i finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost physical and mental collapse. the "hail to the chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: "put him out!"--"duck him!"--"ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., yells of the butlerites who had packed the hall. at last i got my "mad up," and rising, i lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon my uproarious foes. this astonished the "great unwashed," and a big irishman jumped on the stage, shouting: "shut up, shut up, byes! let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a cool un." there was silence. taking out my cigar, i laughed long and loud. "what you laughing at?" howled the mob. "this reminds me," said i, very slowly, "of a little story." "out with it," was the response. "when i was a teacher in marblehead," drawled i, "i had occasion to wallop a boy with a cowhide. i made him touch his toes with his fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the more i whaled him the more he laughed. i laid on macduff with a 'damned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet he laughed. 'what you laughing at?' cried i. 'oh, ha, ha, ha, you're licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. it's just that way here. you gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; i am not general hall, at all, i am lieutenant-general ulysses s. grant." the crowd roared: "he's a good un, let's hear him--ha, ha, ha, he's a good un," and for two hours i had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw. "you say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound money. well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to have mercy upon a poor orphan. you have killed the tariff twice, and nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and i had to beg from door to door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. do you want that kind of provender again? butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and everybody will be rich.' you tried that once and you carried your money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you bought with it in a gill dipper. do you want any more such times?" "be gorrah," cried my big irish friend, "that's so: i rimimber it well. i'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is." "yes," i yelled, "butler says he'll leave the republican party out in the cold. it reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt him up. 'what on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'i've gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and i'll hold him here till he freezes to death.' "you'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? well, who'll freeze to death first if you stop the factories? the owners who have plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you for every cent you get? general butler who lives in a palace, and drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. it reminds me of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had stolen in the previous ten years. are we craven crows to be scared by such windy effigies?" thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, i gave them broadsides of facts and arguments until i won the greatest political fight of my life. we won a famous victory; the workers, as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. after this i resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to trade money for fame. our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often hazardous. i had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and fourteen acres of land on high street in the city of n----. we rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for new victims. strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the agricultural fever, and i broke my own back as well as that of the hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness and much hard-earned cash. we made the old place to bud and blossom like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when ex-congressman loring, then united states commissioner of agriculture, came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for florida at a good salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped resources of that state, and its attractions for northern settlers. i gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for-- somewhere the sun is shining, i thought as i toiled along in the freezing cold of the winter, yes, somewhere the sun is shining though here i shiver and sigh, not a breath of warmth is stirring not a beam in the arctic sky. somewhere the thing we long for exists on earth's wide bound, somewhere the heat is cheering while here winter nips the ground. somewhere the flowers are springing, somewhere the corn is brown, and is ready unto the harvest to feed the hungry town. somewhere the twilight gathers, and weary men lay by the burdens of the daytime, and wrapped in slumber lie. somewhere the day is breaking, and gloom and darkness flee; though storms our bark are tossing, there's somewhere a placid sea. and thus, i thought, 'tis always in this mysterious life, there's always gladness somewhere in spite of its pain and strife; and somewhere the sin and sorrow of earth are known no more; somewhere our weary spirits shall find a peaceful shore. chapter xvii. that _eddyfying_ christian science. this season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty creator, "christian science." unchristian scienceless would be a more appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its eddyfying high priestess about years after the sublime career of christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every principle of modern science. this craze seized certain discontented young women who studied "science and health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." it monopolized the feeble intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey upon the weak minded. some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving benefit therefrom, took an "eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion that said mummery affected a miraculous cure. as a drowning man clutching at a straw, i confess that i accepted the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "christian science" doctor. i found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady was in nowise benefited thereby. this amiable lady finally loaned me a copy of their sacred book called "science and health," expressing the opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make me a believer in their modern eleusinian mysteries forever. i read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and prayerfulness of which i was capable; but found it to be a heterogeneous conglomeration of words--mere words, a hodge podge of all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great. one quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the sale of which "pope eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million dollars. says this modern goddess: "the word adam is from the hebrew adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. divide the name adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or obstruction. this suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind in solution." like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of folly. mary baker g. eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure. surely her "key to the scriptures" should thunder in her ears the anathema, "to him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin." i, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which i have been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith required to benefit by "christian science," i will guarantee to cure all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. i herewith give my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong contrast to the mercenary methods of the eddy healers. my "science and health" is _multum in parvo_. here it is: columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old world. the name of his wife, of course, was columba, which in latin, means a dove. columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so discovered the eastern continent. columbus sailed from g--noa; but columba sailed from noah, and when the gods saw her with the olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from unrest and from war forevermore." faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "christian science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. we concede to its many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but sincerely claim that our "columba science" will be equally efficient for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new gospel promulgated by saint mary baker g. eddy. _selah_. [illustration: we steamed up the lordly st. john's river of florida.] chapter xviii. in the land of flowers. after these scientific investigations, my wife and i left new england covered with snow and swept by fierce, freezing winds to find this far-famed peninsular basking in delicious sunshine, the air full of the exquisite perfume of orange blossoms and the songs of rejoicing birds. it was an enchanted land, the balsamic odors from the beautiful evergreen pine forests starred by the fragrant magnolia blossoms of spotless white, exorcised the ulceratic demons from throat and lungs. we feasted upon the delicious fruits and vegetables fresh from the trees and earth, and the returning healthy appetite was refreshed by tender venison, wild turkeys and quails from the woods, nutritious and abundant fish and ducks from the lakes and rivers. it was a new heaven and a new earth, full of gladness and semi-tropical luxuries. as soon as the hospitable people learned that i represented our beloved uncle sam, i was overwhelmed with free passes and free hotels, anywhere and everywhere. the count de barry, who had amassed a vast fortune as the american representative of "mum's extra dry," and who had received numerous valuable seeds and shrubs from our generous department, took us on his palatial steamer for hundreds of miles up the lordly st. john's river, where we feasted our eyes upon acres of wild ducks, pelicans, cranes and many huge, lazy alligators floating on the waves, rejoicing in the life-giving beams of the sun. the stately trees along the banks, old when adam was a baby, were covered with flowering vines of wondrous beauty and fragrance; then vast orange groves appeared covered with blossoms, small and ripe fruit all at the same time; numerous herds of cattle standing knee deep in the water, leisurely browsing upon the river plants both on the surface and under the shallow river. we would anchor, and throwing a clasp-net which spread out on the bottom and then closed like a purse, we pulled in excellent fish by the hundreds; sitting on the canopied deck we shot ducks which the negroes captured in small boats, and soon served cooked for our delectation; pineapples and berries were brought from the shore, in fact, it was a lotus-eater's dream of paradise, and seemed to be a land and a river "flowing with milk and honey." the words from willis' confessional came floating to our minds. "on ocean many a gladsome night, when heaved the long and sullen sea, with only waves and stars in sight, we stole along by isles of balm; we furled before the coming gale, we slept amid the breathless calm, we flew beneath the straining sail. oh, softly on these banks of haze her rosy face the summer lays, becalmed along the azure sky the argosies of cloudland lie; the holy silence is god's voice we look, and listen, and rejoice." when the night fell, and one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed out the beautiful stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels, they seemed so near that you almost expected to touch them with the hand, and the silver moon arising, set the clouds on fire with gladness and "left upon the level water one long track and trail of splendor, down whose stream we sailed into the purple vapors, to the islands of the blessed, to the kingdom of ponemah to the land of the hereafter." while thus we dreamed, the balmy zephyr brings from the forecastle to our delighted hearing, the tinkling music of the banjo and guitar, the melody of the singing voices and dancing feet of our freedmen boat's crew. the lines of whittier were resurrected in our thoughts. "dear, the black man holds his gifts of music and of song, the gold that kindly nature sifts among his sands of wrong, the power to make his toiling days and poor home comforts please; the quaint relief of mirth that plays with sorrow's minor keys." for they sang among others the identical words of the poet's expressive song, "ole massa on he trabbels gone, he leaf de land behind: de lord's breff blow him furder on, like corn-shuck in de wind: we own de hoe, we own de plow, we own de hans dat hold, we sell de pig, we sell de cow, but nebber chile be sold. de norf wind tell it to de pines, de wild-duck to de sea, we tink it when de church-bell ring, we dream it in de dream, de rice-bird mean it when he sing, de eagle when he scream, de yam will grow, de cotton blow, we'll hab de rice and corn; nebber you fear, if nebber you hear de driber blow his horn." and so all too quickly passed that ideal night, without thought of sleep, till the rising sun shot his radiant beams over the great river, when we steamed slowly up to the long pier, and walked under an arch of stately palms to our host's beautiful home, embowered in orange trees and luxuriant trumpet creepers in this summer land of perpetual bloom. close by the count's residence was a lake of sulphur water, gushing from deep down in the earth. into this we plunged and swam until we seemed to be born again into immortal youth, then on the broad piazza we enjoyed a feast which would have delighted jupiter and all his gods, every course of which was taken from the adjoining trees, grounds and waters. we then inspected the great plantation, where was found growing in profusion, everything essential to the wants of the most fastidious of mortals, while the surrounding woods and river teemed with a great variety of fish and game. i roam as in a waking dream the garden of the hesperides, and see the golden fruitage gleam amid the stately orange-trees. unfading green is on the hill, the vales are decked with countless flowers, while hums the bee, the song birds trill sweet music through the sunny hours. the moss is waving in the gale from live oak, hickory, and pine, and draping like a bridal-veil the beauteous yellow jessamine. through countless vistas in the wood i see the windows of the morn ope to the world a glowing flood of glory when the day is born. and when, with robes of tyrian dye, the evening comes when day is done, i see around the radiant sky a hundred sunsets blent in one. we parted from our genial entertainer with much reluctance when the superintendent of the railroad claimed us as his guests, and with him, we inspected the famous orange groves along his line, resting on sunday at a palatial hotel where the st. john's river broadens into the great lake munroe. while at church we were much entertained by the lively, frolicsome manoeuvres of the numerous beautiful chameleons of rapidly changing colors, who greatly distracted the attention of the congregation from the service by their pranks on the walls and decorations. directly in front of us was a sleepy, bald-headed man upon whose shining, nodding, snoring pate several flies were resting in quiet enjoyment of the sermon. all at once, this toothsome collection attracted the attention of a very large bright-eyed chameleon admirer who launched himself through the air upon said bald head in pursuit of his dinner. with a yell of fear, the sleeper struck the animal with his huge hand, sending the long tailed frolicsome creature heels over head directly upon the clergyman's manuscript, and the alarmed preacher, in turn, with a smothered imprecation and a sweeping blow, hurled the sprawling legs and elongated tail down upon some frightened children who screamed and tumbled over each other upon the floor in a struggling heap. this was too much for the pent-up risibilities of the audience who laughed long and loud, greatly to the disturbance of the solemnity of the occasion. the witty minister remarked that this addition to his flock, like some church members, seemed to care more for the carnal than the spiritual, and proceeded to the thirteenthly division of his discourse. from here we traveled for hundreds of miles over the flat, monotonous, arid sands of south florida, where green grass and fresh garden vegetables were unknown, frequently remarking that if we owned these localities and hades, we would give away the former and live in the latter place. but when we retraced our steps, and reached the rich highlands of the northern counties of marion, bradford, and clay, found the earth covered with green grass in winter, the trees beautiful with blossoms and luscious oranges, the air fragrant with rare flowers, and resonant with songs of birds, saw the planters shipping thousands of crates of fruit and vegetables, and finally arrived at the far-famed silver springs, it seemed as if we had found ponce de leon's fountain of immortal youth. the crystal clear waters of this wonderful spring, or more properly called lake, gush in immense volumes seemingly from the very centre of the earth, spreading out until wide and deep enough to float a great navy, and are so transparent that multitudes of fishes are seen disporting among marine plants and shells plainly discernible hundreds of feet below. here we embarked on a comfortable steamer, and sailed nearly twenty-four hours down the incomparable ocklawaha river, through scenes that are indescribably picturesque; under arches of gigantic trees covered with sombrely beautiful spanish mosses and trumpet creeper vines, where all day long are heard the ecstatic songs of mockingbirds, and where flutter the plumages of all the colors of the rainbow. [illustration: the indiscribably picturesque ocklawaha river of florida.] swiftly the golden hours fly, as we float over this marvelous river; softly the dusky boatmen chant their love songs, the fires from their "fatwood" cauldron on the upper deck illuminates the stately trees, and the strains of the poet, butterworth, come plaintively to our mental hearing. "we have passed funereal glooms, cypress caverns, haunted rooms, halls of gray moss starred with blooms-- slowly, slowly, in these straits, drifting towards the cypress gates of the ocklawaha. "in the towers of green o'erhead watch the vultures for the dead, and below the egrets red eye the mossy pools like fates, in the shadowy cypress gates of the ocklawaha. "clouds of palm crowns lie behind, clouds of gray moss in the wind, crumbling oaks with jessamines twined, where the ring-doves meet their mates, cooing in the cypress gates of the ocklawaha. "high the silver ibis flies-- silver wings in silver skies; in the sun the saurian lies: comes the mockingbird and prates to the boatman at the gates of the ocklawaha. "now the broader waters gleam-- seems my voyage upon the stream like a semblance of a dream, and the dream my soul elates; life flows through the cypress gates of the ocklawaha. "ibis, thou wilt fly again, ring-dove, thou wilt sigh again, jessamines bloom in golden rain; and a loving song-bird waits me beyond the cypress gates of the ocklawaha." chapter xix. sunbeam, the seminole. when i had concluded the recitation of the poem which closes the preceding chapter, a fine-looking gentleman sitting near us arose, and lifting his hat very gracefully, said: "pardon me. as a native floridian, i have much enjoyed hearing you repeat that poem relating to my state." this led to a pleasant conversation, during which he introduced us to his wife as being one of the aborigines. we expressed much interest in this statement, and finally persuaded him to give us an account of his courtship, which, with some amplifications, was substantially as follows: it is midnight in the vast everglades of florida. the mammoth forest trees seem to support the arch of heaven as the pillars uphold the great dome of the nation's capitol. here and there the century-old orange trees are resplendent with the golden globes of the luscious fruit, and millions of flowering vines beautify even the dead monarchs of the woods. all these tropical splendors are illumined by the rays of the full hunter's moon, which transforms the trailing streamers of dewy spanish moss into long-drawn chains of sparkling silver. from swamp and foliage the voices of the night fill the balmy air with quavering wailings, punctured by the occasional screams of wild-cats and hootings of the melancholy owls. here in this forest primeval, mid the murmuring pines and star-eyed magnolias, nature rules supreme, uncontaminated by the trammels of civilization. but what is that? surely human forms swinging noiselessly from limb to limb over dark pools where the deadly moccasins and ferocious alligators slumber, over stagnant lagoons beautified by great lilies, and densely populated with rainbow colored fishes, and gaily decorated by water-fowl now all motionless in the embrace of sleep, the brother of death. the moonbeams reveal a band of broad-shouldered, copper-colored aborigines, who once ruled over the whole of this fair peninsular. they are returning, with packs of supplies strapped upon their backs, from a trading journey to the city of kissimmee, where they have exchanged the fruits of their hunting for many-colored calicos, ammunition, and alas for the once-noble red men! fire-water. they had left their canoes when they could no longer be floated, and are now returning in this, the only possible manner, to their fertile oasis, protected from the white men by many miles of bogs into which all foot travelers would sink to unknown slimy depths and death. on they come in single file, hand over hand from tree to tree, their long legs dangling in the air, led by tiger-tail, the chief of the survivors of the most intelligent and powerful of all the indian tribes. suddenly the leader stops, gives the low cry of the ring-dove, which halts his followers, and suspended in air, gazes at the sleeping form of a young white man, reclining, with his rifle beside him, on a hammock which rises dry and grass-covered above the surrounding morasses. motioning his band to follow, the chief drops noiselessly beside the sleeper, stealthily seizes the gun, revolver, and bowie-knife of the helpless victim, hands them to others, and shouts "humph, wake up!" the pale-face reaches for his weapons, and finding them gone, jumps to his feet, gazing without flinching at his stalwart captors. "who you be?" grunted the chief. "what for you here?" "i am henry lee of lawtey," was the calm reply, "and i am hunting." "humph, you white man hunt seminole from earth. you no right here. you my prisoner; follow me, my slave." as resistance was useless, the youth silently obeys, climbing hour after hour until his arms seemed about to be wrenched from their sockets. at last, just as the rising sun shot his lances of light through the forest's gloom, the chief drops to solid earth, followed by all. a romantically beautiful scene lies before them. no longer the styx-like waters; the funereal realms of pluto have vanished, and an elevated plateau appears, partially cleared. here and there graceful palms, tall, slender cocoanut and orange trees laden with fruit; sparkling springs; abundant harvests of varied crops; picturesque wigwams and huts, fair as the garden of the lord. a pack of dogs started to yelp, but at once slunk away at a word from the chieftain, who points to a hut, quietly saying: "go in there till i call you." henry obeyed, and exhausted with his journey, sank quickly to sleep upon the straw-covered floor. at length, when the sun was high in the heavens, he was awakened by a black man, who placed before him some venison and corn bread, then silently withdrew. after satisfying his hunger, he went out to explore. it was an ideal scene of tropical luxuriance; cattle and sheep were feeding upon the abundant grasses; but they suddenly took to their heels, with uplifted tails and terrified eyes, at the sight of his white face, a spectacle never before seen on this oasis, peopled hitherto exclusively by "copperheads." swarms of children were shooting their arrows at deer-skin targets; groups of braves, fantastically attired, lounged under the shade of the wide-spreading umbrella trees, smoking fragrant tobacco in long-stemmed pipes, but they did not deign to give the visitor even an inquiring glance. henry interviewed a number of negroes hoeing corn and sweet potatoes, who informed him in broken english that they were the slaves of the indians; that they had never heard of the civil war, nor of abraham lincoln. they claimed to be well treated, and were contented, having plenty to eat and no very severe labor. they cast anxious glances towards the village, and seemed glad when he walked away, saying they had never before seen a white man and thought he must be "big medicine." the birds were singing gaily, all nature smiled complacently, and he strolled over the flower-bedecked fields into the recesses of the forest, where he seated himself under a blossom-covered magnolia around which twined the fragrant jessamine. he gave himself up to day-dreams. all at once a light, moccasined footfall is heard, and there stepped from the woods an indian girl, graceful as a fawn, with her head crowned with flowers, and softly singing a strange, sweet song in an unknown tongue. when the stranger was seen she started to flee, but with a smile he beckoned her to stop, which she did, as though hypnotized. "oh," she whispered, "you are the pale-face my father has captured; but if tiger-tail should see me speaking to you, he would kill us both. such is the law of the seminoles. no indian maiden must speak to a white man; but i never saw such as you before." "but, how happens it," said he, in astonishment, "that you speak my language?" "my father taught me," was the reply, "he is a scholar; we all speak some american." "may i know your name?" asked our hero. "i am sunbeam, daughter of the seminole chief." "and mine is henry lee," he replied to her inquiring look. "you are well named," he continued. "i have seen many daughters of the pale-faces; but none so fair and bright as you. sunbeam, at this my first glance, i love you; can you sometime love me?" "i do love you now," replied the artless girl; "the great spirit tells me to do so; but we must not be seen together; they will kill us, we must part at once." "dearest," cried henry, "when can we meet again?" "to-morrow at noon," came the impulsive reply. "in my cave there back of that cypress; no one is allowed to enter but me; there i say my prayers, and my father says it is sacred to me alone. good-bye, henry," and she sped like a deer into the shades of the forest. the youth was sincere, for it had flashed upon him like an inspiration when their eyes first met, that she was born for him, and he for her. they were married in heaven, ages ago. it came like a word from the infinite to these kindred souls. a sudden rent in the veil of darkness which surrounds us manifests things unseen. such visions sometimes effect a transformation in those whom they visit, converting a poor camel driver into a mohammed, a peasant girl tending goats, into a joan of arc. this love-flash from the invisible blent these two hitherto widely separated souls into one, even as the positive electricity leaps through the spaces to find the negative, and when met, dissolves the separateness into a harmonious oneness which can never be sundered. the unsophisticated indian maiden went her way, thrilling with the thought that her heart is in his bosom, and his in hers, useless one without the other. the white youth was suddenly changed from an idle, wandering, purposeless dreamer, into a fearless lover, ready to face death itself to secure the object of his worship, and he sauntered back to his hut with no flinching from the many dangers which surrounded him. there a black slave met him, bearing an abundant feast. "eat," said the negro, "and then go to the lodge of tiger-tail, the largest in the village, with the skin of a tiger stretched on the door." as soon as henry had assuaged his hunger, he hastened to obey the summons. as before, no human being noticed him, and he walked to the wigwam, knocked on the door-post, and answering the "come" from within, entered. to his astonishment, the giant leader was evidently trying to read a newspaper, but took no notice of his entrance for some minutes, when he suddenly said: "what is this?" pointing to a line of what henry saw was the message to congress of the president of the united states. the chief watched closely as his captive slowly read: "the seminole indians have been driven by our troops to their fastnesses in the swamps of the everglades, and it is for congress to decide whether they shall be further punished for their outbreak." the chief slowly rose to his frill height, and walked in silence for a long time, when he turned to our hero, and fastened upon him his eagle eyes. "humph," at length he muttered, "the pale-face rob seminole of everything else, now he follow us here:--no, the great father must know the truth, you teach me to write him, no white man ever come here and go away to tell, you stay here always; you no speak to any one here but me, you set down, teach me." for a long time henry labored hard to show this remarkable savage how to read and write. no teacher ever had a more attentive pupil; but it was very difficult for his untutored mind to master these, to him, puzzling hieroglyphics. at length, tiger-tail arose, and saying in an exasperated tone: "humph! damn! me kill something, me mad! you come here every day when i send for you," and seizing his rifle, and pointing the youth to go, he strode savagely away into the woods. the youth returned to his hut, and wearied with his unusual labors, was soon asleep, dreaming all night of the loved sunbeam, whom he hoped would soon irradiate the darkness of his life. the hours of the next day dragged away on leaden wings, and the trysting hour drew near; but to his utter disgust, just as he was on the point of going to his beloved, the negro appeared summoning him once more to the chief, and his heart sank with fear that their secret was discovered. tiger-tail betrayed no emotion, and for a long time teacher and pupil struggled with their tasks as before, until the indian, unable to restrain his pent-up restlessness longer, strode away to seek relief in the chase, leaving henry to wend his way with many watchful glances to the shrine of his worship. while walking slowly and circuitously to avoid suspicion, and closely scrutinizing the trunks and tops of trees for any spy who might be watching, he noticed a slight movement of the tall grass around a fallen cypress, and rushing to reconnoitre, a warrior leaped to his feet and dashed into the underbrush. then the youth realized that suspicious eyes were following him, and that he was risking his life to meet the daughter of the chief. he dared not enter the mouth of the cave; but walked through the thick bushes above it much depressed in spirit, when suddenly he heard his name softly called, and looking downward, saw an opening into the earth large enough to admit his body. "drop down this way," was whispered, and after assuring himself that no spy was in sight, he obeyed, falling into the arms of the waiting girl. "henry," said she, "i was followed; but no one knows of this entrance but myself; close it with this shrub. we are watched, and must never meet here again." "but, dearest," sobbed the youth, "life is not worth living without you; we must escape together this very night." "i will go with you to the ends of the earth," was the reply. "i loved you long before you came here; i have the gift of second sight. months ago i saw you coming to me. i have explored the way to the great river. at midnight, meet me under the great cypress, throw this perfume to the dogs and they will not bark;" she handed him a small vial. "i must go; you follow when you hear the king-dove coo; go to your hut." she embraced him, and was gone. soon, he heard the signal, and he cautiously raised himself to the upper air, returned to his wigwam, and was soon enjoying rapturous dreams with his head resting where he knew the rays of the moon would shine into his face to awaken him at the appointed time for flight. when he peered anxiously through the entrance of his wigwam at a little before midnight, he was appalled at the sight. a multitude of dogs surrounded the hut, ready, evidently by their yelpings, to bring down upon him the whole tribe of indians, should he try to escape. "alas," thought he, "there are battles with fate which can never be won," and for a moment he seemed paralyzed at his doom. then came to mind a recollection of the perfume given him by his thoughtful sunbeam, and he resolved to do or die. noiselessly as a shadow, he stepped out, hoping to escape the attention of his canine guards; but in a moment, every cur was on his feet and were about to make the welkin ring, when he threw at the leader the contents of his vial. instantly, all fawned at his feet, and he hastened to his rendezvous. not a sound was heard save an occasional snore from some sleeper, and soon he found his faithful sweetheart in the shadow of the century-old cypress. she quickly slung his rifle across his back, fastened about him the revolver and bowie-knife, bound over her own shoulder a bag of provisions; "follow me," she whispered, and away they sped into the vast primeval forest. for hours they hastened in silence, then the maiden halted at the edge of a dark morass, and whispered: "here we leave the earth; i know the way," and they launched themselves into the limbs of the trees, clambered hand over hand for a long, long time; when well-nigh exhausted, they dropped down into a little brook, carefully avoiding any contact with the tell-tale earth. "quick," said sunbeam; "we must hasten up this stream which will conceal our footsteps, to the great river, where we can hide and rest in a great hollow tree which i found there," and on they went with their feeble remnant of strength. at last, just as the rising sun was dispersing the vapors of night, our elopers swung themselves from the brook into the branches of an overarching hollow tree, helped each other to the bottom of this house not made with hands, and soon slept the slumber of utter exhaustion. it was many hours before tired nature's sweet restorer released these two loving children from its embraces, and then it seemed as if all the fiends from heaven that fell had pealed the banner-cry of hell. the howls of dogs, and the savage war-whoops announced that their enemies were upon them; but undismayed by the terrible dangers, they resolved to die together rather than endure separation. "my father never loved me," whispered sunbeam, "because i am a girl, while he hoped for a warrior child; if they find us, kill me; i cannot live without you." "we will go to the great spirit together, beloved," was the calm reply. soon they heard the voice of tiger-tail close to them, talking to his braves. "they no cross river," he said; "all canoes here, dogs no get scent, all back to swamp, we find um there, you, war-eagle, watch canoes." again the air resounds with the yells of dogs and warriors, then all was silent. "war-eagle hate me," whispered the maiden, "cos i no be his squaw; but we must go before they return." slowly the lovers pulled themselves upward by the ingrown stumps of limbs, and, concealed in the thick branches, looked around; no one was in sight except the indian left to guard the canoes, and he was reclining on the bank of the river, evidently exhausted. noiselessly they lowered themselves to the ground and approached the recumbent brave, when a loud snore showed that their enemy was in the land of nod. "take my revolver," said henry, "and shoot--if we must," then, making a slip-noose of the stout thongs which had bound the provision bag, he deftly slipped it around the arms of the indian, and with a quick jerk he was firmly bound. the savage tried to grasp his gun, but, unable, was about to give the whoop of alarm, when the youth clapped his hand over the vast mouth; the red man subsided, was quickly gagged and tied to a tree. "now, darling, to our boat," and into it they jumped, and henry bent to his oars with all his might. on they sped in their light canoe, these two hearts beating as one, towards liberty and the loved ones waiting to welcome them in the white man's home. "dearest sunbeam," said henry, resting for a moment on his oars, "soon you will be the fairest flower in my garden of home." "oh, henry," was the faint reply, "i am but a simple indian girl, and i know so little." "but it will be our delight to live and learn together," said henry, "for-- "'thou art all to me, love, for which my heart did pine, a green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine.'" on they glided, out of that paradise of nature, where every prospect pleases, and naught but man is vile. sunbeam left the place of her nativity without a lingering glance behind, for there she had been nothing but an unwelcome girl. in a pretty cottage in lawtey, you may now see sunbeam, the seminole, wife of a successful planter, henry lee, beloved by all who know her, surrounded by orange groves and fragrant flowers in that land of perpetual bloom. chapter xx. a founder of towns and clubs. my ship of life was laden to the water's edge with labors of varying utility. we founded the apollo club, a musical and literary organization including in its membership the most prominent men and women of the city; we gave entertainments with our orchestra, singing society, and costumed dramatic stars, which gave us ample funds to pay for numerous delightful steamboat excursions, sleigh-rides and picnics, while developing our latent talents, and greatly enhancing the social life of our community. i refer to this with much pleasure, as it led to the formation of similar societies in many surrounding towns, much to the benefit of all concerned. i made an elaborate report of my florida observations which was printed entire by the united states department of agriculture, widely distributed, and stimulated many to benefit their condition by securing comfortable homes in that land of fruits, flowers and delightful climate. that year the angel world sent us our bright-eyed, smiling little elizabeth, thus making our trio of sweet singers a quartette to share our joys and lessen our sorrows, coming like the dews from that heaven to which we all return when our mission to refresh and inspire the earth life is ended. it is interesting to note the varying definitions of the word, baby, which have floated down to us in the literature of all nations. here are some of them which i have culled from various authors: "a tiny feather from the wing of love, dropped into the sacred lap of motherhood." "the bachelor's horror, the mother's treasure, and the despotic tyrant of the most republican household." "a human flower untouched by the finger of care." "the morning caller, noonday crawler, midnight brawler." "the magic spell by which the gods transform a house into a home." "a bursting bud on the tree of life." "a bold asserter of the rights of free speech." "a tiny, useless mortal, but without which the world would soon be at a standstill." "a native of all countries who speaks the language of none." "a mite of a thing that requires a mighty lot of attention." "a daylight charmer and a midnight alarmer." "a wee little specimen of humanity, whose winsome smile makes a good man think of the angels." "a curious bud of uncertain blossom." "the most extensive employer of female labor." "that which increases the mother's toil, decreases the father's cash, and serves as an alarm clock to the neighbors." "it's a sweet and tiny treasure." "a torment and a tease," "it's an autocrat and anarchist," "two awful things to please." "it's a rest and peace disturber," "with little laughing ways," "it's a wailing human night alarm," "a terror of your days." and this final definition which exactly describes each of our quartette, "the sweetest thing god ever made and forgot to give wings to." to crown the honors which this year were thrust upon me, my political party tendered me the nomination for mayor of the city; but when i ascertained the fact that i would be obliged to bribe the roosters on the fence who held the balance of power, and who must be paid two dollars each to persuade them to come off their perch and vote, i preferred the $ to the empty honor, and declined. it is said that dame fortune knocks once at every man's door, but the old woman sent to mine later, her ugly-faced unmarried daughter, mis-fortune. at the request of some of the boston newspapers, i wrote an account for the press of my florida journey and observations, which attracted much attention and many callers, among whom were the f---- brothers, of boston, who painted the attractions of a town of orange county in such glowing colors, that i was induced to visit said place in summer accompanied by my friend, lawyer s---- of newburyport. we found even the summer climate very agreeable the location very attractive, and the general prospects for a northern colony there quite promising. we wandered through the woods far and wide, shooting quail, an occasional wild turkey, caught fish from the numerous beautiful lakes, sleeping sometimes under the pines, then in houses, whose owners were away visiting with no thought of locking their doors in this land where thieving was unknown. we led a real bohemian life in arcady, quietly bonding hundreds of acres of land, and having located a hotel and townsite between two charming lakes, leaving a mr. g---- w---- a friend of the f---- brothers, as superintendent, to secure more lands and to cut avenues, we went home, where we formed a syndicate stock company of which i was elected general manager, with full powers to sell $ , of stock with which to pay for the bonded lands and the building of a hotel. i sold the stock at $ per share, giving one acre of land with each share of said stock. this would have been a very successful enterprise had it not been for the cunning duplicity and greed of our superintendent, who proceeded diligently to "feather his own nest" at our expense. i accomplished my task of raising funds very successfully, and the next winter moved with my family to a----, taking with us a competent engineer, a mr. h----, to survey and stake the lands. here i unearthed the rascality of the superintendent, who, beside taking our salary and commission for buying lands, had extorted large commissions and bonuses from the sellers, which came out of our funds in increasing the prices for which the lands were charged to our company. in addition to this he had hired a large force of negroes at high wages, on which he drew a secret commission, opened a store, selling so called canned peaches,--which really contained much whiskey and few peaches--to his workmen, and thus getting all their wages. i at once discharged all the superfluous negroes, built a fine hotel which was soon filled with a superior class of people from the north, set out orange groves for non-resident stockholders, and all would have been well, had it not been for the extraordinary action at the annual meeting of the stockholders. while i was engrossed with my many duties, the superintendent cunningly went north and secured proxies in his name, and returning, beat me by two votes, secured for himself my position as general manager, and then proceeded to wreck the whole enterprise, much to his own pecuniary benefit, while my friends who had invested on my representations, blamed me for their losses though i was entirely innocent of any wrong whatever. to cap the climax, this superintendent refused to make an accounting for several thousand dollars with which i had entrusted him to make purchases of lands on my personal account. i secured a warrant for his arrest, chased him half over the county with a sheriff, and brought him to the city for trial. on our way to the hotel, i was set upon by a crowd of roughs who had been dined and wined by said w----, and who threatened to lynch me. i backed up into a corner of the hotel piazza, laid my hand on an imaginary revolver, threatening to shoot, and was defending myself with a whirling chair, when the sheriff's posse rushed to my deliverance in the nick of time, and w---- was forced to hand over my money. he then made life unbearable by sending negroes at night in my absence to annoy my family, who escaped injury only by the vigorous use of a revolver by my wife who defended the little ones by numerous shots which sent the tormentors flying to the woods. this unscrupulous superintendent secured by his cunning a large amount of our funds; but it was a curse to him for he squandered it in riotous living. when he married he chartered a large steamer and brass band, took on board a crowd of guests, champagne flowed like water, every luxury was furnished liberally, and the excursion was a prolonged debauch. to-day this fellow is a fugitive from justice, forsaken by wife and fair weather friends, and thus really, if not literally, is fulfilled the prophecy of the poet, "her dark wing shall the raven flap o'er the false-hearted, his warm blood the wolf shall lap e'er life be parted, shame and dishonor sit o'er his grave ever, blessing shall hallow it never, no never." chapter xxi. a million dollar business with a one dollar capital. soon after my encounter at s---- with the unspeakable w----, i met major st. a----, who gave a cordial invitation to myself and family to become his guests in his new town of t----, with a view to securing our cooperation in the development of his multitudinous schemes. this invitation we accepted, and very early one beautiful morning in march, my wife, four children and myself, with driver and guide, embarked on a "prairie schooner," drawn by three horses, for the promised land. it was an ideal drive through many miles of fragrant, towering pine trees, fording beautiful lakes, catching fish, shooting game, camping for refreshment on the banks of crystal clear brooks. the oldest girls would ride on the horses' backs, chase quails, pluck the wayside flowers, occasionally watching the flight of paroquettes flashing like diamonds through the air, listening to the mockingbirds filling the woods with their exquisite songs, and inhaling as it were the ether of the immortal gods, the matchless, perfumed, life-giving florida air. all at once, with little warning, as is usual in semi-tropical lands, the night fell, and our learned guide suddenly found that he had lost the trail. the owls hooted, the wild-cats screamed, likewise the "kids," with overpowering fear. we plunged ahead at random, when we suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner." the horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near approach of some water snake or alligator. we might have been all drowned, had we not discovered a lantern hung in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our course to dry land. by the aid of the light we found the trail, and at length reached the major's hotel, hungry and tired. here we found our embarrassed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who refused to leave the goods until he received his payment therefor. our landlord appeared to be "dead broke," but finally persuaded the reluctant provision-dealer to go away with his pockets filled with "i.o.u.'s" instead of cash, and about midnight on the verge of starvation we fully appreciated an abundant feast. we soon found that our, enthusiastic friend was trying to do a million dollar business on a one dollar capital. he was building two railroads, running a steamboat line, a hotel, a sawmill, building a town and a fifty thousand dollar opera house for a one hundred population town, with not a dollar in his pocket. [illustration: flight of the governor and staff.] the next day we sailed on his steamer to meet the governor of the state, and his staff who were invited to attend a ball in his honor. the crew was mutinous on account of receiving no pay, the antiquated machinery broke down every few minutes, and the major had a fierce quarrel with a negro minister who had paid first-class fare and refused to take second-class quarters, to which all colored folks were forced at the muzzle of the revolver, and a bloody race battle was only avoided by the fact that the negroes were entirely unarmed. at length, loading the deck with wild ducks, and fish that fairly jumped into the little boat to avoid their enemies, the ferocious gar-fish, we took the governor and staff on board, and floundered back at a snail's pace to t----. at the landing, we boarded a dilapidated street car drawn by mules, for the hotel. soon--crash! bang, a rail gave way, sending the dignified governor,--stove-pipe hat flying in the air, coat-tails covering his head,--into a ditch, his long legs kicking frantically to extricate his head from the mud. we rescued him and staff with difficulty from the filth, looking like a bedraggled pack of half-drowned rats. finally we reached the hotel, when the colored orchestra from jacksonville rushed upon our host demanding their pay in advance, with furious oaths and unclassical imprecations. in some way, the embarrassed diplomat silenced their clamors; then the colored waiters struck for their pay, and "razors were flying in the air." the furious landlord at last quieted their clamor with a shotgun, and at about midnight the grand march was sounded, and a nearly famished crowd made desperate efforts to look cheerful and "trip the light fantastic toe." all earthly horrors have an end, and in the wee small hours a starving multitude was treated to a barbacue by our half-crazed host. almost every white man in this town sold chain-lightning whiskey, and in our short walk from dance hall to hotel we were obliged to jump over the prostrate forms of drunken darkies. as in the lowlands, bordering upon large bodies of water, in all tropical and semi-tropical countries, we found, to our horror and dismay, the mosquitoes in ferocious, bloodthirsty swarms which rendered life not worth the living; so, as soon as we could, without seriously offending our host, we took our flight, at least what little there was left of us, to the delightful highlands of marion county. here, free from the horrors of mosquitoes, we recruited our attenuated bodies at the elegant ocala house, thence by rail to jacksonville where we took the steamer for home. off hatteras we encountered a wild storm which sent our great boat well-nigh to the stars, then with an almost perpendicular plunge, almost to davy jones' locker, until, with the nauseating sea-sickness, we were afraid, first that we should die and later we only feared lest we should not die. at last the young cyclone subsided, and we sailed over a tranquil sea into boston harbor, thence by rail to our bay state home. at jacksonville, by the way, we had an experience quite characteristic of those ante-free-delivery days of old. i went to the post-office for our mail, having but a few minutes to spare before the departure of the north-bound train. to my disgust, i found a line of negroes nearly half a mile in length waiting their turns for calling for letters. one would step to the window and in an exasperatingly in-no-hurry way, say: "anything for andrew jackson, sah?" after a long delay--"no!" "do yer 'spect dere may be soon, sah?" "did you expect any?" came the reply. "no sah, but sumbudy might write, sah." "gwan, next!" then some white man in a hurry would step up to next--"here's a quarter for your place, git aout!" the darky would pocket his money with a broad grin, and but for his ears, the top of his head would be an island. i could not wait, and would not bribe, so went to the door of the office, and kicked and banged furiously. "g'way fum de doo'! what de hell you do on de doo'?" came from the inside. "i'm a government officer from washington," i shouted. "open the door or i'll knock it down." out popped the "cullud pusson" profuse in apologies. i grabbed my mail and rushed for the train in the very nick of time. chapter xxii. pendulum 'twixt smiles and tears. in many particulars this year of our lord, , was a sad one for us all. the pecuniary loss, resultant upon the town-building disaster, was severe; but the revelation which came to me of the innate meanness of human nature in matters of money, was the more depressing by far. it was amazing to hear wealthy people, who had bought of me a few hundred dollars' worth of stock, and who really felt the loss of it much less than they would suffer from a fly bite, whine as if this had reduced them to the direst poverty, and insinuate that i, who had lost manifold more than they, should refund, though the loss was entirely the result of their own stupidity in failing to send me the proxies i had asked for by mail. we consoled ourselves, as usual, with the knowledge that we had acted honestly and conscientiously towards all, and that the miseries of this short life are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us in the near future of the life eternal." the blue arch above us, ever changing like the sea, has always possessed a peculiar fascination for me, and i never let slip a convenient opportunity to feast my eyes upon it. i was pursuing this favorite occupation one day this year, when an unusually beautiful cloud attracted my attention, and as i watched its rapidly changing forms, there was slowly evolved from it the kindly loving face of my mother. it was no fancy, no distorted figment of a dream. the dear face smiled upon me with angelic sweetness, glanced upward, and was gone; then i knew that i had another guardian angel in heaven. in a short time, news came from r---- that she who had gladly devoted her life to self-sacrifice for her children, had been relieved from the always weak and suffering body. dear, good mother! her highest and only ambition was to do good; not a selfish thought ever even flitted across her horizon. frank as the day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew; like our lord himself, she sacrificed herself for the good of others. her sons, richard and mark, welcomed her at the gates ajar, and she was at rest. what is death but a journey home? a perfect rest when the work is done, a gentle sleep for earth-weary eyes, and the soul ascends to the azure skies. we in the earth life went on as best we could. my only brother joshua sold the old homestead with its burdens, too heavy for him to bear alone, bought our former home for one-half it had cost us, which was much more than any other would pay for it; while we sold our castle and farm which had become a mountain on our shoulders, and went to live with my wife's parents in boston, where i continued my work of introducing the school text-books which had been sold, and myself with them, to a new york publishing firm. when the winter winds and snows began to blow, i longed for the balmy zephyrs of fair florida, and like the summer birds, i once more journeyed southward; there, after a long search for the best throughout the land of flowers, journeying in steam yachts, row-boats, on horseback, and sometimes hand over hand on the branches of trees, over tracks inaccessible in any other manner, i formed another stock company consisting of several financiers who had spent all their lives in florida, and secured many thousands of acres of excellent lands in the highlands of marion county, hoping to do good and get good by inducing the surplus population of our cities to go back to the bosom of mother earth, where a moderate amount of labor will give them an independent livelihood free from the snow and cold which infest the wintry north, free from the heart-breaking demoralization of begging for work in our overcrowded cities where scores of the poverty-stricken are tumbling over each other in the frantic grabbing for every job of work and every crumb of charity. were a mere modicum of the vast sums now worse than wasted in pauperizing the unemployed; a tithe of the money squandered on building palaces for our numberless, ever-begging colleges, devoted to settling the poor upon the unimproved lands in florida, the dangerous flood of ever-increasing crime, and physical and mental suffering which now threatens the very existence of our republic, would soon vanish from our cities, and thousands of the dangerous classes would become self-supporting, self-respecting, independent men and women. were a tithe of the vast sums lavished by our millionaires upon the pictured walls, gorgeously embellished ceilings, overcrowded book shelves of our numerous libraries, and upon the unchristlike towers of unfrequented cathedrals, be even loaned to those who would gladly cultivate the thousands of acres of untilled soil in fair florida, all the suffering hangers-on for jobs would become successful agriculturists, owning their own farms, buying their own books, and sufficiently educating their own children. if the money spent every winter in pauperizing the unemployed by giving them free soup, could be devoted to settling colonies upon our uncultivated lands, the vexing problems and contests between labor and capital would be easily solved and obliterated; the unskilled poor would be at once enabled to respond to the call of the poet-- "come back to your mother, ye children, for shame, who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! with a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, she calls you to feast from her beautiful lap. come out from your alleys, your courts and your lanes, and breathe like your eagles, the air of our plains! take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives." chapter xxiii. monarch of all he surveyed: then deposed. here on elevated lands around a pretty clearwater lake, directly on the florida central and peninsula railroad, and near a famous grotto extending deep into the earth, at the bottom of which, like a well, was an abundance of water containing peculiar fish, near the noted eichelburger cave, and vast forests of gigantic trees with sloping hills around, we founded the town of b----. i was elected general manager, and went north to sell the $ , of capital stock, convertible at the option of the holder into our lands at schedule price, leaving a mr. b---- as superintendent to cut avenues, build a hotel, and conduct the general affairs in my absence. for several years i devoted all my energies very successfully to selling the stock and organizing colonies of settlers. i paid ten per cent. dividend on the stock while i was manager, besides furnishing thousands of dollars to defray expenses of building a handsome railway station, a fine commodious schoolhouse and town hall, a good hotel, and providing good roads. i went to tallahassee, and log rolled through the state legislature a bill enabling us to form a city government, and statutory prohibition of all liquor selling in our new town by incorporating said prohibition into all our deeds. after securing these funds and many settlers, also ex-governor chamberlain of maine as president of our board of directors, i moved to the new town with my family, there to reside permanently. here our duties were in many respects agreeable, because useful, for quite a long time. my wife was mother of the town, going from house to house ministering to the wants of the newcomers who had become sick by their carelessness in exposing themselves by night and day while intoxicated with the delights of this incomparable climate. she formed a union church, sang in the choir, and sometimes played the organ. i was the father of the town in many senses of the word, being the only person having any legal authority, and was expected to settle all disputes whether between man and man or between man and wife. our town was overrun by hungry clergymen of many denominations and from nearly every state, all clamoring for the lucre to be obtained by preaching in our union church. i might have obtained the friendship of one by appointing him as pastor; but i made malicious enemies of all by insisting upon each one officiating in turn and taking therefor the contents of the contribution box on his day. the air resounded with the prayer-meeting shouts of these ecclesiastics who all secretly worked against me, because i would not allow them to found as many churches as there were inhabitants. many of the impecunious newcomers schemed against me because i could not furnish them all with light work and heavy pay. some would persist in drinking surface water, ignoring all sanitary laws, became unwell and then cursed the climate and my so-called misrepresentations; others would ignore all instructions as to the agricultural methods essential to success in this climate, and then denounce me on the sly because their crops were not satisfactory. many wished to act as real estate agents on commission, and when one succeeded, the rest, fired with jealousy, would accuse me of favoritism because their own incompetency did not secure for them these prizes. our house was besieged by day and night, so that we had to cut a hole in the outside door to talk with them when we were seeking a little sleep. we formed a temperance, literary and musical club which every one in the town attended, and at this, at least, we spent many pleasant and useful hours. i was president of this club, and performed all the drudgery necessary to its success. i established a general store at which goods were sold at about cost, but many complained because they could not have unlimited credit. one oasis in this fault-finding desert, was the outside colony of freedmen. i employed many of them to do the heavy work of clearing avenues, and the air resounded with their cheerful songs, and i had the pleasure, with much labor, to save from the rapacious white robbers, the farms which these colored men had received from generous uncle sam. one case will illustrate the many instances in which i appeared as umpire. uncle and aunty peter gooden owned a fertile farm, and made a good living and more by diligent labor thereon. a white "cracker" coveted this property, and told the ignorant aunty that he would let her have $ on mortgage at two per cent. per week, so that she could buy a new yellow wagon, silver-mounted harness and prancing mules, a gorgeous red silk dress with much finery, with which she could outshine all her neighbors. these unsophisticated, honest "coons," thinking it meant that they would have to pay only two cents per week, accepted the offer, affixed their x marks to his unknown papers, and not even solomon in all his glory was arrayed like this simple couple. in a short time they came to me broken-hearted, sobbing, and wailing, telling me that the "cracker shylock" had foreclosed, ordering them out of their house and home. i at once notified the avaricious shark that he was guilty of violating the laws of the state by defrauding and by false pretenses, tendered him the principal with legal interest, and threatened punishment by law if he did not accept. he said, like the fabled raccoon in the tree, "don't shoot, i'll come down." i paid the money for which, in due time, uncle peter reimbursed me. i secured the hatred of the "crackers," but the undying gratitude of the negroes, who vied with each other in bringing us game in profusion, the first fruits of their crops, and shedding tears if we offered payment therefor, begging to be allowed to show their thankfulness by these free gifts. if one of them heard a threat against us he would guard our house all night with a shotgun, and would shadow me as i went about in the night, ready to spring upon any of my assailants. [illustration: ups and downs in the wild woods.] i provided a school and church for these loving, dusky children, and it was pathetic and cheering to see them all, from the tiny pickaninnies to the tottering gray heads, going regularly with their primers and bibles, trying to learn to read and write. many pleasant evenings in midwinter we sat on our vine-clad piazza, enjoying the balmy breezes, perfumed with the delicious orange blossoms, looking at the stately pines glorified by moonlight and starlight; listening to the songs of these dark-faced but white-souled serenaders, the whites of whose eyes and perfect teeth could be seen beaming upon us through the dusky shades of the forest. on the evening of the day when news arrived of the first election of grover cleveland to the presidency, we were sitting as usual on our piazza, when, suddenly, i saw a flash of fire in the woods, followed by the report of a rifle, then others in quick succession. rushing to the scene i found a few southern whites armed with repeating rifles, facing a large band of negroes carrying a motley array of pitchforks, scythes, razors, clubs, and a few ancient shotguns. yelling: "hold up!" i sprang between the embattled hosts, and demanded to know what was the row. "get out of the way, you damned yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or we'll riddle you with bullets." then they gave the far-reaching, fiendish, rebel yell. "shoot," i replied, "if you want to be hung." --"boys," i said, turning to the darkies, "what's the matter?" "oh, boss, massa linkum's dead, de dimikrat am presidunt, und we poo' niggers be slabes agin. we fight, we die, but we won't be slabes agin, neber." again came the roar of rifles behind me and the minnie balls went shrieking over our heads. "boys," i shouted, "you are mistaken. a million northern soldiers will march down here if necessary to prevent that; go at once to your homes; i will take care of you." slowly the colored men, who trusted me implicitly, melted away in the darkness. again the rebel yell, again the rifle shots high in the air. "gentlemen," said i, to the menacing whites, "come with me to the hall, i want to talk with you." "to hell with you!" they yelled, but followed me into the building. when they had sullenly taken seats, with guns threateningly at the ready, they glared at me like tigers ready to spring. soon a man, i had, on my way, sent to the store, arrived with a box of good florida cigars, and i quietly passed them around to my "lions couchant," took a seat on the platform facing them, lit up, and commenced the enjoyment of a silent smoke, they following suit. the tender of a cigar in the south is a recognition of comradeship which is a most potent mollifier. at last they brought their guns to the ground arms, parade rest, and the leader, an ex-confederate officer, drawled out, "wall, yank, what do you want of we uns?" "just as you please, gentlemen, peace or war?" "we are smoking the pipe, or cigar, of peace, yank." "so mote it be, brothers," said i, knowing that they were all members of the mystic tie. "we meet on the level, let us part on the square." "so mote it be," was the response in a regular lodge room chorus. a few quick signs were exchanged between chair and settees, the ice was broken, the "lodge was opened in due form;" there was no longer any restraint, for we were all members of the most ancient fraternal order on earth, of which the wisest man who ever lived was founder. they had not known this before. the white dove descended, and they promised on the sacred oath which makes all men brothers, to molest the negroes no more. we had a jolly good time, gave each other the grand masonic grip and departed to our homes. as i walked, i saw several dark figures dodging from tree to tree, and all that night my dusky-hued friends kept vigilant watch and ward about our cottage. the next morning many valiant war-men in time of peace, but peace-men in time of war, told me what brave fighting they would have done for my protection had i but called upon them to do so. i stocked the lake with excellent food fish obtained from the national fish commissioner, built good sidewalks, arched by beautiful shade trees; and many prominent men bought lands in our town. we passed an ordinance forbidding the use of our public thoroughfares to cattle and hogs, and for a while the air quivered with the squealings of infuriated razor backs. our valiant city marshal would pounce upon each one of these long-snouted swine; then came the tug-of-war, amid clouds of dust; down went marshal and razor-back, the nose as long and sharp as a ploughshare cleaving the earth near the sidewalks lined with laughing people. our great floridian always triumphed, and his pig-ship was incarcerated in the town "pound" until owner paid charges and penned his property outside city limits. once i saw a terrific contest between one of these long-legged, long-nosed porkers and the lone, pet alligator of our lake. his pig-ship was enjoying a drink when mr. 'gator seized him by the snout, the porcine braced and yelled; the 'gator let go in amazement; the pig turned to run; 'gator seized him by the leg, then greek met greek, teeth met teeth, till' the saurian struck him with his mighty tail, and all was over; the alligator and the porker lay down in peace together with the pig inside the 'gator. one day, one of our fishermen brought in a string of trout which far overshadowed the miraculous draught of fishes in the sea of galilee. on being questioned as to how he did it, he said he got one bite and pulled for three hours. the fish kept catching hold of each others' tails in their eagerness to be caught, until he had landed four barrels of the toothsome fat trout. our champion brought from a few hours' hunt, enough quail for the entire town; and when asked how he did it, he replied: "oh, i saw three thousand quail roosting on the limb of a tree. i had only my rifle with one ball; i shot at the limb, cracked it, their legs fell through the crack which closed when the bullet went through, and chained them all hard and fast. all i had to do was to cut off the limb with my jack-knife and bag the whole lot." one day this mighty nimrod brought home three bears and four deer. "how did you do it?" asked the envious multitude. "i was asleep in my wigwam, was waked up by a rumpus outside, rushed out with my gun, and chased the crowd around the hut till i was dead beat, then i bent my rifle across my knee into the exact circumference shape of my house, and fired. the bullet whistled by me for half an hour, chasing the varmints who were chasing each other; bum by, the bullet caught up, went through the whole crowd, and by gum; that 'ere bullet is chasing round that wigwam naouw." on another occasion, this same man brought in a lot of wild turkeys all ready for the table. as usual we expressed our wonderment. "wall, by gum," said he, "'twas the beatemest thing you ever heered on. i was waked up by these critters squawkin' over my haouse; i fired up chimbly, and daown tumbled the whole gang; the fire burnt off the feathers and roasted um up braown afore i could get at um." "but how about the stuffing?" "oh, that's nothin'; they'd stuffed themselves afore i shot um." we had often congratulated ourselves upon our immunity from snakes, never having seen even one in our bailiwick; but our sweet dreams of peace were rudely disturbed by this baron munchausen who horrified our ladies one day, by saying that he went into our church to make some repairs, and there met a rattle-snake which swallowed him whole at one full swoop; at once he recalled the sunday-school lesson of jonah in the whale's belly, took courage, struck a match, made a bonfire of his hat, and by its light cut his way out with his hatchet, ran to his house, got his gun and shot the snake, which was so large that he had not noticed the man's cutting, nor his escape, but was vastly enjoying his after dinner nap. this man long bore the honors of being the champion liar and champion hunter of the universe. thus, rapidly, sped away our days replete with alternating smiles and tears until arrived the time for our annual stockholders' election. on our way to ocala to attend this important event, i conversed at length with the rev. w----, upon whom i had conferred many and profitable favors. this ostentatiously pious individual expressed much gratitude for my kindness to him, assured me that my administration of affairs had been a grand success, that i had gained the merited respect and confidence of all the people in the town and that he would urge my reelection as general manager, with all his strength. the conference progressed very harmoniously for awhile, when i was called out to see a man on some important business, and on reentering the room, i noticed some excitement among the members, when general chamberlain, the president, called me to his chair and frankly told me, in the hearing of all, that the rev. w---- had, as soon as i left, denounced me fiercely as a fraud and a liar, stating that i had the respect of no one in b----; that the town would be ruined were i reelected; that he himself would take my position without any salary, relying solely upon commission from land sales, as compensation, and that he made this statement at the unanimous request of the citizens of the town. all eyes were turned to me for an explanation. i looked for awhile at the hypocritical clergyman very steadily, until he cringed like a viper, and turned pale as a ghost. i then narrated the statements made to me scarcely an hour before, called upon him for some proof of his accusations, and closed by saying that i would not accept a reelection unless it came to me unanimously. the craven reverend left the room without a word; i was reelected without a dissenting vote, and thus closed one of the most revolting revelations of depravity that i ever witnessed. this "wolf in sheep's clothing," after an extraordinary career in endeavoring to "fleece" others, finally lost every dollar of his property, fled from the town with his family, and i have never been able to hear from him since. i wish for the sake of faith in human nature that this had been the only case of "fall from grace," but alas, there were others! but let the curtain fall. moral--have no confidence in the man who wears his religion on his coat sleeve or necktie; but try the spirits whether they are of christ. at this time, a party of prominent people arrived at b----, from the north, to consider the feasibility of investing quite largely somewhere in florida. as they wished to visit the southern part of the state before deciding, i procured free passes for all, and escorted them via steamer, down the entire gulf coast, touching at all attractive points, exploring coral islands where myriads of sea birds nested, encircling us with wild screams till the clouds of them well-nigh shut out the sun; then we collected rare shells and flotsam and jetsam from far away lands; one hour, floating over the calm gulf of mexico, as smooth as a mirror, then tossed by a sudden tempest far towards the stars, and tumbling down to davy jones' locker; now enjoying the lotos-eaters' paradise, then, as we reached the lowlands, well-nigh devoured by millions of mosquitoes and sand flies. then we crossed the peninsular, traveling under hammock-woods and century-old wild-orange trees, whose "twilight dim hallowed the noonday," regaled with unlimited fish and game to the far-famed indian river,--delightful recreation-spots for a few weeks in winter, but too hot, damp, and mosquitoey for colonies. then we were guests of the millionaires' club at cape canaveral, where were acres of wild ducks, droves of screaming catamounts, and huge-billed, fish-devouring pelicans. we drove over many miles of hard, firm sea-beaches--delightful brief winter homes for the rich, then back to our fertile piny woods highlands, convinced that the "backbone" of the peninsular was the only desirable locality for permanent settlers who must get a living from the bosom of mother earth. soon after, leaving mr. b----, the superintendent, in charge of the company's interests in our new town, which now contained over one hundred houses, and had elected a mayor and alderman, i returned with my family to boston, devoting my time to lecturing on florida in general, and b---- in particular, in nearly all the cities of new england, distributing illustrated books which i had prepared, and which were approved as true, by many prominent people who had lived for many years among the scenes which were therein described. my labors were very successful, and a great success for our enterprise seemed assured, when i received a letter from our directors, stating that a dr. k---- had offered to accept my position as general manager, without salary; pay his own expenses, relying on his commissions on land sales, and that as i had declined to serve on this basis they had felt compelled to accept his services. as i was obliged to have a regular income for the support of my family, i acquiesced in the directors' decision, and soon, under the new incompetent management, the company failed; so another of my business enterprises, on the very verge of a grand success, became a defeat, and again the innocent were blamed for the acts of the guilty. i converted my stock in the m.l.&i. co., into lands of the company at a great loss to me, as i took the lands at company's schedule values instead of at the cost prices, while the stock cost me--the full price of $ per share. blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he alone shall not be disappointed. our varying days pass on and on, our hopes fade unfulfilled away, and things which seem the life of life are taken from us day by day. our little dramas all may fail, and naught may issue as we planned, our costliest ships refuse to sail, our firmest castles fall to sand. but god lives on, and with our woe weaves golden threads of joy and peace, and somewhere we will surely know from sorrow and pain the glad release. chapter xxiv. foregleams of immortality. this year of our lord, , brought an infinitely greater sorrow than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in connection with our florida endeavors. on christmas morning, while alone in my room, i distinctly heard my father's voice whisper: "james, james, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the news that he passed away at the exact time when i heard him bidding me farewell. my father was an honest man, the noblest work of god; he had gained none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what was better far, a conscience void of offense towards god and man. in the words of thoreau--"if a man does not keep pace with his fellows, perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." this my father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life. the winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to his arctic home, and when the first harbingers of spring appeared, singing the memorial songs of the resurrection, the old country fever, inherited from many generations of farmer ancestors, seized me, and we bought a small plantation for $ , , in n----, mass., to which we moved april , . here, as usual, much money was expended on improvements and for horse, carriages, cow, pigs, hens, also for scanty harvests of vegetables, and our only returns therefor consisted of large crops of backaches, nasal hemorrhages, and rheumatism incurred in frantic attempts to coax from the reluctant soil, some slight compensation for excessive labor. here, as usual, i was busied with many cares, lecturing in various places on the subject of florida and selling our private lands in that state. like mr. pickwick, i was founder of many societies, notably the n---- club, which, with a fine orchestra and much dramatic talent soon became the social and literary attraction of the town; also the republican club, which conducted a vigorous campaign for protective tariff and sound money, attracting large audiences by political debates. i was president of both these flourishing organizations, was chairman of the parish committee of the unitarian church, leading to its enlargement and extended usefulness, was a member of the congressional committee of the district which wrested a congressman from the democrats, electing, after a desperate struggle, john w. candler, to the national legislature in place of russell, "the sheepless shepherd." on the th of june of this year, rebecca, the wife of my only surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had long gone before. she was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she found it. one by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear, one by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear. on the evening of the th of august in this year, an experience came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence. my brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a week in the woods and waters of onset bay, and while walking in the gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw a notice posted on a tree stating that the b---- sisters would give a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. we were all skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity. here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called to meet them. this ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. on responding to the invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor, kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister," informed that the lady in white was mary, my spirit-wife, who in loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that lillian had exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her to help. suddenly, the form called for me, and i went to her as one dazed. "james," she said, "i am mary, your wife." she embraced me with many kisses as in the long ago, and continued: "i am so glad to see you and lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her goodness to our children; my time here is so short." then turning; "jot," she whispered to my brother, "come here;" she kissed him, said: "rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak to come out. we give you all our love and blessing; good-bye," and disappeared through the floor at our feet. there was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the unseen world. we had "felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had heard the sound of the voice that is still," and henceforth we knew that we walked hand in hand with angels. we realized unmistakably the truth of the words of the poet longfellow: "the forms of the departed enter at the open door, the beloved, the true hearted come to visit us once more, and with them the being beauteous, who unto my youth was given more than all things else to love me, and is now a saint in heaven. oh, though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside, if i but remember only such as these have lived and died." the pages of the bible, the testimony of all the sweet singers of all the ages, confirm indisputably our certain knowledge of spirit return, and _we know_ the truth of what the saints and sages of all time have dreamed, and by faith have believed, all religions have taught, it is now demonstrated beyond all doubt and we can say most joyfully-- "oh land, oh land for all the broken-hearted, the mildest herald by our fate allotted beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand to lead us with a gentle hand into the land of the great departed, into the silent land." we turned to our duties, inspired by the knowledge that we were guided and assisted by the loved ones gone before. after living on the flat-as-pan-cake plain of n---- for three years, again was i disenchanted; all the poetic illusions of farm life vanished, all the oxygen seemed to be exhausted from the air, the romance of raising potatoes at a cost of five dollars a peck disappeared, the old farm hung like a millstone round my neck, we sold it and hired a pretty cottage in the lucre-worshipping town of b----, on the th of march, , where we led uneventful lives for one year, until my fickle fancy was captivated by a fine new house on the hilltop overlooking the sea, in the town of w----, mass. this we bought and entered on the th of may, . here at last we thought we had found the mecca towards which, all our lives we had been drifting. once more came the passion for beautifying our own, and we made our lawns to bud and blossom like the roses; worshipping at the shrine of the majestic ocean, "its waves were kneeling on the strand, as kneels the human knee, their white locks bowing to the sand the priesthood of the sea." here we passed four very pleasant and useful years; consciously near to us, though unseen, were all our loved ones of the spirit world. almost every night our angel friends communicated with us unmistakably through the ouija, and planchette; they would draw caricature pictures of us all, and give us conundrums and jokes that we had never known before. one evening in particular, mary wrote us to give her children the best possible musical instruction, stating that may would become a great singer and flute player, and that ada would be a fine organist and pianist, as well as singer; that ida would do well with violin and voice. we were incredulous, as they had inherited no musical talent, neither had they manifested any inclination in these directions; but mary was so persistent and strenuous in her appeals, that we heeded the advice, gave the girls good teachers along these lines, and soon, their spirit-mother's predictions were fulfilled to the very letter, and the so-called "foss triplets" became a veritable inspiration to thousands of delighted listeners to their rendition of instrumental and vocal strains of music. the dews of heaven descend upon all the flowers of the field, some open their petals, welcome the refreshment and are blessed thereby; while others close their buds, refusing the blessing, and as a result, wither and die. even so come to all souls the spirits of the departed, and they inspire or fail in their mission of love according to whether we open or close to them the doors of our inner sanctuaries. the departed, the departed, they visit us in dreams, they glide above our memories like sunlight over streams. the melody of summer waves, the thrilling notes of birds can never be so dear to me as their softly-whispered words. chapter xxv. a practical socialist and colonizer. we found in this town of w----, a moribund unitarian church, with scarcely a handful of attendants, listening once a week to a lifeless minister and an asthmatic harmonium accompanied by a few feeble, inharmonious voices. our sympathies were aroused for this expiring infant, and we resolved to rescue it if possible from its open grave. my wife and i, accompanied by the "triplets," on the front seat of our carriage as drivers, canvassed the entire town, asking all we met to lay up treasures in heaven by "rescuing the perishing," and we soon secured money to buy a fine toned organ and to hire a wideawake pastor. ada played the new organ; may formed a quartette with herself as soprano, ida often accompanying with her violin; my wife teaching in the sunday-school, myself serving as chairman of the parish committee, and soon our church was filled with attentive and much edified listeners and helpers. i organized the channing club, which soon included in its membership all the leading musical and dramatic talent of the town. we met weekly in the church vestry which was soon decorated by handsome pictures, scenery and bric-a-brac, the gifts of our members, making a very spacious and attractive resort. this club over which i presided, developed to a remarkable degree the latent talents of many who had never before thought themselves capable of entertaining and instructing the public. we had an orchestra of stringed and brass instruments, in which may played the flute, ada the piano and organ, ida second violin, while all our four girls sang solos, duets, trios, and quartettes. many elderly people paid generous fees for honorary membership, while the large, active membership, responded regularly when called upon with musical, literary, or dramatic renditions individually or in combination as they might prefer. it was a delightful and instructive symposium which ought to be found in every town. the channing club soon became famous, and gave first-class entertainments to very large audiences at high admission fees in our own and surrounding towns as well as in boston, thus replenishing the church treasury and greatly promoting sociability and friendship by regular dances and suppers which made hundreds seem like one large family, bound together by many friendly ties, each one readily responding to the call of the president to render his or her full share of entertainment and good cheer for the good of all. it was an ideal socialistic order, and we truly "sat together in heavenly places." all gladly contributed to the needs of the poor or the sick; we chartered steamers and went on picnic excursions to attractive island resorts in our beautiful harbor; class distinctions were banished, envy and jealousy disappeared like snow before the sun, and good fellowship reigned supreme. our rich and poor met together as brothers and sisters. such an organization in churches would soon banish class hatreds, and do much to make this world a paradise like to that above. the winter of was a red-letter season in the history of us all. we rented our house in w----, to a friend, and lived in florida, our four girls attending rollins college at winter park, where they enjoyed life immensely in the incomparable climate which, with their studies in this excellent school, was of great benefit to them, physically and mentally. i was favored with free passes all over the state, and devoted my time to a careful examination of large tracts of land in various counties, but found none to my liking until on our return trip, we spent several weeks at lawtey, in the county of bradford. florida, within its vast area, contains a great variety of land and climates, and the person who has traversed only the beaten track of the tourist knows nothing of the fertile tracts and delightful temperatures of these green-grassed and piny-woods highlands. here, as nowhere else in the world, nature has provided all the essentials to agricultural success; there was but one mortgaged homestead in the entire township; it is the greatest strawberry mart in the world; the abundance of nutritious wild grasses render cattle and sheep raising throughout the year a source of great revenue, and the maximum of crop returns is secured with a minimum of labor. at last, after years of search throughout the state, we found our ideal location for a colony, and i bonded over , acres of fertile, well-wooded lands, returned home, formed a syndicate, and paid for our tract, to which we gave the appropriate suggestive name of "woodlawn." i successfully pursued my avocation of advertising and selling our lands, having an office in boston and cooperating agents in several states. on june th, , my brother joshua, the last of my father's family except myself, was suddenly called to join our many loved ones in the spirit world. all our lives we had been as david and jonathan, and not a cloud had swept across the azure of our sky of mutual affection, until the advent of his second wife. he was one of the best men that ever lived, and nearly everyone in his town had been benefited by his well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and he found awaiting him, many treasures in the grand bank of heaven. "i cannot say, and i will not say that he is dead--he is just away, with a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, he has wandered into an unknown land, and left us dreaming how very fair it needs must be, since he lingers there; we think of him faring on, as dear in the love of there as the love of here, think of him still as the same, i say, he is not dead--he is just away." soon after the departure of my brother to the better land, our spirit-band informed us very plainly through "ouija," that it was our duty to remove to boston in order that our children might have better educational facilities, and be admitted to the "musical swim" of the "hub of the universe." we obeyed their mandate, and the predictions of our angel friends were fully verified. in our new home the older girls met those to whom they were married in heaven, and to whom they gave their hands and hearts. i now look back over a half century of existence on this earth, and my muse inspires me to record that: i have ships that went to sea more than fifty years ago. none have yet come back to me, but keep sailing to and fro, plunging through the shoreless deep, with tattered sails and battered hulls while around them scream the gulls. i have wondered why they stayed from me, sailing round the world and i've said, "i'm half afraid that their sails will ne'er be furled." great the treasures that they hold, silks, and plumes, and bars of gold, while the spices which they bear fill with fragrance all the air. i have waited on the piers gazing for them down the bay, days and nights, for many years, till i turned heart-sick away. but the pilots, when they land, kindly take me by the hand, saying, "surely they will come to thee, thy proud vessels from the sea." so i never quite despair, nor let hope or courage fail, and some day, when skies are fair, up the bay my ships will sail. chapter xxvi. hand in hand with angels. in our boston home, there came to us one of the most wonderful and inspiring experiences ever vouchsafed to mortals beneath the stars; an experience which solved forever for us the problem of immortality, which all the religious teachings of all the ages had been powerless to accomplish. it confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt, our knowledge of the future life obtained previously at onset bay, as the following named events transpired in our own house in the presence of witnesses under test circumstances which precluded all possibility of deception. mrs. b----, of boston, came to our house alone, gratuitously, on her own volition, sat within a few feet of our entire family and two of our neighbors, having no cabinet or any paraphernalia which are always required by those charlatans who have associated the fair name of spiritualism with fraud and chicanery. in about one hour there appeared in our parlor, in full view of us all, more than thirty forms; some tall as were ever seen on earth, others little children, the forms of our offspring who were "still born"; my brother joshua, who had been in spirit life a little over one year came fully materialized and was clearly recognized by my entire family. he gave me, while i was standing within two feet of the medium, the firm grip of a master mason; his hand was like that of a living human being; he whispered a few intelligible words, saying that we should have no fear if trouble came, that all would turn out for our ultimate good, and disappeared at my feet; then a tall, finely-formed young man with dark moustache came, beating his breast with his hand. "you see, i am all here," he said; "i am john mansfield, formerly of new jersey. i was attracted to your house by the music. i am guardian of your girls; i am going to try to help in your father and mother." he vanished; then returned, trying to bring the half-materialized but recognizable forms as he had promised; but they were weak, and seen but dimly. then came the clearly defined form of the children's aunt, and the girls, who were somewhat timid, recognized her at once. she kissed each one several times in rapid succession just as she used to do when she met them in the long ago; called them and my wife by name, and disappeared, apparently through the floor. then appeared mary, my spirit-wife, and many others whom we could not recognize. little blue bell, one of the medium's cabinet spirits, them came, pointing to the door, saying: "see that little fat snoozer?" we looked around and saw the wondering eyes of our bessie, who we supposed was "snoozing" in bed; she had come down in her night-dress. finally, nellie, our hired girl, who, being a catholic, had been warned by the priest never to countenance spiritualism, and had locked herself in her room, came into the parlor, wild-eyed and with her hair streaming over her shoulders, saying she was compelled to come in. at once the form of a young irish girl clad in peasant costume, with hair to her waist, appeared, and clasped nellie in her arms; they talked a few minutes, and the form vanished in air. nellie told us that it was a schoolmate of hers who died in ireland fifteen years before, that they had been great friends, and vied with each other in growing the longer hair. these facts may seem incredible to those who have never received visitations from the other world; but we know that we saw and felt the forms of our spirit friends on that occasion, as surely as we know that we ever saw them when they were with us daily in the body on earth. when alone that night, i "dropped into poetry," and here is what my spirit-guided hand wrote, february th, . out of the darkness cometh a light, out of the silence cometh a voice, the pathway of life grows suddenly bright, and as never before we all rejoice. the dearly beloved who have gone before come back to bless from the beautiful shore; they speak to us words of lofty cheer, that banish the clouds of darksome fear. how sweet to _know_ that there is no death, that the soul outlives the fleeting breath; that guardian angels surround us ever with a deathless love no power can sever. we mourn no more the vanished youth, we are nearing the heaven of eternal truth; we lament no more the earthly ills, for their power will cease on the heavenly hills. we grieve no more for the wrinkled brow, nor for withering locks as white as snow, for soon will we greet what is unseen now, soon to the sunlit heights will we go. for many years doubt's saddening shade on our hearts its pall has laid: but a gleam comes from the bright forever, and gloom and fear shall haunt us never. we have felt the touch of the vanished hand, we have heard the sound of the voice that is still; they have come to us from the better land, their cheering words our spirits thrill. "we will know the loved who have gone before, and joyfully sweet will the meeting be when over the river, the beautiful river, the angel of death shall carry me." chapter xxvii. among the law-sharks. it seems to be an unwritten law of human life that every great joy shall be quickly followed by a great sorrow. the materialized forms of our spirit loved-ones had scarcely vanished from sight, when the trouble of which my brother had forewarned us fell like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. we had, without a thought of deception, and at prices which then prevailed, sold to many persons, lands in florida, some for settlement, some as investments. phosphate had been discovered in the immediate vicinity of some of our tracts, and this fact had led speculators to buy our lands, hoping that these deposits might greatly enhance values; but the usual competition to sell this valuable fertilizer had for the time reduced prices to a non-paying basis; then, too, an unprecedented freeze, which once in about a hundred years visits all semi-tropical countries, had destroyed many orange groves in the state, and so frightened short-sighted, timid people, that florida lands were at a great discount, and, as when a panic sweeps over wall street, many frantically hastened to sell, and there were but few buyers. this led several of my customers to conspire to frighten me into paying them large sums as hush money, pretending that i had secured their purchases under false pretenses; but the yankee spirit of our fathers, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," prompted me to defy their infamous demands. under the lead of a fiendishly "smart" lawyer, they declared that i told them their lands were full of phosphate, and within city limits, although my published circulars and maps stated nothing of the kind. they denounced me as a fraud in the newspapers, brought lawsuits against me, attached property, and proceeded in a most brutal manner to compel payment of their unjust claims. my word for half a century had everywhere been as good as my bond, and my bond as good as gold. i had never before had a lawsuit or any trouble with any one, and so in my inexperience i employed a lawyer friend, who was no match for my enemies' human tiger. they testified unfairly in court, and after many crushing annoyances from the law's delays, my lawyer, putting in no defense, in order, as he said, to save his ammunition for use in the superior court, to which he appealed, they secured judgment. all these slanders broke my never firm health; i was soon on the verge of nervous prostration, and was ordered by my physician to at once secure a change of climate to save my life. my innocent lawyer supposed that a court of justice would postpone my trial until my return; but we have now some "courts of injustice." some lawyers are worse than highway robbers; they make the laws as legislators to suit their own iniquitous, selfish purposes, so worded that they are susceptible of almost any interpretation, thus leading to endless litigations by which these cannibal devourers of reputations are robbing the public of their possessions. they employ spies to stir up strife, and some lawyers and judges seem to be banded together to fleece the confiding lambs of the public. the judge not only refused to postpone the trial until i was able to attend, but refused to have the jury informed that i was absent on account of serious sickness. we are bound hand and foot, the slaves of these law-sharks, and it seems as if nothing but revolution and the banishing of these tyrants, will ever deliver the public from the worse than african slavery to which some lawyers subject us. we have seen innocent, modest lady witnesses subjected to bull-dozing and abuse by barbarous lawyers, until they suffered tortures to which those of the spanish inquisition were merciful. as i was obliged to go or die, i accepted the offer of my wife's brother, a member of the publishing firm of webster's dictionaries, and went to california to fight their battles against the new standard dictionary which was rapidly driving the webster books out of the markets of the entire pacific slope. the trial took place during my enforced absence; my enemies' crafty attorney told the jury that my failure to appear was a sure evidence of guilt; my doctor's affidavit that he sent me away to save my life was not allowed to be presented in court; each plaintiff claimed to have heard the statements imputed to have been made by me to the others, one of them making love to, and afterwards marrying one of my most important witnesses, and so the verdict was against me. but curses often "come home to roost," and my enemies were ultimately not benefited at all, as the lawyer-sharks devoured all they received from me. in the meanwhile, during their worrying and falsifying, i was speeding away in a palace-car, confident that my spirit brother's declaration would prove true that truth is mighty and will prevail, if not in the brief here, yet surely in the eternal hereafter. it is very saddening to see how many, who claim to be your friends while you are prosperous, are the first to assail with poisoned arrows when you are attacked in the courts or in the public prints; but my conscience is clear, and serene, i fold my hands and wait, nor care for wind, or tide or sea. i rave no more 'gainst time or fate, for soon my own shall come to me. asleep, awake, by night or day, the friends i seek are seeking me; no wind can drive my bark astray, nor change the tide of destiny. the stars come nightly to the sky; the tidal wave into the sea; nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, can keep my own away from me. chapter xxviii. campaigning in wonderland. this delightful journey was a wonderful revelation of the greatness, power, and grandeur of this glorious republic in which we live. i gazed with amazement for many hours as we flew over the marvelously fertile and beautiful prairies of kansas; here miles upon miles of wheat, corn, and alfalfa waving like vast seas, irrigated by means of numberless windmills; there, herds of cattle, numerous as the leaves of autumn; here, long lines of steam plows breaking thousands of acres of virgin soil; there mammoth steam reapers devouring vast areas of gold mines of grain; the food of the nations pouring into bags at one end, while the stalks were bound midway ready for the fattening of cattle. the chaff flew in clouds, and quickly, from these machines, millions of bushels of wheat were soon on their way to the markets of the world. what wonder that our country now has in washington over five hundred millions of gold dollars; the richest treasury ever known on earth? now we catch glimpses of vast mines of coal and salt; then of great cities which have sprung up as by magic; and soon my eyes were greeted with a vision of heavenly splendor in colorado. three hundred miles of the rocky mountains, pike's peak towering , feet towards the stars; great clouds of snow blowing from the summit into the valleys; there cascades of mighty rivers flowing to irrigate lovely valleys; here the great city of denver, having , population, and one mile higher up in the air than boston. in this city i met my former college professor, now the multi-millionaire united states senator, burdened with many crushing cares, knowing about as much peace and quietness as a toad under a two-forty-gait harrow. then on went the mighty train; here a glimpse at manitou of the "garden of the gods," with cathedral spires of old red sandstone towering hundreds of feet towards the clouds which capped their summits with halos; on through the grand canyon of the arkansas river, in places two miles nearer heaven than boston; here we see gigantic natural castles with battlements, bastions and fortresses whose leveled cannon you almost instinctively dodge to escape their imaginary bomb-shells. now we climb almost perpendicular heights, thousands of feet; now we slide down into chasms barely escaping the rushing waters; then we shoot through a tunnel two miles long under , feet of solid rock; now we rush over vast plateaus , feet above the sea; then we catch glimpses of herds of cattle, now of great caves, lone trees with not a bit of earth visible about their roots; now we rush into leadville, a mining camp of , people. at midnight a huge stone rolled down the mountainside onto the track, delaying us for two hours. had it fallen a minute later we would have been crushed into nothingness. in the morning i awoke in utah, rode all the forenoon over arid plains; gaunt, hungry wolves scud away, cayotes ran yelping, and jack rabbits hopped out of sight for dear life; then we arrive at salt lake city, which the mormons have transformed from a howling wilderness into a fine city, with a surrounding country budding and blossoming with bounteous harvests. the peak towers aloft where the united states regulars halted after their terrible march over the mountains, near where the famous nauvoo legion of the mormons surrendered, after their rebellion to make brigham young their king, though he said that by a wave of his hand he could hurl back the balls of the national cannon to annihilate the soldiers of the republic. i drank in with delight the music of the grand organ and the four hundred trained singers of the mormon choir in the vast tabernacle. then on thundered the train by the great salt lake, one hundred miles long and forty miles wide, so salt that it buoys you up on its surface like a feather; then on over the sage-brush desert to reno, nevada, where is the world-renowned comstock mine, from which over one hundred millions of dollars' worth of silver has already been taken. then we climbed the sierra nevada mountains, around and around in a circle, shot through a snow shed forty miles long; then lumber chutes appear many miles in length, through which enormous logs are shot down by water power from the mountain lake. four billion feet of lumber are cut here in a year. then on we go past lake tahoe, twenty-two miles long, surrounded by mountains two miles in height; then past cape horn, along precipices down which i threw a stone which fell , feet into the american river. we slide down the mountains to auburn, california, and find fruit trees in blossom, grass green, and crops several inches high. a sudden change in a few minutes from deep snow and severe cold to blossoms and roses. on we go to sacramento, surrounded by great ranches with vast herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the wild grasses; then on to san francisco, the golden gate, and the unpacified pacific. the principal occupation of the street cars in 'frisco, is climbing almost perpendicular heights, and then sliding down hill. all very pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all passengers tumbling over and on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the crowd. here you can get a good meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for "two bits" (twenty-five cents), you can buy three different kinds of newspapers for the same price as one, as they have no coins smaller than a nickel. for a nickel you can ride for miles to the cliff house which is at the golden gate, where are acres of giant flowers of every conceivable variety, all beautiful, but odorless; you watch the sea lions nearly the size of oxen, and who roar and fight on the boulders. then we enter a bath-house, acres in extent, covered with glass, where you can swim in sea water warmed by steam-pipes, listen to the band, examine the multitude of wild animals and curiosities collected from all parts of the world. [illustration: the golden gate of the unpacified pacific.] then we visit the city park of twelve hundred acres, once nothing but flying sand. at first they planted on these dunes, grass roots from south america; these fastened themselves to the sand and formed a little soil; then were planted shrubs to stop the sand storms, then trees, and now the real estate is not all in the air. this little nickel will take you to a mountaintop overlooking city and ocean, where you can sit under the eucalyptus trees which shed their bark instead of their leaves, and enjoy the music and the not overmodest dramas, without extra charge. the saloons, stores and theatres are open seven days and nights in the week, and multitudes of all nationalities, clad in their peculiar costumes, hobnob with each other in the most free and easy manner imaginable, without waiting for introductions, in this the most cosmopolitan city on earth. sometimes you will see the harbor literally covered with the most delicious fruits and vegetables, dumped into the water, because the transportation charges to market would more than eat up the proceeds of their sale. i visited at san jose, the large flourishing fruit orchard of a college classmate who had spent years of hard labor and the earnings of a lifetime, to bring his trees into bearing; but i found he had deserted his ranch because he could not make a living thereon, and had gone to preach for a little church far away, at five hundred dollars per annum. i saw at riverside large crops of oranges frozen upon the trees; but the real estate sharks never allow these facts to be published, because they fatten on the profits made by selling lands to the gullible "tender feet" from the east, who, when they have bought these farms at enormous prices, find to their utter discouragement, that they must also buy water for irrigation from monopolists, at ruinous rates, else the soil is worthless. here as nowhere else is illustrated the truth of the scriptural adage: "to him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." when you go to a place scarcely thirty miles distant, which, in new england, you would reach in an hour, you are obliged to travel all night, as you must climb cloud-touching mountains, going many miles to cover what would be only one mile in a straight line; now you glide along close to the long, lazy waves of the great pacific ocean, where the grass kisses the salt lips of the sea; now from the tops of the santa cruz mountains, you survey the world at your feet; now you rush through the red-wood primeval forests, giants touching the clouds with their tops, while in the hollow trunk of one of these trees a family of twelve can live quite comfortably; then on to los angeles,--"city of the angels," they call it--a beautiful city for those possessed of means or who are dispossessed of bodies which must be clothed and fed. [illustration: the dome of mount shasta gleams like "the great white throne."] some have "struck oil" here, and the stench and grime from the spouting wells have ruined the houses of hundreds who have reaped no profit from the petroleum, because they did not own the adjoining lots where it was found; then on we go to lovely passadena on a table-land surrounded by snow-capped mountains; but the winds from the cold summits come suddenly when you are melting with the heat, bringing plenty of catarrh for all; then on to san diego on the hill by the sea, where the fog is sometimes so thick you can cut it into blocks with an axe; then on to the far-famed coronado hotel, close by the sea. in the boom-time, this was claimed to be the veritable "garden of eden," and soil was considered worth its weight in gold, but now my guide offered me six house lots which cost him three thousand dollars, for two hundred dollars; the bubble had burst, a few had become rich, while hundreds of speculators had lost their all. i swam in the spacious warmed-water sea-baths, communed with the wild ducks, cormorants and pelicans, looked with amazement at the giant ostriches, and sympathized with their seeming wonderment as to why we were all sent into this sad, bewildering maze of life. at national city the refluent wave of the boom had left many of the houses and business blocks dilapidated and unoccupied save by bats, spiders and flies. you could occupy free of rent many buildings with none to molest or make you afraid. thence on dashes the train to the celebrated hotel delmonte, at monterey, the show place of the southern pacific railroad, which, by its extortionate transportation charges, has ruined many struggling fruit raisers in this state where monopoly holds such mighty sway. there are many hotels in florida which far surpass this as far as the buildings are concerned; but the grounds are extensive and very beautiful, and the wide piazzas are embowered in a profusion of all kinds of climbing vines covered with the loveliest blossoms. stretching away until earth and sky meet, is an imperial domain, covered with noble trees which were giants when adam was a baby, many festooned with english ivy and flowering trumpet creepers almost to the stars. then we walked under long gothic arches, cool and fragrant. here is every arrangement conceivable for entertainment; on one side the pacific ocean; on the other the coast range mountains, a very pleasant resort for the very rich; but we found there at this time more servants than guests. the town of monterey is interesting only for its ruins of ancient monasteries and convents, where a few lazy half-breeds alone remain to tell the tale of multitudes over whom the catholic priests reigned supreme, reducing their dupes to beggary by their extortions. once these mountains were covered with vast flocks of sheep, but the foolish reduction of the tariff on wool by the wilson bill, destroyed all profits, and the flocks disappeared into the hungry mouths of the people. thence the iron horse took us back to 'frisco, and we sailed all day and all night to sacramento. the scenery was grand, but the cold weather chilled us to the very bones. islands of old red sandstone loom like sentinels along the coast, covered with lighthouses to warn the mariners. the twin peaks of montepueblo covered with perpetual snow, seemed to support the heavens as do the pillars the dome of the capitol. swarms of screaming sea gulls fill the air, some of which, benumbed by cold alighted on the steamer's deck. lonely ranches are seen, hemmed in by the everlasting hills. our great, lazy boat, propelled by a stern wheel as big as a barn, paddled slowly over the muddy waters of the great sacramento river, made yellow by the turbid waters sent to it from scores of hydraulic mines on the mountains. on one island is an immense smelting furnace, the tall chimneys of which send forth volumes of poisonous smoke, dangerous to breathe, and covering everything with a coating black as soot. inhaling this, some of the operators die of lead poisoning. many islands are here scarcely above the water's edge, having little houses built on stilts occupied by the salmon fishers who are seen pulling their nets, and around whose heads whirl and scream flocks of fish hawks, ravenous for their prey. after a successful book fight at the capital city, i went to red bluff where i was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. i survived only by keeping my head wrapped in ice water; i could neither eat nor sleep, and like dickens, i longed to "take off my flesh, and sit in my bones." it was a veritable hell on earth. the county superintendent of schools here, told me he sold his prune crop that year for five thousand dollars, and went away leaving the purchaser to pick the fruit. on his return, he found that the red spiders had anticipated the pickers, and destroyed the entire crop, so that his work of years came to naught, as the buyers of course refused to pay to feed the spiders. thence i went to san luis obispo, and on the way we struck the coast range mountains. the tortuous upclimbing and downsliding of the train disclosed scenery imposing and grand. you looked down the precipitous rock-ribbed sides thousands of feet to the narrow, beautiful valleys, made productive by the irrigation from many foaming waterfalls. we circle the mountains many times before reaching the valleys, traveling many hours to gain a straight-line mile. these valleys are lovely to look down upon; but the fogs much of the time hang over them like a pall, and catarrh and rheumatism render life one of misery to many of the people. [illustration: above the clouds.] chapter xxix. among the clouds. in the following may, , i took a sky-scraping journey to the great states of washington and oregon. the climbing of mt. shasta and the siskyo range by train presented sublime views that no language can even feebly describe. at the summits we were at least two miles in the air higher than the dome of the massachusetts state house. as we climbed, i could see from the window of the palace car, the two engines of our train puffing for all they were worth around the curves, far ahead. we looked down from the narrow rim of the railroad, thousands of feet perpendicular upon foaming rivers dashing themselves into rainbows and cataracts against the everlasting boulders in their courses. here cascades, miles in length, came rushing down the mountainsides, shooting hundreds of feet into the air as they struck the giant rocks, and at one place we stopped for half an hour to drink from the soda springs pure, delicious soda water, huge geysers of it effervescing, scintillating, silvery in the sunbeams, caught in a rocky basin from which it is sent all over the world. above, the mighty sacramento river has its source in a little spring, almost touching the stars--so emblematical of our human life, which begins in the infinite on high; is enveloped in a dust of earth; expands in its evolution into the angel back into the eternity from whence it came; for science reveals that the springs come from the clouds as dew and rain, run their courses, and by evaporation are taken back into their first home in the vapors of the heavens. there are enormous log-shoots seeming like jacob's ladder to reach from earth to heaven, and in which, the giants of the vast mountain forests are carried by water with almost lightning speed to the mills on the river; there the splendid snow-covered dome of shasta gleams above the clouds like the great white throne described by st. john in revelation. now come glimpses of little green valleys; here and there, a few small houses and flocks of sheep show that these cases are peopled "far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife." these vast solitudes of forests are very impressive and solemn as the day of judgment; giant fir-trees, pines and spruces, beautifully clothed in perpetual green even to the lower dead limbs which nature has covered with a verdure of moss--like our dead hopes, blasted by the fires of adversity but made radiant by the fore-gleams of immortality. there the bright mistletoe is suspended from dead tree-tops, like beauteous crowns adorning the heads of those who have died rather than surrender to the low and base; there deep canyons, brilliant with the diamonds made by the sun from the scintillating drops from dashing torrents--so from the unseen heights come the dews of heaven to refresh those who walk by faith and not by sight "looking not at the things seen which are temporal, but at the things not seen which are eternal." here comes a dense white cloud of snow through the air, covering our train with a pearly shroud, through the rifts of which, far below, we have glimpses of lovely vales and white ranch-houses, smiling up at us, above the clouds. dearly beloved--all seems to say it becometh us, not to sorrow for the dead hopes, broken promises, and bitter disappointments of this mortal life, remembering that this is not our home, that we tarry here for a few fleeting days, that our true home is with the good beyond the infinite azure of the heavens, where dear ones are waiting to welcome us to the endless rest and peace awaiting all who fight the good fight, and who keep themselves unspotted from the world. at times, while the train was dashing along over the seemingly interminable plains, green and productive during the rainy season, but now parched and arid by the terrible heat, we were almost suffocated by the dense dust clouds, and well-nigh withered by the winds which seem to come from the very jaws of dante's inferno; then the shifting young cyclone would suddenly envelop us with chilling snows from shasta, and so we oscillated like pendulums 'twixt torrid heats and arctic colds. at last, almost dazed by the unspeakable, lightning-like, climatic transformations, the great iron steeds brought us to portland, the metropolis of the great state of oregon. here, as in many places on the pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape the merciless peltings of the clouds of shot-like dust. the dampness in this valley, hemmed in by the now dripping, then brook covered mountains, is far from pleasant, and covers many of the buildings with unsightly mosses. in washington and oregon those who survive the climatic trials are a strong, energetic race, rapidly building up powerful empires in the great aggregation of states of our grandest nation the world has ever known. the broad-minded, generous-hearted people of this great far west, make no distinctions as to sex in apportioning their salaries for school work, and this, coupled with their numerous co-educational universities and normal schools, has given them an army of lady teachers and superintendents unequaled elsewhere in the world. the county superintendents of schools are elected by the popular vote, and the women take to the stump-speaking and the usual kissing of voters' babies as naturally as ducks take to the water. result,--the ladies secure the political plums, and the men are rapidly being driven to manual labor, their natural sphere of action, though not without vigorous kicking against the inevitable. these ex-men-superintendents buttonhole you at every turn, reciting the outrages perpetrated upon them by their successful women competitors. at an election in a california town, one of these men sufferers, mistaking me for a voter, took me by a button of my coat, and poured forth a tale of woe so long that, unable to endure it longer, i cut off the button and fled. he did not notice my departure, and two hours later, there he was holding on to the button, all alone, gesticulating frantically, and beseeching me to vote for him to save his wife and ten children from starvation. for aught i know, he has not missed me to this day; but is still sounding forth his wild appeals. should i describe fully all the wonderful scenes beheld by me in this wonderland, i should exhaust time and trench upon eternity. suffice it to state that i returned to 'frisco, fought a successful dictionary battle there, formed the acquaintance of many distinguished men, among them the great irving scott, who built the famous battleship oregon. he was president of the city school-board, head of the vast union iron works, and besides performing many herculean labors, was stumping the state nightly in favor of the election of william mckinley to the presidency of the united states. i was fairly driven from this city by the ferocious fleas, which seemed to render life almost unendurable in hovel and palace. i could get no rest day or night in many parts of the state, on account of the savage attacks of these unspeakable, insatiate biters, more terrible than an army with gatling guns. crossing the beautiful bay in the floating palace ferry-boat, i was for a time enchanted with highland park, oakland. in front, through a vista of eucalyptus, oak and elm trees, appear the glistening waters of the famed inland sea; on the right are seen the domes and spires of oakland, alameda, and san francisco; across the valley loom the mountains, in the rainy season green to their summits, on which rest the serene blue of the heavens, except when, the frequent fogs bury everything from sight. on one side of the house, at the same time, the trade winds from the pacific chill you to your very bones, on the other side the burning heat is unbearable. afar off the humble home of joaquin miller, poet of the sierras, clearly appears. there are many beautiful homes on this lofty hilltop, but they were all for sale at bargains, for their occupants have grown weary of the cloud bursts of the long dreary rainy season, then of the parching heats of the equally dreary dry season, when a pickaxe and crowbar are required to dig a potato unless you keep water running from the hose day and night. these people long to return to their old homes in new england where the varying seasons are not so monotonous. i was invited to accompany a religious society on a week's camp in a romantic canyon; but i was glad i did not when they returned in a couple of days, narrating an adventure which daunted the stoutest hearts. on the second night of their camping, the men were aroused from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes, hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. the men fought desperately all night with shotguns and clubs. life is scarcely worth the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the horrible tarantulas. chapter xxx. disenchanted.--home again. i had secured the adoption of our dictionaries in every county visited by me, and now the publishers desired me to remain on the pacific coast permanently, without salary, relying on commissions on sales of their books made by me and my sub-agents by canvassing, from house to house. this financial proposition was far from being alluring, for the laws enacted by a national democratic rule of four years had ruined many of the principal industries of this section, and the larger cities required a license fee of twenty dollars per week from all canvassing agents. many houses displayed large signs, "no book agents allowed here," and they kept ferocious dogs to enforce the rule. the majority of the people were poor; the rich were already supplied with dictionaries; and the schools would have no funds available with which to buy reference books for nearly a year. competing agents had visited every house before my arrival on the coast, and i therefore resigned my worthless position, and took the eastern agency for a tonic port which had, by its wonderful efficacy, delivered many from the horrors of nervous prostration, anaemia, and kindred diseases which afflict so many of the human race. another disenchantment,--another eden becomes a sahara. i had reached the pacific coast just when the departing rainy season had left all nature fair as a poet's dream of love, and, vainly dreaming that this was perpetual, it seemed as if i would sigh for no other heaven. but the scorching heat and siroccoes from the mohave desert followed close upon the rear-guard of the retreating, life-giving rain-clouds, and soon the lovely flowers died; the enchanting green grass withered; the soul of the beautiful vanished, and the suffocating dust storms buried the earth in a ghostly shroud, save where wealth was sufficient to bring the mountain streams for irrigation. i had for a time reveled in the dreams which fleetingly haunt all mortals, that there i had found the lost arcadia, where balmy zephyrs fan the brow into ecstasy forever; but, alas! after a brief respite i had, in that land which the real estate sharks called "paradise," suffered more from alternating chilling winds and withering heat than ever before; one day sweltering in the thinnest of seersuckers, and perhaps the very next shivering in all the woolens i could command. without a shadow of regret or even a backward look, i bade farewell to the pacific and returned to the atlantic of my youth, until the day dawns and the shadows flee away. i sojourned for some months in the cities of richmond, baltimore, providence, and philadelphia, endeavoring to impress upon the minds of the physicians the importance of prescribing my remedy, but with no glittering financial success, lingering for weeks in the last named city, on the very verge of the grave to which i was brought by the filthy water of that grotesquely misnamed "city of brotherly love." i had been, in former years, the champion school-book agent of new england, and publishers had often told me that if i ever returned to this vocation, they would gladly employ me. i applied to one of these for a position, requesting a man who owed his success in business entirely to my friendly aid and instructions, to speak a good word for me, but he at once showed his gratitude by securing the appointment for himself, being aided and abetted by an influential bald-headed man who hated me, simply because i had sent to him a friend who represented a hair restorer. said bald-headed man had many reasons to, and had often claimed to be, a friend of mine; but was foolishly sensitive about his lack of hirsute adornment, and said i insulted him by referring to his billiard-ball caput. truly, gratitude is a lost art, and some friends immediately become enemies when they can secure from you no more plunder. it is exceedingly difficult for a man who has passed the "death line" of the half century, to find a place where he can do good and get good; the hustling crowd of younger and stronger competitors push him to the wall or trample him beneath their feet, in the terrific scramble for the bare necessities of life. he drifts into the depressing occupation of book or life insurance agency, and at once every so-called friend, who pretended to worship him when he was prosperous, gives him the cold shoulder, and "poor devil" is the most complimentary epithet with which he is greeted. analogous with that wonderful gulf stream, once a myth, still a mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under equatorial heats, some to perish by polar perils; a few to take root and flourish, building imperishable landmarks; and many to stagnate in the long inglorious rest of the sargasso sea. but really to the faithful soul nothing is lost; though the great prizes of earth are denied us, every heroic endeavor, every struggle to benefit the world sends treasures on high to our credit in the grand bank of heaven. there are the thoughts that one by one died 'ere we gave them birth, the songs we tried in vain to sing, too sweet, too beautiful for earth. no endeavor is in vain; its reward is in the doing, and the rapture of pursuing, is the prize the vanquished gain. we are all conscious of these songs we have tried in vain to sing, and we are confident we will yet sing them when the bodily impediments are swept away, and, as the earthly shadows lengthen, as the chill winds of old age strengthen, we more and more appreciate the wonderful expression of this thought, in that sweetest of all poems of the minor key, called "the voiceless." "we count the broken lyres that rest where the sweet wailing singers slumber; but o'er the silent brother's breast, the wild flowers who will stoop to number. "a few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them; alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them. "not where leucadian breezes sweep o'er sappho's memory-haunted billow; but where the glistening night dews weep o'er nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. "if singing breath or echoing chord to every hidden pang were given, what endless melodies were poured, as sad as earth, as sweet as heaven." we have done our best according to the light that has been given; we will continue to do so until the end, and we are soothed and sustained by the inspiring thought so sweetly expressed by one of our greatest poets. "i know not where god's islands lift their fronded palms in air, i only know i cannot drift beyond his love and care. "and so beside the silent sea, i wait the muffled oar: no harm from him can come to me on ocean or on shore." only waiting till the angels open wide the mystic gate, at whose feet i long have lingered, weary, sad, and desolate; even now i hear their footsteps, and their voices far away-- when they call me, i am waiting, only waiting to obey. aftermath chapter xxxi. the florida crackers. when the previous thirty chapters were in press, the conviction was forced upon me that any book which touched upon florida without a description of its poor whites called "crackers," would be like the play of "hamlet" with the prince of denmark left out, and i gladly pay this tribute of grateful remembrance to the most unique, and the only truly contented people that i have ever met on earth. so far forth as history enlightens us, the ancestors of these peculiar specimens of the human race were never born anywhere in particular, but like topsy, they "simply growed." why these usually long, lean, lank, saffron-hued, erst-while clay-eaters have received such an unromantic name has been variously accounted for. some say the name was suggested by the fact that when not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their game or drive their cattle. an ex-slave of one of them tells me that they are called "crackers," because they are all "cracked as to their cocoanuts." although the faces of many of these children of nature are usually as expressionless as a cast-iron cook-stove, they are far from being as stupid as they look; for even general jackson, "the man of blood and iron," would have won but few, if any, laurels in his campaigns against the seminoles, had it not been for his advanced guard of the warlike "crackers." "out there in history" we see him and his army, while recklessly rushing the redskins, become lost and bewildered in the vast primeval forest. day after day, they marched, but always in a circle; and each nightfall found them near where they broke camp in the morning. provisions failed, and hunger and thirst drove the soldiers frantic. every night they were pelted by bullets from unseen foes; stabbed and stung by innumerable insects; death for all stared them in the face; myriads of buzzards whirled above them, anxious for their prey. while jackson and his men, prostrated by heat, fruitless marching and discouragement, were praying for succor, suddenly the air seemed to be filled with human forms, which to their dazed minds appeared to be angels sent in answer to their fervent petitions. grotesque looking angels were these, swinging from limb to limb of the forest trees; but heavenly in their beneficence were the solemn-faced "crackers," as hundreds of them dropped to the ground and fed the exhausted warriors with "hog, hominy," and water from packs strapped with their rifles to their dirty, sturdy shoulders--"'nough sight better work for angels to do than loafin' around the throne." while the feasting was in full swing, suddenly the haggard and careworn face of "old hickory" appeared in their midst. "boys," said he, in his quick, incisive tones, "don't eat any more, 'twill make you sick, stow it away in your haversacks." then, turning to the floridians, he quietly remarked, "gentlemen, you saved our lives; many thanks! now we will do as much for you. where are the injuns?" all the tree-climbers arose respectfully, saluted, and a tall, cadaverous-looking, long-haired, coon-skin-capped leader advanced, took the general by the hand, and slowly drawled,-- "ginrul, the red niggers air skulkin' yender to the river, waitin' to chaw up you uns tonight. "colonel tompkins," came the quick command, "_climb_ your forces to the river, pour a volley into the red-skins at sundown, yell for all you're worth, we'll do the rest." "all right, ginrul, we uns will be thar," and away went the "flying crackers," facing unspeakable dangers as calmly as a child looks into the loving eyes of its mother. sometimes they glided noiselessly as the autumn leaves cleave the air over the pine-needle carpet of the forest, and when this was impossible on account of the bogs and morasses, which would swallow them down to unknown depths, they swung through the tops of the sighing pines until they had flanked their unsuspecting foes; then, just as the sun was setting, they struck terror to the hearts of the seminoles by an unexpected volley from their rifles and by frightful yells, "as if all the fiends from heaven that fell, had pealed the banner-cry of hell." the red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps and river straight upon the ambushed army of jackson, who mowed them down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes. the spirits of the indians were crushed, and the remnant of a once powerful tribe fled into the vast, to the whites, inaccessible everglades, where their descendants now live on their fertile oasis, which is cultivated by their negro slaves, who never heard of abraham lincoln, or his proclamation of emancipation. "old hickory" and his gallant soldiers have all the glory; but their heroic allies returned quietly to their huts, their "hog and hominy," as unconcernedly as if they had done nothing more important than catching a trout or shooting a quail. the stolidity and patience of the "cracker" is equalled only by that of "their cousins, the indians"; i have seen one of them sit for twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable composure as before. although almost invariably poor so far as money is concerned, owing to their love of ease, these children of nature are proverbially hospitable, and you are welcome as his guest until you eat his last bit of food unless you offer him compensation therefor; if you do that his wrath knows no bounds, as i once found to my sorrow. i had been wandering with three other horseback riders for a day and night lost in the woods; we were hungry and tired to the verge of collapse, when suddenly up went the heads and tails of our quadruped friends, who neighed with delight, and dashed pell mell toward a huge building or rather connected aggregation of buildings which loomed up on a hill in the pines. we made the welkin ring with our saluting shouts, but there was no response, the settlement was deserted; we stabled and fed our horses in the near-by barn, and led by a floridian friend entered the largest house. had manna fallen to us from heaven our surprise could not have been greater; a huge table was before us covered with enormous quantities of roasted meats,--venison, quail, wild turkey, hoe-cakes and fruits galore. we fell upon the provisions like famished wolves, and when at last our "aching voids" were filled, we were appalled at the havoc we had wrought; still no hosts appeared to welcome or rebuke. on the wide mantel was a quantity of homemade cigars from which those of us who were "slaves to the filthy weed" made selections, and on the broad piazza were illustrating the wise man's definition of a cigar, "a roll of nausea with fire on one end and a fool on the other," when the air resounded with loud reports like pistol-shots and shouts of "whoa, whe, gee," rebel yells and barking of dogs; then a multitude of cattle dashed into view urged on by a cavalcade of men, women and children. the drivers gave us only casual glances until the round-up was completed and the enclosing gates shut, when the rollicking crowd came trooping toward us, and our guilty consciences made us fearful of dire punishment for our peculations. then a tall, long-haired patriarch saluted us with "howdy, strangers, howdy," shook hands with us heartily, and with a wave of his hand, "my wife and children, gents," glanced at the impoverished table, when he shouted "glad you had good appetites, strangers, mother, guess you'll have to tune up some more cooking." the whole crowd gave us a marching salute, and made the water fly in a big tub where they performed much-needed ablutions, and soon, hoe-cakes were smoking, pork and sausages sizzling, doughnuts swelling, manipulated by the many willing hands: then the whole army "fell to" the abundant feast. it was wonderful and laughable to see that crowd of sons, daughters, grand-sons, grand-daughters--fifty in number--all one family, "stow away the prog." each one reminded you of the irishman's pig who was said to devour a half-bushel of boiled potatoes, and when he was outside of all that, he, himself, would not fill a two quart measure. what a clatter of dishes as the buxom girls helped mother "clear up"! then we had fun at the milking; it required a dozen strong men to hold one kicking cow while a woman, squeezed out a little milk from the reluctant udders, though she gave down freely later when the ravenous calf took hold. if the men relaxed for a minute, up goes the irate cow's heels, away goes the pail "dowsing" the maid with the foaming milk from head to foot, anon the wild-eyed brute would down horns and charge, the milkeress takes to her heels, then a flight of lassoos, over goes the frantic animal onto her back, the ropes tighten until she was conquered and forced to "give down some of her juice." one dose of this medicine was usually sufficient for any wild cow, and forever after she would "stand and deliver in peace." shall we ever forget the feeding of the pigs? oh, the wild charge they made when they saw the feed troughs filled! "everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindermost;" one huge razor-back stretches himself at full length on the "dough" in his generous attempt to prevent the rest from "making hogs of themselves"; an indignant young cracker lassoos the hind legs, and by a dextrous pull sends his swine-ship whirling and rending high heaven with his lamentations. at last all are stuffed as full as our "grandmother's sassingers," and then reclining in the sun, they express by their contented grunts and snores, ecstatic rapture as they pile on flesh for the stuffing of their carniverous owners. then we watched a giant crackeress feeding what she called her "feathered hogs." with frenzied eyes, whirring wings and waring beaks, all rushed to cheat the others and to secure the whole earth, each for himself, very like many "two-legged hogs without feathers"; a hen seizes a hoe-cake of her own size and frantically rushes away in the vain hope of devouring it in peace in some sequestered nook; but argus, envious eyes are watching, and her uncles and her aunts pursue, striking with beaks and claws to rob her of her big all. it was a minature wall street and stock-exchange, where human hogs and foul birds of prey fight to the death to plunder their own brothers. and now gently the night stole o'er us-- "night, so holy and so calm, that the moonbeams hushed the spirit, like the voice of prayer or psalm" and until the "wee sma hours," while three generations listened intently, we swapped stories with our generous "crackers." our patriarch host had been a captain in the rebel army until he had his "belly full of fight," as he quaintly termed it. his wife had blest him with an even score of boys and girls, all now living in this delightful climate, where he said, "no one ever died; they simply dried up and blowed away into the happy hunting-grounds beyond the stars." when a baby was born or a child married, this chief of the tribe "hitched on" another house, until now the one-story dwellings covered an acre of his vast lands. he and his tribe raised on his great farm here in bradford county everything he needed to eat, drink, or to wear: his wife and daughters spun and wove their clothing from the cotton grown and ginned on his own fields; the delicious syrup and sugar which adorned and sweetened the mountains of rye pancakes and floods of home-raised coffee, was made from the cane which was grown, and ground on his own soil. he grew his own tobacco, tea, peanuts, oranges, figs, pineapples, bananas; he fattened his cattle and hogs on his own cassava and the abundant wild grasses; his flocks of sheep "cut their own fodder," and the wool and mutton was all clear profit. this "cracker" family was the happiest and most independent i ever saw on earth. all around this plantation are millions of uncultivated acres where the wretches of our city slums could be equally happy if our carnegies and rockefellers would only loan the funds to colonize them there. the millions of dollars, now worse than wasted by our selfish millionaires? could thus soon make this earth a paradise like to that above. after enjoying this free delightful life for several days, and we were on the point of departing, i said to our host, "captain, we have enjoyed your hospitality immensely, and i hope you will allow me to reciprocate," holding toward him a bank-note. instantly his eyes flashed angry fire, he shot out his fist to strike me, when a neighbor said, "don't hit him cap, he don't know no better, he's a yank." "wall yank," drawled this six feet of fighting man, "seein' ye don't know no better, i'll let ye off this time; but i don't keep no tarvern, and when me and my family come yure way, we'll all stop with yew, that'll even it up." as i looked at the fifty yawning caverns of chewing mouths, and reflected upon the cost of feeding them in boston for even one day, i thanked god that i had not given him my card, and we rode away amid ear-splitting cheers and waving of hands, each one of which resembled in size the tail-board of a coal-cart. on another occasion while scouring the florida country for lands for colonizing purposes in company with a native, the night caught us in the dense forest; our horses stumbled over immense fallen trees, the owls hooted, the wild cats screamed, the thunder roared, occasionally a pine fell splintered by the lightning, the rain fell in torrents, and we seemed destined to shiver all the long black hours supperless and comfortless, when our eyes were greeted by the cheerful light shining through the open door of a log hut; a dozen curs gave tongue and went for our legs till a sharp yell from within sent them yelping away. a genuine cracker appeared, and seeing our dripping forms in the electric flash, he quietly said, "lite strangers, lite, jest in time, plenty of hog and hominy." he led our tired steeds into the leanto, fed them, and ushered us into his one-room shanty, where his lank wife and a dozen children silently made room for us around a rough board table. "mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering appetite. then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the wild wood. "come, chilluns, to bed," said our host, and they were all stacked one over the other on the one corn-shuck couch where a chorus of snores proved they were in the land of dreams. our host relapsed into silence and seemed to be pondering some profound problem in his mind; but suddenly blurted out, "strangers, reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice pison nor nuthin'? reckon i was born dry!" my guide in reply produced a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that kunnel." there was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out, but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his cavernlike mouth with a joyous "ah, that's the rale stuff, have some mother? the woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns. "strangers," ejaculated this typical cracker, "this is the dog-gondest place ter git er drink yer ever seed. aour caounty went dry last 'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't let me hev it 'thout doc's 'scripshun--went to doc, wouldn't give me 'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke for three weeks ahed. dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum erlong. naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo." then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his den by declining, obeyed. the next morning we found ourselves set up alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife were snoring on the bed. verily, "for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the heathen 'cracker' is peculiar." chapter xxxii. looking forward. when i was writing the last words of the preceding chapter of this book, and was about to "heed my tired pen's entreaty, and say, oh, friends, _valete_," i seemed to be trying to awake from a trance in which i had been the unwilling instrument, compelled by an intelligence extraneous to myself to expose to an incredulous public the most sacred scenes and thoughts of a lifetime. i had decided to relieve the patience of my readers with the thirty-first chapter; but when the retrospective kaleidoscope closed, a vision rose before me so vivid, so real, that i am constrained to describe it in the hope that the warning may prevent the tragic part of the dream from becoming a reality. it is christmas day in the year of our lord, ; the thunder-cloud, which for many years had been increasing in blackness, now surcharged with pent-up lightnings, and overspreading our entire national horizon, bursts with the fury of a cyclone. the great masses of the people had for a long time watched with ever-increasing rage the seeming conspiracy of the employing and professional classes to bind to their chariot-wheels those who labored with their hands. gigantic trusts had "cornered" all the necessaries of life, and a few lily-fingered plutocrats in their marble palaces dictated to the horny-handed sons of toil the amount of their beggarly wages, and the prices they must pay for every needed article, until every job of work and every bone of charity was fought for by multitudes who mercilessly stabbed each other in their mad fury to assuage the pangs of hunger. when the people rallied at the polls, and elected to the high offices members of their own unions, the millionaires bribed these officials to obey their every command, and these mercenary law-makers, as often as chosen, joined the ever-growing ranks of the oppressors. even the almost innumerable colleges throughout the republic, whose treasuries had absorbed countless millions of dollars, had proved a measureless curse, as they had become mere cramming machines and nurseries of lawlessness and brutality. the great universities had long idolized plug-ugly football kickers and baseball sluggers to the utter ignoring of scholarship, until the hordes of eleemosinary prize-fighters among the so-called students created a reign of terror where they were located, and far surpassed in ferocity even the gladiators of ancient rome. the annual "athletic contest" between the two greatest universities was fought out with almost inconceivable fury on "soldiers' field." irresistible bodies met the immovable, cheered on by yelling legions, each phalanx would conquer or die, and die they did by scores; they kicked and slugged like maniacs until separated by the combined police-forces of the surrounding cities, and more were killed and wounded than in the entire spanish war. when night fell, thousands of collegians invaded the capitol of the state, and with savage yells and wedge-rushes drove all citizens from the streets; they closed every theatre, pelting the actors with whiskey bottles stolen from the saloons in which they had smashed thousands of dollars' worth of costly furniture; they stole every sign from stores, which caught their fancy; no woman was respected, until their orgies were stopped by the bayonets of the national guard. such "scholars" as these had for many years been ground through these educational mills by thousands, crowding the ranks of the professional classes to suffocation. legions of unscrupulous lawyers, more heartless than pirates or brigands in bulgaria, infested every city and town, busy as demons stirring up strife, drilling witnesses to perjury, bull-dozing the innocent even unto death with the full connivance of the plunder-sharing judges, until the jails were crowded with victims who could not pay their outrageous fees. these lawyer-sharks packed caucuses, stuffed ballot-boxes, and thereby elected themselves to legislatures where they enacted unjust laws to subserve their own iniquitous depredations. but this nefarious pillaging was not confined to the courts alone: armies of patientless doctors must be fed at the expense of the long-suffering public, and as all the people were not _naturally_ sick all the time for the benefit of the quacks, these so-called doctors prevailed upon their legislative college-chums to pass laws compelling all to be innoculated with virus, ostensibly to render them immune to various contagions, but really to furnish unlimited plunder to their "family physicians." even the women caught the craze for "higher education" to fit themselves for "kid-glove" professional emoluments; they, too, tore each other's hair, scratched each other's faces in frantic football rushes, tumbling over each other in the wild scrimmage for fees, leaving the kitchens to the ignorant foreigners, who ruined digestions with preposterous cookery, which would have killed a nation of ostriches. the great republic might have survived even such horrors as these had it not been for the out-breaking of another craze more terrible far than an army with gattling guns, i refer to the most destructive of all scourges, the mania for stock-gambling. the crafty, unscrupulous managers of bucket-shops, stock-exchanges, and brokerages filled the columns of the press with manufactured accounts of vast fortunes made in an hour by imaginary investors of small sums, and at once multitudes of farmers, mechanics, and even teachers abandoned their honest pursuits to squander their hard earnings in the vain attempts to "buck the tiger," and "beard the lion in his den." the inevitable result followed: the lion and the lamb lay down together, with the lamb inside the lion, thousands of formerly well-to-do people were pauperized. thousands of farms were abandoned, hundreds of factories were deserted, while the fiendish, cheating boss-gambler sharks were gorged to repletion with their infamous plunder; then followed a frenzy of hatred on the part of the masses against the classes: city treasuries were depleted to feed the starving with free soup, the cities were crowded with the desperate, hungry multitudes who had lost their all, and bloody riots capped the climax of a hell on earth. from the cupola of the state house in boston, a little group of citizens gazed upon a scene which would daunt the stoutest heart; these five men standing motionless and speechless under the gilded dome are of widely differing stations in life, as far apart as the poles in culture, education, and creed, but their faces wore the same expressions of profound sadness mingled with stern determination. the tall man on the right is the governor of the state of massachusetts, a millionaire, a classic face showing his aristocratic lineage in every feature, a scholarly, furrowed brow, dressed with scrupulous care, and looking at the frightful scenes with the dauntless eye of an eagle. he is the chosen leader of the republican party which for many years has controlled the destinies of the "old bay state." next stands a man in every way in strong contrast to his refined companion, a short, stout, ruddy-faced son of ireland, but now mayor of the city of boston, a democrat of democrats, carelessly dressed, a political boss, who under ordinary circumstances would never have affiliated with his lordly neighbor. next in the line is a smooth-faced portly man, clad in fine broadcloth, unmistakably a catholic priest; next is a man of soldierly bearing whose uniform and shoulder-straps proclaim him to be the commander of the national guard of the state; close beside the guardsman is the stalwart superintendent of the city police. for a few minutes only, these men were spell-bound by the terrible scenes before them. a mob of ragged wild-eyed men and women are straggling along the street, some wearing the red caps of anarchy, firing revolvers at the windows of the houses and at every well-dressed person in sight, some waved strange banners labelled "bread or blood," "down with the rich," "shoot the soldiers"; many blood-red flags are waved with demoniacal yells. directly in front of this howling mob is massed the first corps of cadets, and the th regiment of irish militia; soldiers are seen falling in the ranks, and blood crimsoned the snow, alarm bells are clanging, flames are bursting from the elegant buildings, tremendous explosions are heard which seemed to shake the foundations of the city. ferocious men and women are seen looting the stores, drinking plundered liquors; the off-scouring of all nations are pillaging, burning, murdering; the spirit of hell seems in full control on this natal day of the prince of peace. still the national guard did not fire. "father," cried the governor, "will the th regiment kill their own brothers if ordered to shoot?" "my children will obey orders, sir," quietly replied the priest. "then in heaven's name, general, marconi the order; if we wait longer everything is ruined." the mayor's eyes flashed fire; he seemed about to countermand--the priest lifted his hand, "brother, we must," he said--the mayor hesitated; he saw many of his own constituents among the rioters; his face was like that of a corpse, then, "order," he gasped. the general touched the keys before him, the colonel of the th flinched as if struck by a bullet, then a quick command, the clear notes of the bugle sounded, the irish soldiers hesitated, glanced at the cupola; the priest with outstretched arms confirmed the mandate; the repeating rifles were levelled, and crash upon crash went the volleys of bullets into the bosoms of the mob. again pealed the bugle note, and quick as a flash forward rushed the dandy cadets and the irish soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in a wild bayonet charge. screams, groans and curses rend the air, scores of the rioters are weltering in their gore, the rest broke, fled, leaving the streets strewn with the dead and wounded. "marconi the hospitals," said the governor; and in a trice the ambulances are bearing away the sufferers to be tenderly cared for, as if they were the best, instead of the worst of the human race. "brothers," said the governor, "shall we order the troops and police in every city to fire? it will be merciful to end this horrible suspense." "amen," came the response from the bowed heads of his companions; instantly the command was marconied to every place which was in a state of anarchy. suddenly came the crash of musketry from many parts of the city, accompanied by the grumbling bass of the gattling guns, then the defiant yells ceased, and all was quiet. "your excellency," calmly spoke the general, "here are marconis from every city that the fight is over, the mobs have dispersed. "thank god," came the chorus from each in this remarkable quintette who had co-operated in the carefully-considered plans which had so quickly brought peace to the distracted city and state. "brothers," said the governor, "we must feed the hungry, and give work to the people of our overcrowded cities: there is but one way to accomplish this, we must colonize the unemployed upon the southern and western lands, the people must go back to the bosom of mother earth where they can have independent homes of their own; there are no public funds for this purpose, and the rich must furnish the necessary money for transportation, or the republic is dead. i will personally guarantee the funds necessary to furnish homes for all who will go from massachusetts to cultivate the unimproved lands in florida and colorado, which, with others, i purchased years ago to provide for this crisis which many prophesied was sure to come. i will at once telegraph to secure the co-operation of the governors of all the states in our union; the evening papers will announce our plans to the world." in a few minutes the lightnings were flashing full accounts of this, the most important meeting ever held, throughout the length and breadth of the nation; the responses were the most enthusiastic and thrilling ever known in the history of mankind. money in vast sums was wired by the rich to every governor, for the purpose of transforming the poverty-stricken of the slums into self-supporting self-respecting farmers; railroad presidents tendered free transportation; one touch of nature made the whole world kin. in an uncompleted tunnel under the harbor of boston was gathered a vast crowd of wild-eyed anarchists, and desperate hungry wretches from the vilest dens, who had just sworn with unspeakable oaths to burn and plunder the city that very night, to murder all the rich, to commit outrages no fiend had ever dared to dream before. when they were about to rush out and let loose the dogs of carnage and unspeakable horrors, suddenly in the glare of their torches appeared the priest who an hour before, had played such an important part in the state house cupola conference. a hush fell upon the rabble as they recognized their spiritual adviser; with a voice of almost super-human power, he shouted, "brothers, there is no excuse for murder, no cause for lawlessness, money is flowing in like water to furnish homes for us all away from these stifling factories out in god's pure air of the prairies and fields of the great west and the sunny south. for the sake of your wives and children do no violence; assemble all to-morrow morning in the amphitheatre, where you will find food in abundance, until we are located upon our own portion of god's green earth." the effect of these sympathetic words was wonderful; malice and frenzy were driven from the minds of these children of the slums, even as the devils were exorcised from the magdalen of old, and inspired with new hopes and holier aspirations they vanished into the shades of evening. all night long the salvation army, the volunteers of america, hundreds of every nationality and creed, labored strenuously in making preparations to feed the hungry, clothe the shivering, and care for the sick. when the morning dawned fair and balmy beyond all precedent for this season of the year, the scene in the vast amphitheatre baffled description, over which the heavenly host rejoiced as never before. the united bands of the city discoursed sweet music from the balcony, from steaming cauldrons the multitudes were fed to repletion with nourishing delicious food; the sick, the weak, the women and children were abundantly supplied in their homes, all seemed like one great family, the rich and the poor clasped hands like brothers, and the spirit of peace on earth good will toward men reigned supreme. when all had been refreshed, while the bands played "hail to the chief," the governor, with a great number of the most prominent in church, state, and philanthropy, filed in upon the rostrum, welcomed by enthusiastic cheers. as the applause died away his excellency said, "in the city hives are clustered far too many human bees, we must swarm out into the country where there is honey enough and to spare, "'go back to your mother, ye children, for shame, who have wandered like truants, for riches and fame! with a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, she calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, and breathe, like your eagles, the air of our plains; take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives.' "you, who are strong, and who delight in buffetting the cold and snows, should go to the deserted new england farms or to the broad prairies of the west, the graneries of the world; but you who shrivel in the wintry blasts, and who are subject to rheumatism and coughs, should go to the sunny southlands where you can work and rejoice in a climate of perpetual summer. "we have funds in abundance to secure lands for all, build houses, furnish essentials for tilling the soil, and provisions, until crops can be raised; this money you can repay in easy installments to be used to equip future applicants. all wishing to secure these homes without money and without price can apply at the state house to-morrow." a glad shout which reached the stars and gladdened the angelic hosts was the immediate response to these tidings, and poverty was banished forever from the great republic. the scene changes--from stygian darkness, desolation and gloom of dingy, malodorous factories and streets, where ragged, hopeless beggars-for-work delve and curse, to the glorious sunlight and balmy air of the "land of flowers." here we see pretty vine-clad cottages embowered in orange groves, and surrounded by luxuriant harvests of everything to make life worth the living. here we see the murderous villains of the boston christmas-day mobs, no longer blood-thirsty, but smiling and happy as they listen to the songs of birds, the bleating of their own flocks, the laughter of their delighted children, while the prosperous fathers "tickle the bosom of their own mother earth with the hoe to make it laugh with abundant crops for man and beast." the grateful citizens have named their towns in honor of their generous benefactors, thus establishing for carneiges, morgans and rockefellers monuments to their memories which will endure forever. thus was removed for all time the antagonism between labor and capital; thus were envy and class hatreds banished from society, and thus was our glorious republic secured upon firm foundations, which will endure "until the final day breaks and all earthly shadows flee away." thus at last the prophetic vision of the poet seemed to be realized in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." "one dream through all the ages has led the world along: the wise words of the sages, the poet in his song, the prophet in his vision,-- all these have caught the gleam, have caught the light elysian, have told the haunting dream. this dream is that the story the ages have unrolled shall blossom in the glory of one long age of gold; that every man and woman shall find life glad and free, that in whate'er is human is hid divinity. the rod of old oppression one day shall broken be; those held in night's possession the light of hope shall see; for tears there shall be laughing, and peace shall be for strife, and thirsty lips be quaffing the wine of glorious life. the rage and noise of battle shall sink, and fall to peace, the lowing of the cattle, the fruit and corn increase; no more the wide sky under the rattle of the drum, no more the cannon's thunder,-- god's kingdom shall have come. some day, dearest, where skies are bright, we'll dwell in the beauty of love and light; and sorrow will seem like a far-off dream, and life shall be morning, that knows no night! some day, dearest--that perfect day for which we knelt in the dark to pray we'll reap the rest that god deems best-- in the beautiful vales of the far-away!" the works of johann wolfgang von goethe translators thomas carlyle henry w. longfellow sir walter scott bayard taylor edward chawner chas. j. sprague leopold noa henry dale john oxenford theodore martin w. e. aytoun e. a. bowring a. j. w. morrison g. h. lewes j. s. dwight anna swanwick the gottingen edition of johann wolfgang von goethe's works is limited to one thousand copies, of which this is number [illustration: picture of goethe] gottingen edition autobiography truth and fiction relating to my life johann wolfgang von goethe translated by john oxenford volume i. philadelphia and chicago j. h. moore and company introduction. by thomas carlyle. it would appear that for inquirers into foreign literature, for all men anxious to see and understand the european world as it lies around them, a great problem is presented in this goethe; a singular, highly significant phenomenon, and now also means more or less complete for ascertaining its significance. a man of wonderful, nay, unexampled reputation and intellectual influence among forty millions of reflective, serious and cultivated men, invites us to study him; and to determine for ourselves, whether and how far such influence has been salutary, such reputation merited. that this call will one day be answered, that goethe will be seen and judged of in his real character among us, appears certain enough. his name, long familiar everywhere, has now awakened the attention of critics in all european countries to his works: he is studied wherever true study exists: eagerly studied even in france; nay, some considerable knowledge of his nature and spiritual importance seems already to prevail there. [footnote: witness /le tasse, drame par duval,/ and the criticisms on it. see also the essays in the /globe,/ nos. , ( ).] for ourselves, meanwhile, in giving all due weight to so curious an exhibition of opinion, it is doubtless our part, at the same time, to beware that we do not give it too much. this universal sentiment of admiration is wonderful, is interesting enough; but it must not lead us astray. we english stand as yet without the sphere of it; neither will we plunge blindly in, but enter considerately, or, if we see good, keep aloof from it altogether. fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property, of a man; like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given; often it is but a false glare, dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual extrinsic splendour the brightness and manifold glance of the diamond to pebbles of no value. a man is in all cases simply the man, of the same intrinsic worth and weakness, whether his worth and weakness lie hidden in the depths of his own consciousness, or be betrumpeted and beshouted from end to end of the habitable globe. these are plain truths, which no one should lose sight of; though, whether in love or in anger, for praise or for condemnation, most of us are too apt to forget them. but least of all can it become the critic to 'follow a multitude to do evil' even when that evil is excess of admiration; on the contrary, it will behoove him to lift up his voice, how feeble soever, how unheeded soever, against the common delusion; from which, if he can save, or help to save any mortal, his endeavours will have been repaid. with these things in some measure before us, we must remind our readers of another influence at work in this affair, and one acting, as we think, in the contrary direction. that pitiful enough desire for 'originality' which lurks and acts in all minds, will rather, we imagine, lead the critic of foreign literature to adopt the negative than the affirmative with regard to goethe. if a writer indeed feel that he is writing for england alone, invisibly and inaudibly to the rest of the earth, the temptations may be pretty equally balanced; if he write for some small conclave, which he mistakenly thinks the representative of england, they may sway this way or that, as it chances. but writing in such isolated spirit is no longer possible. traffic, with its swift ships, is uniting all nations into one; europe at large is becoming more and more one public; and in this public, the voices for goethe, compared with those against him, are in the proportion, as we reckon them, both as to the number and value, of perhaps a hundred to one. we take in, not germany alone, but france and italy; not the schlegels and schellings, but the manzonis and de staels. the bias of originality, therefore, may lie to the side of censure; and whoever among us shall step forward, with such knowledge as our common critics have of goethe, to enlighten the european public, by contradiction in this matter, displays a heroism, which, in estimating his other merits, ought nowise to be forgotten. our own view of the case coincides, we confess, in some degree with that of the majority. we reckon that goethe's fame has, to a considerable extent, been deserved; that his influence has been of high benefit to his own country; nay more, that it promises to be of benefit to us, and to all other nations. the essential grounds of this opinion, which to explain minutely were a long, indeed boundless task, we may state without many words. we find, then, in goethe, an artist, in the high and ancient meaning of that term; in the meaning which it may have borne long ago among the masters of italian painting, and the fathers of poetry in england; we say that we trace in the creations of this man, belonging in every sense to our own time, some touches of that old, divine spirit, which had long passed away from among us, nay which, as has often been laboriously demonstrated, was not to return to this world any more. or perhaps we come nearer our meaning, if we say that in goethe we discover by far the most striking instance, in our time, of a writer who is, in strict speech, what philosophy can call a man. he is neither noble nor plebeian, neither liberal nor servile, nor infidel nor devotee; but the best excellence of all these, joined in pure union; 'a clear and universal man.' goethe's poetry is no separate faculty, no mental handicraft; but the voice of the whole harmonious manhood: nay it is the very harmony, the living and life-giving harmony of that rich manhood which forms his poetry. all good men may be called poets in act, or in word; all good poets are so in both. but goethe besides appears to us as a person of that deep endowment, and gifted vision, of that experience also and sympathy in the ways of all men, which qualify him to stand forth, not only as the literary ornament, but in many respects too as the teacher and exemplar of his age. for, to say nothing of his natural gifts, he has cultivated himself and his art, he has studied how to live and to write, with a fidelity, an unwearied earnestness, of which there is no other living instance; of which, among british poets especially, wordsworth alone offers any resemblance. and this in our view is the result. to our minds, in these soft, melodious imaginations of his, there is embodied the wisdom which is proper to this time; the beautiful, the religious wisdom, which may still, with something of its old impressiveness, speak to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbelieving utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses of the unseen but not unreal world, that so the actual and the ideal may again meet together, and clear knowledge be again wedded to religion, in the life and business of men. such is our conviction or persuasion with regard to the poetry of goethe. could we demonstrate this opinion to be true, could we even exhibit it with that degree of clearness and consistency which it has attained in our own thoughts, goethe were, on our part, sufficiently recommended to the best attention of all thinking men. but, unhappily, it is not a subject susceptible of demonstration: the merits and characteristics of a poet are not to be set forth by logic; but to be gathered by personal, and as in this case it must be, by deep and careful inspection of his works. nay goethe's world is everyway so different from ours; it costs us such effort, we have so much to remember, and so much to forget, before we can transfer ourselves in any measure into his peculiar point of vision, that a right study of him, for an englishman, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, contemptuous englishman, next to impossible. to a reader of the first class, helps may be given, explanations will remove many a difficulty; beauties that lay hidden may be made apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual position, will at length guide him into the proper tract for such an inquiry. all this, however, must be a work of progression and detail. to do our part in it, from time to time, must rank among the best duties of an english foreign review. meanwhile, our present endeavour limits itself within far narrower bounds. we cannot aim to make goethe known, but only to prove that he is worthy of being known; at most, to point out, as it were afar off, the path by which some knowledge of him may be obtained. a slight glance at his general literary character and procedure, and one or two of his chief productions which throw light on these, must for the present suffice. a french diplomatic personage, contemplating goethe's physiognomy, is said to have observed: /voila un homme qui a eu beaucoup de chagrins./ a truer version of the matter, goethe himself seems to think, would have been: here is a man who has struggled toughly; who has /es sich recht sauer werden lassen./ goethe's life, whether as a writer and thinker, or as a living active man, has indeed been a life of effort, of earnest toilsome endeavour after all excellence. accordingly, his intellectual progress, his spiritual and moral history, as it may be gathered from his successive works, furnishes, with us, no small portion of the pleasure and profit we derive from perusing them. participating deeply in all the influences of his age, he has from the first, at every new epoch, stood forth to elucidate the new circumstances of the time; to offer the instruction, the solace, which that time required. his literary life divides itself into two portions widely different in character: the products of the first, once so new and original, have long either directly or through the thousand thousand imitations of them, been familiar to us; with the products of the second, equally original, and in our day far more precious, we are yet little acquainted. these two classes of works stand curiously related with each other; at first view, in strong contradiction, yet, in truth, connected together by the strictest sequence. for goethe has not only suffered and mourned in bitter agony under the spiritual perplexities of his time; but he has also mastered these, he is above them, and has shown others how to rise above them. at one time, we found him in darkness, and now he is in light; he was once an unbeliever, and now he is a believer; and he believes, moreover, not by denying his unbelief, but by following it out; not by stopping short, still less turning back, in his inquiries, but by resolutely prosecuting them. this, it appears to us, is a case of singular interest, and rarely exemplified, if at all elsewhere, in these our days. how has this man, to whom the world once offered nothing but blackness, denial and despair, attained to that better vision which now shows it to him, not tolerable only, but full of solemnity and loveliness? how has the belief of a saint been united in this high and true mind with the clearness of a sceptic; the devout spirit of a fenelon made to blend in soft harmony with the gaiety, the sarcasm, the shrewdness of a voltaire? goethe's two earliest works are /götz von berlichingen/ and the /sorrows of werter/. the boundless influence and popularity they gained, both at home and abroad, is well known. it was they that established almost at once his literary fame in his own country; and even determined his subsequent private history, for they brought him into contact with the duke of weimar; in connection with whom, the poet, engaged in manifold duties, political as well as literary, has lived for fifty-four years. their effects over europe at large were not less striking than in germany. 'it would be difficult,' observes a writer on this subject, 'to name two books which have exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent literature of europe, than these two performances of a young author; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth year. /werter/ appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear. as usually happens, too, this same word, once uttered, was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and chaunted through all notes of the gamut, till the sound of it had grown a weariness rather than a pleasure. sceptical sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide, and desperation, became the staple of literary ware; and though the epidemic, after a long course of years, subsided in germany, it reappeared with various modifications in other countries, and everywhere abundant traces of its good and bad effects are still to be discerned. the fortune of /berlichingen with the iron hand,/ though less sudden, was by no means less exalted. in his own county, /götz,/ though he now stands solitary and childless, became the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and poetico- antiquarian performances; which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their day and generation: and with ourselves, his influence has been perhaps still more remarkable. sir walter scott's first literary enterprise was a translation of /götz von berlichingen/; and, if genius could be communicated like instruction, we might call this work of goethe's the prime cause of /marmion/ and the /lady of the lake/, with all that has followed from the same creative hand. truly, a grain of seed that has lighted on the right soil! for if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all the nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit. 'but overlooking these spiritual genealogies, which bring little certainty and little profit, it may be sufficient to observe of /berlichingen/ and /werter/, that they stand prominent among the causes, or, at the very least, among the signals of a great change in modern literature. the former directed men's attention with a new force to the picturesque effects of the past; and the latter, for the first time, attempted the more accurate delineation of a class of feelings deeply important to modern minds, but for which our elder poetry offered no exponent, and perhaps could offer none, because they are feelings that arise from passion incapable of being converted into action, and belong chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated and unbelieving as our own. this, notwithstanding the dash of falsehood which may exist in /werter/ itself, and the boundless delirium of extravagance which it called forth in others, is a high praise which cannot justly be denied it.' to the same dark wayward mood, which, in /werter/, pours itself forth in bitter wailings over human life; and, in /berlichingen/, appears as a fond and sad looking back into the past, belong various other productions of goethe's; for example, the /mitschuldigen/, and the first idea of faust, which, however, was not realized in actual composition till a calmer period of his history. of this early harsh and crude, yet fervid and genial period, /werter/ may stand here as the representative; and, viewed in its external and internal relation, will help to illustrate both the writer and the public he was writing for. at the present day, it would be difficult for us, satisfied, nay sated to nausea, as we have been with the doctrines of sentimentality, to estimate the boundless interest which /werter/ must have excited when first given to the world. it was then new in all senses; it was wonderful, yet wished for, both in its own country and in every other. the literature of germany had as yet but partially awakened from its long torpor: deep learning, deep reflection, have at no time been wanting there; but the creative spirit had for above a century been almost extinct. of late, however, the ramlers, rabeners, gellerts, had attained to no inconsiderable polish of style; klopstock's /messias/ had called forth the admiration, and perhaps still more the pride, of the country, as a piece of art; a high enthusiasm was abroad; lessing had roused the minds of men to a deeper and truer interest in literature, had even decidedly begun to introduce a heartier, warmer and more expressive style. the germans were on the alert; in expectation, or at least in full readiness for some far bolder impulse; waiting for the poet that might speak to them from the heart to the heart. it was in goethe that such a poet was to be given them. nay, the literature of other countries, placid, self-satisfied as they might seem, was in an equally expectant condition. everywhere, as in germany, there was polish and languor, external glitter and internal vacuity; it was not fire, but a picture of fire, at which no soul could be warmed. literature had sunk from its former vocation: it no longer held the mirror up to nature; no longer reflected, in many-coloured expressive symbols, the actual passions, the hopes, sorrows, joys of living men; but dwelt in a remote conventional world in /castles of otranto/, in /epigoniads/ and /leonidases/, among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high, stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and elocution were nowise the least important qualities. men thought it right that the heart should swell into magnanimity with caractacus and cato, and melt into sorrow with many an eliza and adelaide; but the heart was in no haste either to swell or to melt. some pulses of heroical sentiment, a few /un/natural tears might, with conscientious readers, be actually squeezed forth on such occasions: but they came only from the surface of the mind; nay, had the conscientious man considered the matter, he would have found that they ought not to have come at all. our only english poet of the period was goldsmith; a pure, clear, genuine spirit, had he been of depth or strength sufficient; his /vicar of wakefield/ remains the best of all modern idyls; but it is and was nothing more. and consider our leading writers; consider the poetry of gray, and the prose of johnson. the first a laborious mosaic, through the hard stiff lineaments of which little life or true grace could be expected to look: real feeling, and all freedom of expressing it, are sacrificed to pomp, to cold splendour; for vigour we have a certain mouthing vehemence, too elegant indeed to be tumid, yet essentially foreign to the heart, and seen to extend no deeper than the mere voice and gestures. were it not for his /letters/, which are full of warm exuberant power, we might almost doubt whether gray was a man of genius; nay, was a living man at all, and not rather some thousand-times more cunningly devised poetical turning-loom, than that of swift's philosophers in laputa. johnson's prose is true, indeed, and sound, and full of practical sense: few men have seen more clearly into the motives, the interests, the whole walk and conversation of the living busy world as it lay before him; but farther than this busy, and to most of us, rather prosaic world, he seldom looked: his instruction is for men of business, and in regard to matters of business alone. prudence is the highest virtue he can inculcate; and for that finer portion of our nature, that portion of it which belongs essentially to literature strictly so called, where our highest feelings, our best joys and keenest sorrows, our doubt, our love, our religion reside, he has no word to utter; no remedy, no counsel to give us in our straits; or at most, if, like poor boswell, the patient is importunate, will answer: "my dear sir, endeavour to clear your mind of cant." the turn which philosophical speculation had taken in the preceding age corresponded with this tendency, and enhanced its narcotic influences; or was, indeed, properly speaking, the loot they had sprung from. locke, himself a clear, humble-minded, patient, reverent, nay religious man, had paved the way for banishing religion from the world. mind, by being modelled in men's imaginations into a shape, a visibility; and reasoned of as if it had been some composite, divisible and reunitable substance, some finer chemical salt, or curious piece of logical joinery,--began to lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine though invisible character: it was tacitly figured as something that might, were our organs fine enough, be /seen/. yet who had ever seen it? who could ever see it? thus by degrees it passed into a doubt, a relation, some faint possibility; and at last into a highly-probable nonentity. following locke's footsteps, the french had discovered that 'as the stomach secretes chyle, so does the brain secrete thought.' and what then was religion, what was poetry, what was all high and heroic feeling? chiefly a delusion; often a false and pernicious one. poetry, indeed, was still to be preserved; because poetry was a useful thing: men needed amusement, and loved to amuse themselves with poetry: the playhouse was a pretty lounge of an evening; then there were so many precepts, satirical, didactic, so much more impressive for the rhyme; to say nothing of your occasional verses, birthday odes, epithalamiums, epicediums, by which 'the dream of existence may be so highly sweetened and embellished.' nay, does not poetry, acting on the imaginations of men, excite them to daring purposes; sometimes, as in the case of tyrtaeus, to fight better; in which wise may it not rank as a useful stimulant to man, along with opium and scotch whisky, the manufacture of which is allowed by law? in heaven's name, then, let poetry be preserved. with religion, however, it fared somewhat worse. in the eyes of voltaire and his disciples, religion was a superfluity, indeed a nuisance. here, it is true, his followers have since found that he went too far; that religion, being a great sanction to civil morality, is of use for keeping society in order, at least the lower classes, who have not the feeling of honour in due force; and therefore, as a considerable help to the constable and hangman, /ought/ decidedly to be kept up. but such toleration is the fruit only of later days. in those times, there was no question but how to get rid of it, root and branch, the sooner the better. a gleam of zeal, nay we will call it, however basely alloyed, a glow of real enthusiasm and love of truth, may have animated the minds of these men, as they looked abroad on the pestilent jungle of superstition, and hoped to clear the earth of it forever. this little glow, so alloyed, so contaminated with pride and other poor or bad admixtures, was the last which thinking men were to experience in europe for a time. so it is always in regard to religious belief, how degraded and defaced soever: the delight of the destroyer and denier is no pure delight, and must soon pass away. with bold, with skilful hand, voltaire set his torch to the jungle: it blazed aloft to heaven; and the flame exhilarated and comforted the incendiaries; but, unhappily, such comfort could not continue. ere long this flame, with its cheerful light and heat, was gone: the jungle, it is true, had been consumed; but, with its entanglements, its shelter and its spots of verdure also; and the black, chill, ashy swamp, left in its stead, seemed for a time a greater evil than the other. in such a state of painful obstruction, extending itself everywhere over europe, and already master of germany, lay the general mind, when goethe first appeared in literature. whatever belonged to the finer nature of man had withered under the harmattan breath of doubt, or passed away in the conflagration of open infidelity; and now, where the tree of life once bloomed and brought fruit of goodliest savour there was only barrenness and desolation. to such as could find sufficient interest in the day-labour and day-wages of earthly existence; in the resources of the five bodily senses, and of vanity, the only mental sense which yet flourished, which flourished indeed with gigantic vigour, matters were still not so bad. such men helped themselves forward, as they will generally do; and found the world, if not an altogether proper sphere (for every man, disguise it as he may, has a /soul/ in him), at least a tolerable enough place; where, by one item or another, some comfort, or show of comfort, might from time to time be got up, and these few years, especially since they were so few, be spent without much murdering. but to men afflicted with the 'malady of thought,' some devoutness of temper was an inevitable heritage; to such the noisy forum of the world could appear but an empty, altogether insufficient concern; and the whole scene of life had become hopeless enough. unhappily, such feelings are yet by no means so infrequent with ourselves, that we need stop here to depict them. that state of unbelief from which the germans do seem to be in some measure delivered, still presses with incubus force on the greater part of europe; and nation after nation, each in its own way, feels that the first of all moral problems is how to cast it off, or how to rise above it. governments naturally attempt the first expedient; philosophers, in general, the second. the poet, says schiller, is a citizen not only of his country, but of his time. whatever occupies and interests men in general, will interest him still more. that nameless unrest, the blind struggle of a soul in bondage, that high, sad, longing discontent, which was agitating every bosom, had driven goethe almost to despair. all felt it; he alone could give it voice. and here lies the secret of his popularity; in his deep, susceptive heart, he felt a thousand times more keenly what every one was feeling; with the creative gift which belonged to him as a poet, he bodied it forth into visible shape, gave it a local habitation and a name; and so made himself the spokesman of his generation. /werter/ is but the cry of that dim, rooted pain, under which all thoughtful men of a certain age were languishing: it paints the misery, it passionately utters the complaint; and heart and voice, all over europe, loudly and at once respond to it. true, it prescribes no remedy; for that was a far different, far harder enterprise, to which other years and a higher culture were required; but even this utterance of the pain, even this little, for the present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy appropriated in every bosom. if byron's life-weariness, his moody melancholy, and mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless melody, could pierce so deep into many a british heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new,--is indeed old and trite,--we may judge with what vehement acceptance this /werter/ must have been welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown regions; the first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, which, in country after country, men's ears have listened to, till they were deaf to all else. for /werter/ infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of literature, gave birth to a race of sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed in every part of the world, till better light dawned on them, or at worst, exhausted nature laid herself to sleep, and it was discovered that lamenting was an unproductive labour. these funereal choristers, in germany a loud, haggard, tumultuous, as well as tearful class, were named the /kraftmänner/ or power-men; but have all long since, like sick children, cried themselves to rest. byron was our english sentimentalist and power-man; the strongest of his kind in europe; the wildest, the gloomiest, and it may be hoped the last. for what good is it to 'whine, put finger i' the eye, and sob,' in such a case? still more, to snarl and snap in malignant wise, 'like dog distract, or monkey sick?' why should we quarrel with our existence, here as it lies before us, our field and inheritance, to make or mar, for better or for worse; in which, too, so many noblest men have, even from the beginning, warring with the very evils we war with, both made and been what will be venerated to all time? a wide and everyway most important interval divides /werter/, with its sceptical philosophy and 'hypochondriacal crotchets,' from goethe's next novel, /wilhelm meister's apprenticeship/, published some twenty years afterwards. this work belongs, in all senses, to the second and sounder period of goethe's life, and may indeed serve as the fullest, if perhaps not the purest, impress of it; being written with due forethought, at various times, during a period of no less than ten years. considered as a piece of art, there were much to be said on /meister/; all which, however, lies beyond our present purpose. we are here looking at the work chiefly as a document for the writer's history; and in this point of view, it certainly seems, as contrasted with its more popular precursor, to deserve our best attention: for the problem which had been stated in /werter/, with despair of its solution, is here solved. the lofty enthusiasm, which, wandering wildly over the universe, found no resting-place, has here reached its appointed home; and lives in harmony with what long appeared to threaten it with annihilation. anarchy has now become peace; the once gloomy and perturbed spirit is now serene, cheerfully vigorous, and rich in good fruits. neither, which is most important of all, has this peace been attained by a surrender to necessity, or any compact with delusion; a seeming blessing, such as years and dispiritment will of themselves bring to most men, and which is indeed no blessing, since even continued battle is better than destruction or captivity; and peace of this sort is like that of galgacus's romans, who 'called it peace when they had made a desert.' here the ardent high-aspiring youth has grown into the calmest man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour, and with aspirations higher as well as clearer. for he has conquered his unbelief; the ideal has been built on the actual; no longer floats vaguely in darkness and regions of dreams, but rests in light, on the firm ground of human interest and business, as in its true scene, on its true basis. it is wonderful to see with, what softness the scepticism of jarno, the commercial spirit of werner, the reposing polished manhood of lothario and the uncle, the unearthly enthusiasm of the harper, the gay animal vivacity of philina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual nature of mignon, are blended together in this work; how justice is done to each, how each lives freely in his proper element, in his proper form; and how, as wilhelm himself, the mild-hearted, all-hoping, all-believing wilhelm, struggles forward towards his world of art through these curiously complected influences, all this unites itself into a multifarious, yet so harmonious whole; as into a clear poetic mirror, where man's life and business in this age, his passions and purposes, the highest equally with the lowest, are imaged back to us in beautiful significance. poetry and prose are no longer at variance; for the poet's eyes are opened; he sees the changes of many-colored existence, and sees the loveliness and deep purport which lies hidden under the very meanest of them; hidden to the vulgar sight, but clear to the poet's; because the 'open secret' is no longer a secret to him, and he knows that the universe is /full/ of goodness; that whatever has being has beauty. apart from its literary merits or demerits, such is the temper of mind we trace in goethe's /meister/, and, more or less expressly exhibited, in all his later works. we reckon it a rare phenomenon, this temper; and worthy, in our times, if it do exist, of best study from all inquiring men. how has such a temper been attained in this so lofty and impetuous mind, once too, dark, desolate and full of doubt, more than any other? how may we, each of us in his several sphere, attain it, or strengthen it, for ourselves? these are questions, this last is a question, in which no one is unconcerned. to answer these questions, to begin the answer of them, would lead us very far beyond our present limits. it is not, as we believe, without long, sedulous study, without learning much and unlearning much, that, for any man, the answer of such questions is even to be hoped. meanwhile, as regards goethe, there is one feature of the business, which, to us, throws considerable light on his moral persuasions, and will not, in investigating the secret of them, be overlooked. we allude to the spirit in which he cultivates his art; the noble, disinterested, almost religious love with which he looks on art in general, and strives towards it as towards the sure, highest, nay only good. for a man of goethe's talent to write many such pieces of rhetoric, setting forth the dignity of poets, and their innate independence on external circumstances, could be no very hard task; accordingly, we find such sentiments again and again expressed, sometimes with still more gracefulness, still clearer emphasis, in his various writings. but to adopt these sentiments into his sober practical persuasion; in any measure to feel and believe that such was still, and must always be, the high vocation of the poet; on this ground of universal humanity, of ancient and now almost forgotten nobleness, to take his stand, even in these trivial, jeering, withered, unbelieving days; and through all their complex, dispiriting, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to 'make his light shine before them,' that it might beautify even our 'rag- gathering age' with some beams of that mild, divine splendour, which had long left us, the very possibility of which was denied; heartily and in earnest to meditate all this, was no common proceeding; to bring it into practice, especially in such a life as his has been, was among the highest and hardest enterprises which any man whatever could engage in. we reckon this a greater novelty, than all the novelties which as a mere writer he ever put forth, whether for praise or censure. we have taken it upon us to say that if such is, in any sense, the state of the case with regard to goethe, he deserves not mere approval as a pleasing poet and sweet singer; but deep, grateful study, observance, imitation, as a moralist and philosopher. if there be any /probability/ that such is the state of the case, we cannot but reckon it a matter well worthy of being inquired into. and it is for this only that we are here pleading and arguing. meister is the mature product of the first genius of our times; and must, one would think, be different, in various respects, from the immature products of geniuses who are far from the first, and whose works spring from the brain in as many weeks as goethe's cost him years. it may deserve to be mentioned here that meister, at its first appearance in germany, was received very much as it has been in england. goethe's known character, indeed, precluded indifference there; but otherwise it was much the same. the whole guild of criticism was thrown into perplexity, into sorrow; everywhere was dissatisfaction open or concealed. official duty impelling them to speak, some said one thing, some another; all felt in secret that they knew not what to say. till the appearance of schlegel's /character/, no word, that we have seen, of the smallest chance to be decisive, or indeed to last beyond the day, had been uttered regarding it. some regretted that the fire of /werter/ was so wonderfully abated; whisperings there might be about 'lowness,' 'heaviness;' some spake forth boldly in behalf of suffering 'virtue.' novalis was not among the speakers, but he censured the work in secret, and this for a reason which to us will seem the strangest; for its being, as we should say, a benthamite work! many are the bitter aphorisms we find, among his fragments, directed against /meister/ for its prosaic, mechanical, economical, coldhearted, altogether utilitarian character. we english again call goethe a mystic; so difficult is it to please all parties! but the good, deep, noble novalis made the fairest amends; for notwithstanding all this, tieck tells us, if we remember rightly, he continually returned to /meister/, and could not but peruse and reperuse it. goethe's /wanderjahre/ was published in his seventy-second year; /werter/ in his twenty-fifth; thus in passing between these two works, and over /meister's lehrjahre/ which stands nearly midway, we have glanced over a space of almost fifty years, including within them, of course, whatever was most important in his public or private history. by means of these quotations, so diverse in their tone, we meant to make it visible that a great change had taken place in the moral disposition of the man; a change from inward imprisonment, doubt and discontent, into freedom, belief and clear activity; such a change as, in our opinion, must take place, more or less consciously, in every character that, especially in these times, attains to spiritual manhood, and in characters possessing any thoughtfulness and sensibility, will seldom take place without a too painful consciousness, without bitter conflicts, in which the character itself is too often maimed and impoverished, and which end too often not in victory, but in defeat, or fatal compromise with the enemy. too often, we may well say; for though many gird on the harness, few bear it warrior-like; still fewer put it off with triumph. among our own poets, byron was almost the only man we saw faithfully and manfully struggling, to the end, in this cause; and he died while the victory was still doubtful, or at best, only beginning to be gained. we have already stated our opinion, that goethe's success in this matter has been more complete than that of any other man in his age; nay, that, in the strictest sense, he may almost be called the only one that has so succeeded. on this ground, were it on no other, we have ventured to say that his spiritual history and procedure must deserve attention; that his opinions, his creations, his mode of thought, his whole picture of the world as it dwells within him, must to his contemporaries be an inquiry of no common interest; of an interest altogether peculiar, and not in this degree exampled in existing literature. these things can be but imperfectly stated here, and must be left, not in a state of demonstration, but at the utmost, of loose fluctuating probability; nevertheless, if inquired into, they will be found to have a precise enough meaning, and, as we believe, a highly important one. for the rest, what sort of mind it is that has passed through this change, that has gained this victory; how rich and high a mind; how learned by study in all that is wisest, by experience in all that is most complex, the brightest as well as the blackest, in man's existence; gifted with what insight, with what grace and power of utterance, we shall not for the present attempt discussing. all these the reader will learn, who studies his writings with such attention as they merit; and by no other means. of goethe's dramatic, lyrical, didactic poems, in their thousandfold expressiveness, for they are full of expressiveness, we can here say nothing. but in every department of literature, of art ancient and modern, in many provinces of science, we shall often meet him; and hope to have other occasions of estimating what, in these respects, we and all men owe him. two circumstances, meanwhile, we have remarked, which to us throw light on the nature of his original faculty for poetry, and go far to convince us of the mastery he has attained in that art: these we may here state briefly, for the judgment of such as already know his writings, or the help of such as are beginning to know them. the first is his singularly emblematic intellect; his perpetual never-failing tendency to transform into /shape/, into /life/, the opinion, the feeling that may dwell in him; which, in its widest sense, we reckon to be essentially the grand problem of the poet. we do not mean mere metaphor and rhetorical trope: these are but the exterior concern, often but the scaffolding of the edifice, which is to be built up (within our thoughts) by means of them. in allusions, in similitudes, though no one known to us is happier, many are more copious than goethe. but we find this faculty of his in the very essence of his intellect; and trace it alike in the quiet cunning epigram, the allegory, the quaint device, reminding us of some quarles or bunyan; and in the /fausts/, the /tassos/, the /mignons/, which in their pure and genuine personality, may almost remind us of the /ariels/ and /hamlets/ of shakespeare. everything has form, everything has visual existence; the poet's imagination /bodies forth/ the forms of things unseen, his pen turns them to /shape/. this, as a natural endowment, exists in goethe, we conceive, to a very high degree. the other characteristic of his mind, which proves to us his acquired mastery in art, as this shows us the extent of his original capacity for it, is his wonderful variety, nay universality; his entire freedom from the mannerism. we read goethe for years, before we come to see wherein the distinguishing peculiarity of his understanding, of his disposition, even of his way of writing, consists. it seems quite a simple style that of his; remarkable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short its commonness; and yet it is the most uncommon of all styles: we feel as if every one might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable. as hard is it to discover in his writings,--though there also, as in every man's writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded,--what sort of spiritual construction he has, what are his temper, his affections, his individual specialties. for all lives freely within him: philina and clanchen, mephistopheles and mignon, are alike indifferent, or alike dear to him; he is of no sect or caste: he seems not this man or that man, but a man. we reckon this to be the characteristic of a master in art of any sort; and true especially of all great poets. how true is it of shakespeare and homer! who knows, or can figure what the man shakespeare was, by the first, by the twentieth perusal of his works? he is a voice coming to us from the land of melody: his old brick dwelling- place, in the mere earthly burgh of stratford-on-avon, offers us the most inexplicable enigma. and what is homer in the /ilias/? he is the witness; he has seen, and he reveals it; we hear and believe, but do not behold him. now compare, with these two poets, any other two; not of equal genius, for there are none such, but of equal sincerity, who wrote as earnestly and from the heart, like them. take, for instance, jean paul and lord byron. the good eichter begins to show himself, in his broad, massive, kindly, quaint significance, before we have read many pages of even his slightest work; and to the last he paints himself much better than his subject. byron may also be said to have painted nothing else than himself, be his subject what it might. yet as a test for the culture of a poet, in his poetical capacity, for his pretensions to mastery and completeness in his art, we cannot but reckon this among the surest. tried by this, there is no writer that approaches within many degrees of goethe. johann wolfgang von goethe johann wolfgang von goethe was born in frankfort on august , . his parents were citizens of that imperial town, and wolfgang was their only son. his father was born on july , . he married, on august , , at the age of thirty-eight, catherine elizabeth textor. in december, , was born a daughter, cornelia, who remained until her death, at the age of twenty-seven, her brother's most intimate friend. she was married in to john george schlosser. goethe's education was irregular. french culture gave at this time the prevailing tone to europe. goethe could not have escaped its influence, and he was destined to fall under it in a special manner. in the seven years' war, which was now raging, france took the side of the empire against frederick the great. frankfort was full of french soldiers, and a certain comte thorane, who was quartered in goethe's house, had an important influence on the boy. goethe, if we may believe his autobiography, experienced his first love about the age of fifteen in the person of gretchen, whom some have supposed to be the daughter of an innkeeper at offenbach. he worshipped her as dante worshipped beatrice. in the autumn of goethe traveled to leipsic. on the th of october he was admitted as a student. he was sent to leipsic to study law, in order that he might return to frankfort fitted for the regular course of municipal distinction. he intended to devote himself not to law, but to belles lettres. he attended gellert's lectures on literature, and even joined his private class. his real university education was derived from intercourse with his friends. first among these was j. g. schlosser, who afterwards married his sister. he had a great influence upon him, chiefly in introducing him to a wider circle of german, french, english and italian poetry. but the person who had the strongest effect on goethe's mental development was adam frederick oeser, at this time director of the academy of arts in leipsic. goethe, from his earliest years, was never without a passion, and at leipsic his passion was kitty schönkopf, the aennchen of the autobiography, the daughter of the host at whose house he dined. she often teased him with her inconstant ways, and to this experience is due his first drama, "die laune des verliebten," "lovers' quarrels," as it may be styled. a deeper chord is struck in "die mitschuldigen" (the fellow sinners), which forms a dismal and forbidding picture both of the time and of the experiences of the youth who wrote it. he had an opportunity of establishing his principles of taste during a short visit at dresden, in which he devoted himself to the pictures and the antiques. the end of goethe's stay at leipsic was saddened by illness. one morning at the beginning of the summer he was awakened by a violent hemorrhage. for several days he hung between life and death, and after that his recovery was slow. he left leipsic far from well on august , . goethe made an enforced stay of a year and a half. it was perhaps the least happy part of his life. his cure proceeded slowly, and he had several relapses. his family relations were not pleasant. his father showed but little sympathy with his aspirations for universal culture, and could imagine no career for him but that of a successful jurist. his sister had grown somewhat harsh and cold during his absence. goethe's mother was always the same to him--a bright, genial, sympathetic friend. goethe, during his illness, received great attention from fräulein von klettenberg, a friend of his mother's, a pietist of the moravian school. she initiated him into the mystical writings of those abstracted saints, and she engaged him in the study of alchemy, which served at once to prepare him for the conception of faust and for the scientific researches of his later days. he arrived at strasburg april , . goethe stayed in strasburg till august , , his twenty-second birthday, and these sixteen months are perhaps the most important of his life. during them he came into active contact with most of those impulses of which his after life was a development. if we would understand his mental growth, we must ask who were his friends. he took his meals at the house of the fräulein lauth in the kramergasse. the table was mainly filled with medical students. at the head of it sat salzmann, a grave man of fifty years of age. his experience and his refined taste were very attractive to goethe, who made him his intimate friend. the table of the fräulein lauth received some new guests. among these was jung-stilling, the self-educated charcoal-burner, who in his memoir has left a graphic account of goethe's striking appearance, in his broad brow, his flashing eye, his mastery of the company, and his generosity. another was lerse, a frank, open character, who became goethe's favorite, and whose name is immortalized in götz von berlichingen. goethe's stay at strasburg is generally connected still more closely with another circumstance--his passion for frederike brion of sesenheim. the village lies about twenty miles from strasburg, and her father was pastor there. goethe was introduced by his friend weyland, as a poor theological student. the father was a simple, worthy man, the eldest of the three daughters was married, the two younger remained--maria salome, and frederike, to whom the poet principally devoted himself. she was tall and slight, with fair hair and blue eyes, and just sixteen years of age. goethe gave himself up to the passion of the moment. during the winter of , goethe often rode over to sesenheim. neither storm, nor cold, nor darkness kept him back. as his time for leaving strasburg came nearer he felt that his love was merely a dream and could have no serious termination. frederike felt the same on her side. on august th goethe took his degree as a doctor of law. shortly afterwards he bade adieu to sesenheim. frederike lived till and died single. goethe's return to frankfort is marked by a number of songs, of which the "wanderer's sturmlied" is the most remarkable. he had outgrown many of the friends of his youth. those with whom he felt most sympathy were the two schlossers and his sister cornelia. he found in her one who sympathized with all his aspirations. the work into which he threw all his genius was the dramatization of the history of the imperial knight of the middle ages, gottfried or götz von berlichingen. the immediate cause of this enterprise was his enthusiasm for shakespeare. after reading him he felt, he said, like a blind man who suddenly receives his sight. the study of a dry and dull biography of götz, published in , supplied the subject for his awakened powers. from this miserable sketch he conceived within his mind a complete picture of germany in the sixteenth century. the chief characters of his play are creatures of his imagination, representing the principal types which made up the history of the time. every personage is made to live; they speak in short, sharp sentences like the powerful lines of a great master's drawing. the first sketch of götz was finished in six weeks, in the autumn of . it ran like wild-fire through the whole of germany. goethe left frankfort in the spring of for wetzlar, a quiet country town on the lahn, one of the seats of government of the holy roman empire. the emperors lived at vienna; they were crowned at frankfort; they held their parliaments at ratisbon, and at wetzlar their courts of justice. it was the custom for young lawyers to attend the sittings of these courts for a certain time before they could be admitted to practice on their own account. the company of these students, of the embassies from the component parts of the empire, and of various imperial officials, made the society a pleasant and lively one. goethe soon found friends. his favorite house was occupied by one of the officials of the order, by name buff, an honest man with a large family of children. the second daughter, lotte, blue-eyed, fair and just twenty years of age, was first met by goethe, shortly after his arrival, at a ball at wolpertshausen. she strongly attracted him; he became a constant visitor at the house. he found that lotte was a second mother to her brothers and sisters. lotte, was really, though not formally, engaged to kestner, a man of two-and-thirty, secretary to the hanoverian legation. the discovery of this relation made no difference to goethe; he remained the devoted friend to both. but the position was too critical to last. on september they met in the german house for the last time. goethe and schlosser went together to wetzlar in november. here he heard of the death of jerusalem, a young man attached to the brunswick legation. he had been with goethe at the university of leipsic. of a moody temperament, disheartened by failure in his profession, and soured by a hopeless passion for the wife of another, he had borrowed a pair of pistols under pretense of a journey, and had shot himself on the night of october . goethe immediately afterwards began his werther. goethe tells us that it was written in four weeks. in october it spread over the whole of germany. it was enthusiastically beloved or sternly condemned. it was printed, imitated, translated into every language of europe. götz and werther formed the solid foundation of goethe's fame. it is difficult to imagine that the same man can have produced both works, so different are they in matter and style. götz was the first manly appeal to the chivalry of german spirit, which, caught up by other voices, sounded throughout the fatherland like the call of a warder's trumpet, till it produced a national courage, founded on the recollection of an illustrious past, which overthrew the might of the conqueror at the moment when he seemed about to dominate the world. werther, as soft and melodious as plato, was the first revelation to the world of that marvelous style which, in the hands of a master, compels a language which is as rich as greek to be also as musical. the spring of , which witnessed the publication of götz, saw him actively employed as an advocate. in november, goethe's sister cornelia was married to schlosser and left strasburg. goethe felt the loss deeply. she lived but a short time. her married life was tortured with suffering, and she died in . the summer of was spent in a journey to the rhine. goethe returned to frankfort at the beginning of august. on december , goethe was surprised by the visit of a stranger. it was karl ludwig von knebel, who was traveling with the two princes of saxe-weimar, the reigning duke, karl august, then just seventeen, and his younger brother, constantine. this meeting decided the future course of goethe's life. he now came under the influence of lili schönemann, the daughter of a rich banker. this passion seemed to be of a more lasting nature than the others. neither family approved of the engagement between the youthful couple. goethe tore himself away, and went for a tour in switzerland. he returned to frankfort on july . august was spent delightfully with lili at offenbach; his letters speak of nothing but her. he wrote some scenes in faust--the walk in the garden, the first conversation with mephistopheles, the interview with the scholar, the scene in auerbach's cellar. egmont was also begun under the stimulus of the american rebellion. a way of escaping from his embarrassments was unexpectedly opened to him. the duke of weimar passed through frankfort both before and after his marriage, which took place on october . he invited goethe to stay at weimar. it was not for his happiness or for lili's that they should have married. she afterwards thanked him deeply for the firmness with which he overcame a temptation to which she would have yielded. at this time the smaller german courts were beginning to take an interest in german literature. before the seven years' war the whole of german culture had been french. even now german writers found but scant acceptance at berlin or vienna. the princes of the smaller states surrounded themselves with literature and art. the duke of brunswick had made lessing his librarian. the duke of würtemberg paid special attention to education; he promoted the views of schubart, and founded the school in which schiller was educated. hanover offered a home to zimmermann, and encouraged the development of schlegel. darmstadt was especially fortunate. caroline, the wife of the landgrave, had surrounded herself with a literary circle, of which merck was the moving spirit. she had collected and privately printed the odes of klopstock, and her death in seemed to leave darmstadt a desert. her daughter, louisa, seemed to have inherited something of her mother's qualities. she married, on october , , the young duke of weimar, who was just of age. she was of the house of brunswick, and after two years of marriage had been left a widow at nineteen, with two sons. she committed their education to count görz, a prominent character in the history of the time. she afterwards summoned wieland to instruct the elder, and knebel to instruct the younger. upon this society goethe rose like a star. from the moment of his arrival he became the inseparable companion of the grand-duke. the first months at weimar were spent in a wild round of pleasure. goethe was treated as a guest. in the autumn, journeys, rides, shooting parties; in the winter, balls, masquerades, skating parties by torch-light, dancing at peasants' feasts, filled up their time. evil reports flew about germany. we may believe that no decencies were disregarded except the artificial restrictions of courtly etiquette. in the spring he had to decide whether he would go or stay. in april the duke gave him the little garden by the side of the ilm. in june he invested him with the title, so important to germans, of /geheimlegationsrath/, with a seat and voice in the privy council and an income. goethe's life was at no time complete without the influence of a noble- hearted woman. this he found in charlotte von stein, a lady of the court, wife of the master of the horse. the close of was occupied by a winter journey to switzerland. two days were spent at frankfort with goethe's parents. sesenheim was visited, and left with satisfaction and contentment. at strasburg they found as to lessing. the repertoire of the weimar theater was stocked with pieces of solid merit, which long held their place. in august, , he accompanied the duke to the campaign in the ardennes. in he went with his master to the siege of mainz. goethe took the old german epic of reynard the fox, with which he had long been familiar, and which, under the guise of animals, represents the conflicting passions of men, and rewrote it. thus far he had produced but little since his return from italy. his friendship with schiller was now to begin, an alliance which, in the closeness of its intimacy and its deep effect on the character of both friends, has scarcely a parallel in literary history. if schiller was not at this time at the height of his reputation, he had written many of the works which have made his name famous. he was ten years younger than goethe. the räuber plays the same part in his literary history as götz plays in that of goethe. this had been followed by fiesco and kabale und liebe. in he settled at weimar. the first effect of schiller's influence on goethe was the completion of wilhelm meister's apprenticeship. it stands in the first rank of goethe's writings. a more solid result of the friendship between the poets was the production of hermann und dorothea. the latter half of was occupied with a tour in switzerland. before its commencement he visited his mother at frankfort for the last time, and presented to her his wife and his son. in the beginning of goethe was convinced that either he or schiller would die in that year. in january they were both seized with illness. schiller was the first to recover, and, visiting goethe in his sick room, fell on his neck and kissed him with intense emotion. on april they saw each other for the last time. schiller was on his way to the theater, whither goethe was too ill to accompany him. they parted at the door of schiller's house. schiller died on the evening of the th of may. no one dared to tell goethe the sad news, but he saw on the faces of those who surrounded him that schiller must be very ill. on the morrow of schiller's death, when his wife entered his room, he said, "is it not true that schiller was very ill yesterday?" she began to sob. he then cried, "he is dead!" "thou hast spoken it thyself," she answered. goethe turned aside and covered his weeping eyes with his hands. since that time schiller and goethe have been inseparable in the minds of their countrymen. on october , , the battle of jena was fought. the court had fled from weimar. on the th napoleon and goethe met. it was at the congress of erfurt, where the sovereigns and princes of europe were assembled. goethe's presence was commanded by the duke. he was invited to an audience on october . the emperor sat at a large round table eating his breakfast. he beckoned goethe to approach him. he asked how old he was, expressed his wonder at the freshness of his appearance, said that he had read werther through seven times, and made some acute remarks on the management of the plot. then, after an interruption, he said that tragedy ought to be the school of kings and peoples; that there was no subject worthier of treatment than the death of caesar, which voltaire had treated insufficiently. a great poet would have given prominence to caesar's plans for the regeneration of the world, and shown what a loss mankind had suffered by his murder. the idea of writing faust seems to have come to goethe in his earliest manhood. he was brooding over it at the same time with götz von berlichingen. faust justly stands at the head of all goethe's works. founded on a well-known popular tale, indebted for its interest and pathos to incidents of universal experience, it deals with the deepest problems which can engage the mind of man. in he finished the elective affinities. it was natural at the beginning of a new course of life that goethe should write an account of his past existence. the study of his collected poems made it apparent to him how necessary it was to furnish a key by which they might be understood. these various causes led to the composition of /dichtung und wahrheit/ (poetry and truth), an autobiographical history of the poet's life from his birth till his settlement at weimar. this work is the cause of much embarrassment to the poet's biographers. where it ought to be the most trustworthy source of information, it is most misleading. once more in his old age goethe came under the sovereignty of a woman. she was marianne von willemer, the newly married wife of a frankfort banker. goethe made her acquaintance in a journey which he took in the rhine country. the correspondence between goethe and marianne was published in . it extends almost to the day of his death, and includes letters from eckermann giving an account of his last moments. the last twelve years of goethe's life, when he had passed his seventieth birthday, were occupied by his criticisms on the literature of foreign countries, by the wanderjahre, and the second part of faust. he was the literary dictator of germany and of europe. the wanderjahre contains some of goethe's most beautiful conceptions, the flight into egypt, the description of the pedagogic province, the parable of the three reverences. the second part of faust has been a battlefield of controversy since its publication, and demands fuller attention. its fate may be compared with that of the latest works of beethoven. for a long time it was regarded as impossible to understand, and as not worth understanding, the production of a great artist whose faculties had been impaired by age. by degrees it has, by careful labor, become intelligible to us, and the conviction is growing that it is the deepest and most important work of the author's life. he had much to darken his latter days. his wife had died in . he felt her loss bitterly. the duchess amalia had died eight years before. he had now to undergo bitterer experiences when he was less able to bear them. frau von stein, with whom he had renewed his friendship, if not his love, died in january, ; and in june, , he lost the companion of his youth, the grand duke karl august, who died suddenly, away from weimar. we must pass to the closing scenes. on thursday, march , , he spent his last cheerful and happy day. he awoke the next morning with a chill. from this he gradually recovered, and on monday was so much better that he designed to begin his regular work on the next day. but in the middle of the night he woke with a deathly coldness, which extended from his hands over his body, and which took many hours to subdue. it then appeared that the lungs were attacked, and that there was no hope of his recovery. goethe did not anticipate death. he sat fully clothed in his arm chair, made attempts to reach his study, spoke confidently of his recovery, and of the walks he would take in the fine april days. his daughter-in-law ottilie tended him faithfully. on the morning of the d his strength gradually left him. he sat slumbering in his arm chair, holding ottilie's hand. her name was constantly on his lips. his mind occasionally wandered, at one time to his beloved schiller, at another to a fair female head with black curls, some passion of his youth. his last words were an order to his servant to open the second shutter to let in more light. after this he traced with his forefinger letters in the air. at half-past eleven in the day he drew himself, without any sign of pain, into the left corner of his arm chair, and went so peacefully to sleep that it was long before the watchers knew that his spirit was really gone. he is buried in the grand-ducal vault, where the bones of schiller are also laid. autobiography truth and fiction relating to my life author's preface. as a preface to the present work, which, perhaps, more than another, requires one, i adduce the letter of a friend, by which so serious an undertaking was occasioned. "we have now, my dear friend, collected the twelve parts of your poetical works, and, on reading them through, find much that is known, much that is unknown; while much that had been forgotten is revived by this collection. these twelve volumes standing before us in uniform appearance, we cannot refrain from regarding as a whole; and one would like to sketch therefrom some image of the author and his talents. but it cannot be denied, considering the vigor with which he began his literary career, and the length of time which has since elapsed, that a dozen small volumes must appear incommensurate. nor can one forget, that, with respect to the detached pieces, they have mostly been called forth by special occasions, and reflect particular external objects, as well as distinct grades of inward culture; while it is equally clear, that temporary moral and æsthetic maxims and convictions prevail in them. as a whole, however, these productions remain without connection; nay, it is often difficult to believe that they emanate from one and the same writer. "your friends, in the mean time, have not relinquished the inquiry, and try, as they become more closely acquainted with your mode of life and thought, to guess many a riddle, to solve many a problem; indeed, with the assistance of an old liking, and a connection of many years' standing, they find a charm even in the difficulties which present themselves. yet a little assistance here and there would not be unacceptable, and you cannot well refuse this to our friendly entreaties. "the first thing, then, we require, is that your poetical works, arranged in the late edition according to some internal relations, may be presented by you in chronological order, and that the states of life and feeling which afforded the examples that influenced you, and the theoretical principles by which you were governed, may be imparted in some kind of connection. bestow this labor for the gratification of a limited circle, and perhaps it may give rise to something that will be entertaining and useful to an extensive one. the author, to the most advanced period of his life, should not relinquish the advantage of communicating, even at a distance, with those whom affection binds to him; and if it is not granted to every one to step forth anew, at a certain age, with surprising and powerful productions, yet just at that period of life, when knowledge is most perfect, and consciousness most distinct, it must be a very agreeable and re-animating task to treat former creations as new matter, and work them up into a kind of last part, which may serve once more for the edification of those who have been previously edified with and by the artist." this desire, so kindly expressed, immediately awakened within me an inclination to comply with it: for if, in the early years of life, our passions lead us to follow our own course, and, in order not to swerve from it, we impatiently repel the demands of others; so, in our later days, it becomes highly advantageous to us, should any sympathy excite and determine us, cordially, to new activity. i therefore instantly undertook the preparatory labor of separating the poems, both great and small, of my twelve volumes, and of arranging them according to years. i strove to recall the times and circumstances under which each had been produced. but the task soon grew more difficult, as full explanatory notes and illustrations were necessary to fill up the chasms between those which had already been given to the world. for, in the first place, all on which i had originally exercised myself were wanting, many that had been begun and not finished were also wanting, and of many that were finished even the external form had completely disappeared, having since been entirely reworked and cast into a different shape. besides, i had also to call to mind how i had labored in the sciences and other arts, and what, in such apparently foreign departments, both individually and in conjunction with friends, i had practised in silence, or had laid before the public. all this i wished to introduce by degrees for the satisfaction of my well-wishers, but my efforts and reflections always led me farther on; since while i was anxious to comply with that very considerate request, and labored to set forth in succession my internal emotions, external influences, and the steps which, theoretically and practically, i had trod, i was carried out of my narrow private sphere into the wide world. the images of a hundred important men, who either directly or indirectly had influenced me, presented themselves to my view; and even the prodigious movements of the great political world, which had operated most extensively upon me, as well as upon the whole mass of my contemporaries, had to be particularly considered. for this seems to be the main object of biography,--to exhibit the man in relation to the features of his time, and to show to what extent they have opposed or favored his progress; what view of mankind and the world he has formed from them, and how far he himself, if an artist, poet, or author, may externally reflect them. but for this is required what is scarcely attainable; namely, that the individual should know himself and his age,--himself, so far as he has remained the same under all circumstances; his age, as that which carries along with it, determines and fashions, both the willing and the unwilling: so that one may venture to pronounce, that any person born ten years earlier or later would have been quite a different being, both as regards his own culture and his influence on others. in this manner, from such reflections and endeavors, from such recollections and considerations, arose the present delineation; and from this point of view, as to its origin, will it be the best enjoyed and used, and most impartially estimated. for any thing further it may be needful to say, particularly with respect to the half-poetical, half- historic, mode of treatment, an opportunity will, no doubt, frequently occur in the course of the narrative. contents. part the first. first book second book third book fourth book fifth book part the second. sixth book seventh book eighth book ninth book part the first first book. on the th of august, , at mid-day, as the clock struck twelve, i came into the world, at frankfort-on-the-main. my horoscope was propitious: the sun stood in the sign of the virgin, and had culminated for the day; jupiter and venus looked on him with a friendly eye, and mercury not adversely; while saturn and mars kept themselves indifferent; the moon alone, just full, exerted the power of her reflection all the more, as she had then reached her planetary hour. she opposed herself, therefore, to my birth, which could not be accomplished until this hour was passed. these good aspects, which the astrologers managed subsequently to reckon very auspicious for me, may have been the causes of my preservation; for, through the unskilfulness of the midwife, i came into the world as dead; and only after various efforts was i enabled to see the light. this event, which had put our household into sore straits, turned to the advantage of my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as my grandfather, the /schultheiss/ [footnote: a chief judge or magistrate of the town.], john wolfgang textor, took occasion from it to have an /accoucheur/ appointed, and to introduce, or revive, the tuition of midwives, which may have done some good to those who were born after me. when we desire to recall what happened to us in the earliest period of youth, it often happens that we confound what we have heard from others with that which we really possess from our own direct experience. without, therefore, instituting a very close investigation into the point, which, after all, could lead to nothing, i am conscious that we lived in an old house, which, in fact, consisted of two adjoining houses, that had been opened into each other. a winding staircase led to rooms on different levels, and the unevenness of the stories was remedied by steps. for us children,--a younger sister and myself,--the favorite resort was a spacious floor below, near the door of which was a large wooden lattice that allowed us direct communication with the street and open air. a bird-cage of this sort, with which many houses were provided, was called a frame (/geräms/). the women sat in it to sew and knit; the cook picked her salad there; female neighbors chatted with each other; and the streets consequently, in the fine season, wore a southern aspect. one felt at ease while in communication with the public. we children, too, by means of these frames, were brought into contact with our neighbors, of whom three brothers von ochsenstein, the surviving sons of the deceased /schultheiss/, living on the other side of the way, won my love, and occupied and diverted themselves with me in many ways. our family liked to tell of all sorts of waggeries to which i was enticed by these otherwise grave and solitary men. let one of these pranks suffice for all. a crockery-fair had just been held, from which not only our kitchen had been supplied for a while with articles for a long time to come, but a great deal of small gear of the same ware had been purchased as playthings for us children. one fine afternoon, when every thing was quiet in the house, i whiled away the time with my pots and dishes in the frame, and, finding that nothing more was to be got out of them, hurled one of them into the street. the von ochsensteins, who saw me so delighted at the fine smash it made, that i clapped my hands for joy, cried out, "another." i was not long in flinging out a pot; and, as they made no end to their calls for more, by degrees the whole collection, platters, pipkins, mugs and all, were dashed upon the pavement. my neighbors continued to express their approbation, and i was highly delighted to give them pleasure. but my stock was exhausted; and still they shouted, "more." i ran, therefore, straight to the kitchen, and brought the earthenware, which produced a still livelier spectacle in breaking; and thus i kept running backwards and forwards, fetching one plate after another, as i could reach it from where they stood in rows on the shelf. but, as that did not satisfy my audience, i devoted all the ware that i could drag out to similar destruction. it was not till afterwards that any one appeared to hinder and forbid. the mischief was done; and, in place of so much broken crockery, there was at least a ludicrous story, in which the roguish authors took special delight to the end of their days. my father's mother, for it was her house in which we dwelt, lived in a large back-room directly on the ground-floor; and we were accustomed to carry on our sports even up to her chair, and, when she was ill, up to her bedside. i remember her, as it were, a spirit,--a handsome, thin woman, always neatly dressed in white. mild, gentle, and kind, she has ever remained in my memory. the street in which our house was situated passed by the name of the stag-ditch; but, as neither stags nor ditches were to be seen, we wished to have the term explained. they told us that our house stood on a spot that was once outside the city, and that, where the street now was, there had formerly been a ditch, in which a number of stags were kept. these stags were preserved and fed here because the senate, every year, according to an ancient custom, feasted publicly on a stag, which was therefore always at hand in the ditch for such a festival, in case princes or knights interfered with the city's right of chase outside, or the walls were encompassed or besieged by an enemy. this pleased us much, and we wished that such a lair for tame animals could have been seen in our times. the back of the house, from the second story particularly, commanded a very pleasant prospect over an almost immeasurable extent of neighboring gardens, stretching to the very walls of the city. but, alas! in transforming what were once public grounds into private gardens, our house, and some others lying towards the corner of the street, had been much stinted; since the houses towards the horse-market had appropriated spacious out-houses and large gardens to themselves, while a tolerably high wall shut us out from these adjacent paradises. on the second floor was a room which was called the garden-room, because they had there endeavored to supply the want of a garden by means of a few plants placed before the window. as i grew older, it was there that i made my favorite, not melancholy, but somewhat sentimental, retreat. over these gardens, beyond the city's walls and ramparts, might be seen a beautiful and fertile plain, the same which stretches towards höchst. in the summer season i commonly learned my lessons there, and watched the thunderstorms, but could never look my fill at the setting sun, which went down directly opposite my windows. and when, at the same time, i saw the neighbors wandering through their gardens, taking care of their flowers, the children playing, parties of friends enjoying themselves, and could hear the bowls rolling and the ninepins dropping, it early excited within me a feeling of solitude, and a sense of vague longing resulting from it, which, conspiring with the seriousness and awe implanted in me by nature, exerted its influence at an early age, and showed itself more distinctly in after-years. the old, many-cornered, and gloomy arrangement of the house was, moreover, adapted to awaken dread and terror in childish minds. unfortunately, too, the principle of discipline, that young persons should be early deprived of all fear for the awful and invisible, and accustomed to the terrible, still prevailed. we children, therefore, were compelled to sleep alone; and when we found this impossible, and softly slipped from our beds, to seek the society of the servants and maids, our father, with his dressing-gown turned inside out, which disguised him sufficiently for the purpose, placed himself in the way, and frightened us back to our resting-places. the evil effect of this any one may imagine. how is he who is encompassed with a double terror to be emancipated from fear? my mother, always cheerful and gay, and willing to render others so, discovered a much better pedagogical expedient. she managed to gain her end by rewards. it was the season for peaches, the plentiful enjoyment of which she promised us every morning if we overcame our fears during the night. in this way she succeeded, and both parties were satisfied. in the interior of the house my eyes were chiefly attracted by a series of roman views, with which my father had ornamented an ante-room. they were engravings by some of the accomplished predecessors of piranesi, who well understood perspective and architecture, and whose touches were clear and excellent. there i saw every day the piazza del popolo, the colosseum, the piazza of st. peter's, and st. peter's church, within and without, the castle of st. angelo, and many other places. these images impressed themselves deeply upon me, and my otherwise very laconic father was often so kind as to furnish descriptions of the objects. his partiality for the italian language, and for every thing pertaining to italy, was very decided. a small collection of marbles and natural curiosities, which he had brought with him thence, he often showed to us; and he devoted a great part of his time to a description of his travels, written in italian, the copying and correction of which he slowly and accurately completed, in several parcels, with his own hand. a lively old teacher of italian, called giovinazzi, was of service to him in this work. the old man, moreover, did not sing badly, and my mother every day must needs accompany him and herself upon the clavichord; and thus i speedily learned the "solitario bosco ombroso," so as to know it by heart before i understood it. my father was altogether of a didactic turn, and in his retirement from business liked to communicate to others what he knew or was able to do. thus, during the first years of their marriage, he had kept my mother busily engaged in writing, playing the clavichord, and singing, by which means she had been laid under the necessity of acquiring some knowledge and a slight readiness in the italian tongue. generally we passed all our leisure hours with my grandmother, in whose spacious apartment we found plenty of room for our sports. she contrived to engage us with various trifles, and to regale us with all sorts of nice morsels. but, one christmas evening, she crowned all her kind deeds by having a puppet-show exhibited before us, and thus unfolding a new world in the old house. this unexpected drama attracted our young minds with great force; upon the boy particularly it made a very strong impression, which continued to vibrate with a great and lasting effect. the little stage, with its speechless personages, which at the outset had only been exhibited to us, but was afterwards given over for our own use and dramatic vivification, was prized more highly by us children, as it was the last bequest of our good grandmother, whom encroaching disease first withdrew from our sight, and death next tore away from our hearts forever. her departure was of still more importance to our family, as it drew after it a complete change in our condition. as long as my grandmother lived, my father had refrained from changing or renovating the house, even in the slightest particular; though it was known that he had pretty large plans of building, which were now immediately begun. in frankfort, as in many other old towns, when anybody put up a wooden structure, he ventured, for the sake of space, to make, not only the first, but each successive, story project over the lower one, by which means narrow streets especially were rendered somewhat dark and confined. at last a law was passed, that every one putting up a new house from the ground, should confine his projections to the first upper story, and carry the others up perpendicularly. my father, that he might not lose the projecting space in the second story, caring little for outward architectural appearance, and anxious only for the good and convenient arrangement of the interior, resorted to the expedient which others had employed before him, of propping the upper part of the house, until one part after another had been removed from the bottom upwards, and a new house, as it were, inserted in its place. thus, while comparatively none of the old structure remained, the new one merely passed for a repair. now, as the tearing down and building up was done gradually, my father determined not to quit the house, that he might better direct and give his orders; as he possessed a good knowledge of the technicalities of building. at the same time, he would not suffer his family to leave him. this new epoch was very surprising and strange for the children. to see the rooms in which they had so often been confined and pestered with wearisome tasks and studies, the passages they had played in, the walls which had always been kept so carefully clean, all falling before the mason's hatchet and the carpenter's axe,--and that from the bottom upwards; to float as it were in the air, propped up by beams, being, at the same time, constantly confined to a certain lesson or definite task,--all this produced a commotion in our young heads that was not easily settled. but the young people felt the inconvenience less, because they had somewhat more space for play than before, and had many opportunities of swinging on beams, and playing at see-saw with the boards. at first my father obstinately persisted in carrying out his plan; but when at last even the roof was partly removed, and the rain reached our beds, in spite of the carpets that had been taken up, converted into tarpaulin, and stretched over as a defense, he determined, though reluctantly, that the children should be intrusted for a time to some kind friends, who had already offered their services, and sent to a public school. this transition was rather unpleasant; for, when the children, who had all along been kept at home in a secluded, pure, refined, yet strict manner, were thrown among a rude mass of young creatures, they were compelled unexpectedly to suffer every thing from the vulgar, bad, and even base, since they lacked both weapons and skill to protect themselves. it was properly about this period that i first became acquainted with my native city, which i strolled over with more and more freedom, in every direction, sometimes alone, and sometimes in the company of lively companions. to convey to others in any degree the impression made upon me by these grave and revered spots, i must here introduce a description of my birthplace, as in its different parts it was gradually unfolded to me. what i liked more than any thing was, to promenade on the great bridge spanning the main. its length, its firmness, and its fine appearance, rendered it a notable structure; and it was, besides, almost the only memorial left from ancient times of the precautions due from the civil government to its citizens. the beautiful stream above and below bridge attracted my eye; and, when the gilt weathercock on the bridge-cross glittered in the sunshine, i always had a pleasant feeling. generally i extended my walk through sachsenhausen, and for a /kreutzer/ was ferried comfortably across the river. i was now again on this side of the stream, stole along to the wine-market, and admired the mechanism of the cranes when goods were unloaded. but it was particularly entertaining to watch the arrival of the market- boats, from which so many and such extraordinary figures were seen to disembark. on entering the city, the saalhof, which at least stood on the spot where the castle of emperor charlemagne and his successors was reported to have been, was greeted every time with profound reverence. one liked to lose one's self in the old trading-town, particularly on market-days, among the crowd collected about the church of st. bartholomew. from the earliest times, throngs of buyers and sellers had gathered there; and the place being thus occupied, it was not easy in later days to bring about a more roomy and cheerful arrangement. the booths of the so-called /pfarreisen/ were very important places for us children, and we carried many a /batzen</> to them in order to purchase sheets of colored paper stamped with gold animals; though one could but seldom make his way through the narrow, crowded, and dirty market-place. i call to mind, also, that i always flew past the adjoining meat-stalls, narrow and disgusting as they were, in perfect horror. on the other hand, the roman hill (/romerberg/) was a most delightful place for walking. the way to the new-town, along by the new shops, was always cheering and pleasant; yet we regretted that a street did not lead into the zeil by the church of our lady, and that we always had to go a roundabout way by the /hasengasse/ or the catherine gate. but what chiefly attracted the child's attention, were the many little towns within the town, the fortresses within the fortress; viz., the walled monastic enclosures, and several other precincts, remaining from earlier times, and more or less like castles,--as the nuremberg court, the compostella, the braunfels, the ancestral house of the family of stallburg, and several strongholds, in later days transformed into dwellings and warehouses. no architecture of an elevating kind was then to be seen in frankfort; and every thing pointed to a period long past and unquiet, both for town and district. gates and towers, which defined the bounds of the old city,--then, farther on again, gates, towers, walls, bridges, ramparts, moats, with which the new city was encompassed,--all showed, but too plainly, that a necessity for guarding the common weal in disastrous times had induced these arrangements, that all the squares and streets, even the newest, broadest, and best laid out, owed their origin to chance and caprice, and not to any regulating mind. a certain liking for the antique was thus implanted in the boy, and was specially nourished and promoted by old chronicles and woodcuts, as, for instance, those of grave relating to the siege of frankfort. at the same time a different taste was developed in him for observing the conditions of mankind in their manifold variety and naturalness, without regard to their importance or beauty. it was, therefore, one of our favorite walks, which we endeavored to take now and then in the course of a year, to follow the circuit of the path inside the city-walls. gardens, courts, and back buildings extend to the /zwinger/; and we saw many thousand people amid their little domestic and secluded circumstances. from the ornamental and show gardens of the rich, to the orchards of the citizen, anxious about his necessities; from thence to the factories, bleaching-grounds, and similar establishments, even to the burying-grounds,--for a little world lay within the limits of the city,--we passed a varied, strange spectacle, which changed at every step, and with the enjoyment of which our childish curiosity was never satisfied. in fact, the celebrated devil-upon-two-sticks, when he lifted the roofs of madrid at night, scarcely did more for his friend than was here done for us in the bright sunshine and open air. the keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to coax into good humor. but a more important, and in one sense more fruitful, place for us, was the city-hall, named from the romans. in its lower vault-like rooms we liked but too well to lose ourselves. we obtained an entrance, too, into the large and very simple session-room of the council. the walls as well as the arched ceiling were white, though wainscoted to a certain height; and the whole was without a trace of painting, or any kind of carved work; only, high up on the middle wall, might be read this brief inscription:-- "one man's word is no man's word: justice needs that both be heard." after the most ancient fashion, benches were ranged around the wainscoting, and raised one step above the floor for the accommodation of the members of the assembly. this readily suggested to us why the order of rank in our senate was distributed by benches. to the left of the door, on the opposite corner, sat the /schöffen/; in the corner itself the /schultheiss/, who alone had a small table before him; those of the second bench sat in the space to his left as far as the wall to where the windows were; while along the windows ran the third bench, occupied by the craftsmen. in the midst of the hall stood a table for the registrar (/protoculführer/). once within the /römer/, we even mingled with the crowd at the audiences of the burgomasters. but whatever related to the election and coronation of the emperors possessed a greater charm. we managed to gain the favor of the keepers, so as to be allowed to mount the new gay imperial staircase, which was painted in fresco, and on other occasions closed with a grating. the election-chamber, with its purple hangings and admirably fringed gold borders, filled us with awe. the representations of animals, on which little children or genii, clothed in the imperial ornaments and laden with the insignia of the empire, made a curious figure, were observed by us with great attention; and we even hoped that we might live to see, some time or other, a coronation with our own eyes. they had great difficulty to get us out of the great imperial hall, when we had been once fortunate enough to steal in; and we reckoned him our truest friend, who, while we looked at the half- lengths of all the emperors painted around at a certain height, would tell us something of their deeds. we listened to many a legend of charlemagne. but that which was historically interesting for us began with rudolph of hapsburg, who by his courage put an end to such violent commotions. charles the fourth also attracted our notice. we had already heard of the golden bull, and of the statutes for the administration of criminal justice. we knew, too, that he had not made the frankforters suffer for their adhesion to his noble rival, emperor gunther of schwarzburg. we heard maximilian praised, both as a friend to mankind, and to the townsmen, his subjects, and were also told that it had been prophesied of him he would be the last emperor of a german house, which unhappily came to pass, as after his death the choice wavered only between the king of spain (/afterwards/), charles v., and the king of france, francis i. with some anxiety it was added, that a similar prophecy, or rather intimation, was once more in circulation; for it was obvious that there was room left for the portrait of only one more emperor,--a circumstance which, though seemingly accidental, filled the patriotic with concern. having once entered upon this circuit, we did not fail to repair to the cathedral, and there visit the grave of that brave gunther, so much prized both by friend and foe. the famous stone which formerly covered it is set up in the choir. the door close by, leading into the conclave, remained long shut against us, until we at last managed, through the higher authorities, to gain access to this celebrated place. but we should have done better had we continued as before to picture it merely in our imagination; for we found this room, which is so remarkable in german history, where the most powerful princes were accustomed to meet for an act so momentous, in no respect worthily adorned, and even disfigured with beams, poles, scaffolding, and similar lumber, which people had wanted to put out of the way. the imagination, for that very reason, was the more excited and the heart elevated, when we soon after received permission to be present in the city-hall, at the exhibition of the golden bull to some distinguished strangers. the boy then heard, with much curiosity, what his own family, as well as other older relations and acquaintances, liked to tell and repeat; viz., the histories of the two last coronations, which had followed close upon each other; for there was no frankforter of a certain age who would not have regarded these two events, and their attendant circumstances, as the crowning glory of his whole life. splendid as had been the coronation of charles seventh, during which particularly the french ambassador had given magnificent feasts at great cost and with distinguished taste, the results were all the more afflicting to the good emperor, who could not preserve his capital munich, and was compelled in some degree to implore the hospitality of his imperial towns. although the coronation of francis first was not so strikingly splendid as the former one, it was dignified by the presence of the empress maria theresa, whose beauty appears to have created as much impression on the men as the earnest and noble form and the blue eyes of charles seventh on the women. at any rate, both sexes vied with each other in giving to the attentive boy a highly favorable opinion of both these personages. all these descriptions and narratives were given in a serene and quiet state of mind; for the peace of aix-la-chapelle had, for the moment, put an end to all feuds: and they spoke at their ease of past contests, as well as of their former festivities,--the battle of dettingen for instance, and other remarkable events of by-gone years; and all that was important or dangerous seemed, as generally happens when a peace has been concluded, to have occurred only to afford entertainment to prosperous and unconcerned people. half a year had scarcely passed away in this narrow patriotism before the fairs began, which always produced an incredible ferment in the heads of all children. the erection, in so short a time, of so many booths, creating a new town within the old one; the roll and crush, the unloading and unpacking of wares,--excited from the very first dawn of consciousness an insatiable active curiosity, and a boundless desire for childish property, which the boy with increasing years endeavored to gratify, in one way or another, as far as his little purse permitted. at the same time, he obtained a notion of what the world produces, what it wants, and what the inhabitants of its different parts exchange with each other. these great epochs, which came round regularly in spring and autumn, were announced by curious solemnities, which seemed the more dignified because they vividly brought before us the old time, and what had come down from it to ourselves. on escort day, the whole population were on their legs, thronging to the /fahrgasse/, to the bridge, and beyond /sachsenhausen/; all the windows were occupied, though nothing unusual took place on that day; the crowd seeming to be there only for the sake of jostling each other, and the spectators merely to look at one another; for the real occasion of their coming did not begin till nightfall, and was then rather taken upon trust than seen with the eyes. the affair was thus: in those old, unquiet times, when every one did wrong according to his pleasure, or helped the right as his liking led him, traders on their way to the fairs were so wilfully beset and harassed by waylayers, both of noble and ignoble birth, the princes and other persons of power caused their people to be accompanied to frankfort by an armed escort. now, the burghers of the imperial city would yield no rights pertaining to themselves or their district: they went out to meet the advancing party; and thus contests often arose as to how far the escort should advance, or whether it had a right to enter the city at all. but as this took place, not only in regard to matters of trade and fairs, but also when high personages came, in times of peace or war, and especially on the days of election; and as the affair often came to blows when a train which was not to be endured in the city strove to make its way in along with its lord,--many negotiations had from time to time been resorted to, and many temporary arrangements concluded, though always with reservations of rights on both sides. the hope had not been relinquished of composing once for all a quarrel that had already lasted for centuries, inasmuch as the whole institution, on account of which it had been so long and often so hotly contested, might be looked upon as nearly useless, or at least as superfluous. meanwhile, on those days, the city cavalry in several divisions, each having a commander in front, rode forth from different gates, and found on a certain spot some troopers or hussars of the persons entitled to an escort, who, with their leaders, were well received and entertained. they staid till towards evening, and then rode back to the city, scarcely visible to the expectant crowd, many a city knight not being in a condition to manage his horse, or keep himself in the saddle. the most important bands returned by the bridge-gate, where the pressure was consequently the strongest. last of all, just as night fell, the nuremberg post-coach arrived, escorted in the same way, and always containing, as the people fancied, in pursuance of custom, an old woman. its arrival, therefore, was a signal for all the urchins to break out into an ear-splitting shout, though it was utterly impossible to distinguish any one of the passengers within. the throng that pressed after the coach through the bridge-gate was quite incredible, and perfectly bewildering to the senses. the houses nearest the bridge were those, therefore, most in demand among spectators. another more singular ceremony, by which the people were excited in broad daylight, was the piper's court (/pfeifergericht/). it commemorated those early times when important larger trading-towns endeavored, if not to abolish tolls altogether, at least to bring about a reduction of them, as they increased in proportion with trade and industry. they were allowed this privilege by the emperor, who needed their aid, when it was in his power to grant it, but commonly only for one year; so that it had to be annually renewed. this was effected by means of symbolical gifts, which were presented before the opening of st. bartholomew's fair to the imperial magistrate (/schultheiss/), who might have sometimes been the chief toll-gatherer; and, for the sake of a more imposing show, the gifts were offered when he was sitting in full court with the /schöffen/. but when the chief magistrate afterwards came to be no longer appointed by the emperor, and was elected by the city itself, he still retained these privileges; and thus both the immunities of the cities from toll, and the ceremonies by which the representatives from worms, nuremberg, and old bamberg, once acknowledged the ancient favor, had come down to our times. the day before lady day, an open court was proclaimed. in an enclosed space in the great imperial hall, the schöffen took their elevated seats; a step higher, sat the /schultheiss/ in the midst of them; while below, on the right hand, were the procurators of both parties invested with plenipotentiary powers. the /actuarius/ begins to read aloud the weighty judgments reserved for this day: the lawyers demand copies, appeal, or do whatever else seems necessary. all at once a singular sort of music announces, if we may so speak, the advent of former centuries. it proceeds from three pipers, one of whom plays an old /shawm/, another a /sackbut/, and the third a /pommer/, or oboe. they wear blue mantles trimmed with gold, having the notes made fast to their sleeves, and their heads covered. having thus left their inn at ten o'clock, followed by the deputies and their attendants, and stared at by all, natives and strangers, they enter the hall. the law proceedings are stayed, the pipers and their train halt before the railing, the deputy steps in and stations himself in front of the /schultheiss/. the emblematic presents, which were required to be precisely the same as in the old precedents, consisted commonly of the staple wares of the city offering them. pepper passed, as it were, for every thing else; and, even on this occasion, the deputy brought a handsomely turned wooden goblet filled with pepper. upon it lay a pair of gloves, curiously slashed, stitched, and tasselled with silk,--a token of a favor granted and received,--such as the emperor himself made use of in certain cases. along with this was a white staff, which in former times could not easily be dispensed with in judicial proceedings. some small pieces of silver money were added: and the city of worms brought an old felt hat, which was always redeemed again; so that the same one had been a witness of these ceremonies for many years. after the deputy had made his address, handed over his present, and received from the /schultheiss/ assurance of continued favor, he quitted the enclosed circle, the pipers blew, the train departed as it had come, the court pursued its business, until the second and at last the third deputy had been introduced. for each came some time after the other, partly that the pleasure of the public might thus be prolonged, and partly because they were always the same antiquated /virtuosi/ whom nuremburg, for itself and its co-cities, had undertaken to maintain, and produce annually at the appointed place. we children were particularly interested in this festival, because we were not a little flattered to see our grandfather in a place of so much honor; and because commonly, on the self-same day, we used to visit him, quite modestly, in order that we might, when my grandmother had emptied the pepper into her spice-box, lay hold of a cup or small rod, a pair of gloves, or an old /räder albus/. [footnote: an old silver coin.] these symbolical ceremonies, restoring antiquity as if by magic, could not be explained to us without leading us back into past times, and informing us of the manners, customs, and feelings of those early ancestors who were so strangely made present to us by pipers and deputies seemingly risen from the dead, and by tangible gifts which might be possessed by ourselves. these venerable solemnities were followed, in the fine season, by many festivals, delightful for us children, which took place in the open air, outside the city. on the right shore of the main, going down, about half an hour's walk from the gate, there rises a sulphur-spring, neatly enclosed, and surrounded by aged lindens. not far from it stands the good-people's-court, formerly a hospital erected for the sake of the waters. on the commons around, the herds of cattle from the neighborhood were collected on a certain day of the year; and the herdsmen, together with their sweethearts, celebrated a rural festival with dancing and singing, with all sorts of pleasure and clownishness. on the other side of the city lay a similar but larger common, likewise graced with a spring and still finer lindens. thither, at whitsuntide, the flocks of sheep were driven: and, at the same time, the poor, pale orphan children were allowed to come out of their walls into the open air; for the thought had not yet occurred that these destitute creatures, who must some time or other help themselves through the world, ought soon to be brought in contact with it; that, instead of being kept in dreary confinement, they should rather be accustomed to serve and to endure; and that there was every reason to strengthen them physically and morally from their infancy. the nurses and maids, always ready to take a walk, never failed to carry or conduct us to such places, even in our first years; so that these rural festivals belong to the earliest impressions that i can recall. meanwhile, our house had been finished, and that too in tolerably short time; because every thing had been judiciously planned and prepared, and the needful money provided. we now found ourselves all together again, and felt comfortable; for, when a well-considered plan is once carried out, we forget the various inconveniences of the means that were necessary to its accomplishment. the building, for a private residence, was roomy enough, light and cheerful throughout, with broad staircases, agreeable parlors, and a prospect of the gardens that could be enjoyed easily from several of the windows. the internal completion, and what pertained to mere ornament and finish, was gradually accomplished, and served at the same time for occupation and amusement. the first thing brought into order was my father's collection of books, the best of which, in calf and half-calf binding, were to ornament the walls of his office and study. he possessed the beautiful dutch editions of the latin classics, which, for the sake of outward uniformity, he had endeavored to procure all in quarto; and also many other works relating to roman antiquities and the more elegant jurisprudence. the most eminent italian poets were not wanting, and for tasso he showed a great predilection. there were also the best and most recent travels, and he took great delight in correcting and completing keyssler and nemeiz from them. nor had he omitted to surround himself with all needful aids to learning, such as dictionaries of various languages, and encyclopædias of science and art, which, with much else adapted to profit and amusement, might be consulted at will. the other half of this collection, in neat parchment bindings, with very beautifully written titles, was placed in a separate attic. the acquisition of new books, as well as their binding and arrangement, he pursued with great composure and love of order; and he was much influenced in his opinion by the critical notices that ascribed particular merit to any work. his collection of juridical treatises was annually increased by some volumes. next, the pictures, which in the old house had hung about promiscuously, were now collected, and symmetrically hung on the walls of a cheerful room near the study, all in black frames set off with gilt mouldings. it was my father's principle, to which he gave frequent and even passionate utterance, that one ought to employ the living masters, and to spend less upon the departed, in the estimation of whom prejudice greatly concurred. he had the notion that it was precisely the same with pictures as with rhenish wines, which, though age may impart to them a higher value, can be produced in any coming year of just as excellent quality as in years past. after the lapse of some time, the new wine also becomes old, quite as valuable and perhaps more delicious. this opinion he chiefly confirmed by the observation that many old pictures seemed to derive their chief value for lovers of art from the fact that they had become darker and browner, and that the harmony of tone in such pictures was often vaunted. my father, on the other hand, protested that he had no fear that the new pictures would not also turn black in time; though whether they were likely to gain any thing by this he was not so positive. in pursuance of these principles, he employed for many years the whole of the frankfort artists,--the painter hirt, who excelled in animating oak and beech woods, and other so-called rural scenes, with cattle; trautmann, who had adopted rembrandt as his model, and had attained great perfection in enclosed lights and reflections, as well as in effective conflagrations, so that he was once ordered to paint a companion piece to a rembrandt; schutz, who diligently elaborated landscapes of the rhine country, in the manner of sachtlebens; and junker, who executed with great purity flower and fruit pieces, still life, and figures quietly employed, after the models of the dutch. but now, by the new arrangement, by more convenient room, and still more by the acquaintance of a skilful artist, our love of art was again quickened and animated. this artist was seekatz, a pupil of brinkmann, court-painter at darmstadt, whose talent and character will be more minutely unfolded in the sequel. in this way the remaining rooms were finished, according to their several purposes. cleanliness and order prevailed throughout. above all, the large panes of plate-glass contributed towards a perfect lightness, which had been wanting in the old house for many causes, but chiefly on account of the panes, which were for the most part round. my father was cheerful on account of the success of his undertaking; and if his good humor had not been often interrupted because the diligence and exactness of the mechanics did not come up to his wishes, a happier life than ours could not have been conceived, since much good partly arose in the family itself, and partly flowed from without. but an extraordinary event deeply disturbed the boy's peace of mind for the first time. on the st of november, , the earthquake at lisbon took place, and spread a prodigious alarm over the world, long accustomed to peace and quiet. a great and magnificent capital, which was at the same time a trading and mercantile city, is smitten without warning by a most fearful calamity. the earth trembles and totters; the sea foams; ships dash together; houses fall in, and over them churches and towers; the royal palace is in part swallowed by the waters; the bursting land seems to vomit flames, since smoke and fire are seen everywhere amid the ruins. sixty thousand persons, a moment before in ease and comfort, fall together; and he is to be deemed most fortunate who is no longer capable of a thought or feeling about the disaster. the flames rage on; and with them rage a troop of desperadoes, before concealed, or set at large by the event. the wretched survivors are exposed to pillage, massacre, and every outrage; and thus on all sides nature asserts her boundless capriciousness. intimations of this event had spread over wide regions more quickly than the authentic reports: slight shocks had been felt in many places; in many springs, particularly those of a mineral nature, an unusual receding of the waters had been remarked; and so much the greater was the effect of the accounts themselves, which were rapidly circulated, at first in general terms, but finally with dreadful particulars. hereupon the religious were neither wanting in reflections, nor the philosophic in grounds for consolation, nor the clergy in warnings. so complicated an event arrested the attention of the world for a long time; and, as additional and more detailed accounts of the extensive effects of this explosion came from every quarter, the minds already aroused by the misfortunes of strangers began to be more and more anxious about themselves and their friends. perhaps the demon of terror had never so speedily and powerfully diffused his terrors over the earth. the boy, who was compelled to put up with frequent repetitions of the whole matter, was not a little staggered. god, the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, whom the explanation of the first article of the creed declared so wise and benignant, having given both the just and the unjust a prey to the same destruction, had not manifested himself by any means in a fatherly character. in vain the young mind strove to resist these impressions. it was the more impossible, as the wise and scripture-learned could not themselves agree as to the light in which such a phenomenon should be regarded. the next summer gave a closer opportunity of knowing directly that angry god, of whom the old testament records so much. a sudden hail-storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, violently broke the new panes at the back of our house, which looked towards the west, damaged the new furniture, destroyed some valuable books and other things of worth, and was the more terrible to the children, as the whole household, quite beside themselves, dragged them into a dark passage, where, on their knees, with frightful groans and cries, they thought to conciliate the wrathful deity. meanwhile, my father, who was the only one self- possessed, forced open and unhinged the window-frames, by which we saved much glass, but made a broader inlet for the rain that followed the hail; so that, after we were finally quieted, we found ourselves in the rooms and on the stairs completely surrounded by floods and streams of water. these events, startling as they were on the whole, did not greatly interrupt the course of instruction which my father himself had undertaken to give us children. he had passed his youth in the coburg gymnasium, which stood as one of the first among german educational institutions. he had there laid a good foundation in languages, and other matters reckoned part of a learned education, had subsequently applied himself to jurisprudence at leipzig, and had at last taken his degree at giessen. his dissertation, "electa de aditione hereditatis," which had been earnestly and carefully written, is still cited by jurists with approval. it is a pious wish of all fathers to see what they have themselves failed to attain realized in their sons, as if in this way they could live their lives over again, and at last make a proper use of their early experience. conscious of his acquirements, with the certainty of faithful perseverance, and distrusting the teachers of the day, my father undertook to instruct his own children, allowing them to take particular lessons from particular masters only so far as seemed absolutely necessary. a pedagogical /dilettantism/ was already beginning to show itself everywhere. the pedantry and heaviness of the masters appointed in the public schools had probably given rise to this evil. something better was sought for, but it was forgotten how defective all instruction must be which is not given by persons who are teachers by profession. my father had prospered in his own career tolerably according to his wishes: i was to follow the same course, only more easily, and much farther. he prized my natural endowments the more, because he was himself wanting in them; for he had acquired every thing only by means of unspeakable diligence, pertinacity, and repetition. he often assured me, early and late, both in jest and earnest, that with my talents he would have deported himself very differently, and would not have turned them to such small account. by means of a ready apprehension, practice, and a good memory, i very soon outgrew the instructions which my father and the other teachers were able to give, without being thoroughly grounded in any thing. grammar displeased me, because i regarded it as a mere arbitrary law: the rules seemed ridiculous, inasmuch as they were invalidated by so many exceptions, which had all to be learned by themselves. and if the first latin work had not been in rhyme, i should have got on but badly in that; but, as it was, i hummed and sang it to myself readily enough. in the same way we had a geography in memory-verses, in which the most wretched doggerel best served to fix the recollection of that which was to be retained; e.g.,-- "upper-yssel has many a fen, which makes it hateful to all men." the forms and inflections of language i caught with ease; and i also quickly unravelled what lay in the conception of a thing. in rhetoric, composition, and such matters, no one excelled me; although i was often put back for faults of grammar. yet these were the attempts that gave my father particular pleasure, and for which he rewarded me with many presents of money, considerable for such a lad. my father taught my sister italian in the same room in which i had to commit cellarius to memory. as i was soon ready with my task, and was yet obliged to sit quiet, i listened with my book before me, and very readily caught the italian, which struck me as an agreeable softening of latin. other precocities, with respect to memory and the power to combine, i possessed in common with those children who thus acquire an early reputation. for that reason, my father could scarcely wait for me to go to college. he very soon declared that i must study jurisprudence in leipzig, for which he retained a strong predilection; and i was afterwards to visit some other university and take my degree. as for this second one he was indifferent as to which i might choose, except that he had for some reason or other a disinclination to göttingen, to my disappointment, since it was precisely there that i had placed such confidence and high hopes. he told me further, that i was to go to wetzlar and ratisbon, as well as to vienna, and thence towards italy; although he repeatedly mentioned that paris should first be seen, because after coming out of italy nothing else could be pleasing. these tales of my future youthful travels, often as they were repeated, i listened to eagerly, the more so as they always led to accounts of italy, and at last to a description of naples. his otherwise serious and dry manner seemed on these occasions to relax and quicken, and thus a passionate wish awoke in us children to participate in the paradise he described. private lessons, which now gradually multiplied, were shared with the children of the neighbors. this learning in common did not advance me: the teachers followed their routine; and the rudeness, sometimes the ill nature, of my companions, interrupted the brief hours of study with tumult, vexation, and disturbance. chrestomathies, by which learning is made pleasant and varied, had not yet reached us. cornelius nepos, so dry to young people; the new testament, which was much too easy, and which by preaching and religious instructions had been rendered even common-place; cellarius and pasor,--could impart no kind of interest: on the other hand, a certain rage for rhyme and versification, a consequence of reading the prevalent german poets, took complete possession of us. me it had seized much earlier, as i had found it agreeable to pass from the rhetorical to the poetical treatment of subjects. we boys held a sunday assembly where each of us was to produce original verses. and here i was struck by something strange, which long caused me uneasiness. my poems, whatever they might be, always seemed to me the best. but i soon remarked that my competitors, who brought forth very lame affairs, were in the same condition, and thought no less of themselves. nay, what appeared yet more suspicious, a good lad (though in such matters altogether unskilful), whom i liked in other respects, but who had his rhymes made by his tutor, not only regarded these as the best, but was thoroughly persuaded they were his own, as he always maintained in our confidential intercourse. now, as this illusion and error was obvious to me, the question one day forced itself upon me, whether i myself might not be in the same state, whether those poems were not really better than mine, and whether i might not justly appear to those boys as mad as they to me? this disturbed me much and long, for it was altogether impossible for me to find any external criterion of the truth: i even ceased from producing, until at length i was quieted by my own light temperament, and the feeling of my own powers, and lastly by a trial of skill,--started on the spur of the moment by our teachers and parents, who had noted our sport,--in which i came off well, and won general praise. no libraries for children had at that time been established. the old had themselves still childish notions, and found it convenient to impart their own education to their successors. except the "orbis pictus" of amos comenius, no book of the sort fell into our hands; but the large folio bible, with copperplates by merian, was diligently gone over leaf by leaf; gottfried's "chronicles," with plates by the same master, taught us the most notable events of universal history; the "acerra philologica" added thereto all sorts of fables, mythologies, and wonders; and, as i soon became familiar with ovid's "metamorphoses," the first books of which in particular i studied carefully, my young brain was rapidly furnished with a mass of images and events, of significant and wonderful shapes and occurrences; and i never felt time hang upon my hands, as i always occupied myself in working over, repeating, and reproducing these acquisitions. a more salutary moral effect than that of these rude and hazardous antiquities was produced by fenelon's "telemachus," with which i first became acquainted in neukirch's translation, and which, imperfectly as it was executed, had a sweet and beneficent influence on my mind. that "robinson crusoe" was added in due time, follows in the nature of things; and it may be imagined that the "island of falsenberg" was not wanting. lord anson's "voyage round the globe" combined the dignity of truth with the rich fancies of fable; and, while our thoughts accompanied this excellent seaman, we were conducted over all the world, and endeavored to follow him with our fingers on the globe. but a still richer harvest was to spring up before me, when i lighted on a mass of writings, which, in their present state, it is true, cannot be called excellent, but the contents of which, in a harmless way, bring near to us many a meritorious action of former times. the publication, or rather the manufacture, of those books, which have at a later day become so well known and celebrated under the name volkschriften, volksbucher (popular works or books), was carried on in frankfort. the enormous sales they met with led to their being almost illegibly printed from stereotypes on horrible blotting-paper. we children were so fortunate as to find these precious remains of the middle ages every day on a little table at the door of a dealer in cheap books, and to obtain them at the cost of a couple of kreutzer. "the eulenspiegel," "the four sons of haimon," "the emperor octavian," "the fair melusina," "the beautiful magelone," "fortunatus," with the whole race down to "the wandering jew," were all at our service, as often as we preferred the relish of these works to the taste of sweet things. the greatest benefit of this was, that, when we had read through or damaged such a sheet, it could soon be reprocured, and swallowed a second time. as a family picnic in summer is vexatiously disturbed by a sudden storm, which transforms a pleasant state of things into the very reverse: so the diseases of childhood fall unexpectedly on the most beautiful season of early life. and thus it happened with me. i had just purchased "fortunatus with his purse and wishing-hat," when i was attacked by a restlessness and fever which announced the small-pox. inoculation was still with us considered very problematical; and, although it had already been intelligibly and urgently recommended by popular writers, the german physicians hesitated to perform an operation that seemed to forestall nature. speculative englishmen, therefore, had come to the continent, and inoculated, for a considerable fee, the children of such persons as were opulent, and free from prejudices. still, the majority were exposed to the old disease: the infection raged through families, killed and disfigured many children; and few parents dared to avail themselves of a method, the probable efficacy of which had been abundantly confirmed by the result. the evil now invaded our house, and attacked me with unusual severity. my whole body was sown over with spots, and my face covered; and for several days i lay blind and in great pain. they tried the only possible alleviation, and promised me heaps of gold if i would keep quiet, and not increase the mischief by rubbing and scratching. i controlled myself, while, according to the prevailing prejudice, they kept me as warm as possible, and thus only rendered my suffering more acute. at last, after a woeful time, there fell, as it were, a mask from my face. the blotches had left no visible mark upon the skin, but the features were plainly altered. i myself was satisfied merely with seeing the light of day again, and gradually putting off my spotted skin; but others were pitiless enough to remind me often of my previous condition, especially a very lively aunt, who had formerly regarded me with idolatry, but in after-years could seldom look at me without exclaiming "the deuce, cousin, what a fright he's grown!" then she would tell me circumstantially how i had once been her delight, and what attention she had excited when she carried me about; and thus i early learned that people very often subject us to a severe atonement for the pleasure which we have afforded them. i escaped neither measles nor chicken-pox, nor any other of the tormenting demons of childhood; and i was assured each time that it was a great piece of good luck that this malady was now past forever. but alas! another again threatened in the background, and advanced. all these things increased my propensity to reflection; and as i had already practised myself in fortitude, in order to remove the torture of impatience, the virtues which i had heard praised in the stoics appeared to me highly worthy of imitation, and the more so, as something similar was commended by the christian doctrine of patience. while on the subject of these family diseases, i will mention a brother about three years younger than myself, who was likewise attacked by that infection, and suffered not a little from it. he was of a tender nature, quiet and capricious; and we were never on the most friendly terms. besides, he scarcely survived the years of childhood. among several other children born afterwards, who, like him, did not live long, i only remember a very pretty and agreeable girl, who also soon passed away; so that, after the lapse of some years, my sister and i remained alone, and were therefore the more deeply and affectionately attached to each other. these maladies, and other unpleasant interruptions, were in their consequences doubly grievous; for my father, who seemed to have laid down for himself a certain calendar of education and instruction, was resolved immediately to repair every delay, and imposed double lessons upon the young convalescent. these were not hard for me to accomplish, but were so far troublesome, that they hindered, and, to a certain extent, repressed, my inward development, which had taken a decided direction. from these didactic and pedagogic oppressions, we commonly fled to my grandfather and grandmother. their house stood in the friedberg street, and appeared to have been formerly a fortress; for, on approaching it, nothing was seen but a large gate with battlements, which were joined on either side to the two neighboring houses. on entering through a narrow passage, we reached at last a tolerably wide court, surrounded by irregular buildings, which were now all united into one dwelling. we usually hastened at once into the garden, which extended to a considerable length and breadth behind the buildings, and was very well kept. the walks were mostly skirted by vine-trellises: one part of the space was used for vegetables, and another devoted to flowers, which from spring till autumn adorned in rich succession the borders as well as the beds. the long wall, erected towards the south, was used for some well-trained espalier peach-trees, the forbidden fruit of which ripened temptingly before us through the summer. yet we rather avoided this side, because we here could not satisfy our dainty appetites; and we turned to the side opposite, where an interminable row of currant and gooseberry bushes furnished our voracity with a succession of harvests till autumn. not less important to us was an old, high, wide-spreading mulberry-tree, both on account of its fruits, and because we were told that the silk-worms fed upon its leaves. in this peaceful region my grandfather was found every evening, tending with genial care, and with his own hand, the finer growths of fruits and flowers; while a gardener managed the drudgery. he was never vexed by the various toils which were necessary to preserve and increase a fine show of pinks. the branches of the peach-trees were carefully tied to the espaliers with his own hands, in a fan-shape, in order to bring about a full and easy growth of the fruit. the sorting of the bulbs of tulips, hyacinths, and plants of a similar nature, as well as the care of their preservation, he intrusted to none; and i still with pleasure recall to my mind how diligently he occupied himself in inoculating the different varieties of roses. that he might protect himself from the thorns, he put on a pair of those ancient leather gloves, of which three pair were given him annually at the piper's court; so that there was no dearth of the article. he wore also a loose dressing-gown, and a folded black velvet cap upon his head; so that he might have passed for an intermediate person between alcinous and laertes. all this work in the garden he pursued as regularly and with as much precision as his official business; for, before he came down, he always arranged the list of cases for the next day, and read the legal papers. in the morning he proceeded to the city-hall, dined after his return, then took a nap in his easy-chair, and so went through the same routine every day. he conversed little, never exhibited any vehemence; and i do not remember ever to have seen him angry. all that surrounded him was in the fashion of the olden time. i never perceived any alteration in his wainscoted room. his library contained, besides law-works, only the earliest books of travels, sea-voyages, and discoveries of countries. altogether i can call to mind no situation more adapted than his to awaken the feeling of uninterrupted peace and eternal duration. but the reverence we entertained for this venerable old man was raised to the highest degree by a conviction that he possessed the gift of prophecy, especially in matters that pertained to himself and his destiny. it is true he revealed himself to no one distinctly and minutely, except to my grandmother; yet we were all aware that he was informed of what was going to happen by significant dreams. he assured his wife, for instance, at a time when he was still a junior councillor, that, on the first vacancy, he would obtain the place left open on the bench of the /schöffen/; and soon afterwards, when one of those officers actually died of apoplexy, my grandfather gave orders that his house should be quietly got ready prepared on the day of electing and balloting, to receive his guests and congratulators. sure enough, the decisive gold ball was drawn in his favor. the simple dream by which he had learned this, he confided to his wife as follows: he had seen himself in the ordinary full assembly of councilmen, where all went on just as usual. suddenly the late /schöff/ rose from his seat, descended the steps, pressed him in the most complimentary manner to take the vacant place, and then departed by the door. something similar occurred on the death of the /schultheiss/. they make no delay in supplying this place; as they always have to fear that the emperor will, at some time, resume his ancient right of nominating the officer. on this occasion, the messenger of the court came at midnight to summon an extraordinary session for the next morning; and, as the light in his lantern was about to expire, he asked for a candle's end to help him on his way. "give him a whole one," said my grandfather to the ladies: "he takes the trouble all on my account." this expression anticipated the result,--he was made /schultheiss/. and what rendered the circumstance particularly remarkable was, that, although his representative was the third and last to draw at the ballot, the two silver balls first came out, leaving the golden ball at the bottom of the bag for him. perfectly prosaic, simple, and without a trace of the fantastic or miraculous, were the other dreams, of which we were informed. moreover, i remember that once, as a boy, i was turning over his books and memoranda, and found, among some other remarks which related to gardening, such sentences as these: "to-night n. n. came to me, and said,"--the name and revelation being written in cipher; or, "this night i saw,"--all the rest being again in cipher, except the conjunctions and similar words, from which nothing could be learned. it is worthy of note also, that persons who showed no signs of prophetic insight at other times, acquired, for the moment, while in his presence, and that by means of some sensible evidence, presentiments of diseases or deaths which were then occurring in distant places. but no such gift has been transmitted to any of his children or grandchildren, who, for the most part, have been hearty people, enjoying life, and never going beyond the actual. while on this subject, i remember with gratitude many kindnesses i received from them in my youth. thus, for example, we were employed and entertained in many ways when we visited the second daughter, married to the druggist melber, whose house and shop stood near the market, in the midst of the liveliest and most crowded part of the town. there we could look down from the windows pleasantly enough upon the hurly-burly, in which we feared to lose ourselves; and though at first, of all the goods in the shop, nothing had much interest for us but the licorice, and the little brown stamped cakes made from it, we became in time better acquainted with the multitude of articles bought and sold in that business. this aunt was the most vivacious of all the family. whilst my mother, in her early years, took pleasure in being neatly dressed, working at some domestic occupation, or reading a book, the other, on the contrary, ran about the neighborhood to pick up neglected children, take care of them, comb them, and carry them about in the way she had done with me for a good while. at a time of public festivities, such as coronations, it was impossible to keep her at home. when a little child, she had already scrambled for the money scattered on such occasions; and it was related of her, that once when she had got a good many together, and was looking at them with great delight in the palm of her hand, it was struck by somebody, and all her well-earned booty vanished at a blow. there was another incident of which she was very proud. once, while standing on a post as the emperor charles vii. was passing, at a moment when all the people were silent, she shouted a vigorous "vivat!" into the coach, which made him take off his hat to her, and thank her quite graciously for her bold salutation. every thing in her house was stirring, lively, and cheerful; and we children owed her many a gay hour. in a more quiet situation, which was, however, suited to her character, was a second aunt, married to the pastor stark, incumbent of st. catharine's church. he lived much alone, in accordance with his temperament and vocation, and possessed a fine library. here i first became acquainted with homer, in a prose translation, which may be found in the seventh part of herr von loen's new collection of the most remarkable travels, under the title, "homer's description of the conquest of the kingdom of troy," ornamented with copperplates in the theatrical french taste. these pictures perverted my imagination to such a degree, that, for a long time, i could conceive the homeric heroes only under such forms. the incidents themselves gave me unspeakable delight; though i found great fault with the work for affording us no account of the capture of troy, and breaking off so abruptly with the death of hector. my uncle, to whom i mentioned this defect, referred me to virgil, who perfectly satisfied my demands. it will be taken for granted, that we children had among our other lessons a continued and progressive instruction in religion. but the church-protestantism imparted to us was, properly speaking, nothing but a kind of dry morality: ingenious exposition was not thought of, and the doctrine appealed neither to the understanding nor to the heart. for that reason, there were various secessions from the established church. separatists, pietists, herrnhuter (moravians), quiet-in-the-land, and others differently named and characterized, sprang up, all of whom are animated by the same purpose of approaching the deity, especially through christ, more closely than seemed to them possible under the forms of the established religion. the boy heard these opinions and sentiments constantly spoken of, for the clergy as well as the laity divided themselves into /pro/ and /con/. the minority were composed of those who dissented more or less broadly; but their modes of thinking attracted by originality, heartiness, perseverance, and independence. all sorts of stories were told of their virtues, and of the way in which they were manifested. the reply of a pious master-tinman was especially noted, who, when one of his craft attempted to shame him by asking, "who is really your confessor?" answered with great cheerfulness, and confidence in the goodness of his cause, "i have a famous one,--no less than the confessor of king david." things of this sort naturally made an impression on the boy, and led him into similar states of mind. in fact, he came to the thought that he might immediately approach the great god of nature, the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, whose earlier manifestations of wrath had been long forgotten in the beauty of the world, and the manifold blessings in which we participate while upon it. the way he took to accomplish this was very curious. the boy had chiefly kept to the first article of belief. the god who stands in immediate connection with nature, and owns and loves it as his work, seemed to him the proper god, who might be brought into closer relationship with man, as with every thing else, and who would take care of him, as of the motion of the stars, the days and seasons, the animals and plants. there were texts of the gospels which explicitly stated this. the boy could ascribe no form to this being: he therefore sought him in his works, and would, in the good old-testament fashion, build him an altar. natural productions were set forth as images of the world, over which a flame was to burn, signifying the aspirations of man's heart towards his maker. he brought out of the collection of natural objects which he possessed, and which had been increased as chance directed, the best ores and other specimens. but the next difficulty was, as to how they should be arranged and raised into a pile. his father possessed a beautiful red-lacquered music-stand, ornamented with gilt flowers, in the form of a four-sided pyramid, with different elevations, which had been found convenient for quartets, but lately was not much in use. the boy laid hands on this, and built up his representatives of nature one above the other in steps; so that it all looked quite pretty and at the same time sufficiently significant. on an early sunrise his first worship of god was to be celebrated, but the young priest had not yet settled how to produce a flame which should at the same time emit an agreeable odor. at last it occurred to him to combine the two, as he possessed a few fumigating pastils, which diffused a pleasant fragrance with a glimmer, if not with a flame. nay, this soft burning and exhalation seemed a better representation of what passes in the heart, than an open flame. the sun had already risen for a long time, but the neighboring houses concealed the east. at last it glittered above the roofs: a burning-glass was at once taken up and applied to the pastils, which were fixed on the summit in a fine porcelain saucer. every thing succeeded according to the wish, and the devotion was perfect. the altar remained as a peculiar ornament of the room which had been assigned him in the new house. every one regarded it only as a well-arranged collection of natural curiosities. the boy knew better, but concealed his knowledge. he longed for a repetition of the solemnity. but unfortunately, just as the most opportune sun arose, the porcelain cup was not at hand: he placed the pastils immediately on the upper surface of the stand; they were kindled; and so great was the devotion of the priest, that he did not observe, until it was too late, the mischief his sacrifice was doing. the pastils had burned mercilessly into the red lacquer and beautiful gold flowers, and, as if some evil spirit had disappeared, had left their black, ineffaceable footprints. by this the young priest was thrown into the most extreme perplexity. the mischief could be covered up, it was true, with the larger pieces of his show materials; but the spirit for new offerings was gone, and the accident might almost be considered a hint and warning of the danger there always is in wishing to approach the deity in such a way. second book. all that has been hitherto recorded indicates that happy and easy condition in which nations exist during a long peace. but nowhere probably is such a beautiful time enjoyed in greater comfort than in cities living under their own laws, and large enough to include a considerable number of citizens, and so situated as to enrich them by trade and commerce. strangers find it to their advantage to come and go, and are under a necessity of bringing profit in order to acquire profit. even if such cities rule but a small territory, they are the better qualified to advance their internal prosperity; as their external relations expose them to no costly undertakings or alliances. thus the frankforters passed a series of prosperous years during my childhood; but scarcely, on the th of august, , had i completed my seventh year, than that world-renowned war broke out which was also to exert great influence upon the next seven years of my life. frederick the second, king of prussia, had fallen upon saxony with sixty thousand men; and, instead of announcing his invasion by a declaration of war, he followed it up with a manifesto, composed by himself as it was said, which explained the causes that had moved and justified him in so monstrous a step. the world, which saw itself appealed to, not merely as spectator, but as judge, immediately split into two parties; and our family was an image of the great whole. my grandfather, who, as /schöff/ of frankfort, had carried the coronation canopy over francis the first, and had received from the empress a heavy gold chain with her likeness, took the austrian side along with some of his sons-in-law and daughters. my father having been nominated to the imperial council by charles the seventh, and sympathizing sincerely in the fate of that unhappy monarch, leaned towards prussia, with the other and smaller half of the family. our meetings, which had been held on sundays for many years uninterruptedly, were very soon disturbed. the misunderstandings so common among persons related by marriage, found only now a form in which they could be expressed. contention, discord, silence, and separation ensued. my grandfather, generally a cheerful, quiet man, and fond of ease, became impatient. the women vainly endeavored to smother the flames; and, after some unpleasant scenes, my father was the first to quit the society. at home we now rejoiced undisturbed at the prussian victories, which were commonly announced with great glee by our vivacious aunt. every other interest had to give way to this, and we passed the rest of the year in perpetual agitation. the occupation of dresden, the moderation of the king at the outset, his slow but secure advances, the victory at lowositz, the capture of the saxons, were so many triumphs for our party. every thing that could be alleged for the advantage of our opponents was denied or depreciated; and, as the members of the family on the other side did the same, they could not meet in the streets without disputes arising, as in "romeo and juliet." thus i also was then a prussian in my views, or, to speak more correctly, a fritzian; since what cared we for prussia? it was the personal character of the great king that worked upon all hearts. i rejoiced with my father in our conquests, readily copied the songs of triumph, and almost more willingly the lampoons directed against the other party, poor as the rhymes might be. being their eldest grandson and godchild, i had dined every sunday since my infancy with my grandfather and grandmother; and the hours so spent had been the most delightful of the whole week. but now i relished not a morsel, because i was compelled to hear the most horrible slanders of my hero. here blew another wind, here sounded another tone, than at home. my liking and even my respect for my grandfather and grandmother fell off. i could mention nothing of this to my parents, but avoided the matter, both on account of my own feelings, and because i had been warned by my mother. in this way i was thrown back upon myself; and as in my sixth year, after the earthquake at lisbon, the goodness of god had become to me in some measure suspicious: so i began now, on account of frederick the second, to doubt the justice of the public. my heart was naturally inclined to reverence, and it required a great shock to stagger my faith in any thing that was venerable. but alas! they had commended good manners and a becoming deportment to us, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the people. what will people say? was always the cry; and i thought that the people must be right good people, and would know how to judge of any thing and every thing. but my experience went just to the contrary. the greatest and most signal services were defamed and attacked; the noblest deeds, if not denied, were at least misrepresented and diminished; and this base injustice was done to the only man who was manifestly elevated above all his contemporaries, and who daily proved what he was able to do,--and that, not by the populace, but by distinguished men, as i took my grandfather and uncles to be. that parties existed, and that he himself belonged to a party, had never entered into the conceptions of the boy. he, therefore, believed himself all the more right, and dared hold his own opinion for the better one; since he and those of like mind appreciated the beauty and other good qualities of maria theresa, and even did not grudge the emperor francis his love of jewellery and money. that count daun was often called an old dozer, they thought justifiable. but, now that i look more closely into the matter, i here trace the germ of that disregard and even disdain of the public, which clung to me for a whole period of my life, and only in later days was brought within bounds by insight and cultivation. suffice it to say, that the perception of the injustice of parties had even then a very unpleasant, nay, an injurious, effect upon the boy; as it accustomed him to separate himself from beloved and highly valued persons. the quick succession of battles and events left the parties neither quiet nor rest. we ever found a malicious delight in reviving and resharpening those imaginary evils and capricious disputes; and thus we continued to tease each other, until the occupation of frankfort by the french some years afterwards brought real inconvenience into our homes. although to most of us the important events occurring in distant parts served only for topics of hot controversy, there were others who perceived the seriousness of the times, and feared that the sympathy of france might open a scene of war in our own vicinity. they kept us children at home more than before, and strove in many ways to occupy and amuse us. with this view, the puppet-show bequeathed by our grandmother was again brought forth, and arranged in such a way that the spectators sat in my gable-room; while the persons managing and performing, as well as the theatre itself as far as the proscenium, found a place in the room adjoining. we were allowed, as a special favor, to invite first one and then another of the neighbor's children as spectators; and thus at the outset i gained many friends, but the restlessness inherent in children did not suffer them to remain long a patient audience. they interrupted the play; and we were compelled to seek a younger public, which could at any rate be kept in order by the nurses and maids. the original drama, to which the puppets had been specially adapted, we had learned by heart; and in the beginning this was exclusively performed. soon growing weary of it, however, we changed the dresses and decorations, and attempted various other pieces, which were indeed on too grand a scale for so narrow a stage. although this presumption spoiled and finally quite destroyed what we performed, such childish pleasures and employments nevertheless exercised and advanced in many ways my power of invention and representation, my fancy, and a certain technical skill, to a degree which in any other way could not perhaps have been secured in so short a time, in so confined a space, and at so little expense. i had early learned to use compasses and ruler, because all the instructions they gave me in geometry were forthwith put into practice; and i occupied myself greatly with paste-board-work. i did not stop at geometrical figures, little boxes, and such things, but invented pretty pleasure-houses adorned with pilasters, steps, and flat roofs. however, but little of this was completed. far more persevering was i, on the other hand, in arranging, with the help of our domestic (a tailor by trade), an armory for the service of our plays and tragedies, which we ourselves performed with delight when we had outgrown the puppets. my playfellows, too, prepared for themselves such armories, which they considered to be quite as fine and good as mine; but i had made provision, not for the wants of one person only, and could furnish several of the little band with every requisite, and thus made myself more and more indispensable to our little circle. that such games tended to factions, quarrels, and blows, and commonly came to a sad end in tumult and vexation, may easily be supposed. in such cases certain of my companions generally took part with me, while others sided against me; though many changes of party occurred. one single boy, whom i will call pylades, urged by the others, once only left my party, but could scarcely for a moment maintain his hostile position. we were reconciled amid many tears, and for a long time afterwards kept faithfully together. to him, as well as other well-wishers, i could render myself very agreeable by telling tales, which they most delighted to hear when i was the hero of my own story. it greatly rejoiced them to know that such wonderful things could befall one of their own playfellows; nor was it any harm that they did not understand how i could find time and space for such adventures, as they must have been pretty well aware of all my comings and goings, and how i was occupied the entire day. not the less necessary was it for me to select the localities of these occurrences, if not in another world, at least in another spot; and yet all was told as having taken place only to-day or yesterday. they therefore had to form for themselves greater illusions than i could have palmed off upon them. if i had not gradually learned, in accordance with the instincts of my nature, to work up these visions and conceits into artistic forms, such vain-glorious beginnings could not have gone on without producing evil consequences for myself in the end. considering this impulse more closely, we may see in it that presumption with which the poet authoritatively utters the greatest improbabilities, and requires every one to recognize as real whatever may in any way seem to him, the inventor, as true. but what is here told only in general terms, and by way of reflection, will perhaps become more apparent and interesting by means of an example. i subjoin, therefore, one of these tales, which, as i often had to repeat it to my comrades, still hovers entire in my imagination and memory. the new paris. a boy's legend. on the night before whitsunday, not long since, i dreamed that i stood before a mirror engaged with the new summer clothes which my dear parents had given me for the holiday. the dress consisted, as you know, of shoes of polished leather, with large silver buckles, fine cotton stockings, black nether garments of serge, and a coat of green baracan with gold buttons. the waistcoat of gold cloth was cut out of my father's bridal waistcoat. my hair had been frizzled and powdered, and my curls stuck out from my head like little wings; but i could not finish dressing myself, because i kept confusing the different articles, the first always falling off as soon as i was about to put on the next. in this dilemma, a young and handsome man came to me, and greeted me in the friendliest manner. "oh! you are welcome," said i: "i am very glad to see you here."--"do you know me, then?" replied he, smiling. "why not?" was my no less smiling answer. "you are mercury--i have often enough seen you represented in pictures."--"i am, indeed," replied he, "and am sent to you by the gods on an important errand. do you see these three apples?" he stretched forth his hand and showed me three apples, which it could hardly hold, and which were as wonderfully beautiful as they were large, the one of a red, the other of a yellow, the third of a green, color. one could not help thinking they were precious stones made into the form of fruit. i would have snatched them; but he drew back, and said, "you must know, in the first place, that they are not for you. you must give them to the three handsomest youths of the city, who then, each according to his lot, will find wives to the utmost of their wishes. take them, and success to you!" said he, as he departed, leaving the apples in my open hands. they appeared to me to have become still larger. i held them up at once against the light, and found them quite transparent; but soon they expanded upward, and became three beautiful little ladies about as large as middle-sized dolls, whose clothes were of the colors of the apples. they glided gently up my fingers: and when i was about to catch them, to make sure of one at least, they had already soared high and far; and i had to put up with the disappointment. i stood there all amazed and petrified, holding up my hands, and staring at my fingers as if there were still something on them to see. suddenly i saw a most lovely girl dance upon the very tips. she was smaller, but pretty and lively; and as she did not fly away like the others, but remained dancing, now on one finger-point, now on another, i regarded her for a long while with admiration. and, as she pleased me so much, i thought in the end i could catch her, and made, as i fancied, a very adroit grasp. but at the moment i felt such a blow on my head that i fell down stunned, and did not awake from my stupor till it was time to dress myself and go to church. during the service i often called those images to mind, and also when i was eating dinner at my grandfather's table. in the afternoon i wished to visit some friends, partly to show myself in my new dress, with my hat under my arm and my sword by my side, and partly to return their visits. i found no one at home; and, as i heard that they were gone to the gardens, i resolved to follow them, and pass the evening pleasantly. my way led towards the intrenchments; and i came to the spot which is rightly called the bad wall, for it is never quite safe from ghosts there. i walked slowly, and thought of my three goddesses, but especially of the little nymph, and often held up my fingers in hopes she might be kind enough to balance herself there again. with such thoughts i was proceeding, when i saw in the wall on my left hand a little gate which i did not remember to have ever noticed before. it looked low, but its pointed arch would have allowed the tallest man to enter. arch and wall had been chiselled in the handsomest way, both by mason and sculptor; but it was the door itself which first properly attracted my attention. the old brown wood, though slightly ornamented, was crossed with broad bands of brass wrought both in relief and intaglio. the foliage on these, with the most natural birds sitting in it, i could not sufficiently admire. but, what seemed most remarkable, no keyhole could be seen, no latch, no knocker; and from this i conjectured that the door could be opened only from within. i was not in error; for, when i went nearer in order to touch the ornaments, it opened inwards; and there appeared a man whose dress was somewhat long, wide, and singular. a venerable beard enveloped his chin, so that i was inclined to think him a jew. but he, as if he had divined my thoughts, made the sign of the holy cross, by which he gave me to understand that he was a good catholic christian. "young gentleman, how came you here, and what are you doing?" he said to me, with a friendly voice and manner." i am admiring," i replied," the workmanship of this door; for i have never seen any thing like it, except in some small pieces in the collections of amateurs."--"i am glad," he answered, "that you like such works. the door is much more beautiful inside. come in, if you like." my heart, in some degree, failed me. the mysterious dress of the porter, the seclusion, and a something, i know not what, that seemed to be in the air, oppressed me. i paused, therefore, under the pretext of examining the outside still longer; and at the same time i cast stolen glances into the garden, for a garden it was which had opened before me. just inside the door i saw a space. old linden-trees, standing at regular distances from each other, entirely covered it with their thickly interwoven branches; so that the most numerous parties, during the hottest of the day, might have refreshed themselves in the shade. already i had stepped upon the threshold, and the old man contrived gradually to allure me on. properly speaking, i did not resist; for i had always heard that a prince or sultan in such a case must never ask whether there be danger at hand. i had my sword by my side too; and could i not soon have finished with the old man, in case of hostile demonstrations? i therefore entered perfectly re-assured: the keeper closed the door, which bolted so softly that i scarcely heard it. he now showed me the workmanship on the inside, which in truth was still more artistic than the outside, explained it to me, and at the same time manifested particular good will. being thus entirely at my ease, i let myself be guided in the shaded space by the wall, that formed a circle, where i found much to admire. niches tastefully adorned with shells, corals, and pieces of ore, poured a profusion of water from the mouths of tritons into marble basins. between them were aviaries and other lattice-work, in which squirrels frisked about, guinea-pigs ran hither and thither, with as many other pretty little creatures as one could wish to see. the birds called and sang to us as we advanced: the starlings, particularly, chattered the silliest stuff. one always cried, "paris, paris!" and the other, "narcissus, narcissus!" as plainly as a schoolboy can say them. the old man seemed to continue looking at me earnestly while the birds called out thus; but i feigned not to notice it, and had in truth no time to attend to him, for i could easily perceive that we went round and round, and that this shaded space was in fact a great circle, which enclosed another much more important. indeed, we had actually reached the small door again, and it seemed as though the old man would let me out. but my eyes remained directed towards a golden railing, which seemed to hedge round the middle of this wonderful garden, and which i had found means enough of observing in our walk; although the old man managed to keep me always close to the wall, and therefore pretty far from the centre. and now, just as he was going to the door, i said to him, with a bow, "you have been so extremely kind to me that i would fain venture to make one more request before i part from you. might i not look more closely at that golden railing, which appears to enclose in a very wide circle the interior of the garden?"--"very willingly," replied he, "but in that case you must submit to some conditions."--"in what do they consist?" i asked hastily. "you must leave here your hat and sword, and must not let go my hand while i accompany you."--"most willingly," i replied; and laid my hat and sword on the nearest stone bench. immediately he grasped my left hand with his right, held it fast, and led me with some force straight forwards. when we reached the railing, my wonder changed into amazement. on a high socle of marble stood innumerable spears and partisans, ranged beneath each other, joined by their strangely ornamented points, and forming a complete circle. i looked through the intervals, and saw just behind a gently flowing piece of water, bounded on both sides by marble, and displaying in its clear depths a multitude of gold and silver fish, which moved about now slowly and now swiftly, now alone and now in shoals. i would also fain have looked beyond the canal, to see what there was in the heart of the garden. but i found, to my great sorrow, that the other side of the water was bordered by a similar railing, and with so much art, that to each interval on this side exactly fitted a spear or partisan on the other. these, and the other ornaments, rendered it impossible for one to see through, stand as he would. besides, the old man, who still held me fast, prevented me from moving freely. my curiosity, meanwhile, after all i had seen, increased more and more; and i took heart to ask the old man whether one could not pass over. "why not?" returned he, "but on new conditions." when i asked him what these were, he gave me to understand that i must put on other clothes. i was satisfied to do so: he led me back towards the wall into a small, neat room, on the sides of which hung many kinds of garments, all of which seemed to approach the oriental costume. i soon changed my dress. he confined my powdered hair under a many-colored net, after having to my horror violently dusted it out. now, standing before a great mirror, i found myself quite handsome in my disguise, and pleased myself better than in my formal sunday clothes. i made gestures, and leaped, as i had seen the dancers do at the fair-theatre. in the midst of this i looked in the glass, and saw by chance the image of a niche which was behind me. on its white ground hung three green cords, each of them twisted up in a way which from the distance i could not clearly discern. i therefore turned round rather hastily, and asked the old man about the niche as well as the cords. he very courteously took a cord down, and showed it to me. it was a band of green silk of moderate thickness, the ends of which, joined by green leather with two holes in it, gave it the appearance of an instrument for no very desirable purpose. the thing struck me as suspicious, and i asked the old man the meaning. he answered me very quietly and kindly, "this is for those who abuse the confidence which is here readily shown them." he hung the cord again in its place, and immediately desired me to follow him; for this time he did not hold me, and so i walked freely beside him. my chief curiosity now was, to discover where the gate and bridge, for passing through the railing and over the canal, might be; since as yet i had not been able to find any thing of the kind. i therefore watched the golden fence very narrowly as we hastened towards it. but in a moment my sight failed: lances, spears, halberds, and partisans began unexpectedly to rattle and quiver; and the strange movement ended in all the points sinking towards each other just as if two ancient hosts, armed with pikes, were about to charge. the confusion to the eyes, the clatter to the ears, was hardly to be borne; but infinitely surprising was the sight, when, falling perfectly level, they covered the circle of the canal, and formed the most glorious bridge that one can imagine. for now a most variegated garden parterre met my sight. it was laid out in curvilinear beds, which, looked at together, formed a labyrinth of ornaments; all with green borders of a low, woolly plant, which i had never seen before; all with flowers, each division of different colors, which, being likewise low and close to the ground, allowed the plan to be easily traced. this delicious sight, which i enjoyed in the full sunshine, quite riveted my eyes. but i hardly knew where i was to set my foot; for the serpentine paths were most delicately laid with blue sand, which seemed to form upon the earth a darker sky, or a sky seen in the water: and so i walked for a while beside my conductor, with my eyes fixed upon the ground, until at last i perceived, that, in the middle of this round of beds and flowers, there was a great circle of cypresses or poplar-like trees, through which one could not see, because the lowest branches seemed to spring out of the ground. my guide, without taking me exactly the shortest way, led me nevertheless immediately towards that centre; and how was i astonished, when, on entering the circle of high trees, i saw before me the peristyle of a magnificent garden-house, which seemed to have similar prospects and entrances on the other sides! the heavenly music which streamed from the building transported me still more than this model of architecture. i fancied that i heard now a lute, now a harp, now a guitar, and now something tinkling which did not belong to any of these instruments. the door for which we made opened soon on being lightly touched by the old man. but how was i amazed when the porteress who came out perfectly resembled the delicate girl who had danced upon my fingers in the dream! she greeted me as if we were already acquainted, and invited me to walk in. the old man staid behind; and i went with her through a short passage, arched and finely ornamented, to the middle hall, the splendid, dome-like ceiling of which attracted my gaze on my entrance, and filled me with astonishment. yet my eye could not dwell on this long, being allured down by a more charming spectacle. on a carpet, directly under the middle of the cupola, sat three women in a triangle, clad in three different colors,-- one red, the other yellow, the third green. the seats were gilt, and the carpet was a perfect flower-bed. in their arms lay the three instruments which i had been able to distinguish from without; for, being disturbed by my arrival, they had stopped their playing. "welcome!" said the middle one, who sat with her face to the door, in a red dress, and with the harp. "sit down by alerte, and listen, if you are a lover of music." now only i remarked that there was a rather long bench placed obliquely before them, on which lay a mandolin. the pretty girl took it up, sat down, and drew me to her side. now also i looked at the second lady on my right. she wore the yellow dress, and had the guitar in her hand; and if the harp-player was dignified in form, grand in features, and majestic in her deportment, one might remark in the guitar-player an easy grace and cheerfulness. she was a slender blonde, while the other was adorned by dark-brown hair. the variety and accordance of their music could not prevent me from remarking the third beauty, in the green dress, whose lute-playing was for me at once touching and striking. she was the one who seemed to notice me the most, and to direct her music to me: only i could not make up my mind about her; for she appeared to me now tender, now whimsical, now frank, now self-willed, according as she changed her mien and mode of playing. sometimes she seemed to wish to excite my emotions, sometimes to tease me; but, do what she would, she got little out of me; for my little neighbor, by whom i sat elbow to elbow, had gained me entirely to herself: and while i clearly saw in those three ladies the sylphides of my dream, and recognized the colors of the apples, i conceived that i had no cause to detain them. i should have liked better to lay hold of the pretty little maiden if i had not but too well remembered the blow she had given me in my dream. hitherto she had remained quite quiet with her mandolin; but, when her mistresses had ceased, they commanded her to perform some pleasant little piece. scarcely had she jingled off some dance-tune, in a most exciting manner, than she sprang up: i did the same. she played and danced; i was hurried on to accompany her steps; and we executed a kind of little ballet, with which the ladies seemed satisfied; for, as soon as we had done, they commanded the little girl to refresh me with something nice till supper should come in. i had indeed forgotten that there was any thing in the world beyond this paradise. alerte led me back immediately into the passage by which i had entered. on one side of it she had two well- arranged rooms. in that in which she lived she set before me oranges, figs, peaches, and grapes; and i enjoyed with great gusto both the fruits of foreign lands and those of our own not yet in season. confectionery there was in profusion: she filled, too, a goblet of polished crystal with foaming wine; but i had no need to drink, as i had refreshed myself with the fruits. "now we will play," said she, and led me into the other room. here all looked like a christmas fair, but such costly and exquisite things were never seen in a christmas booth. there were all kinds of dolls, dolls' clothes, and dolls' furniture; kitchens, parlors, and shops, and single toys innumerable. she led me round to all the glass cases in which these ingenious works were preserved. but she soon closed again the first cases, and said, "that is nothing for you, i know well enough. here," she said, "we could find building- materials, walls and towers, houses, palaces, churches, to put together a great city. but this does not entertain me. we will take something else, which will be amusing to both of us." then she brought out some boxes, in which i saw an army of little soldiers piled one upon the other, of which i must needs confess that i had never seen any thing so beautiful. she did not leave me time to examine them in detail, but took one box under her arm, while i seized the other. "we will go," she said, "to the golden bridge. there one plays best with soldiers: the lances give at once the direction in which the armies are to be opposed to each other." we had now reached the golden, trembling floor; and below me i could hear the waters gurgle and the fishes splash, while i knelt down to range my columns. all, as i now saw, were cavalry. she boasted that she had the queen of the amazons as leader of her female host. i, on the contrary, found achilles and a very stately grecian cavalry. the armies stood facing each other, and nothing could have been seen more beautiful. they were not flat, leaden horsemen like ours; but man and horse were round and solid, and most finely wrought: nor could one conceive how they kept their balance; for they stood of themselves, without a support for their feet. both of us had inspected our hosts with much self-complacency, when she announced the onset. we had found ordnance in our chests; viz., little boxes full of well-polished agate balls. with these we were to fight against each other from a certain distance; while, however, it was an express condition that we should not throw with more force than was necessary to upset the figures, as none of them were to be injured. now the cannonade began on both sides, and at first it succeeded to the satisfaction of us both. but when my adversary observed that i aimed better than she, and might in the end win the victory, which depended on the majority of pieces remaining upright, she came nearer, and her girlish way of throwing had then the desired result. she prostrated a multitude of my best troops, and the more i protested the more eagerly did she throw. this at last vexed me, and i declared that i would do the same. in fact, i not only went nearer, but in my rage threw with much more violence; so that it was not long before a pair of her little centauresses flew in pieces. in her eagerness she did not instantly notice it, but i stood petrified when the broken figures joined together again of themselves: amazon and horse became again one, and also perfectly close, set up a gallop from the golden bridge under the lime- trees, and, running swiftly backwards and forwards, were lost in their career, i know not how, in the direction of the wall. my fair opponent had hardly perceived this, when she broke out into loud weeping and lamentation, and exclaimed that i had caused her an irreparable loss, which was far greater than could be expressed. but i, by this time provoked, was glad to annoy her, and blindly flung a couple of the remaining agate balls with force into the midst of her army. unhappily i hit the queen, who had hitherto, during our regular game, been excepted. she flew in pieces, and her nearest officers were also shivered. but they swiftly set themselves up again, and started off like the others, galloping very merrily about under the lime-trees, and disappearing against the wall. my opponent scolded and abused me; but, being now in full play, i stooped to pick up some agate balls which rolled about upon the golden lances. it was my fierce desire to destroy her whole army. she, on the other hand, not idle, sprang at me, and gave me a box on the ear, which made my head ring. having always heard that a hearty kiss was the proper response to a girl's box of the ear, i took her by the ears, and kissed her repeatedly. but she uttered such a piercing scream as frightened even me. i let her go; and it was fortunate that i did so, for in a moment i knew not what was happening to me. the ground beneath me began to shake and rattle. i soon remarked that the railings again set themselves in motion; but i had no time to consider, nor could i get a footing so as to fly. i feared every instant to be pierced; for the partisans and lances, which had lifted themselves up, were already slitting my clothes. it is sufficient to say, that, i know not how it was, hearing and sight failed me; and i recovered from my swoon and terror at the foot of a lime-tree, against which the pikes in springing up had thrown me. as i awoke, my anger awakened also, and violently increased when i heard from the other side the gibes and laughter of my opponent, who had probably reached the earth somewhat more softly than i. therefore i jumped up; and as i saw the little host with its leader achilles scattered around me, having been driven over with me by the rising of the rails, i seized the hero first, and threw him against a tree. his resuscitation and flight now pleased me doubly, a malicious pleasure combining with the prettiest sight in the world; and i was on the point of sending all the other greeks after him, when suddenly hissing waters spurted at me on all sides, from stones and wall, from ground and branches, and, wherever i turned, dashed against me crossways. in a short time my light garment was wet through. it was already rent, and i did not hesitate to tear it entirely off my body. i cast away my slippers, and one covering after another. nay, at last i found it very agreeable to let such a shower-bath play over me in the warm day. now, being quite naked, i walked gravely along between these welcome waters, where i thought to enjoy myself for some time. my anger cooled, and i wished for nothing more than a reconciliation with my little adversary. but, in a twinkling, the water stopped; and i stood drenched upon the saturated ground. the presence of the old man, who appeared before me unexpectedly, was by no means welcome. i could have wished, if not to hide, at least to clothe, myself. the shame, the shivering, the effort to cover myself in some degree, made me cut a most piteous figure. the old man employed the moment in venting the severest reproaches against me. "what hinders me," he exclaimed, "from taking one of the green cords, and fitting it, if not to your neck, to your back?" this threat i took in very ill part. "refrain," i cried, "from such words, even from such thoughts; for otherwise you and your mistresses will be lost."--" who, then, are you," he asked in defiance, "who dare speak thus?"--"a favorite of the gods," i said, "on whom it depends whether those ladies shall find worthy husbands and pass a happy life, or be left to pine and wither in their magic cell." the old man stepped some paces back. "who has revealed that to you?" he inquired, with astonishment and concern. "three apples," i said, "three jewels."--"and what reward do you require?" he exclaimed. "before all things, the little creature," i replied, "who has brought me into this accursed state." the old man cast himself down before me, without shrinking from the wet and miry soil: then he rose without being wetted, took me kindly by the hand, led me into the hall, clad me again quickly; and i was soon once more decked out and frizzled in my sunday fashion as before. the porter did not speak another word; but, before he let me pass the entrance, he stopped me, and showed me some objects on the wall over the way, while, at the same time, he pointed backwards to the door. i understood him: he wished to imprint the objects on my mind, that i might the more certainly find the door, which had unexpectedly closed behind me. i now took good notice of what was opposite me. above a high wall rose the boughs of extremely old nut-trees, and partly covered the cornice at the top. the branches reached down to a stone tablet, the ornamented border of which i could perfectly recognize, though i could not read the inscription. it rested on the top-stone of a niche, in which a finely wrought fountain poured water from cup to cup into a great basin, that formed, as it were, a little pond, and disappeared in the earth. fountain, inscription, nut-trees, all stood perpendicularly, one above another: i would paint it as i saw it. now, it may well be conceived how i passed this evening, and many following days, and how often i repeated to myself this story, which even i could hardly believe. as soon as it was in any degree possible, i went again to the bad wall, at least to refresh my remembrance of these signs, and to look at the precious door. but, to my great amazement, i found all changed. nut-trees, indeed, overtopped the wall; but they did not stand immediately in contact. a tablet also was inserted in the wall, but far to the right of the trees, without ornament, and with a legible inscription. a niche with a fountain was found far to the left, but with no resemblance whatever to that which i had seen; so that i almost believed that the second adventure was, like the first, a dream, for of the door there is not the slightest trace. the only thing that consoles me is the observation, that these three objects seem always to change their places. for, in repeated visits to the spot, i think i have noticed that the nut-trees have moved somewhat nearer together, and that the tablet and the fountain seem likewise to approach each other. probably, when all is brought together again, the door, too, will once more be visible; and i will do my best to take up the thread of the adventure. whether i shall be able to tell you what further happens, or whether i shall be expressly forbidden to do so, i cannot say. this tale, of the truth of which my playfellows vehemently strove to convince themselves, received great applause. each of them visited alone the place described, without confiding it to me or the others, and discovered the nut-trees, the tablet, and the spring, though always at a distance from each other; as they at last confessed to me afterwards, because it is not easy to conceal a secret at that early age. but here the contest first arose. one asserted that the objects did not stir from the spot, and always maintained the same distance; a second averred that they did move, and that, too, away from each other; a third agreed with the latter as to the first point of their moving, though it seemed to him that the nut-trees, tablet, and fountain rather drew near together; while a fourth had something still more wonderful to announce, which was, that the nut-trees were in the middle, but that the tablet and the fountain were on sides opposite to those which i had stated. with respect to the traces of the little door, they also varied. and thus they furnished me an early instance of the contradictory views men can hold and maintain in regard to matters quite simple and easily cleared up. as i obstinately refused the continuation of my tale, a repetition of the first part was often desired. i took good care not to change the circumstances much; and, by the uniformity of the narrative, i converted the fable into truth in the minds of my hearers. yet i was averse to falsehood and dissimulation, and altogether by no means frivolous. rather, on the contrary, the inward earnestness, with which i had early begun to consider myself and the world, was seen, even in my exterior; and i was frequently called to account, often in a friendly way, and often in raillery, for a certain dignity which i had assumed. for, although good and chosen friends were certainly not wanting to me, we were always a minority against those who found pleasure in assailing us with wanton rudeness, and who indeed often awoke us in no gentle fashion from that legendary and self-complacent dreaming in which we--i by inventing, and my companions by sympathizing- -were too readily absorbed. thus we learned once more, that, instead of sinking into effeminacy and fantastic delights, there was reason rather for hardening ourselves, in order either to bear or to counteract inevitable evils. among the stoical exercises which i cultivated, as earnestly as it was possible for a lad, was even the endurance of bodily pain. our teachers often treated us very unkindly and unskilfully, with blows and cuffs, against which we hardened ourselves all the more as obstinacy was forbidden under the severest penalties. a great many of the sports of youth depend on a rivalry in such endurances: as, for instance, when they strike each other alternately with two fingers or the whole fist, till the limbs are numbed; or when they bear the penalty of blows incurred in certain games, with more or less firmness; when, in wrestling or scuffling, they do not let themselves be perplexed by the pinches of a half-conquered opponent; or, finally, when they suppress the pain inflicted for the sake of teasing, and even treat with indifference the nips and ticklings with which young persons are so active toward each other. thus we gain a great advantage, of which others cannot speedily deprive us. but, as i made a sort of boast of this impassiveness, the importunity of the others was increased; and, since rude barbarity knows no limits, it managed to force me beyond my bounds. let one case suffice for several. it happened once that the teacher did not come for the usual hour of instruction. as long as we children were all together, we entertained ourselves quite agreeably; but when my adherents, after waiting long enough, had left, and i remained alone with three of my enemies, these took it into their heads to torment me, to shame me, and to drive me away. having left me an instant in the room, they came back with switches, which they had made by quickly cutting up a broom. i noted their design; and, as i supposed the end of the hour near, i at once resolved not to resist them till the clock struck. they began, therefore, without remorse, to lash my legs and calves in the cruellest fashion. i did not stir, but soon felt that i had miscalculated, and that such pain greatly lengthened the minutes. my wrath grew with my endurance; and, at the first stroke of the hour, i grasped the one who least expected it by the hair behind, hurled him to the earth in an instant, pressing my knee upon his back; the second, a younger and weaker one, who attacked me from behind, i drew by the head under my arm, and almost throttled him with the pressure. the last, and not the weakest, still remained; and my left hand only was left for my defense. but i seized him by the clothes; and, with a dexterous twist on my part and an over-precipitate one on his, i brought him down and struck his face on the ground. they were not wanting in bites, pinches, and kicks; but i had nothing but revenge in my limbs as well as in my heart. with the advantage which i had acquired, i repeatedly knocked their heads together. at last they raised a dreadful shout of murder, and we were soon surrounded by all the inmates of the house. the switches scattered around, and my legs, which i had bared of the stockings, soon bore witness for me. they put off the punishment, and let me leave the house; but i declared, that in future, on the slightest offence, i would scratch out the eyes, tear off the ears, of any one of them, if not throttle him. though, as usually happens in childish affairs, this event was soon forgotten, and even laughed at, it was the cause that these joint instructions became fewer, and at last entirely ceased. i was thus again, as formerly, kept more at home; where i found my sister cornelia, who was only one year younger than myself, a companion always growing more agreeable. still, i will not leave this topic without telling some more stories of the many vexations caused me by my playfellows; for this is the instructive part of such moral communications, that a man may learn how it has gone with others, and what he also has to expect from life; and that, whatever comes to pass, he may consider that it happens to him as a man, and not as one specially fortunate or unfortunate. if such knowledge is of little use for avoiding evils, it is very serviceable so far as it qualifies us to understand our condition, and bear or even to overcome it. another general remark will not be out of place here, which is, that, as the children of the cultivated classes grow up, a great contradiction appears. i refer to the fact, that they are urged and trained by parents and teachers to deport themselves moderately, intelligently, and even wisely; to give pain to no one from petulance or arrogance; and to suppress all the evil impulses which may be developed in them; but yet, on the other hand, while the young creatures are engaged in this discipline, they have to suffer from others that which in them is reprimanded and punished. in this way the poor things are brought into a sad strait between the natural and civilized states, and, after restraining themselves for a while, break out, according to their characters, into cunning or violence. force may be warded off by force; but a well-disposed child, inclined to love and sympathy, has little to oppose to scorn and ill-will. though i managed pretty well to keep off the assaults of my companions, i was by no means equal to them in sarcasm and abuse; because he who merely defends himself in such cases is always a loser. attacks of this sort consequently, when they went so far as to excite anger, were repelled with physical force, or at least excited strange reflections in me which could not be without results. among other advantages which my ill- wishers saw with envy, was the pleasure i took in the relations that accrued to the family from my grandfather's position of /schultheiss/; since, as he was the first of his class, this had no small effect on those belonging to him. once when, after the holding of the piper's court, i appeared to pride myself on having seen my grandfather in the midst of the council, one step higher than the rest, enthroned, as it were, under the portrait of the emperor, one of the boys said to me in derision, that, like the peacock contemplating his feet, i should cast my eyes back to my paternal grandfather, who had been keeper of the willow inn, and would never have aspired to thrones and coronets. i replied, that i was in no wise ashamed of that, as it was the glory and honor of our native city that all its citizens might consider each other equal, and every one derive profit and honor from his exertions in his own way. i was sorry only that the good man had been so long dead; for i had often yearned to know him in person, had many times gazed upon his likeness, nay, had visited his tomb, and had at least derived pleasure from the inscription on the simple monument of that past existence to which i was indebted for my own. another ill- wisher, who was the most malicious of all, took the first aside, and whispered something in his ear; while they still looked at me scornfully. my gall already began to rise, and i challenged them to speak out. "what is more, then, if you will have it," continued the first, "this one thinks you might go looking about a long time before you could find your grandfather." i now threatened them more vehemently if they did not more clearly explain themselves. thereupon they brought forward an old story, which they pretended to have overheard from their parents, that my father was the son of some eminent man, while that good citizen had shown himself willing to take outwardly the paternal office. they had the impudence to produce all sorts of arguments: as, for example, that our property came exclusively from our grandmother; that the other collateral relations who lived in friedburg and other places were alike destitute of property; and other reasons of the sort, which could merely derive their weight from malice. i listened to them more composedly than they expected, for they stood ready to fly the very moment that i should make a gesture as if i would seize their hair. but i replied quite calmly, and in substance, "that even this was no great injury to me. life was such a boon, that one might be quite indifferent as to whom one had to thank for it; since at least it must be derived from god, before whom we all were equals." as they could make nothing of it, they let the matter drop for this time: we went on playing together as before, which among children is an approved mode of reconciliation. still, these spiteful words inoculated me with a sort of moral disease, which crept on in secret. it would not have displeased me at all to have been the grandson of any person of consideration, even if it had not been in the most lawful way. my acuteness followed up the scent, my imagination was excited, and my sagacity put in requisition. i began to investigate the allegation, and invented or found for it new grounds of probability. i had heard little said of my grandfather, except that his likeness, together with my grandmother's, had hung in a parlor of the old house; both of which, after the building of the new one, had been kept in an upper chamber. my grandmother must have been a very handsome woman, and of the same age as her husband. i remembered also to have seen in her room the miniature of a handsome gentleman in uniform, with star and order, which after her death, and during the confusion of house-building, had disappeared, with many other small pieces of furniture. these and many other things i put together in my childish head, and exercised that modern poetical talent which contrives to obtain the sympathies of the whole cultivated world by a marvellous combination of the important events of human life. but as i did not venture to trust such an affair to any one, or even to ask the most remote questions concerning it, i was not wanting in a secret diligence, in order to get, if possible, somewhat nearer to the matter. i had heard it explicitly maintained, that sons often bore a decided resemblance to their fathers or grandfathers. many of our friends, especially councillor schneider, a friend of the family, were connected by business with all the princes and noblemen of the neighborhood, of whom, including both the ruling and the younger branches, not a few had estates on the rhine and main, and in the intermediate country, and who at times honored their faithful agents with their portraits. these, which i had often seen on the walls from my infancy, i now regarded with redoubled attention; seeking whether i could not detect some resemblance to my father or even to myself, which too often happened to lead me to any degree of certainty. for now it was the eyes of this, now the nose of that, which seemed to indicate some relationship. thus these marks led me delusively backward and forward: and though in the end i was compelled to regard the reproach as a completely empty tale, the impression remained; and i could not from time to time refrain from privately calling up and testing all the noblemen whose images had remained very distinct in my imagination. so true is it that whatever inwardly confirms man in his self-conceit, or flatters his secret vanity, is so highly desirable to him, that he does not ask further, whether in other respects it may turn to his honor or disgrace. but, instead of mingling here serious and even reproachful reflections, i rather turn my look away from those beautiful times; for who is able to speak worthily of the fulness of childhood? we cannot behold the little creatures which flit about before us otherwise than with delight, nay, with admiration; for they generally promise more than they perform: and it seems that nature, among the other roguish tricks that she plays us, here also especially designs to make sport of us. the first organs she bestows upon children coming into the world, are adapted to the nearest immediate condition of the creature, which, unassuming and artless, makes use of them in the readiest way for its present purposes. the child, considered in and for himself, with his equals, and in relations suited to his powers, seems so intelligent and rational, and at the same time so easy, cheerful, and clever, that one can hardly wish it further cultivation. if children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses; but growth is not merely development: the various organic systems which constitute one man spring one from another, follow each other, change into each other, supplant each other, and even consume each other; so that after a time scarcely a trace is to be found of many aptitudes and manifestations of ability. even when the talents of the man have on the whole a decided direction, it will be hard for the greatest and most experienced connoisseur to declare them beforehand with confidence; although afterwards it is easy to remark what has pointed to a future. by no means, therefore, is it my design wholly to comprise the stories of my childhood in these first books; but i will rather afterwards resume and continue many a thread which ran through the early years unnoticed. here, however, i must remark what an increasing influence the incidents of the war gradually exercised upon our sentiments and mode of life. the peaceful citizen stands in a wonderful relation to the great events of the world. they already excite and disquiet him from a distance; and, even if they do not touch him, he can scarcely refrain from an opinion and a sympathy. soon he takes a side, as his character or external circumstances may determine. but when such grand fatalities, such important changes, draw nearer to him, then with many outward inconveniences remains that inward discomfort, which doubles and sharpens the evil, and destroys the good which is still possible. then he has really to suffer from friends and foes, often more from the former than from the latter; and he knows not how to secure and preserve either his interests or his inclinations. the year , which still passed in perfectly civic tranquillity, kept us, nevertheless, in great uneasiness of mind. perhaps no other was more fruitful of events than this. conquests, achievements, misfortunes, restorations, followed one upon another, swallowed up and seemed to destroy each other; yet the image of frederick, his name and glory, soon hovered again above all. the enthusiasm of his worshippers grew always stronger and more animated; the hatred of his enemies more bitter; and the diversity of opinion, which separated even families, contributed not a little to isolate citizens, already sundered in many ways and on other grounds. for in a city like frankfort, where three religions divide the inhabitants into three unequal masses; where only a few men, even of the ruling faith, can attain to political power,--there must be many wealthy and educated persons who are thrown back upon themselves, and, by means of studies and tastes, form for themselves an individual and secluded existence. it will be necessary for us to speak of such men, now and hereafter, if we are to bring before us the peculiarities of a frankfort citizen of that time. my father, immediately after his return from his travels, had in his own way formed the design, that, to prepare himself for the service of the city, he would undertake one of the subordinate offices, and discharge its duties without emolument, if it wore conferred upon him without balloting. in the consciousness of his good intentions, and according to his way of thinking and the conception he had of himself, he believed that he deserved such a distinction, which, indeed, was not conformable to law or precedent. consequently, when his suit was rejected, he fell into ill humor and disgust, vowed that he would never accept of any place, and, in order to render it impossible, procured the title of imperial councillor, which the /schultheiss/ and elder /schöffen/ bear as a special honor. he had thus made himself an equal of the highest, and could not begin again at the bottom. the same impulse induced him also to woo the eldest daughter of the /schultheiss/, so that he was excluded from the council on this side also. he was now of that number of recluses who never form themselves into a society. they are as much isolated in respect to each other as they are in regard to the whole, and the more so as in this seclusion the character becomes more and more uncouth. my father, in his travels and in the world which he had seen, might have formed some conception of a more elegant and liberal mode of life than was, perhaps, common among his fellow-citizens. in this respect, however, he was not entirely without predecessors and associates. the name of uffenbach is well known. at that time, there was a schöff von uffenbach, who was generally respected. he had been in italy; had applied himself particularly to music; sang an agreeable tenor; and, having brought home a fine collection of pieces, concerts and oratorios were performed at his house. now, as he sang in these himself, and held musicians in great favor, it was not thought altogether suitable to his dignity; and his invited guests, as well as the other people of the country, allowed themselves many a jocose remark on the matter. i remember, too, a baron von hakel, a rich nobleman, who, being married, but childless, occupied a charming house in the antonius street, fitted up with all the appurtenances of a dignified position in life. he also possessed good pictures, engravings, antiques, and much else which generally accumulates with collectors and lovers of art. from time to time he asked the more noted personages to dinner, and was beneficent in a careful way of his own; since he clothed the poor in his own house, but kept back their old rags, and gave them a weekly charity, on condition that they should present themselves every time clean and neat in the clothes bestowed on them. i can recall him but indistinctly, as a genial, well-made man; but more clearly his auction, which i attended from beginning to end, and, partly by command of my father, partly from my own impulse, purchased many things that are still to be found in my collections. at an earlier date than this,--so early that i scarcely set eyes upon him,--john michael von loen gained considerable repute in the literary world as well as at frankfort. not a native of frankfort, he settled there, and married a sister of my grandmother textor, whose maiden name was lindheim. familiar with the court and political world, and rejoicing in a renewed title of nobility, he had acquired reputation by daring to take part in the various excitements which arose in church and state. he wrote "the count of rivera," a didactic romance, the subject of which is made apparent by the second title, "or, the honest man at court." this work was well received, because it insisted on morality, even in courts, where prudence only is generally at home; and thus his labor brought him applause and respect. a second work, for that very reason, would be accompanied by more danger. he wrote "the only true religion," a book designed to advance tolerance, especially between lutherans and calvinists. but here he got in a controversy with the theologians: one dr. benner of giessen, in particular, wrote against him. von loen rejoined; the contest grew violent and personal, and the unpleasantness which arose from it caused him to accept the office of president at lingen, which frederick ii. offered him; supposing that he was an enlightened, unprejudiced man, and not averse to the new views that more extensively obtained in france. his former countrymen, whom he had left in some displeasure, averred that he was not contented there, nay, could not be so, as a place like lingen was not to be compared with frankfort. my father also doubted whether the president would be happy, and asserted that the good uncle would have done better not to connect himself with the king, as it was generally hazardous to get too near him, extraordinary sovereign as he undoubtedly was; for it had been seen how disgracefully the famous voltaire had been arrested in frankfort, at the requisition of the prussian resident freitag, though he had formerly stood so high in favor, and had been regarded as the king's teacher in french poetry. there was, on such occasions, no want of reflections and examples to warn one against courts and princes' service, of which a native frankforter could scarcely form a conception. an excellent man, dr. orth, i will only mention by name; because here i have not so much to erect a monument to the deserving citizens of frankfort, but rather refer to them only in as far as their renown or personal character had some influence upon me in my earliest years. dr. orth was a wealthy man, and was also of that number who never took part in the government, although perfectly qualified to do so by his knowledge and penetration. the antiquities of germany, and more especially of frankfort, have been much indebted to him: he published remarks on the so-called "reformation of frankfort," a work in which the statutes of the state are collected. the historical portions of this book i diligently read in my youth. von ochsenstein, the eldest of the three brothers whom i have mentioned above as our neighbors, had not been remarkable during his lifetime, in consequence of his recluse habits, but became the more remarkable after his death, by leaving behind him a direction that common workingmen should carry him to the grave, early in the morning, in perfect silence, and without an attendant or follower. this was done; and the affair caused great excitement in the city, where they were accustomed to the most pompous funerals. all who discharged the customary offices on such occasions rose against the innovation. but the stout patrician found imitators in all classes; and, though such ceremonies were derisively called ox-burials,[footnote: a pun upon the name of ochsenstein.-- trans.] they came into fashion, to the advantage of many of the more poorly provided families; while funeral parades were less and less in vogue. i bring forward this circumstance, because it presents one of the earlier symptoms of that tendency to humility and equality, which, in the second half of the last century, was manifested in so many ways, from above downward, and broke out in such unlooked-for effects. nor was there any lack of antiquarian amateurs. there were cabinets of pictures, collections of engravings; while the curiosities of our own country especially were zealously sought and hoarded. the older decrees and mandates of the imperial city, of which no collection had been prepared, were carefully searched for in print and manuscript, arranged in the order of time, and preserved with reverence, as a treasure of native laws and customs. the portraits of frankforters, which existed in great number, were also brought together, and formed a special department of the cabinets. such men my father appears generally to have taken as his models. he was wanting in none of the qualities that pertain to an upright and respectable citizen. thus, after he had built his house, he put his property of every sort into order. an excellent collection of maps by schenck and other geographers at that time eminent, the aforesaid decrees and mandates, the portraits, a chest of ancient weapons, a case of remarkable venetian glasses, cups and goblets, natural curiosities, works in ivory, bronzes, and a hundred other things, were separated and displayed; and i did not fail, whenever an auction occurred, to get some commission for the increase of his possessions. i must still speak of one important family, of which i had heard strange things since my earliest years, and of some of whose members i myself lived to see a great deal that was wonderful,--i mean the senkenbergs. the father, of whom i have little to say, was an opulent man. he had three sons, who, even in their youth, uniformly distinguished themselves as oddities. such things are not well received in a limited city, where no one is suffered to render himself conspicuous, either for good or evil. nicknames and odd stories, long kept in memory, are generally the fruit of such singularity. the father lived at the corner of hare street (/hasengasse/), which took its name from a sign on the house, that represented one hare at least, if not three hares. they consequently called these three brothers only the three hares, which nickname they could not shake off for a long while. but as great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness, so was it also in this case. the eldest of the brothers was the /reichshofrath/ (imperial councillor) von senkenberg, afterwards so celebrated. the second was admitted into the magistracy, and displayed eminent abilities, which, however, he subsequently abused in a pettifogging and even infamous way, if not to the injury of his native city, certainty to that of his colleagues. the third brother, a physician and man of great integrity, but who practised little, and that only in high families, preserved even in his old age a somewhat whimsical exterior. he was always very neatly dressed, and was never seen in the street otherwise than in shoes and stockings, with a well- powdered, curled wig, and his hat under his arm. he walked on rapidly, but with a singular sort of stagger; so that he was sometimes on one and sometimes on the other side of the way, and formed a complete zigzag as he went. the wags said that he made this irregular step to get out of the way of the departed souls, who might follow him in a straight line, and that he imitated those who are afraid of a crocodile. but all these jests and many merry sayings were transformed at last into respect for him, when he devoted his handsome dwelling-house in eschenheimer street, with court, garden, and all other appurtenances, to a medical establishment, where, in addition to a hospital designed exclusively for the citizens of frankfort, a botanic garden, an anatomical theatre, a chemical laboratory, a considerable library, and a house for the director, were instituted in a way of which no university need have been ashamed. another eminent man, whose efficiency in the neighborhood and whose writings, rather than his presence, had a very important influence upon me, was charles frederick von moser, who was perpetually referred to in our district for his activity in business. he also had a character essentially moral, which, as the vices of human nature frequently gave him trouble, inclined him to the so-called pious. thus, what von loen had tried to do in respect to court-life, he would have done for business-life; introducing into it a more conscientious mode of proceeding. the great number of small german courts gave rise to a multitude of princes and servants, the former of whom desired unconditional obedience; while the latter, for the most part, would work or serve only according to their own convictions. thus arose an endless conflict, and rapid changes and explosions; because the effects of an unrestricted course of proceeding become much sooner noticeable and injurious on a small scale than on a large one. many families were in debt, and imperial commissions of debts were appointed; others found themselves sooner or later on the same road: while the officers either reaped an unconscionable profit, or conscientiously made themselves disagreeable and odious. moser wished to act as a statesman and man of business; and here his hereditary talent, cultivated to a profession, gave him a decided advantage: but he at the same time wished to act as a man and a citizen, and surrender as little as possible of his moral dignity. his "prince and servant," his "daniel in the lions' den," his "relics," paint throughout his own condition, in which he felt himself, not indeed tortured, but always cramped. they all indicate impatience in a condition, to the bearings of which one cannot reconcile one's self, yet from which one cannot get free. with this mode of thinking and feeling, he was, indeed, often compelled to seek other employments, which, on account of his great cleverness, were never wanting. i remember him as a pleasing, active, and, at the same time, gentle man. the name of klopstock had already produced a great effect upon us, even at a distance. in the outset, people wondered how so excellent a man could be so strangely named; but they soon got accustomed to this, and thought no more of the meaning of the syllables. in my father's library i had hitherto found only the earlier poets, especially those who in his day had gradually appeared and acquired fame. all these had written in rhyme, and my father held rhyme as indispensable in poetical works. canitz, hagedorn, drollinger, gellert creuz, haller, stood in a row, in handsome calf bindings: to these were added neukirch's "telemachus," koppen's "jerusalem delivered," and other translations. i had from my childhood diligently perused the whole of these works, and committed portions of them to memory, whence i was often called upon to amuse the company. a vexatious era on the other hand opened upon my father, when, through klopstock's "messiah," verses, which seemed to him no verses, became an object of public admiration.[footnote: the messiah is written in hexameter verse.--trans.] he had taken good care not to buy this book; but the friend of the family, councillor schneider, smuggled it in, and slipped it into the hands of my mother and her children. on this man of business, who read but little, "the messiah," as soon as it appeared, made a powerful impression. those pious feelings, so naturally expressed, and yet so beautifully elevated; that pleasant diction, even if considered merely as harmonious prose,--had so won the otherwise dry man of business, that he regarded the first ten cantos, of which alone we are properly speaking, as the finest book of devotion, and once every year in passion week, when he managed to escape from business, read it quietly through by himself, and thus refreshed himself for the entire year. in the beginning he thought to communicate his emotions to his old friend; but he was much shocked when forced to perceive an incurable dislike cherished against a book of such valuable substance, merely because of what appeared to him an indifferent external form. it may readily be supposed that their conversation often reverted to this topic; but both parties diverged more and more widely from each other, there were violent scenes: and the compliant man was at last pleased to be silent on his favorite work, that he might not lose, at the same time, a friend of his youth, and a good sunday meal. it is the most natural wish of every man to make proselytes; and how much did our friend find himself rewarded in secret, when he discovered in the rest of the family hearts so openly disposed for his saint. the copy which he used only one week during the year was given over to our edification all the remaining time. my mother kept it secret; and we children took possession of it when we could, that in leisure hours, hidden in some nook, we might learn the most striking passages by heart, and particularly might impress the most tender as well as the most violent parts on our memory as quickly as possible. porcia's dream we recited in a sort of rivalry, and divided between us the wild dialogue of despair between satan and adramelech, who have been cast into the red sea. the first part, as the strongest, had been assigned to me; and the second, as a little more pathetic, was undertaken by my sister. the alternate and horrible but well-sounding curses flowed only thus from our mouths, and we seized every opportunity to accost each other with these infernal phrases. one saturday evening in winter,--my father always had himself shaved over night, that on sunday morning he might dress for church at his ease,--we sat on a footstool behind the stove, and muttered our customary imprecations in a tolerably low voice, while the barber was putting on the lather. but now adramelech had to lay his iron hands on satan: my sister seized me with violence, and recited, softly enough, but with increasing passion,-- "give me thine aid, i entreat thee: i'll worship thee if thou demandest, thee, thou reprobate monster, yes, thee, of all criminals blackest! aid me. i suffer the tortures of death, everlasting, avenging! once, in the times gone by, i with furious hatred could hate thee: now i can hate thee no more! e'en this is the sharpest of tortures." thus far all went on tolerably; but loudly, with a dreadful voice, she cried the following words:-- "oh, how utterly crushed i am now!" the good surgeon was startled, and emptied the lather-basin into my father's bosom. there was a great uproar; and a severe investigation was held, especially with respect to the mischief which might have been done if the shaving had been actually going forward. in order to relieve ourselves of all suspicions of mischievousness, we pleaded guilty of having acted these satanic characters; and the misfortune occasioned by the hexameters was so apparent, that they were again condemned and banished. thus children and common people are accustomed to transform the great and sublime into a sport, and even a farce; and how indeed could they otherwise abide and endure it? third book. at that time the general interchange of personal good wishes made the city very lively on new-year's day. those who otherwise did not easily leave home, donned their best clothes, that for a moment they might be friendly and courteous to their friends and patrons. the festivities at my grandfather's house on this day were pleasures particularly desired by us children. at early dawn the grandchildren had already assembled there to hear the drums, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, and cornets played upon by the military, the city musicians, and whoever else might furnish his tones. the new-year's gifts, sealed and superscribed, were divided by us children among the humbler congratulators; and, as the day advanced, the number of those of higher rank increased. the relations and intimate friends appeared first, then the subordinate officials; even the gentlemen of the council did not fail to pay their respects to the /schultheiss/, and a select number were entertained in the evening in rooms which were else scarcely opened throughout the year. the tarts, biscuits, marchpane, and sweet wine had the greatest charm for the children; and, besides, the /schultheiss/ and the two burgomasters annually received from some institutions some article of silver, which was then bestowed upon the grandchildren and godchildren in regular gradation. in fine, this small festival was not wanting in any of those things which usually glorify the greatest. the new-year's day of approached, as desirable and pleasant to us children as any preceding one, but full of import and foreboding to older persons. to the passage of the french troops people certainly had become accustomed; and they happened often, but they had been most frequent in the last days of the past year. according to the old usage of an imperial town, the warder of the chief tower sounded his trumpet whenever troops approached; and on this new-year's day he would not leave off, which was a sign that large bodies were in motion on several sides. they actually marched through the city in greater masses on this day, and the people ran to see them pass by. we had generally been used to see them go through in small parties; but these gradually swelled, and there was neither power nor inclination to stop them. in short, on the d of january, after a column had come through sachsenhausen over the bridge, through the fahrgasse, as far as the police guard-house, it halted, overpowered the small company which escorted it, took possession of the before-mentioned guard-house, marched down the zeil, and, after a slight resistance, the main guard were also obliged to yield. in a moment the peaceful streets were turned into a scene of war. the troops remained and bivouacked there until lodgings were provided for them by regular billeting. this unexpected, and, for many years, unheard-of, burden weighed heavily upon the comfortable citizens; and to none could it be more cumbersome than to my father, who was obliged to take foreign military inhabitants into his scarcely finished house, to open for them his well-furnished reception-rooms, which were generally closed, and to abandon to the caprices of strangers all that he had been used to arrange and keep so carefully. siding as he did with the prussians, he was now to find himself besieged in his own chambers by the french: it was, according to his way of thinking, the greatest misfortune that could happen to him. had it, however, been possible for him to have taken the matter more easily, he might have saved himself and us many sad hours; since he spoke french well, and could deport himself with dignity and grace in the daily intercourse of life. for it was the king's lieutenant who was quartered on us; and he, although a military person, had only to settle civil occurrences, disputes between soldiers and citizens, and questions of debt and quarrels. this was the count thorane, a native of grasse in provence, not far from antibes: a tall, thin, stern figure, with a face much disfigured by the small-pox; black, fiery eyes; and a dignified, reserved demeanor. his first entrance was at once favorable for the inmates of the house. they spoke of the different apartments, some of which were to be given up, and others retained by the family; and, when the count heard a picture-room mentioned, he immediately requested permission, although it was already night, at least to give a hasty look at the pictures by candlelight. he took extreme pleasure in these things, behaved in the most obliging manner to my father, who accompanied him; and when he heard that the greater part of the artists were still living, and resided in frankfurt and its neighborhood, he assured us that he desired nothing more than to know them as soon as possible, and to employ them. but even this sympathy in respect to art could not change my father's feelings nor bend his character. he permitted what he could not prevent, but kept at a distance in inactivity; and the uncommon state of things around him was intolerable to him, even in the veriest trifle. count thorane behaved himself, meanwhile, in an exemplary manner. he would not even have his maps nailed on the walls, that he might not injure the new hangings. his people were skilful, quiet, and orderly: but in truth, as, during the whole day and a part of the night there was no quiet with him, one complainant quickly following another, arrested persons being brought in and led out, and all officers and adjutants being admitted to his presence,--as, moreover, the count kept an open table every day, it made, in the moderately sized house, arranged only for a family, and with but one open staircase running from top to bottom, a movement and a buzzing like that in a beehive; although every thing was managed with moderation, gravity, and severity. as mediator between the irritable master of the house--who became daily more of a hypochondriac self-tormentor--and his well-intentioned, but stern and precise, military guest, there was a pleasant interpreter, a handsome, corpulent, lively man, who was a citizen of frankfort, spoke french well, knew how to adapt himself to every thing, and only made a jest of many little annoyances. through him my mother had sent to the count a representation of the situation in which she was placed, owing to her husband's state of mind. he had explained the matter so skilfully,--had laid before him the new and scarcely furnished house, the natural reserve of the owner, his occupation in the education of his family, and all that could be said to the same effect,--that the count, who in his capacity took the greatest pride in the utmost justice, integrity, and honorable conduct, resolved here also to behave in an exemplary manner to those upon whom he was quartered, and, indeed, never swerved from this resolution under varying circumstances, during the several years he staid with us. my mother possessed some knowledge of italian, a language not altogether unknown to any of the family: she therefore resolved to learn french immediately; for which purpose the interpreter, for whose child she had stood godmother during these stormy times, and who now, therefore, as a gossip,[footnote: the obsolete word, "gossip," has been revived as an equivalent for the german, "/gevatter/." but it should be observed that this word not only signifies godfather, but that the person whose child has another person for godfather (or godmother) is that person's /gevatter/, or /gevatterin/ (feminine).] felt a redoubled interest in our house, devoted every spare moment to his child's godmother (for he lived directly opposite); and, above all, he taught her those phrases which she would be obliged to use in her personal intercourse with the count. this succeeded admirably. the count was flattered by the pains taken by the mistress of the house at her age: and as he had a cheerful, witty vein in his character, and he liked to exhibit a certain dry gallantry, a most friendly relation arose between them; and the allied godmother and father could obtain from him whatever they wanted. if, as i said before, it had been possible to cheer up my father, this altered state of things would have caused little inconvenience. the count practised the severest disinterestedness; he even declined receiving gifts which pertained to his situation; the most trifling thing which could have borne the appearance of bribery, he rejected angrily, and even punished. his people were most strictly forbidden to put the proprietor of the house to the least expense. we children, on the contrary, were bountifully supplied from the dessert. to give an idea of the simplicity of those times, i must take this opportunity to mention that my mother grieved us excessively one day, by throwing away the ices which had been sent us from the table, because she would not believe it possible for the stomach to bear real ice, however it might be sweetened. besides these dainties, which we gradually learned to enjoy and to digest with perfect ease, it was very agreeable for us children to be in some measure released from fixed hours of study and strict discipline. my father's ill humor increased: he could not resign himself to the unavoidable. how he tormented himself, my mother, the interpreter, the councillors, and all his friends, only to rid him of the count! in vain they represented to him, that, under existing circumstances, the presence of such a man in the house was an actual benefit, and that the removal of the count would be followed by a constant succession of officers or of privates. none of these arguments had any effect. to him the present seemed so intolerable, that his indignation prevented his conceiving any thing worse that could follow. in this way his activity, which he had been used chiefly to devote to us, was crippled. the lessons he gave us were no longer required with the former exactness; and we tried to gratify our curiosity for military and other public proceedings as much as possible, not only at home, but also in the streets, which was the more easily done, as the front door, open day and night, was guarded by sentries who paid no attention to the running to and fro of restless children. the many affairs which were settled before the tribunal of the royal lieutenant had quite a peculiar charm, from his making it a point to accompany his decisions with some witty, ingenious, or lively turn. what he decreed was strictly just, his manner of expressing it whimsical and piquant. he seemed to have taken the duke of ossuna as his model. scarcely a day passed in which the interpreter did not tell some anecdote or other of this kind to amuse us and my mother. this lively man had made a little collection of such solomonian decisions; but i only remember the general impression, and cannot recall to my mind any particular case. by degrees we became better acquainted with the strange character of the count. this man clearly understood his own peculiarities; and as there were times in which he was seized with a sort of dejection, hypochondria, or by whatever name we may call the evil demon, he withdrew into his room at such hours, which were often lengthened into days, saw no one but his /valet/, and in urgent cases could not even be prevailed upon to receive any one. but, as soon as the evil spirit had left him, he appeared as before, active, mild, and cheerful. it might be inferred from the talk of his /valet/, saint jean, a small, thin man of lively good nature, that in his earlier years he had caused a great misfortune when overcome by this temper; and that, therefore, in so important a position as his, exposed to the eyes of all the world, he had earnestly resolved to avoid similar aberrations. during the very first days of the count's residence with us, all the frankfort artists, as hirt, schütz, trautmann, nothnagel, and junker, were called to him. they showed their finished pictures, and the count bought such as were for sale. my pretty, light room in the gable-end of the attic was given up to him, and immediately turned into a cabinet and studio; for he designed to keep all the artists at work for a long time, especially seekatz of darmstadt, whose pencil, particularly in simple and natural representations, highly pleased him. he therefore caused to be sent from grasse, where his elder brother possessed a handsome house, the dimensions of all the rooms and cabinets; then considered, with the artists, the divisions of the walls, and fixed accordingly upon the size of the large oil-pictures, which were not to be set in frames, but to be fastened upon the walls like pieces of tapestry. and now the work went on zealously. seekatz undertook country scenes, and succeeded extremely well in his old people and children, which were copied directly from nature. his young men did not answer so well,--they were almost all too thin; and his women failed from the opposite cause. for as he had a little, fat, good, but unpleasant-looking, wife, who would let him have no model but herself, he could produce nothing agreeable. he was also obliged to exceed the usual size of his figures. his trees had truth, but the foliage was over minute. he was a pupil of brinkmann, whose pencil in easel pictures is not contemptible. schütz, the landscape painter, had perhaps the best of the matter. he was thoroughly master of the rhine country, and of the sunny tone which animates it in the fine season. nor was he entirely unaccustomed to work on a larger scale, and then he showed no want of execution or keeping. his paintings were of a cheerful cast. trautmann /rembrandtized/ some resurrection miracles out of the new testament, and alongside of them set fire to villages and mills. one cabinet was entirely allotted to him, as i found from the designs of the rooms. hirt painted some good oak and beech forests. his cattle were praiseworthy. junker, accustomed to the imitation of the most elaborate dutch, was least able to manage this tapestry-work; but he condescended to ornament many compartments with flowers and fruits for a handsome price. as i had known all these men from my earliest youth, and had often visited them in their studios, and as the count also liked to have me with him, i was present at the suggestions, consultations, and orders, as well as at the deliveries, of the pictures, and ventured to speak my opinion freely when sketches and designs were handed in. i had already gained among amateurs, particularly at auctions, which i attended diligently, the reputation of being able to tell at once what any historical picture represented, whether taken from biblical or profane history, or from mythology; and, even if i did not always hit upon the meaning of allegorical pictures, there was seldom any one present who understood it better than i. often had i persuaded the artists to represent this or that subject, and i now joyfully made use of these advantages. i still remember writing a circumstantial essay, in which i described twelve pictures which were to exhibit the history of joseph: some of them were executed. after these achievements, which were certainly laudable in a boy, i will mention a little disgrace which happened to me within this circle of artists. i was well acquainted with all the pictures which had from time to time been brought into that room. my youthful curiosity left nothing unseen or unexplored. i once found a little black box behind the stove: i did not fail to investigate what might be concealed in it, and drew back the bolt without long deliberation. the picture contained was certainly of a kind not usually exposed to view; and, although i tried to bolt it again immediately, i was not quick enough. the count entered, and caught me. "who allowed you to open that box?" he asked, with all his air of a royal lieutenant. i had not much to say for myself, and he immediately pronounced my sentence in a very stern manner: "for eight days," said he, "you shall not enter this room." i made a bow, and walked out. even this order i obeyed most punctually; so that the good seekatz, who was then at work in the room, was very much annoyed, for he liked to have me about him: and, out of a little spite, i carried my obedience so far, that i left seekatz's coffee, which i generally brought him, upon the threshold. he was then obliged to leave his work and fetch it, which he took so ill, that he well nigh began to dislike me. it now seems necessary to state more circumstantially, and to make intelligible, how, under the circumstances, i made my way with more or less ease through the french language, which, however, i had never learned. here, too, my natural gift was of service to me; enabling me easily to catch the sound of a language, its movement, accent, tone, and all other outward peculiarities. i knew many words from the latin; italian suggested still more; and by listening to servants and soldiers, sentries and visitors, i soon picked up so much, that, if i could not join in conversation, i could at any rate manage single questions and answers. all this, however, was little compared to the profit i derived from the theatre. my grandfather had given me a free ticket, which i used daily, in spite of my father's reluctance, by dint of my mother's support. there i sat in the pit, before a foreign stage, and watched the more narrowly the movement and the expression, both of gesture and speech; as i understood little or nothing of what was said, and therefore could only derive entertainment from the action and the tone of voice. i understood least of comedy; because it was spoken rapidly, and related to the affairs of common life, of the phrases of which i knew nothing. tragedy was not so often played; and the measured step, the rhythm of the alexandrines, the generality of the expression, made it more intelligible to me in every way. it was not long before i took up racine, which i found in my father's library, and declaimed the plays to myself, in the theatrical style and manner, as the organ of my ear, and the organ of speech, so nearly akin to that, had caught it, and this with considerable animation; although i could not yet understand a whole connected speech. i even learned entire passages by rote like a trained talking-bird, which was easier to me, from having previously committed to memory passages from the bible which are generally unintelligible to a child, and accustomed myself to reciting them in the tone of the protestant preachers. the versified french comedy was then much in vogue: the pieces of destouches, marivaux, and la chaussée were often produced; and i still remember distinctly many characteristic figures. of those of molière i recollect less. what made the greatest impression upon me was "the hypermnestra" of lemière, which, as a new piece, was brought out with care and often repeated. "the devin du village," "rose et colas," "annette et lubin," made each a very pleasant impression upon me. i can even now recall the youths and maidens decorated with ribbons, and their gestures. it was not long before the wish arose in me to see the interior of the theatre, for which many opportunities were offered me. for as i had not always patience to stay and listen to the entire plays, and often carried on all sorts of games with other children of my age in the corridors, and in the milder season even before the door, a handsome, lively boy joined us, who belonged to the theatre, and whom i had seen in many little parts, though only casually. he came to a better understanding with me than with the rest, as i could turn my french to account with him; and he the more attached himself to me because there was no boy of his age or his nation at the theatre, or anywhere in the neighborhood. we also went together at other times, as well as during the play; and, even while the representations went on, he seldom left me in peace. he was a most delightful little braggart, chattered away charmingly and incessantly, and could tell so much of his adventures, quarrels, and other strange incidents, that he amused me wonderfully; and i learned from him in four weeks more of the language, and of the power of expressing myself in it, than can be imagined: so that no one knew how i had attained the foreign tongue all at once, as if by inspiration. in the very earliest days of our acquaintance, he took me with him upon the stage, and led me especially to the /foyers/, where the actors and actresses remained during the intervals of the performance, and dressed and undressed. the place was neither convenient nor agreeable; for they had squeezed the theatre into a concert-room, so that there were no separate chambers for the actors behind the stage. a tolerably large room adjoining, which had formerly served for card-parties, was now mostly used by both sexes in common, who appeared to feel as little ashamed before each other as before us children, if there was not always the strictest propriety in putting on or changing the articles of dress. i had never seen any thing of the kind before; and yet from habit, after repeated visits, i soon found it quite natural. it was not long before a very peculiar interest of my own arose. young derones, for so i will call the boy whose acquaintance i still kept up, was, with the exception of his boasting, a youth of good manners and very courteous demeanor. he made me acquainted with his sister, a girl who was a few years older than we were, and a very pleasant, well-grown girl, of regular form, brown complexion, black hair and eyes: her whole deportment had about it something quiet, even sad. i tried to make myself agreeable to her in every way, but i could not attract her notice. young girls think themselves much more advanced than younger boys; and, while aspiring to young men, they assume the manner of an aunt towards the boy whose first inclination is turned towards them.-- with a younger brother of his, i had no acquaintance. sometimes, when their mother had gone to rehearsals, or was out visiting, we met at her house to play and amuse ourselves. i never went there without presenting the fair one with a flower, a fruit, or something else; which she always received very courteously, and thanked me for most politely: but i never saw her sad look brighten, and found no trace of her having given me a further thought. at last i fancied i had discovered her secret. the boy showed me a crayon-drawing of a handsome man, behind his mother's bed, which was hung with elegant silk curtains; remarking at the same time, with a sly look, that this was not papa, but just the same as papa: and as he glorified this man, and told me many things in his circumstantial and ostentatious manner, i thought i had discovered that the daughter might belong to the father, but the other two children to the intimate friend. i thus explained to myself her melancholy look, and loved her for it all the more. my liking for this girl assisted me in bearing the braggadocio of her brother, who did not always keep within bounds. i had often to endure prolix accounts of his exploits,--how he had already often fought, without wishing to injure the other, all for the mere sake of honor. he had always contrived to disarm his adversary, and had then forgiven him; nay, he was such a good fencer, that he was once very much perplexed by striking the sword of his opponent up into a high tree, so that it was not easy to be got again. what much facilitated my visits to the theatre was, that my free ticket, coming from the hands of the /schultheiss/, gave me access to any of the seats, and therefore also to those in the proscenium. this was very deep, after the french style, and was bordered on both sides with seats, which, surrounded by a low rail, ascended in several rows one behind another, so that the first seats were but a little elevated above the stage. the whole was considered a place of special honor, and was generally used only by officers; although the nearness of the actors destroyed, i will not say all illusion, but, in a measure, all enjoyment. i have thus experienced and seen with my own eyes the usage or abuse of which voltaire so much complains. if, when the house was very full at such time as troops were passing through the town, officers of distinction strove for this place of honor, which was generally occupied already, some rows of benches and chairs were placed in the proscenium on the stage itself, and nothing remained for the heroes and heroines but to reveal their secrets in the very limited space between the uniforms and orders. i have even seen the "hypermnestra" performed under such circumstances. the curtain did not fall between the acts: and i must yet mention a strange custom, which i thought quite extraordinary; as its inconsistency with art was to me, as a good german boy, quite unendurable. the theatre was considered the greatest sanctuary, and any disturbance occurring there would have been instantly resented as the highest crime against the majesty of the public. therefore, in all comedies, two grenadiers stood with their arms grounded, in full view, at the two sides of the back scene, and were witnesses of all that occurred in the bosom of the family. since, as i said before, the curtain did not fall between the acts, two others, while music struck up, relieved guard, by coming from the wings, directly in front of the first, who retired in the same measured manner. now, if such a practice was well fitted to destroy all that is called illusion on the stage, it is the more striking, because it was done at a time when, according to diderot's principles and examples, the most /natural naturalness/ was required upon the stage, and a perfect deception was proposed as the proper aim of theatrical art. tragedy, however, was absolved from any such military-police regulations; and the heroes of antiquity had the right of guarding themselves: nevertheless, the same grenadiers stood near enough behind the side scenes. i will also mention that i saw diderot's "father of a family," and "the philosophers" of palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into a raw head of lettuce. all this theatrical variety could not, however, keep us children always in the theatre. in fine weather we played in front of it, and in the neighborhood, and committed all manner of absurdities, which, especially on sundays and festivals, by no means corresponded to our personal appearance; for i and my comrades then appeared dressed as i described myself in the tale, with the hat under the arm, and a little sword, the hilt of which was ornamented with a large silk knot. one day when we had long gone in this way, and derones had joined us, he took it into his head to affirm that i had insulted him, and must give him satisfaction. i could not, in truth, conceive what was the cause of this; but i accepted his challenge, and was going to draw my sword. however, he assured me, that in such cases it was customary to go to secluded spots, in order to be able to settle the matter more conveniently. we therefore went behind some barns, and placed ourselves in the proper position. the duel took place in a somewhat theatrical style,--the blades clashed, and the thrusts followed close upon each other; but in the heat of the combat he remained with the point of his sword lodged in the knot of my hilt. this was pierced through; and he assured me that he had received the most complete satisfaction, then embraced me, also theatrically: and we went to the next coffee-house to refresh ourselves with a glass of almond-milk after our mental agitation, and to knit more closely the old bond of friendship. on this occasion i will relate another adventure which also happened to me at the theatre, although at a later time. i was sitting very quietly in the pit with one of my playmates; and we looked with pleasure at a /pas seul/, which was executed with much skill and grace by a pretty boy about our own age,--the son of a french dancing-master, who was passing through the city. after the fashion of dancers, he was dressed in a close vest of red silk, which, ending in a short hoop- petticoat, like a runner's apron, floated above the knee. we had given our meed of applause to this young artist with the whole public, when, i know not how, it occurred to me to make a moral reflection. i said to my companion, "how handsomely this boy was dressed, and how well he looked! who knows in how tattered a jacket he may sleep to-night!" all had already risen, but the crowd prevented our moving. a woman who had sat by me, and who was now standing close beside me, chanced to be the mother of the young artist, and felt much offended by my reflection. unfortunately, she knew german enough to understand me, and spoke it just as much as was necessary to scold. she abused me violently. who was i, she would like to know, that had a right to doubt the family and respectability of this young man? at all events, she would be bound he was as good as i; and his talents might probably procure him a fortune, of which i could not even venture to dream. this moral lecture she read me in the crowd, and made those about me wonder what rudeness i had committed. as i could neither excuse myself, nor escape from her, i was really embarrassed, and, when she paused for a moment, said without thinking, "well! why do you make such a noise about it?--to-day red, to- morrow dead." [footnote: a german proverb, "heute roth, morgen todt."] these words seemed to strike the woman dumb. she stared at me, and moved away from me as soon as it was in any degree possible. i thought no more of my words; only, some time afterwards, they occurred to me, when the boy, instead of continuing to perform, became ill, and that very dangerously. whether he died, or not, i cannot say. such intimations, by an unseasonably or even improperly spoken word, were held in repute, even by the ancients; and it is very remarkable that the forms of belief and of superstition have always remained the same among all people and in all times. from the first day of the occupation of our city, there was no lack of constant diversion, especially for children and young people. plays and balls, parades, and marches through the town, attracted our attention in all directions. the last particularly were always increasing, and the soldiers' life seemed to us very merry and agreeable. the residence of the king's lieutenant at our house procured us the advantage of seeing by degrees all the distinguished persons in the french army, and especially of beholding close at hand the leaders whose names had already been made known to us by reputation. thus we looked from stairs and landing-places, as if from galleries, very conveniently upon the generals who passed by. more than all the rest do i remember the prince soubise as a handsome, courteous gentleman; but most distinctly, the maréchal de broglio, who was a younger man, not tall, but well built, lively, nimble, and abounding in keen glances, betraying a clever mind. he repeatedly came to see the king's lieutenant, and it was easily noticed that they were conversing on weighty matters. we had scarcely become accustomed to having strangers quartered upon us in the first three months, when a rumor was obscurely circulated that the allies were on the march, and that duke ferdinand of brunswick was coming to drive the french from the main. of these, who could not boast of any special success in war, no high opinion was held; and, after the battle of rossbach, it was thought they might be dispersed. the greatest confidence was placed in duke ferdinand, and all those favorable to prussia awaited with eagerness their delivery from the yoke hitherto borne. my father was in somewhat better spirits: my mother was apprehensive. she was wise enough to see that a small present evil might easily be exchanged for a great affliction; since it was but too plain that the french would not advance to meet the duke, but would wait an attack in the neighborhood of the city. a defeat of the french, a flight, a defense of the city, if it were only to cover their rear and hold the bridge, a bombardment, a sack,--all these presented themselves to the excited imagination, and gave anxiety to both parties. my mother, who could bear every thing but suspense, imparted her fears to the count through the interpreter. she received the answer usual in such cases: she might be quite easy, for there was nothing to fear; and should keep quiet, and mention the matter to no one. many troops passed through the city: we learned that they halted at bergen. the coming and going, the riding and running, constantly increased; and our house was in an uproar day and night. at this time i often saw marshal de broglio, always cheerful, always the same in look and manner; and i was afterwards pleased to find a man, whose form had made such a good and lasting impression upon me, so honorably mentioned in history. thus, after an unquiet passion week, the good friday of arrived. a profound stillness announced the approaching storm. we children were forbidden to quit the house: my father had no quiet, and went out. the battle began: i ascended to the garret, where indeed i was prevented seeing the country round, but could very well hear the thunder of cannon and the general discharge of musketry. after some hours we saw the first symptoms of the battle in a line of wagons, in which the wounded, with various sad mutilations and gestures, were slowly drawn by us, to be taken to the convent of st. mary, now transformed into a hospital. the compassion of the citizens was instantly moved. beer, wine, bread, and money were distributed to those who were yet able to take them. but when, some time after, wounded and captive germans were seen in the train, the pity knew no limits; and it seemed as if everybody would strip himself of every movable that he possessed to assist his suffering countrymen. the prisoners, however, were an evidence of a battle unfavorable to the allies. my father, whose party feelings made him quite certain that these would come off victorious, had the violent temerity to go forth to meet the expected victors, without thinking that the beaten party must pass over him in their flight. he first repaired to his garden before the friedberg gate, where he found every thing lonely and quiet; then ventured to the bornheim heath, where he soon descried various stragglers of the army, who were scattered, and amused themselves by shooting at the boundary-stones, so that the rebounding lead whizzed round the head of the inquisitive wanderer. he therefore considered it more prudent to go back, and learned on inquiry what the report of the firing might have before informed him, that all stood well for the french, and that there was no thought of retreating. reaching home in an ill humor, the sight of his wounded and captured countrymen brought him altogether out of his usual self-command. he also caused various donations to be given to the passers-by; but only the germans were to have them, which was not always possible, as fate had packed together both friend and foe. my mother and we children, who had already relied on the count's word, and had therefore passed a tolerably quiet day, were highly rejoiced; and my mother doubly consoled the next day, when, having consulted the oracle of her treasure-box, by the prick of a needle, she received a very comfortable answer, both for present and future. we wished our father similar faith and feelings; we flattered him as much as we could; we entreated him to take some food, from which he had abstained all day; but he repulsed our caresses and every enjoyment, and betook himself to his chamber. our joy, however, was not interrupted; the affair was decided: the king's lieutenant, who, against his habit, had been on horseback that day, at last returned home, where his presence was more necessary than ever. we sprang to meet him, kissed his hands, and testified our delight. this seemed much to please him. "well," said he more kindly than usual, "i am glad also for your sakes, my dear children." he immediately ordered that sweetmeats, sweet wine, and the best of every thing should be given us, and went to his room, already surrounded by a crowd of the urging, demanding, supplicating. we had now a fine collation, pitied our poor father who would not partake of it, and pressed our mother to call him in; but she, more prudent than we, well knew how distasteful such gifts would be to him. in the mean time she had prepared some supper, and would readily have sent a portion up to his room; but he never tolerated such an irregularity, even in the most extreme cases: and, after the sweet things were removed, we endeavored to persuade him to come down into the ordinary dining-room. at last he allowed himself to be persuaded unwillingly, and we had no notion of the mischief which we were preparing for him and ourselves. the stair-case ran through the whole house, along all the ante-rooms. my father, in coming down, had to go directly past the count's apartment. this ante-room was so full of people, that the count, to get through much at once, resolved to come out; and this happened unfortunately at the moment when my father descended. the count met him cheerfully, greeted him, and remarked, "you will congratulate yourselves and us that this dangerous affair is so happily terminated."--"by no means!" replied my father in a rage: "would that it had driven you to the devil, even if i had gone with you!" the count restrained himself for a moment, and then broke out with wrath, "you shall pay for this," cried he: "you shall find that you have not thus insulted the good cause and myself for nothing!" my father, meanwhile, came down very calmly, seated himself near us, seemed more cheerful than before, and began to eat. we were glad of this, unconscious of the dangerous method in which he had rolled the stone from his heart. soon afterwards my mother was called out, and we had great pleasure in chattering to our father about the sweet things the count had given us. our mother did not return. at last the interpreter came in. at a hint from him we were sent to bed: it was already late, and we willingly obeyed. after a night quietly slept through, we heard of the violent commotion which had shaken the house the previous evening. the king's lieutenant had instantly ordered my father to be led to the guard-house. the subalterns well knew that he was never to be contradicted, yet they had often earned thanks by delaying the execution of his orders. the interpreter, whose presence of mind never forsook him, contrived to excite this disposition in them very strongly. the tumult, moreover, was so great, that a delay brought with it its own concealment and excuse. he had called out my mother, and put the adjutant, as it were, into her hands, that, by prayers and representations, she might gain a brief postponement of the matter. he himself hurried up to the count, who with great self-command had immediately retired into the inner room, and would rather allow the most urgent affair to stand still, than wreak on an innocent person the ill humor once excited in him, and give a decision derogatory to his dignity. the address of the interpreter to the count, the train of the whole conversation, were often enough repeated to us by the fat interpreter, who prided himself not a little on the fortunate result, so that i can still describe it from recollection. the interpreter had ventured to open the cabinet and enter, an act which was severely prohibited. "what do you want?" shouted the count angrily. "out with you!--no one but st. jean has a right to enter here." "well, suppose i am st. jean for a moment," answered the interpreter. "it would need a powerful imagination for that! two of him would not make one such as you. retire!" "count, you have received a great gift from heaven; and to that i appeal." "you think to flatter me! do not fancy you will succeed." "you have the great gift, count, of listening to the opinions of others, even in moments of passion--in moments of rage." "well, well! the question now is just about opinions, to which i have listened too long. i know but too well that we are not liked here, and that these citizens look askance at us." "not all!" "very many. what! these towns will be imperial towns, will they? they saw their emperor elected and crowned: and when, being unjustly attacked, he is in danger of losing his dominions and surrendering to an usurper; when he fortunately finds faithful allies who pour out their blood and treasure in his behalf,--they will not put up with the slight burden that falls to their share towards humbling the enemy." "but you have long known these sentiments, and have endured them like a wise man: they are, besides, held only by a minority. a few, dazzled by the splendid qualities of the enemy, whom you yourself prize as an extraordinary man,--a few only, as you are aware." "yes, indeed! i have known and suffered it too long! otherwise this man would not have presumed to utter such insults to my face, and at the most critical moment. let them be as many as they please, they shall be punished in the person of this their audacious representative, and perceive what they have to expect." "only delay, count." "in certain things one cannot act too promptly." "only a little delay, count." "neighbor, you think to mislead me into a false step: you shall not succeed." "i would neither lead you into a false step nor restrain you from one: your resolution is just,--it becomes the frenchman and the king's lieutenant; but consider that you are also count thorane." "he has no right to interfere here." "but the gallant man has a right to be heard." "what would he say, then?" "'king's lieutenant,' he would begin, 'you have so long had patience with so many gloomy, untoward, bungling men, if they were not really too bad. this man has certainly been too bad: but control yourself, king's lieutenant; and every one will praise and extol you on that account.'" "you know i can often endure your jests, but do not abuse my good will. these men--are they, then, completely blinded? suppose we had lost the battle: what would have been their fate at this moment? we fight up to the gates, we shut up the city, we halt, we defend ourselves to cover our retreat over the bridge. think you the enemy would have stood with his hands before him? he throws grenades, and what he has at hand; and they catch where they can. this house-holder--what would he have? here, in these rooms, a bomb might now have burst, and another have followed it;--in these rooms, the cursed china-paper of which i have spared, incommoding myself by not nailing up my maps! they ought to have spent the whole day on their knees." "how many would have done that!" "they ought to have prayed for a blessing on us, and to have gone out to meet the generals and officers with tokens of honor and joy, and the wearied soldiers with refreshments. instead of this, the poison of party-spirit destroys the fairest and happiest moments of my life, won by so many cares and efforts." "it is party-spirit, but you will only increase it by the punishment of this man. those who think with him will proclaim you a tyrant and a barbarian; they will consider him a martyr, who has suffered for the good cause; and even those of the other opinion, who are now his opponents, will see in him only their fellow-citizen, will pity him, and, while they confess your justice, will yet feel that you have proceeded too severely." "i have listened to you too much already,--now, away with you!" "hear only this. remember, this is the most unheard-of thing that could befall this man, this family. you have had no reason to be edified by the good will of the master of the house; but the mistress has anticipated all your wishes, and the children have regarded you as their uncle. with this single blow, you will forever destroy the peace and happiness of this dwelling. indeed, i may say, that a bomb falling into the house would not have occasioned greater desolation. i have so often admired your self-command, count: give me this time opportunity to adore you. a warrior is worthy of honor, who considers himself a guest in the house of an enemy; but here there is no enemy, only a mistaking man. control yourself, and you will acquire an everlasting fame." "that would be odd," replied the count, with a smile. "merely natural," continued the interpreter: "i have not sent the wife and children to your feet, because i know you detest such scenes; but i will depict to you this wife and these children, how they will thank you. i will depict them to you conversing all their lives of the battle of bergen, and of your magnanimity on this day, relating it to their children, and children's children, and inspiring even strangers with their own interest for you: an act of this kind can never perish." "but you do not hit my weak side yet, interpreter. about posthumous fame i am not in the habit of thinking; that is for others, not for me: but to do right at the moment, not to neglect my duty, not to prejudice my honor,--that is my care. we have already had too many words; now go--and receive the thanks of the thankless, whom i spare." the interpreter, surprised and moved by this unexpectedly favorable issue, could not restrain his tears, and would have kissed the count's hands. the count motioned him off, and said severely and seriously, "you know i cannot bear such things." and with these words he went into the ante-room to attend to his pressing affairs, and hear the claims of so many expectant persons. so the matter was disposed of; and the next morning we celebrated, with the remnants of the yesterday's sweetmeats, the passing over of an evil through the threatenings of which we had happily slept. whether the interpreter really spoke so wisely, or merely so painted the scene to himself, as one is apt to do after a good and fortunate action, i will not decide; at least he never varied it in repeating it. indeed, this day seemed to him both the most anxious and the most glorious in his life. one little incident will show how the count in general rejected all false parade, never assumed a title which did not belong to him, and how witty he was in his more cheerful moods. a man of the higher class, who was one of the abstruse, solitary frankforters, thought he must complain of the quartering of the soldiers upon him. he came in person; and the interpreter proffered him his services, but the other supposed that he did not need them. he came before the count with a most becoming bow, and said, "your excellency!" the count returned the bow, as well as the "excellency." struck by this mark of honor, and not supposing but that the title was too humble, he stooped lower, and said, "monseigneur."--"sir," said the count very seriously, "we will not go farther, or else we may easily bring it to majesty." the other gentleman was extremely confused, and had not a word to utter. the interpreter, standing at some distance, and apprised of the whole affair, was wicked enough not to move; but the count, with much cheerfulness, continued, "well, now, for instance, sir, what is your name?"--"spangenberg," replied the other. "and mine," said the count, "is thorane. spangenberg, what is your business with thorane? now, then, let us sit down: the affair shall at once be settled." and thus the affair was indeed settled at once, to the great satisfaction of the person i have here named spangenberg; and the same evening, in our family circle, the story was not only told by the waggish interpreter, but was given with all the circumstances and gestures. after these confusions, disquietudes, and grievances, the former security and thoughtlessness soon returned, in which the young particularly live from day to day, if it be in any degree possible. my passion for the french theatre grew with every performance. i did not miss an evening; though on every occasion, when, after the play, i sat down with the family to supper,--often putting up with the remains,--i had to endure my father's constant reproaches, that theatres were useless, and would lead to nothing. in these cases i adduced all and every argument which is at hand for the apologists of the stage when they fall into a difficulty like mine. vice in prosperity, and virtue in misfortune, are in the end set right by poetical justice. those beautiful examples of misdeeds punished, "miss sarah sampson," and "the merchant of london," were very energetically cited on my part: but, on the other hand, i often came off worst when the "fouberies de scapin," and others of the sort, were in the bill; and i was forced to bear reproaches for the delight felt by the public in the deceits of intriguing servants, and the successful follies of prodigal young men. neither party was convinced; but my father was very soon reconciled to the theatre when he saw that i advanced with incredible rapidity in the french language. men are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake himself what he sees done by others, whether he has aptitude for it or not. i had soon exhausted the whole range of the french stage; several plays were performed for the third and fourth times; all had passed before my eyes and mind, from the stateliest tragedy to the most frivolous afterpiece; and, as when a child i had presumed to imitate terence, i did not fail now as a boy, on a much more inciting occasion, to copy the french forms to the best of my ability and want of ability. there were then performed some half-mythological, half-allegorical pieces in the taste of piron: they partook somewhat of the nature of parody, and were much liked. these representations particularly attracted me: the little gold wings of a lively mercury, the thunderbolt of a disguised jupiter, an amorous danaë, or by whatever name a fair one visited by the gods might be called, if indeed it were not a shepherdess or huntress to whom they descended. and as elements of this kind, from "ovid's metamorphoses," or the "pantheon mythicum" of pomey, were humming in swarms about my head, i had soon put together in my imagination a little piece of the kind, of which i can only say that the scene was rural, and that there was no lack in it of king's daughters, princes, or gods. mercury, especially, made so vivid an impression on me, that i could almost be sworn that i had seen him with my own eyes. i presented my friend derones with a very neat copy, made by myself; which he accepted with quite a special grace, and with a truly patronizing air, glanced hastily over the manuscript, pointed out a few grammatical blunders, found some speeches too long, and at last promised to examine and judge the work more attentively when he had the requisite leisure. to my modest question, whether the piece could by any chance be performed, he assured me that it was not altogether impossible. in the theatre, he said, a great deal went by favor; and he would support me with all his heart: only the affair must be kept private; for he had himself once on a time surprised the directors with a piece of his own, and it would certainly have been acted if it had not been too soon detected that he was the author. i promised him all possible silence, and already saw in my mind's eye the name of my piece posted up in large letters on the corners of the streets and squares. light-minded as my friend generally was, the opportunity of playing the master was but too desirable. he read the piece through with attention, and, while he sat down with me to make some trivial alterations, turned the whole thing, in the course of the conversation, completely topsy- turvy, so that not one stone remained on another. he struck out, added, took away one character, substituted another,--in short, went on with the maddest wantonness in the world, so that my hair stood on end. my previous persuasion that he must surely understand the matter, allowed him to have his way; for he had often laid before me so much about the three unities of aristotle, the regularity of the french drama, the probability, the harmony of the verse, and all that belongs to these, that i was forced to regard him, not merely as informed, but thoroughly grounded. he abused the english and scorned the germans; in short, he laid before me the whole dramaturgic litany which i have so often in my life been compelled to hear. like the boy in the fable, i carried my mangled offspring home, and strove in vain to bring it to life. as, however, i would not quite abandon it, i caused a fair copy of my first manuscript, after a few alterations, to be made by our clerk, which i presented to my father, and thus gained so much, that, for a long time, he let me eat my supper in quiet after the play was over. this unsuccessful attempt had made me reflective; and i resolved now to learn, at the very sources, these theories, these laws, to which every one appealed, but which had become suspicious to me chiefly through the impoliteness of my arrogant master. this was not indeed difficult, but laborious. i immediately read corneille's "treatise on the three unities," and learned from that how people would have it, but why they desired it so was by no means clear to me; and, what was worst of all, i fell at once into still greater confusion when i made myself acquainted with the disputes on the "cid," and read the prefaces in which corneille and racine are obliged to defend themselves against the critics and public. here at least i plainly saw that no man knew what he wanted; that a piece like the "cid," which had produced the noblest effect, was to be condemned at the command of an all-powerful cardinal; that racine, the idol of the french living in my day, who had now also become my idol (for i had got intimately acquainted with him when schöff von olenschlager made us children act "britannicus," in which the part of nero fell to me),--that racine, i say, even in his own day, was not able to get on with the amateurs nor critics. through all this i became more perplexed than ever; and after having pestered myself a long time with this talking backwards and forwards, and theoretical quackery of the previous century, threw them to the dogs, and was the more resolute in casting all the rubbish away, the more i thought i observed that the authors themselves who had produced excellent things, when they began to speak about them, when they set forth the grounds of their treatment, when they desired to defend, justify, or excuse themselves, were not always able to hit the proper mark. i hastened back again, therefore, to the living present, attended the theatre far more zealously, read more scrupulously and connectedly, so that i had perseverance enough this time to work through the whole of racine and molière and a great part of corneille. the king's lieutenant still lived at our house. he in no respect had changed his deportment, especially towards us; but it was observable, and the interpreter made it still more evident to us, that he no longer discharged his duties with the same cheerfulness and zeal as at the outset, though always with the same rectitude and fidelity. his character and habits, which showed the spaniard rather than the frenchman; his caprices, which were not without their influence on his business; his unbending will under all circumstances; his susceptibility as to whatever had reference to his person or reputation,--all this together might perhaps sometimes bring him into conflict with his superiors. add to this, that he had been wounded in a duel, which had arisen in the theatre, and it was deemed wrong that the king's lieutenant, himself chief of police, should have committed a punishable offence. as i have said, all this may have contributed to make him live more retired, and here and there perhaps to act with less energy. [illustration: a woman spinning and another reading while a child plays nearby.] meanwhile, a considerable part of the pictures he had ordered had been delivered. count thorane passed his leisure hours in examining them; while in the aforesaid gable-room he had them nailed up, canvas after canvas, large and small, side by side, and, because there was want of space, even one over another, and then taken down and rolled up. the works were constantly inspected anew, the parts that were considered the most successful were repeatedly enjoyed, but there was no want of wishes that this or that had been differently done. hence arose a new and very singular operation. as one painter best executed figures, another middle-grounds and distances, a third trees, a fourth flowers, it struck the count that these talents might perhaps be combined in the paintings, and that in this way perfect works might be produced. a beginning was made at once, by having, for instance, some beautiful cattle painted into a finished landscape. but because there was not always adequate room for all, and a few sheep more or less was no great matter to the cattle-painter, the largest landscape proved in the end too narrow. now also the painter of figures had to introduce the shepherd and some travellers: these deprived each other of air, as we may say; and we marvelled that they were not all stifled, even in the most open country. no one could anticipate what was to come of the matter, and when it was finished it gave no satisfaction. the painters were annoyed. they had gained something by their first orders, but lost by these after-labors; though the count paid for them also very liberally. and, as the parts worked into each other in one picture by several hands produced no good effect after all the trouble, every one at last fancied that his own work had been spoiled and destroyed by that of the others; hence the artists were within a hair's-breadth of falling out, and becoming irreconcilably hostile to each other. these alterations, or rather additions, were made in the before-mentioned studio, where i remained quite alone with the artists; and it amused me to hunt out from the studies, particularly of animals, this or that individual or group, and to propose it for the foreground or the distance, in which respect they many times, either from conviction or kindness, complied with my wishes. the partners in this affair were therefore greatly discouraged, especially seekatz, a very hypochondriacal, retired man, who, indeed, by his incomparable humor, was the best of companions among friends, but who, when he worked, desired to work alone, abstracted and perfectly free. this man, after solving difficult problems, and finishing them with the greatest diligence and the warmest love, of which he was always capable, was forced to travel repeatedly from darmstadt to frankfort, either to change something in his own pictures, or to touch up those of others, or even to allow, under his superintendence, a third person to convert his pictures into a variegated mess. his peevishness augmented, his resistance became more decided, and a great deal of effort was necessary on our part to guide this "gossip;" for he was one also, according to the count's wishes. i still remember, that when the boxes were standing ready to pack up all the pictures, in the order in which the upholsterer might hang them up at once, at their place of destination, a small but indispensable bit of afterwork was demanded; but seekatz could not be moved to come over. he had, by way of conclusion, done the best he could, having represented, in paintings to be placed over the doors, the four elements as children and boys, after life, and having expended the greatest care, not only on the figures, but on the accessories. these were delivered and paid for, and he thought he was quit of the business forever; but now he was to come over again, that he might enlarge, by a few touches of his pencil, some figures, the size of which was too small. another, he thought, could do it just as well; he had already set about some new work; in short, he would not come. the time for sending off the pictures was at hand; they had, moreover, to get dry; every delay was untoward; and the count, in despair, was about to have him fetched in military fashion. we all wished to see the pictures finally gone, and found at last no expedient than for the gossip interpreter to seat himself in a wagon, and fetch over the refractory subject, with his wife and child. he was kindly received by the count, well treated, and at last dismissed with liberal payment. after the pictures had been sent away, there was great peace in the house. the gable-room in the attic was cleaned, and given up to me; and my father, when he saw the boxes go, could not refrain from wishing to send off the count after them. for much as the tastes of the count coincided with his own, much as he must have rejoiced to see his principle of patronizing living artists so generously followed out by a man richer than himself, much as it may have flattered him that his collection had been the occasion of bringing so considerable a profit to a number of brave artists in a pressing time, he nevertheless felt such a repugnance to the foreigner who had intruded into his house, that he could not think well of any of his doings. one ought to employ painters, but not degrade them to paper-stainers; one ought to be satisfied with what they have done, according to their conviction and ability, even if it does not thoroughly please one, and not be perpetually carping at it. in short, in spite of all the count's own generous endeavors, there could, once for all, be no mutual understanding. my father only visited that room when the count was at table; and i can recall but one instance, when, seekatz having excelled himself, and the wish to see these pictures having brought the whole house together, my father and the count met, and manifested a common pleasure in these works of art, which they could not take in each other. scarcely, therefore, had the house been cleared of the chests and boxes, than the plan for removing the count, which had formerly been begun, but was afterwards interrupted, was resumed. the endeavor was made to gain justice by representations, equity by entreaties, favor by influence; and the quarter-masters were prevailed upon to decide thus: the count was to change his lodgings; and our house, in consideration of the burden borne day and night for several years uninterruptedly, was to be exempt for the future from billetting. but, to furnish a plausible pretext for this, we were to take in lodgers on the first floor, which the count had occupied, and thus render a new quartering, as it were, impossible. the count, who, after the separation from his dear pictures, felt no further peculiar interest in the house, and hoped, moreover, to be soon recalled and placed elsewhere, was pleased to move without opposition to another good residence, and left us in peace and good will. soon afterwards he quitted the city, and received different appointments in gradation, but, it was rumored, not to his own satisfaction. meantime, he had the pleasure of seeing the pictures which he had preserved with so much care felicitously arranged in his brother's chateau: he wrote sometimes, sent dimensions, and had different pieces executed by the artists so often named. at last we heard nothing further about him, except after several years we were assured that he had died as governor of one of the french colonies in the west indies. fourth book. however much inconvenience the quartering of the french had caused us, we had become so accustomed to it, that we could not fail to miss it; nor could we children fail to feel as if the house were deserted. moreover, it was not decreed that we should again attain perfect family unity. new lodgers were already bespoken; and after some sweeping and scouring, planing, and rubbing with beeswax, painting and varnishing, the house was completely restored again. the chancery-director moritz, with his family, very worthy friends of my parents, moved in. he was not a native of frankfort, but an able jurist and man of business, and managed the legal affairs of many small princes, counts, and lords. i never saw him otherwise than cheerful and pleasant, and diligent with his law-papers. his wife and children, gentle, quiet, and benevolent, did not indeed increase the sociableness of our house; for they kept to themselves: but a stillness, a peace, returned, which we had not enjoyed for a long time. i now again occupied my attic-room, in which the ghosts of the many pictures sometimes hovered before me; while i strove to frighten them away by labor and study. the counsellor of legation, moritz, a brother of the chancellor, came from this time often to our house. he was even more a man of the world, had a handsome figure, while his manners were easy and agreeable. he also managed the affairs of different persons of rank, and on occasions of meetings of creditors and imperial commissions frequently came into contact with my father. they had a high opinion of each other, and commonly stood on the side of the creditors; though they were generally obliged to perceive, much to their vexation, that a majority of the agents on such occasions are usually gained over to the side of the debtors. the counsellor of legation readily communicated his knowledge, was fond of mathematics; and, as these did not occur in his present course of life, he made himself a pleasure by helping me on in this branch of study. i was thus enabled to finish my architectural sketches more accurately than heretofore, and to profit more by the instruction of a drawing-master, who now also occupied us an hour every day. this good old man was indeed only half an artist. we were obliged to draw and combine strokes, from which eyes and noses, lips and ears, nay, at last, whole faces and heads, were to arise; but of natural or artistic forms there was no thought. we were tormented a long while with this /quid pro quo/ of the human figure; and when the so-called passions of le brun were given us to copy, it was supposed at last that we had made great progress. but even these caricatures did not improve us. then we went off to landscapes, foliage, and all the things which in ordinary instruction are practised without consistency or method. finally we dropped into close imitation and neatness of strokes, without troubling ourselves about the merit or taste of the original. in these endeavors our father led the way in an exemplary manner. he had never drawn; but he was unwilling to remain behind, now that his children pursued this art, and would give, even in his old age, an example how they should proceed in their youth. he therefore copied several heads of piazetta, from his well-known sheets in small octavo, with an english lead-pencil upon the finest dutch paper. in these he not only observed the greatest clearness of outline, but most accurately imitated the hatching of the copperplate with a light hand--only too slightly, as in his desire to avoid hardness he brought no keeping into his sketches. yet they were always soft and accurate. his unrelaxing and untiring assiduity went so far, that he drew the whole considerable collection number by number; while we children jumped from one head to another, and chose only those that pleased us. about this time the long-debated project, long under consideration, for giving us lessons in music, was carried into effect; and the last impulse to it certainly deserves mention. it was settled that we should learn the harpsichord, but there was always a dispute about the choice of a master. at last i went once accidentally into the room of one of my companions, who was just taking his lesson on the harpsichord, and found the teacher a most charming man: for each finger of the right and left hand he had a nickname, by which he indicated in the merriest way when it was to be used. the black and white keys were likewise symbolically designated, and even the tones appeared under figurative names. such a motley company worked most pleasantly together. fingering and time seemed to become perfectly easy and obvious; and, while the scholar was put into the best humor, every thing else succeeded beautifully. scarcely had i reached home, than i importuned my parents to set about the matter in good earnest at last, and give us this incomparable man for our master on the harpsichord. they hesitated, and made inquiries: they indeed heard nothing bad of the teacher, but, at the same time, nothing particularly good. meanwhile, i had informed my sister of all the droll names: we could hardly wait for the lesson, and succeeded in having the man engaged. the reading of the notes began first; but, as no jokes occurred here, we comforted ourselves with the hope, that when we went to the harpsichord, and the fingers were needed, the jocular method would commence. but neither keys nor fingering seemed to afford opportunity for any comparisons. dry as the notes were, with their strokes on and between the five lines, the black and white keys were no less so: and not a syllable was heard, either of "thumbling," "pointerling," or "gold finger;" while the countenance of the man remained as imperturbable during his dry teaching as it had been before during his dry jests. my sister reproached me most bitterly for having deceived her, and actually believed that it was all an invention of mine. but i was myself confounded and learned little, though the man at once went regularly enough to work; for i kept always expecting that the former jokes would make their appearance, and so consoled my sister from one day to another. they did not re-appear, however; and i should never have been able to explain the riddle if another accident had not solved it for me. one of my companions came in during a lesson, and at once all the pipes of the humorous /jet d'eau/ were opened: the "thumblings" and "pointerlings," the "pickers" and "stealers," as he used to call the fingers; the "falings" and "galings," meaning "f" and "g;" the "fielings" and "gielings," meaning "f" and "g" sharp, [footnote: the names of the sharp notes in german terminate in "is," and hence "f" and "g" sharp are called "fis" and "gis."]--became once more extant, and made the most wonderful manikins. my young friend could not leave off laughing, and was rejoiced that one could learn in such a merry manner. he vowed that he would give his parents no peace until they had given him such an excellent man for a teacher. and thus the way to two arts was early enough opened to me, according to the principles of a modern theory of education, merely by good luck, and without any conviction that i should be furthered therein by a native talent. my father maintained that everybody ought to learn drawing; for which reason he especially venerated the emperor maximilian, by whom this had been expressly commanded. he therefore held me to it more steadily than to music; which, on the other hand, he especially recommended to my sister, and even out of the hours for lessons kept her fast, during a good part of the day, at her harpsichord. but the more i was in this way made to press on, the more i wished to press forward of myself; and my hours of leisure were employed in all sorts of curious occupations. from my earliest years i felt a love for the investigation of natural things. it is often regarded as an instinct of cruelty that children like at last to break, tear, and devour objects with which for a long time they have played, and which they have handled in various manners. yet even in this way is manifested the curiosity, the desire of learning how such things hang together, how they look within. i remember, that, when a child, i pulled flowers to pieces to see how the leaves were inserted into the calyx, or even plucked birds to observe how the feathers were inserted into the wings. children are not to be blamed for this, when even our naturalists believe they get their knowledge oftener by separation and division than by union and combination,--more by killing than by making alive. an armed loadstone, very neatly sewed up in scarlet cloth, was one day destined to experience the effects of this spirit of inquiry. for the secret force of attraction which it exercised, not only on the little iron bar attached to it, but which was of such a kind that it could gain strength and could daily bear a heavier weight,--this mysterious virtue had so excited my admiration, that for a long time i was pleased with merely staring at its operation. but at last i thought i might arrive at some nearer revelation by tearing away the external covering. this was done; but i became no wiser in consequence, as the naked iron taught me nothing further. this also i took off; and i held in my hand the mere stone, with which i never grew weary of making experiments of various kinds on filings and needles,--experiments from which my youthful mind drew no further advantage beyond that of a varied experience. i could not manage to reconstruct the whole arrangement: the parts were scattered, and i lost the wondrous phenomenon at the same time with the apparatus. nor was i more fortunate in putting together an electrical machine. a friend of the family, whose youth had fallen in the time when electricity occupied all minds, often told us how, when a child, he had desired to possess such a machine: he got together the principal requisites, and, by the aid of an old spinning-wheel and some medicine bottles, had produced tolerable results. as he readily and frequently repeated the story, and imparted to us some general information on electricity, we children found the thing very plausible, and long tormented ourselves with an old spinning-wheel and some medicine bottles, without producing even the smallest result. we nevertheless adhered to our belief, and were much delighted, when at the time of the fair, among other rarities, magical and legerdemain tricks, an electrical machine performed its marvels, which, like those of magnetism, were at that time already very numerous. the want of confidence in the public method of instruction was daily increasing. people looked about for private tutors; and, because single families could not afford the expense, several of them united to attain their object. yet the children seldom agreed; the young man had not sufficient authority; and, after frequently repeated vexations, there were only angry partings. it is not surprising, therefore, that other arrangements were thought of which should be more permanent as well as more advantageous. the thought of establishing boarding-schools (/pensionen/) had arisen from the necessity, which every one felt, of having the french language taught and communicated orally. my father had brought up a young person, who had been his footman, valet, secretary, and in short successively all in all. this man, whose name was pfeil, spoke french well. after he had married, and his patrons had to think of a situation for him, they hit upon the plan of making him establish a boarding- school, which extended gradually into a small academy, in which every thing necessary, and at last even greek and latin, were taught. the extensive connections of frankfort caused young french and english men to be brought to this establishment, that they might learn german and acquire other accomplishments. pfeil, who was a man in the prime of life, and of the most wonderful energy and activity, superintended the whole very laudably; and as he could never be employed enough, and was obliged to keep music-teachers for his scholars, he set about music on the occasion, and practised the harpsichord with such zeal, that, without having previously touched a note, he very soon played with perfect readiness and spirit. he seemed to have adopted my father's maxim, that nothing can more cheer and excite young people, than when at mature years one declares one's self again a learner; and at an age when new accomplishments are acquired with difficulty, one endeavors, nevertheless, by zeal and perseverance, to excel the younger, who are more favored by nature. by this love of playing the harpsichord, pfeil was led to the instruments themselves, and, while he hoped to obtain the best, came into connection with frederici of gera, whose instruments were celebrated far and wide. he took a number of them on sale, and had now the joy of seeing, not only one piano, but many, set up in his residence, and of practising and being heard upon them. the vivacity of this man brought a great rage for music into our house. my father remained on lasting good terms with him up to certain points of dispute. a large piano of frederici was purchased also for us, which i, adhering to my harpsichord, hardly touched; but which so much increased my sister's troubles, as, to duly honor the new instrument, she had to spend some time longer every day in practice; while my father, as overseer, and pfeil, as a model and encouraging friend, alternately took their positions at her side. a singular taste of my father's caused much inconvenience to us children. this was the cultivation of silk, of the advantages of which, if it were more widely extended, he had a high opinion. some acquaintances at hanau, where the breeding of the worms was carried on with great care, gave him the immediate impulse. at the proper season, the eggs were sent to him from that place: and, as soon as the mulberry- trees showed sufficient leaves, they had to be stripped; and the scarcely visible creatures were most diligently tended. tables and stands with boards were set up in a garret-chamber, to afford them more room and sustenance; for they grew rapidly, and, after their last change of skin, were so voracious that it was scarcely possible to get leaves enough to feed them,--nay, they had to be fed day and night, as every thing depends upon there being no deficiency of nourishment when the great and wondrous change is about to take place in them. when the weather was favorable, this business could indeed be regarded as a pleasant amusement; but, if the cold set in so that the mulberry-trees suffered, it was exceedingly troublesome. still more unpleasant was it when rain fell during the last epoch; for these creatures cannot at all endure moisture, and the wet leaves had to be carefully wiped and dried, which could not always be done quite perfectly: and for this, or perhaps some other reason also, various diseases came among the flock, by which the poor things were swept off in thousands. the state of corruption which ensued produced a smell really pestilential; and, because the dead and diseased had to be taken away and separated from the healthy, the business was indeed extremely wearisome and repulsive, and caused many an unhappy hour to us children. after we had one year passed the finest weeks of the spring and summer in tending the silk-worms, we were obliged to assist our father in another business, which, though simpler, was no less troublesome. the roman views, which, bound by black rods at the top and bottom, had hung for many years on the walls of the old house, had become very yellow through the light, dust, and smoke, and not a little unsightly through the flies. if such uncleanliness was not to be tolerated in the new house, yet, on the other hand, these pictures had gained in value to my father, in consequence of his longer absence from the places represented. for at the outset such copies serve only to renew and revive the impressions received shortly before. they seem trifling in comparison, and at the best only a melancholy substitute. but, as the remembrance of the original forms fades more and more, the copies imperceptibly assume their place: they become as dear to us as those once were, and what we at first contemned now gains esteem and affection. thus it is with all copies, and particularly with portraits. no one is easily satisfied with the counterfeit of an object still present, but how we value every /silhouette/ of one who is absent or departed. in short, with this feeling of his former extravagance, my father wished that these engravings might be restored as much as possible. it was well known that this could be done by bleaching: and the operation, always critical with large plates, was undertaken under rather unfavorable circumstances; for the large boards, on which the smoked engravings were moistened and exposed to the sun, stood in the gutters before the garret windows, leaning against the roof, and were therefore liable to many accidents. the chief point was, that the paper should never thoroughly dry, but must be kept constantly moist. this was the duty of my sister and myself; and the idleness, which would have been otherwise so desirable, was excessively annoying on account of the tedium and impatience, and the watchfulness which allowed of no distraction. the end, however, was attained; and the bookbinder, who fixed each sheet upon thick paper, did his best to match and repair the margins, which had been here and there torn by our inadvertence. all the sheets together were bound in a volume, and for this time preserved. that we children might not be wanting in every variety of life and learning, a teacher of the english language had to announce himself just at this time, who pledged himself to teach anybody not entirely raw in languages, english in four weeks, and to advance him to such a degree, that, with some diligence, he could help himself farther. his price was moderate, and he was indifferent as to the number of scholars at one lesson. my father instantly determined to make the attempt, and took lessons, together with my sister and myself, of this expeditious master. the hours were faithfully kept; there was no want of repeating our lessons; other exercises were neglected rather than this during the four weeks; and the teacher parted from us, and we from him, with satisfaction. as he remained longer in the town, and found many employers, he came from time to time to look after us and to help us, grateful that we had been among the first who placed confidence in him, and proud to be able to cite us as examples to the others. my father, in consequence of this, entertained a new anxiety, that english might neatly stand in the series of my other studies in languages. now, i will confess that it became more and more burdensome for me to take my occasions for study now from this grammar or collection of examples, now from that; now from one author, now from another,--and thus to divert my interest in a subject every hour. it occurred to me, therefore, that i might despatch all at the same time; and i invented a romance of six or seven brothers and sisters, who, separated from each other and scattered over the world, should communicate with each other alternately as to their conditions and feelings. the eldest brother gives an account, in good german, of all the manifold objects and incidents of his journey. the sister, in a ladylike style, with short sentences and nothing but stops, much as "siegwart" was afterwards written, answers now him, now the other brothers, partly about domestic matters, and partly about affairs of the heart. one brother studies theology, and writes a very formal latin, to which he often adds a greek postscript. to another brother, holding the place of mercantile clerk at hamburg, the english correspondence naturally falls; while a still younger one at marseilles has the french. for the italian was found a musician, on his first trip into the world; while the youngest of all, a sort of pert nestling, had applied himself to jew-german,--the other languages having been cut off from him,--and, by means of his frightful ciphers, brought the rest of them into despair, and my parents into a hearty laugh at the good notion. to obtain matter for filling up this singular form, i studied the geography of the countries in which my creations resided, and by inventing for those dry localities all sorts of human incidents which had some affinity with the characters and employments of my heroes. thus my exercise-books became much more voluminous, my father was better satisfied, and i was much sooner made aware of my deficiency in both what i had acquired and possessed of my own. now, as such things, once begun, have no end nor limits, so it happened in the present case; for while i strove to attain the odd jew-german, and to write it as well as i could read it, i soon discovered that i ought to know hebrew, from which alone the modern corrupted dialect could be derived, and handled with any certainty. i consequently explained the necessity of my learning hebrew to my father, and earnestly besought his consent; for i had a still higher object. everywhere i heard it said, that, to understand the old as well as the new testament, the original languages were requisite. the latter i could read quite easily; because, that there might be no want of exercise, even on sundays, the so-called epistles and gospels had, after church, to be recited, translated, and in some measure explained. i now purposed doing the same thing with the old testament, the peculiarities of which had always especially interested me. my father, who did not like to do any thing by halves, determined to request the rector of our gymnasium, one dr. albrecht, to give me private lessons weekly, until i should have acquired what was most essential in so simple a language; for he hoped, that, if it would not be despatched as soon as english was learned, it could at least be managed in double the time. rector albrecht was one of the most original figures in the world,-- short, broad, but not fat, ill-shaped without being deformed; in short, an aesop in gown and wig. his more than seventy-years-old face was completely twisted into a sarcastic smile; while his eyes always remained large, and, though red, were always brilliant and intelligent. he lived in the old cloister of the barefoot friars, the seat of the gymnasium. even as a child, i had often visited him in company with my parents, and had, with a kind of trembling delight, glided through the long, dark passages, the chapels transformed into reception-rooms, the place broken up and full of stairs and corners. without making me uncomfortable, he questioned me familiarly whenever we met, and praised and encouraged me. one day, on the changing of the pupils' places after a public examination, he saw me standing, as a mere spectator, not far from his chair, while he distributed the silver /proemia virtulis et diligentioe/. i was probably gazing very eagerly upon the little bag out of which he drew the medals: he nodded to me, descended a step, and handed me one of the silver pieces. my joy was great; although others thought that this gift, bestowed upon a boy not belonging to the school, was out of all order. but for this the good old man cared but little, having always played the eccentric, and that in a striking manner. he had a very good reputation as a schoolmaster, and understood his business; although age no more allowed him to practise it thoroughly. but almost more than by his own infirmities was he hindered by greater circumstances; and, as i already knew, he was satisfied neither with the consistory, the inspectors, the clergy, nor the teachers. to his natural temperament, which inclined to satire, and the watching for faults and defects, he allowed free play, both in his programmes and his public speeches; and, as lucian was almost the only writer whom he read and esteemed, he spiced all that he said and wrote with biting ingredients. fortunately for those with whom he was dissatisfied, he never went directly to work, but only jeered at the defects which he wanted to reprove, with hints, allusions, classic passages, and scripture-texts. his delivery, moreover,--he always read his discourses,--was unpleasant, unintelligible, and, above all, was often interrupted by a cough, but more frequently by a hollow, paunch-convulsing laugh, with which he was wont to announce and accompany the biting passages. this singular man i found to be mild and obliging when i began to take lessons of him. i now went to his house daily at six o'clock in the evening, and always experienced a secret pleasure when the outer door closed behind me, and i had to thread the long, dark cloister-passage. we sat in his library, at a table covered with oil-cloth, a much-read lucian never quitting his side. in spite of all my willingness, i did not get at the matter without difficulty; for my teacher could not suppress certain sarcastic remarks as to the real truth about hebrew. i concealed from him my designs upon jew-german, and spoke of a better understanding of the original text. he smiled at this, and said i should be satisfied if i only learned to read. this vexed me in secret, and i concentrated all my attention when we came to the letters. i found an alphabet something like the greek, of which the forms were easy, and the names, for the most part, not strange to me. all this i had soon comprehended and retained, and supposed we should now take up reading. that this was done from right to left i was well aware. but now all at once appeared a new army of little characters and signs, of points and strokes of all sorts, which were in fact to represent vowels. at this i wondered the more, as there were manifestly vowels in the larger alphabet; and the others only appeared to be hidden under strange appellations. i was also taught that the jewish nation, as long as it flourished, actually were satisfied with the former signs, and knew no other way of writing and reading. most willingly, then, would i have gone on along this ancient and, as it seemed to me, easier path; but my worthy declared rather sternly that we must go by the grammar as it had been approved and composed. reading without these points and strokes, he said, was a very hard undertaking, and could be accomplished only by the learned and those who were well practised. i must, therefore, make up my mind to learn these little characters; but the matter became to me more and more confused. now, it seemed, some of the first and larger primitive letters had no value in their places, in order that their little after-born kindred might not stand there in vain. now they indicated a gentle breathing, now a guttural more or less rough, and now served as mere equivalents. but finally, when one fancied that he had well noted every thing, some of these personages, both great and small, were rendered inoperative; so that the eyes always had very much, and the lips very little, to do. as that of which i already knew the contents had now to be stuttered in a strange gibberish, in which a certain snuffle and gargle were not a little commended as something unattainable, i in a certain degree deviated from the matter, and diverted myself, in a childish way, with the singular names of these accumulated signs. there were "emperors," "kings," and "dukes," [footnote: these are the technical names for classes of accents in the hebrew grammar.--trans.] which, as accents governing here and there, gave me not a little entertainment. but even these shallow jests soon lost their charm. nevertheless i was indemnified, inasmuch as by reading, translating, repeating, and committing to memory, the substance of the book came out more vividly; and it was this, properly, about which i desired to be enlightened. even before this time, the contradiction between tradition, and the actual and possible, had appeared to me very striking; and i had often put my private tutors to a non-plus with the sun which stood still on gibeon, and the moon in the vale of ajalon, to say nothing of other improbabilities and incongruities. every thing of this kind was now awakened; while, in order to master the hebrew, i occupied myself exclusively with the old testament, and studied it, though no longer in luther's translation, but in the literal version of sebastian schmid, printed under the text, which my father had procured for me. here, i am sorry to say, our lessons began to be defective in regard to practice in the language. reading, interpreting, grammar, transcribing, and the repetition of words, seldom lasted a full half-hour; for i immediately began to aim at the sense of the matter, and, though we were still engaged in the first book of moses, to utter several things suggested to me by the later books. at first the good old man tried to restrain me from such digressions, but at last they seemed to entertain him also. it was impossible for him to suppress his characteristic cough and chuckle: and, although he carefully avoided giving me any information that might have compromised himself, my importunity was not relaxed; nay, as i cared more to set forth my doubts than to learn their solution, i grew constantly more vivacious and bold, seeming justified by his deportment. yet i could get nothing out of him, except that ever and anon he would exclaim with his peculiar, shaking laugh, "ah! mad fellow! ah! mad boy!" still, my childish vivacity, which scrutinized the bible on all sides, may have seemed to him tolerably serious and worthy of some assistance. he therefore referred me, after a time, to the large english biblical work which stood in his library, and in which the interpretation of difficult and doubtful passages was attempted in an intelligent and judicious manner. by the great labors of german divines the translation had obtained advantages over the original. the different opinions were cited; and at last a kind of reconciliation was attempted, so that the dignity of the book, the ground of religion, and the human understanding, might in some degree co-exist. now, as often as towards the end of the lesson i came out with my usual questions and doubts, so often did he point to the repository. i took the volume, he let me read, turned over his lucian; and, when i made any remarks on the book, his ordinary laugh was the only answer to my sagacity. in the long summer days he let me sit as long as i could read, many times alone; after a time he suffered me to take one volume after another home with me. man may turn which way he please, and undertake any thing whatsoever, he will always return to the path which nature has once prescribed for him. thus it happened also with me in the present case. the trouble i took with the language, with the contents of the sacred scriptures themselves, ended at last in producing in my imagination a livelier picture of that beautiful and famous land, its environs and its vicinities, as well as of the people and events by which that little spot of earth was made glorious for thousands of years. this small space was to see the origin and growth of the human race; thence we were to derive our first and only accounts of primitive history; and such a locality was to lie before our imagination, no less simple and comprehensible than varied, and adapted to the most wonderful migrations and settlements. here, between four designated rivers, a small, delightful spot was separated from the whole habitable earth, for youthful man. here he was to unfold his first capacities, and here at the same time was the lot to befall him, which was appointed for all his posterity; namely, that of losing peace by striving after knowledge. paradise was trifled away; men increased and grew worse; and the elohim, not yet accustomed to the wickedness of the new race, became impatient, and utterly destroyed it. only a few were saved from the universal deluge; and scarcely had this dreadful flood ceased, than the well-known ancestral soil lay once more before the grateful eyes of the preserved. two rivers out of four, the euphrates and tigris, still flowed in their beds. the name of the first remained: the other seemed to be pointed out by its course. minuter traces of paradise were not to be looked for after so great a revolution. the renewed race of man went forth hence a second time: it found occasion to sustain and employ itself in all sorts of ways, but chiefly to gather around it large herds of tame animals, and to wander with them in every direction. this mode of life, as well as the increase of the families, soon compelled the people to disperse. they could not at once resolve to let their relatives and friends go forever: they hit upon the thought of building a lofty tower, which should show them the way back from the far distance. but this attempt, like their first endeavor, miscarried. they could not be at the same time happy and wise, numerous and united. the elohim confounded their minds; the building remained unfinished; the men were dispersed; the world was peopled, but sundered. but our regards, our interests, continue fixed on these regions. at last the founder of a race again goes forth from hence, and is so fortunate as to stamp a distinct character upon his descendants, and by that means to unite them for all time to come into a great nation, inseparable through all changes of place or destiny. from the euphrates, abraham, not without divine guidance, wanders towards the west. the desert opposes no invincible barrier to his march. he attains the jordan, passes over its waters, and spreads himself over the fair southern regions of palestine. this land was already occupied, and tolerably well inhabited. mountains, not extremely high, but rocky and barren, were severed by many watered vales favorable to cultivation. towns, villages, and solitary settlements lay scattered over the plain, and on the slopes of the great valley, the waters of which are collected in jordan. thus inhabited, thus tilled, was the land: but the world was still large enough; and the men were not so circumspect, necessitous, and active, as to usurp at once the whole adjacent country. between their possessions were extended large spaces, in which grazing herds could freely move in every direction. in one of these spaces abraham resides; his brother lot is near him: but they cannot long remain in such places. the very condition of a land, the population of which is now increasing, now decreasing, and the productions of which are never kept in equilibrium with the wants, produces unexpectedly a famine; and the stranger suffers alike with the native, whose own support he has rendered difficult by his accidental presence. the two chaldean brothers move onward to egypt; and thus is traced out for us the theatre on which, for some thousands of years, the most important events of the world were to be enacted. from the tigris to the euphrates, from the euphrates to the nile, we see the earth peopled; and this space also is traversed by a well-known, heaven-beloved man, who has already become worthy to us, moving to and fro with his goods and cattle, and, in a short time, abundantly increasing them. the brothers return; but, taught by the distress they have endured, they determine to part. both, indeed, tarry in southern canaan; but while abraham remains at hebron, near the wood of mamre, lot departs for the valley of siddim, which, if our imagination is bold enough to give jordan a subterranean outlet, so that, in place of the present dead sea, we should have dry ground, can and must appear like a second paradise,--a conjecture all the more probable, because the residents about there, notorious for effeminacy and wickedness, lead us to infer that they led an easy and luxurious life. lot lives among them, but apart. but hebron and the wood of mamre appear to us as the important place where the lord speaks with abraham, and promises him all the land as far as his eye can reach in four directions. from these quiet districts, from these shepherd-tribes, who can associate with celestials, entertain them as guests, and hold many conversations with them, we are compelled to turn our glance once more towards the east, and to think of the condition of the surrounding world, which, on the whole, perhaps, may have been like that of canaan. families hold together: they unite, and the mode of life of the tribes is determined by the locality which they have appropriated or appropriate. on the mountains which send down their waters to the tigris, we find warlike populations, who even thus early foreshadow those world-conquerors and world-rulers, and in a campaign, prodigious for those times, give us a prelude of future achievements. chedor laomer, king of elam, has already a mighty influence over his allies. he reigns a long while; for twelve years before abraham's arrival in canaan, he had made all the people tributary to him as far as the jordan. they revolted at last, and the allies equipped for war. we find them unawares upon a route by which, probably, abraham also reached canaan. the people on the left and lower side of the jordan were subdued. chedor laomer directs his march southwards towards the people of the desert; then, wending north, he smites the amalekites; and, when he has also overcome the amorites, he reaches canaan, falls upon the kings of the valley of siddim, smites and scatters them, and marches with great spoil up the jordan, in order to extend his conquests as far as lebanon. among the captives, despoiled, and dragged along with their property, is lot, who shares the fate of the country in which he lives a guest. abraham learns this, and here at once we behold the patriarch a warrior and hero. he hurriedly gathers his servants, divides them into troops, attacks and falls upon the luggage of booty, confuses the victors, who could not suspect another enemy in the rear, and brings back his brother and his goods, with a great deal more belonging to the conquered kings. abraham, by means of this brief contest, acquires, as it were, the whole land. to the inhabitants he appears as a protector, savior, and, by his disinterestedness, a king. gratefully the kings of the valley receive him; melchisedek, the king and priest, with blessings. now the prophecies of an endless posterity are renewed; nay, they take a wider and wider scope. from the waters of the euphrates to the river of egypt all the lands are promised him, but yet there seems a difficulty with respect to his next heirs. he is eighty years of age, and has no son. sarai, less trusting in the heavenly powers than he, becomes impatient: she desires, after the oriental fashion, to have a descendant, by means of her maid. but no sooner is hagar given up to the master of the house, no sooner is there hope of a son, than dissensions arise. the wife treats her own dependant ill enough, and hagar flies to seek a happier position among other tribes. she returns, not without a higher intimation, and ishmael is born. abraham is now ninety-nine years old, and the promises of a numerous posterity are constantly repeated: so that, in the end, the pair regard them as ridiculous. and yet sarai becomes at last pregnant, and brings forth a son, to whom the name of isaac is given. history, for the most part, rests upon the legitimate propagation of the human race. the most important events of the world require to be traced to the secrets of families, and thus the marriages of the patriarchs give occasion for peculiar considerations. it is as if the divinity, who loves to guide the destiny of mankind, wished to prefigure here connubial events of every kind. abraham, so long united by childless marriage to a beautiful woman whom many coveted, finds himself, in his hundredth year, the husband of two women, the father of two sons; and at this moment his domestic peace is broken. two women, and two sons by different mothers, cannot possibly agree. the party less favored by law, usage, and opinion must yield. abraham must sacrifice his attachment to hagar and ishmael. both are dismissed; and hagar is compelled now, against her will, to go upon a road which she once took in voluntary flight, at first, it seems, to the destruction of herself and child; but the angel of the lord, who had before sent her back, now rescues her again, that ishmael also may become a great people, and that the most improbable of all promises may be fulfilled beyond its limits. two parents in advanced years, and one son of their old age--here, at last, one might expect domestic quiet and earthly happiness. by no means. heaven is yet preparing the heaviest trial for the patriarch. but of this we cannot speak without premising several considerations. if a natural universal religion was to arise, and a special revealed one to be developed from it, the countries in which our imagination has hitherto lingered, the mode of life, the race of men, were the fittest for the purpose. at least, we do not find in the whole world any thing equally favorable and encouraging. even to natural religion, if we assume that it arose earlier in the human mind, there pertains much of delicacy of sentiment; for it rests upon the conviction of an universal providence, which conducts the order of the world as a whole. a particular religion, revealed by heaven to this or that people, carries with it the belief in a special providence, which the divine being vouchsafes to certain favored men, families, races, and people. this faith seems to develop itself with difficulty from man's inward nature. it requires tradition, usage, and the warrant of a primitive time. beautiful is it, therefore, that the israelitish tradition represents the very first men who confide in this particular providence as heroes of faith, following all the commands of that high being on whom they acknowledge themselves dependent, just as blindly as, undisturbed by doubts, they are unwearied in awaiting the later fulfilments of his promises. as a particular revealed religion rests upon the idea that one man may be more favored by heaven than another, so it also arises pre-eminently from the separation of classes. the first men appeared closely allied, but their employments soon divided them. the hunter was the freest of all: from him was developed the warrior and the ruler. those who tilled the field bound themselves to the soil, erected dwellings and barns to preserve what they had gained, and could estimate themselves pretty highly, because their condition promised durability and security. the herdsman in his position seemed to have acquired the most unbounded condition and unlimited property. the increase of herds proceeded without end, and the space which was to support them widened itself on all sides. these three classes seemed from the very first to have regarded each other with dislike and contempt; and as the herdsman was an abomination to the townsman, so did he in turn separate from the other. the hunters vanish from our sight among the hills, and reappear only as conquerors. the patriarchs belonged to the shepherd class. their manner of life upon the ocean of deserts and pastures gave breadth and freedom to their minds; the vault of heaven, under which they dwelt, with all its nightly stars, elevated their feelings; and they, more than the active, skilful huntsman, or the secure, careful, householding husbandman, had need of the immovable faith that a god walked beside them, visited them, cared for them, guided and saved them. we are compelled to make another reflection in passing to the rest of the history. humane, beautiful, and cheering as the religion of the patriarchs appears, yet traits of savageness and cruelty run through it, out of which man may emerge, or into which he may again be sunk. that hatred should seek to appease itself by the blood, by the death, of the conquered enemy, is natural; that men concluded a peace upon the battle-field among the ranks of the slain may easily be conceived; that they should in like manner think to give validity to a contract by slain animals, follows from the preceding. the notion also that slain creatures could attract, propitiate, and gain over the gods, whom they always looked upon as partisans, either opponents or allies, is likewise not at all surprising. but if we confine our attention to the sacrifices, and consider the way in which they were offered in that primitive time, we find a singular, and, to our notions, altogether repugnant, custom, probably derived from the usages of war; viz., that the sacrificed animals of every kind, and whatever number was devoted, had to be hewn in two halves, and laid out on two sides: so that in the space between them were those who wished to make a covenant with the deity. another dreadful feature wonderfully and portentously pervades that fair world; namely, that whatever had been consecrated or vowed must die. this also was probably a usage of war transferred to peace. the inhabitants of a city which forcibly defends itself are threatened with such a vow: it is taken by storm or otherwise. nothing is left alive; men never: and often women, children, and even cattle, share a similar fate. such sacrifices are rashly and superstitiously and with more or less distinctness promised to the gods; and those whom the votary would willingly spare, even his nearest of kin, his own children, may thus bleed, the expiatory victims of such a delusion. in the mild and truly patriarchal character of abraham, such a savage kind of worship could not arise; but the godhead, [footnote: it should be observed, that in this biblical narrative, when we have used the expressions, "deity," "godhead," or "divinity," goethe generally has "die götter," or "the gods."--trans.] which often, to tempt us, seems to put forth those qualities which man is inclined to assign to it, imposes a monstrous task upon him. he must offer up his son as a pledge of the new covenant, and, if he follows the usage, not only kill and burn him, but cut him in two, and await between the smoking entrails a new promise from the benignant deity. abraham, blindly and without lingering, prepares to execute the command: to heaven the will is sufficient. abraham's trials are now at an end, for they could not be carried farther. but sarai dies, and this gives abraham an opportunity for taking typical possession of the land of canaan. he requires a grave, and this is the first time he looks out for a possession in this earth. he had before this probably sought out a twofold cave by the grove of mamre. this he purchases, with the adjacent field; and the legal form which he observes on the occasion shows how important this possession is to him. indeed, it was more so, perhaps, than he himself supposed: for there he, his sons and his grandsons, were to rest; and by this means the proximate title to the whole land, as well as the everlasting desire of his posterity to gather themselves there, was most properly grounded. from this time forth the manifold incidents of the family life become varied. abraham still keeps strictly apart from the inhabitants; and though ishmael, the son of an egyptian woman, has married a daughter of that land, isaac is obliged to wed a kinswoman of equal birth with himself. abraham despatches his servant to mesopotamia, to the relatives whom he had left behind there. the prudent eleazer arrives unknown, and, in order to take home the right bride, tries the readiness to serve of the girls at the well. he asks to be permitted to drink; and rebecca, unasked, waters his camels also. he gives her presents, he demands her in marriage, and his suit is not rejected. he conducts her to the home of his lord, and she is wedded to isaac. in this case, too, issue has to be long expected. rebecca is not blessed until after some years of probation; and the same discord, which, in abraham's double marriage, arose through two mothers, here proceeds from one. two boys of opposite characters wrestle already in their mother's womb. they come to light, the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. the former becomes the father's, the latter the mother's, favorite. the strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on. esau is quiet and indifferent as to the birthright which fate has given him: jacob never forgets that his brother forced him back. watching every opportunity of gaining the desirable privilege, he buys the birthright of his brother, and defrauds him of their father's blessing. esau is indignant, and vows his brother's death: jacob flees to seek his fortune in the land of his forefathers. now, for the first time, in so noble a family appears a member who has no scruple in attaining by prudence and cunning the advantages which nature and circumstances have denied him. it has often enough been remarked and expressed, that the sacred scriptures by no means intend to set up any of the patriarchs and other divinely favored men as models of virtue. they, too, are persons of the most different characters, with many defects and failings. but there is one leading trait, in which none of these men after god's own heart can be wanting: that is, unshaken faith that god has them and their families in his special keeping. general, natural religion, properly speaking, requires no faith; for the persuasion that a great producing, regulating, and conducting being conceals himself, as it were, behind nature, to make himself comprehensible to us--such a conviction forces itself upon every one. nay, if we for a moment let drop this thread, which conducts us through life, it may be immediately and everywhere resumed. but it is different with a special religion, which announces to us that this great being distinctly and pre-eminently interests himself for one individual, one family, one people, one country. this religion is founded on faith, which must be immovable if it would not be instantly destroyed. every doubt of such a religion is fatal to it. one may return to conviction, but not to faith. hence the endless probation, the delay in the fulfilment of so often repeated promises, by which the capacity for faith in those ancestors is set in the clearest light. it is in this faith also that jacob begins his expedition; and if, by his craft and deceit, he has not gained our affections, he wins them by his lasting and inviolable love for rachel, whom he himself wooes on the instant, as eleazar had courted rebecca for his father. in him the promise of a countless people was first to be fully unfolded: he was to see many sons around him, but through them and their mothers was to endure manifold sorrows of heart. seven years he serves for his beloved, without impatience and without wavering. his father-in-law, crafty like himself, and disposed, like him, to consider legitimate this means to an end, deceives him, and so repays him for what he has done to his brother. jacob finds in his arms a wife whom he does not love. laban, indeed, endeavors to appease him, by giving him his beloved also after a short time, and this but on the condition of seven years of further service. vexation arises out of vexation. the wife he does not love is fruitful: the beloved one bears no children. the latter, like sarai, desires to become a mother through her handmaiden: the former grudges her even this advantage. she also presents her husband with a maid, but the good patriarch is now the most troubled man in the world. he has four women, children by three, and none from her he loves. finally she also is favored; and joseph comes into the world, the late fruit of the most passionate attachment. jacob's fourteen years of service are over; but laban is unwilling to part with him, his chief and most trusty servant. they enter into a new compact, and portion the flocks between them. laban retains the white ones, as most numerous: jacob has to put up with the spotted ones, as the mere refuse. but he is able here, too, to secure his own advantage: and as by a paltry mess (/of pottage/) he had procured the birthright, and, by a disguise, his father's blessing, he manages by art and sympathy to appropriate to himself the best and largest part of the herds; and on this side also he becomes the truly worthy progenitor of the people of israel, and a model for his descendants. laban and his household remark the result, if not the stratagem. vexation ensues: jacob flees with his family and goods, and partly by fortune, partly by cunning, escapes the pursuit of laban. rachel is now about to present him another son, but dies in the travail; benjamin, the child of sorrow, survives her; but the aged father is to experience a still greater sorrow from the apparent loss of his son joseph. perhaps some one may ask why i have so circumstantially narrated histories so universally known, and so often repeated and explained. let the inquirer be satisfied with the answer, that i could in no other way exhibit how, with my life full of diversion, and with my desultory education, i concentrated my mind and feelings in quiet action on one point; that i was able in no other way to depict the peace that prevailed about me, even when all without was so wild and strange. when an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither; when the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion, threatened to bewilder me,--i liked to take refuge in those oriental regions, to plunge into the first books of moses, and to find myself there, amid the scattered shepherd-tribes, at the same time in the greatest solitude and the greatest society. these family scenes, before they were to lose themselves in a history of the jewish nation, show us now, in conclusion, a form by which the hopes and fancies of the young in particular are agreeably excited,--joseph, the child of the most passionate wedded love. he seems to us tranquil and clear, and predicts to himself the advantages which are to elevate him above his family. cast into misfortune by his brothers, he remains steadfast and upright in slavery, resists the most dangerous temptations, rescues himself by prophecy, and is elevated according to his deserts to high honors. he shows himself first serviceable and useful to a great kingdom, then to his own kindred. he is like his ancestor abraham in repose and greatness, his grandfather isaac in silence and devotedness. the talent for traffic, inherited from his father, he exercises on a large scale. it is no longer flocks which are gained for himself from a father-in-law, but nations, with all their possessions, which he knows how to purchase for a king. extremely graceful is this natural story, only it appears too short; and one feels called upon to paint it in detail. such a filling-up of biblical characters and events given only in outline, was no longer strange to the germans. the personages of both the old and new testaments had received through klopstock a tender and affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the boy, as well as to many of his contemporaries. of bodmer's efforts in this line, little or nothing came to him; but "daniel in the lion's den," by moser, made a great impression on the young heart. in that work, a right-minded man of business, and courtier, arrives at high honors through manifold tribulations; and the piety for which they threatened to destroy him became, early and late, his sword and buckler. it had long seemed to me desirable to work out the history of joseph; but i could not get on with the form, particularly as i was conversant with no kind of versification which would have been adapted to such a work. but now i found a treatment of it in prose very suitable, and i applied all my strength to its execution. i now endeavored to discriminate and paint the characters, and, by the interpolation of incidents and episodes, to make the old simple history a new and independent work. i did not consider, what, indeed, youth cannot consider, that subject-matter was necessary to such a design, and that this could only arise by the perceptions of experience. suffice it to say, that i represented to myself all the incidents down to the minutest details, and narrated them accurately to myself in their succession. what greatly lightened this labor was a circumstance which threatened to render this work, and my authorship in general, exceedingly voluminous. a well-gifted young man, who, however, had become imbecile from over- exertion and conceit, resided as a ward in my father's house, lived quietly with the family, and, if allowed to go on in his usual way, was contented and agreeable. he had, with great care, written out notes of his academical course, and acquired a rapid, legible hand. he liked to employ himself in writing better than in any thing else, and was pleased when something was given him to copy; but still more when he was dictated to, because he then felt carried back to his happy academical years. to my father, who was not expeditious in writing, and whose german letters were small and tremulous, nothing could be more desirable; and he was consequently accustomed, in the conduct of his own and other business, to dictate for some hours a day to this young man. i found it no less convenient, during the intervals, to see all that passed through my head fixed upon paper by the hand of another; and my natural gift of feeling and imitation grew with the facility of catching up and preserving. as yet, i had not undertaken any work so large as that biblical prose- epic. the times were tolerably quiet, and nothing recalled my imagination from palestine and egypt. thus my manuscripts swelled more and more every day, as the poem, which i recited to myself, as it were, in the air, stretched along the paper; and only a few pages from time to time needed to be re-written. when the work was done,--for, to my own astonishment, it really came to an end,--i reflected, that from former years many poems were extant, which did not even now appear to me utterly despicable, and which, if written together in the same size with "joseph," would make a very neat quarto, to which the title "miscellaneous poems" might be given. i was pleased with this, as it gave me an opportunity of quietly imitating well-known and celebrated authors. i had composed a good number of so- called anacreontic poems, which, on account of the convenience of the metre, and the lightness of the subject, flowed forth readily enough. but these i could not well take, as they were not in rhyme; and my desire before all things was to show my father something that would please him. so much the more, therefore, did the spiritual odes seem suitable, which i had very zealously attempted in imitation of the "last judgment" of elias schlegel. one of these, written to celebrate the descent of christ into hell, received much applause from my parents and friends, and had the good fortune to please myself for some years afterwards. the so-called texts of the sunday church-music, which were always to be had printed, i studied with diligence. they were, indeed, very weak; and i could well believe that my verses, of which i had composed many in the prescribed manner, were equally worthy of being set to music, and performed for the edification of the congregation. these, and many like them, i had for more than a year before copied with my own hand; because through this private exercise i was released from the copies of the writing-master. now all were corrected and put in order, and no great persuasion was needed to have them neatly copied by the young man who was so fond of writing. i hastened with them to the book- binder: and when, very soon after, i handed the nice-looking volume to my father, he encouraged me with peculiar satisfaction to furnish a similar quarto every year; which he did with the greater conviction, as i had produced the whole in my spare moments alone. another circumstance increased my tendency to these theological, or, rather, biblical, studies. the senior of the ministry, john philip fresenius, a mild man, of handsome, agreeable appearance, who was respected by his congregation and the whole city as an exemplary pastor and good preacher, but who, because he stood forth against the herrnhüters, was not in the best odor with the peculiarly pious; while, on the other hand, he had made himself famous, and almost sacred, with the multitude, by the conversion of a free-thinking general who had been mortally wounded,--this man died; and his successor, plitt, a tall, handsome, dignified man, who brought from his /chair/ (he had been a professor in marburg) the gift of teaching rather than of edifying, immediately announced a sort of religious course, to which his sermons were to be devoted in a certain methodical connection. i had already, as i was compelled to go to church, remarked the distribution of the subject, and could now and then show myself off by a pretty complete recitation of a sermon. but now, as much was said in the congregation, both for and against the new senior, and many placed no great confidence in his announced didactic sermons, i undertook to write them out more carefully; and i succeeded the better from having made smaller attempts in a seat very convenient for hearing, but concealed from sight. i was extremely attentive and on the alert: the moment he said amen, i hastened from church, and spent a couple of hours in rapidly dictating what i had fixed in my memory and on paper, so that i could hand in the written sermon before dinner. my father was very proud of this success; and the good friend of the family, who had just come in to dinner, also shared in the joy. indeed, this friend was very well disposed towards me, because i had made his "messiah" so much my own, that in my repeated visits, paid to him with a view of getting impressions of seals for my collection of coats-of-arms, i could recite long passages from it till the tears stood in his eyes. the next sunday i prosecuted the work with equal zeal; and, as the mechanical part of it mainly interested me, i did not reflect upon what i wrote and preserved. during the first quarter these efforts may have continued pretty much the same; but as i fancied at last, in my self- conceit, that i found no particular enlightenment as to the bible, nor clearer insight into dogmas, the small vanity which was thus gratified seemed to me too dearly purchased for me to pursue the matter with the same zeal. the sermons, once so many-leaved, grew more and more lean: and before long i should have relinquished this labor altogether, if my father, who was a fast friend to completeness, had not, by words and promises, induced me to persevere till the last sunday in trinity; though, at the conclusion, scarcely more than the text, the statement, and the divisions were scribbled on little pieces of paper. my father was particularly pertinacious on this point of completeness. what was once undertaken had to be finished, even if the inconvenience, tedium, vexation, nay, uselessness, of the thing begun were plainly manifested in the mean time. it seemed as if he regarded completeness as the only end, and perseverance as the only virtue. if in our family circle, in the long winter evenings, we had begun to read a book aloud, we were compelled to finish, though we were all in despair about it, and my father himself was the first to yawn. i still remember such a winter, when we had thus to work our way through bower's "history of the popes." it was a terrible time, as little or nothing that occurs in ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people. still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading remained in my mind that i was able, in after times, to take up many threads of the narrative. amid all these heterogeneous occupations and labors, which followed each other so rapidly that one could hardly reflect whether they were permissible and useful, my father did not lose sight of the main object. he endeavored to direct my memory and my talent for apprehending and combining to objects of jurisprudence, and therefore gave me a small book by hopp, in the shape of a catechism, and worked up according to the form and substance of the institutions. i soon learned questions and answers by heart, and could represent the catechist as well as the catechumen; and, as in religious instruction at that time, one of the chief exercises was to find passages in the bible as readily as possible; so here a similar acquaintance with the "corpus juris" was found necessary, in which, also, i soon became completely versed. my father wished me to go on, and the little "struve" was taken in hand; but here affairs did not proceed so rapidly. the form of the work was not so favorable for beginners, that they could help themselves on; nor was my father's method of illustration so liberal as greatly to interest me. not only by the warlike state in which we lived for some years, but also by civil life itself, and the perusal of history and romances, was it made clear to me that there were many cases in which the laws are silent, and give no help to the individual, who must then see how to get out of the difficulty by himself. we had now reached the period when, according to the old routine, we were to learn, besides other things, fencing and riding, that we might guard our skins upon occasion, and present no pedantic appearance on horseback. as to the first, the practice was very agreeable to us; for we had already, long ago, contrived to make broad-swords out of hazel-sticks, with basket-hilts neatly woven of willow, to protect the hands. now we might get real steel blades, and the clash we made with them was very merry. there were two fencing-masters in the city: an old, earnest german, who went to work in a severe and solid style; and a frenchman, who sought to gain his advantage by advancing and retreating, and by light, fugitive thrusts, which he always accompanied by cries. opinions varied as to whose manner was the best. the little company with which i was to take lessons sided with the frenchman; and we speedily accustomed ourselves to move backwards and forwards, make passes and recover, always breaking out into the usual exclamations. but several of our acquaintance had gone to the german teacher, and practised precisely the opposite. these distinct modes of treating so important an exercise, the conviction of each that his master was the best, really caused a dissension among the young people, who were of about the same age: and the fencing-schools occasioned serious battles, for there was almost as much fighting with words as with swords; and, to decide the matter in the end, a trial of skill between the two teachers was arranged, the consequences of which i need not circumstantially describe. the german stood in his position like a wall, watched his opportunity, and contrived to disarm his opponent over and over again with his cut and thrust. the latter maintained that this mattered not, and proceeded to exhaust the other's wind by his agility. he fetched the german several lunges too, which, however, if they had been in earnest, would have sent him into the next world. on the whole, nothing was decided or improved, except that some went over to our countryman, of whom i was one. but i had already acquired too much from the first master; and hence a considerable time elapsed before the new one could break me of it, who was altogether less satisfied with us renegades than with his original pupils. with riding i fared still worse. it happened that they sent me to the course in the autumn, so that i commenced in the cool and damp season. the pedantic treatment of this noble art was highly repugnant to me. from first to last, the whole talk was about sitting the horse: and yet no one could say in what a proper sitting consisted, though all depended on that; for they went to and fro on the horse without stirrups. moreover, the instruction seemed contrived only for cheating and degrading the scholars. if one forgot to hook or loosen the curb-chain, or let his switch fall down, or even his hat,--every delay, every misfortune, had to be atoned for by money; and one was laughed at into the bargain. this put me in the worst of humors, particularly as i found the place of exercise itself quite intolerable. the wide, nasty space, either wet or dusty, the cold, the mouldy smell, all together was in the highest degree repugnant to me; and since the stable-master always gave the others the best and me the worst horses to ride,--perhaps because they bribed him by breakfasts and other gifts, or even by their own cleverness; since he kept me waiting, and, as it seemed, slighted me,--i spent the most disagreeable hours in an employment that ought to have been the most pleasant in the world. nay, the impression of that time and of these circumstances has remained with me so vividly, that although i afterwards became a passionate and daring rider, and for days and weeks together scarcely got off my horse, i carefully shunned covered riding-courses, and at least passed only a few moments in them. the case often happens, that, when the elements of an exclusive art are taught us, this is done in a painful and revolting manner. the conviction that this is both wearisome and injurious has given rise, in later times, to the educational maxim, that the young must be taught every thing in an easy, cheerful, and agreeable way: from which, however, other evils and disadvantages have proceeded. with the approach of spring, times became again more quiet with us; and if in earlier days i had endeavored to obtain a sight of the city, its ecclesiastical, civil, public, and private structures, and especially found great delight in the still prevailing antiquities, i afterwards endeavored, by means of "lersner's chronicle," and other frankfortian books and pamphlets belonging to my father, to revive the persons of past times. this seemed to me to be well attained by great attention to the peculiarities of times and manners and of distinguished individuals. among the ancient remains, that which, from my childhood, had been remarkable to me, was the skull of a state criminal, fastened up on the tower of the bridge, who, out of three or four, as the naked iron spikes showed, had, since , been preserved in spite of the encroachments of time and weather. whenever one returned from sachsenhausen to frankfort, one had this tower before one; and the skull was directly in view. as a boy, i liked to hear related the history of these rebels,--fettmilch and his confederates,--how they had become dissatisfied with the government of the city, had risen up against it, plotted a mutiny, plundered the jews' quarter, and excited a fearful riot, but were at last captured, and condemned to death by a deputy of the emperor. afterwards i felt anxious to know the most minute circumstance, and to hear what sort of people they were. when from an old contemporary book, ornamented with wood-cuts, i learned, that, while these men had indeed been condemned to death, many councillors had at the same time been deposed, because various kinds of disorder and very much that was unwarrantable was then going on; when i heard the nearer particulars how all took place,--i pitied the unfortunate persons who might be regarded as sacrifices made for a future better constitution. for from that time was dated the regulation which allows the noble old house of limpurg, the frauenstein- house, sprung from a club, besides lawyers, trades-people, and artisans, to take part in a government, which, completed by a system of ballot, complicated in the venetian fashion, and restricted by the civil colleges, was called to do right, without acquiring any special privilege to do wrong. among the things which excited the misgivings of the boy, and even of the youth, was especially the state of the jewish quarter of the city (/judenstadt/), properly called the jew street (/judengasse/); as it consisted of little more than a single street, which in early times may have been hemmed in between the walls and trenches of the town, as in a prison (/zwinger/). the closeness, the filth, the crowd, the accent of an unpleasant language, altogether made a most disagreeable impression, even if one only looked in as one passed the gate. it was long before i ventured in alone; and i did not return there readily, when i had once escaped the importunities of so many men unwearied in demanding and offering to traffic. at the same time, the old legends of the cruelty of the jews towards christian children, which we had seen hideously illustrated in "gottfried's chronicle," hovered gloomily before my young mind. and although they were thought better of in modern times, the large caricature, still to be seen, to their disgrace, on an arched wall under the bridge-tower, bore extraordinary witness against them; for it had been made, not through private ill- will, but by public order. however, they still remained the chosen people of god, and passed, no matter how it came about, as a memorial of the most ancient times. besides, they also were men, active and obliging; and, even to the tenacity with which they clung to their peculiar customs, one could not refuse one's respect. the girls, moreover, were pretty, and were far from displeased when a christian lad, meeting them on the sabbath in the fischerfeld, showed himself kindly and attentive. i was consequently extremely curious to become acquainted with their ceremonies. i did not desist until i had frequently visited their school, had assisted at a circumcision and a wedding, and formed a notion of the feast of the tabernacles. everywhere i was well received, pleasantly entertained, and invited to come again; for it was through persons of influence that i had been either introduced or recommended. thus, as a young resident in a large city, i was thrown about from one object to another; and horrible scenes were not wanting in the midst of the municipal quiet and security. sometimes a more or less remote fire aroused us from our domestic peace: sometimes the discovery of a great crime, with its investigation and punishment, set the whole city in an uproar for many weeks. we were forced to be witnesses of different executions; and it is worth remembering, that i was also once present at the burning of a book. the publication was a french comic romance, which indeed spared the state, but not religion and manners. there was really something dreadful in seeing punishment inflicted on a lifeless thing. the packages burst asunder in the fire, and were raked apart by an oven- fork, to be brought in closer contact with the flames. it was not long before the kindled sheets were wafted about in the air, and the crowd caught at them with eagerness. nor could we rest until we had hunted up a copy, while not a few managed likewise to procure the forbidden pleasure. nay, if it had been done to give the author publicity, he could not himself have made a more effectual provision. but there were also more peaceable inducements which took me about in every part of the city. my father had early accustomed me to manage for him his little affairs of business. he charged me particularly to stir up the laborers whom he set to work, as they commonly kept him waiting longer than was proper; because he wished every thing done accurately, and was used in the end to lower the price for a prompt payment. in this way, i gained access to all the workshops: and as it was natural to me to enter into the condition of others, to feel every species of human existence, and sympathize in it with pleasure, these commissions were to me the occasion of many most delightful hours; and i learned to know every one's method of proceeding, and what joy and sorrow, what advantages and hardships, were incident to the indispensable conditions of this or that mode of life. i was thus brought nearer to that active class which connects the lower and upper classes. for if on the one side stand those who are employed in the simple and rude products, and on the other those who desire to enjoy something that has been already worked up, the manufacturer, with his skill and hand, is the mediator through whom the other two receive something from each other: each is enabled to gratify his wishes in his own way. the household economy of many crafts, which took its form and color from the occupation, was likewise an object of my quiet attention; and thus was developed and strengthened in me the feeling of the equality, if not of all men, yet of all human conditions,--the mere fact of existence seeming to me the main point, and all the rest indifferent and accidental. as my father did not readily permit himself an expense which would be consumed at once in some momentary enjoyment,--as i can scarcely call to mind that we ever took a walk together, and spent any thing in a place of amusement,--he was, on the other hand, not niggardly in procuring such things as had a good external appearance in addition to inward value. no one could desire peace more than he, although he had not felt the smallest inconvenience during the last days of the war. with this feeling, he had promised my mother a gold snuff-box, set with diamonds, which she was to receive as soon as peace should be publicly declared. in the expectation of the happy event, they had labored now for some years on this present. the box, which was tolerably large, had been executed in hanau; for my father was on good terms with the gold-workers there, as well as with the heads of the silk establishments. many designs were made for it: the cover was adorned by a basket of flowers, over which hovered a dove with the olive-branch. a vacant space was left for the jewels, which were to be set partly in the dove and partly on the spot where the box is usually opened. the jeweller, to whom the execution and the requisite stones were intrusted, was named lautensak, and was a brisk, skilful man, who, like many artists, seldom did what was necessary, but usually works of caprice, which gave him pleasure. the jewels were very soon set, in the shape in which they were to be put upon the box, on some black wax, and looked very well; but they would not come off to be transferred to the gold. in the outset, my father let the matter rest: but as the hope of peace became livelier, and finally when the stipulations,--particularly the elevation of the archduke joseph to the roman throne,--seemed more precisely known, he grew more and more impatient; and i had to go several times a week, nay, at last, almost daily, to visit the tardy artist. owing to my unremitted teasing and exhortation, the work went on, though slowly enough; for, as it was of that kind which can be taken in hand or laid aside at will, there was always something by which it was thrust out of the way, and put aside. the chief cause of this conduct, however, was a task which the artist had undertaken on his own account. everybody knew that the emperor francis cherished a strong liking for jewels, and especially for colored stones. lautensak had expended a considerable sum, and, as it afterwards turned out, larger than his means, on such gems, out of which he had begun to shape a nosegay, in which every stone was to be tastefully disposed, according to its shape and color, and the whole form a work of art worthy to stand in the treasure-vaults of an emperor. he had, in his desultory way, labored at it for many years, and now hastened--because after the hoped-for peace the arrival of the emperor, for the coronation of his son, was expected in frankfort--to complete it and finally to put it together. my desire to become acquainted with such things he used very dexterously to divert my attention by sending me forth as his dun, and to turn me away from my intention. he strove to impart a knowledge of these stones to me, and made me attentive to their properties and value; so that in the end i knew his whole bouquet by heart, and quite as well as he could have demonstrated its virtues to a customer. it is even now present to my mind; and i have since seen more costly, but not more graceful, specimens of show and magnificence in this sort. he possessed, moreover, a pretty collection of engravings, and other works of art, with which he liked to amuse himself; and i passed many hours with him, not without profit. finally, when the congress of hubertsburg was finally fixed, he did for my sake more than was due; and the dove and flowers actually reached my mother's hands on the festival in celebration of the peace. i then received also many similar commissions to urge on painters with respect to pictures which had been ordered. my father had confirmed himself in the notion--and few men were free from it--that a picture painted on wood was greatly to be preferred to one that was merely put on canvas. it was therefore his great care to possess good oak boards, of every shape; because he well knew that just on this important point the more careless artists trusted to the joiners. the oldest planks were hunted up, the joiners were obliged to go accurately to work with gluing, painting, and arranging; and they were then kept for years in an upper room, where they could be sufficiently dried. a precious board of this kind was intrusted to the painter junker, who was to represent on it an ornamental flower-pot, with the most important flowers drawn after nature in his artistic and elegant manner. it was just about the spring- time; and i did not fail to take him several times a week the most beautiful flowers that fell in my way, which he immediately put in, and by degrees composed the whole out of these elements with the utmost care and fidelity. on one occasion i had caught a mouse, which i took to him, and which he desired to copy as a very pretty animal; nay, really represented it, as accurately as possible, gnawing an ear of corn at the foot of the flower-pot. many such inoffensive natural objects, such as butterflies and chafers, were brought in and represented; so that finally, as far as imitation and execution were concerned, a highly valuable picture was put together. hence i was not a little astonished when the good man formally declared one day, when the work was just about to be delivered, that the picture no longer pleased him,--since, while it had turned out quite well in its details, it was not well composed as a whole, because it had been produced in this gradual manner; and he had committed a blunder at the outset, in not at least devising a general plan for light and shade, as well as for color, according to which the single flowers might have been arranged. he scrutinized, in my presence, the minutest parts of the picture, which had arisen before my eyes during six months, and had pleased me in many respects, and, much to my regret, managed to thoroughly convince me. even the copy of the mouse he regarded as a mistake; for many persons, he said, have a sort of horror of such animals: and they should not be introduced where the object is to excite pleasure. as it commonly happens with those who are cured of a prejudice, and think themselves much more knowing than they were before, i now had a real contempt for this work of art, and agreed perfectly with the artist when he caused to be prepared another tablet of the same size, on which, according to his taste, he painted a better-formed vessel and a more artistically arranged nosegay, and also managed to select and distribute the little living accessories in an ornamental and agreeable way. this tablet also he painted with the greatest care, though altogether after the former copied one, or from memory, which, through a very long and assiduous practice, came to his aid. both paintings were now ready; and we were thoroughly delighted with the last, which was certainly the more artistic and striking of the two. my father was surprised with two pictures instead of one, and to him the choice was left. he approved of our opinion, and of the reasons for it, and especially of our good will and activity; but, after considering both pictures some days, decided in favor of the first, without saying much about the motives of his choice. the artist, in an ill humor, took back his second well-meant picture, and could not refrain from the remark that the good oaken tablet on which the first was painted had certainly had its effect on my father's decision. now that i am again speaking of painting, i am reminded of a large establishment, where i passed much time, because both it and its managers especially attracted me. it was the great oil-cloth factory which the painter nothnagel had erected,--an expert artist, but one who by his mode of thought inclined more to manufacture than to art. in a very large space of courts and gardens, all sorts of oil-cloths were made, from the coarsest, that are spread with a trowel, and used for baggage-wagons and similar purposes, and the carpets impressed with figures, to the finer and the finest, on which sometimes chinese and grotesque, sometimes natural flowers, sometimes figures, sometimes landscapes, were represented by the pencils of accomplished workmen. this multiplicity, to which there was no end, amused me vastly. the occupation of so many men, from the commonest labor to that in which a certain artistic worth could not be denied, was to me extremely attractive. i made the acquaintance of this multitude of younger and older men, working in several rooms one behind the other, and occasionally lent a hand myself. the sale of these commodities was extraordinarily brisk. whoever at that time was building or furnishing a house, wished to provide for his lifetime; and this oil-cloth carpeting was certainly quite indestructible. nothnagel had enough to do in managing the whole, and sat in his office surrounded by factors and clerks. the remainder of his time he employed in his collection of works of art, consisting chiefly of engravings, in which, as well as in the pictures he possessed, he traded occasionally. at the same time he had acquired a taste for etching: he etched a variety of plates, and prosecuted this branch of art even into his latest years. as his dwelling lay near the eschenheim gate, my way when i had visited him led me out of the city to some pieces of ground which my father owned beyond the gates. one was a large orchard, the soil of which was used as a meadow, and in which my father carefully attended the transplanting of trees, and whatever else pertained to their preservation; though the ground itself was leased. still more occupation was furnished by a very well-preserved vineyard beyond the friedberg gate, where, between the rows of vines, rows of asparagus were planted and tended with great care. scarcely a day passed in the fine season in which my father did not go there; and as on these occasions we might generally accompany him, we were provided with joy and delight from the earliest productions of spring to the last of autumn. we now also acquired a knowledge of gardening matters, which, as they were repeated every year, became in the end perfectly known and familiar to us. but, after the manifold fruits of summer and autumn, the vintage at last was the most lively and the most desirable; nay, there is no question, that as wine gives a freer character to the very places and districts where it is grown and drunk, so also do these vintage-days, while they close summer and at the same time open the winter, diffuse an incredible cheerfulness. joy and jubilation pervade a whole district. in the daytime, huzzas and shoutings are heard from every end and corner; and at night rockets and fire-balls, now here, now there, announce that the people, everywhere awake and lively, would willingly make this festival last as long as possible. the subsequent labor at the wine-press, and during the fermentation in the cellar, gave us also a cheerful employment at home; and thus we ordinarily reached winter without being properly aware of it. these rural possessions delighted us so much the more in the spring of , as the th of february in that year was celebrated as a festival day, on account of the conclusion of the hubertsberg peace, under the happy results of which the greater part of my life was to flow away. but, before i go farther, i think i am bound to mention some men who exerted an important influence on my youth. von olenschlager, a member of the frauenstein family, a schöff, and son- in-law of the above-mentioned dr. orth, a handsome, comfortable, sanguine man. in his official holiday costume he could well have personated the most important french prelate. after his academical course, he had employed himself in political and state affairs, and directed even his travels to that end. he greatly esteemed me, and often conversed with me on matters which chiefly interested him. i was with him when he wrote his "illustration of the golden bull," when he managed to explain to me very clearly the worth and dignity of that document. my imagination was led back by it to those wild and unquiet times; so that i could not forbear representing what he related historically, as if it were present, by pictures of characters and circumstances, and often by mimicry. in this he took great delight, and by his applause excited me to repetition. i had from childhood the singular habit of always learning by heart the beginnings of books, and the divisions of a work, first of the five books of moses, and then of the "aeneid" and ovid's "metamorphoses." i now did the same thing with the "golden bull," and often provoked my patron to a smile, when i quite seriously and unexpectedly exclaimed, "/omne regnum in se divisum desolabitur; nam principes ejus facti sunt socii furum./" [footnote: every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation, for the princes thereof have become the associates of robbers.--trans.] the knowing man shook his head, smiling, and said doubtingly, "what times those must have been, when, at a grand diet, the emperor had such words published in the face of his princes!" there was a great charm in von olenschlager's society. he received little company, but was strongly inclined to intellectual amusement, and induced us young people from time to time to perform a play; for such exercises were deemed particularly useful to the young. we acted "canute" by schlegel, in which the part of the king was assigned to me, elfrida to my sister, and ulfo to the younger son of the family. we then ventured on the "britannicus;" [footnote: racine's tragedy.--trans.] for, besides our dramatic talents, we were to bring the language into practice. i took nero, my sister agrippina, and the younger son britannicus. we were more praised than we deserved, and fancied we had done it even beyond the amount of praise. thus i stood on the best terms with this family, and have been indebted to them for many pleasures and a speedier development. von reineck, of an old patrician family, able, honest, but stubborn, a meagre, swarthy man, whom i never saw smile. the misfortune befell him that his only daughter was carried off by a friend of the family. he pursued his son-in-law with the most vehement prosecution: and because the tribunals, with their formality, were neither speedy nor sharp enough to gratify his desire of vengeance, he fell out with them; and there arose quarrel after quarrel, suit after suit. he retired completely into his own house and its adjacent garden, lived in a spacious but melancholy lower room, into which for many years no brush of a whitewasher, and perhaps scarcely the broom of a maid-servant, had found its way. he was very fond of me, and had especially commended to me his younger son. he many times asked his oldest friends, who knew how to humor him, his men of business and agents, to dine with him, and on these occasions never omitted inviting me. there was good eating and better drinking at his house. but a large stove, that let out the smoke from many cracks, caused his guests the greatest pain. one of the most intimate of these once ventured to remark upon this, by asking the host whether he could put up with such an inconvenience all the winter. he answered, like a second timon or heautontimoroumenos, "would to god this was the greatest evil of those which torment me!" it was long before he allowed himself to be persuaded to see his daughter and grandson. the son-in-law never again dared to come into his presence. on this excellent but unfortunate man my visits had a very favorable effect; for while he liked to converse with me, and particularly instructed me on world and state affairs, he seemed to feel himself relieved and cheered. the few old friends who still gathered round him, often, therefore, made use of me when they wished to soften his peevish humor, and persuade him to any diversion. he now really rode out with us many times, and again contemplated the country, on which he had not cast an eye for so many years. he called to mind the old landowners, and told stories of their characters and actions, in which he showed himself always severe, but often cheerful and witty. we now tried also to bring him again among other men, which, however, nearly turned out badly. about the same age, if indeed not older, was one herr von malapert, a rich man, who possessed a very handsome house by the horse-market, and derived a good income from salt-pits. he also lived quite secluded; but in summer he was a great deal in his garden, near the bockenheim gate, where he watched and tended a very fine plot of pinks. von reineck was likewise an amateur of pinks: the season of flowering had come, and suggestions were made as to whether these two could not visit each other. we introduced the matter, and persisted in it; till at last von reineck resolved to go out with us one sunday afternoon. the greeting of the two old gentlemen was very laconic, indeed almost pantomimic; and they walked up and down by the long pink frames with true diplomatic strides. the display was really extraordinarily beautiful: and the particular forms and colors of the different flowers, the advantages of one over the other, and their rarity, gave at last occasion to a sort of conversation which appeared to get quite friendly; at which we others rejoiced the more because we saw the most precious old rhine wine in cut decanters, fine fruits, and other good things spread upon a table in a neighboring bower. but these, alas! we were not to enjoy. for von reineck unfortunately saw a very fine pink with its head somewhat hanging down: he therefore took the stalk near the calyx very cautiously between his fore and middle fingers, and lifted the flower so that he could well inspect it. but even this gentle handling vexed the owner. von malapert courteously, indeed, but stiffly enough, and somewhat self-complacently, reminded him of the /oculis, non manibus/.[footnote: eyes, not hands.--trans.] von reineck had already let go the flower, but at once took fire at the words, and said in his usual dry, serious manner, that it was quite consistent with an amateur to touch and examine them in such a manner. whereupon he repeated the act, and took the flower again between his fingers. the friends of both parties--for von malapert also had one present--were now in the greatest perplexity. they set one hare to catch another (that was our proverbial expression, when a conversation was to be interrupted, and turned to another subject), but it would not do; the old gentleman had become quite silent: and we feared every moment that von reineck would repeat the act, when it would be all over with us. the two friends kept their principals apart by occupying them, now here, now there, and at last we found it most expedient to make preparation for departure. thus, alas! we were forced to turn our backs on the inviting side-board, yet unenjoyed. hofrath huesgen, not born in frankfort, of the reformed [footnote: that is to say, he was a calvinist, as distinguished from a lutheran.-- trans.] religion, and therefore incapable of public office, including the profession of advocate, which, however, because much confidence was placed in him as an excellent jurist, he managed to exercise quietly, both in the frankfort and the imperial courts, under assumed signatures, was already sixty years old when i took writing-lessons with his son, and so came into his house. his figure was tall without being thin, and broad without corpulency. you could not look, for the first time, on his face, which was not only disfigured by small-pox, but deprived of an eye, without apprehension. he always wore on his bald head a perfectly white bell-shaped cap, tied at the top with a ribbon. his morning-gowns, of calamanco or damask, were always very clean. he dwelt in a very cheerful suite of rooms on the ground-floor by the /allée/, and the neatness of every thing about him corresponded with this cheerfulness. the perfect arrangement of his papers, books, and maps produced a favorable impression. his son, heinrich sebastian, afterwards known by various writings on art, gave little promise in his youth. good-natured but dull, not rude but blunt, and without any special liking for instruction, he rather sought to avoid the presence of his father, as he could get all he wanted from his mother. i, on the other hand, grew more and more intimate with the old man, the more i knew of him. as he attended only to important cases, he had time enough to occupy and amuse himself in another manner. i had not long frequented his house, and heard his doctrines, before i could well perceive that he stood in opposition to god and the world. one of his favorite books was "agrippa de vanitate scientiarum," which he especially commended to me, and so set my young brains in a considerable whirl for a long time. in the happiness of youth i was inclined to a sort of optimism, and had again pretty well reconciled myself with god or the gods; for the experience of a series of years had taught me that there was much to counterbalance evil, that one can well recover from misfortune, and that one may be saved from dangers and need not always break one's neck. i looked with tolerance, too, on what men did and pursued, and found many things worthy of praise which my old gentleman could not by any means abide. indeed, once when he had sketched the world to me, rather from the distorted side, i observed from his appearance that he meant to close the game with an important trump-card. he shut tight his blind left eye, as he was wont to do in such cases, looked sharp out of the other, and said in a nasal voice, "even in god i discover defects." my timonic mentor was also a mathematician; but his practical turn drove him to mechanics, though he did not work himself. a clock, wonderful indeed in those days, which indicated, not only the days and hours, but the motions of the sun and moon, he caused to be made according to his own plan. on sunday, about ten o'clock in the morning, he always wound it up himself; which he could do the more regularly, as he never went to church. i never saw company nor guests at his house; and only twice in ten years do i remember to have seen him dressed, and walking out of doors. my various conversations with these men were not insignificant, and each of them influenced me in his own way. from every one i had as much attention as his own children, if not more; and each strove to increase his delight in me as in a beloved son, while he aspired to mould me into his moral counterpart. olenschlager would have made me a courtier, von reineck a diplomatic man of business: both, the latter particularly, sought to disgust me with poetry and authorship. huisgen wished me to be a timon after his fashion, but, at the same time, an able jurisconsult, --a necessary profession, as he thought, with which one could, in a regular manner, defend one's self and friends against the rabble of mankind, succor the oppressed, and, above all, pay off a rogue; though the last is neither especially practicable nor advisable. but if i liked to be at the side of these men to profit by their counsels and directions, younger persons, only a little older than myself, roused me to immediate emulation. i name here, before all others, the brothers schlosser and griesbach. but as, subsequently, there arose between us greater intimacy, which lasted for many years uninterruptedly, i will only say, for the present, that they were then praised as being distinguished in languages, and other studies which opened the academical course, and held up as models, and that everybody cherished the certain expectation that they would once do something uncommon in church and state. with respect to myself, i also had it in my mind to produce something extraordinary; but in what it was to consist was not clear. but as we are apt to look rather to the reward which may be received than to the merit which is to be acquired; so, i do not deny, that if i thought of a desirable piece of good fortune, it appeared to me most fascinating in the shape of that laurel garland which is woven to adorn the poet. fifth book. every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in a way peculiar to himself. nature, education, circumstances, and habit kept me apart from all that was rude; and though i often came into contact with the lower classes of people, particularly mechanics, no close connection grew out of it. i had indeed boldness enough to undertake something uncommon and perhaps dangerous, and many times felt disposed to do so; but i was without the handle by which to grasp and hold it. meanwhile i was quite unexpectedly involved in an affair which brought me near to a great hazard, and at least for a long time into perplexity and distress. the good terms on which i before stood with the boy whom i have already named pylades was maintained up to the time of my youth. we indeed saw each other less often, because our parents did not stand on the best footing with each other; but, when we did meet, the old raptures of friendship broke out immediately. once we met in the alleys which offer a very agreeable walk between the outer and inner gate of saint gallus. we had scarcely returned greetings when he said to me, "i hold to the same opinion as ever about your verses. those which you recently communicated to me, i read aloud to some pleasant companions; and not one of them will believe that you have made them."--"let it pass," i answered: "we will make and enjoy them, and the others may think and say of them what they please." "there comes the unbeliever now," added my friend. "we will not speak of it," i replied: "what is the use of it? one cannot convert them."--"by no means," said my friend: "i cannot let the affair pass off in this way." after a short, insignificant conversation, my young comrade, who was but too well disposed towards me, could not suffer the matter to drop, without saying to the other, with some resentment, "here is my friend who made those pretty verses, for which you will not give him credit!"-- "he will certainly not take it amiss," answered the other; "for we do him an honor when we suppose that more learning is required to make such verses than one of his years can possess." i replied with something indifferent; but my friend continued, "it will not cost much labor to convince you. give him any theme, and he will make you a poem on the spot." i assented; we were agreed; and the other asked me whether i would venture to compose a pretty love-letter in rhyme, which a modest young woman might be supposed to write to a young man, to declare her inclination. "nothing is easier than that," i answered, "if i only had writing materials." he pulled out his pocket almanac, in which there were a great many blank leaves; and i sat down upon a bench to write. they walked about in the mean while, but always kept me in sight. i immediately brought the required situation before my mind, and thought how agreeable it must be if some pretty girl were really attached to me, and would reveal her sentiments to me, either in prose or verse. i therefore began my declaration with delight, and in a little while executed it in a flowing measure, between doggerel and madrigal, with the greatest possible /naiveté/, and in such a way that the sceptic was overcome with admiration, and my friend with delight. the request of the former to possess the poem i could the less refuse, as it was written in his almanac; and i liked to see the documentary evidence of my capabilities in his hands. he departed with many assurances of admiration and respect, and wished for nothing more than that we should often meet; so we settled soon to go together into the country. our excursion actually took place, and was joined by several more young people of the same rank. they were men of the middle, or, if you please, of the lower, class, who were not wanting in brains, and who, moreover, as they had gone through school, were possessed of various knowledge and a certain degree of culture. in a large, rich city, there are many modes of gaining a livelihood. these eked out a living by copying for the lawyers, and by advancing the children of the lower order more than is usual in common schools. with grown-up children, who were about to be confirmed, they went through the religious courses; then, again, they assisted factors and merchants in some way, and were thus enabled to enjoy themselves frugally in the evenings, and particularly on sundays and festivals. on the way there, while they highly extolled my love-letter, they confessed to me that they had made a very merry use of it; viz., that it had been copied in a feigned hand, and, with a few pertinent allusions, had been sent to a conceited young man, who was now firmly persuaded that a lady to whom he had paid distant court was excessively enamored of him, and sought an opportunity for closer acquaintance. they at the same time told me in confidence, that he desired nothing more now than to be able to answer her in verse; but that neither he nor they were skilful enough, so that they earnestly solicited me to compose the much- desired reply. mystifications are and will continue to be an amusement for idle people, whether more or less ingenious. a venial wickedness, a self-complacent malice, is an enjoyment for those who have neither resources in themselves nor a wholesome external activity. no age is quite exempt from such pruriences. we had often tricked each other in our childish years: many sports turn upon mystification and trick. the present jest did not seem to me to go farther: i gave my consent. they imparted to me many particulars which the letter ought to contain, and we brought it home already finished. a little while afterwards i was urgently invited, through my friend, to take part in one of the evening-feasts of that society. the lover, he said, was willing to bear the expense on this occasion, and desired expressly to thank the friend who had shown himself so excellent a poetical secretary. we came together late enough, the meal was most frugal, the wine drinkable; while, as for the conversation, it turned almost entirely on jokes upon the young man, who was present, and certainly not very bright, and who, after repeated readings of the letter, almost believed that he had written it himself. my natural good nature would not allow me to take much pleasure in such a malicious deception, and the repetition of the same subject soon disgusted me. i should certainly have passed a tedious evening, if an unexpected apparition had not revived me. on our arrival we found the table already neatly and orderly set, and sufficient wine served on it: we sat down and remained alone, without requiring further service. as there was, however, a scarcity of wine at last, one of them called for the maid; but, instead of the maid, there came in a girl of uncommon, and, when one saw her with all around her, of incredible, beauty. "what do you desire?" she asked, after having cordially wished us a good- evening: "the maid is ill in bed. can i serve you?"--"the wine is out," said one: "if you would fetch us a few bottles, it would be very kind."-- "do it, gretchen," [footnote: the diminutive of margaret.--trans.] said another: "it is but a cat's leap from here."--"why not?" she answered; and, taking a few empty bottles from the table, she hastened out. her form, as seen from behind, was almost more elegant. the little cap sat so neatly upon her little head, which a slender throat united very gracefully to her neck and shoulders. every thing about her seemed choice; and one could survey her whole form the more at ease, as one's attention was no more exclusively attracted and fettered by the quiet, honest eyes and lovely mouth. i reproved my comrades for sending the girl out alone at night, but they only laughed at me; and i was soon consoled by her return, as the publican lived only just across the way. "sit down with us, in return," said one. she did so; but, alas! she did not come near me. she drank a glass to our health, and speedily departed, advising us not to stay very long together, and not to be so noisy, as her mother was just going to bed. it was not, however, her own mother, but the mother of our hosts. the form of that girl followed me from that moment on every path; it was the first durable impression which a female being had made upon me: and as i could find no pretext to see her at home, and would not seek one, i went to church for love of her, and had soon traced out where she sat. thus, during the long protestant service, i gazed my fill at her. when the congregation left the church, i did not venture to accost her, much less to accompany her, and was perfectly delighted if she seemed to have remarked me and to have returned my greeting with a nod. yet i was not long denied the happiness of approaching her. they had persuaded the lover, whose poetical secretary i had been, that the letter written in his name had been actually despatched to the lady, and had strained to the utmost his expectations that an answer must come soon. this, also, i was to write; and the waggish company entreated me earnestly, through pylades, to exert all my wit and employ all my art, in order that this piece might be quite elegant and perfect. in the hope of again seeing my beauty, i immediately set to work, and thought of every thing that would be in the highest degree pleasing if gretchen were writing it to me. i thought i had composed every thing so completely according to her form, her nature, her manner, and her mind, that i could not refrain from wishing that it were so in reality, and lost myself in rapture at the mere thought that something similar could be sent from her to me. thus i mystified myself, while i intended to impose upon another; and much joy and much trouble was yet to arise out of the affair. when i was once more summoned, i had finished, promised to come, and did not fail at the appointed hour. there was only one of the young people at home; gretchen sat at the window spinning; the mother was going to and fro. the young man desired that i should read it over to him: i did so, and read, not without emotion, as i glanced over the paper at the beautiful girl; and when i fancied that i remarked a certain uneasiness in her deportment, and a gentle flush on her cheeks, i uttered better and with more animation that which i wished to hear from herself. the lover, who had often interrupted me with commendations, at last entreated me to make some alterations. these affected some passages which indeed were rather suited to the condition of gretchen than to that of the lady, who was of a good family, wealthy, and known and respected in the city. after the young man had designated the desired changes, and had brought me an inkstand, but had taken leave for a short time on account of some business, i remained sitting on the bench against the wall, behind the large table, and essayed the alterations that were to be made, on the large slate, which almost covered the whole table, with a pencil that always lay in the window; because upon this slate reckonings were often made, and various memoranda noted down, and those coming in or going out even communicated with each other. i had for a while written different things and rubbed them out again, when i exclaimed impatiently, "it will not do!"--"so much the better," said the dear girl in a grave tone: "i wished that it might not do! you should not meddle in such matters." she arose from the distaff, and, stepping towards the table, gave me a severe lecture, with a great deal of good sense and kindliness. "the thing seems an innocent jest: it is a jest, but it is not innocent. i have already lived to see several cases, in which our young people, for the sake of such mere mischief, have brought themselves into great difficulty."--"but what shall i do?" i asked: "the letter is written, and they rely upon me to alter it."-- "trust me," she replied, "and do not alter it; nay, take it back, put it in your pocket, go away, and try to make the matter straight through your friend. i will also put in a word; for look you, though i am a poor girl, and dependent upon these relations,--who indeed do nothing bad, though they often, for the sake of sport or profit, undertake a good deal that is rash,--i have resisted them, and would not copy the first letter, as they requested. they transcribed it in a feigned hand; and, if it is not otherwise, so may they also do with this. and you, a young man of good family, rich, independent, why will you allow yourself to be used as a tool in a business which can certainly bring no good to you, and may possibly bring much that is unpleasant? "it made me very happy to hear her speak thus continuously, for generally she introduced but few words into conversation. my liking for her grew incredibly. i was not master of myself, and replied, "i am not so independent as you suppose; and of what use is wealth to me, when the most precious thing i can desire is wanting?" she had drawn my sketch of the poetic epistle towards her, and read it half aloud in a sweet and graceful manner. "that is very pretty," said she, stopping at a sort of /naïve/ point; "but it is a pity that it is not destined for a real purpose."-- "that were indeed very desirable," i cried; "and, oh! how happy must he be, who receives from a girl he infinitely loves, such an assurance of her affection."--"there is much required for that," she answered, "and yet many things are possible."--"for example," i continued, "if any one who knew, prized, honored, and adored you, laid such a paper before you, what would you do?" i pushed the paper nearer to her, which she had previously pushed back to me. she smiled, reflected for a moment, took the pen, and subscribed her name. i was beside myself with rapture, jumped up, and was going to embrace her. "no kissing!" said she, "that is so vulgar; but let us love if we can." i had taken up the paper, and thrust it into my pocket. "no one shall ever get it," said i: "the affair is closed. you have saved me."--"now complete the salvation," she exclaimed, "and hurry off, before the others arrive, and you fall into trouble and embarrassment!" i could not tear myself away from her; but she asked me in so kindly a manner, while she took my right hand in both of hers, and lovingly pressed it! the tears stood in my eyes: i thought hers looked moist. i pressed my face upon her hands, and hastened away. never in my life had i found myself in such perplexity. the first propensities to love in an uncorrupted youth take altogether a spiritual direction. nature seems to desire that one sex may by the senses perceive goodness and beauty in the other. and thus to me, by the sight of this girl,--by my strong inclination for her,--a new world of the beautiful and the excellent had arisen. i perused my poetical epistle a hundred times, gazed at the signature, kissed it, pressed it to my heart, and rejoiced in this amiable confession. but the more my transports increased, the more did it pain me not to be able to visit her immediately, and to see and converse with her again; for i dreaded the reproofs and importunities of her cousins. the good pylades, who might have arranged the affair, i could not contrive to meet. the next sunday, therefore, i set out for niederrad, where these associates generally used to go, and actually found them there. i was, however, greatly surprised, when, instead of behaving in a cross, distant manner, they came up to me with joyful countenances. the youngest particularly was very kind, took me by the hand, and said, "you have lately played us a sorry trick, and we were very angry with you; but your absconding and taking away the poetical epistle has suggested a good thought to us, which otherwise might never have occurred. by way of atonement, you may treat us to-day; and you shall learn at the same time the notion we have, which will certainly give you pleasure." this harangue caused me no small embarrassment, for i had about me only money enough to regale myself and a friend: but to treat a whole company, and especially one which did not always stop at the right time, i was by no means prepared; nay, the proposal astonished me the more, as they had always insisted, in the most honorable manner, that each one should pay only his own share. they smiled at my distress; and the youngest proceeded, "let us first take a seat in the bower, and then you shall learn more." we sat down; and he said, "when you had taken the love-letter with you, we talked the whole affair over again, and came to a conclusion that we had gratuitously misused your talent to the vexation of others and our own danger, for the sake of a mere paltry love of mischief, when we could have employed it to the advantage of all of us. see, i have here an order for a wedding-poem, as well as for a dirge. the second must be ready immediately, the other can wait a week. now, if you make these, which is easy for you, you will treat us twice; and we shall long remain your debtors." this proposal pleased me in every respect; for i had already in my childhood looked with a certain envy on the occasional poems, [footnote: that is to say, a poem written for a certain occasion, as a wedding, funeral, etc. the german word is /gelegenheitsgedicht/."--trans.]--of which then several circulated every week, and at respectable marriages especially came to light by the dozen,--because i thought i could make such things as well, nay, better than others. now an opportunity was offered me to show myself, and especially to see myself in print. i did not appear disinclined. they acquainted me with the personal particulars and the position of the family: i went somewhat aside, made my plan, and produced some stanzas. however, when i returned to the company, and the wine was not spared, the poem began to halt; and i could not deliver it that evening. "there is still time till to-morrow evening," they said; "and we will confess to you that the fee which we receive for the dirge is enough to get us another pleasant evening to-morrow. come to us; for it is but fair that gretchen, too, should sup with us, as it was she properly who gave us the notion." my joy was unspeakable. on my way home i had only the remaining stanzas in my head, wrote down the whole before i went to sleep, and the next morning made a very neat, fair copy. the day seemed infinitely long to me; and scarcely was it dusk, than i found myself again in the narrow little dwelling beside the dearest of girls. the young people, with whom in this way i formed a closer and closer connection, were not exactly of a low, but of an ordinary, type. their activity was commendable, and i listened to them with pleasure when they spoke of the manifold ways and means by which one could gain a living: above all, they loved to tell of people, now very rich, who had begun with nothing. others to whom they referred had, as poor clerks, rendered themselves indispensable to their employers, and had finally risen to be their sons-in-law; while others had so enlarged and improved a little trade in matches and the like, that they were now prosperous merchants and tradesmen. but above all, to young men who were active on their feet, the trade of agent and factor, and the undertaking of all sorts of commissions and charges for helpless rich men was, they said, a most profitable means of gaining a livelihood. we all liked to hear this; and each one fancied himself somebody, when he imagined, at the moment, that there was enough in him, not only to get on in the world, but to acquire an extraordinary fortune. but no one seemed to carry on this conversation more earnestly than pylades, who at last confessed that he had an extraordinary passion for a girl, and was actually engaged to her. the circumstances of his parents would not allow him to go to universities; but he had endeavored to acquire a fine handwriting, a knowledge of accounts and the modern languages, and would now do his best in hopes of attaining that domestic felicity. his fellows praised him for this, although they did not approve of a premature engagement; and they added, that while forced to acknowledge him to be a fine, good fellow, they did not consider him active or enterprising enough to do any thing extraordinary. while he, in vindication of himself, circumstantially set forth what he thought himself fit for, and how he was going to begin, the others were also incited; and each one began to tell what he was now able to do, doing, or carrying on, what he had already accomplished, and what he saw immediately before him. the turn at last came to me. i was to set forth my course of life and prospects; and, while i was considering, pylades said, "i make this one proviso, lest we be at too great a disadvantage, that he does not bring into the account the external advantages of his position. he should rather tell us a tale how he would proceed if at this moment he were thrown entirely upon his own resources, as we are." gretchen, who till this moment had kept on spinning, rose, and seated herself as usual at the end of the table. we had already emptied some bottles, and i began to relate the hypothetical history of my life in the best humor. "first of all, then, i commend myself to you," said i, "that you may continue the custom you have begun to bestow on me. if you gradually procure me the profit of all the occasional poems, and we do not consume them in mere feasting, i shall soon come to something. but then, you must not take it ill if i dabble also in your handicraft." upon this, i told them what i had observed in their occupations, and for which i held myself fit at any rate. each one had previously rated his services in money, and i asked them to assist me also in completing my establishment. gretchen had listened to all hitherto very attentively, and that in a position which well suited her, whether she chose to hear or to speak. with both hands she clasped her folded arms, and rested them on the edge of the table. thus she could sit a long while without moving any thing but her head, which was never done without some occasion or meaning. she had several times put in a word, and helped us on over this and that, when we halted in our projects, and then was again still and quiet as usual. i kept her in my eye, and it may readily be supposed that i had not devised and uttered my plan without reference to her. my passion for her gave to what i said such an air of truth and probability, that, for a moment, i deceived myself, imagined myself as lonely and helpless as my story supposed, and felt extremely happy in the prospect of possessing her. pylades had closed his confession with marriage; and the question arose among the rest of us, whether our plans went as far as that. "i have not the least doubt on that score," said i; "for properly a wife is necessary to every one of us, in order to preserve at home, and enable us to enjoy as a whole, what we rake together abroad in such an odd way." i then made a sketch of a wife, such as i wished; and it must have turned out strangely if she had not been a perfect counterpart of gretchen. the dirge was consumed; the epithalamium now stood beneficially at hand: i overcame all fear and care, and contrived, as i had many acquaintances, to conceal my actual evening entertainments from my family. to see and to be near the dear girl was soon an indispensable condition of my being. the friends had grown just as accustomed to me, and we were almost daily together, as if it could not be otherwise. pylades had, in the mean time, introduced his fair one into the house; and this pair passed many an evening with us. they, as bride and bridegroom, though still very much in the bud, did not conceal their tenderness: gretchen's deportment towards me was only suited to keep me at a distance. she gave her hand to no one, not even to me; she allowed no touch: yet she many times seated herself near me, particularly when i wrote, or read aloud, and then, laying her arm familiarly upon my shoulder, she looked over the book or paper. if, however, i ventured to take on a similar liberty with her, she withdrew, and did not return very soon. this position she often repeated; and, indeed, all her attitudes and motions were very uniform, but always equally becoming, beautiful, and charming. but such a familiarity i never saw her practise towards anybody else. one of the most innocent, and, at the same time, amusing, parties of pleasure in which i engaged with different companies of young people, was this,--that we seated ourselves in the höchst market-ship, observed the strange passengers packed away in it, and bantered and teased, now this one, now that, as pleasure or caprice prompted. at höchst we got out at the time when the market-boat from mentz arrived. at a hotel there was a well-spread table, where the better sort of travellers, coming and going, ate with each other, and then proceeded, each on his way, as both ships returned. every time, after dining, we sailed up to frankfort, having, with a very large company, made the cheapest water- excursion that was possible. once i had undertaken this journey with gretchen's cousins, when a young man joined us at table in hochst, who might be a little older than we were. they knew him, and he got himself introduced to me. he had something very pleasing in his manner, though he was not otherwise distinguished. coming from mentz, he now went back with us to frankfort, and conversed with me of every thing that related to the internal arrangements of the city, and the public offices and places, on which he seemed to me to be very well informed. when we separated, he bade me farewell, and added, that he wished i might think well of him, as he hoped on occasion to avail himself of my recommendation. i did not know what he meant by this, but the cousins enlightened me some days after. they spoke well of him, and asked me to intercede with my grandfather, as a moderate appointment was just now vacant, which this friend would like to obtain. i at first wished to be excused, as i had never meddled in such affairs; but they went on urging me until i resolved to do it. i had already many times remarked, that in these grants of offices, which unfortunately were regarded as matters of favor, the mediation of my grandmother or an aunt had not been without effect. i was now so advanced as to arrogate some influence to myself. for that reason, to gratify my friends, who declared themselves under every sort of obligation for such a kindness, i overcame the timidity of a grandchild, and undertook to deliver a written application that was handed in to me. one sunday, after dinner, while my grandfather was busy in his garden, all the more because autumn was approaching, and i tried to assist him on every side, i came forward with my request and the petition, after some hesitation. he looked at it, and asked me whether i knew the young man. i told him in general terms what was to be said, and he let the matter rest there. "if he has merit, and, moreover, good testimonials, i will favor him for your sake and his own." he said no more, and for a long while i heard nothing of the matter. for some time i had observed that gretchen was no longer spinning, but instead was employed in sewing, and that, too, on very fine work, which surprised me the more, as the days were already shortening, and winter was coming on. i thought no further about it; only it troubled me that several times i had not found her at home in the morning as formerly, and could not learn, without importunity, whither she had gone. yet i was destined one day to be surprised in a very odd manner. my sister, who was getting herself ready for a ball, asked me to fetch her some so- called italian flowers, at a fashionable milliner's. they were made in convents, and were small and pretty: myrtles especially, dwarf-roses, and the like, came out quite beautifully and naturally. i did her the favor, and went to the shop where i had been with her often already. hardly had i entered, and greeted the proprietress, than i saw sitting in the window a lady, who, in a lace cap, looked very young and pretty, and in a silk mantilla seemed very well shaped. i could easily recognize that she was an assistant, for she was occupied in fastening a ribbon and feathers upon a hat. the milliner showed me the long box with single flowers of various sorts. i looked them over, and, as i made my choice, glanced again towards the lady in the window; but how great was my astonishment when i perceived an incredible similarity to gretchen, nay, was forced to be convinced at last that it was gretchen herself. nor could i doubt any longer, when she winked with her eyes, and gave me a sign that i must not betray our acquaintance. i now, with my choosing and rejecting, drove the milliner into despair more than even a lady could have done. i had, in fact, no choice; for i was excessively confused, and at the same time liked to linger, because it kept me near the girl, whose disguise annoyed me, though in that disguise she appeared to me more enchanting than ever. finally the milliner seemed to lose all patience, and with her own hands selected for me a whole bandbox full of flowers, which i was to place before my sister, and let her choose for herself. thus i was, as it were, driven out of the shop, she sending the box in advance by one of her girls. scarcely had i reached home than my father caused me to be called, and communicated to me that it was now quite certain that the archduke joseph would be elected and crowned king of rome. an event so highly important was not to be expected without preparation, nor allowed to pass with mere gaping and staring. he wished, therefore, he said, to go through with me the election and coronation diaries of the two last coronations, as well as through the last capitulations of election, in order to remark what new conditions might be added in the present instance. the diaries were opened, and we occupied ourselves with them the whole day till far into the night; while the pretty girl, sometimes in her old house-dress, sometimes in her new costume, ever hovered before me, backwards and forwards among the most august objects of the holy roman empire. this evening it was impossible to see her, and i lay awake through a very restless night. the study of yesterday was the next day zealously resumed; and it was not till towards evening that i found it possible to visit my fair one, whom i met again in her usual house- dress. she smiled when she saw me, but i did not venture to mention any thing before the others. when the whole company sat quietly together again, she began, and said, "it is unfair that you do not confide to our friend what we have lately resolved upon." she then continued to relate, that after our late conversation, in which the discussion was how any one could get on in the world, something was also said of the way in which a woman could enhance the value of her talent and labor, and advantageously employ her time. the cousin had consequently proposed that she should make an experiment at a milliner's, who was just then in want of an assistant. they had, she said, arranged with the woman: she went there so many hours a day, and was well paid; but she would there be obliged, for propriety's sake, to conform to a certain dress, which, however, she left behind her every time, as it did not at all suit her other modes of life and employment. i was indeed set at rest by this declaration; but it did not quite please me to know that the pretty girl was in a public shop, and at a place where the fashionable world found a convenient resort. but i betrayed nothing, and strove to work off my jealous care in silence. for this the younger cousin did not allow me a long time, as he once more came forward with a proposal for an occasional poem, told me all the personalities, and at once desired me to prepare myself for the invention and disposition of the work. he had spoken with me several times already concerning the proper treatment of such a theme; and, as i was voluble in these cases, he readily asked me to explain to him, circumstantially, what is rhetorical in these things, to give him a notion of the matter, and to make use of my own and others' labors in this kind for examples. the young man had some brains, but not a trace of a poetical vein; and now he went so much into particulars, and wished to have such an account of every thing, that i gave utterance to the remark, "it seems as if you wanted to encroach upon my trade, and take away my customers!"--"i will not deny it," said he, smiling, "as i shall do you no harm by it. this will only continue to the time when you go to the university, and till then you must allow me still to profit something by your society."--"most cordially," i replied; and i encouraged him to draw out a plan, to choose a metre according to the character of his subject, and to do whatever else might seem necessary. he went to work in earnest, but did not succeed. i was in the end compelled to re-write so much of it, that i could more easily and better have written it all from the beginning myself. yet this teaching and learning, this mutual labor, afforded us good entertainment. gretchen took part in it, and had many a pretty notion; so that we were all pleased, we may, indeed, say happy. during the day she worked at the milliner's: in the evenings we generally met together, and our contentment was not even disturbed when at last the commissions for occasional poems began to leave off. still we felt hurt once, when one of them came back under protest, because it did not suit the party who ordered it. we consoled ourselves, however, as we considered it our very best work, and could, therefore, declare the other a bad judge. the cousin, who was determined to learn something at any rate, resorted to the expedient of inventing problems, in the solution of which we always found amusement enough; but, as they brought in nothing, our little banquets had to be much more frugally managed. that great political object, the election and coronation of a king of rome, was pursued with more and more earnestness. the assembling of the electoral college, originally appointed to take place at augsburg in the october of , was now transferred to frankfort; and both at the end of this year and in the beginning of the next, preparations went forward which should usher in this important business. the beginning was made by a parade never yet seen by us. one of our chancery officials on horseback, escorted by four trumpeters likewise mounted, and surrounded by a guard of infantry, read in a loud, clear voice at all the corners of the city, a prolix edict, which announced the forthcoming proceedings, and exhorted the citizens to a becoming deportment suitable to the circumstances. the council was occupied with weighty considerations; and it was not long before the imperial quartermaster, despatched by the hereditary grand marshal, made his appearance, in order to arrange and designate the residences of the ambassadors and their suites, according to the old custom. our house lay in the palatine district, and we had to provide for a new but agreeable billetting. the middle story, which count thorane had formerly occupied, was given up to a cavalier of the palatinate; and as baron von königsthal, the nuremburg /chargé-d'affaires/, occupied the upper floor, we were still more crowded than in the time of the french. this served me as a new pretext for being out of doors, and to pass the greater part of the day in the streets, that i might see all that was open to public view. after the preliminary alteration and arrangement of the rooms in the town-house had seemed to us worth seeing; after the arrival of the ambassadors one after another, and their first solemn ascent in a body, on the th of february, had taken place,--we admired the coming in of the imperial commissioners, and their ascent also to the /romer/, which was made with great pomp. the dignified person of the prince of lichtenstein made a good impression; yet connoisseurs maintained that the showy liveries had already been used on another occasion, and that this election and coronation would hardly equal in brilliancy that of charles the seventh. we younger folks were content with what was before our eyes: all seemed to us very fine, and much of it perfectly astonishing. the electoral congress was fixed at last for the d of march. new formalities again set the city in motion, and the alternate visits of ceremony on the part of the ambassadors kept us always on our legs. we were, moreover, compelled to watch closely; as we were not only to gape about, but to note every thing well, in order to give a proper report at home, and even to make out many little memoirs, on which my father and herr von königsthal had deliberated, partly for our exercise and partly for their own information. and certainly this was of peculiar advantage to me; as i was enabled very tolerably to keep a living election and coronation diary, as far as regarded externals. the person who first of all made a durable impression upon me was the chief ambassador from the electorate of mentz, baron von erthal, afterwards elector. without having any thing striking in his figure, he was always highly pleasing to me in his black gown trimmed with lace. the second ambassador, baron von groschlag, was a well-formed man of the world, easy in his exterior, but conducting himself with great decorum. he everywhere produced a very agreeable impression. prince esterhazy, the bohemian envoy, was not tall, though well formed, lively, and at the same time eminently decorous, without pride or coldness. i had a special liking for him, because he reminded me of marshal de broglio. yet the form and dignity of these excellent persons vanished, in a certain degree, before the prejudice that was entertained in favor of baron von plotho, the brandenburg ambassador. this man, who was distinguished by a certain parsimony, both in his own clothes and in his liveries and equipages, had been greatly renowned, from the time of the seven years' war, as a diplomatic hero. at ratisbon, when the notary april thought, in the presence of witnesses, to serve him with the declaration of outlawry which had been issued against his king, he had, with the laconic exclamation, "what! you serve?" thrown him, or caused him to be thrown, down stairs. we believed the first, because it pleased us best; and we could readily believe it of the little compact man, with his black, fiery eyes glancing here and there. all eyes were directed towards him, particularly when he alighted. there arose every time a sort of joyous whispering; and but little was wanting to a regular explosion, or a shout of /vivat! bravo!/ so high did the king, and all who were devoted to him, body and soul, stand in favor with the crowd, among whom, besides the frankforters, were germans from all parts. on the one hand these things gave me much pleasure; as all that took place, no matter of what nature it might be, concealed a certain meaning, indicated some internal relation: and such symbolic ceremonies again, for a moment, represented as living the old empire of germany, almost choked to death by so many parchments, papers, and books. but, on the other hand, i could not suppress a secret displeasure, when at home, i had, on behalf of my father, to transcribe the internal transactions, and at the same time to remark that here several powers, which balanced each other, stood in opposition, and only so far agreed, as they designed to limit the new ruler even more than the old one; that every one valued his influence only so far as he hoped to retain or enlarge his privileges, and better to secure his independence. nay, on this occasion they were more attentive than usual, because they began to fear joseph the second, his vehemence, and probable plans. with my grandfather and other members of the council, whose families i used to visit, this was no pleasant time, they had so much to do with meeting distinguished guests, complimenting, and the delivery of presents. no less had the magistrate, both in general and in particular, to defend himself, to resist, and to protest, as every one on such occasions desires to extort something from him, or burden him with something; and few of those to whom he appeals support him, or lend him their aid. in short, all that i had read in "lersner's chronicle" of similar incidents on similar occasions, with admiration of the patience and perseverance of those good old councilmen, came once more vividly before my eyes. many vexations arise also from this, that the city is gradually overrun with people, both useful and needless. in vain are the courts reminded, on the part of the city, of prescriptions of the golden bull, now, indeed, obsolete. not only the deputies with their attendants, but many persons of rank, and others who come from curiosity or for private objects, stand under protection; and the question as to who is to be billetted out, and who is to hire his own lodging, is not always decided at once. the tumult constantly increases; and even those who have nothing to give, or to answer for, begin to feel uncomfortable. even we young people, who could quietly contemplate it all, ever found something which did not quite satisfy our eyes or our imagination. the spanish mantles, the huge plumed hats of the ambassadors, and other objects here and there, had indeed a truly antique look; but there was a great deal, on the other hand, so half-new or entirely modern, that the affair assumed throughout a motley, unsatisfactory, often tasteless, appearance. we were, therefore, very happy to learn that great preparations were made on account of the journey to frankfort of the emperor and future king; that the proceedings of the college of electors, which were based on the last electoral capitulation, were now going forward rapidly; and that the day of election had been appointed for the th of march. now there was a thought of fetching the insignia of the empire from nuremburg and aix-la-chation; while gretchen, by her unbroken attention, had highly encouraged me. at last she thanked me, and envied, as she said, all who were informed of the affairs of this world, and knew how this and that came about and what it signified. she wished she were a boy, and managed to acknowledge, with much kindness, that she was indebted to me for a great deal of instruction. "if i were a boy," said she, "we would learn something good together at the university." the conversation continued in this strain: she definitively resolved to take instruction in french, of the absolute necessity of which she had become well aware in the milliner's shop. i asked her why she no longer went there; for during the latter times, not being able to go out much in the evening, i had often passed the shop during the day for her sake, merely to see her for a moment. she explained that she had not liked to expose herself there in these unsettled times. as soon as the city returned to its former condition, she intended to go there again. then the impending day of election was the topic of conversation. i contrived to tell, at length, what was going to happen, and how, and to support my demonstrations in detail by drawings on the tablet; for i had the place of conclave, with its altars, thrones, seats, and chairs, perfectly before my mind. we separated at the proper time, and in a particularly comfortable frame of mind. for, with a young couple who are in any degree harmoniously formed by nature, nothing can conduce to a more beautiful union than when the maiden is anxious to learn, and the youth inclined to teach. there arises from it a well-grounded and agreeable relation. she sees in him the creator of her spiritual existence; and he sees in her a creature that ascribes her perfection, not to nature, not to chance, nor to any one-sided inclination, but to a mutual will: and this reciprocation is so sweet, that we cannot wonder, if, from the days of the old and the new [footnote: the "/new/ abelard" is st. preux, in the nouvelle héloise of rousseau.--trans.] abelard, the most violent passions, and as much happiness as unhappiness, have arisen from such an intercourse of two beings. with the next day began great commotion in the city, on account of the visits paid and returned, which now took place with the greatest ceremony. but what particularly interested me, as a citizen of frankfort, and gave rise to a great many reflections, was the taking of the oath of security (/sicherheitseides/) by the council, the military, and the body of citizens, not through representatives, but personally and in mass: first, in the great hall of the römer, by the magistracy and staff-officers; then in the great square (/platz/), the römerberg, by all the citizens, according to their respective ranks, gradations, or quarterings; and, lastly, by the rest of the military. here one could survey at a single glance the entire commonwealth, assembled for the honorable purpose of swearing security to the head and members of the empire, and unbroken peace during the great work now impending. the electors of treves and of cologne had now also arrived. on the evening before the day of election, all strangers are sent out of the city, the gates are closed, the jews are confined to their quarter, and the citizen of frankfort prides himself not a little that he alone may witness so great a solemnity. all that had hitherto taken place was tolerably modern: the highest and high personages moved about only in coaches, but now we were going to see them in the primitive manner on horseback. the concourse and rush were extraordinary. i managed to squeeze myself into the römer, which i knew as familiarly as a mouse does the private corn-loft, till i reached the main entrance, before which the electors and ambassadors, who had first arrived in their state-coaches, and had assembled above, were now to mount their horses. the stately, well-trained steeds were covered with richly laced housings, and ornamented in every way. the elector emeric joseph, a handsome, portly man, looked well on horseback. of the other two i remember less, excepting that the red princes' mantles, trimmed with ermine, which we had been accustomed to see only in pictures before, seemed to us very romantic in the open air. the ambassadors of the absent temporal electors, with their spanish dresses of gold brocade, embroidered over with gold, and trimmed with gold lace, likewise did our eyes good; and the large feathers particularly, that waved most splendidly from the hats, which were cocked in the antique style. but what did not please me were the short modern breeches, the white silk stockings, and the fashionable shoes. we should have liked half-boots,--gilded as much as they pleased,--sandals, or something of the kind, that we might have seen a more consistent costume. in deportment the ambassador von plotho again distinguished himself from all the rest. he appeared lively and cheerful, and seemed to have no great respect for the whole ceremony. for when his front-man, an elderly gentleman, could not leap immediately on his horse, and he was therefore forced to wait some time in the grand entrance, he did not refrain from laughing, till his own horse was brought forward, upon which he swung himself very dexterously, and was again admired by us as a most worthy representative of frederick the second. now the curtain was for us once more let down. i had, indeed, tried to force my way into the church; but that place was more inconvenient than agreeable. the voters had withdrawn into the /sanctum/, where prolix ceremonies usurped the place of a deliberate consideration as to the election. after long delay, pressure, and bustle, the people at last heard the name of joseph the second, who was proclaimed king of rome. the thronging of strangers into the city became greater and greater. everybody went about in his holiday clothes, so that at last none but dresses entirely of gold were found worthy of note. the emperor and king had already arrived at /heusenstamm/, a castle of the counts of schönborn, and were there in the customary manner greeted and welcomed; but the city celebrated this important epoch by spiritual festivals of all the religions, by high masses and sermons; and, on the temporal side, by incessant firing of cannon as an accompaniment to the "te deums." if all these public solemnities, from the beginning up to this point, had been regarded as a deliberate work of art, not much to find fault with would have been found. all was well prepared. the public scenes opened gradually, and went on increasing in importance; the men grew in number, the personages in dignity, their appurtenances, as well as themselves, in splendor,--and thus it advanced with every day, till at last even a well-prepared and firm eye became bewildered. the entrance of the elector of mentz, which we have refused to describe more completely, was magnificent and imposing enough to suggest to the imagination of an eminent man the advent of a great prophesied world- ruler: even we were not a little dazzled by it. but now our expectation was stretched to the utmost, as it was said that the emperor and the future king were approaching the city. at a little distance from sachsenhausen, a tent had been erected in which the entire magistracy remained, to show the appropriate honor, and to proffer the keys of the city to the chief of the empire. farther out, on a fair, spacious plain, stood another, a state pavilion, whither the whole body of electoral princes and ambassadors repaired; while their retinues extended along the whole way, that gradually, as their turns came, they might again move towards the city, and enter properly into the procession. by this time the emperor reached the tent, entered it; and the princes and ambassadors, after a most respectful reception, withdrew, to facilitate the passage of the chief ruler. we who remained in the city, to admire this pomp within the walls and streets still more than could have been done in the open fields, were very well entertained for a while by the barricade set up by the citizens in the lanes, by the throng of people, and by the various jests and improprieties which arose, till the ringing of bells and the thunder of cannon announced to us the immediate approach of majesty. what must have been particularly grateful to a frankforter was, that on this occasion, in the presence of so many sovereigns and their representatives, the imperial city of frankfort also appeared as a little sovereign: for her equerry opened the procession; chargers with armorial trappings, upon which the white eagle on a red field looked very fine, followed him; then came attendants and officials, drummers and trumpeters, and deputies of the council, accompanied by the clerks of the council, in the city livery, on foot. immediately behind these were the three companies of citizen cavalry, very well mounted,--the same that we had seen from our youth, at the reception of the escort, and on other public occasions. we rejoiced in our participation of the honor, and in our one hundred-thousandth part of a sovereignty which now appeared in its full brilliancy. the different trains of the hereditary imperial marshal, and of the envoys deputed by the six temporal electors, marched after these step by step. none of them consisted of less than twenty attendants and two state-carriages,--some, even, of a greater number. the retinue of the spiritual electors was ever on the increase,--their servants and domestic officers seemed innumerable: the elector of cologne and the elector of treves had above twenty state- carriages, and the elector of mentz quite as many alone. the servants, both on horseback and on foot, were clothed most splendidly throughout: the lords in the equipages, spiritual and temporal, had not omitted to appear richly and venerably dressed, and adorned with all the badges of their orders. the train of his imperial majesty now, as was fit, surpassed all the rest. the riding-masters, the led horses, the equipages, the shabracks and caparisons, attracted every eye; and the sixteen six-horse gala-wagons of the imperial chamberlains, privy councillors, high chamberlain, high stewards, and high equerry, closed, with great pomp, this division of the procession, which, in spite of its magnificence and extent, was still only to be the vanguard. but now the line became concentrated more and more, while the dignity and parade kept on increasing. for in the midst of a chosen escort of their own domestic attendants, the most of them on foot, and a few on horseback, appeared the electoral ambassadors, as well as the electors in person, in ascending order, each one in a magnificent state-carriage. immediately behind the elector of mentz, ten imperial footmen, one and forty lackeys, and eight /heyducks/ [footnote: a class of attendants dress in hungarian costume.--trans.] announced their majesties. the most magnificent state-carriage, furnished even at the back part with an entire window of plate-glass, ornamented with paintings, lacquer, carved work, and gilding, covered with red embroidered velvet on the top and inside, allowed us very conveniently to behold the emperor and king, the long-desired heads, in all their glory. the procession was led a long, circuitous route, partly from necessity, that it might be able to unfold itself, and partly to render it visible to the great multitude of people. it had passed through sachsenhausen, over the bridge, up the fahrgasse, then down the zeile, and turned towards the inner city through the katharinenpforte, formerly a gate, and, since the enlargement of the city, an open thoroughfare. here it had been happily considered, that, for a series of years, the external grandeur of the world had gone on expanding, both in height and breadth. measure had been taken; and it was found that the present imperial state-carriage could not, without striking its carved work and other outward decorations, get through this gateway, through which so many princes and emperors had gone backwards and forwards. they debated the matter, and, to avoid an inconvenient circuit, resolved to take up the pavements, and to contrive a gentle descent and ascent. with the same view, they had also removed all the projecting eaves from the shops and booths in the street, that neither crown nor eagle nor the genii should receive any shock or injury. eagerly as we directed our eyes to the high personages when this precious vessel with such precious contents approached us, we could not avoid turning our looks upon the noble horses, their harness, and its embroidery; but the strange coachmen and outriders, both sitting on the horses, particularly struck us. they looked as if they had come from some other nation, or even from another world, with their long black and yellow velvet coats, and their caps with large plumes of feathers, after the imperial-court fashion. now the crowd became so dense that it was impossible to distinguish much more. the swiss guard on both sides of the carriage; the hereditary marshal holding the saxon sword upwards in his right hand; the field-marshals, as leaders of the imperial guard, riding behind the carriage; the imperial pages in a body; and, finally, the imperial horse-guard (/hatschiergarde/) itself, in black velvet frocks (/flügelröck/), with all the seams edged with gold, under which were red coats and leather-colored camisoles, likewise richly decked with gold. one scarcely recovered one's self from sheer seeing, pointing, and showing, so that the scarcely less splendidly clad body- guards of the electors were barely looked at; and we should, perhaps, have withdrawn from the windows, if we had not wished to take a view of our own magistracy, who closed the procession in their fifteen two-horse coaches; and particularly the clerk of the council, with the city keys on red velvet cushions. that our company of city grenadiers should cover the rear seemed to us honorable enough, and we felt doubly and highly edified as germans and as fraukforters by this great day, we had taken our place in a house which the procession had to pass again when it returned from the cathedral. of religious services, of music, of rites and solemnities, of addresses and answers, of propositions and readings aloud, there was so much in church, choir, and conclave, before it came to the swearing of the electoral capitulation, that we had time enough to partake of an excellent collation, and to empty many bottles to the health of our old and young ruler. the conversation, meanwhile, as is usual on such occasions, reverted to the time past; and there were not wanting aged persons who preferred that to the present,--at least, with respect to a certain human interest and impassioned sympathy which then prevailed. at the coronation of francis the first all had not been so settled as now; peace had not yet been concluded; france and the electors of brandenburg and the palatinate were opposed to the election; the troops of the future emperor were stationed at heidelberg, where he had his headquarters; and the insignia of the empire, coming from aix, were almost carried off by the inhabitants of the palatinate. meanwhile, negotiations went on; and on neither side was the affair conducted in the strictest manner. maria theresa, though then pregnant, comes in person to see the coronation of her husband, which is at last earned into effect. she arrived at aschaffenburg, and went on board a yacht in order to repair to frankfort. francis, coming from heidelberg, thinks to meet his wife, but arrives too late: she has already departed. unknown, he jumps into a little boat, hastens alter her, reaches her ship; and the loving pair is delighted at this surprising meeting. the story spreads immediately; and all the world sympathizes with this tender pair, so richly blessed with children, who have been so inseparable since their union, that once, on a journey from vienna to florence, they are forced to keep quarantine together on the venetian border. maria theresa is welcomed in the city with rejoicings: she enters the roman emperor inn, while the great tent for the reception of her husband is erected on the bornheim heath. there, of the spiritual electors, only mentz is found; and, of the ambassadors of the temporal electors, only saxony, bohemia, and hanover. the entrance begins, and what it may lack of completeness and splendor is richly compensated by the presence of a beautiful lady. she stands upon the balcony of the well-situated house, and greets her husband with cries of "vivat!" and clapping of hands: the people joined, excited to the highest enthusiasm. as the great are, after all, men, the citizen deems them big equals when he wishes to love them; and that he can best do when he can picture them to himself as loving husbands, tender parents, devoted brothers, and true friends. at that time all happiness had been wished and prophesied; and to-day it was seen fulfilled in the first-born son, to whom everybody was well inclined on account of his handsome, youthful form, and upon whom the world set the greatest hopes, on account of the great qualities that he showed. we had become quite absorbed in the past and future, when some friends who came in recalled us to the present. they were of that class of people who know the value of novelty, and therefore hasten to announce it first. they were even able to tell of a fine humane trait in those exalted personages whom we had seen go by with the greatest pomp. it had been concerted, that on the way, between heusenstamm and the great tent, the emperor and king should find the landgrave of darmstadt in the forest. this old prince, now approaching the grave, wished to see once more the master to whom he had been devoted in former times. both might remember the day when the landgrave brought over to heidelberg the decree of the electors, choosing francis as emperor, and replied to the valuable presents he received with protestations of unalterable devotion. these eminent persons stood in a grove of firs; and the landgrave, weak with old age, supported himself against a pine, to continue the conversation, which was not without emotion on both sides. the place was afterwards marked in an innocent way, and we young people sometimes wandered to it. thus several hours had passed in remembrance of the old and consideration of the new, when the procession, though curtailed and more compact, again passed before our eyes; and we were enabled to observe and mark the detail more closely, and imprint it on our minds for the future. from that moment the city was in uninterrupted motion; for until each and every one whom it behooved, and of whom it was required, had paid their respects to the highest dignities, and exhibited themselves one by one, there was no end to the marching to and fro: and the court of each one of the high persons present could be very conveniently repeated in detail. now, too, the insignia of the empire arrived. but, that no ancient usage might be omitted even in this respect, they had to remain half a day till late at night in the open field, on account of a dispute about territory and escort between the elector of mentz and the city. the latter yielded: the people of mentz escorted the insignia as far as the barricade, and so the affair terminated for this time. in these days i did not come to myself. at home i had to write and copy; every thing had to be seen: and so ended the month of march, the second half of which had been so rich in festivals for us. i had promised gretchen a faithful and complete account of what had lately happened, and of what was to be expected on the coronation-day. this great day approached; i thought more of how i should tell it to her than of what properly was to be told: all that came under my eyes and my pen i merely worked up rapidly for this sole and immediate use. at last i reached her residence somewhat late one evening, and was not a little proud to think how my discourse on this occasion would be much more successful than the first unprepared one. but a momentary incitement often brings us, and others through us, more joy than the most deliberate purpose can afford. i found, indeed, pretty nearly the same company; but there were some unknown persons among them. they sat down to play, all except gretchen and her younger cousin, who remained with me at the slate. the dear girl expressed most gracefully her delight that she, though a stranger, had passed for a citizen on the election-day, and had taken part in that unique spectacle. she thanked me most warmly for having managed to take care of her, and for having been so attentive as to procure her, through pylades, all sorts of admissions by means of billets, directions, friends, and intercessions. she liked to hear about the jewels of the empire. i promised her that we should, if possible, see these together. she made some jesting remarks when she learned that the garments and crown had been tried on the young king. i knew where she would be, to see the solemnities of the coronation-day, and directed her attention to every thing that was impending, and particularly to what might be minutely inspected from her place of view. thus we forgot to think about time: it was already past midnight, and i found that i unfortunately had not the house-key with me. i could not enter the house without making the greatest disturbance. i communicated my embarrassment to her. "after all," said she, "it will be best for the company to remain together." the cousins and the strangers had already had this in mind, because it was not known where they would be lodged for the night. the matter was soon decided: gretchen went to make some coffee, after bringing in and lighting a large brass lamp, furnished with oil and wick, because the candles threatened to burn out. the coffee served to enliven us for several hours, but the game gradually slackened; conversation failed; the mother slept in the great chair; the strangers, weary from travelling, nodded here and there; and pylades and his fair one sat in a corner. she had laid her head on his shoulder, and had gone to sleep; and he did not keep long awake. the younger cousin, sitting opposite to us by the slate, had crossed his arms before him, and slept with his face resting upon them. i sat in the window-corner, behind the table, and gretchen by me. we talked in a low voice: but at last sleep overcame her also; she leaned her head on my shoulder, and sank at once into a slumber. thus i now sat, the only one awake, in a most singular position, in which the kind brother of death soon put me also to rest. i went to sleep; and, when i awoke, it was already bright day. gretchen was standing before the mirror arranging her little cap: she was more lovely than ever, and, when i departed, cordially pressed my hands. i crept home by a roundabout way; for, on the side towards the little /stag-ditch/, my father had opened a sort of little peep-hole in the wall, not without the opposition of his neighbor. this side we avoided when we wanted not to be observed by him in coming home. my mother, whose mediation always came in well for us, had endeavored to palliate my absence in the morning at breakfast, by the supposition that i had gone out early; and i experienced no disagreeable effects from this innocent night. taken as a whole, this infinitely various world which surrounded me produced upon me but a very simple impression. i had no interest but to mark closely the outside of the objects, no business but that with which i had been charged by my father and herr von königsthal, by which, indeed, i perceived the inner course of things. i had no liking but for gretchen, and no other view than to see and take in every thing properly, that i might be able to repeat it with her, and explain it to her. often when a train was going by, i described it half aloud to myself, to assure myself of all the particulars, and to be praised by my fair one for this attention and accuracy: the applause and acknowledgments of the others i regarded as a mere appendix. i was indeed presented to many exalted and distinguished persons; but partly, no one had time to trouble himself about others, and partly, older people do not know at once how they should converse with a young man and try him. i, on my side, was likewise not particularly skilful in adapting myself to people. i generally won their favor, but not their approbation. whatever occupied me was completely present to me, but i did not ask whether it might be also suitable to others. i was mostly too lively or too quiet, and appeared either importunate or sullen, just as persons attracted or repelled me; and thus i was considered to be indeed full of promise, but at the same time was declared eccentric. the coronation-day dawned at last on the d of april, : the weather was favorable, and everybody was in motion. i, with several of my relations and friends, had been provided with a good place in one of the upper stories of the römer itself, where we might completely survey the whole. we betook ourselves to the spot very early in the morning, and from above, as in a bird's-eye view, contemplated the arrangements which we had inspected more closely the day before. there was the newly erected fountain, with two large tubs on the left and right, into which the double-eagle on the post was to pour from its two beaks white wine on this side, and red wine on that. there, gathered into a heap, lay the oats: here stood the large wooden hut, in which we had several days since seen the whole fat ox roasted and basted on a huge spit before a charcoal fire. all the avenues leading out from the römer, and from other streets back to the römer, were secured on both sides by barriers and guards. the great square was gradually filled; and the waving and pressure grew every moment stronger and more in motion, as the multitude always, if possible, endeavored to reach the spot where some new scene arose, and something particular was announced. all this time there reigned a tolerable stillness; and, when the alarm- bells were sounded, all the people seemed struck with terror and amazement. what first attracted the attention of all who could overlook the square from above, was the train in which the lords of aix and nuremberg brought the crown-jewels to the cathedral. these, as palladia, had been assigned the first place in the carriage; and the deputies sat before them on the back-seat with becoming reverence. now the three electors betake themselves to the cathedral. after the presentation of the insignia to the elector of mentz, the crown and sword are immediately carried to the imperial quarters. the further arrangements and manifold ceremonies occupied, in the interim, the chief persons, as well as the spectators, in the church, as we other well-informed persons could well imagine. in the mean time the ambassadors drove before our eyes up to the römer, from which the canopy is carried by the under-officers into the imperial quarters. the hereditary marshal, count von pappenheim, instantly mounts his horse: he was a very handsome, slender gentleman, whom the spanish costume, the rich doublet, the gold mantle, the high, feathered hat, and the loose, flying hair, became very well. he puts himself in motion; and, amid the sound of all the bells, the ambassadors follow him on horseback to the quarters of the emperor in still greater magnificence than on the day of election. one would have liked to be there too; as indeed, on this day, it would hare been altogether desirable to multiply one's self. however, we told each other what was going on there. now the emperor is putting on his domestic robes, we said, a new dress, made after the old carolingian pattern. the hereditary officers receive the insignia, and with them get on horseback. the emperor in his robes, the roman king in the spanish habit, immediately mount their steeds; and, while this is done, the endless procession which precedes them has already announced them. the eye was already wearied by the multitude of richly dressed attendants and magistrates, and by the nobility, who, in stately fashion, were moving along; but when the electoral envoys, the hereditary officers, and at last, under the richly embroidered canopy, borne by twelve /schöffen/ and senators, the emperor, in romantic costume, and to the left, a little behind him, in the spanish dress, his son, slowly floated along on magnificently adorned horses, the eye was no more sufficient for the sight. one would have liked to fix the scene, but for a moment, by a magic charm; but the glory passed on without stopping: and the space that was scarcely quitted was immediately filled again by the crowd, which poured in like billows. but now a new pressure ensued; for another approach from the market to the römer gate had to be opened, and a road of planks to be bridged over it, on which the train returning from the cathedral was to walk. what passed within the cathedral, the endless ceremonies which precede and accompany the anointing, the crowning, the dubbing of knighthood,-- all this we were glad to hear told afterwards by those who had sacrificed much else to be present in the church. the rest of us, in the interim, partook of a frugal repast; for in this festal day we had to be contented with cold meat. but, on the other hand, the best and oldest wine had been brought out of all the family cellars; so that, in this respect at least, we celebrated the ancient festival in ancient style. in the square, the sight most worth seeing was now the bridge, which had been finished, and covered with orange and white cloth; and we who had stared at the emperor, first in his carriage and then on horseback, were now to admire him walking on foot. singularly enough, the last pleased us the most; for we thought that in this way he exhibited himself both in the most natural and in the most dignified manner. older persons, who were present at the coronation of francis the first, related that maria theresa, beautiful beyond measure, had looked on this solemnity from a balcony window of the frauenstein house, close to the römer. as her consort returned from the cathedral in his strange costume, and seemed to her, so to speak, like a ghost of charlemagne, he had, as if in jest, raised both his hands, and shown her the imperial globe, the sceptre, and the curious gloves, at which she had broken out into immoderate laughter, which served for the great delight and edification of the crowd, which was thus honored with a sight of the good and natural matrimonial understanding between the most exalted couple of christendom. but when the empress, to greet her consort, waved her handkerchief, and even shouted a loud /vivat/ to him, the enthusiasm and exultation of the people was raised to the highest, so that there was no end to the cheers of joy. now the sound of bells, and the van of the long train which gently made its way over the many-colored bridge, announced that all was done. the attention was greater than ever, and the procession more distinct than before, particularly for us, since it now came directly up to us. we saw both, and the whole of the square, which was thronged with people, almost as if on a ground-plan. only at the end the magnificence was too much crowded: for the envoys; the hereditary officers; the emperor and king, under the canopy (/baldachin/); the three spiritual electors, who immediately followed; the /schöffen/ and senators, dressed in black; the gold-embroidered canopy (/himmel/),--all seemed only one mass, which, moved by a single will, splendidly harmonious, and thus stepping from the temple amid the sound of the bells, beamed towards us as something holy. a politico-religious ceremony possesses an infinite charm. we behold earthly majesty before our eyes, surrounded by all the symbols of its power; but, while it bends before that of heaven, it brings to our minds the communion of both. for even the individual can only prove his relationship with the deity by subjecting himself and adoring. the rejoicings which resounded from the market-place now spread likewise over the great square; and a boisterous /vivat/ burst forth from thousands upon thousands of throats, and doubtless from as many hearts. for this grand festival was to be the pledge of a lasting peace, which indeed for many a long year actually blessed germany. several days before, it had been made known by public proclamation, that neither the bridge nor the eagle over the fountain was to be exposed to the people, and they were therefore not, as at other times, to be touched. this was done to prevent the mischief inevitable with such a rush of persons. but, in order to sacrifice in some degree to the genius of the mob, persons expressly appointed went behind the procession, loosened the cloth from the bridge, wound it up like a flag, and threw it into the air. this gave rise to no disaster, but to a laughable mishap; for the cloth unrolled itself in the air, and, as it fell, covered a larger or smaller number of persons. those now who took hold of the ends and drew them towards them, pulled all those in the middle to the ground, enveloped them and teased them till they tore or cut themselves through; and everybody, in his own way, had borne off a corner of the stuff made sacred by the footsteps of majesty. i did not long contemplate this rough sport, but hastened from my high position through all sorts of little steps and passages, down to the great römer-stairs, where the distinguished and majestic mass, which had been stared at from the distance, was to ascend in its undulating course. the crowd was not great, because the entrances to the city-hall were well garrisoned; and i fortunately reached at once the iron balustrades above. now the chief personages ascended past me, while their followers remained behind in the lower arched passages; and i could observe them on the thrice-broken stairs from all sides, and at last quite close. finally both their majesties came up. father and son were altogether dressed like menaechmi. the emperor's domestic robes, of purple-colored silk, richly adorned with pearls and stones, as well as his crown, sceptre, and imperial orb, struck the eye with good effect. for all in them was new, and the imitation of the antique was tasteful. he moved, too, quite easily in his attire; and his true-hearted, dignified face, indicated at once the emperor and the father. the young king, on the contrary, in his monstrous articles of dress, with the crown-jewels of charlemagne, dragged himself along as if he had been in a disguise; so that he himself, looking at his father from time to time, could not refrain from laughing. the crown, which it had been necessary to line a great deal, stood out from his head like an overhanging roof. the dalmatica, the stole, well as they had been fitted and taken in by sewing, presented by no means an advantageous appearance. the sceptre and imperial orb excited some admiration; but one would, for the sake of a more princely effect, rather have seen a strong form, suited to the dress, invested and adorned with it. scarcely were the gates of the great hall closed behind these figures, than i hurried to my former place, which, being already occupied by others, i only regained with some trouble. it was precisely at the right time that i again took possession of my window, for the most remarkable part of all that was to be seen in public was just about to take place. all the people had turned towards the römer; and a reiterated shout of /vivat/ gave us to understand that the emperor and king, in their vestments, were showing themselves to the populace from the balcony of the great hall. but they were not alone to serve as a spectacle, since another strange spectacle occurred before their eyes. first of all, the handsome, slender hereditary marshal flung himself upon his steed: he had laid aside his sword; in his right hand he held a silver-handled vessel, and a tin spatula in his left. he rode within the barriers to the great heap of oats, sprang in, filled the vessel to overflow, smoothed it off, and carried it back again with great dignity. the imperial stable was now provided for. the hereditary chamberlain then rode likewise to the spot, and brought back a basin with ewer and towel. but more entertaining for the spectators was the hereditary carver, who came to fetch a piece of the roasted ox. he also rode, with a silver dish, through the barriers, to the large wooden kitchen, and came forth again with his portion covered, that he might go back to the römer. now it was the turn of the hereditary cup- bearer, who rode to the fountain and fetched wine. thus now was the imperial table furnished; and every eye waited upon the hereditary treasurer, who was to throw about the money. he, too, mounted a fine steed, to the sides of whose saddle, instead of holsters, a couple of splendid bags, embroidered with the arms of the palatinate, were suspended. scarcely had he put himself in motion than he plunged his hands into these pockets, and generously scattered, right and left, gold and silver coins, which, on every occasion, glittered merrily in the air like metallic rain. a thousand hands waved instantly in the air to catch the gifts; but hardly had the coins fallen when the crowd tumbled over each other on the ground, and struggled violently for the pieces which might have reached the earth. as this agitation was constantly repeated on both sides as the giver rode forwards, it afforded the spectators a very diverting sight. it was most lively at the close, when he threw out the bags themselves, and everybody tried to catch this highest prize. their majesties had retired from the balcony; and another offering was to be made to the mob, who, on such occasions, would rather steal the gifts than receive them tranquilly and gratefully. the custom prevailed, in more rude and uncouth times, of giving up to the people on the spot the oats, as soon as the hereditary marshal had taken away his share; the fountain and the kitchen, after the cup-bearer and the carver had performed their offices. but this time, to guard against all mischief, order and moderation were preserved as far as possible. but the old malicious jokes, that when one filled a sack with oats another cut a hole in it, with sallies of the kind, were revived. about the roasted ox, a more serious battle was, as usual, waged on this occasion. this could only be contested /en masse/. two guilds, the butchers and the wine-porters, had, according to ancient custom, again stationed themselves so that the monstrous roast must fall to one of the two. the butchers believed that they had the best right to an ox which they provided entire for the kitchen: the wine-porters, on the other hand, laid claim because the kitchen was built near the abode of their guild, and because they had gained the victory the last time, the horns of the captured steer still projecting from the latticed gable-window of their guild and meeting-house as a sign of victory. both these companies had very strong and able members; but which of them conquered this time, i no longer remember. but, as a festival of this kind must always close with something dangerous and frightful, it was really a terrible moment when the wooden kitchen itself was made a prize. the roof of it swarmed instantly with men, no one knowing how they got there: the boards were torn loose, and pitched down; so that one could not help supposing, particularly at a distance, that each would kill a few of those pressing to the spot. in a trice the hut was unroofed; and single individuals hung to the beams and rafters, in order to pull them also out of their joinings: nay, many floated above upon the posts which had been already sawn off below; and the whole skeleton, moving backwards and forwards, threatened to fall in. sensitive persons turned their eyes away, and everybody expected a great calamity; but we did not hear of any mischief: and the whole affair, though impetuous and violent, had passed off happily. everybody knew now that the emperor and king would return from the cabinet, whither they had retired from the balcony, and feast in the great hall of the romer. we had been able to admire the arrangements made for it, the day before; and my most anxious wish was, if possible, to look in to-day. i repaired, therefore, by the usual path, to the great staircase, which stands directly opposite the door of the hall. here i gazed at the distinguished personages who this day acted as the servants of the head of the empire. forty-four counts, all splendidly dressed, passed me, carrying the dishes from the kitchen; so that the contrast between their dignity and their occupation might well be bewildering to a boy. the crowd was not great, but, considering the little space, sufficiently perceptible. the hall-door was guarded, while those who were authorized went frequently in and out. i saw one of the palatine domestic officials, whom i asked whether he could not take me in with him. he did not deliberate long, but gave me one of the silver vessels he just then bore, which he could do so much the more, as i was neatly clad; and thus i reached the sanctuary. the palatine buffet stood to the left, directly by the door; and with some steps i placed myself on the elevation of it, behind the barriers. at the other end of the hall, immediately by the windows, raised on the steps of the throne, and under canopies, sat the emperor and king in their robes; but the crown and sceptre lay at some distance behind them on gold cushions. the three spiritual electors, their buffets behind them, had taken their places on single elevations; the elector of mentz opposite their majesties, the elector of treves at the right, and the elector of cologne at the left. this upper part of the hall was imposing and cheerful to behold, and excited the remark that the spiritual power likes to keep as long as possible with the ruler. on the contrary, the buffets and tables of all the temporal electors, which were, indeed, magnificently ornamented, but without occupants, made one think of the misunderstanding which had gradually arisen for centuries between them and the head of the empire. their ambassadors had already withdrawn to eat in a side-chamber; and if the greater part of the hall assumed a sort of spectral appearance, by so many invisible guests being so magnificently attended, a large unfurnished table in the middle was still more sad to look upon; for there, also, many covers stood empty, because all those who had certainly a right to sit there had, for appearance' sake, kept away, that on the greatest day of honor they might not renounce any of their honor, if, indeed, they were then to be found in the city. neither my years nor the mass of present objects allowed me to make many reflections. i strove to see all as much as possible; and when the dessert was brought in, and the ambassadors re-entered to pay their court, i sought the open air, and contrived to refresh myself with good friends in the neighborhood, after a day's half-fasting, and to prepare for the illumination in the evening. this brilliant night i purposed celebrating in a right hearty way; for i had agreed with gretchen, and pylades and his mistress, that we should meet somewhere at nightfall. the city was already resplendent at every end and corner when i met my beloved. i offered gretchen my arm: we went from one quarter to another, and found ourselves very happy in each other's society. the cousins at first were also of our party, but were afterwards lost in the multitude of people. before the houses of some of the ambassadors, where magnificent illuminations were exhibited,--those of the elector-palatine were pre-eminently distinguished,--it was as clear as day. lest i should be recognized, i had disguised myself to a certain extent; and gretchen did not find it amiss. we admired the various brilliant representations and the fairy-like structures of flame by which each ambassador strove to outshine the others. but prince esterhazy's arrangements surpassed all the rest. our little company were enraptured, both with the invention and the execution; and we were just about to enjoy this in detail, when the cousins again met us, and spoke to us of the glorious illumination with which the brandenburg ambassador had adorned his quarters. we were not displeased at taking the long way from the ross-markt (horse-market) to the saalhof, but found that we had been vlllanously hoaxed. the saalhof is, towards the main, a regular and handsome structure; but the part in the direction of the city is exceedingly old, irregular, and unsightly. small windows, agreeing neither in form nor size, neither in a line nor placed at equal distances; gates and doors arranged without symmetry; a ground-floor mostly turned into shops,--it forms a confused outside, which is never observed by any one. now, here this accidental, irregular, unconnected architecture had been followed; and every window, every door, every opening, was surrounded by lamps,--as indeed can be done with a well-built house; but here the most wretched and ill-formed of all facades was thus quite incredibly placed in the clearest light. did one amuse one's self with this as with the jests of the /pagliasso/, [footnote: a sort of buffoon.] though not without scruple, since everybody must recognize something intentional in it,-- just as people had before glossed on the previous external deportment of von plotho, so much prized in other respects, and, when once inclined towards him, had admired him as a wag, who, like his king, would place himself above all ceremonies,--one nevertheless gladly returned to the fairy kingdom of esterhazy. this eminent envoy, to honor the day, had quite passed over his own unfavorably situated quarters, and in their stead had caused the great esplanade of linden-trees in the horse-market to be decorated in the front with a portal illuminated with colors, and at the back with a still more magnificent prospect. the entire enclosure was marked by lamps. between the trees, stood pyramids and spheres of light upon transparent pedestals; from one tree to another were stretched glittering garlands, on which floated suspended lights. in several places bread and sausages were distributed among the people, and there was no want of wine. here now, four abreast, we walked very comfortably up and down; and i, by gretchen's side, fancied that i really wandered in those happy elysian fields where they pluck from the trees crystal cups that immediately fill themselves with the wine desired, and shake down fruits that change into every dish at will. at last we also felt such a necessity; and, conducted by pylades, we found a neat, well-arranged eating-house. when we encountered no more guests, since everybody was going about the streets, we were all the better pleased, and passed the greatest part of the night most happily and cheerfully, in the feeling of friendship, love, and attachment. when i had accompanied gretchen as far as her door, she kissed me on the forehead. it was the first and last time that she granted me this favor; for, alas! i was not to see her again. the next morning, while i was yet in bed, my mother entered, in trouble and anxiety. it was easy to see when she was at all distressed. "get up," she said, "and prepare yourself for something unpleasant. it has come out that you frequent very bad company, and have involved yourself in very dangerous and bad affairs. your father is beside himself; and we have only been able to get thus much from him, that he will investigate the affair by means of a third party. remain in your chamber, and await what may happen. councillor schneider will come to you: he has the commission both from your father and from the authorities; for the matter is already prosecuted, and may take a very bad turn." i saw that they took the affair for much worse than it was; yet i felt myself not a little disquieted, even if only the actual state of things should be detected. my old "messiah"-loving friend finally entered, with the tears standing in his eyes: he took me by the arm, and said, "i am heartily sorry to come to you on such an affair. i could not have supposed that you could go astray so far. but what will not wicked companions and bad example do! thus can a young, inexperienced man be led step by step into crime!"--"i am conscious of no crime," i replied, "and as little of having frequented bad company."--"the question now is not one of defense," said he, interrupting me, "but of investigation, and on your part of an upright confession."--"what do you want to know?" retorted i. he seated himself, drew out a paper, and began to question me: "have you not recommended n. n. to your grandfather as a candidate for the ... place?" i answered "yes."--"where did you become acquainted with him?"--"in my walks."--"in what company?" i hesitated, for i would not willingly betray my friends. "silence will not do now." he continued, "for all is sufficiently known."--"what is known, then?" said i. "that this man has been introduced to you by others like him--in fact, by. ..." here he named three persons whom i had never seen nor known, which i immediately explained to the questioner. "you pretend," he resumed, "not to know these men, and have yet had frequent meetings with them."--"not in the least," i replied; "for, as i have said, except the first, i do not know one of them, and even him i have never seen in a house."--"have you not often been in ... street?"--"never," i replied. this was not entirely conformable to the truth. i had once accompanied pylades to his sweetheart, who lived in that street; but we had entered by the back-door, and remained in the summer-house. i therefore supposed that i might permit myself the subterfuge that i had not been in the street itself. the good man put more questions, all of which i could answer with a denial; for of all that he wished to learn i knew nothing. at last he seemed to become vexed, and said, "you repay my confidence and good will very badly: i come to save you. you cannot deny that you have composed letters for these people themselves or for their accomplices, have furnished them writings, and have thus been accessory to their evil acts; for the question is of nothing less than of forged papers, false wills, counterfeit bonds, and things of the sort. i have come, not only as a friend of the family, i come in the name and by order of the magistrates, who, in consideration of your connections and youth, would spare you and some other young persons, who, like you, have been lured into the net." i had thought it strange, that, among the persons he named, none of those with whom i had been intimate were found. the circumstances touched, without agreeing; and i could still hope to save my young friends. but the good man grew more and more urgent. i could not deny that i had come home late many nights, that i had contrived to have a house-key made, that i had been seen at public places more than once with persons of low rank and suspicious looks, that some girls were mixed up in the affair,--in short, every thing seemed to be discovered but the names. this gave me courage to persist steadfastly in my silence. "do not," said my excellent friend, "let me go away from you; the affair admits of no delay; immediately after me another will come, who will not grant you so much scope. do not make the matter, which is bad enough, worse by your obstinacy." i represented very vividly to myself the good cousins, and particularly gretchen: i saw them arrested, tried, punished, disgraced; and then it went through my soul like a flash of lightning, that the cousins, though they always observed integrity towards me, might have engaged in such bad affairs, at least the oldest, who never quite pleased me, who came home later and later, and had little to tell of a cheerful sort. still i kept back my confession. "personally," said i, "i am conscious of nothing evil, and can rest satisfied on that side; but it is not impossible that those with whom i have associated may have been guilty of some daring or illegal act. they may be sought, found, convicted, punished: i have hitherto nothing to reproach myself with, and will not do any wrong to those who have behaved well and kindly to me." he did not let me finish, but exclaimed, with some agitation, "yes, they will be found out. these villains met in three houses. (he named the streets, he pointed out the houses, and, unfortunately, among them was the one i used to frequent.) the first nest is already broken up, and at this moment so are the two others. in a few hours the whole will be clear. avoid, by a frank confession, a judicial inquiry, a confrontation, and all other disagreeable matters." the house was known and marked. now i deemed silence useless; nay, considering the innocence of our meetings, i could hope to be still more useful to them than to myself. "sit down!" i exclaimed, fetching him back from the door: "i will tell all, and at once lighten your heart and mine; only one thing i ask,--henceforth let there be no doubt of my veracity." i soon told my friend the whole progress of the affair, and was at first calm and collected; but the more i brought to mind and pictured to myself the persons, objects, and events, so many innocent pleasures and charming enjoyments, and was forced to depose as before a criminal court, the more did the most painful feeling increase, so that at last i burst forth in tears, and gave myself up to unrestrained passion. the family friend, who hoped that now the real secret was coming to light (for he regarded my distress as a symptom that i was on the point of confessing with repugnance something monstrous), sought to pacify me; as with him the discovery was the all-important matter. in this he only partly succeeded; but so far, however, that i could eke out my story to the end. though satisfied of the innocence of the proceedings, he was still doubtful to some extent, and put further questions to me, which excited me afresh, and transported me with pain and rage. i asserted, finally, that i had nothing more to say, and well knew that i need fear nothing, for i was innocent, of a good family, and well reputed; but that they might be just as guiltless without having it recognized, or being otherwise favored. i declared at the same time, that if they were not spared like myself, that if their follies were not regarded with indulgence, and their faults pardoned, that if any thing in the least harsh or unjust happened to them, i would do some violence to myself, and no one should prevent me. in this, too, my friend tried to pacify me; but i did not trust him, and was, when he quitted me at last, in a most terrible state. i now reproached myself for having told the affair, and brought all the positions to light. i foresaw that our childlike actions, our youthful inclinations and confidences, would be quite differently interpreted, and that i might perhaps involve the excellent pylades in the matter, and render him very unhappy. all these images pressed vividly one after the other before my soul, sharpened and spurred my distress, so that i did not know what to do for sorrow. i cast myself at full length upon the floor, and moistened it with my tears. i know not how long i may have lain, when my sister entered, was frightened at my gestures, and did all that she could to comfort me. she told me that a person connected with the magistracy had waited below with my father for the return of the family friend, and that, after they had been closeted together for some time, both the gentlemen had departed, had talked to each other with apparent satisfaction, and had even laughed. she believed that she had heard the words, "it is all right: the affair is of no consequence."--"indeed!" i broke out, "the affair is of no consequence for me,--for us: for i have committed no crime; and, if i had, they would contrive to help me through: but the others, the others," i cried, "who will stand by them?" my sister tried to comfort me by circumstantially arguing that if those of higher rank were to be saved, a veil must also be cast over the faults of the more lowly. all this was of no avail. she had scarcely left than i again abandoned myself to my grief, and ever recalled alternately the images, both of my affection and passion, and of the present and possible misfortune. i repeated to myself tale after tale, saw only unhappiness following unhappiness, and did not fail in particular to make gretchen and myself truly wretched. the family friend had ordered me to remain in my room, and have nothing to do with any one but the family. this was just what i wanted, for i found myself best alone. my mother and sister came to see me from time to time, and did not fail to assist me vigorously with all sorts of good consolation; nay, even on the second day they came in the name of my father, who was now better informed, to offer me a perfect amnesty, which indeed i gratefully accepted: but the proposal that i should go out with him and look at the insignia of the empire, which were now exposed to the curious, i stubbornly rejected; and i asserted that i wanted to know nothing, either of the world or of the roman empire, till i was informed how that distressing affair, which for me could have no further consequences, had turned out for my poor acquaintance. they had nothing to say on this head, and left me alone. yet the next day some further attempts were made to get me out of the house, and excite in me a sympathy for the public ceremonies. in vain! neither the great galaday, nor what happened on the occasion of so many elevations of rank, nor the public table of the emperor and king,--in short, nothing could move me. the elector of the palatinate might come and wait on both their majesties; these might visit the electors; the last electoral sitting might be attended for the despatch of business in arrear, and the renewal of the electoral union,--nothing could call me forth from my passionate solitude. i let the bells ring for the rejoicings, the emperor repair to the capuchin church, the electors and emperor depart, without on that account moving one step from my chamber. the final cannonading, immoderate as it might be, did not arouse me; and as the smoke of the powder dispersed, and the sound died away, so had all this glory vanished from my soul. i now experienced no satisfaction except in ruminating on my misery, and in a thousand-fold imaginary multiplication of it. my whole inventive faculty, my poetry and rhetoric, had pitched on this diseased spot, and threatened, precisely by means of this vitality, to involve body and soul into an incurable disorder. in this melancholy condition nothing more seemed to me worth a desire, nothing worth a wish. an infinite yearning, indeed, seized me at times to know how it had gone with my poor friends and my beloved, what had been the result of a stricter scrutiny, how far they were implicated in those crimes, or had been found guiltless. this also i circumstantially painted to myself in the most various ways, and did not fail to hold them as innocent and truly unfortunate. sometimes i longed to see myself freed from this uncertainty, and wrote vehemently threatening letters to the family friend, insisting that he should not withhold from me the further progress of the affair. sometimes i tore them up again, from the fear of learning my unhappiness quite distinctly, and of losing the principal consolation with which hitherto i had alternately tormented and supported myself. thus i passed both day and night in great disquiet, in raving and lassitude; so that i felt happy at last when a bodily illness seized me with considerable violence, when they had to call in the help of a physician, and think of every way to quiet me. they supposed that they could do it generally by the sacred assurance that all who were more or less involved in the guilt had been treated with the greatest forbearance; that my nearest friends, being as good as innocent, had been dismissed with a slight reprimand; and that gretchen had retired from the city, and had returned to her own home. they lingered the most over this last point, and i did not take it in the best part; for i could discover in it, not a voluntary departure, but only a shameful banishment. my bodily and mental condition was not improved by this: my distress now only augmented; and i had time enough to torment myself by picturing the strangest romance of sad events, and an inevitably tragical catastrophe. part the second. of what one wishes in youth, when old he has in abundance. sixth book. thus i felt urged alternately to promote and to retard my recovery; and a certain secret chagrin was now added to my other sensations, for i plainly perceived that i was watched, that they were loath to hand me any sealed paper without taking notice what effect it produced, whether i kept it secret, whether i laid it down open and the like. i therefore conjectured that pylades, or one of the cousins, or even gretchen herself, might have attempted to write to me, either to give or to obtain information. in addition to my sorrow, i was now more cross than hitherto, and had again fresh opportunities to exercise my conjectures, and to mislead myself into the strangest combinations. it was not long before they gave me a special overseer. fortunately it was a man whom i loved and valued. he had held the place of tutor in the family of one of our friends, and his former pupil had gone alone to the university. he often visited me in my sad condition; and they at last found nothing more natural than to give him a chamber next to mine, as he was then to provide me with employment, pacify me, and, as i was well aware, keep his eye on me. still, as i esteemed him from my heart, and had already confided many things to him, though not my affection for gretchen, i determined so much the more to be perfectly candid and straightforward with him; as it was intolerable to me to live in daily intercourse with any one, and at the same time to stand on an uncertain, constrained footing with him. it was not long, then, before i spoke to him about the matter, refreshed myself by the relation and repetition of the minutest circumstances of my past happiness, and thus gained so much, that he, like a sensible man, saw it would be better to make me acquainted with the issue of the story, and that, too, in its details and particulars, so that i might be clear as to the whole, and that, with earnestness and zeal, i might be persuaded of the necessity of composing myself, throwing the past behind me, and beginning a new life. first he confided to me who the other young people of quality were who had allowed themselves to be seduced, at the outset, into daring hoaxes, then into sportive breaches of police, afterwards into frolicsome impositions on others, and other such dangerous matters. thus actually had arisen a little conspiracy, which unprincipled men had joined, who, by forging papers and counterfeiting signatures, had perpetrated many criminal acts, and had still more criminal matters in preparation. the cousins, for whom i at last impatiently inquired, had been found to be quite innocent, only very generally acquainted with those others, and not at all implicated with them. my client, owing to my recommendation of whom i had been tracked, was one of the worst, and had sued for that office chiefly that he might undertake or conceal certain villanies. after all this, i could at last contain myself no longer, and asked what had become of gretchen, for whom i, once for all, confessed the strongest attachment. my friend shook his head and smiled. "make yourself easy," replied he: "this girl has passed her examination very well, and has borne off honorable testimony to that effect. they could discover nothing in her but what was good and amiable: she even won the favor of those who questioned her, and could not refuse her desire of removing from the city. even what she has confessed regarding you, my friend, does her honor: i have read her deposition in the secret reports myself, and seen her signature."--"the signature!" exclaimed i, "which makes me so happy and so miserable. what has she confessed, then? what has she signed?" my friend delayed answering, but the cheerfulness of his face showed me that he concealed nothing dangerous." if you must know, then," replied he at last, "when she was asked about you, and her intercourse with you, she said quite frankly, 'i cannot deny that i have seen him often and with pleasure; but i have always treated him as a child, and my affection for him was truly that of a sister. in many cases i have given him good advice; and, instead of instigating him to any equivocal action, i have hindered him from taking part in wanton tricks, which might have brought him into trouble.'" my friend still went on making gretchen speak like a governess; but i had already for some time ceased to listen to him, for i was terribly affronted that she had set me down in the reports as a child, and believed myself at once cured of all passion for her. i even hastily assured my friend that all was now over. i also spoke no more of her, named her no more: but i could not leave off the bad habit of thinking about her, and of recalling her form, her air, her demeanor; though now, in fact, all appeared to me in quite another light. i felt it intolerable that a girl, at the most only a couple of years older than me, should regard me as a child; while i conceived i passed with her for a very sensible and clever youth. her cold and repelling manner, which had before so charmed me, now seemed to me quite repugnant: the familiarities which she had allowed herself to take with me, but had not permitted me to return, were altogether odious. yet all would have been well enough, if by signing that poetical love-letter, in which she had confessed a formal attachment to me, she had not given me a right to regard her as a sly and selfish coquette. her masquerading it at the milliner's, too, no longer seemed to me so innocent; and i turned these annoying reflections over and over within myself until i had entirely stripped her of all her amiable qualities. my judgment was convinced, and i thought i must cast her away; but her image!--her image gave me the lie as often as it again hovered before me, which indeed happened often enough. nevertheless, this arrow with its barbed hooks was torn out of my heart; and the question then was, how the inward sanative power of youth could be brought to one's aid? i really put on the man; and the first thing instantly laid aside was the weeping and raving, which i now regarded as childish in the highest degree. a great stride for the better! for i had often, half the night through, given myself up to this grief with the greatest violence; so that at last, from my tears and sobbing, i came to such a point that i could scarcely swallow any longer; eating and drinking became painful to me; and my chest, which was so nearly concerned, seemed to suffer. the vexation i had constantly felt since the discovery made me banish every weakness. it seemed to me something frightful that i had sacrificed sleep, repose, and health for the sake of a girl who was pleased to consider me a babe, and to imagine herself, with respect to me, something very much like a nurse. these depressing reflections, as i was soon convinced, were only to be banished by activity; but of what was i to take hold? i had, indeed, much to make up for in many things, and to prepare myself, in more than one sense, for the university, which i was now to attend; but i relished and accomplished nothing. much appeared to me familiar and trivial: for grounding myself, in several respects, i found neither strength within nor opportunity without; and i therefore suffered myself to be moved by the taste of my good room-neighbor, to a study which was altogether new and strange to me, and which for a long time offered me a wide field of information and thought. for my friend began to make me acquainted with the secrets of philosophy. he had studied in jena, under daries, and, possessing a well-regulated mind, had acutely seized the relations of that doctrine, which he now sought to impart to me. but, unfortunately, these things would not hang together in such a fashion in my brain. i put questions, which he promised to answer afterwards: i made demands, which he promised to satisfy in future. but our most important difference was this: that i maintained a separate philosophy was not necessary, as the whole of it was already contained in religion and poetry. this he would by no means allow, but rather tried to prove to me that these must first be founded on philosophy; which i stubbornly denied, and, at every step in the progress of our discussions, found arguments for my opinion. for as in poetry a certain faith in the impossible, and as in religion a like faith in the inscrutable, must have a place, the philosophers appeared to me to be in a very false position who would demonstrate and explain both of them from their own field of vision. besides, it was very quickly proved, from the history of philosophy, that one always sought a ground different from that of the other, and that the sceptic, in the end, pronounced every thing groundless and useless. however, this very history of philosophy, which my friend was compelled to go over with me, because i could learn nothing from dogmatical discourse, amused me very much, but only on this account, that one doctrine or opinion seemed to me as good as another, so far, at least, as i was capable of penetrating into it. with the most ancient men and schools i was best pleased, because poetry, religion, and philosophy were completely combined into one; and i only maintained that first opinion of mine with the more animation, when the book of job and the song and proverbs of solomon, as well as the lays of orpheus and hesiod, seemed to bear valid witness in its favor. my friend had taken the smaller work of brucker as the foundation of his discourse; and, the farther we went on, the less i could make of it. i could not clearly see what the first greek philosophers would have. socrates i esteemed as an excellent, wise man, who in his life and death might well be compared with christ. his disciples, on the other hand, seemed to me to bear a strong resemblance to the apostles, who disagreed immediately after their master's death, when each manifestly recognized only a limited view as the right one. neither the keenness of aristotle nor the fulness of plato produced the least fruit in me. for the stoics, on the contrary, i had already conceived some affection, and even procured epictetus, whom i studied with much interest. my friend unwillingly let me have my way in this one-sidedness, from which he could not draw me; for, in spite of his varied studies, he did not know how to bring the leading question into a narrow compass. he need only have said to me that in life action is every thing, and that joy and sorrow come of themselves. however, youth should be allowed its own course: it does not stick to false maxims very long; life soon tears or charms it away again. the season had become fine: we often went together into the open air, and visited the places of amusement which surrounded the city in great numbers. but it was precisely here that matters went worse with me; for i still saw the ghosts of the cousins everywhere, and feared, now here, now there, to see one of them step forward. even the most indifferent glances of men annoyed me. i had lost that unconscious happiness of wandering about unknown and unblamed, and of thinking of no observer, even in the greatest crowds. now hypochondriacal fancies began to torment me, as if i attracted the attention of the people, as if their eyes were turned on my demeanor, to fix it on their memories, to scan and to find fault. i therefore drew my friend into the woods; and, while i shunned the monotonous firs, i sought those fine leafy groves, which do not indeed spread far in the district, but are yet of sufficient compass for a poor wounded heart to hide itself. in the remotest depth of the forest i sought out a solemn spot, where the oldest oaks and beeches formed a large, noble, shaded space. the ground was somewhat sloping, and made the worth of the old trunks only the more perceptible. round this open circle closed the densest thickets, from which the mossy rocks mightily and venerably peered forth, and made a rapid fall for a copious brook. scarcely had i dragged hither my friend, who would rather have been in the open country by the stream, among men, when he playfully assured me that i showed myself a true german. he related to me circumstantially, out of tacitus, how our ancestors found pleasure in the feelings which nature so provides for us, in such solitudes, with her inartificial architecture. he had not been long discoursing of this, when i exclaimed, "oh! why did not this precious spot lie in a deeper wilderness! why may we not train a hedge around it, to hallow and separate from the world both it and ourselves! surely there is no more beautiful adoration of the deity than that which needs no image, but which springs up in our bosom merely from the intercourse with nature!" what i then felt is still present to my mind: what i said i know not how to recall. thus much, however, is certain, that the undetermined, widely expanding feelings of youth and of uncultivated nations are alone adapted to the sublime, which, if it is to be excited in us through external objects, formless, or moulded into incomprehensible forms, must surround us with a greatness to which we are not equal. all men, more or less, have such a disposition, and seek to satisfy this noble want in various ways. but as the sublime is easily produced by twilight and night, when objects are blended, it is, on the other hand, scared away by the day, which separates and sunders every thing; and so must it also be destroyed by every increase of cultivation, if it be not fortunate enough to take refuge with the beautiful, and unite itself closely with it, whereby both become equally undying and indestructible. the brief moments of such enjoyments were still more shortened by my meditative friend: but, when i turned back into the world, it was altogether in vain that i sought, among the bright and barren objects around, again to arouse such feelings within me; nay, i could scarcely retain even the remembrance of them. my heart, however, was too far spoiled to be able to compose itself: it had loved, and the object was snatched away from it; it had lived, and life to it was embittered. a friend who makes it too perceptible that he designs to improve you, excites no feeling of comfort; while a woman who is forming you, while she seems to spoil you, is adored as a heavenly, joy-bringing being. but that form in which the idea of beauty manifested itself to me had vanished into distance; it often visited me under the shade of my oak- trees, but i could not hold it fast: and i felt a powerful impulse to seek something similar in the distance. i had imperceptibly accustomed, nay, compelled, my friend and overseer to leave me alone; for, even in my sacred grove, those undefined, gigantic feelings were not sufficient for me. the eye was, above all others, the organ by which i seized the world. i had, from childhood, lived among painters, and had accustomed myself to look at objects, as they did, with reference to art. now i was left to myself and to solitude, this gift, half natural, half acquired, made its appearance. wherever i looked, i saw a picture; and whatever struck me, whatever gave me delight, i wished to fix, and began, in the most awkward manner, to draw after nature. to this end i lacked nothing less than every thing; yet, though without any technical means, i obstinately persisted in trying to imitate the most magnificent things that offered themselves to my sight. thus, to be sure, i acquired the faculty of paying a great attention to objects; but i only seized them as a whole, so far as they produced an effect: and, little as nature had meant me for a descriptive poet, just as little would she grant me the capacity of a draughtsman for details. this, however, being the only way left me of uttering my thoughts, i stuck to it with so much stubbornness, nay, even with melancholy, that i always continued my labors the more zealously the less i saw they produced. but i will not deny that there was a certain mixture of roguery; for i had remarked, that if i chose for an irksome study a half-shaded old trunk, to the hugely curved roots of which clung well-lit fern, combined with twinkling maiden-hair, my friend, who knew from experience that i should not be disengaged in less than an hour, commonly resolved to seek, with his books, some other pleasant little spot. now nothing disturbed me in prosecuting my taste, which was so much the more active, as my paper was endeared to me by the circumstance that i had accustomed myself to see in it, not so much what stood upon it, as what i had been thinking of at any time and hour when i drew. thus plants and flowers of the commonest kind may form a charming diary for us, because nothing that calls back the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant; and even now it would be hard for me to destroy as worthless many things of the kind that have remained to me from different epochs, because they transport me immediately to those times which i like to remember, although not without melancholy. but, if such drawings may have had any thing of interest in themselves, they were indebted for this advantage to the sympathy and attention of my father. he, informed by my overseer that i had become gradually reconciled to my condition, and, in particular, had applied myself passionately to drawing from nature, was very well satisfied,--partly because he himself set a high value on drawing and painting, partly because gossip seekatz had once said to him, that it was a pity i was not destined for a painter. but here again the peculiarities of father and son came into conflict: for it was almost impossible for me to make use of a good, white, perfectly clean sheet of paper; gray old leaves, even if scribbled over on one side already, charmed me most, just as if my awkwardness had feared the touchstone of a white ground. nor were any of my drawings quite finished; and how should i have executed a whole, which indeed i saw with my eyes, but did not comprehend, and how an individual object, which i had neither skill nor patience to follow out? my father's mode of training me in this respect was really to be admired. he kindly asked for my attempts, and drew lines round every imperfect sketch. he wished, by this means, to compel me to completeness and fulness of detail. the irregular leaves he cut straight, and thus made the beginning of a collection, in which he wished, at some future time, to rejoice at the progress of his son. it was, therefore, by no means disagreeable to him when my wild, restless disposition sent me roving about the country: he rather seemed pleased when i brought back a parcel of drawings on which he could exercise his patience, and in some measure strengthen his hopes. they no longer said that i might relapse into my former attachments and connections: they left me by degrees perfect liberty. by accidental inducements and in accidental society i undertook many journeys to the mountain-range, which, from my childhood, had stood so distant and solemn before me. thus we visited homburg, kroneburg, ascended the feldberg, from which the prospect invited us still farther and farther into the distance. königstein, too, was not left unvisited; wiesbaden, schwalbach, with its environs, occupied us many days; we reached the rhine, which, from the heights, we had seen winding along far off. mentz astonished us, but could not chain a youthful mind which was running into the open country; we were delighted with the situation of biberich; and, contented and happy, we resumed our journey home. this whole tour, from which my father had promised himself many a drawing, might have been almost without fruit; for what taste, what talent, what experience, does it not require to seize an extensive landscape as a picture! i was again imperceptibly drawn into a narrow compass, from which i derived some profit; for i met no ruined castle, no piece of wall which pointed to antiquity, that i did not think an object worthy of my pencil, and imitate as well as i could. even the stone of drusus, on the ramparts of mentz, i copied at some risk, and with inconveniences which every one must experience who wishes to carry home with him some pictorial reminiscences of his travels. unfortunately i had again brought with me nothing but the most miserable common paper, and had clumsily crowded several objects into one sheet. but my paternal teacher was not perplexed at this: he cut the sheets apart; had the parts which belonged to each other put together by the bookbinder; surrounded the single leaves with lines; and thus actually compelled me to draw the outline of different mountains up to the margin, and to fill up the foreground with some weeds and stones. if his faithful endeavors could not increase my talent, nevertheless this mark of his love of order had upon me a secret influence, which afterwards manifested itself vigorously in more ways than one. from such rambling excursions, undertaken partly for pleasure, partly for art, and which could be performed in a short time, and often repeated, i was again drawn home, and that by a magnet which always acted upon me strongly: this was my sister. she, only a year younger than i, had lived the whole conscious period of my life with me, and was thus bound to me by the closest ties. to these natural causes was added a forcible motive, which proceeded from our domestic position: a father certainly affectionate and well-meaning, but grave, who, because he cherished within a very tender heart, externally, with incredible consistency, maintained a brazen sternness, that he might attain the end of giving his children the best education, and of building up, regulating, and preserving his well-founded house; a mother, on the other hand, as yet almost a child, who first grew up to consciousness with and in her two eldest children; these three, as they looked at the world with healthy eyes, capable of life, and desiring present enjoyment. this contradiction floating in the family increased with years. my father followed out his views unshaken and uninterrupted: the mother and children could not give up their feelings, their claims, their wishes. under these circumstances it was natural that brother and sister should attach themselves close to each other, and adhere to their mother, that they might singly snatch the pleasures forbidden as a whole. but since the hours of solitude and toil were very long compared with the moments of recreation and enjoyment, especially for my sister, who could never leave the house for so long a time as i could, the necessity she felt for entertaining herself with me was still sharpened by the sense of longing with which she accompanied me to a distance. and as, in our first years, playing and learning, growth and education, had been quite common to both of us, so that we might well have been taken for twins, so did this community, this confidence, remain during the development of our physical and moral powers. that interest of youth; that amazement at the awakening of sensual impulses which clothe themselves in mental forms; of mental necessities which clothe themselves in sensual images; all the reflections upon these, which obscure rather than enlighten us, as the fog covers over and does not illumine the vale from which it is about to rise; the many errors and aberrations springing therefrom,--all these the brother and sister shared and endured hand in hand, and were the less enlightened as to their strange condition, as the nearer they wished to approach each other, to clear up their minds, the more forcibly did the sacred awe of their close relationship keep them apart reluctantly do i mention, in a general way, what i undertook to set forth years ago, without being able to accomplish it. as i lost this beloved, incomprehensible being but too soon, i felt inducement enough to make her worth present to me: and thus arose in me the conception of a poetic whole, in which it might be possible to exhibit her individuality; but for this no other form could be devised than that of the richardsonian novels. only by the minutest detail, by endless particularities which bear vividly all the character of the whole, and, as they spring up from a wonderful depth, give some feeling of that depth,--only in such a manner would it have been in some degree possible to give a representation of this remarkable personality; for the spring can be apprehended only while it is flowing. but from this beautiful and pious design, as from so many others, the tumult of the world drew me away; and nothing now remains for me but to call up for a moment that blessed spirit, as if by the aid of a magic mirror. she was tall, well and delicately formed, and had something naturally dignified in her demeanor, which melted away into a pleasing mildness. the lineaments of her face, neither striking nor beautiful, indicated a character which was not nor ever could be in union with itself. her eyes were not the finest i have ever seen, but the deepest, behind which you expected the most; and when they expressed any affection, any love, their brilliancy was unequalled. and yet, properly speaking, this expression was not tender, like that which comes from the heart, and at the same time carries with it something of longing and desire: this expression came from the soul; it was full and rich; it seemed as if it would only give, without needing to receive. but what in a manner quite peculiar disfigured her face, so that she would often appear positively ugly, was the fashion of those times, which not only bared the forehead, but, either accidentally or on purpose, did every thing apparently or really to enlarge it. now, as she had the most feminine, most perfect arched forehead, and, moreover, a pair of strong black eyebrows, and prominent eyes, these circumstances occasioned a contrast, which, if it did not repel every stranger at the first glance, at least did not attract him. she early felt it; and this feeling became constantly the more painful to her, the farther she advanced into the years when both sexes find an innocent pleasure in being mutually agreeable. to nobody can his own form be repugnant; the ugliest, as well as the most beautiful, has a right to enjoy his own presence: and as favor beautifies, and every one regards himself in the looking-glass with favor, it may be asserted that every one must see himself with complacency, even if he would struggle against the feeling. yet my sister had such a decided foundation of good sense, that she could not possibly be blind and silly in this respect; on the contrary, she perhaps knew more clearly than she ought, that she stood far behind her female playfellows in external beauty, without feeling consoled by the fact that she infinitely surpassed them in internal advantages. if a woman can find compensation for the want of beauty, she richly found it in the unbounded confidence, the regard and love, which all her female friends bore to her; whether they were older or younger, all cherished the same sentiments. a very pleasant society had collected around her: young men were not wanting who knew how to insinuate themselves; nearly every girl found an admirer; she alone had remained without a partner. while, indeed, her exterior was in some measure repulsive, the mind that gleamed through it was also more repelling than attractive; for the presence of any excellence throws others back upon themselves. she felt this sensibly: she did not conceal it from me, and her love was directed to me with so much the greater force. the case was singular enough. as confidants to whom one reveals a love-affair actually by genuine sympathy become lovers also, nay, grow into rivals, and at last, perchance, transfer the passion to themselves; so it was with us two: for, when my connection with gretchen was torn asunder, my sister consoled me the more earnestly, because she secretly felt the satisfaction of having gotten rid of a rival; and i, too, could not but feel a quiet, half-mischievous pleasure, when she did me the justice to assure me that i was the only one who truly loved, understood, and esteemed her. if now, from time to time, my grief for the loss of gretchen revived, and i suddenly began to weep, to lament, and to act in a disorderly manner, my despair for my lost one awakened in her likewise a similar despairing impatience as to the never-possessings, the failures, and miscarriages of such youthful attachments, that we both thought ourselves infinitely unhappy, and the more so, as, in this singular case, the confidants could not change themselves into lovers. fortunately, however, the capricious god of love, who needlessly does so much mischief, here for once interfered beneficially, to extricate us out of all perplexity. i had much intercourse with a young englishman who was educated in pfeil's boarding-school. he could give a good account of his own language: i practised it with him, and thus learned much concerning his country and people. he went in and out of our house long enough without my remarking in him a liking for my sister; yet he may have been nourishing it in secret, even to passion, for at last it declared itself unexpectedly and at once. she knew him, she esteemed him, and he deserved it. she had often made the third at our english conversations: we had both tried to catch from his mouth the irregularities of the english pronunciation, and thereby accustomed ourselves, not only to the peculiarities of its accent and sound, but even to what was most peculiar in the personal qualities of our teacher; so that at last it sounded strangely enough when we all seemed to speak as if out of one mouth. the pains he took to learn as much german from us in the like manner were to no purpose; and i think i have remarked that even this little love-affair was also, both orally and in writing, carried on in the english language. both the young persons were very well suited to each other: he was tall and well built, as she was, only still more slender; his face, small and compact, might really have been pretty, had it not been too much disfigured by the small-pox; his manner was calm, precise,--one might often have called it dry and cold; but his heart was full of kindness and love, his soul full of generosity, and his attachments as lasting as they were decided and controlled. now, this serious pair, who had but lately formed an attachment, were quite peculiarly distinguished among the others, who, being already better acquainted with each other, of more frivolous character, and careless as to the future, roved about with levity in these connections, which commonly pass away as the mere fruitless prelude to subsequent and more serious ties, and very seldom produce a lasting effect upon life. the fine weather and the beautiful country did not remain unenjoyed by so lively a company: water-excursions were frequently arranged, because these are the most sociable of all parties of pleasure. yet, whether we were going by water or by land, the individual attracting powers immediately showed themselves; each couple kept together: and for some men who were not engaged, of whom i was one, there remained either no conversation with the ladies at all, or only such as no one would have chosen for a day of pleasure. a friend who found himself in this situation, and who might have been in want of a partner chiefly for this reason, that, with, the best humor, he lacked tenderness, and, with much intelligence, that delicate attention, without which connections of this kind are not to be thought of,--this man, after often humorously and wittily lamenting his condition, promised at the next meeting to make a proposal which would benefit himself and the whole company. nor did he fail to perform his promise; for when, after a brilliant trip by water, and a very pleasant walk, reclining on the grass between shady knolls, or sitting on mossy rocks and roots of trees, we had cheerfully and happily consumed a rural meal, and our friend saw us all cheerful and in good spirits, he, with a waggish dignity, commanded us to sit close round him in a semicircle, before which he stepped, and began to make an emphatic peroration as follows:-- "most worthy friends of both sexes, paired and unpaired!"--it was already evident from this address, how necessary it was that a preacher of repentance should arise, and sharpen the conscience of the company. "one part of my noble friends is paired, and they may find themselves quite happy; another unpaired, and these find themselves in the highest degree miserable, as i can assure you from my own experience: and although the loving couples are here in the majority, yet i would have them consider whether it is not a social duty to take thought for the whole. why do we wish to assemble in such numbers, except to take a mutual interest in each other? and how can that be done when so many little secessions are to be seen in our circle? far be it from me to insinuate any thing against such sweet connections, or even to wish to disturb them; but 'there is a time for all things,'--an excellent great saying, of which, indeed, nobody thinks when his own amusement is sufficiently provided for." he then went on with constantly increasing liveliness and gayety to compare the social virtues with the tender sentiments. "the latter," said he, "can never fail us; we always carry them about with us, and every one becomes a master in them without practice: but we must go in quest of the former, we must take some trouble about them; and, though we progress in them as much as we will, we have never done learning them." now he went into particulars. many felt hit off, and they could not help casting glances at each other: yet our friend had this privilege, that nothing he did was taken ill; and so he could proceed without interruption. "it is not enough to discover deficiencies: indeed, it is unjust to do so, if at the same time one cannot contrive to give the means for bettering the state of affairs. i will not, therefore, my friends, something like a preacher in passion week, exhort you in general terms to repentance and amendment: i rather wish all amiable couples the longest and most enduring happiness; and, to contribute to it myself in the surest manner, i propose to sever and abolish these most charming little segregations during our social hours. i have," he continued, "already provided for the execution of my project, if it should meet your approbation. here is a bag in which are the names of the gentlemen: now draw, my fair ones, and be pleased to favor as your servant, for a week, him whom fate shall send you. this is binding only within our circle; as soon as that is broken up, these connections are also abolished, and the heart may decide who shall attend you home." a great part of the company had been delighted with this address, and the manner in which he delivered it, and seemed to approve of the notion; yet some couples looked at each other as if they thought that it would not answer their purpose: he therefore cried with humorous vehemence,-- "truly! it surprises me that some one does not spring up, and, though others hesitate, extol my plan, explain its advantages, and spare me the pain of being my own encomiast. i am the oldest among you: may god forgive me for that! already have i a bald pate, which is owing to my great meditation."-- here he took off his hat-- "but i should expose it to view with joy and honor if my lucubrations, which dry up my skin, and rob me of my finest adornment, could only be in some measure beneficial to myself and others. we are young, my friends,--that is good; we shall grow older,--that is bad; we take little offence at each other,--that is right, and in accordance with the season. but soon, my friends, the days will come when we shall have much to be displeased at in ourselves; then, let every one see that he makes all right with himself; but, at the same time, others will take things ill of us, and on what account we shall not understand; for this we must prepare ourselves; this shall now be done." he had delivered the whole speech, but especially the last part, with the tone and gesture of a capuchin; for, as he was a catholic, he might have had abundant opportunity to study the oratory of these fathers. he now appeared out of breath, wiped his youthful, bald head, which really gave him the look of a priest, and by these drolleries put the light- hearted company in such good humor that every one was eager to hear him longer. but, instead of proceeding, he drew open the bag, and turned to the nearest lady. "now for a trial of it!" exclaimed he: "the work will do credit to the master. if in a week's time we do not like it, we will give it up, and stick to the old plan." half willingly, half on compulsion, the ladies drew their tickets; and it was easy to see that various passions were in play during this little affair. fortunately it happened that the merry-minded were separated, while the more serious remained together, and so, too, my sister kept her englishman; which, on both sides, they took very kindly of the god of love and luck. the new chance-couples were immediately united by the /antistes/, their healths were drank, and to all the more joy was wished, as its duration was to be but short. this was certainly the merriest moment that our company had enjoyed for a long time. the young men to whose share no lady had fallen, held, for this week, the office of providing for the mind, the soul, and the body, as our orator expressed himself, but especially, he hinted, for the soul, since both the others already knew how to help themselves. these masters of ceremonies, who wished at once to do themselves credit, brought into play some very pretty new games, prepared at some distance a supper, which we had not reckoned on, and illuminated the yacht on our return at night, although there was no necessity for it in the bright moonlight; but they excused themselves by saying that it was quite conformable to the new social regulation to outshine the tender glances of the heavenly moon by earthly candles. the moment we touched the shore, our solon cried, "/ite, missa est!/" each one now handed out of the vessel the lady who had fallen to him by lot, and then surrendered her to her proper partner, on receiving his own in exchange. at our next meeting this weekly regulation was established for the summer, and the lots were drawn once more. there was no question but that this pleasantry gave a new and unexpected turn to the company; and every one was stimulated to display whatever of wit and grace was in him, and to pay court to his temporary fair one in the most obliging manner, since he might depend on having a sufficient store of complaisance for one week at least. we had scarcely settled down, when, instead of thanking our orator, we reproached him for having kept to himself the best part of his speech,-- the conclusion. he thereupon protested that the best part of a speech was persuasion, and that he who did not aim at persuasion should make no speech; for, as to conviction, that was a ticklish business. as, however, they gave him no peace, he began a capuchinade on the spot, more comical than ever, perhaps, for the very reason that he took it into his head to speak on the most serious subjects. for with texts out of the bible, which had nothing to do with the business; with similes which did not fit; with allusions which illustrated nothing,--he carried out the proposition, that whosoever does not know how to conceal his passions, inclinations, wishes, purposes, and plans, will come to no good in the world, but will be disturbed and made a butt in every end and corner; and that especially if one would be happy in love, one must take pains to keep it a most profound secret. this thought ran through the whole, without, properly speaking, a single word of it being said. if you would form a conception of this singular man, let it be considered, that, being born with a good foundation, he had cultivated his talents, and especially his acuteness, in jesuit schools, and had amassed an extensive knowledge of the world and of men, but only on the bad side. he was some two and twenty years old, and would gladly have made me a proselyte to his contempt for mankind; but this would not take with me, as i always had a great desire to be good myself, and to find good in others. meanwhile, i was by him made attentive to many things. to complete the /dramatis personae/ of every merry company, an actor is necessary who feels pleasure when the others, to enliven many an indifferent moment, point the arrows of their wit at him. if he is not merely a stuffed saracen, like those on whom the knights used to practise their lances in mock battles, but understands himself how to skirmish, to rally, and to challenge, how to wound lightly, and recover himself again, and, while he seems to expose himself, to give others a thrust home, nothing more agreeable can be found. such a man we possessed in our friend horn, whose name, to begin with, gave occasion for all sorts of jokes, and who, on account of his small figure, was called nothing but hörnchen (little horn). he was, in fact, the smallest in the company, of a stout but pleasing form; a pug-nose, a mouth somewhat pouting, little sparkling eyes, made up a swarthy countenance which always seemed to invite laughter. his little compact skull was thickly covered with curly black hair: his beard was prematurely blue; and he would have liked to let it grow, that, as a comic mask, he might always keep the company laughing. for the rest, he was neat and nimble, but insisted that he had bandy legs, which everybody granted, since he was bent on having it so, but about which many a joke arose; for, since he was in request as a very good dancer, he reckoned it among the peculiarities of the fair sex, that they always liked to see bandy legs on the floor. his cheerfulness was indestructible, and his presence at every meeting indispensable. we two kept more together because he was to follow me to the university; and he well deserves that i should mention him with all honor, as he adhered to me for many years with infinite love, faithfulness, and patience. by my ease in rhyming, and in winning from common objects a poetical side, he had allowed himself to be seduced into similar labors. our little social excursions, parties of pleasure, and the contingencies that occurred in them, we decked out poetically; and thus, by the description of an event, a new event always arose. but as such social jests commonly degenerate into personal ridicule, and my friend horn, with his burlesque representations, did not always keep within proper bounds, many a misunderstanding arose, which, however, could soon be softened down and effaced. thus, also, he tried his skill in a species of poetry which was then very much the order of the day,--the comic heroical poem. pope's "rape of the lock" had called forth many imitations: zachariä cultivated this branch of poetry on german soil; and it pleased every one, because the ordinary subject of it was some awkward fellow, of whom the genii made game, while they favored the better one. although it is no wonder, yet it excites wonderment, when contemplating a literature, especially the german, one observes how a whole nation cannot get free from a subject which has been once given, and happily treated in a certain form, but will have it repeated in every manner, until, at last, the original itself is covered up, and stifled by the heaps of imitations. the heroic poem of my friend was a voucher for this remark. at a great sledging-party, an awkward man has assigned to him a lady who does not like him: comically enough, there befalls him, one after another, every accident that can happen on such an occasion, until at last, as he is entreating for the sledge-driver's right (a kiss), he falls from the back-seat; for just then, as was natural, the fates tripped him up. the fair one seizes the reins, and drives home alone, where a favored friend receives her, and triumphs over his presumptuous rival. as to the rest, it was very prettily contrived that the four different kinds of spirits should worry him in turn, till at the end the gnomes hoist him completely out of the saddle. the poem, written in alexandrines, and founded on a true story, highly delighted our little public; and we were convinced that it could well be compared with the "walpurgisnight" of löwen, or the "renommist" of zachariä. [footnote: this word, which signifies something like our "bully," is specially used to designate a fighting student.--trans.] while, now, our social pleasures required but an evening, and the preparations for them only a few hours, i had enough time to read, and, as i thought, to study. to please my father, i diligently repeated the smaller work of hopp, and could stand an examination in it forwards and backwards, by which means i made myself complete master of the chief contents of the institutes. but a restless eagerness for knowledge urged me farther: i lighted upon the history of ancient literature, and from that fell into an encyclopaedism, in which i hastily read gessner's "isagoge" and morhov's "polyhistor," and thus gained a general notion of how many strange things might have happened in learning and life. by this persevering and rapid industry, continued day and night, i became more confused than instructed; but i lost myself in a still greater labyrinth when i found bayle in my father's library, and plunged deeply into this work. but a leading conviction, which was continually revived within me, was that of the importance of the ancient tongues; since from amidst this literary hurly-burly, thus much continually forced itself upon me, that in them were preserved all the models of oratory, and at the same time every thing else of worth that the world has ever possessed. hebrew, together with biblical studies, had retired into the background, and greek likewise, since my acquaintance with it did not extend beyond the new testament. i therefore the more zealously kept to latin, the masterpieces in which lie nearer to us, and which, besides its splendid original productions, offers us the other wealth of all ages in translations, and the works of the greatest scholars. i consequently read much in this language, with great ease, and was bold enough to believe i understood the authors, because i missed nothing of the literal sense. indeed, i was very indignant when i heard that grotius had insolently declared, "he did not read terence as boys do." happy narrow-mindedness of youth!--nay, of men in general, that they can, at every moment of their existence, fancy themselves finished, and inquire after neither the true nor the false, after neither the high nor the deep, but merely after that which is suited to them. i had thus learned latin, like german, french, and english, merely by practice, without rules, and without comprehension. whoever knows the then condition of scholastic instruction will not think it strange that i skipped grammar as well as rhetoric; all seemed to me to come together naturally: i retained the words, their forms and inflexions, in my ear and mind, and used the language with ease in writing and in chattering. michaelmas, the time fixed for my going to the university, was approaching; and my mind was excited quite as much about my life as about my learning. i grew more and more clearly conscious of an aversion to my native city. by gretchen's removal, the heart had been broken out of the boyish and youthful plant: it needed time to bud forth again from its sides, and surmount the first injury by a new growth. my ramblings through the streets had ceased: i now, like others, only went such ways as were necessary. i never went again into gretchen's quarter of the city, not even into its vicinity: and as my old walls and towers became gradually disagreeable to me, so also was i displeased at the constitution of the city; all that hitherto seemed so worthy of honor now appeared to me in distorted shapes. as grandson of the /schultheiss/ i had not remained unacquainted with the secret defects of such a republic; the less so, as children feel quite a peculiar surprise, and are excited to busy researches, as soon as something which they have hitherto implicitly revered becomes in any degree suspicious to them. the fruitless indignation of upright men, in opposition to those who are to be gained and even bribed by factions, had become but too plain to me: i hated every injustice beyond measure, for children are all moral rigorists. my father, who was concerned in the affairs of the city only as a private citizen, expressed himself with very lively indignation about much that had failed. and did i not see him, after so many studies, endeavors, pains, travels, and so much varied cultivation, between his four walls, leading a solitary life, such as i could never desire for myself? all this put together lay as a horrible load on my mind, from which i could only free myself by trying to contrive a plan of life altogether different from that which had been marked out for me. in thought i threw aside my legal studies, and devoted myself solely to the languages, to antiquities, to history, and to all that flows from them. indeed, at all times, the poetic imitation of what i had perceived in myself, in others, and in nature, afforded me the greatest pleasure. i did it with ever-increasing facility, because it came by instinct, and no criticism had led me astray; and, if i did not feel full confidence in my productions, i could certainly regard them as defective, but not such as to be utterly rejected. although here and there they were censured, i still retained my silent conviction that i could not but gradually improve, and that some time i might be honorably named along with hagedorn, gellert, and other such men. but such a distinction alone seemed to me too empty and inadequate; i wished to devote myself professionally and with zeal to those aforesaid fundamental studies, and, whilst i meant to advance more rapidly in my own works by a more thorough insight into antiquity, to qualify myself for a university professorship, which seemed to me the most desirable thing for a young man who strove for culture, and intended to contribute to that of others. with these intentions i always had my eye upon göttingen. my whole confidence rested upon men like heyne, michaelis, and so many others: my most ardent wish was to sit at their feet, and attend to their instructions. but my father remained inflexible. howsoever some family friends, who were of my opinion, tried to influence him, he persisted that i must go to leipzig. i was now resolved, contrary to his views and wishes, to choose a line of studies and of life for myself, by way of self-defense. the obstinacy of my father, who, without knowing it, opposed himself to my plans, strengthened me in my impiety; so that i made no scruple to listen to him by the hour, while he described and repeated to me the course of study and of life which i should pursue at the universities and in the world. all hopes of göttingen being cut off, i now turned my eyes towards leipzig. there ernesti appeared to me as a brilliant light: morus, too, already awakened much confidence. i planned for myself in secret an opposition-course, or rather i built a castle in the air, on a tolerably solid foundation; and it seemed to me quite romantically honorable to mark out my own path of life, which appeared the less visionary, as griesbach had already made great progress in a similar way, and was commended for it by every one. the secret joy of a prisoner, when he has unbound the fetters, and rapidly filed through the bars of his jail- window, cannot be greater than was mine as i saw day after day disappear, and october draw nigh. the inclement season and the bad roads, of which everybody had something to tell, did not frighten me. the thought of making good my footing in a strange place, and in winter, did not make me sad; suffice it to say, that i only saw my present situation was gloomy, and represented to myself the other unknown world as light and cheerful. thus i formed my dreams, to which i gave myself up exclusively, and promised myself nothing but happiness and content in the distance. closely as i kept these projects a secret from every one else, i could not hide them from my sister, who, after being very much alarmed about them at first, was finally consoled when i promised to send after her, so that she could enjoy with me the brilliant station i was to obtain, and share my comfort with me. michaelmas, so longingly expected, came at last, when i set out with delight, in company with the bookseller fleischer and his wife (whose maiden name was triller, and who was going to visit her father in wittemberg); and i left behind me the worthy city in which i had been born and bred, with indifference, as if i wished never to set foot in it again. thus, at certain epochs, children part from parents, servants from masters, /protégés/ from their patrons; and, whether it succeed or not, such an attempt to stand on one's own feet, to make one's self independent, to live for one's self, is always in accordance with the will of nature. we had driven out through the allerheiligen (/all saints/) gate, and had soon left hanau behind us, after which we reached scenes which aroused my attention by their novelty, if, at this season of the year, they offered little that was pleasing. a continual rain had completely spoiled the roads, which, generally speaking, were not then in such good order as we find them now; and our journey was thus neither pleasant nor happy. yet i was indebted to this damp weather for the sight of a natural phenomenon which must be exceedingly rare, for i have seen nothing like it since, nor have i heard of its having been observed by others. it was this; namely, we were driving at night up a rising ground between hanau and gelhausen, and, although it was dark, we preferred walking to exposing ourselves to the danger and difficulty of that part of the road. all at once, in a ravine on the right-hand side of the way, i saw a sort of amphitheatre, wonderfully illuminated. in a funnel- shaped space there were innumerable little lights gleaming, ranged step- fashion over one another; and they shone so brilliantly that the eye was dazzled. but what still more confused the sight was, that they did not keep still, but jumped about here and there, as well downwards from above as /vice versa/, and in every direction. the greater part of them, however, remained stationary, and beamed on. it was only with the greatest reluctance that i suffered myself to be called away from this spectacle, which i could have wished to examine more closely. the postilion, when questioned, said that he knew nothing about such a phenomenon, but that there was in the neighborhood an old stone-quarry, the excavation of which was filled with water. now, whether this was a pandemonium of will-o'-the-wisps, or a company of luminous creatures, i will not decide. the roads through thuringia were yet worse; and unfortunately, at night- fall, our coach stuck fast in the vicinity of auerstädt. we were far removed from all mankind, and did every thing possible to work ourselves out. i failed not to exert myself zealously, and might thereby have overstrained the ligaments of my chest; for soon afterwards i felt a pain, which went off and returned, and did not leave me entirely until after many years. yet on that same night, as if it had been destined for alternate good and bad luck, i was forced, after an unexpectedly fortunate incident, to experience a teasing vexation. we met, in auerstädt, a genteel married couple, who had also just arrived, having been delayed by a similar accident; a pleasing, dignified man, in his best years, with a very handsome wife. they politely persuaded us to sup in their company, and i felt very happy when the excellent lady addressed a friendly word to me. but when i was sent out to hasten the soup which had been ordered, not having been accustomed to the loss of rest and the fatigues of travelling, such an unconquerable drowsiness overtook me, that actually i fell asleep while walking, returned into the room with my hat on my head, and, without remarking that the others were saying grace, placed myself with quiet unconsciousness behind the chair, and never dreamed that by my conduct i had come to disturb their devotions in a very droll way. madame fleischer, who lacked neither spirit nor wit nor tongue, entreated the strangers, before they had seated themselves, not to be surprised at any thing they might see here; for that their young fellow- traveller had in his nature much of the peculiarity of the quakers, who believe that they cannot honor god and the king better than with covered heads. the handsome lady, who could not restrain her laughter, looked prettier than ever in consequence; and i would have given every thing in the world not to have been the cause of a merriment which was so highly becoming to her countenance. i had, however, scarcely laid aside my hat, when these persons, in accordance with their polished manners, immediately dropped the joke, and, with the best wine from their bottle- case, completely extinguished sleep, chagrin, and the memory of all past troubles. i arrived in leipzig just at the time of the fair, from which i derived particular pleasure; for here i saw before me the continuation of a state of things belonging to my native city, familiar wares and traders,--only in other places, and in a different order. i rambled about the market and the booths with much interest; but my attention was particularly attracted by the inhabitants of the eastern countries in their strange dresses, the poles and russians, and, above all, the greeks, for the sake of whose handsome forms and dignified costume i often went to the spot. but this animating bustle was soon over; and now the city itself appeared before me, with its handsome, high, and uniform houses. it made a very good impression upon me; and it cannot be denied, that in general, but especially in the silent moments of sundays and holidays, it has something imposing; and when in the moonlight the streets were half in shadow, half-illuminated, they often invited me to nocturnal promenades. [illustration: woman with birds.] in the mean time, as compared with that to which i had hitherto been accustomed, this new state of affairs was by no means satisfactory. leipzig calls up before the spectator no antique time: it is a new, recently elapsed epoch, testifying commercial activity, comfort and wealth, which announces itself to us in these monuments. yet quite to my taste were the houses, which to me seemed immense, and which, fronting two streets, and embracing a citizen-world within their large court- yards, built round with lofty walls, are like large castles, nay, even half-cities. in one of these strange places i quartered myself; namely, in the bombshell tavern (/feuerkugel/), between the old and the new newmarket (/neumarkt/). a couple of pleasant rooms looking out upon a court-yard, which, on account of the thoroughfare, was not without animation, were occupied by the bookseller fleischer during the fair, and by me taken for the rest of the time at a moderate price. as a fellow-lodger i found a theological student, who was deeply learned in his professional studies, a sound thinker, but poor, and suffering much from his eyes, which caused him great anxiety for the future. he had brought this affliction upon himself by his inordinate reading till the latest dusk of the evening, and even by moonlight, to save a little oil. our old hostess showed herself benevolent to him, always friendly to me, and careful for us both. i now hastened with my letters of introduction to hofrath böhme, who, once a pupil of maskow, and now his successor, was professor of history and public law. a little, thick-set, lively man received me kindly enough, and introduced me to his wife. both of them, as well as the other persons whom i waited on, gave me the pleasantest hopes as to my future residence; but at first i let no one know of the design i entertained, although i could scarcely wait for the favorable moment when i should declare myself free from jurisprudence, and devoted to the study of the classics. i cautiously waited till the fleischers had returned, that my purpose might not be too prematurely betrayed to my family. but i then went, without delay, to hofrath böhme, to whom, before all, i thought i must confide the matter, and with much self- importance and boldness of speech disclosed my views to him. however, i found by no means a good reception of my proposition. as professor of history and public law, he had a declared hatred for every thing that savored of the /belles-lettres/. unfortunately he did not stand on the best footing with those who cultivated them; and gellert in particular, in whom i had, awkwardly enough, expressed much confidence, he could not even endure. to send a faithful student to those men, therefore, while he deprived himself of one, and especially under such circumstances, seemed to him altogether out of the question. he therefore gave me a severe lecture on the spot, in which he protested that he could not permit such a step without the permission of my parents, even if he approved of it himself, which was not the case in this instance. he then passionately inveighed against philology and the study of languages, but still more against poetical exercises, which i had indeed allowed to peep out in the background. he finally concluded, that, if i wished to enter more closely into the study of the ancients, it could be done much better by the way of jurisprudence. he brought to my recollection many elegant jurists, such as eberhard, otto, and heineccius, promised me mountains of gold from roman antiquities and the history of law, and showed me, clear as the sun, that i should here be taking no roundabout way, even if afterwards, on more mature deliberation, and with the consent of my parents, i should determine to follow out my own plan. he begged me, in a friendly manner, to think the matter over once more, and to open my mind to him soon; as it would be necessary to come to a determination at once, on account of the impending commencement of the lectures. it was, however, very polite of him not to press me on the spot. his arguments, and the weight with which he advanced them, had already convinced my pliant youth; and i now first saw the difficulties and doubtfulness of a matter which i had privately pictured to myself as so feasible. frau hofrath böhme invited me shortly afterwards. i found her alone. she was no longer young, and had very delicate health; was gentle and tender to an infinite degree; and formed a decided contrast to her husband, whose good nature was even blustering. she spoke of the conversation her husband had lately had with me, and once more placed the subject before me, in all its bearings, in so cordial a manner, so affectionately and sensibly, that i could not help yielding: the few reservations on which i insisted were also agreed upon by the other side. thereupon her husband regulated my hours; for i was to hear lectures on philosophy, the history of law, the institutes, and some other matters. i was content with this; but i carried my point so as to attend gellert's history of literature (with stockhausen for a text-book), and his "practicum" besides. the reverence and love with which gellert was regarded by all young people was extraordinary. i had already called on him, and had been kindly received by him. not of tall stature; elegant without being lean; soft and rather pensive eyes; a very fine forehead; a nose aquiline, but not too much so; a delicate mouth; a face of an agreeable oval,--all made his presence pleasing and desirable. it cost some trouble to reach him. his two /famuli/ appeared like priests who guard a sanctuary, the access to which is not permitted to everybody, nor at every time: and such a precaution was very necessary; for he would have sacrificed his whole time, had he been willing to receive and satisfy all those who wished to become intimate with him. at first i attended my lectures assiduously and faithfully, but the philosophy would not enlighten me at all. in the logic it seemed strange to me that i had so to tear asunder, isolate, and, as it were, destroy, those operations of the mind which i had performed with the greatest ease from my youth upwards, and this in order to see into the right use of them. of the thing itself, of the world, and of god, i thought i knew about as much as the professor himself; and, in more places than one, the affair seemed to me to come into a tremendous strait. yet all went on in tolerable order till towards shrovetide, when, in the neighborhood of professor winkler's house on the thomas place, the most delicious fritters came hot out of the pan just at the hour of lecture: and these delayed us so long, that our note-books became disordered; and the conclusion of them, towards spring, melted away, together with the snow, and was lost. the law-lectures very soon fared not any better, for i already knew just as much as the professor thought good to communicate to us. my stubborn industry in writing down the lectures at first, was paralyzed by degrees; for i found it excessively tedious to pen down once more that which, partly by question, partly by answer, i had repeated with my father often enough to retain it forever in my memory. the harm which is done when young people at school are advanced too far in many things was afterwards manifested still more when time and attention were diverted from exercises in the languages, and a foundation in what are, properly speaking, preparatory studies, in order to be applied to what are called "realities," which dissipate more than they cultivate, if they are not methodically and thoroughly taught. i here mention, by the way, another evil by which students are much embarrassed. professors, as well as other men in office, cannot all be of the same age: but when the younger ones teach, in fact, only that they may learn, and moreover, if they have talent, anticipate their age, they acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost of their hearers; since these are not instructed in what they really need, but in that which the professor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself. among the oldest professors, on the contrary, many are for a long time stationary: they deliver on the whole only fixed views, and, in the details, much that time has already condemned as useless and false. between the two arises a sad conflict, in which young minds are dragged hither and thither, and which can scarcely be set right by the middle- aged professors, who, though possessed of sufficient learning and culture, always feel within themselves an active desire for knowledge and reflection. now, as in this way i learned to know much more than i could digest, whereby a constantly increasing uncomfortableness was forced upon me; so also from life i experienced many disagreeable trifles,--as, indeed, one must always pay one's footing when one changes one's place and comes into a new position. the first thing the ladies blamed me for was my dress, for i had come from home to the university rather oddly equipped. my father, who detested nothing so much as when something happened in vain, when any one did not know how to make use of his time, or found no opportunity for turning it to account, carried his economy of time and abilities so far, that nothing gave him greater pleasure than to kill two birds with one stone. [footnote: literally, "to strike two flies with one flapper."--trans.] he had, therefore, never engaged a servant who could not be useful to the house in something else. now, as he had always written every thing with his own hand, and had, latterly, the convenience of dictating to the young inmate of the house, he found it most advantageous to have tailors for his domestics, who were obliged to make good use of their time, as they not only had to make their own liveries, but the clothes for my father and the children, besides doing all the mending. my father himself took pains to have the best materials and the best kind of cloth, by getting fine wares of the foreign merchants at the fair, and laying them up in store. i still remember well that he always visited the herr von löwenicht, of aix-la-chapelle, and from my earliest youth made me acquainted with these and other eminent merchants. care was also taken for the fitness of the stuff: and there was a plentiful stock of different kinds of cloth, serge, and götting stuff, besides the requisite lining; so that, as far as the materials were concerned, we might well venture to be seen. but the form spoiled almost every thing. for, if one of our home-tailors was any thing of a clever hand at sewing and making up a coat which had been cut out for him in masterly fashion, he was now obliged also to cut out the dress for himself, which did not always succeed to perfection. in addition to this, my father kept whatever belonged to his clothing in very good and neat order, and preserved more than used it for many years. thus he had a predilection for certain old cuts and trimmings, by which our dress sometimes acquired a strange appearance. in this same way had the wardrobe which i took with me to the university been furnished: it was very complete and handsome, and there was even a laced suit amongst the rest. already accustomed to this kind of attire, i thought myself sufficiently well dressed; but it was not long before my female friends, first by gentle raillery, then by sensible remonstrances, convinced me that i looked as if i had dropped down out of another world. much as i felt vexed at this, i did not see at first how i was to mend matters. but when herr von masuren, the favorite poetical country squire, once entered the theatre in a similar costume, and was heartily laughed at, more by reason of his external than his internal absurdity, i took courage, and ventured at once to exchange my whole wardrobe for a new-fashioned one, suited to the place, by which, however, it shrunk considerably. when this trial was surmounted, a new one was to come up, which proved to be far more unpleasant, because it concerned a matter which one does not so easily put off and exchange. i had been born and bred in the upper-german dialect; and although my father always labored to preserve a certain purity of language, and, from our youth upwards, had made us children attentive to what may be really called the defects of that idiom, and so prepared us for a better manner of speaking, i retained nevertheless many deeper-seated peculiarities, which, because they pleased me by their /naïvete/, i was fond of making conspicuous, and thus every time i used them incurred a severe reproof from my new fellow-townsmen. the upper-german, and perhaps chiefly he who lives by the rhine and main (for great rivers, like the seacoast, always have something animating about them), expresses himself much in similes and allusions, and makes use of proverbial sayings with a native common-sense aptness. in both cases he is often blunt: but, when one sees the drift of the expression, it is always appropriate; only something, to be sure, may often slip in, which proves offensive to a more delicate ear. every province loves its own dialect; for it is, properly speaking, the element in which the soul draws its breath. but every one knows with what obstinacy the misnian dialect has contrived to domineer over the rest, and even, for a long time, to exclude them. we have suffered for many years under this pedantic tyranny, and only by reiterated struggles have all the provinces again established themselves in their ancient rights. what a lively young man had to endure from this continual tutoring, may be easily inferred by any one who reflects that modes of thought, imagination, feeling, native character, must be sacrificed with the pronunciation which one at last consents to alter. and this intolerable demand was made by men and women of education, whose convictions i could not adopt, whose injustice i thought i felt, though i was unable to make it plain to myself. allusions to the pithy biblical texts were to be forbidden me, as well as the use of the honest-hearted expressions from the chronicles. i had to forget that i had read the "kaiser von geisersberg," and eschew the use of proverbs, which nevertheless, instead of much fiddle-faddle, just hit the nail upon the head,--all this, which i had appropriated to myself with youthful ardor, i was now to do without: i felt paralyzed to the core, and scarcely knew any more how i had to express myself on the commonest things. i was, moreover, told that one should speak as one writes, and write as one speaks; while to me, speaking and writing seemed once for all two different things, each of which might well maintain its own rights. and even in the misnian dialect had i to hear many things which would have made no great figure on paper. every one who perceives in this the influence which men and women of education, the learned, and other persons who take pleasure in refined society, so decidedly exercise over a young student, would be immediately convinced that we were in leipzig, even if it had not been mentioned. each one of the german universities has a particular character; for, as no universal cultivation can pervade our fatherland, every place adheres to its own fashion, and carries out, even to the last, its own characteristic peculiarities: exactly the same thing holds good of the universities. in jena and halle roughness had been carried to the highest pitch: bodily strength, skill in fighting, the wildest self-help, was there the order of the day; and such a state of affairs can only be maintained and propagated by the most universal riot. the relations of the students to the inhabitants of those cities, various as they might be, nevertheless agreed in this, that the wild stranger had no regard for the citizen, and looked upon himself as a peculiar being, privileged to all sorts of freedom and insolence. in leipzig, on the contrary, a student could scarcely be any thing else than polite, as soon as he wished to stand on any footing at all with the rich, well- bred, and punctilious inhabitants. all politeness, indeed, when it does not present itself as the flowering of a great and comprehensive mode of life, must appear restrained, stationary, and, from some points of view, perhaps, absurd; and so those wild huntsmen from the saale [footnote: the river on which halle is built.--trans.] thought they had a great superiority over the tame shepherds on the pleisse. [footnote: the river near leipzig.--trans.] zachariä's "renommist" will always be a valuable document, from which the manner of life and thought at that time rises visibly forth; as in general his poems must be welcome to every one who wishes to form for himself a conception of the then prevailing state of social life and manners, which was indeed feeble, but amiable on account of its innocence and child-like simplicity. all manners which result from the given relations of a common existence are indestructible; and, in my time, many things still reminded us of zachariä's epic poem. only one of our fellow-academicians thought himself rich and independent enough to snap his fingers at public opinion. he drank acquaintance with all the hackney-coachmen, whom he allowed to sit inside the coach as if they were gentlemen, while he drove them on the box; thought it a great joke to upset them now and then, and contrived to satisfy them for their smashed vehicles as well as for their occasional bruises; but otherwise he did no harm to any one, seeming only to make a mock of the public /en masse/. once, on a most beautiful promenade-day, he and a comrade of his seized upon the donkeys of the miller in st. thomas's square: well-dressed, and in their shoes and stockings, they rode around the city with the greatest solemnity, stared at by all the promenaders, with whom the glacis was swarming. when some sensible persons remonstrated with him on the subject, he assured them, quite unembarrassed, that he only wanted to see how the lord christ might have looked in a like case. yet he found no imitators and few companions. for the student of any wealth and standing had every reason to show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony [footnote: leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of huguenots, who settled there after the revocation of the edict of nantes.--/american note/.] exhibited a model of french manners. the professors, opulent both from their private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent upon their scholars; and many subjects of the state, educated at the government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did not venture to throw off the traditional customs. the neighborhood of dresden, the attention thence paid to us, and the true piety of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a moral, nay, a religious, influence. at first this kind of life was not repugnant to me: my letters of introduction had given me the /entrée/ into good families, whose circle of relatives also received me well. but as i was soon forced to feel that the company had much to find fault with in me, and that, after dressing myself in their fashion, i must now talk according to their tongue also; and as, moreover, i could plainly see that i was, on the other hand, but little benefited by the instruction and mental improvement i had promised myself from my academical residence,--i began to be lazy, and to neglect the social duties of visiting, and other attentions; and indeed i should have sooner withdrawn from all such connections, had not fear and esteem attached me firmly to hofrath böhme, and confidence and affection to his wife. the husband, unfortunately, had not the happy gift of dealing with young people, of winning their confidence, and of guiding them, for the moment, as occasion might require. when i visited him i never got any good by it: his wife, on the contrary, showed a genuine interest in me. her ill health kept her constantly at home. she often invited me to spend the evening with her, and knew how to direct and improve me in many little external particulars: for my manners were good, indeed; but i was not yet master of what is properly termed /étiquette/. only one friend spent the evenings with her; but she was much more dictatorial and pedantic, for which reason she displeased me excessively: and, out of spite to her, i often resumed those unmannerly habits from which the other had already weaned me. nevertheless she always had patience enough with me, taught me piquet, ombre, and similar games, the knowledge and practice of which is held indispensable in society. but it was in the matter of taste that madame böhme had the greatest influence upon me,--in a negative way truly, yet one in which she agreed perfectly with the critics. the gottsched waters [footnote: that is to say, the influence of gottsched on german literature, of which more is said in the next book.--trans.] had inundated the german world with a true deluge, which threatened to rise up, even over the highest mountains. it takes a long time for such a flood to subside again, for the mire to dry away; and as in any epoch there are numberless aping poets, so the imitation of the flat and watery produced a chaos, of which now scarcely a notion remains. to find out that trash was trash was hence the greatest sport, yea, the triumph, of the critics of those days. whoever had only a little common sense, was superficially acquainted with the ancients, and was somewhat more familiar with the moderns, thought himself provided with a standard scale which he could everywhere apply. madame böhme was an educated woman, who opposed the trivial, weak, and commonplace: she was, besides, the wife of a man who lived on bad terms with poetry in general, and would not even allow that of which she perhaps might have somewhat approved. she listened, indeed, for some time with patience, when i ventured to recite to her the verse or prose of famous poets who already stood in good repute,--for then, as always, i knew by heart every thing that chanced in any degree to please me; but her complaisance was not of long duration. the first whom she outrageously abused were the poets of the weisse school, who were just then often quoted with great applause, and had delighted me very particularly. if i looked more closely into the matter, i could not say she was wrong. i had sometimes even ventured to recite to her, though anonymously, some of my own poems; but these fared no better than the rest of the set. and thus, in a short time, the beautiful variegated meadows at the foot of the german parnassus, where i was fond of luxuriating, were mercilessly mowed down; and i was even compelled to toss about the drying hay myself, and to ridicule that as lifeless which, a short time before, had given me such lively joy. without knowing it, professor morus came to strengthen her instructions. he was an uncommonly gentle and friendly man, with whom i became acquainted at the table of hofrath ludwig, and who received me very pleasantly when i begged the privilege of visiting him. now, while making inquiries of him concerning antiquity, i did not conceal from him what delighted me among the moderns; when he spoke about such things with more calmness, but, what was still worse, with more profundity than madame böhme; and he thus opened my eyes, at first to my greatest chagrin, but afterwards to my surprise, and at last to my edification. besides this, there came the jeremiads, with which gellert, in his course, was wont to warn us against poetry. he wished only for prose essays, and always criticised these first. verses he treated as a sorry addition: and, what was the worst of all, even my prose found little favor in his eyes; for, after my old fashion, i used always to lay, as the foundation, a little romance, which i loved to work out in the epistolary form. the subjects were impassioned, the style went beyond ordinary prose, and the contents probably did not display any very deep knowledge of mankind in the author; and so i stood in very little favor with our professor, although he carefully looked over my labors as well as those of the others, corrected them with red ink, and here and there added a moral remark. many leaves of this kind, which i kept for a long time with satisfaction, have unfortunately, in the course of years, at last disappeared from among my papers. if elderly persons wish to play the pedagogue properly, they should neither prohibit nor render disagreeable to a young man any thing which gives him pleasure, of whatever kind it may be, unless, at the same time, they have something else to put in its place, or can contrive a substitute. everybody protested against my tastes and inclinations; and, on the other hand, what they commended to me lay either so far from me that i could not perceive its excellencies, or stood so near me that i thought it not a whit better than what they inveighed against. i thus became thoroughly perplexed on the subject, and promised myself the best results from a lecture of ernesti's on "cicero de oratore." i learned something, indeed, from this lecture, but was not enlightened on the subject which particularly concerned me. what i demanded was a standard of opinion, and thought i perceived that nobody possessed it; for no one agreed with another, even when they brought forward examples: and where were we to get a settled judgment, when they managed to reckon up against a man like wieland so many faults in his amiable writings, which so completely captivated us younger folks? amid this manifold distraction, this dismemberment of my existence and my studies, it happened that i took my dinners at hofrath ludwig's. he was a medical man, a botanist; and his company, with the exception of morus, consisted of physicians just commencing or near the completion of their studies. now, during these hours, i heard no other conversation than about medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn over into quite a new field. i heard the names of haller, linnaeus, buffon, mentioned with great respect; and, even if disputes often arose about mistakes into which it was said they had fallen, all agreed in the end to honor the acknowledged abundance of their merits. the subjects were entertaining and important, and enchained my attention. by degrees i became familiar with many names and a copious terminology, which i grasped more willingly as i was afraid to write down a rhyme, however spontaneously it presented itself, or to read a poem, for i was fearful that it might please me at the time, and that perhaps immediately afterwards, like so much else, i should be forced to pronounce it bad. this uncertainty of taste and judgment disquieted me more and more every day, so that at last i fell into despair. i had brought with me those of my youthful labors which i thought the best, partly because i hoped to get some credit by them, partly that i might be able to test my progress with greater certainty; but i found myself in the miserable situation in which one is placed when a complete change of mind is required,--a renunciation of all that one has hitherto loved and found good. however, after some time and many struggles, i conceived so great a contempt for my labors, begun and ended, that one day i burnt up poetry and prose, plans, sketches, and projects, all together on the kitchen hearth, and threw our good old landlady into no small fright and anxiety by the smoke which filled the whole house. seventh book. about the condition of german literature of those times so much has been written, and so exhaustively, that every one who takes any interest in it can be completely informed; in regard to it critics agree now pretty well; and what at present i intend to say piecemeal and disconnectedly concerning it, relates not so much to the way in which it was constituted in itself, as to its relation to me. i will therefore first speak of those things by which the public is particularly excited; of those two hereditary foes of all comfortable life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry,--i mean, satire and criticism. in quiet times every one wants to live after his own fashion: the citizen will carry on his trade or his business, and enjoy the fruits of it afterwards; thus will the author, too, willingly compose something, publish his labors, and, since he thinks he has done something good and useful, hope for praise, if not reward. in this tranquillity the citizen is disturbed by the satirist, the author by the critic; and peaceful society is thus put into a disagreeable agitation. the literary epoch in which i was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition. germany, so long inundated by foreigners, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. together with so many new ideas, innumerable foreign words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her; and, even for objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of speech. the german, having run wild for nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school with the french to learn manners, and with the romans in order to express his thoughts with propriety. but this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when the literal application of those idioms, and their half-germanization, made both the social and business style ridiculous. besides this, they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. in the same way they transferred the stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of rome to the learned german small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with themselves. but as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the german sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself. this, accompanied by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common intelligible sense dictated. by these praiseworthy endeavors, however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national insipidity, nay,--the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was shortly to rush in. meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for refuge from one of them to another. men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against which they could labor, and, as the matter was of no great importance, give a vent to their petulance: these were,--a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves free from those faults on the other; though it occurred to nobody, that, while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for assistance. liskow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose awkward demeanor soon gave him an opportunity to proceed still more severely. he then went farther, and constantly aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and sought to render despicable,--nay, even persecuted them with passionate hatred. but his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually forgotten as a restless, irregular youth. the talent and character shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have seemed valuable to his countrymen; for the germans have always shown a peculiar pious kindliness to talents of good promise, when prematurely cut off. suffice it to say, that liskow was very soon praised and recommended to us as an excellent satirist, who could have attained a rank even above the universally beloved rabener. here, indeed, we saw ourselves no better off than before; for we could discover nothing in his writings, except that he had found the silly, silly, which seemed to us quite a matter of course. rabener, well educated, grown up under good scholastic instruction, of a cheerful, and by no means passionate or malicious, disposition, took up general satire. his censure of the so-called vices and follies springs from the clear views of a quiet common sense, and from a fixed moral conception of what the world ought to be. his denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and, in order to excuse even the slight boldness of his writings, it is supposed that the improving of fools by ridicule is no fruitless undertaking. rabener's personal character will not easily appear again. as an able, punctual man of business, he does his duty, and thus gains the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors; along with which, he gives himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. pedantic /literati/, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes; and even his banter expresses no contempt. just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, his life, and his death. there is little of the aesthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. in external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony; namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves more knowing than others. but whatever he brings before us, and however he does it, alike bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity; so that we always feel prepossessed in his favor. the unbounded applause of his own times was a consequence of such moral excellencies. that people looked for originals to his general descriptions and found them, was natural; that individuals complained of him, followed from the above; his lengthy apologies that his satire is not personal, prove the spite it provoked. some of his letters crown him at once as a man and an author. the confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of dresden, and how he loses his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is highly valuable; although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy turn of mind. the letter where he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect; and rabener deserves to be honored as a saint by all cheerful, intelligent men, who cheerfully resign themselves to earthly events. i tear myself away from him reluctantly, yet i would make this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle class; he lets us see here and there that he is also well acquainted with the higher ranks, but does not hold it advisable to come in contact with them. it may be said, that he has had no successor, that no one has been found who could consider himself equal or even similar to him. now for criticism! and first of all for the theoretic attempts. it is not going too far when we say that the ideal had, at that time, escaped out of the world into religion; it scarcely even made its appearance in moral philosophy; of a highest principle of art no one had a notion. they put gottsched's "critical art of poetry" into our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us a historical information of all the kinds of poetry, as well as of rhythm and its different movements: the poetic genius was presupposed! but, besides that, the poet was to have acquirements and even learning: he should possess taste, and every thing else of that kind. they directed us at last to horace's "art of poetry:" we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how we should use it. the swiss stepped forth as gottsched's antagonists: they must take it into their heads to do something different, to accomplish something better; accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior. breitinger's "critical art of poetry" was taken in hand. here we reached a wider field, but, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was so much the more tiresome, as an able man, in whom we had confidence, was driving us about in it. let a brief review justify these words. for poetry in itself they had been able to find no fundamental axiom: it was too spiritual and too volatile. painting, an art which one could hold fast with one's eyes, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more favorable for such an end: the english and french had already theorized about plastic art; and, by a comparison drawn from this, it was thought that poetry might be grounded. the former presented images to the eye, the latter to the imagination: poetical images, therefore, were the first thing which was taken into consideration. people began with comparisons, descriptions followed, and only that was expressed which had always been apparent to the external senses. images, then! but where should these images be got except from nature? the painter professedly imitated nature: why not the poet also? but nature, as she lies before us, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and worthless, that one must make a selection; but what determines the choice? one must select that which is important: but what is important? to answer this question, the swiss may have taken a long time to consider; for they came to a notion, which is indeed singular, but clever, and even comical, inasmuch as they say, the new is always the most important: and after they have considered this for a while, they discover that the marvellous is always newer than every thing else. they had now pretty well collected their poetical requisitions; but they had still to consider that the marvellous might also be empty, and without relation to man. but this relation, demanded as necessary, must be a moral one, from which the improvement of mankind should manifestly follow; and thus a poem had reached its utmost aim when, with every thing else accomplished, it was useful besides. they now wished to test the different kinds of poetry according to all these requisites: those which imitated nature, besides being marvellous, and at the same time of a moral aim and use, were to rank as the first and highest. and, after much deliberation, this great pre-eminence was at last ascribed, with the highest degree of conviction, to aesop's fables! strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. that gellert and subsequently lichtwer devoted themselves to this department, that even lessing attempted to labor in it, that so many others turned their talents towards it, speaks for the confidence which this species of poetry had gained. theory and practice always act upon each other: one can see from their works what is the men's opinion, and, from their opinions, predict what they will do. yet we must not dismiss our swiss theory without doing it justice. bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained theoretically and practically a child all his life. breitinger was an able, learned, sagacious man, whom, when he looked rightly about him, the essentials of a poem did not all escape,--nay, it can be shown that he may have dimly felt the deficiencies of his system. remarkable, for instance, is his query, "whether a certain descriptive poem by könig, on the 'review-camp of augustus the second,' is properly a poem?" and the answer to it displays good sense. but it may serve for his complete justification that he, starting from a false point, on a circle almost run out already, still struck upon the main principle, and at the end of his book finds himself compelled to recommend as additions, so to speak, the representation of manners, character, passions,--in short, the whole inner man; to which, indeed, poetry pre-eminently belongs. it may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds felt themselves thrown by such dislocated maxims, half-understood laws, and shivered-up dogmas. we adhere to examples, and there, too, were no better off; foreigners as well as the ancients stood too far from us; and from the best native poets always peeped out a decided individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. for him who felt any thing productive in himself it was a desperate condition. when one considers closely what was wanting in the german poetry, it was a material, and that, too, a national one: there was never a lack of talent. here we make mention only of günther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. a decided talent, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, ready at rhythm, ingenious, witty, and of varied information besides,--he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating, by means of poetry, a second life within life, even within common real life. we admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he elevates all circumstances by the feelings, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. their roughness and wildness belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or, if one would have it so, his want of fixed character. he did not know how to curb himself; and so his life, like his poetry, melted away from him. by his vacillating conduct, günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the court of augustus the second, where, in addition to every other species of ostentation, they were also looking about for a court-poet, who could give elevation and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. von könig was more mannerly and more fortunate: he filled this post with dignity and applause. in all sovereign states the material for poetry comes downwards from above; and "the review-camp at mühlberg" ("das lustlager bei mühlberg") was, perhaps, the first worthy object, provincial, if not national, which presented itself to a poet. two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole courts and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a mock-fight, /fêtes/ of all kinds,-- this is business enough for the outward sense, and overflowing material for delineating and descriptive poetry. this subject had, indeed, the internal defect, that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. none except the very first distinguished themselves; and, even if they had done so, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. he had to consult the "court and state calendar;" and the delineation of the persons therefore went off pretty dryly,--nay, even his contemporaries very strongly reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. but should not this redound to his credit, that he showed his art just where an object for it presented itself? the main difficulty, too, seems soon to have manifested itself to him,--since the poem never advanced beyond the first canto. amidst such studies and reflections, an unexpected event surprised me, and frustrated my laudable design of becoming acquainted with our new literature from the beginning. my countryman, john george schlosser, after spending his academical years with industry and exertion, had repaired to frankfort-on-the-main, in the customary profession of an advocate; but his mind, aspiring and seeking after the universal, could not reconcile itself to this situation for many reasons. he accepted, without hesitation, an office as private secretary to the duke ludwig of wurtemberg, who resided in treptow; for the prince was named among those great men who, in a noble and independent manner, purposed to enlighten themselves, their families, and the world, and to unite for higher aims. it was this prince ludwig who, to ask advice about the education of his children, had written to rousseau, whose well-known answer began with the suspicious-looking phrase, "/si j'avais le malheur d'être né prince/." not only in the affairs of the prince, but also in the education of his children, schlosser was now willingly to assist in word and deed, if not to superintend them. this noble young man, who harbored the best intentions and strove to attain a perfect purity of morals, would have easily kept men from him by a certain dry austerity, if his fine and rare literary cultivation, his knowledge of languages, and his facility at expressing himself by writing, both in verse and prose, had not attracted every one, and made living with him more agreeable. it had been announced to me that he would pass through leipzig, and i expected him with longing. he came and put up at a little inn or wine-house that stood in the /brühl/ (marsh), and the host of which was named schönkopf. this man had a frankfort woman for his wife; and although he entertained few persons during the rest of the year, and could lodge no guests in his little house, yet at fair-time he was visited by many frankforters, who used to eat, and, in case of need, even take quarters, there also. thither i hastened to find schlosser, when he had sent to inform me of his arrival. i scarcely remembered having seen him before, and found a young, well-formed man, with a round, compressed face, without the features losing their sharpness on that account. the form of his rounded forehead, between black eyebrows and locks, indicated earnestness, sternness, and perhaps obstinacy. he was, in a certain measure, the opposite of myself; and this very thing doubtless laid the foundation of our lasting friendship. i had the greatest respect for his talents, the more so as i very well saw, that, in the certainty with which he acted and produced, he was completely my superior. the respect and the confidence which i showed him confirmed his affection, and increased the indulgence he was compelled to have for my lively, impetuous, and ever-excitable disposition, in such contrast with his own. he studied the english writers diligently: pope, if not his model, was his aim; and, in opposition to that author's "essay on man," he had written a poem in like form and measure, which was to give the christian religion the triumph over the deism of the other work. from the great store of papers which he carried with him, he showed me poetical and prose compositions in all languages, which, as they challenged me to imitation, once more gave me infinite disquietude. yet i contrived to get over it immediately by activity. i wrote german, french, english, and italian poems, addressed to him, the subject-matter of which i took from our conversations, which were always important and instructive. schlosser did not wish to leave leipzig without having seen face to face the men who had a name. i willingly took him to those i knew: with those whom i had not yet visited, i in this way became honorably acquainted; since he was received with distinction as a well-informed man of education, of already established character, and well knew how to pay for the outlay of conversation. i cannot pass over our visit we paid to gottsched, as it exemplifies the character and manners of that man. he lived very respectably in the first story of the golden bear, where the elder breitkopf, on account of the great advantage which gottsched's writings, translations, and other aids had brought to the trade, had promised him a lodging for life. we were announced. the servant led us into a large chamber, saying his master would come immediately. now, whether we misunderstood a gesture which he made, i cannot say: it is enough, we thought he directed us into an adjoining room. we entered, to witness a singular scene: for, on the instant, gottsched, that tall, broad, gigantic man, came in at the opposite door in a morning-gown of green damask lined with red taffeta; but his monstrous head was bald and uncovered. this, however, was to be immediately provided for: the servant rushed in at a side-door with a great full-bottomed wig in his hand (the curls came down to the elbows), and handed the head-ornament to his master with gestures of terror. gottsched, without manifesting the least vexation, raised the wig from the servant's arm with his left hand, and, while he very dexterously swung it up on his head, gave the poor fellow such a box on the ear with his right paw, that the latter, as often happens in a comedy, went spinning out at the door; whereupon the respectable old grandfather invited us quite gravely to be seated, and kept up a pretty long discourse with good grace. as long as schlosser remained in leipzig, i dined daily with him, and became acquainted with a very pleasant set of boarders. some livonians, and the son of hermann (chief court-preacher in dresden), afterwards burgomaster in leipzig, and their tutor, hofrath pfeil, author of the "count von p.," a continuation of gellert's "swedish countess;" zachariä, a brother of the poet; and krebel, editor of geographical and genealogical manuals,--all these were polite, cheerful, and friendly men. zachariä was the most quiet; pfeil, an elegant man, who had something almost diplomatic about him, yet without affectation, and with great good humor; krebel, a genuine falstaff, tall, corpulent, fair, with prominent, merry eyes, as bright as the sky, always happy and in good spirits. these persons all treated me in the most handsome manner, partly on schlosser's account--partly, too, on account of my own frank good humor and obliging disposition; and it needed no great persuasion to make me partake of their table in future. in fact, i remained with them after schlosser's departure, deserted ludwig's table, and found myself so much the better off in this society, which was limited to a certain number, as i was very well pleased with the daughter of the family, a very neat, pretty girl, and had opportunities to exchange friendly glances with her,--a comfort which i had neither sought nor found by accident since the mischance with gretchen. i spent the dinner- hours with my friends cheerfully and profitably. krebel, indeed, loved me, and continued to tease me and stimulate me in moderation: pfeil, on the contrary, showed his earnest affection for me by trying to guide and settle my judgment upon many points. during this intercourse, i perceived through conversation, through examples, and through my own reflections, that the first step in delivering ourselves from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch, could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. in the style which had hitherto prevailed, one could not distinguish the commonplace from what was better; since all were brought down to a level with each other. authors had already tried to escape from this wide- spread disease, with more or less success. haller and ramler were inclined to compression by nature: lessing and wieland were led to it by reflection. the former became by degrees quite epigrammatical in his poems, terse in "minna," laconic in "emilia galotti,"--it was not till afterwards that he returned to that serene /naiveté/ which becomes him so well in "nathan." "wieland, who had been occasionally prolix in "agathon," "don sylvio," and the "comic tales," becomes condensed and precise to a wonderful degree, as well as exceedingly graceful in "musarion" and "idris." klopstock, in the first cantos of "the messiah," is not without diffuseness: in his "odes" and other minor poems he appears compressed, as also in his tragedies. by his emulation of the ancients, especially tacitus, he sees himself constantly forced into narrower limits, by which he at last becomes obscure and unpalatable. gerstenberg, a fine but eccentric talent, also distinguishes himself: his merit is appreciated, but on the whole he gives little pleasure. gleim, diffuse and easy by nature, is scarcely once concise in his war- songs. ramler is properly more a critic than a poet. he begins to collect what the germans have accomplished in lyric poetry. he now finds, that scarcely one poem fully satisfies him: he must leave out, arrange, and alter, that the things may have some shape or other. by this means he makes himself almost as many enemies as there are poets and amateurs; since every one, properly speaking, recognizes himself only in his defects: and the public interests itself sooner for a faulty individuality than for that which is produced or amended according to a universal law of taste. rhythm lay yet in the cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. poetical prose came into the ascendant. gessner and klopstock excited many imitators: others, again, still demanded an intelligible metre, and translated this prose into rhythm. but even these gave nobody satisfaction, for they were obliged to omit and add; and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. but the more, with all this, conciseness is aimed at, the more does a judgment become possible; since that which is important, being more closely compressed, allows a certain comparison at last. it happened, also, at the same time, that many kinds of truly poetical forms arose; for, as they tried to represent only what was necessary in the objects they wished to imitate, they were forced to do justice to every one of these: and in this manner, though no one did it consciously, the modes of representation multiplied themselves, among which, indeed, were some which were really caricatures, while many an attempt proved unsuccessful. without question, wieland possessed the finest natural gifts of all. he had early cultivated himself thoroughly in those ideal regions where youth so readily lingers; but when, by what is called experience, by the events of the world, and women, these were rendered distasteful to him, he threw himself on the side of the actual, and pleased himself and others with the contest of the two worlds, where, in light skirmishing between jest and earnest, his talent displayed itself most beautifully. how many of his brilliant productions fall into the time of my academic years! "musarion" had the most effect upon me; and i can yet remember the place and the very spot where i got sight of the first proof-sheet, which oeser gave me. here it was that i believed i saw antiquity again living and fresh. every thing that is plastic in wieland's genius here showed itself in its highest perfection; and when that phanias-timon, condemned to an unhappy insipidity, finally reconciles himself to his mistress and to the world, one can well, with him, live through the misanthropical epoch. for the rest, we readily conceded to these works a cheerful aversion from those exalted sentiments, which, by reason of their easy misapplication to life, are often open to the suspicion of dreaminess. we pardoned the author for prosecuting with ridicule what we held as true and reverend, the more readily as he thereby gave us to understand that it caused him continual trouble. how miserably criticism then received such labors may be seen from the first volumes of "the universal german library." of "the comic tales" there is honorable mention, but there is no trace of any insight into the character of the kind of poetry. the reviewer, like every one at that time, had formed his taste by examples. he never takes it into consideration, that, in a judgment of such parodistical works, one must first of all have before one's eyes the original noble, beautiful object, in order to see whether the parodist has really gotten from it a weak and comical side, whether he has borrowed any thing from it, or, under the appearance of such an imitation, has perhaps given us an excellent invention of his own. of all this there is not a notion, but the poems are praised and blamed by passages. the reviewer, as he himself confesses, has marked so much that pleased him, that he cannot quote it all in print. when they even meet the highly meritorious translation of shakespeare with the exclamation, "by rights, a man like shakespeare should not have been translated at all!" it will be understood, without further remark, how infinitely "the universal german library" was behind-hand in matters of taste, and that young people, animated by true feeling, had to look about them for other guiding stars. the material which, in this manner, more or less determined the form, the germans sought everywhere. they had handled few national subjects, or none at all. schlegel's "hermann" only showed the way. the idyllic tendency extended itself without end. the want of distinctive character with gessner, with all his great gracefulness and child-like heartiness, made every one think that he could do something of the same kind. just in the same manner, out of the more generally human, some snatch those poems which should have portrayed a foreign nationality, as, for instance, the jewish pastoral poems, those on the patriarchs altogether, and whatever else related to the old testament. bodmer's "noachide" was a perfect symbol of the watery deluge that swelled high around the german parnassus, and which abated but slowly. the leading-strings of anacreon likewise allowed innumerable mediocre geniuses to reel about at large. the precision of horace compelled the germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. comic heroic poems, mostly after the model of pope's "rape of the lock," did not serve to bring in a better time. i must here mention a delusion, which operated as seriously as it must be ridiculous when one examines it more closely. the germans had now sufficient historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the different nations had distinguished themselves. this pigeon-hole work, which, properly speaking, totally destroys the inner conception of poetry, had been already pretty completely hammered together by gottsched in his "critical art of poetry;" and it had been shown at the same time that german poets, too, had already known how to fill up all the rubrics with excellent works. and thus it ever went on. each year the collection was more considerable, but every year one work pushed another out of the place in which it had hitherto shone. we now possessed, if not homers, yet virgils and miltons; if not a pindar, yet a horace; of theocrituses there was no lack: and thus they weighed themselves by comparisons from without; whilst the mass of poetical works always increased, so that at last there could be a comparison from within. now though matters of taste stood on a very uncertain footing, there could be no dispute but that, within the protestant part of germany and of switzerland, what is generally called common sense began to stir briskly at that epoch. the scholastic philosophy--which always has the merit of propounding according to received axioms, in a favorite order, and under fixed rubrics, every thing about which man can at all inquire- -had, by the frequent darkness and apparent uselessness of its subject- matter, by its unseasonable application of a method in itself respectable, and by its too great extension over so many subjects, made itself foreign to the mass, unpalatable, and at last superfluous. many a one became convinced that nature had endowed him with as great a portion of good and straightforward sense as, perchance, he required to form such a clear notion of objects that he could manage them and turn them to his own profit, and that of others, without laboriously troubling himself about the most universal problems, and inquiring how the most remote things which do not particularly affect us may hang together. men made the trial, opened their eyes, looked straight before them, observant, industrious, active, and believed, that, when one judges and acts correctly in one's own circle, one may well presume to speak of other things also, which lie at a greater distance. in accordance with such a notion, every one was now entitled, not only to philosophize, but also by degrees to consider himself a philosopher. philosophy, therefore, was more or less sound, and practised common sense, which ventured to enter upon the universal, and to decide upon inner and outer experiences. a clear-sighted acuteness and an especial moderation, while the middle path and fairness to all opinions was held to be right, procured respect and confidence for writings and oral statements of the sort; and thus at last philosophers were found in all the faculties,--nay, in all classes and trades. in this way the theologians could not help inclining to what is called natural religion; and, when the discussion was how far the light of nature may suffice to advance us in the knowledge of god and the improving and ennobling of ourselves, they commonly ventured to decide in its favor without much scruple. according to the same principle of moderation, they then granted equal rights to all positive religions, by which they all became alike indifferent and uncertain. for the rest, they let every thing stand; and since the bible is so full of matter, that, more than any other book, it offers material for reflection and opportunity for meditation on human affairs, it could still, as before, be always laid as the foundation of all sermons and other religious treatises. but over this work, as well as over the whole body of profane writers, was impending a singular fate, which, in the lapse of time, was not to be averted. hitherto it had been received as a matter of implicit faith, that this book of books was composed in one spirit; that it was even inspired, and, as it were, dictated by the divine spirit. yet for a long time already the discrepancies of the different parts of it had been now cavilled at, now apologized for, by believers and unbelievers. english, french, and germans had attacked the bible with more or less violence, acuteness, audacity, and wantonness; and just as often had it been taken under the protection of earnest, sound-thinking men of each nation. as for myself, i loved and valued it; for almost to it alone did i owe my moral culture: and the events, the doctrines, the symbols, the similes, had all impressed themselves deeply upon me, and had influenced me in one way or another. these unjust, scoffing, and perverting attacks, therefore, disgusted me; but people had already gone so far as very willingly to admit, partly as a main ground for the defense of many passages, that god had accommodated himself to the modes of thought and power of comprehension in men; that even those moved by the spirit had not on that account been able to renounce their character, their individuality, and that amos, a cow-herd, did not use the language of isaiah, who is said to have been a prince. out of such views and convictions, especially with a constantly increasing knowledge of languages, was very naturally developed that kind of study by which it was attempted to examine more accurately the oriental localities, nationalities, natural products, and phenomena, and in this manner to make present to one's self that ancient time. michaelis employed the whole strength of his talents and his knowledge on this side. descriptions of travels became a powerful help in explaining the holy scriptures; and later travellers, furnished with numerous questions, were made, by the answers to them, to bear witness for the prophets and apostles. but whilst they were on all sides busied to bring the holy scriptures to a natural intuition, and to render peculiar modes of thought and representation in them more universally comprehensible, that by this historico-critical aspect many an objection might be removed, many offensive things effaced, and many a shallow scoffing be made ineffective, there appeared in some men just the opposite disposition, since these chose the darkest, most mysterious, writings as the subject of their meditations, and wished, if not to elucidate them, yet to confirm them through internal evidence, by means of conjectures, calculations, and other ingenious and strange combinations, and, so far as they contained prophecies, to prove them by the results, and thus to justify a faith in what was next to be expected. the venerable bengel had procured a decided reception for his labors on the revelation of st. john, from the fact that he was known as an intelligent, upright, god-fearing, blameless man. deep minds are compelled to live in the past as well as in the future. the ordinary movements of the world can be of no importance to them, if they do not, in the course of ages up to the present, revere prophecies which have been revealed, and in the immediate, as well as in the most remote futurity, predictions still veiled. hence arises a connection that is wanting in history, which seems to give us only an accidental wavering backwards and forwards in a necessarily limited circle. doctor crusius was one of those whom the prophetic part of scripture suited more than any other, since it brings into action the two most opposite qualities of human nature, the affections, and the acuteness of the intellect. many young men had devoted themselves to this doctrine, and already formed a respectable body, which attracted the more attention, as ernesti with his friends threatened, not to illuminate, but completely to disperse, the obscurity in which these delighted. hence arose controversies, hatred, persecution, and much that was unpleasant. i attached myself to the lucid party, and sought to appropriate to myself their principles and advantages; although i ventured to forebode, that by this extremely praiseworthy, intelligent method of interpretation, the poetic contents of the writings must at last be lost along with the prophetical. but those who devoted themselves to german literature and the /belles- lettres/ were more nearly concerned with the efforts of such men, who, as jerusalem, zollikofer, and spalding, tried, by means of a good and pure style in their sermons and treatises, to gain, even among persons of a certain degree of sense and taste, applause and attachment for religion, and for the moral philosophy which is so closely related to it. a pleasing manner of writing began to be necessary everywhere; and since such a manner must, above all, be comprehensible, so did writers arise, on many sides, who undertook to write about their studies and their professions clearly, perspicuously, and impressively, and as well for the adepts as for the multitude. after the example of tissot, a foreigner, the physicians also now began to labor zealously for the general cultivation. haller, unzer, zimmerman, had a very great influence; and whatever may be said against them in detail, especially the last, they produced a very great effect in their time. and mention should be made of this in history, but particularly in biography; for a man remains of consequence, not so far as he leaves something behind him, but so far as he acts and enjoys, and rouses others to action and enjoyment. the jurists, accustomed from their youth upward to an abstruse style, which, in all legal papers, from the petty court of the immediate knight up to the imperial diet at ratisbon, was still maintained in all its quaintness, could not easily elevate themselves to a certain freedom, the less so as the subjects of which they had to treat were most intimately connected with the external form, and consequently also with the style. but the younger von moser had already shown himself an independent and original writer; and putter, by the clearness of his delivery, had also brought clearness into his subject, and the style in which he was to treat it. all that proceeded from his school was distinguished by this. and even the philosophers, in order to be popular, now found themselves compelled to write clearly and intelligibly. mendelssohn and garve appeared, and excited universal interest and admiration. with the cultivation of the german language and style in every department, the capacity for forming a judgment also increased, and we admire the reviews then published of works upon religious and moral, as well as medical, subjects; while, on the contrary, we remark that the judgments of poems, and of whatever else may relate to the /belles- lettres/, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. this holds good of the "literary epistles" ("literaturbriefen"), and of "the universal german library," as well as of "the library of the belles- lettres," notable instances of which could easily be produced. no matter in how motley a manner all this might be confused, still, for every one who contemplated producing any thing from himself,--who would not merely take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors,--there was nothing further left but, early and late, to look about him for some subject-matter which he might determine to use. here, too, we were much led astray. people were constantly repeating a saying of kleist, which we had to hear often enough. he had sportively, ingeniously, and truly replied to those who took him to task on account of his frequent, lonely walks, "that he was not idle at such times,--he was going to the image-hunt." this simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, who by it placed himself in contrast with the men of his rank, who did not neglect going out, with their guns on their shoulders, hare-hunting and partridge-shooting, as often as an opportunity presented itself. hence we find in kleist's poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which, in a kindly manner, remind us of nature. but now they also recommended us, quite seriously, to go out on the image-hunt, which did not at last leave us wholly without fruit; although apel's garden, the kitchen-gardens, the rosenthal, golis, raschwitz, and konnewitz, would be the oddest ground to beat up poetical game in. and yet i was often induced by that motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary; and because many objects neither beautiful nor sublime met the eye of the beholder, and, in the truly splendid rosenthal, the gnats, in the best season of the year, allowed no tender thoughts to arise, so did i, by unwearied, persevering endeavor, become extremely attentive to the small life of nature (i would use this word after the analogy of "still life"); and, since the pretty events which one perceives within this circle represent but little in themselves, so i accustomed myself to see in them a significance, which inclined now towards the symbolical, now towards the allegorical, side, accordingly as intuition, feeling, or reflection had the preponderance. i will relate one incident in place of many. i was, after the fashion of humanity, in love with my name, and, as young, uneducated people commonly do, wrote it down everywhere. once i had carved it very handsomely and accurately on the smooth bark of a linden-tree of moderate age. the following autumn, when my affection for annette was in its fullest bloom, i took the trouble to cut hers above it. towards the end of the winter, in the mean time, like a capricious lover, i had wantonly sought many opportunities to tease her and cause her vexation: in the spring i chanced to visit the spot; and the sap, which was rising strongly in the trees, had welled out through the incisions which formed her name, and which were not yet crusted over, and moistened with innocent vegetable tears the already hardened traces of my own. thus to see her here weeping over me,--me, who had so often called up her tears by my ill conduct, filled me with confusion. at the remembrance of my injustice and of her love, even the tears came into my eyes; i hastened to implore pardon of her, doubly and trebly: and i turned this incident into an idyl, [footnote: die laune des verliebten, translated as the lover's caprice, see p. .] which i never could read to myself without affection, or to others without emotion. while i now, like a shepherd on the pleisse, was absorbed childishly enough in such tender subjects, and always chose only such as i could easily recall into my bosom, provision from a greater and more important side had long been made for german poets. the first true and really vital material of the higher order came into german poetry through frederick the great and the deeds of the seven years' war. all national poetry must be shallow or become shallow which does not rest on that which is most universally human,--upon the events of nations and their shepherds, when both stand for one man. kings are to be represented in war and danger, where, by that very means, they appear as the first, because they determine and share the fate of the very least, and thus become much more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have once determined the fates, withdraw from all participation in them. in this view of the subject, every nation, if it would be worth any thing at all, must possess an epopee, to which the precise form of the epic poem is not necessary. the war-songs started by gleim maintain so high a rank among german poems, because they arose with and in the achievements which are their subject; and because, moreover, their felicitous form, just as if a fellow-combatant had produced them in the loftiest moments, makes us feel the most complete effectiveness. ramler sings the deeds of his king in a different and most noble manner. all his poems are full of matter, and occupy us with great, heart- elevating objects, and thus already maintain an indestructible value. for the internal matter of the subject treated is the beginning and end of art. it will not, indeed, be denied that genius, that thoroughly cultivated artistical talent, can make every thing out of every thing by its method of treatment, and can subdue the most refractory material. but, when closely examined, the result is rather a trick of art than a work of art, which should rest upon a worthy object, that the treatment of it, by skill, pains, and industry, may present to us the dignity of the subject-matter only the more happily and splendidly. the prussians, and with them protestant germany, acquired thus for their literature a treasure which the opposite party lacked, and the want of which they have been able to supply by no subsequent endeavors. upon the great idea which the prussian writers might well entertain of their king, they first established themselves, and the more zealously as he, in whose name they did it all, wished once for all to know nothing about them. already before this, through the french colony, afterwards through the king's predilection for the literature of that nation and for their financial institutions, had a mass of french civilization come into prussia, which was highly advantageous to the germans, since by it they were challenged to contradiction and resistance; thus the very aversion of frederick from german was a fortunate thing for the formation of its literary character. they did every thing to attract the king's attention, not indeed to be honored, but only noticed, by him; yet they did it in german fashion, from an internal conviction; they did what they held to be right, and desired and wished that the king should recognize and prize this german uprightness. that did not and could not happen; for how can it be required of a king, who wishes to live and enjoy himself intellectually, that he shall lose his years in order to see what he thinks barbarous developed and rendered palatable too late? in matters of trade and manufacture, he might indeed force upon himself, but especially upon his people, very moderate substitutes instead of excellent foreign wares; but here every thing comes to perfection more rapidly, and it needs not a man's life-time to bring such things to maturity. but i must here, first of all, make honorable mention of one work, the most genuine production of the seven years' war, and of perfect north- german nationality: it is the first theatrical production caught from the important events of life, one of specific, temporary value, and one which therefore produced an incalculable effect,--"minna von barnhelm." lessing, who, in opposition to klopstock and gleim, was fond of casting off his personal dignity, because he was confident that he could at any moment grasp and take it up again, delighted in a dissipated life in taverns and the world, as he always needed a strong counterpoise to his powerfully laboring interior; and for this reason, also, he had joined the suite of gen. tauentzien. one easily discovers how the above- mentioned piece was generated betwixt war and peace, hatred and affection. it was this production which happily opened the view into a higher, more significant, world, from the literary and citizen world in which poetic art had hitherto moved. the intense hatred in which the prussians and saxons stood towards each other during this war could not be removed by its termination. the saxon now first felt, with true bitterness, the wounds which the upstart prussian had inflicted upon him. political peace could not immediately re-establish a peace between their dispositions. but this was to be brought about symbolically by the above-mentioned drama. the grace and amiability of the saxon ladies conquer the worth, the dignity, and the stubbornness of the prussians; and, in the principal as well as in the subordinate characters, a happy union of bizarre and contradictory elements is artistically represented. if i have put my reader in some perplexity by these cursory and desultory remarks on german literature, i have succeeded in giving them a conception of that chaotic condition in which my poor brain found itself, when, in the conflict of two epochs so important for the literary fatherland, so much that was new crowded in upon me before i could come to terms with the old, so much that was old yet made me feel its right over me, when i believed i had already cause to venture on renouncing it altogether. i will at present try to impart, as well as possible, the way i entered on to extricate myself from this difficulty, if only step by step. the period of prolixity into which my youth had fallen, i had labored through with genuine industry, in company with so many worthy men. the numerous quarto volumes of manuscript which i left behind with my father might serve for sufficient witnesses of this; and what a mass of essays, rough draughts, and half-executed designs, had, more from despondency than conviction, gone up in smoke! now, through conversation, through instruction in general, through so many conflicting opinions, but especially through my fellow-boarder hofrath pfeil, i learned to value more and more the importance of the subject-matter and the conciseness of the treatment; without, however, being able to make it clear to myself where the former was to be sought, or how the latter was to be attained. for, what with the great narrowness of my situation; what with the indifference of my companions, the reserve of the professors, the exclusiveness of the educated inhabitants; and what with the perfect insignificance of the natural objects,--i was compelled to seek for every thing within myself. whenever i desired a true basis in feeling or reflection for my poems, i was forced to grasp into my own bosom; whenever i required for my poetic representation an immediate intuition of an object or an event, i could not step outside the circle which was fitted to teach me, and inspire me with an interest. in this view i wrote at first certain little poems, in the form of songs or in a freer measure: they are founded on reflection, treat of the past, and for the most part take an epigrammatic turn. and thus began that tendency from which i could not deviate my whole life through; namely, the tendency to turn into an image, into a poem, every thing that delighted or troubled me, or otherwise occupied me, and to come to some certain understanding with myself upon it, that i might both rectify my conceptions of external things, and set my mind at rest about them. the faculty of doing this was necessary to no one more than to me, for my natural disposition whirled me constantly from one extreme to the other. all, therefore, that has been confessed by me, consists of fragments of a great confession; and this little book is an attempt which i have ventured on to render it complete. my early affection for gretchen i had now transferred to one annette (/aennchen/), of whom i can say nothing more than that she was young, handsome, sprightly, loving, and so agreeable that she well deserved to be set up for a time in the shrine of the heart as a little saint, that she might receive all that reverence which it often causes more pleasure to bestow than to receive. i saw her daily without hinderance; she helped to prepare the meals i enjoyed; she brought, in the evening at least, the wine i drank; and indeed our select club of noon-day boarders was a warranty that the little house, which was visited by few guests except during the fair, well merited its good reputation. opportunity and inclination were found for various kinds of amusement. but, as she neither could nor dared go much out of the house, the pastime was somewhat limited. we sang the songs of zachariä; played the "duke michael" of krüger, in which a knotted handkerchief had to take the place of the nightingale; and so, for a while, it went on quite tolerably. but since such connections, the more innocent they are, afford the less variety in the long run, i was seized with that wicked distemper which seduces us to derive amusement from the torment of a beloved one, and to domineer over a girl's devotedness with wanton and tyrannical caprice. my ill humor at the failure of my poetical attempts, at the apparent impossibility of coming to a clear understanding about them, and at every thing else that might pinch me here and there, i thought i might vent on her, because she truly loved me with all her heart, and did whatever she could to please me. by unfounded and absurd fits of jealousy, i destroyed our most delightful days, both for myself and her. she endured it for a time with incredible patience, which i was cruel enough to try to the uttermost. but, to my shame and despair, i was at last forced to remark that her heart was alienated from me, and that i might now have good ground for the madness in which i had indulged without necessity and without cause. there were also terrible scenes between us, in which i gained nothing; and i then first felt that i had truly loved her, and could not bear to lose her. my passion grew, and assumed all the forms of which it is capable under such circumstances; nay, at last i even took up the /rôle/ which the girl had hitherto played. i sought every thing possible in order to be agreeable to her, even to procure her pleasure by means of others; for i could not renounce the hope of winning her again. but it was too late! i had lost her really; and the frenzy with which i revenged my fault upon myself, by assaulting in various frantic ways my physical nature, in order to inflict some hurt on my moral nature, contributed very much to the bodily maladies under which i lost some of the best years of my life: indeed, i should perchance have been completely ruined by this loss, had not my poetic talent here shown itself particularly helpful with its healing power. already, at many intervals before, i had clearly enough perceived my ill conduct. i really pitied the poor child, when i saw her so thoroughly wounded by me, without necessity. i pictured to myself so often and so circumstantially her condition and my own, and, as a contrast, the contented state of another couple in our company, that at last i could not forbear treating this situation dramatically, as a painful and instructive penance. hence arose the oldest of my extant dramatic labors, the little piece entitled, "die laune des verliebten" ("the lover's caprice"), in the simple nature of which one may at the same time perceive the impetus of a boiling passion. but, before this, a deep, significant, impulsive world had already interested me. through my adventure with gretchen and its consequences, i had early looked into the strange labyrinths by which civil society is undermined. religion, morals, law, rank, connections, custom, all rule only the surface of city existence. the streets, bordered by splendid houses, are kept neat; and every one behaves himself there properly enough: but, indoors, it often seems only so much the more disordered; and a smooth exterior, like a thin coat of mortar, plasters over many a rotten wall that tumbles together overnight, and produces an effect the more frightful, as it comes into the midst of a condition of repose. a great many families, far and near, i had seen already, either overwhelmed in ruin or kept miserably hanging on the brink of it, by means of bankruptcies, divorces, seduced daughters, murders, house- robberies, poisonings; and, young as i was, i had often, in such cases, lent a hand for help and preservation. for as my frankness awakened confidence; as my secrecy was proved; as my activity feared no sacrifice, and loved best to exert itself in the most dangerous affairs,--i had often enough found opportunity to mediate, to hush up, to divert the lightning-flash, with every other assistance of the kind; in the course of which, as well in my own person as through others, i could not fail to come to the knowledge of many afflicting and humiliating facts. to relieve myself i designed several plays, and wrote the arguments [footnote: "/exposition/," in a dramatic sense, properly means a statement of the events which take place before the action of the play commences.--trans.] of most of them. but since the intrigues were always obliged to be painful, and almost all these pieces threatened a tragical conclusion, i let them drop one after another. "die mitschuldigen" ("the accomplices") is the only one that was finished, the cheerful and burlesque tone of which upon the gloomy family-ground appears as if accompanied by something causing anxiety; so that, on the whole, it is painful in representation, although it pleases in detached passages. the illegal deeds, harshly expressed, wound the aesthetic and moral feeling, and the piece could therefore find no favor on the german stage; although the imitations of it, which steered clear of those rocks, were received with applause. both the above-mentioned pieces were, however, written from a more elevated point of view, without my having been aware of it. they direct us to a considerate forbearance in casting moral imputations, and in somewhat harsh and coarse touches sportively express that most christian maxim, /let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone/. through this earnestness, which cast a gloom over my first pieces, i committed the mistake of neglecting very favorable materials which lay quite decidedly in my natural disposition. in the midst of these serious, and, for a young man, fearful, experiences, was developed in me a reckless humor, which feels itself superior to the moment, and not only fears no danger, but rather wantonly courts it. the reason of this lay in the exuberance of spirits in which the vigorous time of life so much delights, and which, if it manifests itself in a frolicsome way, causes much pleasure, both at the moment and in remembrance. these things are so usual, that, in the vocabulary of our young university friends, they are called /suites/; and, on account of the close similarity of signification, to say "play /suites/," means just the same as to "play pranks." [footnote: the real meaning of the passage is, that the idiom "possen reissen" is used also with the university word "suite," so that one can say "suiten reissen."--trans.] such humorous acts of daring, brought on the theatre with wit and sense, are of the greatest effect. they are distinguished from intrigue, inasmuch as they are momentary, and that their aim, whenever they are to have one, must not be remote. beaumarchais has seized their full value, and the effects of his "figaro" spring pre-eminently from this. whereas such good-humored roguish and half-knavish pranks are practised with personal risk for noble ends, the situations which arise from them are aesthetically and morally considered of the greatest value for the theatre; as, for instance, the opera of "the water-carrier" treats perhaps the happiest subject which we have ever yet seen upon the stage. to enliven the extreme tedium of daily life, i played off numberless tricks of the sort, partly without any aim at all, partly in the service of my friends, whom i liked to please. for myself, i could not say that i had once acted in this designedly, nor did i ever happen to consider a feat of the kind as a subject for art. had i, however, seized upon and elaborated such materials, which were so close at hand, my earliest labors would have been more cheerful and available. some incidents of this kind occur indeed later, but isolated and without design. for since the heart always lies nearer to us than the head, and gives us trouble, whereas the latter knows how to set matters to rights, the affairs of the heart had always appeared to me as the most important. i was never weary of reflecting upon the transient nature of attachments, the mutability of human character, moral sensuality, and all the heights and depths, the combination of which in our nature may be considered as the riddle of human life. here, too, i sought to get rid of that which troubled me, in a song, an epigram, in some kind of rhyme; which, since they referred to the most private feelings and the most peculiar circumstances, could scarcely interest any one but myself. in the mean time, my external position had very much changed after the lapse of a short time. madame böhme, after a long and melancholy illness, had at last died: she had latterly ceased to admit me to her presence. her husband could not be very much satisfied with me: i seemed to him not sufficiently industrious, and too frivolous. he especially took it very ill of me, when it was told him, that at the lectures on german public law, instead of taking proper notes, i had been drawing on the margin of my note-book the personages presented to our notice in them, such as the president of the chamber, the moderators and assessors, in strange wigs; and by this drollery had disturbed my attentive neighbors and set them laughing. after the loss of his wife he lived still more retired than before, and at last i shunned him in order to avoid his reproaches. but it was peculiarly unfortunate that gellert would not use the power which he might have exercised over us. indeed, he had not time to play the father-confessor, and to inquire after the character and faults of everybody: he therefore took the matter very much in the lump, and thought to curb us by means of the church forms. for this reason he commonly, when he admitted us to his presence, used to lower his little head, and, in his weeping, winning voice, to ask us whether we went regularly to church, who was our confessor, and whether we took the holy communion? if we came off badly at this examination, we were dismissed with lamentations: we were more vexed than edified, yet could not help loving the man heartily. on this occasion i cannot forbear recalling somewhat of my earlier youth, in order to make it obvious that the great affairs of the ecclesiastical religion must be carried on with order and coherence, if they are to prove as fruitful as is expected. the protestant service has too little fulness and consistency to be able to hold the congregation together; hence it easily happens that members secede from it, and either form little congregations of their own, or, without ecclesiastical connection, quietly carry on their citizen-life side by side. thus for a considerable time complaints were made that church- goers were diminishing from year to year, and, just in the same ratio, the persons who partook of the lord's supper. with respect to both, but especially the latter, the cause lies close at hand; but who dares to speak it out? we will make the attempt. in moral and religious, as well as in physical and civil, matters, man does not like to do any thing on the spur of the moment; he needs a sequence from which results habit; what he is to love and to perform, he cannot represent to himself as single or isolated; and, if he is to repeat any thing willingly, it must not have become strange to him. if the protestant worship lacks fulness in general, so let it be investigated in detail, and it will be found that the protestant has too few sacraments,--nay, indeed, he has only one in which he is himself an actor,--the lord's supper; for baptism he sees only when it is performed on others, and is not greatly edified by it. the sacraments are the highest part of religion, the symbols to our senses of an extraordinary divine favor and grace. in the lord's supper earthly lips are to receive a divine being embodied, and partake of a heavenly under the form of an earthly nourishment. this import is the same in all kinds of christian churches: whether the sacrament is taken with more or less submission to the mystery, with more or less accommodation as to that which is intelligible, it always remains a great, holy thing, which in reality takes the place of the possible or the impossible, the place of that which man can neither attain nor do without. but such a sacrament should not stand alone: no christian can partake of it with the true joy for which it is given, if the symbolical or sacramental sense is not fostered within him. he must be accustomed to regard the inner religion of the heart and that of the external church as perfectly one, as the great universal sacrament, which again divides itself into so many others, and communicates to these parts its holiness, indestructibleness, and eternity. here a youthful pair join hands, not for a passing salutation or for the dance: the priest pronounces his blessing upon them, and the bond is indissoluble. it is not long before this wedded pair bring a likeness to the threshold of the altar: it is purified with holy water, and so incorporated into the church, that it cannot forfeit this benefit but through the most monstrous apostasy. the child in the course of life goes on progressing in earthly things of his own accord, in heavenly things he must be instructed. does it prove on examination that this has been fully done, he is now received into the bosom of the church as an actual citizen, as a true and voluntary professor, not without outward tokens of the weightiness of this act. now, only, he is decidedly a christian, now for the first time he knows his advantages and also his duties. but, in the mean time, a great deal that is strange has happened to him as a man: through instruction and affliction he has come to know how critical appears the state of his inner self, and there will constantly be a question of doctrines and of transgressions; but punishment shall no longer take place. for here, in the infinite confusion in which he must entangle himself, amid the conflict of natural and religious claims, an admirable expedient is given him, in confiding his deeds and misdeeds, his infirmities and doubts, to a worthy man, appointed expressly for that purpose, who knows how to calm, to warn, to strengthen him, to chasten him likewise by symbolical punishments, and at last, by a complete washing away of his guilt, to render him happy, and to give him back, pure and cleansed, the tablet of his manhood. thus prepared, and purely set at rest by several sacramental acts, which on closer examination branch forth again into minuter sacramental traits, he kneels down to receive the host; and, that the mystery of this high act may be still enhanced, he sees the chalice only in the distance: it is no common eating and drinking that satisfies, it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst after heavenly drink. yet let not the youth believe that this is all he has to do; let not even the man believe it. in earthly relations we are at last accustomed to depend on ourselves; and, even there, knowledge, understanding, and character will not always suffice: in heavenly things, on the contrary, we have never finished learning. the higher feeling within us, which often finds itself not even truly at home, is, besides, oppressed by so much from without, that our own power hardly administers all that is necessary for counsel, consolation, and help. but, to this end, that remedy is instituted for our whole life; and an intelligent, pious man is continually waiting to show the right way to the wanderers, and to relieve the distressed. and what has been so well tried through the whole life, is now to show forth all its healing power with tenfold activity at the gate of death. according to a trustful custom, inculcated from youth upwards, the dying man receives with fervor those symbolical, significant assurances; and there, where every earthly warranty fails, he is assured, by a heavenly one, of a blessed existence for all eternity. he feels perfectly convinced that neither a hostile element nor a malignant spirit can hinder him from clothing himself with a glorified body, so that, in immediate relation with the godhead, he may partake of the boundless happiness which flows forth from him. then, in conclusion, that the whole may be made holy, the feet also are anointed and blessed. they are to feel, even in the event of possible recovery, a repugnance to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. a wonderful elasticity is to be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them the clod of earth which hitherto attracted them. and so, through a brilliant cycle of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however far asunder they may chance to be, are joined in one continuous circle. but all these spiritual wonders spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil, where they can neither be sown nor planted nor cherished. we must supplicate for them from another region,--a thing which cannot be done by all persons nor at all times. here we meet the highest of these symbols, derived from pious tradition. we are told that one man may be more favored, blessed, and sanctified from above than another. but, that this may not appear as a natural gift, this great boon, bound up with a heavy duty, must be communicated to others by one authorized person to another; and the greatest good that a man can attain, without his having to obtain it by his own wrestling or grasping, must be preserved and perpetuated on earth by spiritual inheritance. in the very ordination of the priest is comprehended all that is necessary for the effectual solemnizing of those holy acts by which the multitude receive grace, without any other activity being needful on their part than that of faith and implicit confidence. and thus the priest joins the line of his predecessors and successors, in the circle of those anointed with him, representing the highest source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not he, the priest, whom we reverence, but his office: it is not his nod to which we bow the knee, but the blessing which he imparts, and which seems the more holy, and to come the more immediately from heaven, because the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by its own sinful, nay, wicked, nature. how is this truly spiritual connection shattered to pieces in protestantism, by part of the above-mentioned symbols being declared apocryphal, and only a few canonical!--and how, by their indifference to one of these, will they prepare us for the high dignity of the others? in my time i had been confided to the religious instruction of a good old infirm clergyman, who had been confessor of the family for many years. the "catechism," a "paraphrase" of it, and the "scheme of salvation," i had at my finger's ends: i lacked not one of the strongly proving biblical texts, but from all this i reaped no fruit; for, as they assured me that the honest old man arranged his chief examimation according to an old set form, i lost all pleasure and inclination for the business, spent the last week in all sorts of diversions, laid in my hat the loose leaves borrowed from an older friend, who had gotten them from the clergyman, and unfeelingly and senselessly read aloud all that i should have known how to utter with feeling and conviction. but i found my good intention and my aspirations in this important matter still more paralyzed by a dry, spiritless routine, when i was now to approach the confessional. i was indeed conscious of having many failings, but no great faults; and that very consciousness diminished them, since it directed me to the moral strength which lay within me, and which, with resolution and perseverance, was at last to become master over the old adam. we were taught that we were much better than the catholics for the very reason, that we were not obliged to confess any thing in particular in the confessional,--nay, that this would not be at all proper, even if we wished to do it. i did not like this at all; for i had the strangest religious doubts, which i would readily have had cleared up on such an occasion. now, as this was not to be done, i composed a confession for myself, which, while it well expressed my state of mind, was to confess to an intelligent man, in general terms, that which i was forbidden to tell him in detail. but when i entered the old choir of the barefoot friars, when i approached the strange latticed closets in which the reverend gentlemen used to be found for that purpose, when the sexton opened the door for me, when i now saw myself shut up in the narrow place face to face with my spiritual grandsire, and he bade me welcome with his weak, nasal voice, all the light of my mind and heart was extinguished at once, the well- conned confession-speech would not cross my lips: in my embarrassment i opened the book i had in my hand, and read from it the first short form i saw, which was so general, that anybody might have spoken it with quite a safe conscience. i received absolution, and withdrew neither warm nor cold; went the next day with my parents to the table of the lord, and, for a few days, behaved myself as was becoming after so holy an act. in the sequel, however, there came over me that evil, which, from the fact of our religion being complicated by various dogmas, and founded on texts of scripture which admit of several interpretations, attacks scrupulous men in such a manner, that it brings on a hypochondriacal condition, and raises this to its highest point, to fixed ideas. i have known several men, who, though their manner of thinking and living was perfectly rational, could not free themselves from thinking about the sin against the holy ghost, and from the fear that they had committed it. a similar trouble threatened me on the subject of the communion; for the text, that one who unworthily partakes of the sacrament /eateth and drinketh damnation to himself/, had, very early, already made a monstrous impression upon me. every fearful thing that i had read in the histories of the middle ages, of the judgments of god, of those most strange ordeals, by red-hot iron, flaming fire, swelling water, and even what the bible tells us of the draught which agrees well with the innocent, but puffs up and bursts the guilty,--all this pictured itself to my imagination, and formed itself into the most frightful combinations; since false vows, hypocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all seemed to weigh down the unworthy person at this most holy act, which was so much the more horrible, as no one could dare to pronounce himself worthy: and the forgiveness of sins, by which every thing was to be at last; done away, was found limited by so many conditions, that one could not with certainty dare appropriate it to one's self. this gloomy scruple troubled me to such a degree, and the expedient which they would represent to me as sufficient seemed so bald and feeble, that it gave the bugbear only a more fearful aspect; and, as soon as i had reached leipzig, i tried to free myself altogether from my connection with the church. how oppressive, then, must have been to me the exhortations of gellert, whom, considering the generally laconic style with which he was obliged to repel our obtrusiveness, i was unwilling to trouble with such singular questions, and the less so as in my more cheerful hours i was myself ashamed of them, and at last left completely behind me this strange anguish of conscience, together with church and altar. gellert, in accordance with his pious feelings, had composed for himself a course of ethics, which from time to time he publicly read, and thus in an honorable manner acquitted himself of his duty to the public. gellert's writings had already, for a long time, been the foundation of german moral culture, and every one anxiously wished to see that work printed; but, as this was not to be done till after the good man's death, people thought themselves very fortunate to hear him deliver it himself in his lifetime. the philosophical auditorium [footnote: the lecture-room. the word is also used in university language to denote a professor's audience.] was at such times crowded: and the beautiful soul, the pure will, and the interest of the noble man in our welfare, his exhortations, warnings, and entreaties, uttered in a somewhat hollow and sorrowful tone, made indeed an impression for the moment; but this did not last long, the less so as there were many scoffers, who contrived to make us suspicious of this tender, and, as they thought, enervating, manner. i remember a frenchman travelling through the town, who asked what were the maxims and opinions of the man who attracted such an immense concourse. "when we had given him the necessary information, he shook his head, and said, smiling, "/laissez le faire, il nous forme des dupes./" and thus also did good society, which cannot easily endure any thing worthy near it, know how to spoil, on occasion, the moral influence which gellert might have had upon us. now it was taken ill of him that he instructed the danes of distinction and wealth, who were particularly recommended to him, better than the other students, and had a marked solicitude for them; now he was charged with selfishness and nepotism for causing a /table d'hôte/ to be established for these young men at his brother's house. this brother, a tall, good-looking, blunt, unceremonious, and somewhat coarse, man, had, it was said, been a fencing-master; and, notwithstanding the too great lenity of his brother, the noble boarders were often treated harshly and roughly: hence the people thought they must again take the part of these young folks, and pulled about the good reputation of the excellent gellert to such a degree, that, in order not to be mistaken about him, we became indifferent towards him, and visited him no more; yet we always saluted him in our best manner when he came riding along on his tame gray horse. this horse the elector had sent him, to oblige him to take an exercise so necessary for his health,--a distinction for which he was not easily to be forgiven. and thus, by degrees, the epoch approached when all authority was to vanish from before me, and i was to become suspicious--nay, to despair, even--of the greatest and best individuals whom i had known or imagined. frederick the second still stood at the head of all the distinguished men of the century in my thoughts; and it must therefore have appeared very surprising to me, that i could praise him as little before the inhabitants of leipzig as formerly in my grandfather's house. they had felt the hand of war heavily, it is true; and therefore they were not to blame for not thinking the best of him who had begun and continued it. they, therefore, were willing to let him pass as a distinguished, but by no means as a great, man. "there was no art," they said, "in performing something with great means; and, if one spares neither lands nor money nor blood, one may well accomplish one's purpose at last. frederick had shown himself great in none of his plans, and in nothing that he had, properly speaking, undertaken. so long as it depended on himself, he had only gone on making blunders, and what was extraordinary in him had only come to light when he was compelled to make these blunders good again. it was purely from this that he had obtained his great reputation; since every man wishes for himself that same talent of making good, in a clever way, the blunders which he frequently commits. if one goes through the seven years' war, step by step, it will be found that the king quite uselessly sacrificed his fine army, and that it was his own fault that this ruinous feud had been protracted to so great a length. a truly great man and general would have got the better of his enemies much sooner." in support of these opinions they could cite infinite details, which i did not know how to deny; and i felt the unbounded reverence which i had devoted to this remarkable prince, from my youth upwards, gradually cooling away. as the inhabitants of leipzig had now destroyed for me the pleasant feeling of revering a great man; so did a new friend, whom i gained at the time, very much diminish the respect which i entertained for my present fellow-citizens. this friend was one of the strangest fellows in the world. he was named behrisch, and was tutor to the young count lindenau. even his exterior was singular enough. lean and well-built, far advanced in the thirties, a very large nose, and altogether marked features: he wore from morning till night a scratch which might well have been called a peruke, but dressed himself very neatly, and never went out but with his sword by his side, and his hat under his arm. he was one of those men who have quite a peculiar gift of killing time, or, rather, who know how to make something out of nothing, in order to pass time away. every thing he did had to be done with slowness, and with a certain deportment which might have been called affected if behrisch had not even by nature had something affected in his manner. he resembled an old frenchman, and also spoke and wrote french very well and easily. his greatest delight was to busy himself seriously about drolleries, and to follow up without end any silly notion. thus he was constantly dressed in gray; and as the different parts of his attire were of different material, and also of different shades, he could reflect for whole days as to how he should procure one gray more for his body, and was happy when he had succeeded in this, and could put to shame us who had doubted it, or had pronounced it impossible. he then gave us long, severe lectures about our lack of inventive power, and our want of faith in his talents. for the rest, he had studied well, was particularly versed in the modern languages and their literature, and wrote an excellent hand. he was very well disposed towards me; and i, having been always accustomed and inclined to the society of older persons, soon attached myself to him. my intercourse served him, too, for a special amusement; since he took pleasure in taming my restlessness and impatience, with which, on the other hand, i gave him enough to do. in the art of poetry he had what is called taste,--a certain general opinion about the good and bad, the mediocre and tolerable: but his judgment was rather censorious; and he destroyed even the little faith in contemporary writers which i cherished within me, by unfeeling remarks, which he knew how to advance with wit and humor, about the writings and poems of this man and that. he received my productions with indulgence, and let me have my own way, but only on the condition that i should have nothing printed. he promised me, on the other hand, that he himself would copy those pieces which he thought good, and would present me with them in a handsome volume. this undertaking now afforded an opportunity for the greatest possible waste of time. for before he could find the right paper, before he could make up his mind as to the size, before he had settled the breadth of the margin and the form of handwriting, before the crow- quills were provided and cut into pens, and indian ink was rubbed, whole weeks passed, without the least bit having been done. with just as much ado he always set about his writing, and really, by degrees, put together a most charming manuscript. the title of the poems was in german text; the verses themselves in a perpendicular saxon hand; and at the end of every poem was an analogous vignette, which he had either selected somewhere or other, or had invented himself, and in which he contrived to imitate very neatly the hatching of the wood-cuts and tail- pieces which are used for such purposes. to show me these things as he went on, to celebrate beforehand in a comico-pathetical manner my good fortune in seeing myself immortalized in such exquisite handwriting, and that in a style which no printing-press could attain, gave another occasion for passing the most agreeable hours. in the mean time, his intercourse was always secretly instructive, by reason of his liberal acquirements, and, as he knew how to subdue my restless, impetuous disposition, was also quite wholesome for me in a moral sense. he had, too, quite a peculiar abhorrence of roughness; and his jests were always quaint without ever falling into the coarse or the trivial. he indulged himself in a distorted aversion from his countrymen, and described with ludicrous touches even what they were able to undertake. he was particularly inexhaustible in a comical representation of individual persons, as he found something to find fault with in the exterior of every one. thus, when we lay together at the window, he could occupy himself for hours criticising the passers-by, and, when he had censured them long enough, in showing exactly and circumstantially how they ought to have dressed themselves, ought to have walked, and ought to have behaved, to look like orderly people. such attempts, for the most part, ended in something improper and absurd; so that we did not so much laugh at how the man looked, but at how, perchance, he might have looked had he been mad enough to caricature himself. in all such matters. behrisch went quite unmercifully to work, without being in the slightest degree malicious. on the other hand, we knew how to tease him, on our side, by assuring him, that, to judge from his exterior, he must be taken, if not for a french dancing-master, at least for the academical teacher of the language. this reproval was usually the signal for dissertations an hour long, in which he used to set forth the difference, wide as the heavens, which there was between him and an old frenchman. at the same time he commonly imputed to us all sorts of awkward attempts, that we might possibly have made for the alteration and modification of his wardrobe. my poetical compositions, which i only carried on the more zealously as the transcript went on becoming more beautiful and more careful, now inclined altogether to the natural and the true: and if the subjects could not always be important, i nevertheless always endeavored to express them clearly and pointedly, the more so as my friend often gave me to understand what a great thing it was to write down a verse on dutch paper, with the crow-quill and indian ink; what time, talent, and exertion it required, which ought not to be squandered on any thing empty and superfluous. he would, at the same time, open a finished parcel, and circumstantially to explain what ought not to stand in this or that place, or congratulate us that it actually did not stand there. he then spoke with great contempt of the art of printing, mimicked the compositor, ridiculed his gestures and his hurried picking out of letters here and there, and derived from this manoeuvre all the calamities of literature. on the other hand, he extolled the grace and noble posture of a writer, and immediately sat down himself to exhibit it to us; while he rated us at the same time for not demeaning ourselves at the writing-table precisely after his example and model. he now reverted to the contrast with the compositor, turned a begun letter upside down, and showed how unseemly it would be to write any thing from the bottom to the top, or from the right to the left, with other things of like kind with which whole volumes might have been filled. with such harmless fooleries we squandered our precious time; while it could have occurred to none of us, that any thing would chance to proceed out of our circle which would awaken a general sensation and bring us into not the best repute. gellert may have taken little pleasure in his "practicum;" and if, perhaps, he took pleasure in giving some directions as to prose and poetical style, he did it most privately only to a few, among whom we could not number ourselves. professor clodius thought to fill the gap which thus arose in the public instruction. he had gained some renown in literature, criticism, and poetry, and, as a young, lively, obliging man, found many friends, both in the university and in the city. gellert himself referred us to the lectures now commenced by him; and, as far as the principal matter was concerned, we remarked little difference. he, too, only criticised details, corrected likewise with red ink; and one found one's self in company with mere blunders, without a prospect as to where the right was to be sought. i had brought to him some of my little labors, which he did not treat harshly. but just at this time they wrote to me from home, that i must without fail furnish a poem for my uncle's wedding. i felt far removed from that light and frivolous period in which a similar thing would have given me pleasure; and, since i could get nothing out of the actual circumstance itself, i determined to trick out my work in the best manner with extraneous ornament. i therefore convened all olympus to consult about the marriage of a frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. venus and themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in favor of the marriage. my work by no means displeased me. i received from home a handsome letter in its praise, took the trouble to have another fair copy, and hoped to extort some applause from my professor also. but here i had missed my aim. he took the matter severely; and as he did not notice the tone of parody, which nevertheless lay in the notion, he declared the great expenditure of divine means for such an insignificant human end in the highest degree reprehensible; inveighed against the use and abuse of such mythological figures, as a false habit originating in pedantic times; found the expression now too high, now too low; and, in divers particulars, had indeed not spared the red ink, though he asserted that he had yet done too little. such pieces were read out and criticised anonymously, it is true; but we used to watch each other, and it remained no secret that this unfortunate assembly of the gods was my work: yet since his critique, when i took his point of view, seemed to be perfectly just, and those divinities more nearly inspected were in fact only hollow shadow-forms, i cursed all olympus, flung the whole mythic pantheon away; and from that time amor and luna have been the only divinities which at all appear in my little poems. among the persons whom behrisch had chosen as the butts of his wit, clodius stood just at the head; nor was it hard to find a comical side in him. being of small stature, rather stout and thick-set, he was violent in his motions, somewhat impetuous in his utterances, and restless in his demeanor. in all this he differed from his fellow- citizens, who, nevertheless, willingly put up with him on account of his good qualities, and the fine promise which he gave. he was usually commissioned with the poems which had become necessary on festive occasions. in the so-called "ode," he followed the manner employed by ramler, whom, however, it alone suited. but clodius, as an imitator, had especially marked the foreign words by means of which the poems of ramler come forth with a majestic pomp, which, because it is conformable to the greatness of his subject and the rest of his poetic treatment, produces a very good effect on the ear, feelings, and imagination. in clodius, on the contrary, these expressions had a heterogeneous air; since his poetry was in other respects not calculated to elevate the mind in any manner. now, we had often been obliged to see such poems printed and highly lauded in our presence; and we found it highly offensive, that he who had sequestered the heathen gods from us, now wished to hammer together another ladder to parnassus out of greek and roman word-rungs. these oft-recurring expressions stamped themselves firmly on our memory; and in a merry hour, when we were eating some most excellent cakes in the kitchen-gardens (/kohlgärten/), it all at once struck me to put together these words of might and power, in a poem on the cake-baker hendel. no sooner thought than done! and let it stand here too, as it was written on the wall of the house with a lead-pencil. "o hendel, dessen ruhm vom /süd/ zum /norden/ reicht, vernimm den /päan/ der zu deinen ohren steigt. du bäckst was /gallien/ und /britten/ emsig suchen, mit /schöpfrischen genie, originelle/ kuchen. des kaffee's /ocean/, der sich vor dir ergiesst, ist süssev als der saft der vom /hymettus/ fliesst. dein haus ein /monument/, wie wir den künsten lohnen umhangen mit /trophän/, erzählt den /nationen/: auch ohne /diadem/ fand hendel hier sein glück und raubte dem /cothurn/ gar manch achtgroschenstück. glänzt deine /urn/ dereinst in majestäts'chen /pompe/, dann weint der /patriot/ an deinem /katacombe/. doch leb! dein /torus/ sey von edler brut ein /nest/, steh' hoch wie der /olymp/, wie der /parnassus/ fest! kein /phalanx/ griechenland mit römischen /ballisten/ vermög /germanien/ und hendel zu verwüsten. dein /wohl/ is unser /stolz/, dein /leiden/, unser /schmerz/, /und/ hendel's /tempel ist der musensöhne herz/." [footnote: the humor of the above consists, not in the thoughts, but in the particular words employed. these have no remarkable effect in english, as to us the words of latin origin are often as familiar as those which have teutonic roots; and these form the chief peculiarity of the style. we have therefore given the poem in the original language, with the peculiar words (as indicated by goethe) in italics, and subjoin a literal translation. it will be observed that we have said that the peculiarity consists /chiefly/, not /solely/, in the use of the foreign words; for there are two or three instances of unquestionably german words, which are italicized on account of their high-sounding pomp. "o hendel, whose fame extends from /south/ to /north/, hear the /paean/i> which ascends to thine ears! thou bakest that which /gauls/ and /britons/ industriously seek, (thou bakest) with /creative genius original/ cakes. the /ocean/ of coffee which pours itself out before thee is sweeter than the juice which flows from /hymettus/. thy house, a /monument/, how we reward the arts, hung round with /trophies/, tells the nations: 'even without a /diadem/, hendel formed his fortune here, and robbed the /cothurnus/ of many an eight-groschen-piece.' when thy /urn/ shines hereafter in majestic /pomp/, then will the /patriot/ weep at thy /catacomb/. but live! let /thy/ bed (/torus/) be the /nest/ of a noble brood, stand high as /olympus/, and firm as /parnassus/. may no /phalanx/ of greece with roman /ballistoe/ be able to destroy /germania/ and hendel. thy /weal/ is our /pride/, thy /woe/ our /pain/, and hendel's /temple/ is the /heart/ of the /sons of the muses/."-trans.] this poem had its place for a long time among many others which disfigured the walls of that room, without being noticed; and we, who had sufficiently amused ourselves with it, forgot it altogether amongst other things. a long time afterwards, clodius came out with his "medon," whose wisdom, magnanimity, and virtue we found infinitely ridiculous, much as the first representation of the piece was applauded. that evening, when we met together in the wine-house, i made a prologue in doggerel verse, in which harlequin steps out with two great sacks, places them on each side of the /proscenium/, and, after various preliminary jokes, tells the spectators in confidence, that in the two sacks moral aesthetic dust is to be found, which the actors will very frequently throw into their eyes. one, to wit, was filled with good deeds, that cost nothing; and the other with splendidly expressed opinions, that had no meaning behind them. he reluctantly withdrew, and sometimes came back, earnestly exhorted the spectators to attend to his warning and shut their eyes, reminded them that he had always been their friend, and meant well with them, with many more things of the kind. this prologue was acted in the room, on the spot, by friend horn: but the jest remained quite among ourselves, not even a copy had been taken; and the paper was soon lost. however, horn, who had performed the harlequin very prettily, took it into his head to enlarge my poem to hendel by several verses, and then to make it refer to "medon." he read it to us; but we could not take any pleasure in it, for we did not find the additions even ingenious: while the first poem, being written for quite a different purpose, seemed to us disfigured. our friend, displeased with our indifference, or rather censure, may have shown it to others, who found it new and amusing. copies were now made of it, to which the reputation of clodius's "medon" gave at once a rapid publicity. universal disapproval was the consequence, and the originators (it was soon found out that the poem had proceeded from our clique) were severely censured; for nothing of the sort had been seen since cronegk's and rost's attacks upon gottsched. we had besides already secluded ourselves, and now found ourselves quite in the case of the owl with respect to the other birds. in dresden, too, they did not like the affair; and it had for us serious, if not unpleasant, consequences. for some time, already, count lindenau had not been quite satisfied with his son's tutor. for although the young man was by no means neglected, and behrisch kept himself either in the chamber of the young count, or at least close to it, when the instructors gave their daily lessons, regularly frequented the lectures with him, never went out in the daytime without him, and accompanied him in all his walks, yet the rest of us were always to be found in apel's house, and joined them whenever they went on a pleasure ramble: this already excited some attention. behrisch, too, accustomed himself to our society, and at last, towards nine o'clock in the evenings, generally transferred his pupil into the hands of the /valet de chambre/, and went in quest of us to the wine-house, whither, however, he never used to come but in shoes and stockings, with his sword by his side, and commonly his hat under his arm. the jokes and fooleries, which he generally started, went on /ad infinitum/. thus, for instance, one of our friends had a habit of going away precisely at ten, because he had a connection with a pretty girl, with whom he could converse only at that hour. we did not like to lose him; and one evening, when we sat very happily together, behrisch secretly determined that he would not let him off this time. at the stroke of ten, the other arose and took leave. behrisch called after him, and begged him to wait a moment, as he was just going with him. he now began, in the most amusing manner, first to look after his sword, which stood just before his eyes, and in buckling it on behaved awkwardly, so that he could never accomplish it. he did this, too, so naturally, that no one took offence at it. but when, to vary the theme, he at last went farther, so that the sword came now on the right side, now between his legs, an universal laughter arose, in which the man in a hurry, who was like-wise a merry fellow, chimed in, and let behrisch have his own way till the happy hour was past, when, for the first time, there followed general pleasure and agreeable conversation till deep into the night. unfortunately behrisch, and we through him, had a certain other propensity for some girls who were better than their reputation,--by which our own reputation could not be improved. we had often been seen in their garden; and we directed our walks thither, even when the young count was with us. all this may have been treasured up, and at last communicated to his father: enough, he sought, in a gentlemanly manner, to get rid of the tutor, to whom the event proved fortunate. his good exterior, his knowledge and talents, his integrity, which no one could call in question, had won him the affection and esteem of distinguished persons, on whose recommendation he was appointed tutor to the hereditary prince of dessau, and at the court of a prince, excellent in every respect, found a solid happiness. the loss of a friend like behrisch was of the greatest consequence to me. he had spoiled while he cultivated me; and his presence was necessary, if the pains he had thought good to spend upon me were in any degree to bring forth fruit for society. he knew how to engage me in all kinds of pretty and agreeable things, in whatever was just appropriate, and to bring out my social talents. but as i had gained no self- dependence in such things, so when i was alone again i immediately relapsed into my confused and crabbed disposition, which always increased, the more discontented i was with those about me, since i fancied that they were not contented with me. with the most arbitrary caprice, i took offence at what i might have considered an advantage; thus alienated many with whom i had hitherto been on a tolerable footing; and on account of the many disagreeable consequences which i had drawn on myself and others, whether by doing or leaving undone, by doing too much or too little, was obliged to hear the remark from my well-wishers, that i lacked experience. the same thing was told me by every person of sound sense who saw my productions, especially when these referred to the external world. i observed this as well as i could, but found in it little that was edifying, and was still forced to add enough of my own to make it only tolerable. i had often pressed my friend behrisch, too, that he would make plain to me what was meant by experience? but, because he was full of nonsense, he put me off with fair words from one day to another, and at last, after great preparations, disclosed to me, that true experience was properly when one experiences how an experienced man must experience in experiencing his experience. now, when we scolded him outrageously, and called him to account for this, he assured us that a great mystery lay hidden behind these words, which we could not comprehend until we had experienced ...and so on without end,--for it cost him nothing to talk on in that way by the quarter of an hour,--since the experience would always become more experienced and at last come to true experience. when we were about to despair at such fooleries, he protested that he had learned this way of making himself intelligible and impressive from the latest and greatest authors, who had made us observe how one can rest a restful rest, and how silence, in being silent, can constantly become more silent. by chance an officer, who came among us on furlough, was praised in good company as a remarkable, sound-minded, and experienced man, who had fought through the seven years' war, and had gained universal confidence. it was not difficult for me to approach him, and we often went walking with each other. the idea of experience had almost become fixed in my brain, and the craving to make it clear to me passionate. being of a frank disposition, i disclosed to him the uneasiness in which i found myself. he smiled, and was kind enough to tell me, as an answer to my question, something of his own life, and generally of the world immediately about us; from which, indeed, little better was to be gathered than that experience convinces us that our best thoughts, wishes, and designs are unattainable, and that he who fosters such vagaries, and advances them with eagerness, is especially held to be an inexperienced man. yet, as he was a gallant, good fellow, he assured me that he had himself not quite given up these vagaries, and felt himself tolerably well off with the little faith, love, and hope which remained. he then felt obliged to tell me a great deal about war, about the sort of life in the field, about skirmishes and battles, especially so far as he had taken part in them; when these vast events, by being considered in relation to a single individual, gained a very marvellous aspect. i then led him on to an open narration of the late situation of the court, which seemed to me quite like a tale. i heard of the bodily strength of augustus the second, of his many children and his vast expenses, then of his successor's love of art and of making collections; of count brühl and his boundless love of magnificence, which in detail appeared almost absurd, of his numerous banquets and gorgeous amusements, which were all cut off by frederick's invasion of saxony. the royal castles now lay in ruins, brühl's splendors were annihilated, and, of the whole, a glorious land, much injured, alone remained. when he saw me astonished at that mad enjoyment of fortune, and then grieved by the calamity that followed, and informed me that one expects from an experienced man exactly this, that he shall be astonished at neither the one nor the other, nor take too lively an interest in them, i felt a great desire still to remain a while in the same inexperience as hitherto; in which desire he strengthened me, and very urgently entreated me, for the present at least, always to cling to agreeable experiences, and to try to avoid those that were disagreeable as much as possible, if they should intrude themselves upon me. but once, when the discussion was again about experience in general, and i related to him those ludicrous phrases of my friend behrisch, he shook his head, smiling, and said, "there, one sees how it is with words which are only once uttered! these sound so comical, nay, so silly, that it would seem almost impossible to put a rational meaning into them; and yet, perhaps, the attempt might be made." and, when i pressed him, he replied in his intelligent, cheerful manner, "if you will allow me, while commenting on and completing your friend's observations, to go on after his fashion, i think he meant to say, that experience is nothing else than that one experiences what one does not wish to experience; which is what it amounts to for the most part, at least in this world." eighth book. another man, although infinitely different from behrisch in every respect, might yet be compared with him in a certain sense: i mean oeser, who was also one of those men who dream away their lives in a comfortable state of being busy. his friends themselves secretly acknowledged, that, with very fine natural powers, he had not spent his younger years in sufficient activity; for which reason he never went so far as to practise his art with perfect technicality. yet a certain diligence appeared to be reserved for his old age; and, during the many years which i knew him, he never lacked invention or laboriousness. from the very first moment he had attracted me very much: even his residence, strange and portentous, was highly charming to me. in the old castle pleissenburg, at the right-hand corner, one ascended a repaired, cheerful, winding staircase. the saloons of the academy of design, of which he was director, were found to the left, and were light and roomy; but he himself could only be reached through a narrow, dark passage, at the end of which one first sought the entrance into his apartments, having just passed between the whole suite of them and an extensive granary. the first apartment was adorned with pictures from the later italian school, by masters whose grace he used highly to commend. as i, with some noblemen, had taken private lessons of him, we were permitted to draw here; and we often penetrated into his adjoining private cabinet, which contained at the same time his few books, collections of art and natural curiosities, and whatever else might have most interested him. every thing was arranged with taste, simply, and in such a manner that the little space held a great deal. the furniture, presses, and portfolios were elegant, without affection or superfluity. thus also the first thing which he recommended to us, and to which he always recurred, was simplicity in every thing that art and manual labor united are called upon to produce. being a sworn foe to the scroll-and- shell style, and of the whole taste for quaintness, he showed us in copper-plates and drawings old patterns of the sort contrasted with better decorations and simpler forms of furniture, as well as with other appurtenances of a room; and, because every thing about him corresponded with these maxims, his words and instructions made a good and lasting impression on us. besides this, he had an opportunity to let us see his opinions in practice; since he stood in good consideration, both with private and with official persons, and was asked for advice when there were new buildings and alterations. he seemed in general to be more fond of preparing things on occasion, for a certain end and use, than of undertaking and completing such as exist for themselves and require a greater perfection; he was therefore always ready and at hand when the publishers needed larger and smaller copper-plates for any work: thus the vignettes to winckelmann's first writings were etched by him. but he often made only very sketchy drawings, to which geyser knew very well how to adapt himself. his figures had throughout something general, not to say ideal. his women were pleasing and agreeable, his children /naive/ enough; only he could not succeed with the men, who, in his spirited but always cloudy, and at the same time foreshortening, manner, had for the most part the look of lazzaroni. since he designed his composition less with regard to form than to light, shade, and masses, the general effect was good; as indeed all that he did and produced was attended by a peculiar grace. as he at the same time neither could nor would control a deep-rooted propensity to the significant and the allegorical--to that which excites a secondary thought, so his works always furnished something to reflect upon, and were complete through a conception, even where they could not be so from art and execution. this bias, which is always dangerous, frequently led him to the very bounds of good taste, if not beyond them. he often sought to attain his views by the oddest notions and by whimsical jests; nay, his best works always have a touch of humor. if the public were not always satisfied with such things, he revenged himself by a new and even stranger drollery. thus he afterwards exhibited, in the ante-room of the great concert-hall, an ideal female figure, in his own style, who was raising a pair of snuffers to a taper; and he was extraordinarily delighted when he was able to cause a dispute on the question, whether this singular muse meant to snuff the light or to extinguish it? when he roguishly allowed all sorts of bantering by-thoughts to peep forth. but the building of the new theatre, in my time, made the greatest noise; in which his curtain, when it was still quite new, had certainly an uncommonly charming effect. oeser had taken the muses out of the clouds, upon which they usually hover on such occasions, and set them upon the earth. the statues of sophocles and aristophanes, around whom all the modern dramatic writers were assembled, adorned a vestibule to the temple of fame. here, too, the goddesses of the arts were likewise present; and all was dignified and beautiful. but now comes the oddity! through the open centre was seen the portal of the distant temple: and a man in a light jerkin was passing between the two above-mentioned groups, and, without troubling himself about them, directly up to the temple; he was seen from behind, and was not particularly distinguished. now, this man was to represent shakespeare, who without predecessors or followers, without concerning himself about models, went to meet immortality in his own way. this work was executed on the great floor over the new theatre. "we often assembled round him there, and in that place i read aloud to him the proof-sheets of "musarion." as to myself, i by no means advanced in the practice of the art. his instructions worked upon our mind and our taste; but his own drawing was too undefined to guide me, who had only glimmered along by the objects of art and of nature, to a severe and decided practice. of the faces and bodies he gave us rather the aspect than the forms, rather the postures than the proportions. he gave us the conceptions of the figures, and desired that we should impress them vividly upon our minds. that might have been beautifully and properly done, if he had not had mere beginners before him. if, on this account, a pre-eminent talent for instruction may be well denied him, it must, on the other hand, be acknowledged that he was very discreet and politic, and that a happy adroitness of mind qualified him very peculiarly for a teacher in a higher sense. the deficiencies under which each one labored he clearly saw; but he disdained to reprove them directly, and rather hinted his praise and censure indirectly and very laconically. one was now compelled to think over the matter, and soon came to a far deeper insight. tims, for instance, i had very carefully executed, after a pattern, a nosegay on blue paper, with white and black crayon, and partly with the stump, partly by hatching it up, had tried to give effect to the little picture. after i had been long laboring in this way, he once came behind me, and said, "more paper!" upon which he immediately withdrew. my neighbor and i puzzled our heads as to what this could mean; for my bouquet, on a large half-sheet, had plenty of space around it. after we had reflected a long while, we thought, at last, that we had hit his meaning, when we remarked, that, by working together the black and the white, i had quite covered up the blue ground, had destroyed the middle tint, and, in fact, with great industry, had produced a disagreeable drawing. as to the rest, he did not fail to instruct us in perspective, and in light and shade, sufficiently indeed, but always so that we had to exert and torment ourselves to find the application of the principles communicated. probably his view with regard to us who did not intend to become artists, was only to form the judgment and taste, and to make us acquainted with the requisites of a work of art, without precisely requiring that we should produce one. since, moreover, patient industry was not my talent, for nothing gave me pleasure except what came to me at once, so by degrees i became discouraged, if not lazy; and, as knowledge is more comfortable than doing, i was quite content to follow wherever he chose, after his own fashion, to lead us. at this time the "lives of the painters," by d'argenville, was translated into german: i obtained it quite fresh, and studied it assiduously enough. this seemed to please oeser; and he procured us an opportunity of seeing many a portfolio out of the great leipzig collections, and thus introduced us to the history of the art. but even these exercises produced in me an effect different from that which he probably had in mind. the manifold subjects which i saw treated by artists awakened the poetic talent in me: and, as one easily makes an engraving for a poem; so did i now make poems to the engravings and drawings, by contriving to present to myself the personages introduced in them, in their previous and subsequent condition, and sometimes to compose a little song which might have suited them; and thus accustomed myself to consider the arts in connection with each other. even the mistakes which i made, so that my poems were often descriptive, were useful to me in the sequel, when i came to more reflection, by making me attentive to the differences between the arts. of such little things many were in the collection which behrisch had arranged, but there is nothing left of them now. the atmosphere of art and taste in which oeser lived, and into which one was drawn, provided one visited him frequently, was the more and more worthy and delightful, because he was fond of remembering departed or absent persons, with whom he had been, or still continued to be, on good terms; for, if he had once given any one his esteem, he remained unalterable in his conduct towards him, and always showed himself equally friendly. after we had heard caylus pre-eminently extolled among the french, he made us also acquainted with germans of activity in this department. thus we learned that professor christ, as an amateur, a collector, a connoisseur, a fellow-laborer, had done good service for art, and had applied his learning to its true improvement. heinecken, on the contrary, could not be honorably mentioned, partly because he devoted himself too assiduously to the ever-childish beginnings of german art; which oeser little valued, partly because he had once treated winckelmann shabbily, which could never be forgiven him. our attention, however, was strongly drawn to the labors of lippert, since our instructor knew how to set forth his merits sufficiently. "for," he said, "although single statues and larger groups of sculpture remain the foundation and the summit of all knowledge of art, yet, either as originals or as casts, they are seldom to be seen; on the contrary, by lippert, a little world of gems is made known, in which the more comprehensible merit of the ancients, their happy invention, judicious composition, tasteful treatment, are made more striking and intelligible, while, from the great number of them, comparison is much more possible." while now we were busying ourselves with these as much as was allowed, winckelmann's lofty life of art in italy was pointed out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for oeser had a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into us. the problematical part of those little treatises, which are, besides, confused even from their irony, and from their referring to opinions and events altogether peculiar, we were, indeed, unable to decipher; but as oeser had great influence over us, and incessantly gave them out to us as the gospel of the beautiful, and still more of the tasteful and the pleasing, we found out the general sense, and fancied, that, with such interpretations, we should go on the more securely, as we regarded it no small happiness to draw from the same fountain from which winckelmann had allayed his earliest thirst. no greater good fortune can befall a city, than when several educated men, like-minded in what is good and right, live together in it. leipzig had this advantage, and enjoyed it the more peacefully, as so many differences of judgment had not yet manifested themselves. huber, a print collector and well-experienced connoisseur, had furthermore the gratefully acknowledged merit of having determined to make the worth of german literature known to the french; kreuchauf, an amateur with a practised eye, who, as the friend of the whole society of art, might regard all collections as his own; winkler, who much loved to share with others the intelligent delight he cherished for his treasures; many more who were added to the list,--all lived and labored with one feeling; and, often as i was permitted to be present when they examined works of art, i do not remember that a dispute ever arose. the school from which the artist had proceeded, the time in which he lived, the peculiar talent which nature had bestowed on him, and the degree of excellence to which he had brought it in his performances, were always fairly considered. there was no predilection for spiritual or temporal subjects, for landscape or for city views, for animate or inanimate: the question was always about the accordance with art. now, although from their situation, mode of thought, abilities, and opportunities, these amateurs and collectors inclined more to the dutch school, yet, while the eye was practised on the endless merits of the north-western artist, a look of reverential longing was always turned towards the south-east. and so the university, where i neglected the ends of both my family and myself, was to ground me in that in which i afterwards found the greatest satisfaction of my life: the impression of those localities, too, in which i received such important incitements, has always remained to me most dear and precious. the old pleissenburg; the rooms of the academy; but, above all, the abode of oeser; and no less the collections of winkler and richter,--i have always vividly present before me. but a young man, who, while older persons are conversing with each other on subjects already familiar to them, is instructed only incidentally, and for whom the most difficult part of the business--that of rightly arranging all--yet remains, must find himself in a very painful situation. i therefore, as well as others, looked about with longing for some new light, which was indeed to come to us from a man to whom we owed so much already. the mind can be highly delighted in two ways,--by perception and conception. but the former demands a worthy object, which is not always at hand, and a proportionate culture, which one does not immediately attain. conception, on the other hand, requires only susceptibility: it brings its subject-matter with it, and is itself the instrument of culture. hence that beam of light was most welcome to us which that most excellent thinker brought down to us through dark clouds. one must be a young man to render present to one's self the effect which lessing's "laocoön" produced upon us, by transporting us out of the region of scanty perceptions into the open fields of thought. the /ut pictura poesis/, so long misunderstood, was at once laid aside: the difference between plastic and speaking art [footnote: bildende und redende kunst." the expression "speaking art" is used to produce a corresponding antithesis, though "/belles-lettres/ would be the ordinary rendering.--trans.] was made clear; the summits of the two now appeared sundered, however near their bases might border on each other. the plastic artist was to keep himself within the bounds of the beautiful, if the artist of language, who cannot dispense with the significant in any kind, is permitted to ramble abroad beyond them. the former labors for the outer sense, which is satisfied only by the beautiful; the latter for the imagination, which may even reconcile itself to the ugly. all the consequences of this splendid thought were illumined to us as by a lightning-flash: all the criticism which had hitherto guided and judged was thrown away like a worn-out coat. we considered ourselves freed from all evil, and fancied we might venture to look down with some compassion upon the otherwise so splendid sixteenth century, when, in german sculptures and poems, they knew how to represent life only under the form of a fool hung with bells, death under the misformed shape of a rattling skeleton, and the necessary and accidental evils of the world under the image of the caricatured devil. what enchanted us most was the beauty of that thought, that the ancients had recognized death as the brother of sleep, and had represented them similar, even to confusion, as becomes menaechmi. here we could first do high honor to the triumph of the beautiful, and banish the ugly of every kind into the low sphere of the ridiculous within the realm of art, since it could not be utterly driven out of the world. the splendor of such leading and fundamental conceptions appears only to the mind upon which they exercise their infinite activity,--appears only to the age in which, after being longed for, they come forth at the right moment. then do those at whose disposal such nourishment is placed fondly occupy whole periods of their lives with it, and rejoice in a superabundant growth; while men are not wanting, meanwhile, who resist such an effect on the spot, nor others who afterwards haggle and cavil at its high meaning. but, as conception and perception mutually require each other, i could not long work up these new thoughts without an infinite desire arising within me to see important works of art, once and away, in great number. i therefore determined to visit dresden without delay. i was not in want of the necessary cash: but there were other difficulties to overcome, which i needlessly increased still further, through my whimsical disposition; for i kept my purpose a secret from every one, because i wished to contemplate the treasures of art there quite after my own way, and, as i thought, to allow no one to perplex me. besides this, so simple a matter became more complicated by still another eccentricity. we have weaknesses, both by birth and by education; and it may be questioned which of the two gives us the most trouble. willingly as i made myself familiar with all sorts of conditions, and many as had been my inducements to do so, an excessive aversion from all inns had nevertheless been instilled into me by my father. this feeling had taken firm root in him on his travels through italy, france, and germany. although he seldom spoke in images, and only called them to his aid when he was very cheerful, yet he used often to repeat that he always fancied he saw a great cobweb spun across the gate of an inn, so ingeniously that the insects could indeed fly in, but that even the privileged wasps could not fly out again unplucked. it seemed to him something horrible that one should be obliged to pay immoderately for renouncing one's habits and all that was dear to one in life, and living after the manner of publicans and waiters. he praised the hospitality of the olden time; and, reluctantly as he otherwise endured even any thing unusual in the house, he yet practised hospitality, especially towards artists and virtuosi. thus gossip seekatz always had his quarters with us; and abel, the last musician who handled the /viol di gamba/ with success and applause, was well received and entertained. with such youthful impressions, which nothing had as yet rubbed off, how could i have resolved to set foot in an inn in a strange city? nothing would have been easier than to find quarters with good friends. hofrath krebel, assessor hermann, and others, had often spoken to me about it already; but even to these my trip was to remain a secret, and i hit upon a most singular notion. my next-room neighbor, the industrious theologian, whose eyes unfortunately constantly grew weaker and weaker, had a relation in dresden, a shoemaker, with whom from time to time he corresponded. for a long while already this man had been highly remarkable to me on account of his expressions, and the arrival of one of his letters was always celebrated by us as a holiday. the mode in which he replied to the complaints of his cousin, who feared blindness, was quite peculiar: for he did not trouble himself about grounds of consolation, which are always hard to find; but the cheerful way in which he looked upon his own narrow, poor, toilsome life, the merriment which he drew, even from evils and inconveniences, the indestructible conviction that life is in itself and on its own account a blessing, communicated itself to him who read the letter, and, for the moment at least, transposed him into a like mood. enthusiastic as i was, i had often sent my compliments to this man, extolled his happy natural gift, and expressed the wish to become acquainted with him. all this being premised, nothing seemed to me more natural than to seek him out, to converse with him,--nay, to lodge with him, and to learn to know him intimately. my good candidate, after some opposition, gave me a letter, written with difficulty, to carry with me; and, full of longing, i went to dresden in the yellow coach, with my matriculation in my pocket. i went in search of my shoemaker, and soon found him in the suburb (/vorstadt/). he received me in a friendly manner, sitting upon his stool, and said, smiling, after he had read the letter, "i see from this, young sir, that you are a whimsical christian."--"how so, master?" i replied. "no offence meant by '/whimsical/,'" he continued: "one calls every one so who is not consistent with himself; and i call you a whimsical christian because you acknowledge yourself a follower of our lord in one thing, but not in another." on my requesting him to enlighten me, he said further, "it seems that your view is, to announce glad tidings to the poor and lowly; that is good, and this imitation of the lord is praiseworthy: but you should reflect, besides, that he rather sat down to table with prosperous rich folks, where there was good fare, and that he himself did not despise the sweet scent of the ointment, of which you will find the opposite in my house." this pleasant beginning put me at once in good humor, and we rallied each other for some time. his wife stood doubting how she should board and lodge such a guest. on this point, too, he had notions which referred, not only to the bible, but also to "gottfried's chronicle;" and when we were agreed that i was to stay, i gave my purse, such as it was, into the charge of my hostess, and requested her to furnish herself from it, if any thing should be necessary. when he would have declined it, and somewhat waggishly gave me to understand that he was not so burned out as he might appear, i disarmed him by saying, "even if it were only to change water into wine, such a well-tried domestic resource would not be out of place, since there are no more miracles nowadays." the hostess seemed to find my conduct less and less strange: we had soon accommodated ourselves to each other, and spent a very merry evening. he remained always the same, because all flowed from one source. his peculiarity was an apt common sense, which rested upon a cheerful disposition, and took delight in uniform habitual activity. that he should labor incessantly was his first and most necessary care; that he regarded every thing else as secondary,--this kept up his comfortable state of mind; and i must reckon him before many others in the class of those who are called practical unconscious philosophers. [footnote: "pratische philosophen, bewusstlose weltweisen." it is impossible to give two substantives, as in the original, since this is effected by using first the word of greek, then the word of german origin, whereas we have but one.--trans.] the hour when the gallery was to be opened appeared, after having been expected with impatience. i entered into this sanctuary, and my astonishment surpassed every conception which i had formed. this room, returning into itself, in which splendor and neatness reigned together with the deepest stillness; the dazzling frames, all nearer to the time in which they had been gilded; the floor polished with bees'-wax; the spaces more trodden by spectators than used by copyists,--imparted a feeling of solemnity, unique of its kind, which so much the more resembled the sensation with which one treads a church, as the adornments of so many a temple, the objects of so much adoration, seemed here again set up only for the sacred purposes of art. i readily put up with the cursory description of my guide, only i requested that i might be allowed to remain in the outer gallery. here, to my comfort, i felt really at home. i had already seen the works of several artists, others i knew from engravings, others by name. i did not conceal this, and i thus inspired my conductor with some confidence: nay, the rapture which i expressed at pieces where the pencil had gained the victory over nature delighted him; for such were the things which principally attracted me, where the comparison with known nature must necessarily enhance the value of art. when i again entered my shoemaker's house for dinner, i scarcely believed my eyes; for i fancied i saw before me a picture by ostade, so perfect that all it needed was to be hung up in the gallery. the position of the objects, the light, the shadow, the brownish tint of the whole, the magical harmony,--every thing that one admires in those pictures, i here saw in reality. it was the first time that i perceived, in so high a degree, the faculty which i afterwards exercised with more consciousness; namely, that of seeing nature with the eyes of this or that artist, to whose works i had devoted a particular attention. this faculty has afforded me much enjoyment, but has also increased the desire zealously to abandon myself, from time to time, to the exercise of a talent which nature seemed to have denied me. i visited the gallery at all permitted hours, and continued to express too loudly the ecstasy with which i beheld many precious works. i thus frustrated my laudable purpose of remaining unknown and unnoticed; and whereas only one of the unclerkeepers had hitherto had intercourse with me, the gallery-inspector, counsellor riedel, now also took notice of me, and called my attention to many things which seemed chiefly to lie within my sphere. i found this excellent man just as active and obliging then, as when i afterwards saw him during many years, and as he shows himself to this day. his image has, for me, interwoven itself so closely with those treasures of art, that i can never regard the two apart: the remembrance of him has even accompanied me to italy, where, in many large and rich collections, his presence would have been very desirable. since, even with strangers and unknown persons, one cannot gaze on such works silently and without mutual sympathy,--nay, since the first sight of them is rather adapted, in the highest degree, to open hearts towards each other, i there got into conversation with a young man who seemed to be residing at dresden, and to belong to some embassy. he invited me to come in the evening to an inn where a lively company met, and where, by each one's paying a moderate reckoning, one could pass some very pleasant hours. i repaired thither, but did not find the company; and the waiter somewhat surprised me when he delivered the compliments of the gentleman who made the appointment with me, by which the latter sent an excuse for coming somewhat later, with the addition that i must not take offence at any thing that might occur; also, that i should have nothing to pay beyond my own score. i knew not what to make of these words: my father's cobwebs came into my head, and i composed myself to await whatever might befall. the company assembled; my acquaintance introduced me; and i could not be attentive long, without discovering that they were aiming at the mystification of a young man, who showed himself a novice by an obstreperous, assuming deportment: i therefore kept very much on my guard, so that they might not find delight in selecting me as his fellow. at table this intention became more apparent to everybody, except to himself. they drank more and more deeply: and, when a vivat in honor of sweethearts was started, every one solemnly swore that there should never be another out of those glasses; they flung them behind them, and this was the signal for far greater follies. at last i withdrew very quietly; and the waiter, while demanding quite a moderate amount, requested me to come again, as they did not go on so wildly every evening. i was far from my lodgings, and it was near midnight when i reached them. i found the doors unlocked; everybody was in bed; and one lamp illuminated the narrow domestic household, where my eye, more and more practised, immediately perceived the finest picture by schalken, from which i could not tear myself away, so that it banished from me all sleep. the few days of my residence in dresden were solely devoted to the picture-gallery. the antiquities still stood in the pavilion of the great garden; but i declined seeing them, as well as all the other precious things which dresden contained, being but too full of the conviction, that, even in and about the collection of paintings, much must yet remain hidden from me. thus i took the excellence of the italian masters more on trust and in faith, than by pretending to any insight into them. what i could not look upon as nature, put in the place of nature, and compare with a known object, was without effect upon me. it is the material impression which makes the beginning even to every more elevated taste. with my shoemaker i lived on very good terms. he was witty and varied enough, and we often outvied each other in merry conceits: nevertheless, a man who thinks himself happy, and desires others to do the same, makes us discontented; indeed, the repetition of such sentiments produces weariness. i found myself well occupied, entertained, excited, but by no means happy; and the shoes from his last would not fit me. we parted, however, as the best friends; and even my hostess, on my departure, was not dissatisfied with me. shortly before my departure, something else very pleasant was to happen. by the mediation of that young man, who wished to somewhat regain his credit with me, i was introduced to the director von hagedorn, who, with great kindness, showed me his collection, and was highly delighted with the enthusiasm of the young lover of art. he himself, as becomes a connoisseur, was quite peculiarly in love with the pictures which he possessed, and therefore seldom found in others an interest such as he wished. it gave him particular satisfaction that i was so excessively pleased with a picture by schwanefeld, and that i was not tired of praising and extolling it in every single part; for landscapes, which again reminded me of the beautiful clear sky under which i had grown up, of the vegetable luxuriance of those spots, and of whatever other favors a warmer climate offers to man, were just the things that most affected me in the imitation, while they awakened in me a longing remembrance. these delightful experiences, preparing both mind and sense for true art, were nevertheless interrupted and damped by one of the most melancholy sights,--by the destroyed and desolate condition of so many of the streets of dresden through which i took my way. the mohrenstrasse in ruins, and the church (/kreuzkirche/) of the cross, with its shattered tower, impressed themselves deeply upon me, and still stand like a gloomy spot in my imagination. from the cupola of the lady church (/frauenkirche/) i saw these pitiable ruins scattered about amid the beautiful order of the city. here the clerk commended to me the art of the architect, who had already fitted up church and cupola for so undesirable an event, and had built them bomb-proof. the good sacristan then pointed out to me the ruins on all sides, and said doubtfully and laconically, "/the enemy hath done this/!" at last, though very loath, i returned to leipzig, and found my friends, who were not used to such digressions in me, in great astonishment, busied with all sorts of conjectures as to what might be the import of my mysterious journey. when, upon this, i told them my story quite in order, they declared it was only a made-up tale, and sagaciously tried to get at the bottom of the riddle which i had been waggish enough to conceal under my shoemaker-lodgings. but, could they have looked into my heart, they would have discovered no waggery there; for the truth of that old proverb, "he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," had struck me with all its force: and the more i struggled to arrange and appropriate to myself what i had seen, the less i succeeded. i had at last to content myself with a silent after-operation. ordinary life carried me away again; and i at last felt myself quite comfortable when a friendly intercourse, improvement in branches of knowledge which were suitable for me, and a certain practice of the hand, engaged me in a manner less important, but more in accordance with my strength. very pleasant and wholesome for me was the connection i formed with the breitkopf family. bernhard christoph breitkopf, the proper founder of the family, who had come to leipzig as a poor journeyman printer, was yet living, and occupied the golden bear, a respectable house in the new newmarket, with gottsched as an inmate. the son, johann gottlob immanuel, had already been long married, and was the father of many children. they thought they could not spend a part of their considerable wealth better than in putting up, opposite the first house, a large new one, the silver bear, which they built higher and more extensive than the original house itself. just at the time of the building i became acquainted with the family. the eldest son, who might have been some years older than i, was a well-formed young man, devoted to music, and practised to play skilfully on both the piano and the violin. the second, a true, good soul, likewise musical, enlivened the concerts which were often got up, no less than his elder brother. they were both kindly disposed towards me, as well as their parents and sisters. i lent them a helping hand during the building up and the finishing, the furnishing and the moving in, and thus formed a conception of much that belongs to such an affair: i also had an opportunity of seeing oeser's instructions put in practice. in the new house, which i had thus seen erected, i was often a visitor. we had many pursuits in common; and the eldest son set some of my songs to music, which, when printed, bore his name, but not mine, and have been little known. i have selected the best, and inserted them among my other little poems. the father had invented or perfected musical type. he granted me the use of a fine library, which related principally to the origin and progress of printing; and thus i gained some knowledge in that department. i found there, moreover, good copper-plates, which exhibited antiquity, and advanced on this side also my studies, which were still further promoted by the circumstance that a considerable collection of casts had fallen into disorder in moving. i set them right again as well as i could, and in doing so was compelled to search lippert and other authorities. a physician, doctor reichel, likewise an inmate of the house, i consulted from time to time when i felt, if not sick, yet unwell; and thus we led together a quiet, pleasant life. i was now to enter into another sort of connection in this house; for the copper-plate engraver, stock, had moved into the attic. he was a native of nuremberg, a very industrious man, and, in his labors, precise and methodical. he also, like geyser, engraved, after oeser's designs, larger and smaller plates, which came more and more into vogue for novels and poems. he etched very neatly, so that his work came out of the aquafortis almost finished; and but little touching-up remained to be done with the graver, which he handled very well. he made an exact calculation how long a plate would occupy him, and nothing could call him off from his work if he had not completed the daily task he had set himself. thus he sat working by a broad table, by the great gable- window, in a very neat and orderly chamber, where his wife and two daughters afforded him a domestic society. of these last, one is happily married, and the other is an excellent artist: they have continued my friends all my life long. i now divided my time between the upper and lower stories, and attached myself much to the man, who, together with his persevering industry, possessed an excellent humor, and was good nature itself. the technical neatness of this branch of art charmed me, and i associated myself with him to execute something of the kind. my predilection was again directed towards landscape, which, while it amused me in my solitary walks, seemed in itself more attainable and more comprehensible for works of art than the human figure, which discouraged me. under his directions, therefore, i etched, after thiele and others, various landscapes, which, although executed by an unpractised hand, produced some effect, and were well received. the grounding (varnishing) of the plates, the putting in the high lights, the etching, and at last the biting with aquafortis, gave me variety of occupation; and i soon got so far that i could assist my master in many things. i did not lack the attention necessary for the biting, and i seldom failed in any thing; but i had not care enough in guarding against the deleterious vapors which are generated on such occasions, and these may have contributed to the maladies which afterwards troubled me for a long time. amidst such labors, lest any thing should be left untried, i often made wood-cuts also. i prepared various little printing-blocks after french patterns, and many of them were found fit for use. let me here make mention of some other men who resided in leipzig, or tarried there for a short time. weisse, the custom-house collector of the district, in his best years, cheerful, friendly, and obliging, was loved and esteemed by us. we would not, indeed, allow his theatrical pieces to be models throughout, but we suffered ourselves to be carried away by them; and his operas, set to music by hiller in an easy style, gave us much pleasure. schiebler, of hamburgh, pursued the same track; and his "lisuard and dariolette" was likewise favored by us. eschenburg, a handsome young man, but little older than we were, distinguished himself advantageously among the students. zachariä was pleased to spend some weeks with us, and, being introduced by his brother, dined every day with us at the same table. we rightly deemed it an honor to gratify our guest in return, by a, few extra dishes, a richer dessert, and choicer wine; for, as a tall, well-formed, comfortable man, he did not conceal his love of good eating. lessing came at a time when we had i know not what in our heads: it was our good pleasure to go nowhere on his account,--nay, even to avoid the places to which he came, probably because we thought ourselves too good to stand at a distance, and could make no pretension to obtain a closer intimacy with him. this momentary absurdity, which, however, is nothing rare in presuming and freakish youth, proved, indeed, its own punishment in the sequel; for i have never set eyes on that eminent man, who was most highly esteemed by me. notwithstanding all our efforts relative to art and antiquity, we each of us always had winckelmann before our eyes, whose ability was acknowledged in his country with enthusiasm. we read his writings diligently, and tried to make ourselves acquainted with the circumstances under which he had written the first of them. we found in them many views which seemed to have originated with oeser, even jests and whims after his fashion: and we did not rest until we had formed some general conception of the occasion on which these remarkable and sometimes so enigmatical writings had arisen, though we were not very accurate; for youth likes better to be excited than instructed, and it was not the last time that i was to be indebted to sibylline leaves for an important step in cultivation. it was then a fine period in literature, when eminent men were yet treated with respect; although the disputes of klotz and lessing's controversies already indicated that this epoch would soon close. winckelmann enjoyed an universal, unassailed reverence; and it is known how sensitive he was with regard to any thing public which did not seem commensurate with his deeply felt dignity. all the periodical publications joined in his praise, the better class of tourists came back from him instructed and enraptured, and the new views which he gave extended themselves over science and life. the prince of dessau had raised himself up to a similar degree of respect. young, well and nobly minded, he had on his travels and at other times shown himself truly desirable. winckelmann was in the highest degree delighted with him, and, whenever he mentioned him, loaded him with the handsomest epithets. the laying out of a park, then unique, the taste for architecture, which von erdmannsdorf supported by his activity, every thing spoke in favor of a prince, who, while he was a shining example for the rest, gave promise of a golden age for his servants and subjects. we young people now learned with rejoicings that winckelmann would return back from italy, visit his princely friend, call on oeser by the way, and so come within our sphere of vision. we made no pretensions to speaking with him, but we hoped to see him; and, as at that time of life one willingly changes every occasion into a party of pleasure, we had already agreed upon a journey to dessau, where in a beautiful spot, made glorious by art, in a land well governed and at the same time externally adorned, we thought to lie in wait, now here, now there, in order to see with our own eyes these men so highly exalted above us walking about. oeser himself was quite elated if he only thought of it, and the news of winckelmann's death fell down into the midst of us like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. i still remember the place where i first heard it: it was in the court of the pleissenburg, not far from the little gate through which one used to go up to oeser's residence. one of my fellow- pupils met me, and told me that oeser was not to be seen, with the reason why. this monstrous event [footnote: winckelmann was assassinated.--trans.] produced a monstrous effect: there was an universal mourning and lamentation, and winckelmann's untimely death sharpened the attention paid to the value of his life. perhaps, indeed, the effect of his activity, if he had /continued/ it to a more advanced age, would probably not have been so great as it now necessarily became, when, like many other extraordinary men, he was distinguished by fate through a strange and calamitous end. now, while i was infinitely lamenting the death of winckelmann, i did not think that i should soon find myself in the case of being apprehensive about my own life; since, during all these events, my bodily condition had not taken the most favorable turn. i had already brought with me from home a certain touch of hypochondria, which, in this new sedentary and lounging life, was rather increased than diminished. the pain in my chest, which i had felt from time to time ever since the accident at auerstädt, and which after a fall from horseback had perceptibly increased, made me dejected. by an unfortunate diet i destroyed my powers of digestion; the heavy merseburg beer clouded my brain; coffee, which gave me a peculiarly melancholy tone, especially when taken with milk after dinner, paralyzed my bowels, and seemed completely to suspend their functions, so that i experienced great uneasiness on this account, yet without being able to embrace a resolution for a more rational mode of life. my natural disposition, supported by the sufficient strength of youth, fluctuated between the extremes of unrestrained gayety and melancholy discomfort. moreover, the epoch of cold-water bathing, which was unconditionally recommended, had then begun. one was to sleep on a hard bed, only slightly covered, by which all the usual perspiration was suppressed. these and other follies, in consequence of some misunderstood suggestions of rousseau, would, it was promised, bring us nearer to nature, and deliver us from the corruption of morals. now, all the above, without discrimination, applied with injudicious alternation, were felt by many most injuriously; and i irritated my happy organization to such a degree, that the particular systems contained within it necessarily broke out at last into a conspiracy and revolution, in order to save the whole. one night i awoke with a violent hemorrhage, and had just strength and presence of mind enough to waken my next-room neighbor. dr. reichel was called in, who assisted me in the most friendly manner; and thus for many days i wavered betwixt life and death: and even the joy of a subsequent improvement was embittered by the circumstance that, during that eruption, a tumor had formed on the left side of the neck, which, after the danger was past, they now first found time to notice. recovery is, however, always pleasing and delightful, even though it takes place slowly and painfully: and, since nature had helped herself with me, i appeared now to have become another man; for i had gained a greater cheerfulness of mind than i had known for a long time, and i was rejoiced to feel my inner self at liberty, although externally a wearisome affliction threatened me. but what particularly set me up at this time was, to see how many eminent men had, undeservedly, given me their affection. undeservedly, i say; for there was not one among them to whom i had not been troublesome through contradictory humors, not one whom i had not more than once wounded by morbid absurdity,--nay, whom i had not stubbornly avoided for a long time, from a feeling of my own injustice. all this was forgotten: they treated me in the most affectionate manner, and sought, partly in my chamber, partly as soon as i could leave it, to amuse and divert me. they drove out with me, entertained me at their country houses, and i seemed soon to recover. among these friends i name first of all docter hermann, then senator, afterwards burgomaster at leipzig. he was among those boarders with whom i had become acquainted through schlosser, the one with whom an always equable and enduring connection was maintained. one might well reckon him the most industrious of his academical fellow-citizens. he attended his lectures with the greatest regularity, and his private industry remained always the same. step by step, without the slightest deviation, i saw him attain his doctor's degree, and then raise himself to the assessorship, without any thing of all this appearing arduous to him, or his having in the least hurried or been too late with any thing. the gentleness of his character attracted me, his instructive conversation held me fast; indeed, i really believe that i took delight in his methodical industry especially for this reason, because i thought, by acknowledgments and high esteem, to appropriate to myself at least a part of a merit of which i could by no means boast. he was just as regular in the exercise of his talents and the enjoyment of his pleasures as in his business. he played the harpsichord with great skill, drew from nature with feeling, and stimulated me to do the same; when, in his manner, on gray paper and with black and white chalk, i used to copy many a willow-plot on the pleisse, and many a lovely nook of those still waters, and at the same time longingly to indulge in my fancies. he knew how to meet my sometimes comical disposition with merry jests; and i remember many pleasant hours which we spent together when he invited me, with mock solemnity, to a /tete-a-tete/ supper, where, with some dignity, by the light of waxen candles, we ate what they call a council-hare, which had run into his kitchen as a perquisite of his place, and, with many jokes in the manner of behrisch, were pleased to season the meat and heighten the spirit of the wine. that this excellent man, who is still constantly laboring in his respectable office, rendered me the most faithful assistance during a disease, of which there was indeed a foreboding, but which had not been foreseen in its full extent; that he bestowed every leisure hour upon me, and, by remembrances of former happy times, contrived to brighten the gloomy moment,---i still acknowledge with the sincerest thanks, and rejoice that after so long a time i can give them publicly. besides this worthy friend, groening of bremen particularly interested himself in me. i had made his acquaintance only a short time before, and first discovered his good feeling towards me during my misfortune: i felt the value of this favor the more warmly, as no one is apt to seek a closer connection with invalids. he spared nothing to give me pleasure, to draw me away from musing on my situation, to hold up to my view and promise me recovery and a wholesome activity in the nearest future. how often have i been delighted, in the progress of life, to hear how this excellent man has in the weightiest affairs shown himself useful, and indeed a blessing to his native city. here, too, it was that friend horn uninterruptedly brought into action his love and attention. the whole breitkopf household, the stock family, and many others, treated me like a near relative; and thus, through the good will of so many friendly persons, the feeling of my situation was soothed in the tenderest manner. i must here, however, make particular mention of a man with whom i first became acquainted at this time, and whose instructive conversation so far blinded me to the miserable state in which i was, that i actually forgot it. this was langer, afterwards librarian at wolfenbüttel. eminently learned and instructed, he was delighted at my voracious hunger after knowledge, which, with the irritability of sickness, now broke out into a perfect fever. he tried to calm me by perspicuous summaries; and i have been very much indebted to his acquaintance, short as it was, since he understood how to guide me in various ways, and made me attentive whither i had to direct myself at the present moment. i felt all the more obliged to this important man, as my intercourse exposed him to some danger; for when, after behrisch, he got the situation of tutor to the young count lindenau, the father made it an express condition with the new mentor that he should have no intercourse with me. curious to become acquainted with such a dangerous subject, he frequently found means of meeting me indirectly. i soon gained his affection; and he, more prudent than behrisch, called for me by night: we went walking together, conversed on interesting things, and at last i accompanied him to the very door of his mistress; for even this externally severe, earnest, scientific man had not kept free from the toils of a very amiable lady. german literature, and with it my own poetical undertakings, had already for some time become strange to me; and, as is usually the result in such an auto-didactic circular course, i turned back towards the beloved ancients who still constantly, like distant blue mountains, distinct in their outlines and masses, but indiscernible in their parts and internal relations, bounded the horizon of my intellectual wishes. i made an exchange with langer, in which i at last played the part of glaucus and diomedes: i gave up to him whole baskets of german poets and critics, and received in return a number of greek authors, the reading of whom was to give me recreation, even during the most tedious convalescence. the confidence which new friends repose in each other usually develops itself by degrees. common occupation and tastes are the first things in which a mutual harmony shows itself; then the mutual communication generally extends over past and present passions, especially over love- affairs: but it is a lower depth which opens itself, if the connection is to be perfected; the religious sentiments, the affairs of the heart which relate to the imperishable, are the things which both establish the foundation and adorn the summit of a friendship. the christian religion was fluctuating between its own historically positive base and a pure deism, which, grounded on morality, was in its turn to lay the foundation of ethics. the diversity of characters and modes of thought here showed itself in infinite gradations, especially when a leading difference was brought into play by the question arising as to how great a share reason, and how great a share the feelings, could and should have in such convictions. the most lively and ingenious men showed themselves, in this instance, like butterflies, who, quite regardless of their caterpillar state, throw away the chrysalis veil in which they have grown up to their organic perfection. others, more honestly and modestly minded, might be compared to the flowers, which, although they unfold themselves to the most beautiful bloom, yet do not tear themselves from the root, from the mother stalk, nay,--rather through this family connection first bring the desired fruit to maturity. of this latter class was langer; for although a learned man, and eminently versed in books, he would yet give the bible a peculiar pre-eminence over the other writings which have come down to us, and regard it as a document from which alone we could prove our moral and spiritual pedigree. he belonged to those who cannot conceive an immediate connection with the great god of the universe: a mediation, therefore, was necessary for him, an analogy to which he thought he could find everywhere in earthly and heavenly things. his discourse, which was pleasing and consistent, easily found a hearing with a young man, who, separated from worldly things by an annoying illness, found it highly desirable to turn the activity of his mind towards the heavenly. grounded as i was in the bible, all that was wanted was merely the faith to explain as divine that which i had hitherto esteemed in human fashion,---a belief the easier for me, since i had made my first acquaintance with that book as a divine one. to a sufferer, to one who felt himself delicate, nay, weak, the gospel was therefore welcome; and even though langer, with all his faith, was at the same time a very sensible man, and firmly maintained that one should not let the feelings prevail, should not let one's self be led astray into mysticism, i could not have managed to occupy myself with the new testament without feeling and enthusiasm. in such conversations we spent much time; and he grew so fond of me as an honest and well-prepared proselyte, that he did not scruple to sacrifice to me many of the hours destined for his fair one, and even to run the risk of being betrayed and looked upon unfavorably by his patron, like behrisch. i returned his affection in the most grateful manner; and, if what he did for me would have been of value at any time, i could not but regard it, in my present condition, as worthy of the highest honor. but as when the concert of our souls is most spiritually attuned, the rude, shrieking tones of the world usually break in most violently and boisterously, and the contrast which has gone on exercising a secret control affects us so much the more sensibly when it comes forward all at once: thus was i not to be dismissed from the peripatetic school of my langer without having first witnessed an event, strange at least for leipzig; namely, a tumult which the students excited, and that on the following pretence. some young people had quarrelled with the city soldiers, and the affair had not gone off without violence. many of the students combined to revenge the injuries inflicted. the soldiers resisted stubbornly, and the advantage was not on the side of the very discontented academical citizens. it was now said that respectable persons had commended and rewarded the conquerors for their valiant resistance; and, by this, the youthful feeling of honor and revenge was mightily excited. it was publicly said, that, on the next evening, windows would be broken in: and some friends who brought me word that this was actually taking place, were obliged to carry me there; for youth and the multitude are always attracted by danger and tumult. there really began a strange spectacle. the otherwise open street was lined on one side with men who, quite quiet, without noise or movement, were waiting to see what would happen. about a dozen young fellows were walking singly up and down the empty sidewalk, with the greatest apparent composure; but, as soon as they came opposite the marked house, they threw stones at the windows as they passed by, and this repeatedly as they returned backwards and forwards, as long as the panes would rattle. just as quietly as this was done, all at last dispersed; and the affair had no further consequences. with such a ringing echo of university exploits, i left leipzig in the september of , in a comfortable hired coach, and in the company of some respectable persons of my acquaintance. in the neighborhood of auerstädt i thought of that previous accident; but i could not forebode that which many years afterwards would threaten me from thence with still greater danger, just as little as in gotha, where we had the castle shown to us, i could think in the great hall adorned with stucco figures, that so much favor and affection would befall me on that very spot. the nearer i approached my native city, the more i recalled to myself doubtingly the circumstances, prospects, and hopes with which i had left home; and it was with a very disheartening feeling that i now returned, as it were, like one shipwrecked. yet, since i had not very much with which to reproach myself, i contrived to compose myself tolerably well: however, the welcome was not without emotion. the great vivacity of my nature, excited and heightened by sickness, caused an impassioned scene. i might have looked worse than i myself knew, since for a long time i had not consulted a looking-glass; and who does not become used to himself? suffice it to say, they silently resolved to communicate many things to me only by degrees, and before all things to let me have some repose, both bodily and mental. my sister immediately associated herself with me, and as previously, from her letters, so i could now more in detail and accurately understand the circumstances and situation of the family. my father had, after my departure, applied all his didactic taste to my sister; and in a house completely shut up, rendered secure by peace, and even cleared of lodgers, he had cut off from her almost every means of looking about and finding some recreation abroad. she had by turns to pursue and work at french, italian, and english; besides which he compelled her to practise a great part of the day on the harpsichord. nor was her writing to be neglected; and i had already remarked that he had directed her correspondence with me, and had let his doctrines come to me through her pen. my sister was and still continued to be an undefinable being, the most singular mixture of strength and weakness, of stubbornness and pliability, which qualities operated now united, now isolated by will and inclination. thus she had, in a manner which seemed to me fearful, turned the hardness of her character against her father, whom she did not forgive for having, in these three years, hindered, or embittered to her, so many innocent joys; and of his good and excellent qualities she would not acknowledge even one. she did all he commanded and arranged, but in the most unamiable manner in the world. she did it in the established routine, but nothing more and nothing less. not from love or a desire to please did she accommodate herself to any thing, so that this was one of the first things about which my mother complained to me in private. but, since love was as essential to my sister as to any human being, she turned her affection wholly on me. her care in nursing and entertaining me absorbed all her time: her female companions, who were swayed by her without her intending it, had likewise to contrive all sorts of things to be pleasing and consolatory to me. she was inventive in cheering me up, and even developed some germs of comical humor which i had never known in her, and which became her very well. there soon arose between us a coterie-language, by which we could converse before all people without their understanding us; and she often used this gibberish with great pertness in the presence of our parents. my father was personally tolerably comfortable. he was in good health, spent a great part of the day in the instruction of my sister, went on with the description of his travels, and was longer in tuning his lute than in playing on it. he concealed at the same time, as well as he could, his vexation at finding, instead of a vigorous, active son, who ought now to take his degree and run through the prescribed course of life, an invalid who seemed to suffer still more in soul than in body. he did not conceal his wish that they would be expeditious with my cure; but one was forced to be specially on one's guard in his presence against hypochondriacal expressions, because he could then become passionate and bitter. my mother, by nature very lively and cheerful, spent under these circumstances very tedious days. her little housekeeping was soon provided for. the good woman's mind, inwardly never unoccupied, wished to find an interest in something; and that which was nearest at hand was religion, which she embraced the more fondly as her most eminent female friends were cultivated and hearty worshippers of god. at the head of these stood fräulein von klettenberg. she is the same person from whose conversations and letters arose the "confessions of a beautiful soul," which are found inserted in "wilhelm meister." she was slenderly formed, of the middle size: a hearty natural demeanor had been made still more pleasing by the manners of the world and the court. her very neat attire reminded of the dress of the hernhutt women. her serenity and peace of mind never left her; she looked upon her sickness as a necessary element of her transient earthly existence; she suffered with the greatest patience, and, in painless intervals, was lively and talkative. her favorite, nay, indeed, perhaps her only, conversation, was on the moral experiences which a man who observes himself can form in himself; to which was added the religious views which, in a very graceful manner, nay, with genius, came under her consideration as natural and supernatural. it scarcely needs more to recall back to the friends of such representations, that complete delineation composed from the very depths of her soul. owing to the very peculiar course she had taken from her youth upwards, the distinguished rank in which she had been born and educated, and the liveliness and originality of her mind, she did not agree very well with the other ladies who had set out on the same road to salvation. frau griesbach, the chief of them, seemed too severe, too dry, too learned: she knew, thought, comprehended, more than the others, who contented themselves with the development of their feelings; and she was therefore burdensome to them, because every one neither could nor would carry with her so great an apparatus on the road to bliss. but for this reason most of them were indeed somewhat monotonous, since they confined themselves to a certain terminology which might well have been compared to that of the later sentimentalists. fräulein von klettenberg guided her way between both extremes, and seemed, with some self- complacency, to see her own reflections in the image of count zindendorf, whose opinions and actions bore witness to a higher birth and more distinguished rank. now she found in me what she needed, a lively young creature, striving after an unknown happiness, who, although he could not think himself an extraordinary sinner, yet found himself in no comfortable condition, and was perfectly healthy neither in body nor soul. she was delighted with what nature had given me, as well as with much which i had gained for myself. and, if she conceded to me many advantages, this was by no means humiliating to her: for, in the first place, she never thought of emulating one of the male sex; and, secondly, she believed, that, in regard to religious culture, she was very much in advance of me. my disquiet, my impatience, my striving, my seeking, investigating, musing, and wavering, she interpreted in her own way, and did not conceal from me her conviction, but assured me in plain terms that all this proceeded from my having no reconciled god. now, i had believed from my youth upwards that i stood on very good terms with my god,--nay, i even fancied to myself, according to various experiences, that he might even be in arrears to me; and i was daring enough to think that i had something to forgive him. this presumption was grounded on my infinite good will, to which, as it seemed to me, he should have given better assistance. it may be imagined how often i got into disputes on this subject with my friend, which, however, always terminated in the friendliest way, and often, like my conversations with the old rector, with the remark, "that i was a foolish fellow, for whom many allowances must be made." i was much troubled with the tumor in my neck, as the physician and surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time i had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day. the physician and surgeon both belonged to the pious separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters. the surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy and skilful hand, was unfortunately somewhat hectic, but endured his condition with truly christian patience, and did not suffer his disease to perplex him in his profession. the physician was an inexplicable, sly-looking, fair-spoken, and, besides, an abstruse, man, who had quite won the confidence of the pious circle. being active and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could speak, since with us the physicians were strictly prohibited from making up their own prescriptions. with certain powders, which may have been some kind of digestive, he was not so reserved, but that powerful salt, which could only be applied in the greatest danger, was only mentioned among believers; although no one had yet seen it or traced its effects. to excite and strengthen our faith in the possibility of such an universal remedy, the physician, wherever he found any susceptibility, had recommended certain chemico-alchemical books to his patients, and given them to understand, that, by one's own study of them, one could well attain this treasure for one's self, which was the more necessary, as the mode of its preparation, both for physical, and especially for moral, reasons, could not be well communicated; nay, that in order to comprehend, produce, and use this great work, one must know the secrets of nature in connection, since it was not a particular, but an universal remedy, and could indeed be produced under different forms and shapes. my friend had listened to these enticing words. the health of the body was too nearly allied to the health of the soul; and could a greater benefit, a greater mercy, be shown towards others than by appropriating to one's self a remedy by which so many sufferings could be assuaged, so many a danger averted? she had already secretly studied welling's "opus mago-cabalisticum," for which, however, as the author himself immediately darkens and removes the light he imparts, she was looking about for a friend, who, in this alternation of glare and gloom, might bear her company. it needed small incitement to inoculate me also with this disease. i procured the work, which, like all writings of this kind, could trace its pedigree in a direct line up to the neo-platonic school. my chief labor in this book was most accurately to notice the obscure hints by which the author refers from one passage to another, and thus promises to reveal what he conceals, and to mark down on the terminology which might well have been compared to that of the later sentimentalists. fräulein von klettenberg guided her way between both extremes, and seemed, with some self-complacency, to see her own reflections in the image of count zindendorf, whose opinions and actions bore witness to a higher birth and more distinguished rank. now she found in me what she needed, a lively young creature, striving after an unknown happiness, who, although he could not think himself an extraordinary sinner, yet found himself in no comfortable condition, and was perfectly healthy neither in body nor soul. she was delighted with what nature had given me, as well as with much which i had gained for myself. and, if she conceded to me many advantages, this was by no means humiliating to her: for, in the first place, she never thought of emulating one of the male sex; and, secondly, she believed, that, in regard to religious culture, she was very much in advance of me. my disquiet, my impatience, my striving, my seeking, investigating, musing, and wavering, she interpreted in her own way, and did not conceal from me her conviction, but assured me in plain terms that all this proceeded from my having no reconciled god. now, i had believed from my youth upwards that i stood on very good terms with my god,--nay, i even fancied to myself, according to various experiences, that he might even be in arrears to me; and i was daring enough to think that i had something to forgive him. this presumption was grounded on my infinite good will, to which, as it seemed to me, he should have given better assistance. it may be imagined how often i got into disputes on this subject with my friend, which, however, always terminated in the friendliest way, and often, like my conversations with the old rector, with the remark, "that i was a foolish fellow, for whom many allowances must be made." i was much troubled with the tumor in my neck, as the physician and surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time i had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day. the physician and surgeon both belonged to the pious separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters. the surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy and skilful hand, was unfortunately somewhat hectic, but endured his condition with truly christian patience, and did not suffer his disease to perplex him in his profession. the physician was an inexplicable, sly-looking, fair-spoken, and, besides, an abstruse, man, who had quite won the confidence of the pious circle. being active and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could speak, since with us the physicians were strictly prohibited from making up their own prescriptions. with certain powders, which may have been some kind of digestive, he was not so reserved, but that powerful salt, which could only be applied in the greatest danger, was only mentioned among believers; although no one had yet seen it or traced its effects. to excite and strengthen our faith in the possibility of such an universal remedy, the physician, wherever he found any susceptibility, had recommended certain chemico-alchemical books to his patients, and given them to understand, that, by one's own study of them, one could well attain this treasure for one's self, which was the more necessary, as the mode of its preparation, both for physical, and especially for moral, reasons, could not be well communicated; nay, that in order to comprehend, produce, and use this great work, one must know the secrets of nature in connection, since it was not a particular, but an universal remedy, and could indeed be produced under different forms and shapes. my friend had listened to these enticing words. the health of the body was too nearly allied to the health of the soul; and could a greater benefit, a greater mercy, be shown towards others than by appropriating to one's self a remedy by which so many sufferings could be assuaged, so many a danger averted? she had already secretly studied welling's "opus mago-cabalisticum," for which, however, as the author himself immediately darkens and removes the light he imparts, she was looking about for a friend, who, in this alternation of glare and gloom, might bear her company. it needed small incitement to inoculate me also with this disease. i procured the work, which, like all writings of this kind, could trace its pedigree in a direct line up to the neo-platonic school. my chief labor in this book was most accurately to notice the obscure hints by which the author refers from one passage to another, and thus promises to reveal what he conceals, and to mark down on the margin the number of the page where such passages as should explain each other were to be found. but even thus the book still remained dark and unintelligible enough, except that one at last studied one's self into a certain terminology, and, by using it according to one's own fancy, believed that one was, at any rate, saying, if not understanding, something. the work mentioned before makes very honorable mention of its predecessors, and we were incited to investigate those original sources themselves. we turned to the works of theophrastus, paracelsus, and basilius valentinus, as well as to those of helmont, starkey, and others, whose doctrines and directions, resting more or less on nature and imagination, we endeavored to see into and follow out. i was particularly pleased with the "aurea catena homeri," in which nature, though perhaps in fantastical fashion, is represented in a beautiful combination; and thus sometimes by ourselves, sometimes together, we employed much time on these singularities, and spent the evenings of a long winter--during which i was compelled to keep my chamber--very agreeably, since we three (my mother being included) were more delighted with these secrets than we could have been at their elucidation. in the mean time, a very severe trial was preparing for me: for a disturbed, and, one might even say, for certain moments, destroyed digestion, excited such symptoms, that, in great tribulation, i thought i should lose my life; and none of the remedies applied would produce any further effect. in this last extremity my distressed mother constrained the embarrassed physician with the greatest vehemence to come out with his universal medicine. after a long refusal, he hastened home at the dead of night, and returned with a little glass of crystallized dry salt, which was dissolved in water, and swallowed by the patient. it had a decidedly alkaline taste. the salt was scarcely taken than my situation appeared relieved; and from that moment the disease took a turn which, by degrees, led to my recovery. i need not say how much this strengthened and heightened our faith in our physician, and our industry to share in such a treasure. my friend, who, without parents or brothers and sisters, lived in a large, well-situated house, had already before this begun to purchase herself a little air-furnace, alembics, and retorts of moderate size, and, in accordance with the hints of welling, and the significant signs of our physician and master, operated principally on iron, in which the most healing powers were said to be concealed, if one only knew how to open it. and as the volatile salt which must be produced made a great figure in all the writings with which we were acquainted; so, for these operations, alkalies also were required, which, while they flowed away into the air, were to unite with these superterrestrial things, and at last produce, /per se/, a mysterious and excellent neutral salt. no sooner was i in some measure restored, and, favored by the change in the season, once more able to occupy my old gable-chamber, than i also began to provide myself with a little apparatus. a small air-furnace with a sand-bath was prepared; and i very soon learned to change the glass alembics, with a piece of burning match-cord, into vessels in which the different mixtures were to be evaporated. now were the strange ingredients of the macrocosm and microcosm handled in an odd, mysterious manner; and, before all, i attempted to produce neutral salts in an unheard-of way. but what, for a long time, kept me busy most, was the so-called /liquor silicum/ (flint-juice), which is made by melting down pure quartz-flint with a proper proportion of alkali, whence results a transparent glass, which melts away on exposure to the air, and exhibits a beautiful clear fluidity. whoever has once prepared this himself, and seen it with his own eyes, will not blame those who believe in a maiden earth, and in the possibility of producing further effects upon it by means of it. i had become quite skilful in preparing this /liquor silicum/; the fine white flints which are found in the main furnished a perfect material for it: and i was not wanting in the other requisites, nor in diligence. but i wearied at last, because i could not but remark that the flinty substance was by no means so closely combined with the salt as i had philosophically imagined, for it very easily separated itself again; and this most beautiful mineral fluidity, which, to my greatest astonishment, had sometimes appeared in the form of an animal jelly, always deposited a powder, which i was forced to pronounce the finest flint dust, but which gave not the least sign of any thing productive in its nature from which one could have hoped to see this maiden earth pass into the maternal state. strange and unconnected as these operations were, i yet learned many things from them. i paid strict attention to all the crystallizations that might occur, and became acquainted with the external forms of many natural things: and, inasmuch as i well knew that in modern times chemical subjects were treated more methodically, i wished to get a general conception of them; although, as a half-adept, i had very little respect for the apothecaries and all those who operated with common fire. however, the chemical "compendium" of boerhaave attracted me powerfully, and led me on to read several of his writings, in which (since, moreover, my tedious illness had inclined me towards medical subjects) i found an inducement to study also the "aphorisms" of this excellent man, which i was glad to stamp upon my mind and in my memory. another employment, somewhat more human, and by far more useful for my cultivation at the moment, was reading through the letters which i had written home from leipzig. nothing reveals more with respect to ourselves, than when we again see before us that which has proceeded from us years before, so that we can now consider ourselves as an object of contemplation. but, of course, i was as yet too young, and the epoch which was represented by those papers was still too near. as in our younger years we do not in general easily cast off a certain self- complacent conceit, this especially shows itself in despising what we have been but a little time before; for while, indeed, we perceive, as we advance from step to step, that those things which we regard as good and excellent in ourselves and others do not stand their ground, we think we can best extricate ourselves from this dilemma by ourselves throwing away what we cannot preserve. so it was with me also. for as in leipzig i had gradually learned to set little value on my childish labors, so now my academical course seemed to me likewise of small account; and i did not understand, that, for this very reason, it must be of great value to me, as it elevated me to a higher degree of observation and insight. my father had carefully collected and sewed together the letters i had written to him, as well as those to my sister; nay, he had even corrected them with attention, and improved the mistakes, both in writing and in grammar. what first struck me in these letters was their exterior: i was shocked at an incredible carelessness in the handwriting, which extended from october, , to the middle of the following january. but, in the middle of march, there appeared all at once a quite compressed, orderly hand, such as i used formerly to employ in writing for a prize. my astonishment resolved itself into gratitude towards good gellert, who, as i now well remembered, whenever we handed in our essays to him, represented to us, in his hearty tone of voice, that it was our sacred duty to practise our hand as much, nay, more, than our style. he repeated this as often as he caught sight of any scrawled, careless writing, on which occasion he often said that he would much like to make a good hand of his pupils the principal end in his instructions; the more so as he had often remarked that a good hand led the way to a good style. i could further notice that the french and english passages in my letters, although not free from blunders, were nevertheless written with facility and freedom. these languages i had likewise continued to practise in my correspondence with george schlosser, who was still at treptow; and i had remained in constant communication with him, by which i was instructed in many secular affairs (for things did not always turn out with him quite as he had hoped), and acquired an ever increasing confidence in his earnest, noble way of thinking. another consideration which could not escape me in going over these letters, was that my good father, with the best intentions, had done me a special mischief, and had led me into that odd way of life into which i had fallen at last. he had repeatedly warned me against card-playing; but frau hofrath böhme, as long as she lived, contrived to persuade me, after her own fashion, by declaring that my father's warnings were only against the abuse. now, as i likewise saw the advantages of it in society, i readily submitted to being led by her. i had indeed the sense of play, but not the spirit of play: i learned all games easily and rapidly, but i could never keep up the proper attention for a whole evening. therefore, however good a beginning i would make, i invariably failed at the end, and made myself and others lose; through which i went off, always out of humor, either to the supper-table or out of the company. scarcely had madame böhme died, who, moreover, had no longer kept me in practice during her tedious illness, when my father's doctrine gained force: i at first begged to be excused from joining the card-tables; and, as they now did not know what else to do with me, i became even more of a burden to myself than to others, and declined the invitations, which then became more rare, and at last ceased altogether. play, which is much to be recommended to young people, especially to those who incline to be practical, and wish to look about in the world for themselves, could never, indeed, become a passion with me; for i never got any farther, no matter how long i might have been playing. had any one given me a general view of the subject, and made me observe how here certain signs and more or less of chance form a kind of material, at which judgment and activity can exercise themselves; had any one made me see several games at once,--i might sooner have become reconciled. with all this, at the time of which i am now speaking, i had, from the above considerations, come to the conviction, that one should not avoid social games, but should rather strive after a certain skill in them. time is infinitely long; and each day is a vessel into which a great deal may be poured, if one would actually fill it up. thus variously was i occupied in my solitude; the more so, as the departed spirits of the different tastes to which i had from time to time devoted myself had an opportunity to re-appear. i then again took up drawing: and as i always wished to labor directly from nature, or rather from reality, i made a picture of my chamber, with its furniture, and the persons who were in it; and, when this no more amused me, i represented all sorts of town-tales, which were told at the time, and in which interest was taken. all this was not without character and a certain taste; but unfortunately the figures lacked proportion and the proper vigor, besides which the execution was extremely misty. my father, who continued to take pleasure in these things, wished to have them more distinct, wanting every thing to be finished and properly completed. he therefore had them mounted and surrounded with ruled lines; nay, the painter morgenstern, his domestic artist,--the same who afterwards made himself known, and indeed famous, by his church-views,-- had to insert the perspective lines of the rooms and chambers, which then, indeed, stood in pretty harsh contrast with those cloudy looking figures. in this manner he thought he would make me gain greater accuracy; and, to please him, i drew various objects of still life, in which, since the originals stood as patterns before me, i could work with more distinctness and precision. at last i took it into my head to etch once more. i had composed a tolerably interesting landscape, and felt myself very happy when i could look out for the old receipts given me by stock, and could, at my work, call to mind those pleasant times. i soon bit the plate and had a proof taken. unluckily the composition was without light and shade, and i now tormented myself to bring in both; but, as it was not quite clear to me what was really the essential point, i could not finish. up to this time i had been quite well, after my own fashion; but now a disease attacked me which had never troubled me before. my throat, namely, had become completely sore, and particularly what is called the "uvula" very much inflamed: i could only swallow with great pain, and the physicians did not know what to make of it. they tormented me with gargles and hair-pencils, but could not free me from my misery. at last it struck me that i had not been careful enough in the biting of my plates, and that, by often and passionately repeating it, i had contracted this disease, and always revived and increased it. to the physicians this cause was plausible, and very soon certain on my leaving my etching and biting, and that so much the more readily as the attempt had by no means turned out well, and i had more reason to conceal than to exhibit my labors; for which i consoled myself the more easily, as i very soon saw myself free from the troublesome disease. upon this i could not refrain from the reflection, that my similar occupations at leipzig might have greatly contributed to those diseases from which i had suffered so much. it is, indeed, a tedious, and withal a melancholy, business to take too much care of ourselves, and of what injures and benefits us; but there is no question but that, with the wonderful idiosyncrasy of human nature on the one side, and the infinite variety in the mode of life and pleasure on the other, it is a wonder that the human race has not worn itself out long ago. human nature appears to possess a peculiar kind of toughness and many- sidedness, since it subdues every thing which approaches it, or which it takes into itself, and, if it cannot assimilate, at least makes it indifferent. in case of any great excess, indeed, it must yield to the elements in spite of all resistance, as the many endemic diseases and the effects of brandy convince us. could we, without being morbidly anxious, keep watch over ourselves as to what operates favorably or unfavorably upon us in our complicated civil and social life, and would we leave off what is actually pleasant to us as an enjoyment, for the sake of the evil consequences, we should thus know how to remove with ease many an inconvenience which, with a constitution otherwise sound, often troubles us more than even a disease. unfortunately, it is in dietetics as in morals,--we cannot see into a fault till we have got rid of it; by which nothing is gained, for the next fault is not like the preceding one, and therefore cannot be recognized under the same form. while i was reading over the letters which had been written to my sister from leipzig, this remark, among others, could not escape me,--that, from the very beginning of my academical course, i had esteemed myself very clever and wise, since, as soon as i had learned any thing, i put myself in the place of the professor, and so became didactic on the spot. i was amused to see how i had immediately applied to my sister whatever gellert had imparted or advised in his lectures, without seeing, that, both in life and in books, a thing may be proper for a young man without being suitable for a young lady; and we both together made merry over these mimicries. the poems also which i had composed in leipzig were already too poor for me; and they seemed to me cold, dry, and, in respect of all that was meant to express the state of the human heart or mind, too superficial. this induced me, now that i was to leave my father's house once more, and go to a second university, again to decree a great high /auto-da-fé/ against my labors. several commenced plays, some of which had reached the third or the fourth act, while others had only the plot fully made out, together with many other poems, letters, and papers, were given over to the fire: and scarcely any thing was spared except the manuscript by behrisch, "die laune des verliebten" and "die mitschuldigen," which latter play i constantly went on improving with peculiar affection; and, as the piece was already complete, i again worked over the plot, to make it more bustling and intelligible. lessing, in the first two acts of his "minna," had set up an unattainable model of the way in which a drama should be developed; and nothing was to me of greater importance than to thoroughly enter into his meaning and views. the recital of whatever moved, excited, and occupied me at this time, is already circumstantial enough; but i must nevertheless recur to that interest with which supersensuous things had inspired me, of which i, once for all, so far as might be possible, undertook to form some notion. i experienced a great influence from an important work that fell into my hands: it was arnold's "history of the church and of heretics." this man is not merely a reflective historian, but at the same time pious and feeling. his sentiments chimed in very well with mine; and what particularly delighted me in his work was, that i received a more favorable notion of many heretics, who had been hitherto represented to me as mad or impious. the spirit of contradiction and the love of paradoxes are inherent in us all. i diligently studied the different opinions: and as i had often enough heard it said that every man has his own religion at last, so nothing seemed more natural to me than that i should form mine too; and this i did with much satisfaction. the neo- platonism lay at the foundation; the hermetical, the mystical, the cabalistic, also contributed their share; and thus i built for myself a world that looked strange enough. i could well represent to myself a godhead which has gone on producing itself from all eternity; but, as production cannot be conceived without multiplicity, so it must of necessity have immediately appeared to itself as a second, which we recognize under the name of the son: now, these two must continue the act of producing, and again appear to themselves in a third, which was just as substantial, living, and eternal as the whole. with these, however, the circle of the godhead was complete; and it would not have been possible for them to produce another perfectly equal to them. but, since the work of production always proceeded, they created a fourth, which already fostered in himself a contradiction, inasmuch as it was, like them, unlimited, and yet at the same time was to be contained in them and bounded by them. now, this was lucifer, to whom the whole power of creation was committed from this time, and from whom all other beings were to proceed. he immediately displayed his infinite activity by creating the whole body of angels,--all, again, after his own likeness, unlimited, but contained in him and bounded by him. surrounded by such a glory, he forgot his higher origin, and believed that he could find himself in himself; and from this first ingratitude sprang all that does not seem to us in accordance with the will and purposes of the godhead. now, the more he concentrated himself within himself, the more painful must it have become to him, as well as to all the spirits whose sweet uprising to their origin he had embittered. and so that happened which is intimated to us under the form of the fall of the angels. one part of them concentrated itself with lucifer, the other turned itself again to its origin. from this concentration of the whole creation--for it had proceeded out of lucifer, and was forced to follow him--sprang all that we perceive under the form of matter, which we figure to ourselves as heavy, solid, and dark, but which, since it is descended, if not even immediately, yet by filiation, from the divine being, is just as unlimited, powerful, and eternal as its sire and grandsire. now, the whole mischief, if we may call it so, having arisen merely through the one-sided direction of lucifer, the better half was indeed wanting to this creation; for it possessed all that is gained by concentration, while it lacked all that can be effected by expansion alone: and so the entire creation might have been destroyed by everlasting concentration, become annihilated with its father lucifer, and have lost all its claims to an equal eternity with the godhead. this condition the elohim contemplated for a time: and they had their choice, to wait for those eons, in which the field would again have become clear, and space would be left them for a new creation; or, if they would, to seize upon that which existed already, and supply the want, according to their own eternity. now, they chose the latter, and by their mere will supplied in an instant the whole want which the consequence of lucifer's undertaking drew after it. they gave to the eternal being the faculty of expansion, of moving towards them: the peculiar pulse of life was again restored, and lucifer himself could not avoid its effects. this is the epoch when that appeared which we know as light, and when that began which we are accustomed to designate by the word creation. however much this multiplied itself by progressive degrees, through the continually working vital power of the elohim, still a being was wanting who might be able to restore the original connection with the godhead: and thus man was produced, who in all things was to be similar, yea, equal to the godhead, but thereby, in effect, found himself once more in the situation of lucifer, that of being at once unlimited and limited; and since this contradiction was to manifest itself in him through all the categories of existence, and a perfect consciousness, as well as a decided will, was to accompany his various conditions, it was to be foreseen that he must be at the same time the most perfect and the most imperfect, the most happy and the most unhappy, creature. it was not long before he, too, completely acted the part of lucifer. true ingratitude is the separation from the benefactor; and thus that fall was manifest for the second time, although the whole creation is nothing and was nothing but a falling from and returning to the original. one easily sees how the redemption is not only decreed from eternity, but is considered as eternally necessary,--nay, that it must ever renew itself through the whole time of generation [footnote: "das werden," the state of becoming, as distinguished from that of being. the word, which is most useful to the germans, can never be rendered properly in english.--trans.] and existence. in this view of the subject, nothing is more natural than for the divinity himself to take the form of man, which had already prepared itself as a veil, and to share his fate for a short time, in order, by this assimilation, to enhance his joys and alleviate his sorrows. the history of all religions and philosophies teaches us, that this great truth, indispensable to man, has been handed down by different nations, in different times, in various ways, and even in strange fables and images, in accordance with their limited knowledge: enough, if it only be acknowledged that we find ourselves in a condition which, even if it seems to drag us down and oppress us, yet gives us opportunity, nay, even makes it our duty, to raise ourselves up, and to fulfil the purposes of the godhead in this manner, that, while we are compelled on the one hand to concentrate ourselves (/uns zu verselbsten/), we, on the other hand, do not omit to expand ourselves (/uns zu entselbstigen/) in regular pulsation. [footnote: if we could make use of some such verbs as "inself" and "unself," we should more accurately render this passage.--trans.] ninth book. "the heart is often affected, moreover, to the advantage of different, but especially of social and refined, virtues; and the more tender sentiments are excited and unfolded in it. many touches, in particular, will impress themselves, which give the young reader an insight into the more hidden corner of the human heart and its passions,--a knowledge which is more worth than all latin and greek, and of which ovid was a very excellent master. but yet it is not on this account that the classic poets, and therefore ovid, are placed in the hands of youth. we have received from a kind creator a variety of mental powers, to which we must not neglect giving their proper culture in our earliest years, and which cannot be cultivated, either by logic or metaphysics, latin or greek. we have an imagination, before which, since it should not seize upon the very first conceptions that chance to present themselves, we ought to place the fittest and most beautiful images, and thus accustom and practise the mind to recognize and love the beautiful everywhere, and in nature itself, under its determined, true, and also in its finer, features. a multitude of conceptions and general knowledge is necessary to us, as well for the sciences as for daily life, which can be learned out of no compendium. our feelings, affections, and passions should be advantageously developed and purified." this significant passage, which is found in "the universal german library," was not the only one of its kind. similar principles and similar views manifested themselves in many directions. they made upon us lively youths a very great impression, which had the more decided effect, as it was strengthened besides by wieland's example; for the works of his second brilliant period clearly showed that he had formed himself according to such maxims. and what more could we desire? philosophy, with its abstruse questions, was set aside; the classic languages, the acquisition of which is accompanied by so much drudgery, one saw thrust into the background; the compendiums, about the sufficiency of which hamlet had already whispered a word of caution into our ears, came more and more into suspicion. we were directed to the contemplation of an active life, which we were so fond of leading; and to the knowledge of the passions, which we partly felt, partly anticipated, in our own bosoms, and which, if though they had been rebuked formerly, now appeared to us as something important and dignified, because they were to be the chief object of our studies; and the knowledge of them was extolled as the most excellent means of cultivating our mental powers. besides, such a mode of thought was quite in accordance with my own conviction,--nay, with my poetical mode of treatment. i therefore, without opposition, after i had thwarted so many good designs, and seen so many fair hopes vanish, reconciled myself to my father's intention of sending me to strasburg, where i was promised a cheerful, gay life, while i should prosecute my studies, and at last take my degree. in spring i felt my health, but still more my youthful spirits, restored, and once more longed to be out of my father's house, though with reasons far different from those on the first time. the pretty chambers and spots where i had suffered so much had become disagreeable to me, and with my father himself there could be no pleasant relation. i could not quite pardon him for having manifested more impatience than was reasonable at the relapse of my disease, and at my tedious recovery; nay, for having, instead of comforting me by forbearance, frequently expressed himself in a cruel manner, about that which lay in no man's hand, as if it depended only on the will. and he, too, was in various ways hurt and offended by me. for young people bring back from the university general ideas, which, indeed, is quite right and good; but, because they fancy themselves very wise in this, they apply them as a standard to the objects that occur, which must then, for the most part, lose by the comparison. thus i had gained a general notion of architecture, and of the arrangement and decoration of houses, and imprudently, in conversation, had applied this to our own house. my father had designed the whole arrangement of it, and carried out its construction with great perseverance; and, considering that it was to be exclusively a residence for himself and his family, nothing could be objected to it: in this taste, also, very many of the houses in frankfort were built. an open staircase ran up through the house, and touched upon large ante-rooms, which might very well have been chambers themselves, as, indeed, we always passed the fine season in them. but this pleasant, cheerful existence for a single family--this communication from above to below--became the greatest inconvenience as soon as several parties occupied the house, as we had but too well experienced on the occasion of the french quartering. for that painful scene with the king's lieutenant would not have happened, nay, my father would even have felt all those disagreeable matters less, if, after the leipzig fashion, our staircase had run close along the side of the house, and a separate door had been given to each story. this style of building i once praised highly for its advantages, and showed my father the possibility of altering his staircase also; whereat he got into an incredible passion, which was the more violent as, a short time before, i had found fault with some scrolled looking-glass frames, and rejected certain chinese hangings. a scene ensued, which, indeed, was again hushed up and smothered; but it hastened my journey to the beautiful alsace, which i accomplished in a newly contrived comfortable diligence, without delay, and in a short time. i had alighted at the ghost (/geist/) tavern, and hastened at once to satisfy my most earnest desire and to approach the minster, which had long since been pointed out to me by fellow-travellers, and had been before my eyes for a great distance. when i first perceived this colossus through the narrow lanes, and then stood too near before it, in the truly confined little square, it made upon me an impression quite of its own kind, which i, being unable to analyze on the spot, carried with me only indistinctly for this time, as i hastily ascended the building, so as not to neglect the beautiful moment of a high and cheerful sun, which was to disclose to me at once the broad, rich land. and now, from the platform, i saw before me the beautiful country in which i should for a long time live and reside: the handsome city; the wide-spreading meadows around it, thickly set and interwoven with magnificent trees; that striking richness of vegetation which follows in the windings of the rhine, marks its banks, islands, and aits. nor is the level ground, stretching down from the south, and watered by the iller, less adorned with varied green. even westward, towards the mountains, there are many low grounds, which afford quite as charming a view of wood and meadow-growth, just as the northern and more hilly part is intersected by innumerable little brooks, which promote a rapid vegetation everywhere. if one imagines, between these luxuriantly outstretched meads, between these joyously scattered groves, all land adapted for tillage, excellently prepared, verdant, and ripening, and the best and richest spots marked by hamlets and farmhouses, and this great and immeasurable plain, prepared for man, like a new paradise, bounded far and near by mountains partly cultivated, partly overgrown with woods, he will then conceive the rapture with which i blessed my fate, that it had destined me, for some time, so beautiful a dwelling- place. such a fresh glance into a new land in which we are to abide for a time, has still the peculiarity, both pleasant and foreboding, that the whole lies before us like an unwritten tablet. as yet no sorrows and joys which relate to ourselves are recorded upon it; this cheerful, varied, animated plain is still mute for us; the eye is only fixed on the objects so far as they are intrinsically important, and neither affection nor passion has especially to render prominent this or that spot. but a presentiment of the future already disquiets the young heart; and an unsatisfied craving secretly demands that which is to come and may come, and which at all events, whether for good or ill, will imperceptibly assume the character of the spot in which we find ourselves. having descended the height, i still tarried a while before the face of the venerable pile; but what i could not quite clearly make out, either the first or the following time, was, that i regarded this miracle as a monster, which must have terrified me, if it had not, at the same time, appeared to me comprehensible by its regularity, and even pleasing in its finish. yet i by no means busied myself with meditating on this contradiction, but suffered a monument so astonishing quietly to work upon me by its presence. i took small, but well-situated and pleasant, lodgings, on the north side of the fish-market, a fine, long street, where the everlasting motion came to the assistance of every unoccupied moment. i then delivered my letters of introduction, and found among my patrons a merchant, who, with his family, was devoted to those pious opinions sufficiently known to me, although, as far as regarded external worship, he had not separated from the church. he was a man of intelligence withal, and by no means hypocritical in his conduct. the company of boarders which was recommended to me, and, indeed, i to it, was very agreeable and entertaining. a couple of old maids had long kept up this boarding-house with regularity and good success: there might have been about ten persons, older and younger. of these latter, one named meyer, a native of lindau, is most vividly present to my mind. from his form and face he might have been considered one of the handsomest of men, if, at the same time, he had not had something of the sloven in his whole appearance. in like manner his splendid natural talents were marred by an incredible levity, and his excellent temper by an unbounded dissoluteness. he had an open, jovial face, rather more round than oval: the organs of the senses, the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, could be called rich; they showed a decided fulness, without being too large. his mouth was particularly charming, owing to his curling lips; and his whole physiognomy had the peculiar expression of a rake, from the circumstance that his eyebrows met across his nose, which, in a handsome face, always produces a pleasant expression of sensuality. by his jovialness, sincerity, and good nature, he made himself beloved by all. his memory was incredible; attention at the lectures was no effort for him; he retained all he heard, and was intellectual enough to take an interest in every thing, and this the more easily, as he was studying medicine. all his impressions remained vivid; and his waggery in repeating the lectures and mimicking the professors often went so far, that, when he had heard three different lectures in one morning, he would, at the dinner-table, interchange the professors with each other, paragraphwise, and often even more abruptly, which motley lecture frequently entertained us, but often, too, became troublesome. the rest were more or less polite, steady, serious people. a pensioned knight of the order of st. louis was one of these: but the majority were students, all really good and well-disposed; only they were not allowed to go beyond their usual allowance of wine. that this should not be easily done was the care of our president, one doctor salzmann. already in the sixties and unmarried, he had attended this dinner-table for many years, and maintained its good order and respectability. he possessed a handsome property, kept himself close and neat in his exterior, even belonging to those who always go in shoes and stockings, and with their hat under their arm. to put on the hat was with him an extraordinary action. he commonly carried an umbrella, wisely reflecting that the finest summer-days often bring thunder-storms and passing showers over the country. with this man i talked over my design of continuing to study jurisprudence at strasburg, so as to be able to take my degree as soon as possible. since he was exactly informed of every thing, i asked him about the lectures i should have to hear, and what he generally thought of the matter. to this he replied, that it was not in strasburg as in the german universities, where they try to educate jurists in the large and learned sense of the term. here, in conformity with the relation towards france, all was really directed to the practical, and managed in accordance with the opinions of the french, who readily stop at what is given. they tried to impart to every one certain general principles and preliminary knowledge, they compressed as much as possible, and communicated only what was most necessary. hereupon he made me acquainted with a man, in whom, as a /repetent/, [footnote: a repetent is one of a class of persons to be found in the german universities, and who assist students in their studies. they are somewhat analogous to the english tutors, but not precisely: for the latter render their aid /before/ the recitation; while the repetent /repeats/ with the student, in private, the lectures he has previously heard from the professor. hence his name, which might be rendered /repeater/, had we any corresponding class of men in england or america, which would justify an english word.--/american note/.] great confidence was entertained; which he very soon managed to gain from me also. by way of introduction, i began to speak with him on subjects of jurisprudence; and he wondered not a little at my swaggering: for, during my residence at leipzig, i had gained more of an insight into the requisites for the law than i have hitherto taken occasion to state in my narrative, though all i had acquired could only be reckoned as a general encyclopedical survey, and not as proper definite knowledge. university life, even if in the course of it we may not exactly have to boast of industry, nevertheless affords endless advantages in every kind of cultivation, because we are always surrounded by men who either possess or are seeking science, so that, even if unconsciously, we are constantly drawing some nourishment from such an atmosphere. my repetent, after he had had patience with my rambling discourse for some time, gave me at last to understand that i must first of all keep my immediate object in view, which was, to be examined, to take my degree, and then, perchance, to commence practice. "regarding the former," said he, "the subject is by no means investigated at large. it is inquired how and when a law arose, and what gave the internal or external occasion for it: there is no inquiry as to how it has been altered by time and custom, or how far it has perhaps been perverted by false interpretation or the perverted usage of the courts. it is in such investigations that learned men quite peculiarly spend their lives, whereas we inquire into that which exists at present: this we stamp firmly on our memory, that it may always be ready when we wish to employ it for the use and defence of our clients. thus we qualify our young people for their future life, and the rest follows in proportion to their talents and activity." hereupon he handed me his pamphlets, which were written in question and answer, and in which i could have stood a pretty good examination at once; for hopp's smaller law-catechism was yet perfectly in my memory: the rest i supplied with some diligence, and, against my will, qualified myself in the easiest manner as a candidate. but since in this way all my own activity in the study was cut off,--for i had no sense for any thing positive, but wished to have every thing explained historically, if not intelligibly,--i found for my powers a wider field, which i employed in the most singular manner by devoting myself to a matter of interest which was accidentally presented to me from without. most of my fellow-boarders were medical students. these, as is well known, are the only students who zealously converse about their science and profession, even out of the hours of study. this lies in the nature of the case. the objects of their endeavors are those most obvious to the senses, and at the same time the highest, the most simple, and the most complicated. medicine employs the whole man, for it occupies itself with man as a whole. all that the young man learns refers directly to an important, dangerous indeed, but yet in many respects lucrative, practice. he therefore devotes himself passionately to whatever is to be known and to be done, partly because it is interesting in itself, partly because it opens to him the joyous prospect of independence and wealth. at table, then, i heard nothing but medical conversations, just as formerly in the boarding-house of hofrath ludwig. in our walks and in our pleasure-parties likewise not much else was talked about: for my fellow-boarders, like good fellows, had also become my companions at other times; and they were always joined on all sides by persons of like minds and like studies. the medical faculty in general shone above the others, with respect both to the celebrity of the professors and the number of the students; and i was the more easily borne along by the stream, as i had just so much knowledge of all these things that my desire for science could soon be increased and inflamed. at the commencement of the second half-year, therefore, i attended spielmann's course on chemistry, another on anatomy by lobstein, and proposed to be right industrious, because, by my singular preliminary or rather extra knowledge, i had already gained some respect and confidence in our society. yet this trifling and piecemeal way of study was even to be once more seriously disturbed; for a remarkable political event set every thing in motion, and procured us a tolerable succession of holidays. marie antoinette, archduchess of austria and queen of france, was to pass through strasburg on her road to paris. the solemnities by which the people are made to take notice that there is greatness in the world were busily and abundantly prepared; and especially remarkable to me was the building which stood on an island in the rhine between the two bridges, erected for her reception and for surrendering her into the hands of her husband's ambassadors. it was but slightly raised above the ground; had in the centre a grand saloon, on each side smaller ones; then followed other chambers, which extended somewhat backward. in short, had it been more durably built, it might have answered very well as a pleasure-house for persons of rank. but that which particularly interested me, and for which i did not grudge many a /büsel/ (a little silver coin then current) in order to procure a repeated entrance from the porter, was the embroidered tapestry with which they had lined the whole interior. here, for the first time, i saw a specimen of those tapestries worked after raffaelle's cartoons; and this sight was for me of very decided influence, as i became acquainted with the true and the perfect on a large scale, though only in copies. i went and came, and came and went, and could not satiate myself with looking; nay, a vain endeavor troubled me, because i would willingly have comprehended what interested me in so extraordinary a manner. i found these side-chambers highly delightful and refreshing, but the chief saloon so much the more shocking. this had been hung with many larger, more brilliant and richer, hangings, which were surrounded with crowded ornaments, worked after pictures by the modern french. now, i might perhaps have become reconciled to this style also, as my feelings, like my judgment, did not readily reject any thing entirely; but the subject was excessively revolting to me. these pictures contained the history of jason, medea, and creusa, and therefore an example of the most unhappy marriage. to the left of the throne was seen the bride struggling with the most horrible death, surrounded by persons full of sympathizing woe; to the right was the father, horrified at the murdered babes before his feet; whilst the fury, in her dragon-car, drove along into the air. and, that the horrible and atrocious should not lack something absurd, the white tail of that magic bull flourished out on the right hand from behind the red velvet of the gold-embroidered back of the throne; while the fire-spitting beast himself, and the jason who was fighting with him, were completely covered by the sumptuous drapery. here all the maxims which i had made my own in oeser's school were stirring within my bosom. it was without proper selection and judgment, to begin with, that christ and the apostles were brought into the side- halls of a nuptial building; and doubtless the size of the chambers had guided the royal tapestry-keeper. this, however, i willingly forgave, because it had turned out so much to my advantage; but a blunder like that in the grand saloon put me altogether out of my self-possession, and with animation and vehemence i called on my comrades to witness such a crime against taste and feeling. "what!" cried i, without regarding the by-standers, "is it permitted so thoughtlessly to place before the eyes of a young queen, at her first setting foot in her dominions, the representation of the most horrible marriage that perhaps ever was consummated? is there among the french architects, decorators, upholsterers, not a single man who understands that pictures represent something, that pictures work upon the mind and feelings, that they make impressions, that they excite forebodings? it is just the same as if they had sent the most ghastly spectre to meet this beauteous and pleasure-loving lady at the very frontiers!" i know not what i said besides: enough, my comrades tried to quiet me and to remove me out of the house, that there might be no offence. they then assured me that it was not everybody's concern to look for significance in pictures; that to themselves, at least, nothing of the sort would have occurred; while the whole population of strasburg and the vicinity, which was to throng thither, would no more take such crotchets into their heads than the queen herself and her court. i yet remember well the beauteous and lofty mien, as cheerful as it was imposing, of this youthful lady. perfectly visible to us all in her glass carriage, she seemed to be jesting with her female attendants, in familiar conversation, about the throng that poured forth to meet her train. in the evening we roamed through the streets to look at the various illuminated buildings, but especially the glowing spire of the minster, with which, both near and in the distance, we could not sufficiently feast our eyes. the queen pursued her way: the country people dispersed, and the city was soon quiet as ever. before the queen's arrival, the very reasonable regulation had been made, that no deformed persons, no cripples nor disgusting invalids, should show themselves on her route. people joked about this; and i made a little french poem in which i compared the advent of christ, who seemed to wander upon earth particularly on account of the sick and the lame, with the arrival of the queen, who scared these unfortunates away. my friends let it pass: a frenchman, on the contrary, who lived with us, criticised the language and metre very unmercifully, although, as it seemed, with too much foundation; and i do not remember that i ever made a french poem afterwards. no sooner had the news of the queen's happy arrival rung from the capital, than it was followed by the horrible intelligence, that, owing to an oversight of the police during the festal fireworks, an infinite number of persons, with horses and carriages, had been destroyed in a street obstructed by building materials, and that the city, in the midst of the nuptial solemnities, had been plunged into mourning and sorrow. they attempted to conceal the extent of the misfortune, both from the young royal pair and from the world, by burying the dead in secret; so that many families were convinced only by the ceaseless absence of their members that they, too, had been swept off by this awful event. that, on this occasion, those ghastly figures in the grand saloon again came vividly before my mind, i need scarcely mention; for every one knows how powerful certain moral impressions are when they embody themselves, as it were, in those of the senses. this occurrence was, however, destined moreover to place my friends in anxiety and trouble by means of a prank in which i indulged. among us young people who had been at leipzig, there had been maintained ever afterwards a certain itch for imposing on and in some way mystifying one another. with this wanton love of mischief i wrote to a friend in frankfort (he was the one who had amplified my poem on the cake-baker hendel, applied it to /medon/, and caused its general circulation) a letter dated from versailles, in which i informed him of my happy arrival there, my participation in the solemnities, and other things of the kind, but at the same time enjoined the strictest secrecy. i must here remark, that, from the time of that trick which had caused us so much annoyance, our little leipzig society had accustomed itself to persecute him from time to time with mystifications, and this especially as he was the drollest man in the world, and was never more amiable than when he was discovering the cheat into which he had deliberately been led. shortly after i had written this letter, i went on a little journey, and remained absent about a fortnight. meanwhile the news of that disaster had reached frankfort: my friend believed me in paris, and his affection led him to apprehend that i might have been involved in the calamity. he inquired of any parents and other persons to whom i was accustomed to write, whether any letters had arrived; and, as it was just at the time when my journey kept me from sending any, they were altogether wanting. he went about in the greatest uneasiness, and at last told the matter in confidence to our nearest friends, who were now in equal anxiety. fortunately this conjecture did not reach my parents until a letter had arrived announcing my return to strasburg. my young friends were satisfied to learn that i was alive, but remained firmly convinced that i had been at paris in the interim. the affectionate intelligence of the solicitude they had felt on my account affected me so much that i vowed to leave off such tricks forever; but, unfortunately, i have often since allowed myself to be guilty of something similar. real life frequently loses its brilliancy to such a degree, that one is many a time forced to polish it up again with the varnish of fiction. this mighty stream of courtly magnificence had now flowed by, and had left in me no other longing than after those tapestries of raffaelle, which i would willingly have gazed at, revered, nay, adored, every day and every hour. fortunately, my passionate endeavors succeeded in interesting several persons of consequence in them, so that they were taken down and packed up as late as possible. we now gave ourselves up again to our quiet, easy routine of the university and society; and in the latter the actuary salzmann, president of our table, continued to be the general pedagogue. his intelligence, complaisance, and dignity, which he always contrived to maintain amid all the jests, and often even in the little extravagances, which he allowed us, made him beloved and respected by the whole company; and i could mention but few instances where he showed his serious displeasure, or interposed with authority in little quarrels and disputes. yet among them all i was the one who most attached myself to him; and he was not less inclined to converse with me, as he found me more variously accomplished than the others, and not so one-sided in judgment. i also followed his directions in external matters; so that he could, without hesitation, publicly acknowledge me as his companion and comrade: for, although he only filled an office which seems to be of little influence, he administered it in a manner which redounded to his highest honor. he was actuary to the court of wards (/pupillen-collegium/); and there, indeed, like the perpetual secretary of a university, he had, properly speaking, the management of affairs in his own hands. now, as he had performed the duties of this office with the greatest exactness for many years, there was no family, from the first to the last, which did not owe him its gratitude; as indeed scarcely any one in the whole administration of government can earn more blessings or more curses than one who takes charge of the orphans, or, on the contrary, squanders or suffers to be squandered their property and goods. the strasburgers are passionate walkers, and they have a good right to be so. let one turn his steps as he will, he will find pleasure-grounds, partly natural, partly adorned by art in ancient and modern times, all of them visited and enjoyed by a cheerful, merry little people. but what made the sight of a great number of pedestrians still more agreeable here than in other places, was the various costume of the fair sex. the middle class of city girls yet retained the hair twisted up and secured by a large pin, as well as a certain close style of dress, in which any thing like a train would have been unbecoming: and the pleasant part of it was, that this costume did not differ violently according to the rank of the wearer; for there were still some families of opulence and distinction who would not permit their daughters to deviate from this costume. the rest followed the french fashion, and this party made some proselytes every year. salzmann had many acquaintances and an entrance everywhere: a very pleasant circumstance for his companion, especially in summer, for good company and refreshment were found in all the public gardens far and near, and more than one invitation for this or that pleasant day was received. on one such occasion i found an opportunity to recommend myself very rapidly to a family which i was visiting for only the second time. we were invited, and arrived at the appointed hour. the company was not large: some played and some walked as usual. afterwards, when they were to go to supper, i saw our hostess and her sister speaking to each other with animation, and as if in a peculiar embarrassment. i accosted them, and said, "i have indeed no right, ladies, to force myself into your secrets; but perhaps i may be able to give you good counsel, or even to serve you." upon this they disclosed to me their painful dilemma; namely, that they had invited twelve persons to table, and that just at that moment a relation had returned from a journey, who now, as the thirteenth, would be a fatal /memento mori/, if not for himself, yet certainly for some of the guests. "the case is very easily mended," replied i: "permit me to take my leave, and stipulate for indemnification." as they were persons of consequence and good breeding, they would by no means allow this, but sent about in the neighborhood to find a fourteenth. i suffered them to do so; yet when i saw the servant coming in at the garden-gate without having effected his errand, i stole away and spent my evening pleasantly under the old linden-trees of the wanzenau. that this self-denial was richly repaid me was a very natural consequence. a certain kind of general society is not to be thought of without card- playing. salzmann renewed the good instructions of madame böhme; and i was the more docile as i had really seen, that by this little sacrifice, if it be one, one may procure one's self much pleasure, and even a greater freedom in society than one would otherwise enjoy. the old piquet, which had gone to sleep, was again looked out; i learned whist; i made myself, according to the directions of my mentor, a card-purse, which was to remain untouched under all circumstances; and i now found opportunity to spend most of my evenings with my friend in the best circles, where, for the most part, they wished me well, and pardoned many a little irregularity, to which, nevertheless, my friend, though kindly enough, used to call my attention. but that i might experience symbolically how much one, even in externals, has to adapt one's self to society, and direct one's self according to it, i was compelled to something which seemed to me the most disagreeable thing in the world. i had really very fine hair; but my strasburg hair-dresser at once assured me that it was cut much too short behind, and that it would be impossible to make a /frizure/ of it in which i could show myself, since nothing but a few short curls in front were decreed lawful; and all the rest, from the crown, must be tied up in a cue or a hair-bag. nothing was left but to put up with false hair till the natural growth was again restored according to the demands of the time. he promised me that nobody should ever remark this innocent deception (against which i objected at first very earnestly), if i could resolve upon it immediately. he kept his word, and i was always looked upon as the young man who had the best and the best- dressed head of hair. but as i was obliged to remain thus propped up and powdered from early morning, and at the same time to take care not to betray my false ornament by heating myself or by violent motions, this restraint in fact contributed much to my behaving for a time more quietly and politely, and accustomed me to going with my hat under my arm, and consequently in shoes and stockings also; however i did not venture to neglect wearing understockings of fine leather, as a defence against the rhine gnats, which, on the fine summer evenings, generally spread themselves over the meadows and gardens. under these circumstances, violent bodily motion being denied me, our social conversations grew more and more animated and impassioned; indeed, they were the most interesting in which i had hitherto ever borne part. with my way of feeling and thinking, it cost me nothing to let every one pass for what he was,--nay, for that which he wished to pass for; and thus the frankness of a fresh, youthful heart, which manifested itself almost for the first time in its full bloom, made me many friends and adherents. our company of boarders increased to about twenty persons; and, as salzmann kept up his accustomed order, every thing continued in its old routine,--nay, the conversation was almost more decorous, as every one had to be on his guard before several. among the new-comers was a man who particularly interested me: his name was jung, the same who afterwards became known under the name of stilling. in spite of an antiquated dress, his form had something delicate about it, with a certain sturdiness. a bag-wig did not disfigure his significant and pleasing countenance. his voice was mild, without being soft and weak: it became even melodious and powerful as soon as his ardor was roused, which was very easily done. on becoming better acquainted with him, one found in him a sound common sense, which rested on feeling, and therefore took its tone from the affections and passions; and from this very feeling sprang an enthusiasm for the good, the true, and the just, in the greatest possible purity. for the course of this man's life had been very simple, and yet crowded with events and with manifold activity. the element of his energy was indestructible faith in god, and in an assistance flowing immediately from him, which evidently manifested itself in an uninterrupted providence, and in an unfailing deliverance out of all troubles and from every evil. jung had made many such experiences in his life, and they had often been repeated of late in strasburg: so that, with the greatest cheerfulness, he led a life frugal indeed, but free from care, and devoted himself most earnestly to his studies; although he could not reckon upon any certain subsistence from one quarter to another. in his youth, when on a fair way to become a charcoal-burner, he took up the trade of a tailor; and after he had instructed himself, at the same time, in higher matters, his knowledge- loving mind drove him to the occupation of schoolmaster. this attempt failed; and he returned to his trade, from which, however, since every one felt for him confidence and affection, he was repeatedly called away, again to take a place as private tutor. but for his most internal and peculiar training he had to thank that wide-spread class of men who sought out their salvation on their own responsibility, and who, while they strove to edify themselves by reading the scriptures and good books, and by mutual exhortation and confession, thereby attained a degree of cultivation which must excite surprise. for while the interest which always accompanied them and which maintained them in fellowship rested on the simplest foundation of morality, well-wishing and well- doing, the deviations which could take place with men of such limited circumstances were of little importance; and hence their consciences, for the most part, remained clear, and their minds commonly cheerful: so there arose no artificial, but a truly natural, culture, which yet had this advantage over others, that it was suitable to all ages and ranks, and was generally social by its nature. for this reason, too, these persons were, in their own circle, truly eloquent, and capable of expressing themselves appropriately and pleasingly on all the tenderest and best concerns of the heart. now, good jung was in this very case. among a few persons, who, if not exactly like-minded with himself, did not declare themselves averse from his mode of thought, he was found, not only talkative but eloquent: in particular, he related the history of his life in the most delightful manner, and knew how to make all the circumstances plainly and vividly present to his listeners. i persuaded him to write them down, and he promised to do so. but because, in his way of expressing himself, he was like a somnambulist, who must not be called by name lest he should fall from his elevation, or like a gentle stream, to which one dare oppose nothing lest it should foam, he was often constrained to feel uncomfortable in a more numerous company. his faith tolerated no doubt, and his conviction no jest. "while in friendly communication he was inexhaustible, every thing came to a standstill with him when he met with contradiction. i usually helped him through on such occasions, for which he repaid me with honest affection. since his mode of thought was nothing strange to me, but on the contrary i had already become accurately acquainted with it in my very best friends of both sexes; and since, moreover, it generally interested me with its naturalness and /naïveté/,--he found himself on the very best terms with me. the bent of his intellect was pleasing to me; nor did i meddle with his faith in miracles, which was so useful to him. salzmann likewise behaved towards him with forbearance,--i say with forbearance, for salzmann, in conformity with his character, his natural disposition, his age arid circumstances, could not but stand and continue on the side of the rational, or rather the common-sense, christians, whose religion properly rested on the rectitude of their characters, and a manly independence, and who therefore did not like to meddle or have any thing to do with feelings which might easily have led them into gloom, or with mysticism, which might easily have led them into the dark. this class, too, was respectable and numerous: all men of honor and capacity understood each other, and were of the like persuasion, as well as of the same mode of life. lerse, likewise our fellow-boarder, also belonged to this number: a perfectly upright young man, and, with limited gifts of fortune, frugal and exact. his manner of life and housekeeping was the closest i ever knew among students. he was, of us all, the most neatly dressed, and yet always appeared in the same clothes; but he managed his wardrobe with the greatest care, kept every thing about him clean, and required all things in ordinary life to go according to his example. he never happened to lean anywhere, or to prop his elbow on the table; he never forgot to mark his table-napkin; and the maid always had a bad time of it when the chairs were not found perfectly clean. with all this, he had nothing stiff in his exterior. he spoke cordially, with precise and dry liveliness, in which a light ironical joke was very becoming. in figure he was well built, slender, and of fair height: his face was pock-pitted and homely, his little blue eyes cheerful and penetrating. as he had cause to tutor us in so many respects, we let him be our fencing-master besides, for he drew a very fine rapier; and it seemed to give him sport to play off upon us, on this occasion, all the pedantry of this profession. moreover, we really profited by him, and had to thank him for many sociable hours, which he induced us to spend in good exercise and practice. by all these peculiarities, lerse completely qualified himself for the office of arbitrator and umpire in all the small and great quarrels which happened, though but rarely, in our circle, and which salzmann could not hush up in his fatherly way. without the external forms, which do so much mischief in universities, we represented a society bound together by circumstances and good feeling, which others might occasionally touch, but into which they could not intrude. now, in his judgment of internal piques, lerse always showed the greatest impartiality; and, when the affair could no longer be settled by words and explanations, he knew how to conduct the desired satisfaction, in an honorable way, to a harmless issue. in this no man was more clever than he: indeed, he often used to say, that since heaven had destined him for a hero neither in war nor in love, he would be content, both in romances and fighting, with the part of second. since he remained the same throughout, and might be regarded as a true model of a good and steady disposition, the conception of him stamped itself as deeply as amiably upon me; and, when i wrote "götz von berlichingen," i felt myself induced to set up a memorial of our friendship, and to give the gallant fellow, who knew how to subordinate himself in so dignified a manner, the name of franz lerse. while, by his constant humorous dryness, he continued ever to remind us of what one owed to one's self and to others, and how one ought to behave in order to live at peace with men as long as possible, and thus gain a certain position towards them, i had to fight, both inwardly and outwardly, with quite different circumstances and adversaries, being at strife with myself, with the objects around me, and even with the elements. i was then in a state of health which furthered me sufficiently in all that i would and should undertake; only there was a certain irritability left behind, which did not always let me be in equilibrium. a loud sound was disagreeable to me, diseased objects awakened in me loathing and horror. but i was especially troubled with a giddiness which came over me every time i looked down from a height. all these infirmities i tried to remedy, and, indeed, as i wished to lose no time, in a somewhat violent way. in the evening, when they beat the tattoo, i went near the multitude of drums, the powerful rolling and beating of which might have made one's heart burst in one's bosom. all alone i ascended the highest pinnacle of the minster spire, and sat in what is called the neck, under the nob or crown, for a quarter of an hour, before i would venture to step out again into the open air, where, standing upon a platform scarce an ell square, without any particular holding, one sees the boundless prospect before; while the nearest objects and ornaments conceal the church, and every thing upon and above which one stands. it is exactly as if one saw one's self carried up into the air in a balloon. such troublesome and painful sensations i repeated until the impression became quite indifferent to me; and i have since then derived great advantage from this training, in mountain travels and geological studies, and on great buildings, where i have vied with the carpenters in running over the bare beams and the cornices of the edifice, and even in rome, where one must run similar risks to obtain a nearer view of important works of art. anatomy, also, was of double value to me, as it taught me to endure the most repulsive sights, while i satisfied my thirst for knowledge. and thus i also attended the clinical course of the elder dr. ehrmann, as well as the lectures of his son on obstetrics, with the double view of becoming acquainted with all conditions, and of freeing myself from all apprehension as to repulsive things. and i have actually succeeded so far, that nothing of this kind could ever put me out of my self-possession. but i endeavored to harden myself, not only against these impressions on the senses, but also against the infections of the imagination. the awful and shuddering impressions of the darkness in churchyards, solitary places, churches, and chapels by night, and whatever may be connected with them, i contrived to render likewise indifferent; and in this, also, i went so far that day and night, and every locality, were quite the same to me: so that even when, in later times, a desire came over me once more to feel in such scenes the pleasing shudder of youth, i could hardly compel this, in any degree, by calling up the strangest and most fearful images. in my efforts to free myself from the pressure of the too gloomy and powerful, which continued to rule within me, and seemed to me sometimes as strength, sometimes as weakness, i was thoroughly assisted by that open, social, stirring manner of life, which attracted me more and more, to which i accustomed myself, and which i at last learned to enjoy with perfect freedom. it is not difficult to remark in the world, that man feels himself most freely and most perfectly rid of his own feelings when he represents to himself the faults of others, and expatiates upon them with complacent censoriousness. it is a tolerably pleasant sensation even to set ourselves above our equals by disapprobation and misrepresentation; for which reason good society, whether it consists of few or many, is most delighted with it. but nothing equals the comfortable self-complacency, when we erect ourselves into judges of our superiors, and of those who are set over us,--of princes and statesmen, --when we find public institutions unfit and injudicious, only consider the possible and actual obstacles, and recognize neither the greatness of the invention, nor the co-operation which is to be expected from time and circumstances in every undertaking. whoever remembers the condition of the french kingdom, and is accurately and circumstantially acquainted with it from later writings, will easily figure to himself how, at that time, in the alsatian semi-france, people used to talk about the king and his ministers, about the court and court-favorites. these were new subjects for my love of instructing myself, and very welcome ones to my pertness and youthful conceit. i observed every thing accurately, noted it down industriously; and i now see, from the little that is left, that such accounts, although only put together on the moment, out of fables and uncertain general rumors, always have a certain value in after-times, because they serve to confront and compare the secret made known at last with what was then already discovered and public, and the judgments of contemporaries, true or false, with the convictions of posterity. striking, and daily before the eyes of us street-loungers, was the project for beautifying the city; the execution of which according to draughts and plans, began in the strangest fashion to pass from sketches and plans into reality. intendant gayot had undertaken to new-model the angular and uneven lanes of strasburg, and to lay the foundations of a respectable, handsome city, regulated by line and level. upon this, blondel, a parisian architect, drew a plan, by which an hundred and forty householders gained in room, eighty lost, and the rest remained in their former condition. this plan accepted, but not to be put into execution at once, now, should in course of time have been approaching completion; and, meanwhile, the city oddly enough wavered between form and formlessness. if, for instance, a crooked side of a street was to be straightened, the first man who felt disposed to build moved forward to the appointed line, perhaps, too, his next neighbor, but perhaps, also, the third or fourth resident from him; by which projections the most awkward recesses were left, like front court-yards, before the houses in the background. they would not use force, yet without compulsion they would never have got on: on which account no man, when his house was once condemned, ventured to improve or replace any thing that related to the street. all these strange accidental inconveniences gave to us rambling idlers the most welcome opportunity of practising our ridicule; of making proposals, in the manner of behrisch, for accelerating the completion, and of constantly doubting the possibility of it, although many a newly erected handsome building should have brought us to other thoughts. how far that project was advanced by the length of time, i cannot say. another subject on which the protestant strasburgers liked to converse was the expulsion of the jesuits. these fathers, as soon as the city had fallen to the share of the french, had made their appearance and sought a /domicilium/. but they soon extended themselves and built a magnificent college, which bordered so closely on the minster that the back of the church covered a third part of its front. it was to be a complete quadrangle, and have a garden in the middle: three sides of it were finished. it is of stone, and solid, like all the buildings of these fathers. that the protestants were pushed hard, if not oppressed by them, lay in the plan of the society which made it a duty to restore the old religion in its whole compass. their fall, therefore, awakened the greatest satisfaction in the opposite party; and people saw, not without pleasure, how they sold their wines, carried away their books: and the building was assigned to another, perhaps less active, order. how glad are men when they get rid of an opponent, or only of a guardian! and the herd does not reflect, that, where there is no dog, it is exposed to wolves. now, since every city must have its tragedy, at which children and children's children shudder; so in strasburg frequent mention was made of the unfortunate praetor klingling, who, after he had mounted the highest step of earthly felicity, ruled city and country with almost absolute power, and enjoyed all that wealth, rank, and influence could afford, had at last lost the favor of the court, and was dragged up to answer for all in which he had been indulged hitherto,--nay, was even thrown into prison, where, more than seventy years old, he died an ambiguous death. this and other tales, that knight of st. louis, our fellow-boarder, knew how to tell with passion and animation; for which reason i was fond of accompanying him in his walks, unlike the others, who avoided such invitations, and left me alone with him. as with new acquaintances i generally took my ease for a long time without thinking much about them or the effect which they were exercising upon me, so i only remarked gradually that his stories and opinions rather unsettled and confused than instructed and enlightened me. i never knew what to make of him, although the riddle might easily have been solved. he belonged to the many to whom life offers no results, and who, therefore, from first to last, exert themselves on individual objects. unfortunately he had with this a decided desire, nay, even passion, for meditating, without having any capacity for thinking; and in such men a particular notion easily fixes itself fast, which may be regarded as a mental disease. to such a fixed view he always came back again, and was thus in the long run excessively tiresome. he would bitterly complain of the decline of his memory, especially with regard to the latest events, and maintained, by a logic of his own, that all virtue springs from a good memory, and all vice, on the contrary, from forgetfulness. this doctrine he contrived to carry out with much acuteness; as, indeed, any thing may be maintained when one has no compunction to use words altogether vaguely, and to employ and apply them in a sense now wider, now narrower, now closer, now more remote. at first it was amusing to hear him; nay, his persuasiveness even astonished us. we fancied we were standing before a rhetorical sophist, who for jest and practice knew how to give a fair appearance to the strangest things. unfortunately this first impression became blunted but too soon; for at the end of every discourse, manage the thing as i would, the man came back again to the same theme. he was not to be held fast to older events, although they interested him,--although he had them present to his mind with their minutest circumstances. indeed, he was often, by a small circumstance, snatched out of the middle of a wild historical narrative, and thrust into his detestable favorite thought. one of our afternoon walks was particularly unfortunate in this respect: the account of it may stand here instead of similar cases, which might weary if not vex the reader. on the way through the city we were met by an old female mendicant, who, by her beggings and importunities, disturbed him in his story. "pack yourself off, old witch!" said he, and walked by. she shouted after him the well-known retort,--only somewhat changed, since she saw well that the unfriendly man was old himself,--"if you did not wish to be old, you should have had yourself hanged in your youth!" he turned round violently, and i feared a scene. "hanged cried he, "have myself hanged! no: that could not have been,--i was too honest a fellow for that; but hang myself--hang up my own self--that is true--that i should have done: i should have turned a charge of powder against myself, that i might not live to see that i am not even worth that any more." the woman stood as if petrified; but he continued, "you have said a great truth, witch- mother; and, as they have neither drowned nor burned you yet, you shall be paid for your proverb." he handed her a /büsel/, a coin not usually given to a beggar. we had crossed over the first rhine-bridge, and were going to the inn where we meant to stop; and i was trying to lead him back to our previous conversation, when, unexpectedly, a very pretty girl met us on the pleasant foot-path, remained standing before us, bowed prettily, and cried, "eh, eh, captain, where are you going?" and, whatever else is usually said on such an occasion. "mademoiselle," replied he, somewhat embarrassed, "i know not"--"how?" said she, with graceful astonishment, "do you forget your friends so soon?" the word "forget" fretted him: he shook his head and replied, peevishly enough, "truly, mademoiselle, i did not know!"--she now retorted with some humor, yet very temperately, "take care, captain: i may mistake you another time!" and so she hurried past, taking huge strides, without looking round. at once my fellow- traveller struck his forehead with both his fists: "oh, what an ass i am!" exclaimed he, "what an old ass i am! now, you see whether i am right or not." and then, in a very violent manner, he went on with his usual sayings and opinions, in which this case still more confirmed him. i can not and would not repeat what a philippic discourse he held against himself. at last he turned to me, and said, "i call you to witness! you remember that small-ware woman at the corner, who is neither young nor pretty? i salute her every time we pass, and often exchange a couple of friendly words with her; and yet it is thirty years ago since she was gracious to me. but now i swear it is not four weeks since this young lady showed herself more complaisant to me than was reasonable; and yet i will not recognize her, but insult her in return for her favors! do i not always say, that ingratitude is the greatest of vices, and no man would be ungrateful if he were not forgetful?" we went into the inn; and nothing but the tippling, swarming crowd in the ante-rooms stopped the invectives which he rattled off against himself and his contemporaries. he was silent, and i hoped pacified, when we stepped into an upper chamber, where we found a young man pacing up and down alone, whom the captain saluted by name. i was pleased to become acquainted with him; for the old fellow had said much good of him to me, and had told me that this young man, being employed in the war- bureau, had often disinterestedly done him very good service when the pensions were stopped. i was glad that the conversation took a general turn; and, while we were carrying it on, we drank a bottle of wine. but here, unluckily, another infirmity which my knight had in common with obstinate men developed itself. for as, on the whole, he could not get rid of that fixed notion; so did he stick fast to a disagreeable impression of the moment, and suffer his feelings to run on without moderation. his last vexation about himself had not yet died away; and now was added something new, although of quite a different kind. he had not long cast his eyes here and there before he noticed on the table a double portion of coffee, and two cups, and might besides, being a man of gallantry, have traced some other indication that the young man had not been so solitary all the time. and scarcely had the conjecture arisen in his mind, and ripened into a probability, that the pretty girl had been paying a visit here, than the most outrageous jealousy added itself to that first vexation, so as completely to perplex him. now, before i could suspect any thing,--for i had hitherto been conversing quite harmlessly with the young man,--the captain, in an unpleasant tone, which i well knew, began to be satirical about the pair of cups, and about this and that. the young man, surprised, tried to turn it off pleasantly and sensibly, as is the custom among men of good breeding: but the old fellow continued to be unmercifully rude; so that there was nothing left for the other to do but to seize his hat and cane, and at his departure to leave behind him a pretty unequivocal challenge. the fury of the captain now burst out the more vehemently, as he had in the interim drunk another bottle of wine almost by himself. he struck the table with his fist, and cried more than once, "i will strike him dead!" it was not, however, meant quite so badly as it sounded; for he often used this phrase when any one opposed or otherwise displeased him. just as unexpectedly the business grew worse on our return; for i had the want of foresight to represent to him his ingratitude towards the young man, and to remind him how strongly he had praised to me the ready obligingness of this official person. no! such rage of a man against himself i never saw again: it was the most passionate conclusion to that beginning to which the pretty girl had given occasion. here i saw sorrow and repentance carried into caricature, and, as all passion supplies the place of genius, to a point really genius-like. he then went over all the incidents of our afternoon ramble again, employed them rhetorically for his own self-reproach, brought up the old witch at last before him once more, and perplexed himself to such a degree, that i could not help fearing he would throw himself into the rhine. could i have been sure of fishing him out again quickly, like mentor his telemachus, he might have made the leap; and i should have brought him home cooled down for this occasion. i immediately confided the affair to lerse; and we went the next morning to the young man, whom my friend in his dry way set laughing. we agreed to bring about an accidental meeting, where a reconciliation should take place of itself. the drollest thing about it was, that this time the captain, too, had slept off his rudeness, and found himself ready to apologize to the young man, to whom petty quarrels were of some consequence. all was arranged in one morning; and, as the affair had not been kept quite secret, i did not escape the jokes of my friends, who might have foretold me, from their own experience, how troublesome the friendship of the captain could become upon occasion. but now, while i am thinking what should be imparted next, there comes again into my thoughts, by a strange play of memory, that reverend minster-building, to which in those days i devoted particular attention, and which, in general, constantly presents itself to the eye, both in the city and in the country. the more i considered the /façade/, the more was that first impression strengthened and developed, that here the sublime has entered into alliance with the pleasing. if the vast, when it appears as a mass before us, is not to terrify; if it is not to confuse, when we seek to investigate its details,--it must enter into an unnatural, apparently impossible, connection, it must associate to itself the pleasing. but now, since it will be impossible for us to speak of the impression of the minster except by considering both these incompatible qualities as united, so do we already see, from this, in what high value we must hold this ancient monument; and we begin in earnest to describe how such contradictory elements could peaceably interpenetrate and unite themselves. first of all, without thinking of the towers, we devote out considerations to the /façade/ alone, which powerfully strikes the eye as an upright, oblong parallelogram. if we approach it at twilight, in the moonshine, on a starlight night, when the parts appear more or less indistinct and at last disappear, we see only a colossal wall, the height of which bears an advantageous proportion to the breadth. if we view it by day, and by the power of the mind abstract from the details, we recognize the front of a building which not only encloses the space within, but also covers much in its vicinity. the openings of this monstrous surface point to internal necessities, and according to these we can at once divide it into nine compartments. the great middle door, which opens into the nave of the church, first meets the eye. on both sides of it lie two smaller ones, belonging to the cross-ways. over the chief door our glance falls upon the wheel-shaped window, which is to spread an awe-inspiring light within the church and its vaulted arches. at its sides appear two large, perpendicular, oblong openings, which form a striking contrast with the middle one, and indicate that they belong to the base of the rising towers. in the third story are three openings in a row, which are designed for belfries and other church necessities. above them one sees the whole horizontally closed by the balustrade of the gallery, instead of a cornice. these nine spaces described are supported, enclosed, and separated into three great perpendicular divisions by four pillars rising up from the ground. now, as it cannot be denied that there is in the whole mass a fine proportion of height to breadth, so also in the details it maintains a somewhat uniform lightness by means of these pillars and the narrow compartments between them. but if we adhere to our abstraction, and imagine to ourselves this immense wall without ornaments, with firm buttresses, with the necessary openings in it, but only so far as necessity requires them, we even then must allow that these chief divisions are in good proportion: thus the whole will appear solemn and noble indeed, but always heavily unpleasant, and, being without ornament, unartistical. for a work of art, the whole of which is conceived in great, simple, harmonious parts, makes indeed a noble and dignified impression; but the peculiar enjoyment which the pleasing produces can only find place in the consonance of all developed details. and it is precisely here that the building we are examining satisfies us in the highest degree, for we see all the ornaments fully suited to every part which they adorn: they are subordinate to it, they seem to have grown out of it. such a manifoldness always gives great pleasure, since it flows of its own accord from the suitable, and therefore at the same time awakens the feeling of unity. it is only in such cases that the execution is prized as the summit of art. by such means, now, was a solid piece of masonry, an impenetrable wall, which had moreover to announce itself as the base of two heaven-high towers, made to appear to the eye as if resting on itself, consisting in itself, but at the same time light and adorned, and, though pierced through in a thousand places, to give the idea of indestructible firmness. this riddle is solved in the happiest manner. the openings in the wall, its solid parts, the pillars, every thing has its peculiar character, which proceeds from its particular destination: this communicates itself by degrees to the subdivisions; hence every thing is adorned in proportionate taste, the great as well as the small is in the right place, and can be easily comprehended, and thus the pleasing presents itself in the vast. i would refer only to the doors sinking in perspective into the thickness of the wall, and adorned without end in their columns and pointed arches; to the window with its rose springing out of the round form; to the outline of its framework, as well as to the slender reed-like pillars of the perpendicular compartments. let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object transformed into stone. one may compare, if not the building itself, yet representations of the whole and of its parts, for the purpose of reviewing and giving life to what i have said. it may seem exaggerated to many; for i myself, though transported into love for this work at first sight, required a long time to make myself intimately acquainted with its value. having grown up among those who found fault with gothic architecture, i cherished my aversion from the abundantly overloaded, complicated ornaments which, by their capriciousness, made a religious, gloomy character highly adverse. i strengthened myself in this repugnance, since i had only met with spiritless works of this kind, in which one could perceive neither good proportions nor a pure consistency. but here i thought i saw a new revelation of it, since what was objectionable by no means appeared, but the contrary opinion rather forced itself upon my mind. but the longer i looked and considered, i all the while thought i discovered yet greater merits beyond that which i have already mentioned. the right proportion of the larger divisions, the ornamental, as judicious as rich, even to the minutest, were found out; but now i recognized the connection of these manifold ornaments amongst each other, the transition from one leading part to another, the enclosing of details, homogeneous indeed, but yet greatly varying in form, from the saint to the monster, from the leaf to the dental. the more i investigated, the more i was astonished; the more i amused and wearied myself with measuring and drawing, so much the more did my attachment increase, so that i spent much time, partly in studying what actually existed, partly in restoring, in my mind and on paper, what was wanting and unfinished, especially in the towers. finding that this building had been based on old german ground, and grown thus far in genuine german times, and that the name of the master, on his modest gravestone, was likewise of native sound and origin, i ventured, being incited by the worth of this work of art, to change the hitherto decried appellation of "gothic architecture," and to claim it for our nation as "german architecture;" nor did i fail to bring my patriotic views to light, first orally, and afterwards in a little treatise dedicated to the memory of ervinus a steinbach. if my biographical narrative should come down to the epoch when the said sheet appeared in print, which herder afterwards inserted in his pamphlet, "von deutscher art und kunst" ("of german manner and art"), much more will be said on this weighty subject. but, before i turn from it this time, i will take the opportunity to vindicate the motto prefixed to the present volume with those who may have entertained some doubt about it. i know indeed very well, that in opposition to this honest, hopeful old german saying, "of whatever one wishes in youth, he has abundance in old age," many would quote contrary experience, and many trifling comments might be made; but much, also, is to be said in its favor: and i will explain how i understand it. our wishes are presentiments of the capabilities which lie within us, and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform. whatever we are able and would like to do, presents itself to our imagination, as without us and in the future. we feel a longing after that which we already possess in secret. thus a passionate anticipating grasp changes the truly possible into a dreamed reality. now, if such a bias lies decidedly in our nature, then, with every step of our development will a part of the first wish be fulfilled,--under favorable circumstances in the direct way, under unfavorable in the circuitous way, from which we always come back again to the other. thus we see men by perseverance attain to earthly wealth. they surround themselves with riches, splendor, and external honor. others strive yet more certainly after intellectual advantages, acquire for themselves a clear survey of things, a peacefulness of mind, and a certainty for the present and the future. but now there is a third direction, which is compounded of both, and the issue of which must be the most surely successful. when a man's youth falls into a pregnant time; when production overweighs destruction, and a presentiment is early awakened within him as to what such an epoch demands and promises,--he will then, being forced by outward inducements into an active interest, take hold now here, now there, and the wish to be active on many sides will be lively within him. but so many accidental hinderances are associated with human limitation, that here a thing, once begun, remains unfinished: there that which is already grasped falls out of the hand, and one wish after another is dissipated. but had these wishes sprung out of a pure heart, and in conformity with the necessities of the times, one might composedly let them lie and fall right and left, and be assured that these must not only be found out and picked up again, but that also many kindred things, which one has never touched and never even thought of, will come to light. if, now, during our own lifetime, we see that performed by others, for which we ourselves felt an earlier call, but had been obliged to give it up, with much besides, then the beautiful feeling enters the mind that only mankind combined is the true man, and that the individual can only be joyous and happy when he has the courage to feel himself in the whole. this contemplation is here in the right place; for when i reflect on the affection which drew me to these antique edifices, when i reckon up the time which i devoted to the strasburg minster alone, the attention with which i afterwards examined: the cathedral at cologne, and that at freyburg, and more and more felt the value of these buildings, i could even blame myself for having afterwards lost sight of them altogether,-- nay, for having left them completely in the background, being attracted by a more developed art. but when now, in the latest times, i see attention again turned to those objects; when i see affection, and even passion, for them appearing and flourishing; when i see able young persons seized with this passion, recklessly devoting powers, time, care, and property to these memorials of a past world,--then am i reminded with pleasure that what i formerly would and wished had a value. with satisfaction i see that they not only know how to prize what was done by our fore-fathers, but that, from existing unfinished beginnings, they try to represent, in pictures at least, the original design, so as thus to make us acquainted with the thought, which is ever the beginning and end of all undertakings; and that they strive with considerate zeal to clear up and vivify what seems to be a confused past. here i especially applaud the brave sulpiz boisserée, who is indefatigably employed in a magnificent series of copper-plates to exhibit the cathedral of cologne as the model of those vast conceptions, the spirit of which, like that of babel, strove up to heaven, and which were so out of proportion to earthly means that they were necessarily stopped fast in their execution. if we have been hitherto astonished that such buildings proceeded only so far, we shall learn with the greatest admiration what was really designed to be done. would that literary-artistical undertakings of this kind were duly patronized by all who have power, wealth, and influence; that the great and gigantic views of our fore-fathers may be presented to our contemplation; and that we may be able to form a conception of what they dared to desire. the insight resulting from this will not remain fruitless; and the judgment will, for once at least, be in a condition to exercise itself on these works with justice. nay, this will be done most thoroughly if our active young friend, besides the monograph devoted to the cathedral of cologne, follows out in detail the history of our mediaeval architecture. when whatever is to be known about the practical exercise of this art is further brought to light, when the art is represented in all its fundamental features by a comparison with the graeco-roman and the oriental egyptian, little can remain to be done in this department. and i, when the results of such patriotic labors lie before the world, as they are now known in friendly private communications, shall be able, with true content, to repeat that motto in its best sense, "of whatever one wishes in youth, he will have enough in old age." but if, in operations like these, which belong to centuries, one can trust one's self to time, and wait for opportunity, there are, on the contrary, other things which in youth must be enjoyed at once, fresh, like ripe fruits. let me be permitted, with this sudden turn, to mention dancing, of which the ear is reminded, as the eye is of the minster, every day and every hour in strasburg and all alsace. from early youth my father himself had given my sister and me instruction in dancing, a task which must have comported strangely enough with so stern a man. but he did not suffer his composure to be put out by it: he drilled us in the positions and steps in a manner the most precise; and, when he had brought us far enough to dance a minuet, he played for us something easily intelligible in three-four time, on a /flute-douce/, and we moved to it as well as we could. on the french theatre, likewise, i had seen from my youth upwards, if not ballets, yet /pas seuls/ and /pas de deux/, and had noticed in them various strange motions of the feet, and all sorts of springs. when we had had enough of the minuet, i requested my father to play some other dance-music, of which our music-books, in their jigs and murkies, [footnote: a "murki" is defined as an old species of short composition for the harpsichord, with a lively murmuring accompaniment in the bass.--trans.] offered us a rich supply; and i immediately found out, of myself, the steps and other motions for them, the time being quite suitable to my limbs, and, as it were, born with them. this pleased my father to a certain degree; indeed, he often, by way of joke for himself and us, let the "monkies" dance in this way. after my misfortune with gretchen, and during the whole of my residence in leipzig, i did not make my appearance again on the floor: on the contrary, i still remember, that when, at a ball, they forced me into a minuet, both measure and motion seemed to have abandoned my limbs, and i could no longer remember either the steps or the figures; so that i should have been put to disgrace and shame if the greater part of the spectators had not maintained that my awkward behavior was pure obstinacy, assumed with the view of depriving the ladies of all desire to invite me and draw me into their circle against my will. during my residence in frankfort i was quite cut off from such pleasures; but in strasburg, with other enjoyments of life, there soon arose in my limbs the faculty of keeping time. on sundays and week-days one sauntered by no pleasure-ground without finding there a joyous crowd assembled for the dance, and for the most part revolving in the circle. moreover, there were private balls in the country houses; and people were already talking of the brilliant masquerades of the coming winter. here, indeed, i should have been out of my place, and useless to the company, when a friend, who waltzed very well, advised me to practise myself first in parties of a lower rank, so that afterwards i might be worth something in the highest. he took me to a dancing-master, who was well known for his skill. this man promised me, that, when i had in some degree repeated the first elements and made myself master of them, he would then lead me farther. he was one of your dry, ready french characters, and received me in a friendly manner. i paid him a month in advance, and received twelve tickets, for which he agreed to give me certain hours' instruction. the man was strict and precise, but not pedantic; and, as i already had some previous practice, i soon gave him satisfaction, and received his commendation. one circumstance, however, greatly facilitated the instruction of this teacher: he had two daughters, both pretty, and both not yet twenty. having been instructed in this art from their youth upwards, they showed themselves very skilful, and might have been able, as partners, soon to help even the most clumsy scholars into some cultivation. they were both very polite, spoke nothing but french; and i, on my part, did my best, that i might not appear awkward or ridiculous before them. i had the good fortune that they likewise praised me, and were always willing to dance a minuet to their father's little violin, and, what indeed was more difficult for them, to initiate me by degrees into waltzing and whirling. their father did not seem to have many customers, and they led a lonely life. for this reason they often asked me to remain with them after my hour, and to chat away the time a little, which i the more willingly did, as the younger one pleased me well; and generally they both altogether behaved very becomingly. i often read aloud something from a novel, and they did the same. the elder, who was as handsome as, perhaps even handsomer than, the second, but who did not correspond with my taste so well as the latter, always conducted herself towards me more obligingly, and more kindly in every respect. she was always at hand during the lesson, and often protracted it: hence i sometimes thought myself bound to offer back a couple of tickets to her father, which, however, he did not accept. the younger, on the contrary, although never showing me any ill will, was more reserved, and waited till she was called by her father before she relieved the elder. the cause of this became manifest to me one evening; for when, after the dance was done, i was about to go into the sitting-room with the elder, she held me back, and said, "let us remain here a little longer; for i will confess to you that my sister has with her a woman who tells fortunes from cards, and who is to reveal to her how matters stand with an absent lover, on whom her whole heart hangs, and upon whom she has placed all her hope. mine is free," she continued, "and i must accustom myself to see it despised." i thereupon said sundry pretty things to her, replying that she could at once convince herself on that point by consulting the wise woman likewise; that i would do so myself, for i had long wished to learn something of the kind, but lacked faith. she blamed me for this, and assured me that nothing in the world was surer than the responses of this oracle; only it must be consulted, not out of sport and mischief, but solely in real affairs. however, i at last compelled her to go with me into that room, as soon as she had ascertained that the consultation was over. we found her sister in a very cheerful humor: and even towards me she was kinder than usual, sportive, and almost witty; for, since she seemed to be secure of an absent friend, she may have thought it no treachery to be a little gracious with a present friend of her sister's, which she thought me to be. the old woman was now flattered, and good payment was promised her if she would tell the truth to the elder sister and to me. with the usual preparations and ceremonies she began her business, in order to tell the fair one's fortune first. she carefully considered the situation of the cards, but seemed to hesitate, and would not speak out what she had to say. "i see now," said the younger, who was already better acquainted with the interpretation of such a magic tablet, "you hesitate, and do not wish to disclose any thing disagreeable to my sister; but that is a cursed card!" the elder one turned pale, but composed herself, and said, "only speak out: it will not cost one's head!" the old woman, after a deep sigh, showed her that she was in love; that she was not beloved; that another person stood in the way; and other things of like import. we saw the good girl's embarrassment. the old woman thought somewhat to improve the affair by giving hopes of letters and money. "letters," said the lovely child, "i do not expect; and money i do not desire. if it is true, as you say, that i love, i deserve a heart that loves me in return."--"let us see if it will not be better," replied the old woman, as she shuffled the cards and laid them out a second time; but before the eyes of all of us it had only become still worse. the fair one stood, not only more lonely, but surrounded with many sorrows. her lover had moved somewhat farther, and the intervening figures nearer. the old woman wished to try it a third time, in hopes of a better prospect; but the beautiful girl could restrain herself no longer,--she broke out into uncontrollable weeping, her lovely bosom heaved violently, she turned round, and rushed out of the room. i knew not what to do. inclination kept me with the one present: compassion drove me to the other. my situation was painful enough. "comfort lucinda," said the younger: "go after her." i hesitated. how could i comfort her without at least assuring her of some sort of affection? and could i do that at such a moment in a cool, moderate manner? "let us go together," said i to emilia. "i know not whether my presence will do her good," replied she. yet we went, but found the door bolted. lucinda made no answer, we might knock, shout, entreat, as we would. "we must let her have her own way," said emilia: "she will not have it otherwise now." and, indeed, when i called to my mind her manner from our very first acquaintance, she always had something violent and unequal about her, and chiefly showed her affection for me by not behaving to me with rudeness. what was i to do? i paid the old woman richly for the mischief she had caused, and was about to go, when emilia said, "i stipulate that the cards shall now be cut for you too." the old woman was ready. "do not let me be present," cried i, and hastened down stairs. the next day i had not courage to go there. the third day, early in the morning, emilia sent me word by a boy,--who had already brought me many a message from the sisters, and had carried back flowers and fruits to them in return,--that i should not fail that day. i came at the usual hour, and found the father alone, who, in many respects, improved my paces and steps, my goings and comings, my bearing and behavior, and, moreover, seemed to be satisfied with me. the younger daughter came in towards the end of the hour, and danced with me a very graceful minuet, in which her movements were extraordinarily pleasing, and her father declared that he had rarely seen a prettier and more nimble pair upon his floor. after the lesson, i went as usual into the sitting-room; the father left us alone; i missed lucinda. "she is in bed," said emilia, "and i am glad of it: do not be concerned about it. her mental illness is first alleviated when she fancies herself bodily sick: she does not like to die, and therefore she then does what we wish. we have certain family medicines which she takes, and reposes; and thus, by degrees, the swelling waves subside. she is indeed too good and amiable in such an imaginary sickness; and as she is in reality very well, and is only attacked by passion, she imagines various kinds of romantic deaths, with which she frightens herself in a pleasant manner, like children when we tell them ghost-stories. thus, only last night, she announced to me with great vehemence, that this time she should certainly die; and that only when she was really near death, they should bring again before her the ungrateful, false friend, who had at first acted so handsomely to her, and now treated her so ill; she would reproach him bitterly, and then give up the ghost."--"i know not that i am guilty," exclaimed i, "of having expressed any sort of affection for her. i know somebody who can best bear me witness in this respect." emilia smiled, and rejoined, "i understand you; and, if we are not discreet and determined, we shall all find ourselves in a bad plight together. what will you say if i entreat you not to continue your lessons? you have, i believe, four tickets yet of the last month: and my father has already declared that he finds it inexcusable to take your money any longer, unless you wish to devote yourself to the art of dancing in a more serious manner; what is required by a young man of the world you possess already."--"and do you, emilia, give me this advice, to avoid your house?" replied i. "yes, i do," said she, "but not of myself. only listen! when you hastened away, the day before yesterday, i had the cards cut for you; and the same response was repeated thrice, and each time more emphatically. you were surrounded by every thing good and pleasing, by friends and great lords; and there was no lack of money. the ladies kept themselves at some distance. my poor sister in particular stood always the farthest off: one other advanced constantly nearer to you, but never came up to your side; for a third person, of the male sex, always came between. i will confess to you that i thought that i myself was meant by the second lady, and after this confession you will best comprehend my well-meant counsel. to an absent friend i have promised my heart and my hand; and, until now, i loved him above all: yet it might be possible for your presence to become more important to me than hitherto; and what kind of a situation would you have between two sisters, one of whom you had made unhappy by your affection, and the other by your coldness, and all this ado about nothing and only for a short time? for, if we had not known already who you are and what are your expectations, the cards would have placed it before my eyes in the clearest manner. fare you well!" said she, and gave me her hand. i hesitated. "now," said she, leading me towards the door, "that it may really be the last time that we shall speak to each other, take what i would otherwise have denied you." she fell upon my neck, and kissed me most tenderly. i embraced her, and pressed her to my bosom. at this moment the side-door flew open; and her sister, in a light but becoming night-dress, rushed out and cried, "you shall not be the only one to take leave of him!" emilia let me go; and lucinda seized me, clung close to my heart, pressed her black locks upon my cheeks, and remained in this position for some time. and thus i found myself between the two sisters, in the dilemma emilia had prophesied to me a moment before. lucinda let me loose, and looked earnestly into my face. i was about to grasp her hand and say something friendly to her; but she turned herself away, walked with violent steps up and down the room for some time, and then threw herself into a corner of the sofa. emilia went to her, but was immediately repulsed; and here began a scene which is yet painful to me in the recollection, and which, although really it had nothing theatrical about it, but was quite suitable to a lively young frenchwoman, could only be properly repeated in the theatre by a good and feeling actress. lucinda overwhelmed her sister with a thousand reproaches. "this is not the first heart," she cried, "that was inclining itself to me, and that you have turned away. was it not just so with him who is absent, and who at last betrothed himself to you under my very eyes? i was compelled to look on; i endured it; but i know how many thousand tears it has cost me. this one, too, you have now taken away from me, without letting the other go; and how many do you not manage to keep at once? i am frank and good natured; and every one thinks he knows me soon, and may neglect me. you are secret and quiet, and people think wonders of what may be concealed behind you. yet there is nothing behind but a cold, selfish heart that can sacrifice every thing to itself; this nobody learns so easily, because it lies deeply hidden in your breast: and just as little do they know of my warm, true heart, which i carry about with me as open as my face." emilia was silent, and had sat down by her sister, who became constantly more and more excited in her discourse, and let certain private matters slip out, which it was not exactly proper for me to know. emilia, on the other hand, who was trying to pacify her sister, made me a sign from behind that i should withdraw; but, as jealousy and suspicion see with a thousand eyes, lucinda seemed to have noticed this also. she sprang up and advanced to me, but not with vehemence. she stood before me, and seemed to be thinking of something. then she said, "i know that i have lost you: i make no further pretensions to you. but neither shall you have him, sister!" so saying, she took a thorough hold of my head, thrusting both her hands into my locks and pressing my face to hers, and kissed me repeatedly on the mouth. "now," cried she, "fear my curse! woe upon woe, for ever and ever, to her who kisses these lips for the first time after me! dare to have any thing more to do with him! i know heaven hears me this time. and you, sir, hasten now, hasten away as fast as you can!" i flew down the stairs, with the firm determination never again to enter the house. autobiography of sir george biddell airy, k.c.b., m.a., ll.d., d.c.l., f.r.s., f.r.a.s., honorary fellow of trinity college, cambridge, astronomer royal from to . edited by wilfrid airy, b.a., m.inst.c.e. preface. the life of airy was essentially that of a hard-working, business man, and differed from that of other hard-working people only in the quality and variety of his work. it was not an exciting life, but it was full of interest, and his work brought him into close relations with many scientific men, and with many men high in the state. his real business life commenced after he became astronomer royal, and from that time forward, during the years that he remained in office, he was so entirely wrapped up in the duties of his post that the history of the observatory is the history of his life. for writing his business life there is abundant material, for he preserved all his correspondence, and the chief sources of information are as follows: ( ) his autobiography. ( ) his annual reports to the board of visitors. ( ) his printed papers entitled "papers by g.b. airy." ( ) his miscellaneous private correspondence. ( ) his letters to his wife. ( ) his business correspondence. ( ) his autobiography, after the time that he became astronomer royal, is, as might be expected, mainly a record of the scientific work carried on at the greenwich observatory: but by no means exclusively so. about the time when he took charge of the observatory there was an immense development of astronomical enterprise: observatories were springing up in all directions, and the astronomer royal was expected to advise upon all of the british and colonial observatories. it was necessary also for him to keep in touch with the continental observatories and their work, and this he did very diligently and successfully, both by correspondence and personal intercourse with the foreign astronomers. there was also much work on important subjects more or less connected with his official duties--such as geodetical survey work, the establishment of time-balls at different places, longitude determinations, observation of eclipses, and the determination of the density of the earth. lastly, there was a great deal of time and work given to questions not very immediately connected with his office, but on which the government asked his assistance in the capacity of general scientific adviser: such were the correction of the compass in iron ships, the railway gauge commission, the commission for the restoration of the standards of length and weight, the maine boundary, lighthouses, the westminster clock, the london university, and many other questions. besides those above-mentioned there were a great many subjects which he took up out of sheer interest in the investigations. for it may fairly be said that every subject of a distinctly practical nature, which could be advanced by mathematical knowledge, had an interest for him: and his incessant industry enabled him to find time for many of them. amongst such subjects were tides and tidal observations, clockwork, and the strains in beams and bridges. a certain portion of his time was also given to lectures, generally on current astronomical questions, for he held it as his duty to popularize the science as far as lay in his power. and he attended the meetings of the royal astronomical society with great regularity, and took a very active part in the discussions and business of the society. he also did much work for the royal society, and (up to a certain date) for the british association. all of the foregoing matters are recorded pretty fully in his autobiography up to the year . after that date the autobiography is given in a much more abbreviated form, and might rather be regarded as a collection of notes for his biography. his private history is given very fully for the first part of his life, but is very lightly touched upon during his residence at greenwich. a great part of the autobiography is in a somewhat disjointed state, and appears to have been formed by extracts from a number of different sources, such as official journals, official correspondence, and reports. in editing the autobiography it has been thought advisable to omit a large number of short notes relating to the routine work of the observatory, to technical and scientific correspondence, to papers communicated to various societies and official business connected with them, and to miscellaneous matters of minor importance. these in the aggregate occupied a great deal of time and attention. but, from their detached nature, they would have but little general interest. at various places will be found short memoirs and other matter by the editor. ( ) all of his annual reports to the board of visitors are attached to his autobiography and were evidently intended to be read with it and to form part of it. these reports are so carefully compiled and are so copious that they form a very complete history of the greenwich observatory and of the work carried on there during the time that he was astronomer royal. the first report contained only four pages, but with the constantly increasing amount and range of work the reports constantly increased in volume till the later reports contained pages. extracts from these reports relating to matters of novelty and importance, and illustrating the principles which guided him in his conduct of the observatory, have been incorporated with the autobiography. ( ) the printed "papers by g.b. airy" are bound in large quarto volumes. there are of these papers, on a great variety of subjects: a list of them is appended to this history, as also is a list of the books that he wrote, and one or two of the papers which were separately printed. they form a very important part of his life's work, and are frequently referred to in the present history. they are almost all to be found in the transactions of societies or in newspapers, and extend over a period of years ( to ). the progress made in certain branches of science during this long period can very fairly be traced by these papers. ( ) his private correspondence was large, and like his other papers it was carefully arranged. no business letters of any kind are included under this head. in this correspondence letters are occasionally found either dealing with matters of importance or in some way characteristic, and these have been inserted in this biography. as already stated the autobiography left by airy is confined almost entirely to science and business, and touches very lightly on private matters or correspondence. ( ) the letters to his wife are very numerous. they were written during his occasional absences from home on business or for relaxation. on these occasions he rarely let a day pass without writing to his wife, and sometimes he wrote twice on the same day. they are full of energy and interest and many extracts from them are inserted in this history. a great deal of the personal history is taken from them. ( ) all correspondence in any way connected with business during the time that he was astronomer royal is to be found at the royal observatory. it is all bound and arranged in the most perfect order, and any letter throughout this time can be found with the greatest ease. it is very bulky, and much of it is, in a historical sense, very interesting. it was no doubt mainly from this correspondence that the autobiography, which so far as related to the greenwich part of it was almost entirely a business history, was compiled. the history of the early part of his life was written in great detail and contained a large quantity of family matter which was evidently not intended for publication. this part of the autobiography has been compressed. the history of the latter part of his life was not written by himself at all, and has been compiled from his journal and other sources. in both these cases, and occasionally in short paragraphs throughout the narrative, it has been found convenient to write the history in the third person. , the circus, greenwich. note. the syndics of the cambridge university press desire to express their thanks to messrs macmillan & co. for their courteous permission to use in this work the steel engraving of sir george biddell airy published in _nature_ on october , . table of contents. chapter i. personal sketch of george biddell airy chapter ii. from his birth to his taking his b.a. degree at cambridge chapter iii. at trinity college, cambridge, from his taking his b.a. degree to his taking charge of the cambridge observatory as plumian professor chapter iv. at cambridge observatory, from his taking charge of the cambridge observatory to his residence at greenwich observatory as astronomer royal chapter v. at greenwich observatory, - chapter vi. at greenwich observatory, - chapter vii. at greenwich observatory, - chapter viii. at greenwich observatory, - chapter ix. at greenwich observatory, from january st, , to his resignation of office on august th, chapter x. at the white house, greenwich, from his resignation of office on august th, , to his death on january nd, appendix. list of printed papers by g.b. airy, and list of books written by g.b. airy index. chapter i. personal sketch of george biddell airy. the history of airy's life, and especially the history of his life's work, is given in the chapters that follow. but it is felt that the present memoir would be incomplete without a reference to those personal characteristics upon which the work of his life hinged and which can only be very faintly gathered from his autobiography. he was of medium stature and not powerfully built: as he advanced in years he stooped a good deal. his hands were large-boned and well-formed. his constitution was remarkably sound. at no period in his life does he seem to have taken the least interest in athletic sports or competitions, but he was a very active pedestrian and could endure a great deal of fatigue. he was by no means wanting in physical courage, and on various occasions, especially in boating expeditions, he ran considerable risks. in debate and controversy he had great self-reliance, and was absolutely fearless. his eye-sight was peculiar, and required correction by spectacles the lenses of which were ground to peculiar curves according to formulae which he himself investigated: with these spectacles he saw extremely well, and he commonly carried three pairs, adapted to different distances: he took great interest in the changes that took place in his eye-sight, and wrote several papers on the subject. in his later years he became somewhat deaf, but not to the extent of serious personal inconvenience. the ruling feature of his character was undoubtedly order. from the time that he went up to cambridge to the end of his life his system of order was strictly maintained. he wrote his autobiography up to date soon after he had taken his degree, and made his first will as soon as he had any money to leave. his accounts were perfectly kept by double entry throughout his life, and he valued extremely the order of book-keeping: this facility of keeping accounts was very useful to him. he seems not to have destroyed a document of any kind whatever: counterfoils of old cheque-books, notes for tradesmen, circulars, bills, and correspondence of all sorts were carefully preserved in the most complete order from the time that he went to cambridge; and a huge mass they formed. to a high appreciation of order he attributed in a great degree his command of mathematics, and sometimes spoke of mathematics as nothing more than a system of order carried to a considerable extent. in everything he was methodical and orderly, and he had the greatest dread of disorder creeping into the routine work of the observatory, even in the smallest matters. as an example, he spent a whole afternoon in writing the word "empty" on large cards, to be nailed upon a great number of empty packing boxes, because he noticed a little confusion arising from their getting mixed with other boxes containing different articles; and an assistant could not be spared for this work without withdrawing him from his appointed duties. his arrangement of the observatory correspondence was excellent and elaborate: probably no papers are more easy of reference than those arranged on his system. his strict habits of order made him insist very much upon detail in his business with others, and the rigid discipline arising out of his system of order made his rule irksome to such of his subordinates as did not conform readily to it: but the efficiency of the observatory unquestionably depended mainly upon it. as his powers failed with age the ruling passion for order assumed a greater prominence; and in his last days he seemed to be more anxious to put letters which he received into their proper place for reference than even to master their contents. his nature was eminently practical, and any subject which had a distinctly practical object, and could be advanced by mathematical investigation, possessed interest for him. and his dislike of mere theoretical problems and investigations was proportionately great. he was continually at war with some of the resident cambridge mathematicians on this subject. year after year he criticised the senate house papers and the smith's prize papers question by question very severely: and conducted an interesting and acrimonious private correspondence with professor cayley on the same subject. his great mathematical powers and his command of mathematics are sufficiently evidenced by the numerous mathematical treatises of the highest order which he published, a list of which is appended to this biography. but a very important feature of his investigations was the thoroughness of them. he was never satisfied with leaving a result as a barren mathematical expression. he would reduce it, if possible, to a practical and numerical form, at any cost of labour: and would use any approximations which would conduce to this result, rather than leave the result in an unfruitful condition. he never shirked arithmetical work: the longest and most laborious reductions had no terrors for him, and he was remarkably skilful with the various mathematical expedients for shortening and facilitating arithmetical work of a complex character. this power of handling arithmetic was of great value to him in the observatory reductions and in the observatory work generally. he regarded it as a duty to finish off his work, whatever it was, and the writer well remembers his comment on the mathematics of one of his old friends, to the effect that "he was too fond of leaving a result in the form of three complex equations with three unknown quantities." to one who had known, in some degree, of the enormous quantity of arithmetical work which he had turned out, and the unsparing manner in which he had devoted himself to it, there was something very pathetic in his discovery, towards the close of his long life, "that the figures would not add up." his energy and business capacity were remarkable. he was made for work and could not long be happy without it. whatever subject he was engaged upon, he kept his object clearly in view, and made straight for it, aiming far more at clearness and directness than at elegance of periods or symmetry of arrangement. he wrote his letters with great ease and rapidity: and having written them he very rarely had occasion to re-write them, though he often added insertions and interlineations, even in the most important official letters. without this it would have been impossible for him to have turned out the enormous quantity of correspondence that he did. he never dictated letters, and only availed himself of clerical assistance in matters of the most ordinary routine. in his excursions, as in his work, he was always energetic, and could not endure inaction. whatever there was of interest in the places that he visited he examined thoroughly and without delay, and then passed on. and he thus accomplished a great deal in a short vacation. his letters written to his wife, while he was on his excursions, are very numerous and characteristic, and afford ample proofs of his incessant energy and activity both of body and mind. they are not brilliantly written, for it was not in his nature to write for effect, and he would never give himself the trouble to study the composition of his letters, but they are straight-forward, clear, and concise, and he was never at a loss for suitable language to express his ideas. he had a wonderful capacity for enjoyment: the subjects that chiefly interested him were scenery, architecture, and antiquities, but everything novel or curious had an interest for him. he made several journeys to the continent, but by far the greater number of his excursions were made in england and scotland, and there were few parts of the country which he had not visited. he was very fond of the lake district of cumberland, and visited it very frequently, and each time that he went there the same set of views had an eternal freshness for him, and he wrote long descriptions of the scenery and effects with the same raptures as if he had seen it for the first time. many of his letters were written from playford, a village in a beautiful part of suffolk, a few miles from ipswich. here he had a small property, and generally stayed there for a short time once or twice a year. he was extremely fond of this country, and was never tired of repeating his walks by the well-known lanes and footpaths. and, as in cumberland, the suffolk country had an eternal freshness and novelty for him. wherever he went he was indefatigable in keeping up his acquaintance with his numerous friends and his letters abound in social reminiscences. his memory was singularly retentive. it was much remarked at school in his early days, and in the course of his life he had stored up in his memory an incredible quantity of poetry, ballads, and miscellaneous facts and information of all sorts, which was all constantly ready and at his service. it is almost needless to add that his memory was equally accurate and extensive in matters connected with science or business. his independence of character was no doubt due to and inseparable from his great powers. the value of his scientific work greatly depended upon his self-reliance and independence of thought. and in the heavy work of remodelling the observatory it was a very valuable quality. this same self-reliance made him in his latter years apt to draw conclusions too confidently and hastily on subjects which he had taken up more as a pastime than as work. but whatever he touched he dealt with ably and in the most fearless truthseeking manner, and left original and vigorous opinions. he had a remarkably well-balanced mind, and a simplicity of nature that appeared invulnerable. no amount of hero-worship seemed to have the least effect upon him. and from a very early time he was exposed to a great deal of it. his mind was incessantly engaged on investigations of nature, and this seems to have been with him, as has been the case with others, a preserving influence. this simplicity of character he retained throughout his life. at the same time he was sensible and shrewd in his money matters and attentive to his personal interests. and his practical good sense in the general affairs of life, combined with his calm and steady consideration of points submitted to him, made his advice very valuable. this was especially recognized by his own and his wife's relations, who consulted him on many occasions and placed the fullest confidence in his absolute sense of justice as well as in his wise counsel. he was extremely liberal in proportion to his means, and gave away money to a large extent to all who had any claim upon him. but he was not in any sense reckless, and kept a most cautious eye on his expenses. he was not indifferent to the honours which he received in the scientific world, but he does not appear to have sought them in any way, and he certainly did not trouble himself about them. his courtesy was unfailing: no amount of trouble could shake it. whether it was the secretary of the admiralty, or a servant girl wanting her fortune told: whether a begging-letter for money, or miscellaneous invitations: all had their answer in the most clear and courteous language. but he would not grant personal interviews when he could avoid it: they took up too much of his time. his head was so clear that he never seemed to want for the clearest and most direct language in expressing his meaning, and his letters are models of terseness. in all his views and opinions he was strongly liberal. at cambridge at an early date he was one of the members of the senate who supported the application to permit the granting of medical degrees without requiring an expression of assent to the religious doctrines of the church of england. and in he declined to sign a petition against the abolition of religious declarations required of persons admitted to fellowships or proceeding to the degree of m.a. and he was opposed to every kind of narrowness and exclusiveness. when he was appointed to the post of astronomer royal, he stipulated that he should not be asked to vote in any political election. but all his views were in the liberal direction. he was a great reader of theology and church history, and as regarded forms of worship and the interpretation of the scriptures, he treated them with great respect, but from the point of view of a freethinking layman. in the preface to his "notes on the earlier hebrew scriptures" he says, "in regard to the general tone of these notes, i will first remark that i have nothing to say on the subject of verbal inspiration. with those who entertain that doctrine, i can have nothing in common. nor do i recognize, in the professedly historical accounts, any other inspiration which can exempt them from the severest criticism that would be applicable to so-called profane accounts, written under the same general circumstances, and in the same countries." and his treatment of the subject in the "notes" shews how entirely he took a rationalistic view of the whole question. he also strongly sided with bishop colenso in his fearless criticism of the pentateuch, though he dissented from some of his conclusions. but he was deeply imbued with the spirit of religion and reflected much upon it. his whole correspondence conveys the impression of the most sterling integrity and high-mindedness, without a trace of affectation. in no letter does there appear a shadow of wavering on matters of principle, whether in public or private matters, and he was very clear and positive in his convictions. the great secret of his long and successful official career was that he was a good servant and thoroughly understood his position. he never set himself in opposition to his masters, the admiralty. he never hesitated to ask the admiralty for what he thought right, whether in the way of money grants for various objects, or for occasional permission to give his services to scientific matters not immediately connected with the observatory. sometimes the admiralty refused his requests, and he felt this very keenly, but he was far too busy and energetic to trouble himself about such little slights, and cheerfully accepted the situation. what was refused by one administration was frequently granted by another; and in the meantime he was always ready to give his most zealous assistance in any matter that was officially brought before him. this cheerful readiness to help, combined with his great ability and punctuality in business matters, made him a very valuable servant, and speaking generally he had the confidence of the admiralty in a remarkable degree. in many of his reports to the board of visitors he speaks gratefully of the liberality of the admiralty in forwarding scientific progress and research. in matters too which are perhaps of minor importance from the high stand-point of science, but which are invaluable in the conduct of an important business office, such for example as estimates and official correspondence, he was orderly and punctual in the highest degree. and, what is by no means unimportant, he possessed an excellent official style in correspondence, combined with great clearness of expression. his entire honesty of purpose, and the high respect in which he was held both at home and abroad, gave great weight to his recommendations. with regard to his habits while he resided at the observatory, his custom was to work in his official room from to about . , though in summer he was frequently at work before breakfast. he then took a brisk walk, and dined at about . . this early hour had been prescribed and insisted upon by his physician, dr haviland of cambridge, in whom he had great confidence. he ate heartily, though simply and moderately, and slept for about an hour after dinner. he then had tea, and from about to he worked in the same room with his family. he would never retire to a private room, and regarded the society of his family as highly beneficial in "taking the edge off his work." his powers of abstraction were remarkable: nothing seemed to disturb him; neither music, singing, nor miscellaneous conversation. he would then play a game or two at cards, read a few pages of a classical or historical book, and retire at . on sundays he attended morning service at church, and in the evening read a few prayers very carefully and impressively to his whole household. he was very hospitable, and delighted to receive his friends in a simple and natural way at his house. in this he was most admirably aided by his wife, whose grace and skill made everything pleasant to their guests. but he avoided dinner-parties as much as possible--they interfered too much with his work--and with the exception of scientific and official dinners he seldom dined away from home. his tastes were entirely domestic, and he was very happy in his family. with his natural love of work, and with the incessant calls upon him, he would soon have broken down, had it not been for his system of regular relaxation. two or three times a year he took a holiday: generally a short run of a week or ten days in the spring, a trip of a month or thereabouts in the early autumn, and about three weeks at playford in the winter. these trips were always conducted in the most active manner, either in constant motion from place to place, or in daily active excursions. this system he maintained with great regularity, and from the exceeding interest and enjoyment that he took in these trips his mind was so much refreshed and steadied that he always kept himself equal to his work. airy seems to have had a strong bent in the direction of astronomy from his youth, and it is curious to note how well furnished he was, by the time that he became astronomer royal, both with astronomy in all its branches, and with the kindred sciences so necessary for the practical working and improvement of it. at the time that he went to cambridge physical astronomy was greatly studied there and formed a most important part of the university course. he eagerly availed himself of this, and mastered the physical astronomy in the most thorough manner, as was evidenced by his papers collected in his "mathematical tracts," his investigation of the long inequality of the earth and venus, and many other works. as plumian professor he had charge of the small observatory at cambridge, where he did a great deal of the observing and reduction work himself, and became thoroughly versed in the practical working of an observatory. the result of this was immediately seen in the improved methods which he introduced at greenwich, and which were speedily imitated at other observatories. optics and the undulatory theory of light had been very favourite subjects with him, and he had written and lectured frequently upon them. in the construction of the new and powerful telescopes and other optical instruments required from time to time this knowledge was very essential, for in its instrumental equipment the greenwich observatory was entirely remodelled during his tenure of office. and in many of the matters referred to him, as for instance that of the lighthouses, a thorough knowledge of optics was most valuable. he had made a great study of the theory and construction of clocks, and this knowledge was invaluable to him at greenwich in the establishment of new and more accurate astronomical clocks, and especially in the improvement of chronometers. he had carefully studied the theory of pendulums, and had learned how to use them in his experiments in the cornish mines. this knowledge he afterwards utilized very effectively at the harton pit in comparing the density of the earth's crust with its mean density; and it was very useful to him in connection with geodetic surveys and experiments on which he was consulted. and his mechanical knowledge was useful in almost everything. the subjects (outside those required for his professional work) in which he took most interest were poetry, history, theology, antiquities, architecture, and engineering. he was well acquainted with standard english poetry, and had committed large quantities to memory, which he frequently referred to as a most valuable acquisition and an ever-present relief and comfort to his mind. history and theology he had studied as opportunity offered, and without being widely read in them he was much at home with them, and his powerful memory made the most of what he did read. antiquities and architecture were very favourite subjects with him. he had visited most of the camps and castles in the united kingdom and was never tired of tracing their connection with ancient military events: and he wrote several papers on this subject, especially those relating to the roman invasions of britain. ecclesiastical architecture he was very fond of: he had visited nearly all the cathedrals and principal churches in england, and many on the continent, and was most enthusiastic on their different styles and merits: his letters abound in critical remarks on them. he was extremely well versed in mechanics, and in the principles and theory of construction, and took the greatest interest in large engineering works. this led to much communication with stephenson, brunel, and other engineers, who consulted him freely on the subject of great works on which they were engaged: in particular he rendered much assistance in connection with the construction of the britannia bridge over the menai straits. there were various other subjects which he read with much interest (geology in particular), but he made no study of natural history, and knew very little about it beyond detached facts. his industry was untiring, and in going over his books one by one it was very noticeable how large a number of them were feathered with his paper "marks," shewing how carefully he had read them and referred to them. his nature was essentially cheerful, and literature of a witty and humourous character had a great charm for him. he was very fond of music and knew a great number of songs; and he was well acquainted with the theory of music: but he was no performer. he did not sketch freehand but made excellent drawings with his camera lucida. at the time when he took his degree ( ) and for many years afterwards there was very great activity of scientific investigation and astronomical enterprise in england. and, as in the times of flamsteed and halley, the earnest zeal of men of science occasionally led to much controversy and bitterness amongst them. airy was by no means exempt from such controversies. he was a man of keen sensitiveness, though it was combined with great steadiness of temper, and he never hesitated to attack theories and methods that he considered to be scientifically wrong. this led to differences with ivory, challis, south, cayley, archibald smith, and others; but however much he might differ from them he was always personally courteous, and the disputes generally went no farther than as regarded the special matter in question. almost all these controversial discussions were carried on openly, and were published in the athenaeum, the philosophical magazine, or elsewhere; for he printed nearly everything that he wrote, and was very careful in the selection of the most suitable channels for publication. he regarded it as a duty to popularize as much as possible the work done at the observatory, and to take the public into his confidence. and this he effected by articles communicated to newspapers, lectures, numerous papers written for scientific societies, reports, debates, and critiques. his strong constitution and his regular habits, both of work and exercise, are sufficient explanation of the good health which in general he enjoyed. not but what he had sharp touches of illness from time to time. at one period he suffered a good deal from an attack of eczema, and at another from a varicose vein in his leg, and he was occasionally troubled with severe colds. but he bore these ailments with great patience and threw them off in course of time. he was happy in his marriage and in his family, and such troubles and distresses as were inevitable he accepted calmly and quietly. in his death, as in his life, he was fortunate: he had no long or painful illness, and he was spared the calamity of aberration of intellect, the saddest of all visitations. chapter ii. from his birth to his taking his b.a. degree at cambridge. from july th to january th . george biddell airy was born at alnwick in northumberland on july th . his father was william airy of luddington in lincolnshire, the descendant of a long line of airys who have been traced back with a very high degree of probability to a family of that name which was settled at kentmere in westmorland in the th century. a branch of this family migrated to pontefract in yorkshire, where they seem to have prospered for many years, but they were involved in the consequences of the civil wars, and one member of the family retired to ousefleet in yorkshire. his grandson removed to luddington in lincolnshire, where his descendants for several generations pursued the calling of small farmers. george biddell airy's mother, ann airy, was the daughter of george biddell, a well-to-do farmer in suffolk. william airy, the father of george biddell airy, was a man of great activity and strength, and of prudent and steady character. when a young man he became foreman on a farm in the neighbourhood of luddington, and laid by his earnings in summer in order to educate himself in winter. for a person in his rank, his education was unusually good, in matters of science and in english literature. but at the age of he grew tired of country labour, and obtained a post in the excise. after serving in various collections he was appointed collector of the northumberland collection on the th august , and during his service there his eldest son george biddell airy was born. the time over which his service as officer and supervisor extended was that in which smuggling rose to a very high pitch, and in which the position of excise officer was sometimes dangerous. he was remarkable for his activity and boldness in contests with smugglers, and made many seizures. ann airy, the mother of george biddell airy, was a woman of great natural abilities both speculative and practical, kind as a neighbour and as head of a family, and was deeply loved and respected. the family consisted of george biddell, elizabeth, william, and arthur who died young. william airy was appointed to hereford collection on nd october , and removed thither shortly after. he stayed at hereford till he was appointed to essex collection on th february , and during this time george biddell was educated at elementary schools in writing, arithmetic, and a little latin. he records of himself that he was not a favourite with the schoolboys, for he had very little animal vivacity and seldom joined in active play with his schoolfellows. but in the proceedings of the school he was successful, and was a favourite with his master. on the appointment of william airy to essex collection, the family removed to colchester on april th . here george biddell was first sent to a large school in sir isaac's walk, then kept by mr byatt walker, and was soon noted for his correctness in orthography, geography, and arithmetic. he evidently made rapid progress, for on one occasion mr walker said openly in the schoolroom how remarkable it was that a boy years old should be the first in the school. at this school he stayed till the end of and thoroughly learned arithmetic (from walkingame's book), book-keeping by double entry (on which knowledge throughout his life he set a special value), the use of the sliding rule (which knowledge also was specially useful to him in after life), mensuration and algebra (from bonnycastle's books). he also studied grammar in all its branches, and geography, and acquired some knowledge of english literature, beginning with that admirable book the speaker, but it does not appear that latin and greek were attended to at this school. he records that at this time he learned an infinity of snatches of songs, small romances, &c., which his powerful memory retained most accurately throughout his life. he was no hand at active play: but was notorious for his skill in constructing guns for shooting peas and arrows, and other mechanical contrivances. at home he relates that he picked up a wonderful quantity of learning from his father's books. he read and remembered much poetry from such standard authors as milton, pope, gay, gray, swift, &c., which was destined to prove in after life an invaluable relaxation for his mind. but he also studied deeply an excellent cyclopaedia called a dictionary of arts and sciences in three volumes folio, and learned from it much about ship-building, navigation, fortification, and many other subjects. during this period his valuable friendship with his uncle arthur biddell commenced. arthur biddell was a prosperous farmer and valuer at playford near ipswich. he was a well-informed and able man, of powerful and original mind, extremely kind and good-natured, and greatly respected throughout the county. in the autobiography of george biddell airy he states as follows: "i do not remember precisely when it was that i first visited my uncle arthur biddell. i think it was in a winter: certainly as early as the winter of -- . here i found a friend whose society i could enjoy, and i entirely appreciated and enjoyed the practical, mechanical, and at the same time speculative and enquiring talents of arthur biddell. he had a library which, for a person in middle life, may be called excellent, and his historical and antiquarian knowledge was not small. after spending one winter holiday with him, it easily came to pass that i spent the next summer holiday with him: and at the next winter holiday, finding that there was no precise arrangement for my movements, i secretly wrote him a letter begging him to come with a gig to fetch me home with him: he complied with my request, giving no hint to my father or mother of my letter: and from that time, one-third of every year was regularly spent with him till i went to college. how great was the influence of this on my character and education i cannot tell. it was with him that i became acquainted with the messrs ransome, w. cubitt the civil engineer (afterwards sir w. cubitt), bernard barton, thomas clarkson (the slave-trade abolitionist), and other persons whose acquaintance i have valued highly. it was also with him that i became acquainted with the works of the best modern poets, scott, byron, campbell, hogg, and others: as also with the waverley novels and other works of merit." in william airy lost his appointment of collector of excise and was in consequence very much straitened in his circumstances. but there was no relaxation in the education of his children, and at the beginning of george biddell was sent to the endowed grammar school at colchester, then kept by the rev. e. crosse, and remained there till the summer of , when he went to college. the autobiography proceeds as follows: "i became here a respectable scholar in latin and greek, to the extent of accurate translation, and composition of prose latin: in regard to latin verses i was i think more defective than most scholars who take the same pains, but i am not much ashamed of this, for i entirely despise the system of instruction in verse composition. "my father on some occasion had to go to london and brought back for me a pair of -inch globes. they were invaluable to me. the first stars which i learnt from the celestial globe were alpha lyrae, alpha aquilae, alpha cygni: and to this time i involuntarily regard these stars as the birth-stars of my astronomical knowledge. having somewhere seen a description of a gunter's quadrant, i perceived that i could construct one by means of the globe: my father procured for me a board of the proper shape with paper pasted on it, and on this i traced the lines of the quadrant. "my command of geometry was tolerably complete, and one way in which i frequently amused myself was by making paper models (most carefully drawn in outline) which were buttoned together without any cement or sewing. thus i made models, not only of regular solids, regularly irregular solids, cones cut in all directions so as to shew the conic sections, and the like, but also of six-gun batteries, intrenchments and fortresses of various kinds &c. "from various books i had learnt the construction of the steam-engine: the older forms from the dictionary of arts and sciences; newer forms from modern books. the newest form however (with the sliding steam valve) i learnt from a -horse engine at bawtrey's brewery (in which mr keeling the father of my schoolfellow had acquired a partnership). i frequently went to look at this engine, and on one occasion had the extreme felicity of examining some of its parts when it was opened for repair. "in the mean time my education was advancing at playford. the first record, i believe, which i have of my attention to mechanics there is the plan of a threshing-machine which i drew. but i was acquiring valuable information of all kinds from the encyclopaedia londinensis, a work which without being high in any respect is one of the most generally useful that i have seen. but i well remember one of the most important steps that i ever made. i had tried experiments with the object-glass of an opera-glass and was greatly astonished at the appearance of the images of objects seen through the glass under different conditions. by these things my thoughts were turned to accurate optics, and i read with care rutherford's lectures, which my uncle possessed. the acquisition of an accurate knowledge of the effect of optical constructions was one of the most charming attainments that i ever reached. long before i went to college i understood the action of the lenses of a telescope better than most opticians. i also read with great zeal nicholson's dictionary of chemistry, and occasionally made chemical experiments of an inexpensive kind: indeed i grew so fond of this subject that there was some thought of apprenticing me to a chemist. i also attended to surveying and made a tolerable survey and map of my uncle's farm. "at school i was going on successfully, and distinguished myself particularly by my memory. it was the custom for each boy once a week to repeat a number of lines of latin or greek poetry, the number depending very much on his own choice. i determined on repeating every week, and i never once fell below that number and was sometimes much above it. it was no distress to me, and great enjoyment. at michaelmas i repeated lines, probably without missing a word. i do not think that i was a favourite with mr crosse, but he certainly had a high opinion of my powers and expressed this to my father. my father entertained the idea of sending me to college, which mr crosse recommended: but he heard from some college man that the expense would be _£ _ a year, and he laid aside all thoughts of it. "the farm of playford hall was in or hired by thomas clarkson, the slave-trade abolitionist. my uncle transacted much business for him (as a neighbour and friend) in the management of the farm &c. for a time, and they became very intimate. my uncle begged him to examine me in classical knowledge, and he did so, i think, twice. he also gave some better information about the probable expenses &c. at college. the result was a strong recommendation by my uncle or through my uncle that i should be sent to cambridge, and this was adopted by my father. i think it likely that this was in . "in december , dealtry's fluxions was bought for me, and i read it and understood it well. i borrowed hutton's course of mathematics of old mr ransome, who had come to reside at greenstead near colchester, and read a good deal of it. "about ladyday i began to read mathematics with mr rogers (formerly, i think, a fellow of sidney college, and an indifferent mathematician of the cambridge school), who had succeeded a mr tweed as assistant to mr crosse in the school. i went to his house twice a week, on holiday afternoons. i do not remember how long i received lessons from him, but i think to june, . this course was extremely valuable to me, not on account of mr rogers's abilities (for i understood many things better than he did) but for its training me both in cambridge subjects and in the cambridge accurate methods of treating them. i went through euclid (as far as usually read), wood's algebra, wood's mechanics, vince's hydrostatics, wood's optics, trigonometry (in a geometrical treatise and also in woodhouse's algebraical form), fluxions to a good extent, newton's principia to the end of the th section. this was a large quantity, but i read it accurately and understood it perfectly, and could write out any one of the propositions which i had read in the most exact form. my connexion with mr rogers was terminated by _his_ giving me notice that he could not undertake to receive me any longer: in fact i was too much for him. i generally read these books in a garret in our house in george lane, which was indefinitely appropriated to my brother and myself. i find that i copied out vince's conic sections in february, . the first book that i copied was the small geometrical treatise on trigonometry, in may, : to this i was urged by old mr ransome, upon my complaining that i could not purchase the book: and it was no bad lesson of independence to me." during the same period - he was occupied at school on translations into blank verse from the aeneid and iliad, and read through the whole of sophocles very carefully. the classical knowledge which he thus gained at school and subsequently at cambridge was sound, and he took great pleasure in it: throughout his life he made a practice of keeping one or other of the classical authors at hand for occasional relaxation. he terminated his schooling in june . shortly afterwards his father left colchester and went to reside at bury st edmund's. the autobiography proceeds as follows: "mr clarkson was at one time inclined to recommend me to go to st peter's college (which had been much enriched by a bequest from a mr gisborne). but on giving some account of me to his friend mr james d. hustler, tutor of trinity college, mr hustler urged upon him that i was exactly the proper sort of person to go to trinity college. and thus it was settled (mainly by mr clarkson) that i should be entered at trinity college. i think that i was sent for purposely from colchester to playford, and on march th, , i rode in company with mr clarkson from playford to sproughton near ipswich to be examined by the rev. mr rogers, incumbent of sproughton, an old m.a. of trinity college; and was examined, and my certificate duly sent to mr hustler; and i was entered on mr hustler's side as sizar of trinity college. "in the summer of i spent some time at playford. on july th, (my birthday, years old), mr clarkson invited me to dinner, to meet mr charles musgrave, fellow of trinity college, who was residing for a short time at grundisburgh, taking the church duty there for dr ramsden, the rector. it was arranged that i should go to grundisburgh the next day (i think) to be examined in mathematics by mr musgrave. i went accordingly, and mr musgrave set before me a paper of questions in geometry, algebra, mechanics, optics, &c. ending with the first proposition of the principia. i knew nothing more about my answers at the time; but i found long after that they excited so much admiration that they were transmitted to cambridge (i forget whether to mr musgrave's brother, a fellow of trinity college and afterwards archbishop of york, or to mr peacock, afterwards dean of ely) and were long preserved. "the list of the classical subjects for the first year in trinity college was transmitted to me, as usual, by mr hustler. they were--the hippolytus of euripides, the rd book of thucydides, and the nd philippic of cicero. these i read carefully and noted before going up. mr hustler's family lived in bury; and i called on him and saw him in october, introduced by mr clarkson. on the morning of october th, , i went on the top of the coach to cambridge, knowing nobody there but mr hustler, but having letters of introduction from mr charles musgrave to professor sedgwick, mr thomas musgrave, and mr george peacock, all fellows of trinity college. "i was set down at the hoop, saw trinity college for the first time, found mr hustler, was conducted by his servant to the robe-maker's, where i was invested in the cap and blue gown, and after some further waiting was installed into lodgings in bridge street. at o'clock i went to the college hall and was introduced by mr hustler to several undergraduates, generally clever men, and in the evening i attended chapel in my surplice (it being st luke's day) and witnessed that splendid service of which the occasional exhibition well befits the place. "as soon as possible, i called on mr peacock, mr musgrave, and professor sedgwick. by all i was received with great kindness: my examination papers had been sent to them, and a considerable reputation preceded me. mr peacock at once desired that i would not consider mr c. musgrave's letter as an ordinary introduction, but that i would refer to him on all occasions. and i did so for several years, and always received from him the greatest assistance that he could give. i think that i did not become acquainted with mr whewell till the next term, when i met him at a breakfast party at mr peacock's. mr peacock at once warned me to arrange for taking regular exercise, and prescribed a walk of two hours every day before dinner: a rule to which i attended regularly, and to which i ascribe the continuance of good general health. "i shewed mr peacock a manuscript book which contained a number of original propositions which i had investigated. these much increased my reputation (i really had sense enough to set no particular value on it) and i was soon known by sight to almost everybody in the university. a ridiculous little circumstance aided in this. the former rule of the university (strictly enforced) had been that all students should wear drab knee-breeches: and i, at mr clarkson's recommendation, was so fitted up. the struggle between the old dress and the trowsers customary in society was still going on but almost terminated, and i was one of the very few freshmen who retained the old habiliments. this made me in some measure distinguishable: however at the end of my first three terms i laid these aside. "the college lectures began on oct. : mr evans at on the hippolytus, and mr peacock at on euclid (these being the assistant tutors on mr hustler's side): and then i felt myself established. "i wrote in a day or two to my uncle arthur biddell, and i received from him a letter of the utmost kindness. he entered gravely on the consideration of my prospects, my wants, &c.: and offered at all times to furnish me with money, which he thought my father's parsimonious habits might make him unwilling to do. i never had occasion to avail myself of this offer: but it was made in a way which in no small degree strengthened the kindly feelings that had long existed between us. "i carefully attended the lectures, taking notes as appeared necessary. in mathematics there were geometrical problems, algebra, trigonometry (which latter subjects the lectures did not reach till the terms of ). mr peacock gave me a copy of lacroix's differential calculus as translated by himself and herschel and babbage, and also a copy of their examples. at this time, the use of differential calculus was just prevailing over that of fluxions (which i had learnt). i betook myself to it with great industry. i also made myself master of the theories of rectangular coordinates and some of the differential processes applying to them, which only a few of the best of the university mathematicians then wholly possessed. in classical subjects i read the latin (seneca's) and english hippolytus, racine's phèdre (which my sister translated for me), and all other books to which i was referred, aristotle, longinus, horace, bentley, dawes &c., made verse translations of the greek hippolytus, and was constantly on the watch to read what might be advantageous. "early in december mr hustler sent for me to say that one of the company of fishmongers, mr r. sharp, had given to mr john h. smyth, m.p. for norwich, the presentation to a small exhibition of _£ _ a year, which mr smyth had placed in mr hustler's hands, and which mr hustler immediately conferred on me. this was my first step towards pecuniary independence. i retained this exhibition till i became a fellow of the college. "i stayed at cambridge during part of the winter vacation, and to avoid expense i quitted my lodgings and went for a time into somebody's rooms in the bishop's hostel. (it is customary for the tutors to place students in rooms when their right owners are absent.) i took with me thucydides and all relating to it, and read the book, upon which the next term's lectures were to be founded, very carefully. the latter part of the vacation i spent at bury, where i began with the assistance of my sister to pick up a little french: as i perceived that it was absolutely necessary for enabling me to read modern mathematics. "during a part of the time i employed myself in writing out a paper on the geometrical interpretation of the algebraical expression sqrt(- ). i think that the original suggestion of perpendicular line came from some book (i do not remember clearly), and i worked it out in several instances pretty well, especially in de moivre's theorem. i had spoken of it in the preceding term to mr peacock and he encouraged me to work it out. the date at the end is , january . when some time afterwards i spoke of it to mr hustler, he disapproved of my employing my time on such speculations. about the last day of january i returned to cambridge, taking up my abode in my former lodgings. i shewed my paper on sqrt(- ) to mr peacock, who was much pleased with it and shewed it to mr whewell and others. "on february i commenced two excellent customs. the first was that i always had upon my table a quire of large-sized scribbling-paper sewn together: and upon this paper everything was entered: translations into latin and out of greek, mathematical problems, memoranda of every kind (the latter transferred when necessary to the subsequent pages), and generally with the date of the day. this is a most valuable custom. the other was this: as i perceived that to write latin prose well would be useful to me, i wrote a translation of english into latin every day. however much pressed i might be with other business, i endeavoured to write at least three or four words, but if possible i wrote a good many sentences. "i may fix upon this as the time when my daily habits were settled in the form in which they continued for several years. i rose in time for the chapel service at . it was the college regulation that every student should attend chapel four mornings and four evenings (sunday being one of each) in every week: and in this i never failed. after chapel service i came to my lodgings and breakfasted. at i went to college lectures, which lasted to . most of my contemporaries, being intended for the church, attended also divinity lectures: but i never did. i then returned, put my lecture notes in order, wrote my piece of latin prose, and then employed myself on the subject which i was reading for the time: usually taking mathematics at this hour. at or a little sooner i went out for a long walk, usually or miles into the country: sometimes if i found companions i rowed on the cam (a practice acquired rather later). a little before i returned, and at went to college hall. after dinner i lounged till evening chapel time, / past , and returning about i then had tea. then i read quietly, usually a classical subject, till ; and i never, even in the times when i might seem most severely pressed, sat up later. "from this time to the close of the annual examination (beginning of june) i remained at cambridge, stopping there through the easter vacation. the subjects of the mathematical lectures were ordinary algebra and trigonometry: but mr peacock always had some private problems of a higher class for me, and saw me i believe every day. the subjects of the classical lectures were, the termination of hippolytus, the book of thucydides and the oration of cicero. in mathematics i read whewell's mechanics, then just published (the first innovation made in the cambridge system of physical sciences for many years): and i find in my scribbling-paper notes, integrals, central forces, finite differences, steam-engine constructions and powers, plans of bridges, spherical trigonometry, optical calculations relating to the achromatism of eye-pieces and achromatic object-glasses with lenses separated, mechanical problems, transit of venus, various problems in geometrical astronomy (i think it was at this time that mr peacock had given me a copy of woodhouse's astronomy st edition), the rainbow, plans for anemometer and for a wind-pumping machine, clearing lunars, &c., with a great number of geometrical problems. i remark that my ideas on the differential calculus had not acquired on some important points the severe accuracy which they acquired in a few months. in classics i read the persae of aeschylus, greek and roman history very much (mitford, hooke, ferguson) and the books of thucydides introductory to that of the lecture subject (the rd): and attended to chronology. on the scribbling-paper are verse-translations from euripides, careful prose-translations from thucydides, maps, notes on points of grammar &c. i have also little ms. books with abundant notes on all these subjects: i usually made a little book when i pursued any subject in a regular way. "on may st mr dobree, the head lecturer, sent for me to say that he appointed me head-lecturer's sizar for the next year. the stipend of this office was _£ _, a sum upon which i set considerable value in my anxiety for pecuniary independence: but it was also gratifying to me as shewing the way in which i was regarded by the college authorities. "on wednesday, may th, , the examination began. i was anxious about the result of the examination, but only in such a degree as to make my conduct perfectly steady and calm, and to prevent me from attempting any extraordinary exertion. "when the classes were published the first class of the freshman's year (alphabetically arranged, as is the custom) stood thus: airy, boileau, childers, drinkwater, field, iliff, malkin, myers, romilly, strutt, tate, winning. it was soon known however that i was first of the class. it was generally expected (and certainly by me) that, considering how great a preponderance the classics were understood, in the known system of the college, to have in determining the order of merit, field would be first. however the number of marks which field obtained was about , and that which i obtained about . no other competitor, i believe, was near us."--in a letter to airy from his college tutor, mr j. d. hustler, there is the following passage: "it is a matter of extreme satisfaction to me that in the late examination you stood not only in the first class but first of the first. i trust that your future exertions and success will be commensurate with this honourable beginning." "of the men whom i have named, drinkwater (bethune) was afterwards legal member of the supreme court of india, field was afterwards rector of reepham, romilly (afterwards lord romilly) became solicitor-general, strutt (afterwards lord belper) became m.p. for derby and first commissioner of railways, tate was afterwards master of richmond endowed school, childers was the father of childers who was subsequently first lord of the admiralty. "i returned to bury immediately. while there, some students (some of them men about to take their b.a. degree at the next january) applied to me to take them as pupils, but i declined. this year of my life enabled me to understand how i stood among men. i returned to cambridge about july th. as a general rule, undergraduates are not allowed to reside in the university during the long vacation. i believe that before i left, after the examination, i had made out that i should be permitted to reside: or i wrote to mr hustler. i applied to mr hustler to be lodged in rooms in college: and was put, first into rooms in bishop's hostel, and subsequently into rooms in the great court. "the first affair that i had in college was one of disappointment by no means deserving the importance which it assumed in my thoughts. i had been entered a sizar, but as the list of foundation sizars was full, my dinners in hall were paid for. some vacancies had arisen: and as these were to be filled up in order of merit, i expected one: and in my desire for pecuniary independence i wished for it very earnestly. however, as in theory all of the first class were equal, and as there were some sizars in it senior in entrance to me, they obtained places first: and i was not actually appointed till after the next scholarship examination (easter ). however a special arrangement was made, allowing me (i forget whether others) to sit at the foundation-sizars' table whenever any of the number was absent: and in consequence i received practically nearly the full benefits. "mr peacock, who was going out for the vacation, allowed me access to his books. i had also (by the assistance of various fellows, who all treated me with great kindness, almost to a degree of respect) command of the university library and trinity library: and spent this long vacation, like several others, very happily indeed. "the only non-mathematical subjects of the next examination were the gospel of st luke, paley's evidences, and paley's moral and political philosophy. thus my time was left more free to mathematics and to general classics than last year. i now began a custom which i maintained for some years. generally i read mathematics in the morning, and classics for lectures in the afternoon: but invariably i began at o'clock in the evening to read with the utmost severity some standard classics (unconnected with the lectures) and at precisely i left off and went to bed. i continued my daily translations into latin prose as before. "on august th, , rosser, a man of my own year, engaged me as private tutor, paying at the usual rate (_£ _ for a part of the vacation, and _£ _ for a term): and immediately afterwards his friend bedingfield did the same. this occupied two hours every day, and i felt that i was now completely earning my own living. i never received a penny from my friends after this time. "i find on my scribbling-paper various words which shew that in reading poisson i was struggling with french words. there are also finite differences and their calculus, figure of the earth (force to the center), various attractions (some evidently referring to maclaurin's), integrals, conic sections, kepler's problem, analytical geometry, d'alembert's theorem, spherical aberration, rotations round three axes (apparently i had been reading euler), floating bodies, evolute of ellipse, newton's treatment of the moon's variation. i attempted to extract something from vince's astronomy on the physical explanation of precession: but in despair of understanding it, and having made out an explanation for myself by the motion round three axes, i put together a little treatise (sept. , ) which with some corrections and additions was afterwards printed in my mathematical tracts. on sept. th i bought woodhouse's physical astronomy, and this was quite an epoch in my mathematical knowledge. first, i was compelled by the process of "changing the independent variable" to examine severely the logic of the differential calculus. secondly, i was now able to enter on the theory of perturbations, which for several years had been the desired land to me. "at the fellowship election of oct. st, sydney walker (among other persons) was elected fellow. he then quitted the rooms in which he had lived (almost the worst in the college), and i immediately took them. they suited me well and i lived very happily in them till i was elected scholar. they are small rooms above the middle staircase on the south side of neville's court. (mr peacock's rooms were on the same staircase.) i had access to the leads on the roof of the building from one of my windows. this was before the new court was built: my best window looked upon the garden of the college butler. "i had brought to cambridge the telescope which i had made at colchester, and about this time i had a stand made by a carpenter at cambridge: and i find repeated observations of jupiter and saturn made in this october term. "other mathematical subjects on my scribbling-paper are: geometrical astronomy, barometers (for elevations), maclaurin's figure of the earth, lagrange's theorem, integrals, differential equations of the second order, particular solutions. in general mathematics i had much discussion with atkinson (who was senior wrangler, january ), and in physics with rosser, who was a friend of sir richard phillips, a vain objector to gravitation. in classics i read aeschylus and herodotus. "on october th i received notice from the head lecturer to declaim in english with winning. (this exercise consists in preparing a controversial essay, learning it by heart, and speaking it in chapel after the thursday evening's service.) on october th we agreed on the subject, "is natural difference to be ascribed to moral or to physical causes?" i taking the latter side. i spoke the declamation (reciting it without missing a word) on october th. on october th i received notice of latin declamation with myers: subject agreed on, "utrum civitati plus utilitatis an incommodi afferant leges quae ad vitas privatorum hominum ordinandas pertinent"; i took the former. the declamation was recited on november , when a curious circumstance occurred. my declamation was rather long: it was the first saturday of the term on which a declamation had been spoken: and it was the day on which arrived the news of the withdrawal of the bill of pains and penalties against queen caroline. (this trial had been going on through the summer, but i knew little about it.) in consequence the impatience of the undergraduates was very great, and there was such an uproar of coughing &c. in the chapel as probably was never known. the master (dr wordsworth, appointed in the beginning of the summer on the death of dr mansell, and to whom i had been indirectly introduced by mrs clarkson) and tutors and deans tried in vain to stop the hubbub. however i went on steadily to the end, not at all frightened. on the monday the master sent for me to make a sort of apology in the name of the authorities, and letters to the tutors were read at the lectures, and on the whole the transaction was nowise disagreeable to me. "on the commemoration day, december th, i received my prize (mitford's greece) as first-class man, after dinner in the college hall. after a short vacation spent at bury and playford i returned to cambridge, walking from bury on jan. nd, . during the next term i find in mathematics partial differential equations, tides, sound, calculus of variations, composition of rotary motions, motion in resisting medium, lhuillier's theorem, brightness of an object as seen through a medium with any possible law of refraction (a good investigation), star-reductions, numerical calculations connected with them, equilibrium of chain under centripetal force (geometrically treated, as an improvement upon whewell's algebraical method), investigation of the magnitude of attractive forces of glass, &c., required to produce refraction. i forget about mathematical lectures; but i have an impression that i regularly attended mr peacock's lectures, and that he always set me some private problems. "i attended mr evans's lectures on st luke: and i find many notes about the history of the jews, cerinthus and various heresies, paley's moral philosophy, paley's evidences, and biblical maps: also speculations about ancient pronunciations. "for a week or more before the annual examination i was perfectly lazy. the classes of my year (junior sophs) were not published till june . it was soon known that i was first with marks, the next being drinkwater with marks. after a short holiday at bury and playford i returned to cambridge on july th, . my daily life went on as usual. i find that in writing latin i began cicero de senectute (retranslating melmoth's translation, and comparing). some time in the long vacation the names of the prizemen for declamations were published: i was disappointed that not one, english or latin, was assigned to me: but it was foolish, for my declamations were rather trumpery. "my former pupil, rosser, came again on august th. on august th dr blomfield (afterwards bishop of london) called, to engage me as tutor to his brother george beecher blomfield, and he commenced attendance on sept. st. with these two pupils i finished at the end of the long vacation: for the next three terms i had one pupil, gibson, a newcastle man, recommended by mr peacock, i believe, as a personal friend (mr peacock being of durham). "the only classical subject appointed for the next examination was the th, th and th books of the odyssey: the mathematical subjects all the applied mathematics and newton. there was to be however the scholarship examination (sizars being allowed to sit for scholarships only in their rd year: and the scholarship being a kind of little fellowship necessary to qualify for being a candidate for the real fellowship). "when the october term began mr hustler, who usually gave lectures in mathematics to his third-year pupils, said to me that it was not worth my while to attend his lectures, and he or mr peacock suggested that drinkwater, myers, and i should attend the questionists' examinations. the questionists are those who are to take the degree of b.a. in the next january: and it was customary, not to give them lectures, but three times a week to examine them by setting mathematical questions, as the best method of preparing for the b.a. examination. accordingly it was arranged that we should attend the said examinations: but when we went the questionists of that year refused to attend. they were reported to be a weak year, and we to be a strong one: and they were disposed to take offence at us on any occasion. from some of the scholars of our year who sat at table with scholars of that year i heard that they distinguished us as 'the impudent year,' 'the annus mirabilis' &c. on this occasion they pretended to believe that the plan of our attendance at the questionists' examinations had been suggested by an undergraduate, and no explanation was of the least use. so the tutors agreed not to press the matter on them: and instead of it, drinkwater, myers, and i went three times a week to mr peacock's rooms, and he set us questions. i think that this system was also continued during the next two terms (ending in june ) or part of them, but i am not certain. "in august i copied out a m.s. on optics, i think from mr whewell: on august th one on the figure of the earth and tides; and at some other time one on the motion of a body round two centers of force; both from mr whewell. on my scribbling paper i find--a problem on the vibrations of a gig as depending on the horse's step (like that of a pendulum whose support is disturbed), maclaurin's attractions, effect of separating the lenses of an achromatic object-glass (suggested by my old telescope), barlow's theory of numbers, and division of the circle into parts, partial differentials, theory of eye-pieces, epicycloids, figure of the earth, time of body in arc of parabola, problem of sound, tides, refraction of lens, including thickness, &c., ivory's paper on equations, achromatism of microscope, capillary attraction, motions of fluids, euler's principal axes, spherical pendulum, equation b²(d²y/dx²)=(d²y/dt²), barometer, lunar theory well worked out, ordinary differential equations, calculus of variations, interpolations like laplace's for comets, kepler's theorem. in september i had my old telescope mounted on a short tripod stand, and made experiments on its adjustments. i was possessed of white's ephemeris, and i find observations of jupiter and saturn in october. i planned an engine for describing ellipses by the polar equation a/( + e cos theta) and tried to make a micrometer with silk threads converging to a point. mr cubitt called on oct. and nov. ; he was engaged in erecting a treadmill at cambridge gaol, and had some thoughts of sending plans for the cambridge observatory, the erection of which was then proposed. on nov. i find that i had received from cubitt a nautical almanac, the first that i had. on dec. i made some experiments with drinkwater: i think it was whirling a glass containing oil on water. in classics i was chiefly engaged upon thucydides and homer. on october th i had a letter from charles musgrave, introducing challis, who succeeded me in the cambridge observatory in . "at this time my poor afflicted father was suffering much from a severe form of rheumatism or pain in the legs which sometimes prevented him from going to bed for weeks together. "on the commemoration day, dec. th, i received my prize as first-class man in hall again. the next day i walked to bury, and passed the winter vacation there and at playford. "i returned to cambridge on jan. th, . on feb. th i kept my first act, with great compliments from the moderator, and with a most unusually large attendance of auditors. these disputations on mathematics, in latin, are now discontinued. on march th i kept a first opponency against sandys. about this time i received buckle, a trinity man of my own year, who was generally supposed to come next after drinkwater, as pupil. on my sheets i find integrals and differential equations of every kind, astronomical corrections (of which i prepared a book), chances, englefield's comets, investigation of the brightness within a rainbow, proof of clairaut's theorem in one case, metacentres, change of independent variable applied to a complicated case, generating functions, principal axes. on apr. th i intended to write an account of my eye: i was then tormented with a double image, i suppose from some disease of the stomach: and on may th i find by a drawing of the appearance of a lamp that the disease of my eye continued. "on feb. th i gave mr peacock a paper on the alteration of the focal length of a telescope as directed with or against the earth's orbital motion (on the theory of emissions) which was written out for reading to the cambridge philosophical society on feb. th and th. [this society i think was then about a year old.] on feb. my ms. on precession, solar inequality, and nutation, was made complete. "the important examination for scholarships was now approaching. as i have said, this one opportunity only was given to sizars (pensioners having always two opportunities and sometimes three), and it is necessary to be a scholar in order to be competent to be a candidate for a fellowship. on apr. th i addressed my formal latin letter to the seniors. there were vacancies and candidates. the election took place on apr. th, . i was by much the first (which i hardly expected) and was complimented by the master and others. wrote the formal letter of thanks as usual. i was now entitled to claim better rooms, and i took the rooms on the ground floor on the east side of the queen's gate of the great court. even now i think of my quiet residence in the little rooms above the staircase in neville's court with great pleasure. i took possession of my new rooms on may th. "the annual examination began on may th. the classes were published on june th, when my name was separated from the rest by two lines. it was understood that the second man was drinkwater, and that my number of marks was very nearly double of his. having at this time been disappointed of a proposed walking excursion into derbyshire with a college friend, who failed me at the last moment, i walked to bury and spent a short holiday there and at playford. "i returned to cambridge on july th, . i was steadily busy during this long vacation, but by no means oppressively so: indeed my time passed very happily. the scholars' table is the only one in college at which the regular possessors of the table are sure never to see a stranger, and thus a sort of family intimacy grows up among the scholars. moreover the scholars feel themselves to be a privileged class 'on the foundation,' and this feeling gives them a sort of conceited happiness. it was the duty of scholars by turns to read grace after the fellows' dinner and supper, and at this time ( ) i know it by heart. they also read the lessons in chapel on week days: but as there was no daily chapel-service during the summer vacation, i had not much of this. in the intimacy of which i speak i became much acquainted with drinkwater, buckle, rothman, and sutcliffe: and we formed a knot at the table (first the undergraduate scholars' table, and afterwards the bachelor scholars' table) for several years. during this vacation i had for pupils buckle and gibson. "i wrote my daily latin as usual, beginning with the retranslation of cicero's epistles, but i interrupted it from sept. th to feb. th. i believe it was in this vacation, or in the october term, that i began every evening to read thucydides very carefully, as my notes are marked and . on august i find that i was reading ovid's fasti. "in mathematics i find the equation x + y = a, x^q + y^q = b, caustics, calculus of variations, partial differentials, aberration of light, motions of comets, various optical constructions computed with spherical aberrations, particular solutions, mechanics of solid bodies, attractions of shells, chances, ivory's attraction-theorem, lunar theory (algebraical), degrees across meridian, theoretical refraction, newton's rd book, investigation of the tides in a shallow equatoreal canal, from which i found that there would be low-water under the moon, metacentres, rotation of a solid body round three axes, attractions of spheroids of variable density, finite differences, and complete figure of the earth. there is also a good deal of investigation of a mathematical nature not connected with college studies, as musical chords, organ-pipes, sketch for a computing machine (suggested by the publications relating to babbage's), sketch of machine for solving equations. in august there is a plan of a ms. on the differential calculus, which it appears i wrote then: one on the figure of the earth written about august th; one on tides, sept. th; one on newton's principia with algebraical additions, nov. st. on sept. th and th there are lunar distances observed with rothman's sextant and completely worked out; for these i prepared a printed skeleton form, i believe my first. on december th there are references to books on geology (conybeare and phillips, and parkinson) which i was beginning to study. on july th, being the day on which i completed my st year, i carefully did nothing. "another subject partly occupied my thoughts, which, though not (with reference to practical science) very wise, yet gave me some cambridge celebrity. in july i had (as before mentioned) sketched a plan for constructing reflecting telescopes with silvered glass, and had shewn it afterwards to mr peacock. i now completed the theory of this construction by correcting the aberrations, spherical as well as chromatic. on july th, , i drew up a paper about it for mr peacock. he approved it much, and in some way communicated it to mr (afterwards sir john) herschel. i was soon after introduced to herschel at a breakfast with mr peacock: and he approved of the scheme generally. on august th i drew up a complete mathematical paper for the cambridge philosophical society, which i entrusted to mr peacock. the aberrations, both spherical and chromatic, are here worked out very well. on nov. th it was read at the meeting of the philosophical society, and was afterwards printed in their transactions: this was my first printed memoir. before this time however i had arranged to try the scheme practically. mr peacock had engaged to bear the expense, but i had no occasion to ask him. partly (i think) through drinkwater, i communicated with an optician named bancks, in the strand, who constructed the optical part. i subsequently tried my telescope, but it would not do. the fault, as i had not and have not the smallest doubt, depends in some way on the crystallization of the mercury silvering. it must have been about this time that i was introduced to mr (afterwards sir james) south, at a party at mr peacock's rooms. he advised me to write to tulley, a well-known practical optician, who made me some new reflectors, &c. (so that i had two specimens, one gregorian, the other cassegrainian). however the thing failed practically, and i was too busy ever after to try it again. "during the october term i had no pupils. i kept my second act on nov. (opponents hamilton, rusby, field), and an opponency against jeffries on nov. . i attended the questionists' examinations. i seem to have lived a very comfortable idle life. the commemoration day was dec. th, when i received a prize, and the next day i walked to bury. on jan. th, , i returned to cambridge, and until the b.a. examination i read novels and played cards more than at any other time in college. "on thursday, jan. th, , the preliminary classes, for arrangement of details of the b.a. examination, were published. the first class, airy, drinkwater, jeffries, mason. as far as i remember, the rule was then, that on certain days the classes were grouped (in regard to identity of questions given to each group) thus: st, { nd/ rd}, { th/ th} &c., and on certain other days thus: { st/ nd}, { rd/ th}, &c. on saturday, jan. th, i paid fees. on monday, jan. th, the proceedings of examination began by a breakfast in the combination room. after this, gibson gave me breakfast every day, and buckle gave me and some others a glass of wine after dinner. the hours were sharp, the season a cold one, and no fire was allowed in the senate house where the examination was carried on (my place was in the east gallery), and altogether it was a severe time. "the course of examination was as follows: "monday, jan. th. to , printed paper of questions by mr hind (moderator); half-past to , questions given orally; to , ditto; to , paper of problems at mr higman's rooms. "tuesday, jan. th. to , higman's paper; half-past to , questions given orally; to , ditto; to , paper of problems in sidney college hall. "wednesday, jan. th. questions given orally to and to , with paper of questions on paley and locke (one question only in each was answered). "thursday, jan. th. we went in at and , but there seems to have been little serious examination. "friday, jan. . on this day the brackets or classes as resulting from the examination were published, st bracket airy, nd bracket jeffries, rd bracket drinkwater, fisher, foley, mason, myers. "on saturday, jan. th, the degrees were conferred in the usual way. it had been arranged that my brother and sister should come to see me take my degree of b.a., and i had asked gibson to conduct them to the senate house gallery: but mr hawkes (a trinity fellow) found them and stationed them at the upper end of the senate house. after the preliminary arrangements of papers at the vice-chancellor's table, i, as senior wrangler, was led up first to receive the degree, and rarely has the senate house rung with such applause as then filled it. for many minutes, after i was brought in front of the vice-chancellor, it was impossible to proceed with the ceremony on account of the uproar. i gave notice to the smith's prize electors of my intention to 'sit' for that prize, and dined at rothman's rooms with drinkwater, buckle, and others. on monday, jan. th, i was examined by professor woodhouse, for smith's prize, from to . i think that the only competitor was jeffries. on tuesday i was examined by prof. turton, to , and on wednesday by prof. lax, to . on thursday, jan. rd, i went to bury by coach, on one of the coldest evenings that i ever felt. "mr peacock had once recommended me to sit for the chancellor's medal (classical prize). but he now seemed to be cool in his advice, and i laid aside all thought of it." * * * * * it seems not out of place to insert here a copy of some "cambridge reminiscences" written by airy, which will serve to explain the acts and opponencies referred to in the previous narrative, and other matters. the acts. the examination for b.a. degrees was preceded, in my time, by keeping two acts, in the schools under the university library: the second of them in the october term immediately before the examination; the first (i think) in the october term of the preceding year. these acts were reliques of the disputations of the middle ages, which probably held a very important place in the discipline of the university. (there seems to be something like them in some of the continental universities.) the presiding authority was one of the moderators. i apprehend that the word "moderator" signified "president," in which sense it is still used in the kirk of scotland; and that it was peculiarly applied to the presidency of the disputations, the most important educational arrangement in the university. the moderator sent a summons to the "respondent" to submit three subjects for argument, and to prepare to defend them on a given day: he also named three opponents. this and all the following proceedings were conducted in latin. for my act of , nov. , i submitted the following subjects: "recte statuit newtonus in principiis suis mathematicis, libro primo, sectione undecimâ." "recte statuit woodius de iride." "recte statuit paleius de obligationibus." the opponents named to attack these assertions were hamilton of st john's, rusby of st catharine's, field of trinity. it was customary for the opponents to meet at tea at the rooms of the senior opponent, in order to discuss and arrange their arguments; the respondent was also invited, but he was warned that he must depart as soon as tea would be finished: then the three opponents proceeded with their occupation. as i have acted in both capacities, i am able to say that the matter was transacted in an earnest and business-like way. indeed in the time preceding my own (i know not whether in my own time) the assistance of a private tutor was frequently engaged, and i remember hearing a senior m.a. remark that my college tutor (james d. hustler) was the best crammer for an act in the university. at the appointed time, the parties met in the schools: the respondent first read a latin thesis on any subject (i think i took some metaphysical subject), but nobody paid any attention to it: then the respondent read his first dogma, and the first opponent produced an argument against it, in latin. after this there were repeated replies and rejoinders, all in vivâ voce latin, the moderator sometimes interposing a remark in latin. when he considered that one argument was disposed of, he called for another by the words "probes aliter." the arguments were sometimes shaped with considerable ingenuity, and required a clear head in the respondent. when all was finished, the moderator made a complimentary remark to the respondent and one to the first opponent (i forget whether to the second and third). in my respondency of , november , the compliment was, "quaestiones tuas summo ingenio et acumine defendisti, et in rebus mathematicis scientiam planè mirabilem ostendisti." in an opponency (i forget when) the compliment was, "magno ingenio argumenta tua et construxisti et defendisti." the acts of the high men excited much interest among the students. at my acts the room was crowded with undergraduates. i imagine that, at a time somewhat distant, the maintenance of the acts was the only regulation by which the university acted on the studies of the place. when the acts had been properly kept, license was given to the father of the college to present the undergraduate to the vice-chancellor, who then solemnly admitted him "ad respondendum quaestioni." there is no appearance of collective examination before this presentation: what the "quaestio" might be, i do not know. still the undergraduate was not b.a. the quaestio however was finished and approved before the day of a certain congregation, and then the undergraduate was declared to be "actualiter in artibus baccalaureum." probably these regulations were found to be insufficient for the control of education, and the january examination was instituted. i conjecture this to have been at or shortly before the date of the earliest triposes recorded in the cambridge calendar, . the increasing importance of the january examination naturally diminished the value of the acts in the eyes of the undergraduates; and, a few years after my m.a. degree, it was found that the opponents met, not for the purpose of concealing their arguments from the respondent, but for the purpose of revealing them to him. this led to the entire suppression of the system. the most active man in this suppression was mr whewell: its date must have been near to . the shape in which the arguments were delivered by an opponent, reading from a written paper, was, "si (quoting something from the respondent's challenge), &c., &c. cadit quaestio; sed (citing something else bearing on the subject of discussion), valet consequentia; ergo (combining these to prove some inaccuracy in the respondent's challenge), valent consequentia et argumentum." nobody pretended to understand these mystical terminations. apparently the original idea was that several acts should be kept by each undergraduate; for, to keep up the number (as it seemed), each student had to gabble through a ridiculous form "si quaestiones tuae falsae sint, cadit quaestio:--sed quaestiones tuae falsae sunt, ergo valent consequentia et argumentum." i have forgotten time and place when this was uttered. the senate-house examination. the questionists, as the undergraduates preparing for b.a. were called in the october term, were considered as a separate body; collected at a separate table in hall, attending no lectures, but invited to attend a system of trial examinations conducted by one of the tutors or assistant-tutors. from the acts, from the annual college examinations, and (i suppose) from enquiries in the separate colleges, the moderators acquired a general idea of the relative merits of the candidates for honours. guided by this, the candidates were divided into six classes. the moderators and assistant examiners were provided each with a set of questions in manuscript (no printed papers were used for honours in the senate house; in regard to the [greek: hoi polloi] i cannot say). on the monday on which the examination began, the father of the college received all the questionists (i believe), at any rate all the candidates for honours, at breakfast in the combination room at o'clock, and marched them to the senate house. my place with other honour-men was in the east gallery. there one examiner took charge of the st and nd classes united, another examiner took the rd and th classes united, and a third took the th and th united. on tuesday, one examiner took the st class alone, a second took the nd and rd classes united, a third took the th and th classes united, and a fourth took the th class alone. on wednesday, thursday, and friday the changes were similar. and, in all, the questioning was thus conducted. the examiner read from his manuscript the first question. those who could answer it proceeded to write out their answers, and as soon as one had finished he gave the word "done"; then the examiner read out his second question, repeating it when necessary for the understanding by those who took it up more lately. and so on. i think that the same process was repeated in the afternoon; but i do not remember precisely. in this manner the examination was conducted through five days (monday to friday) with no interruption except on friday afternoon. it was principally, perhaps entirely, bookwork. but on two _evenings_ there were printed papers of problems: and the examination in these was conducted just as in the printed papers of the present day: but in the private college rooms of the moderators. and there, wine and other refreshments were offered to the examinees. how this singular custom began, i know not. the order of merit was worked out on friday afternoon and evening, and was in some measure known through the university late in the evening. i remember mr peacock coming to a party of examinees and giving information on several places. i do not remember his mentioning mine (though undoubtedly he did) but i distinctly remember his giving the wooden spoon. on the saturday morning at o'clock the manuscript list was nailed to the door of the senate-house. the form of further proceedings in the presentation for degree (ad respondendum quaestioni) i imagine has not been much altered. the kneeling before the vice-chancellor and placing hands in the vice-chancellor's hands were those of the old form of doing homage. the form of examination which i have described was complicated and perhaps troublesome, but i believe that it was very efficient, possibly more so than the modern form (established i suppose at the same time as the abolition of the acts). the proportion of questions now answered to the whole number set is ridiculously small, and no accurate idea of relative merit can be formed from them. the college hall. when i went up in , and for several years later, the dinner was at / past . there was no supplementary dinner for special demands. boat-clubs i think were not invented, even in a plain social way, till about or ; and not in connection with the college till some years later. some of the senior fellows spoke of the time when dinner was at , and regretted the change. there was supper in hall at o'clock: i have known it to be attended by a few undergraduates when tired by examinations or by evening walks; and there were always some seniors at the upper table: i have occasionally joined them, and have had some very interesting conversations. the supper was cold, but hot additions were made when required. one little arrangement amused me, as shewing the ecclesiastical character of the college. the fasts of the church were to be strictly kept, and there was to be no dinner in hall. it was thus arranged. the evening chapel service, which was usually at - / (i think), was held at ; and at the ordinary full meal was served in hall, but as it followed the chapel attendance it was held to be supper; and there was no subsequent meal. there were no chairs whatever in hall, except the single chair of the vice-master at the head of the table on the dais and that of the senior dean at the table next the east wall. all others sat on benches. and i have heard allusions to a ludicrous difficulty which occurred when some princesses (of the royal family) dined in the hall, and it was a great puzzle how to get them to the right side of the benches. the sizars dined after all the rest; their dinner usually began soon after . for the non-foundationists a separate dinner was provided, as for pensioners. but for the foundationists, the remains of the fellows' dinner were brought down; and i think that this provision was generally preferred to the other. the dishes at all the tables of undergraduates were of pewter, till a certain day when they were changed for porcelain. i cannot remember whether this was at the time when they became questionists (in the october term), or at the time when they were declared "actualiter esse in artibus baccalaureos" (in the lent term). up to the questionist time the undergraduate scholars had no mixture whatever; they were the only pure table in the hall: and i looked on this as a matter very valuable for the ultimate state of the college society. but in the october term, those who were to proceed to b.a. were drafted into the mixed body of questionists: and they greatly disliked the change. they continued so till the lent term, when they were formally invited by the bachelor scholars to join the upper table. mathematical subjects of study and examination. in the october term , the only books on pure mathematics were:--euclid generally, algebra by dr wood (formerly tutor, but in master, of st john's college), vince's fluxions and dealtry's fluxions, woodhouse's and other trigonometries. not a whisper passed through the university generally on the subject of differential calculus; although some papers (subsequently much valued) on that subject had been written by mr woodhouse, fellow of caius college; but their style was repulsive, and they never took hold of the university. whewell's mechanics ( ) contains a few and easy applications of the differential calculus. the books on applied mathematics were wood's mechanics, whewell's mechanics, wood's optics, vince's hydrostatics, vince's astronomy, woodhouse's plane astronomy (perhaps rather later), the first book of newton's principia: i do not remember any others. these works were undoubtedly able; and for the great proportion of university students going into active life, i do not conceal my opinion that books constructed on the principles of those which i have cited were more useful than those exclusively founded on the more modern system. for those students who aimed at the mastery of results more difficult and (in the intellectual sense) more important, the older books were quite insufficient. more aspiring students read, and generally with much care, several parts of newton's principia, book i., and also book iii. (perhaps the noblest example of geometrical form of cosmical theory that the world has seen). i remember some questions from book iii. proposed in the senate-house examination . in the october term , i went up to the university. the works of wood and vince, which i have mentioned, still occupied the lecture-rooms. but a great change was in preparation for the university course of mathematics. during the great continental war, the intercourse between men of science in england and in france had been most insignificant. but in the autumn of , three members of the senate (john herschel, george peacock, and charles babbage) had entered into the mathematical society of paris, and brought away some of the works on pure mathematics (especially those of lacroix) and on mechanics (principally poisson's). in they made a translation of lacroix's differential calculus; and they prepared a volume of examples of the differential and integral calculus. these were extensively studied: but the form of the college examinations or the university examinations was not, i think, influenced by them in the winter - or the two following terms. but in the winter - peacock was one of the moderators; and in the senate-house examination, january , he boldly proposed a paper of important questions entirely in the differential calculus. this was considered as establishing the new system in the university. in january , i think the two systems were mingled. though i was myself subject to that examination, i grieve to say that i have forgotten much of the details, except that i well remember that some of the questions referred to newton, book iii. on the lunar theory. to these i have already alluded. no other work occurs to me as worthy of mention, except woodhouse's lunar theory, entirely founded on the differential calculus. the style of this book was not attractive, and it was very little read. chapter iii. at trinity college, cambridge, from his taking his b.a. degree to his taking charge of the cambridge observatory as plumian professor. from january th, , to march th, . "on jan. th, , i returned to cambridge. i had already heard that i had gained the st smith's prize, and one of the first notifications to me on my return was that the walker's good-conduct prize of _£ _ was awarded to me. "i remember that my return was not very pleasant, for our table in hall was half occupied by a set of irregular men who had lost terms and were obliged to reside somewhat longer in order to receive the b.a. degree. but at the time of my completing the b.a. degree (which is not till some weeks after the examination and admission) i with the other complete bachelors was duly invited to the table of the b.a. scholars, and that annoyance ended. "the liberation from undergraduate study left me at liberty generally to pursue my own course (except so far as it was influenced by the preparation for fellowship examination), and also left me at liberty to earn more money, in the way usual with the graduates, by taking undergraduate pupils. mr peacock recommended me to take only four, which occupied me four hours every day, and for each of them i received guineas each term. my first pupils, for the lent and easter terms, were williamson (afterwards head master of westminster school), james parker (afterwards q.c. and vice-chancellor), bissett, and clinton of caius. to all these i had been engaged before taking my b.a. degree. "i kept up classical subjects. i have a set of notes on the [greek: ploutos] and [greek: nephelai] of aristophanes, finished on mar. th, , and i began my daily writing of latin as usual on feb. th. in mathematics i worked very hard at lunar and planetary theories. i have two ms. books of lunar theory to the th order of small quantities, which however answered no purpose except that of making me perfectly familiar with that subject. i worked well, upon my quires, the figure of saturn supposed homogeneous as affected by the attraction of his ring, and the figure of the earth as heterogeneous, and the calculus of variations. i think it was now that i wrote a ms. on constrained motion. "on mar. th, , i was elected fellow of the cambridge philosophical society. on may th a cast of my head was taken for dr elliotson, an active phrenologist, by deville, a tradesman in the strand. "i had long thought that i should like to visit scotland, and on my once saying so to my mother, she (who had a most kindly recollection of alnwick) said in a few words that she thought i could not do better. i had therefore for some time past fully determined that as soon as i had sufficient spare time and money enough i would go to scotland. the interval between the end of easter term and the usual beginning with pupils in the long vacation offered sufficient time, and i had now earned a little money, and i therefore determined to go, and invited my sister to accompany me. i had no private introductions, except one from james parker to mr reach, a writer of inverness: some which drinkwater sent being too late. on may th we went by coach to stamford; thence by pontefract and oulton to york, where i saw the cathedral, which _then_ disappointed me, but i suppose that we were tired with the night journey. then by newcastle to alnwick, where we stopped for the day to see my birthplace. on may th to edinburgh. on this journey i remember well the stone walls between the fields, the place (in yorkshire) where for the first time in my life i saw rock, the hambleton, kyloe, cheviot and pentland hills, arthur's seat, but still more strikingly the revolving inch keith light. at edinburgh i hired a horse and gig for our journey in scotland, and we drove by queensferry to kinross (where for the first time in my life i saw clouds on the hills, viz. on the lomond hills), and so to perth. thence by dunkeld and killicrankie to blair athol (the dreariness of the drumochter pass made a strong impression on me), and by aviemore (where i saw snow on the mountains) to inverness. here we received much kindness and attention from mr reach, and after visiting the falls of foyers and other sights we went to fort augustus and fort william. we ascended ben nevis, on which there was a great deal of snow, and visited the vitrified fort in glen nevis. then by inverary to tarbet, and ascended ben lomond, from whence we had a magnificent view. we then passed by loch achray to glasgow, where we found james parker's brother (his father, of the house of macinroy and parker, being a wealthy merchant of glasgow). on june th to mr parker's house at blochairn, near glasgow (on this day i heard dr chalmers preach), and on the th went with the family by steamer (the first that i had seen) to fairly, near largs. i returned the gig to edinburgh, visited arran and bute, and we then went by coach to carlisle, and by penrith to keswick (by the old road: never shall i forget the beauty of the approach to keswick). after visiting ambleside and kendal we returned to cambridge by way of leeds, and posted to bury on the th june. the expense of this expedition was about _£ _. it opened a completely new world to me. "i had little time to rest at bury. in the preceding term drinkwater, buckle, and myself, had engaged to go somewhere into the country with pupils during the long vacation (as was customary with cambridge men). buckle however changed his mind. drinkwater went to look for a place, fixed on swansea, and engaged a house (called the cambrian hotel, kept by a captain jenkins). on the morning of july nd i left bury for london and by mail coach to bristol. on the morning of july rd by steamer to swansea, and arrived late at night. i had then five pupils: parker, harman lewis (afterwards professor in king's college, london), pierce morton, gibson, and guest of caius (afterwards master of the college). drinkwater had four, viz. two malkins (from bury), elphinstone (afterwards m.p.), and farish (son of professor farish). we lived a hard-working strange life. my pupils began with me at six in the morning: i was myself reading busily. we lived completely _en famille_, with two men-servants besides the house establishment. one of our first acts was to order a four-oared boat to be built, fitted with a lug-sail: she was called the granta of swansea. in the meantime we made sea excursions with boats borrowed from ships in the port. on july rd, with a borrowed boat, we went out when the sea was high, but soon found our boat unmanageable, and at last got into a place where the sea was breaking heavily over a shoal, and the two of the crew who were nearest to me (a. malkin and lewis), one on each side, were carried out: they were good swimmers and we recovered them, though with some trouble: the breaker had passed quite over my head: we gained the shore and the boat was taken home by land. when our own boat was finished, we had some most picturesque adventures at the mumbles, aberavon, caswell bay, ilfracombe, and tenby. from all this i learnt navigation pretty well. the mixture of hard study and open-air exertion seemed to affect the health of several of us (i was one): we were covered with painful boils. "my latin-writing began again on july th: i have notes on demosthenes, lucretius, and greek history. in mathematics i find chances, figure of the earth with variable density, differential equations, partial differentials, sketch for an instrument for shewing refraction, and optical instruments with effects of chromatic aberration. in august there occurred an absurd quarrel between the fellows of trinity and the undergraduates, on the occasion of commencing the building of king's court, when the undergraduates were not invited to wine, and absented themselves from the hall. "there were vacant this year ( ) five fellowships in trinity college. in general, the b.a.'s of the first year are not allowed to sit for fellowships: but this year it was thought so probable that permission would be given, that on sept. nd mr higman, then appointed as tutor to a third 'side' of the college, wrote to me to engage me as assistant mathematical tutor in the event of my being elected a fellow on oct. st, and i provisionally engaged myself. about the same time i had written to mr peacock, who recommended me to sit, and to mr whewell, who after consultation with the master (dr wordsworth), discouraged it. as there was no absolute prohibition, i left swansea on sept. th (before my engagement to my pupils was quite finished) and returned to cambridge by gloucester, oxford, and london. i gave in my name at the butteries as candidate for fellowship, but was informed in a day or two that i should not be allowed to sit. on sept. th i walked to bury. "i walked back to cambridge on oct. th, . during this october term i had four pupils: neate, cankrein, turner (afterwards nd wrangler and treasurer of guy's hospital), and william hervey (son of the marquis of bristol). in the lent term i had four (neate, cankrein, turner, clinton). in the easter term i had three (neate, cankrein, turner). "my daily writing of latin commenced on oct. th. in november i began re-reading sophocles with my usual care. in mathematics i find investigations of motion in a resisting medium, form of saturn, draft of a paper about an instrument for exhibiting the fundamental law of refraction (read at the philosophical society by mr peacock on nov. th, ), optics, solid geometry, figure of the earth with variable density, and much about attractions. i also in this term wrote a ms. on the calculus of variations, and one on wood's algebra, nd and th parts. i have also notes of the temperature of mines in cornwall, something on the light of oil-gas, and reminiscences of swansea in a view of oswick bay. in november i attended professor sedgwick's geological lectures. "at some time in this term i had a letter from mr south (to whom i suppose i had written) regarding the difficulty of my telescope: he was intimately acquainted with tulley, and i suppose that thus the matter had become more fully known to him. he then enquired if i could visit him in the winter vacation. i accordingly went from bury, and was received by him at his house in blackman street for a week or more with great kindness. he introduced me to sir humphrey davy and many other london savans, and shewed me many london sights and the greenwich observatory. i also had a little practice with his own instruments. he was then on intimate terms with mr herschel (afterwards sir john herschel), then living in london, who came occasionally to observe double stars. this was the first time that i saw practical astronomy. it seems that i borrowed his mountain barometer. in the lent term i wrote to him regarding the deduction of the parallax of mars, from a comparison of the relative positions of mars and leonis, as observed by him and by rumker at paramatta. my working is on loose papers. i see that i have worked out perfectly the interpolations, the effects of uncertainty of longitude, &c., but i do not see whether i have a final result. "in jan. , at playford, i was working on the effects of separating the two lenses of an object-glass, and on the kind of eye-piece which would be necessary: also on spherical aberrations and saturn's figure. on my quires at cambridge i was working on the effects of separating the object-glass lenses, with the view of correcting the secondary spectrum: and on jan. st i received some numbers (indices of refraction) from mr herschel, and reference to fraunhofer's numbers. "about this time it was contemplated to add to the royal observatory of greenwich two assistants of superior education. whether this scheme was entertained by the admiralty, the board of longitude, or the royal society, i do not know. somehow (i think through mr peacock) a message from mr herschel was conveyed to me, acquainting me of this, and suggesting that i should be an excellent person for the principal place. to procure information, i went to london on saturday, feb. th, sleeping at mr south's, to be present at one of sir humphrey davy's saturday evening soirées (they were then held every saturday), and to enquire of sir h. davy and dr young. when i found that succession to the post of astronomer royal was not considered as distinctly a consequence of it, i took it coolly, and returned the next night. the whole proposal came to nothing. "at this time i was engaged upon differential equations, mountain barometer problem and determination of the height of the gogmagogs and several other points, investigations connected with laplace's calculus, spherical aberration in different planes, geology (especially regarding derbyshire, which i proposed to visit), and much of optics. i wrote a draft of my paper on the figure of saturn, and on mar. th, , it was read at the philosophical society under the title of 'on the figure assumed by a fluid homogeneous mass, whose particles are acted on by their mutual attraction, and by small extraneous forces,' and is printed in their memoirs. i also wrote a draft of my paper on achromatic eye-pieces, and on may th, , it was read at the philosophical society under the title of 'on the principles and construction of the achromatic eye-pieces of telescopes, and on the achromatism of microscopes,' including also the effects of separating the lenses of the object-glass. it is printed in their memoirs. "amongst miscellaneous matters i find that on mar. nd of this year i began regularly making extracts from the books of the book society, a practice which i continued to march . on mar. th, a very rainy day, i walked to bury to attend the funeral of my uncle william biddell, near diss, and on mar. th i walked back in rain and snow. on feb. th i dined with cubitt in cambridge. on may st i gave a certificate to rogers (the assistant in crosse's school, and my instructor in mathematics), which my mother amplified much, and which i believe procured his election as master of walsall school. on june rd i went to bury. the speeches at bury school, which i wished to attend, took place next day." at this point of his autobiography the writer continues, "now came one of the most important occurrences in my life." the important event in question was his acquaintance with richarda smith, the lady who afterwards became his wife. the courtship was a long one, and in the autobiography there are various passages relating to it, all written in the most natural and unaffected manner, but of somewhat too private a nature for publication. it will therefore be convenient to digress from the straight path of the narrative in order to insert a short memoir of the lady who was destined to influence his life and happiness in a most important degree. richarda smith was the eldest daughter of the rev. richard smith, who had been a fellow of trinity college, cambridge, but was at this time private chaplain to the duke of devonshire, and held the small living of edensor, near chatsworth, in derbyshire. he had a family of two sons and seven daughters, whom he had brought up and educated very carefully. several of his daughters were remarkable both for their beauty and accomplishments. richarda smith was now in her th year, and the writer of the autobiography records that "at matlock we received great attention from mr chenery: in speaking of mr smith i remember his saying that mr smith had a daughter whom the duke of devonshire declared to be the most beautiful girl he ever saw." this was before he had made the acquaintance of the family. airy was at this time on a walking tour in derbyshire with his brother william, and they were received at edensor by mr smith, to whom he had letters of introduction. he seems to have fallen in love with miss smith "at first sight," and within two days of first seeing her he made her an offer of marriage. neither his means nor his prospects at that time permitted the least idea of an immediate marriage, and mr smith would not hear of any engagement. but he never had the least doubt as to the wisdom of the choice that he had made: he worked steadily on, winning fame and position, and recommending his suit from time to time to miss smith as opportunity offered, and finally married her, nearly six years after his first proposal. his constancy had its reward, for he gained a most charming and affectionate wife. as he records at the time of his marriage, "my wife was aged between and , but she scarcely appeared more than or . her beauty and accomplishments, her skill and fidelity in sketching, and above all her exquisite singing of ballads, made a great sensation in cambridge." their married life lasted years, but the last six years were saddened by the partial paralysis and serious illness of lady airy. the entire correspondence between them was most carefully preserved, and is a record of a most happy union. the letters were written during his numerous journeys and excursions on business or pleasure, and it is evident that his thoughts were with her from the moment of their parting. every opportunity of writing was seized with an energy and avidity that shewed how much his heart was in the correspondence. nothing was too trivial or too important to communicate to his wife, whether relating to family or business matters. the letters on both sides are always full of affection and sympathy, and are written in that spirit of confidence which arises from a deep sense of the value and necessity of mutual support in the troubles of life. and with his active and varied employments and his numerous family there was no lack of troubles. they were both of them simple-minded, sensible, and practical people, and were very grateful for such comforts and advantages as they were able to command, but for nothing in comparison with their deep respect and affection for one another. both by natural ability and education she was well qualified to enter into the pursuits of her husband, and in many cases to assist him. she always welcomed her husband's friends, and by her skill and attractive courtesy kept them well together. she was an admirable letter-writer, and in the midst of her numerous domestic distractions always found time for the duties of correspondence. in conversation she was very attractive, not so much from the wit or brilliancy of her remarks as from the brightness and interest with which she entered into the topics under discussion, and from the unfailing grace and courtesy with which she attended to the views of others. this was especially recognized by the foreign astronomers and men of science who from time to time stayed as guests at the observatory and to whom she acted as hostess. although she was not an accomplished linguist yet she was well able to express herself in french and german, and her natural good sense and kindliness placed her guests at their ease, and made them feel themselves (as indeed they were) welcomed and at home. her father, the rev. richard smith, was a man of most cultivated mind, and of the highest principles, with a keen enjoyment of good society, which the confidence and friendship of his patron the duke of devonshire amply secured to him, both at chatsworth and in london. he had a deep attachment to his alma mater of cambridge, and though not himself a mathematician he had a great respect for the science of mathematics and for eminent mathematicians. during the long courtship already related mr smith conceived the highest respect for airy's character, as well as for his great repute and attainments, and expressed his lively satisfaction at his daughter's marriage. thus on january th, , he wrote to his intended son-in-law as follows: "i have little else to say to you than that i continue with heartfelt satisfaction to reflect on the important change about to take place in my dear daughter's situation. a father must not allow himself to dilate on such a subject: of course i feel confident that you will have no reason to repent the irrevocable step you have taken, but from the manner in which richarda has been brought up, you will find such a helpmate in her as a man of sense and affection would wish to have, and that she is well prepared to meet the duties and trials (for such must be met with) of domestic life with a firm and cultivated mind, and the warm feelings of a kind heart. her habits are such as by no means to lead her to expensive wishes, nor will you i trust ever find it necessary to neglect those studies and pursuits upon which your reputation and subsistence are chiefly founded, to seek for idle amusements for your companion. i must indulge no further in speaking of her, and have only at present to add that i commit in full confidence into your hands the guardianship of my daughter's happiness." and on april th, , shortly after their marriage, he wrote to his daughter thus: "if thinking of you could supply your place amongst us you would have been with us unceasingly, for we have all of us made you the principal object of our thoughts and our talk since you left us, and i travelled with you all your journey to your present delightful home. we had all but one feeling of the purest pleasure in the prospect of the true domestic comfort to which we fully believe you to be now gone, and we rejoice that all your endearing qualities will now be employed to promote the happiness of one whom we think so worthy of them as your dear husband, who has left us in the best opinion of his good heart, as well as his enlightened and sound understanding. his late stay with us has endeared him to us all. never did man enter into the married state from more honourable motives, or from a heart more truly seeking the genuine happiness of that state than mr airy, and he will, i trust, find his reward in you from all that a good wife can render to the best of husbands, and his happiness be reflected on yourself." it would be difficult to find letters of more genuine feeling and satisfaction, or more eloquently expressed, than these. the narrative of the autobiography will now be resumed. "i had been disappointed two years before of an expedition to derbyshire. i had wished still to make it, and my brother wished to go: and we determined to make it this year ( ). we were prepared with walking dresses and knapsacks. i had well considered every detail of our route, and was well provided with letters of introduction, including one to the rev. r. smith of edensor. on june th we started by coach to newmarket and walked through the fens by ramsay to peterborough. then by stamford and ketton quarries to leicester and derby. here we were recognized by a mr calvert, who had seen me take my degree, and he invited us to breakfast, and employed himself in shewing us several manufactories, &c. to which we had been denied access when presenting ourselves unsupported. we then went to belper with an introduction from mr calvert to jedediah strutt: saw the great cotton mills, and in the evening walked to matlock. up to this time the country of greatest interest was the region of the fens about ramsay (a most remarkable district), but now began beauty of scenery. on july th we walked by rowsley and haddon hall over the hills to edensor, where we stayed till the th with mr smith. we next visited hathersage, castleton, and marple (where i wished to see the canal aqueduct), and went by coach to manchester, and afterwards to liverpool. here dr traill recommended us to see the pontycyssylte aqueduct, and we went by chester and wrexham to rhuabon, saw the magnificent work, and proceeded to llangollen. thence by chester and northwich (where we descended a salt-mine) to macclesfield. then to the ecton mine (of which we saw but little) through dovedale to ashbourn, and by coach to derby. on july th to birmingham, where we found mr guest, lodged in his house, and were joined by my pupil guest. here we were fully employed in visiting the manufactures, and then went into the iron country, where i descended a pit in the staffordshire main. thence by coach to cambridge, where i stopped to prepare for the fellowship examination. "i had two pupils in this portion of the long vacation, turner and dobbs. on august nd my writing of latin began regularly as before. my principal mathematics on the quires are optics. on august th i made experiments on my left eye, with good measures, and on aug. th ordered a cylindrical lens of peters, a silversmith in the town, which i believe was never made. subsequently, while at playford, i ordered cylindrical lenses of an artist named fuller, living at ipswich, and these were completed in november, . "my letter to the examiners, announcing my intention of sitting for fellowship (which like all other such documents is preserved on my quires) was delivered on sept st. the examination took place on sept. nd and the two following days. on oct. st, , at the usual hour of the morning, i was elected fellow. there were elected at the same time t.b. macaulay (afterwards lord macaulay), who was a year senior to me in college, and i think field of my own year. i drew up my letter of acknowledgment to the electors. on oct. nd at in the morning i was admitted fellow with the usual ceremonies, and at i called on the electors with my letter of acknowledgment. i immediately journeyed to derbyshire, paid a visit at edensor, and returned by sheffield. "on oct. th (it having been understood with mr higman that my engagement as assistant mathematical tutor stood) the master sent for me to appoint me and to say what was expected as duty of the office. he held out to me the prospect of ultimately succeeding to the tutorship, and i told him that i hoped to be out of college before that time. "about this time the 'athenaeum,' a club of a scientific character, was established in london, and i was nominated on it, but i declined" (oct. th). in this year ( ) i commenced account with a banker by placing _£ _ in the hands of messrs mortlock and co. on oct. th i walked to bury, and after a single day's stay there returned to cambridge. "on oct. rd, , began my lectures as mathematical assistant tutor. i lectured the senior sophs and junior sophs on higman's side. the number of senior sophs was . besides this i took part in the 'examinations of the questionists,' a series of exercises for those who were to take the bachelor's degree in the next january. i examined in mechanics, newton, and optics. i had also as private pupils turner, dobbs, and cooper. i now ceased from the exercise which i had followed with such regularity for five years, namely that of daily writing latin. in its stead i engaged a french master (goussel) with whom i studied french with reasonable assiduity for the three terms to june, . "among mathematical investigations i find: theory of the moon's brightness, motion of a body in an ellipse round two centres of force, various differential equations, numerical computation of sin pi from series, numerical computation of sines of various arcs to decimals, curvature of surfaces in various directions, generating functions, problem of sound. i began in the winter a latin essay as competing for the middle bachelors' prize, but did not proceed with it. i afterwards wished that i had followed it up: but my time was fully occupied. "on jan. th, , i started for edensor, where i paid a visit, and returned on feb. nd. on feb. th i wrote to mr clarkson, asking his advice about a profession or mode of life (the cares of life were now beginning to press me heavily, and continued to do so for several years). he replied very kindly, but his answer amounted to nothing. about the same time i had some conversation of the same kind with mr peacock, which was equally fruitless. "on feb. th i have investigations of the density of light near a caustic (on the theory of emissions). on feb. th i finished a paper about the defect in my eye, which was communicated to the cambridge philosophical society on feb. st. mr peacock or mr whewell had some time previously applied to me to write a paper on trigonometry for the encyclopaedia metropolitana, and i had been collecting some materials (especially in regard to its history) at every visit to london, where i read sometimes at the british museum: also in the cambridge libraries. i began this paper (roughly) on feb. th, and finished it on mar. rd. the history of which i speak, by some odd management of the editors of the encyclopaedia, was never published. the ms. is now amongst the mss. of the royal observatory, greenwich. other subjects on my quires are: theory of musical concords, many things relating to trigonometry and trigonometrical tables, achromatic eye-pieces, equation to the surface bounding the rays that enter my left eye, experiments on percussion. also notes on cumberland and wales (i had already proposed to myself to take a party of pupils in the long vacation to keswick), and notes on history and geology. "i had been in correspondence with dr malkin (master of bury school), who on feb. th sent a certificate for my brother william, whom i entered at trinity on peacock's side. on mar. th i changed my rooms, quitting those on the ground-floor east side of queen mary's gate for first-floor rooms in neville's court, south side, the easternmost rooms. in this term my lectures lasted from apr. th to may th. apparently i had only the senior sophs, in number, and the same four pupils (turner, dobbs, cooper, hovenden) as in the preceding term. the only scientific subjects on which i find notes are, a paper on the forms of the teeth of wheels, communicated to the philosophical society on may nd; some notes about musical concords, and some examination of a strange piece of iceland spar. on apr. th i was elected to the northern institution (of inverness); the first compliment that i received from an extraneous body. "on may th i have a most careful examination of my money accounts, to see whether i can make an expedition with my sister into wales. my sister came to cambridge, and on monday, may rd, , we started for wales, equipped in the lightest way for a walking expedition. we went by birmingham to shrewsbury: then to the pontycyssylte aqueduct and by various places to bala, and thence by llanrwst to conway. here the suspension bridge was under construction: the mole was made and the piers, but nothing else. then on to bangor, where nine chains of the suspension bridge were in place, and so to holyhead. then by carnarvon to bethgelert, ascending snowdon by the way, and in succession by festiniog, dolgelly, and aberystwyth to hereford (the first time that i had visited it since my father left it). from thence we went by coach to london, and i went on to cambridge on the rd of june. "i had arranged to take a party of pupils to keswick, and to take my brother there. mr clarkson had provided me with introductions to mr southey and mr wordsworth. on wednesday, june th, , we started, and went by leicester, sheffield, leeds, and kendal, to keswick, calling at edensor on the way. my pupils were cleasby, marshman, clinton, wigram, tottenham, and m. smith. at keswick i passed three months very happily. i saw mr southey's family frequently, and mr wordsworth's occasionally. by continual excursions in the neighbourhood, and by a few excursions to places as distant as bowness, calder bridge, &c. (always climbing the intermediate mountains), i became well acquainted with almost the whole of that beautiful country, excepting some of the s. w. dales. a geological hammer and a mountain barometer were very interesting companions. i had plenty of work with my pupils: i worked a little lunar theory, a little of laplace's equations, something of the figure of the earth, and i wrote out very carefully my trigonometry for the encyclopaedia metropolitana. i read a little of machiavelli, and various books which i borrowed of mr southey. on friday, sept. th, my brother and i left for kendal, and after a stay of a few days at edensor, arrived at cambridge on oct. th. "on oct. st my lectures to the junior sophs began, names, lasting to dec. th. those to the senior sophs, names, oct th to dec. th. i also examined questionists as last year. i have notes about a paper on the connection of impact and pressure, read at the philosophical society on nov. th, but not printed, dipping-needle problems, curve described round three centres of force, barometer observations, theory of the figure of the earth with variable density, and effect on the moon, correction to the madras pendulum, wedge with friction, spots seen in my eyes, density of rays near a caustic. in this term i accomplished the preparation of a volume of mathematical tracts on subjects which, either from their absolute deficiency in the university or from the unreadable form in which they had been presented, appeared to be wanted. the subjects of my tracts were, lunar theory (begun oct. th, finished nov. st), figure of the earth ( st part finished nov. th), precession and nutation (my old ms. put in order), and the calculus of variations. i applied, as is frequently done, to the syndicate of the university press for assistance in publishing the work; and they agreed to give me paper and printing for copies. this notice was received from professor turton on nov. th, . it was probably also in this year that i drew up an imperfect 'review' of coddington's optics, a work which deserved severe censure: my review was never finished. "in the long vacation at keswick i had six pupils at _£ _ each. in the october term i had marshman and ogilby at _£ _ for three terms, and dobbs at _£ _ for three terms. i had, at mr peacock's suggestion, raised my rate from to guineas for three terms: this prevented some from applying to me, and induced some to withdraw who had been connected with me: but it did me no real hurt, for engrossment by pupils is the worst of all things that can happen to a man who hopes to distinguish himself. on dec. th i went to bury, and returned to cambridge on jan. th, . "i have the attendance-bills of my lectures to senior sophs ( ) from feb. rd to feb. rd, and to freshmen ( ) from feb. th to mar. . it would appear that i gave but one college-lecture per day (my belief was that i always had two). the tutor's stipend per term was _£ _. on my quires i find, investigations for the ellipticity of a heterogeneous spheroid when the density is expressed by sin _qc_/_qc_ (the remarkable properties of which i believe i discovered entirely myself, although they had been discovered by other persons), theoretical numbers for precession, nutation, &c., some investigations using laplace's y, hard work on the figure of the earth to the nd order,'woodhouse's remaining apparatus,' notes about lambton's and kater's errors, depolarization, notes of papers on depolarization in the phil. trans., magnetic investigations for lieut. foster, isochronous oscillations in a resisting medium, observations on a strange piece of iceland spar. on mar. th forwarded preface and title page for my mathematical tracts. "some time in this term i began to think of the possibility of observing the diminution of gravity in a deep mine, and communicated with whewell, who was disposed to join in experiments. my first notion was simply to try the rate of a clock, and the ecton mine was first thought of. i made enquiries about the ecton mine through mr smith (of edensor), and visited the mine, but in the meantime whewell had made enquiries in london and found (principally from dr paris) that the mine of dolcoath near camborne in cornwall would be a better place for the experiment. dr paris wrote to me repeatedly, and ultimately we resolved on trying it there. in my papers on mar. st are various investigations about attractions in both mines. on apr. rd i went to london, principally to arrange about dolcoath, and during april and may i was engaged in correspondence with sir h. davy (president of the royal society), mr herschel, and dr young (secretary of the board of longitude) about the loan of instruments and pendulums. on apr. rd i was practising pendulum-observations (by coincidence); and about this time repeatedly practised transits with a small instrument lent by mr sheepshanks (with whom my acquaintance must have begun no long time before) which was erected under a tent in the fellows' walks. on my quires i find various schemes for graduating thermometers for pendulum experiments. "i find also notes of examination of my brother william, who had come to college last october; and a great deal of correspondence with my mother and sister and mr case, a lawyer, about a troublesome business with mr cropley, an old friend of g. biddell, to whom my father had lent _£ _ and whose affairs were in chancery. "my lectures in this term were to the junior sophs from apr. th to may th: they were six in number and not very regular. on apr. th i sent to mawman the copy of my trigonometry for the encyclopaedia metropolitana, for which i received _£ _. i received notice from the press syndicate that the price of my mathematical tracts was fixed at _ s. d._: i sold the edition to deighton for _£ _, and it was immediately published. about this time i have letters from mr herschel and sir h. davy about a paper to be presented to the royal society--i suppose about the figure of the earth to the nd order of ellipticity, which was read to the royal society on june th. "on saturday, may th, , i went to london on the way to dolcoath, and received four chronometers from the royal observatory, greenwich. i travelled by devonport and falmouth to camborne, where i arrived on may th and dined at the count-house dinner at the mine. i was accompanied by ibbotson, who was engaged as a pupil, and intended for an engineer. on may th whewell arrived, and we took a pendulum and clock down, and on the th commenced the observation of coincidences in earnest. this work, with the changing of the pendulums, and sundry short expeditions, occupied nearly three weeks. we had continued the computation of our observations at every possible interval. it is to be understood that we had one detached pendulum swinging in front of a clock pendulum above, and another similarly mounted below; and that the clocks were compared by chronometers compared above, carried down and compared, compared before leaving, and brought up and compared. the upper and lower pendulums had been interchanged. it was found now that the reliance on the steadiness of the chronometers was too great; and a new method was devised, in which for each series the chronometers should make four journeys and have four comparisons above and two below. this arrangement commenced on the th june and continued till the th. on the th we packed the lower instruments, intending to compare the pendulum directly with the upper one, and sent them up the shaft: when an inexplicable occurrence stopped all proceedings. the basket containing all the important instruments was brought up to the surface (in my presence) on fire; some of the instruments had fallen out with their cases burning. whether a superstitious miner had intentionally fired it, or whether the snuff of a candle had been thrown into it, is not known. our labour was now rendered useless. on the th i packed up what remained of instruments, left for truro, and arrived at bury on july st. during our stay in cornwall i had attended a 'ticketing' or sale of ore at camborne, and we had made expeditions to the n.w. coast, to portreath and illogan, to marazion and st michael's mount, and to penzance and the land's end. on july rd i saw mr cropley in bury gaol, and went to cambridge. on the th i was admitted a.m., and on the th was admitted major fellow. "i had engaged with four pupils to go to orléans in this long vacation: my brother william was also to go. one of my pupils, dobbs, did not join: the other three were tinkler, ogilby, and ibbotson. we left london on july th, and travelled by brighton, dieppe, rouen, and paris to orléans. at paris i saw bouvard, pouillet, laplace and arago. i had introductions from mr peacock, mr south, mr herschel, dr young; and from professor sedgwick to an english resident, mr underwood. on the th i was established in the house of m. lagarde, protestant minister. here i received my pupils. on the th i commenced italian with an italian master: perhaps i might have done more prudently in adhering to french, for i made no great progress. on aug. nd i saw a murderer guillotined in the place martroi. the principal investigations on my quires are--investigations about pendulums, calculus of variations, notes for the figure of the earth (encyc. metrop.) and commencement of the article, steam-engine machinery, &c. i picked up various french ballads, read various books, got copies of the marseillaise (this i was obliged to obtain rather secretly, as the legitimist power under charles x. was then at its height) and other music, and particulars of farm wages for whewell and r. jones. the summer was intensely hot, and i believe that the heat and the work in dolcoath had weakened me a good deal. the family was the old clergyman, his wife, his daughter, and finally his son. we lived together very amicably. my brother lodged in a café in the place martroi; the others in different families. i left orléans on sept. th for paris. here i attended the institut, and was present at one of ampère's lectures. i arrived at cambridge on oct. th. "on oct. th whewell mentioned to me that the lucasian professorship would be immediately vacated by turton, and encouraged me to compete for it. shortly afterwards mr higman mentioned the professorship, and joshua king (of queens') spoke on the restriction which prevented college tutors or assistant tutors from holding the office. about this time mr peacock rendered me a very important service. as the emolument of the lucasian professorship was only _£ _, and that of the assistant tutorship _£ _, i had determined to withdraw from the candidature. but mr peacock represented to me the advantage of position which would be gained by obtaining the professorship (which i then instantly saw), and i continued to be a candidate. i wrote letters to the heads of colleges (the electors) and canvassed them personally. only dr davy, the master of caius college, at once promised me his vote. dr french, master of jesus college, was a candidate; and several of the heads had promised him their votes. mr babbage, the third candidate, threatened legal proceedings, and dr french withdrew. the course was now open for mr babbage and me. "in the meetings of the philosophical society a new mode of proceeding was introduced this term. to enliven the meetings, private members were requested to give oral lectures. mine was the second, i think, and i took for subject the machinery of the steam engines in the cornish mines, and especially of the pumping engines and pumps. it made an excellent lecture: the subjects were at that time undescribed in books, and unknown to engineers in general out of cornwall. "my college lectures seem to have been, oct. st to dec. th to junior sophs, dec. th to th to senior sophs. i assisted at the examinations of the questionists. i had no private pupils. on nov. th i communicated to the cambridge philosophical society a paper on the theory of pendulums, balances, and escapements: and i find applications of babbage's symbolism to an escapement which i proposed. i have various investigations about the earth, supposed to project at middle latitudes above the elliptical form. in november an account of the dolcoath failure (by whewell) was given to the royal society. "at length on dec. th, , the election to the lucasian professorship took place: i was elected (i think unanimously) and admitted. i believe that this gave great satisfaction to the university in general. my uncle, arthur biddell, was in cambridge on that evening, and was the first of my friends who heard of it. on the same page of my quires on which this is mentioned, there is a great list of apparatus to be constructed for lucasian lectures, notes of experiments with atwood's machine, &c. in december, correspondence with dollond about prisms. i immediately issued a printed notice that i would give professorial lectures in the next term. "on dec. th i have a letter from mr smith informing me of the dangerous illness (fever) which had attacked nearly every member of his family, richarda worst of all. on dec. rd i went to bury. the affairs with cropley had been settled by the sale of his property under execution, and my father did not lose much of his debt. but he had declined much in body and mind, and now had strange hallucinations. "the commencement of found me in a better position (not in money but in prospects) than i had before stood in: yet it was far from satisfactory. i had resigned my assistant tutorship of _£ _ per annum together with the prospect of succeeding to a tutorship, and gained only the lucasian professorship of _£ _ per annum. i had a great aversion to entering the church: and my lay fellowship would expire in years. my prospects in the law or other professions might have been good if i could have waited: but then i must have been in a state of starvation probably for many years, and marriage would have been out of the question: i much preferred a moderate income in no long time, and i am sure that in this i judged rightly for my happiness. i had now in some measure taken science as my line (though not irrevocably), and i thought it best to work it well, for a time at least, and wait for accidents. "the acceptance of the lucasian professorship prevented me from being pressed by sedgwick (who was proctor this year) to take the office of moderator: which was a great relief to me. as lucasian professor i was ipso facto member of the board of longitude. a stipend of _£ _ a year was attached to this, on condition of attending four meetings: but i had good reason (from intimations by south and other persons in london) for believing that this would not last long. the fortnightly notices of the meetings of the board were given on jan. th, mar. nd, may th and oct. th. "on jan. nd, , i came from london to bury. i found my father in a very declining state (the painful rheumatism of some years had changed to ulcerations of the legs, and he was otherwise helpless and had distressing hallucinations). on jan. th i walked to cambridge. at both places i was occupied in preparations for the smith's prize examination and for lectures (for the latter i obtained at bury gaol some numerical results about tread-mills). "of the smith's prize i was officially an examiner: and i determined to begin with---what had never been done before--making the examination public, by printing the papers of questions. the prize is the highest mathematical honour in the university: the competitors are incepting bachelors of arts after the examination for that degree. my day of examination (apparently) was jan. st. the candidates were turner, cankrein, cleasby, and mr gordon. the first three had been my private pupils: mr gordon was a fellow-commoner of st peter's college, and had just passed the b.a. examination as senior wrangler, turner being second. my situation as examiner was rather a delicate one, and the more so as, when i came to examine the papers of answers, turner appeared distinctly the first. late at night i carried the papers to whewell's rooms, and he on inspection agreed with me. the other examiners (professors lax and woodhouse, lowndean and plumian professors) generally supported me: and turner had the honour of first smith's prize. "on jan. th my mother wrote, asking if i could see cropley in london, where he was imprisoned for contempt of chancery. i attended the meeting of the board of longitude on feb. st, and afterwards visited cropley in the fleet prison. he died there, some time later. it was by the sale of his effects under execution that my father's debt was paid. "on feb. th i communicated to the royal society a paper on the correction of the solar tables from south's observations. i believe that i had alluded to this at the february meeting of the board of longitude, and that in consequence mr pond, the astronomer royal, had been requested to prepare the errors of the sun's place from the greenwich observations: which were supplied some months later. with the exception of south's solar errors, and some investigations about dipping-needles, i do not find anything going on but matters connected with my approaching lectures. there are bridges, trusses, and other mechanical matters, theoretical and practical, without end. several tradesmen in cambridge and london were well employed. on feb. th i have a letter from cubitt about groins: i remember studying those of the custom-house and other places. on feb. th my syllabus of lectures was finished: this in subsequent years was greatly improved. i applied to the royal society for the loan of huyghens's object-glass, but they declined to lend it. about this time i find observations of the spectrum of sirius. "there had been no lectures on experimental philosophy (mechanics, hydrostatics, optics) for many years. the university in general, i believe, looked with great satisfaction to my vigorous beginning: still there was considerable difficulty about it. there was no understood term for the lectures: no understood hour of the day: no understood lecture room. i began this year in the lent term, but in all subsequent years i took the easter term, mainly for the chance of sunlight for the optical experiments, which i soon made important. i could get no room but a private or retiring room (not a regular lecture room) in the buildings at the old botanic garden: in following years i had the room under the university library. the lectures commenced on some day in february : i think that the number who attended them was about . i remember very well that the matter which i had prepared as an introductory lecture did not last above half the time that i had expected, but i managed very well to fill up the hour. on another occasion i was so ill-prepared that i had contemplated giving notice that i was unable to complete the hour's lecture, but i saw in the front row some strangers, introduced by some of my regular attendants, very busy in taking notes, and as it was evident that a break-down now would not do, i silently exerted myself to think of something, and made a very good lecture. "on mar. st, as official examiner, i received notices from candidates for bell's scholarships, and prepared my paper of questions. i do not remember my day of examination; but i had all the answers to all the examiners' questions in my hands, when on mar. th i received notice that my father had died the preceding evening. this stopped my lectures: they were concluded in the next term. i think that i had only mechanics and imperfect optics this term, no hydrostatics; and that the resumed lectures were principally optical. they terminated about may th. "with my brother i at once went to bury to attend my father's funeral. he was buried on mar. st, , in the churchyard of little whelnetham, on the north side of the church. shortly afterwards i went to london, and on apr. th i attended a meeting of the board of longitude, at which herschel produced a paper regarding improvements of the nautical almanac. herschel and i were in fact the leaders of the reforming party in the board of longitude: dr young the secretary resisted change as much as possible. after the meeting i went to cambridge. i find then calculations of achromatic eye-pieces for a very nice model with silk threads of various colours which i made with my own hands for my optical lectures. "on apr. th herschel wrote to me that the professorship held by dr brinkley (then appointed bishop of cloyne) at dublin would be vacant, and recommended it to my notice, and sent me some introductions. i reached dublin on apr. th, where i was received with great kindness by dr brinkley and dr macdonnell (afterwards provost). i there met the then provost dr bartholomew lloyd, dr lardner, mr hamilton (afterwards sir w. r. hamilton) and others. in a few days i found that they greatly desired to appoint hamilton if possible (they did in fact overcome some difficulties and appoint him in a few months), and that they would not make such an augmentation as would induce me to offer myself as a candidate, and i withdrew. i have always remembered with gratitude dr macdonnell's conduct, in carefully putting me on a fair footing in this matter. i returned by holyhead, and arrived at birmingham on apr. rd. while waiting there and looking over some papers relating to the spherical aberration of eye-pieces, in which i had been stopped some time by a geometrical difficulty, i did in the coffee-room of a hotel overcome the difficulty; and this was the foundation of a capital paper on the spherical aberration of eye-pieces. this paper was afterwards presented to the cambridge philosophical society. "about this time a circumstance occurred of a disagreeable nature, which however did not much disconcert me. mr ivory, who had a good many years before made himself favourably known as a mathematician, especially by his acquaintance with laplace's peculiar analysis, had adopted (as not unfrequently happens) some singular hydrostatical theories. in my last paper on the figure of the earth, i had said that i could not receive one of his equations. in the philosophical magazine of may he attacked me for this with great heat. on may th i wrote an answer, and i think it soon became known that i was not to be attacked with impunity. "long before this time there had been some proposal about an excursion to the lake district with my sister, and i now arranged to carry it out. on may rd i went to bury and on to playford: while there i sketched the cumberland excursion. on june th i went to london, i believe to the visitation of the greenwich observatory to which i was invited. i also attended the meeting of the board of longitude. i think it was here that pond's errors of the sun's place in the nautical almanac from greenwich observations were produced. on june th i went by coach to rugby, where i met my sister, and we travelled to edensor. we made a number of excursions in derbyshire, and then passed on by penrith to keswick, where we arrived on june nd. from keswick we made many excursions in the lake district, visited mr southey and mr wordsworth, descended a coal mine at whitehaven, and returned to edensor by the way of ambleside, kendal, and manchester. with sundry excursions in derbyshire our trip ended, and we returned to cambridge on the st july. "during this long vacation i had one private pupil, crawford, the only pupil this year, and the last that i ever had. at this time there is on my papers an infinity of optical investigations: also a plan of an eye-piece with a concave lens to destroy certain aberrations. on aug. th i went to woodford to see messrs gilbert's optical works. from aug. th i had been preparing for the discussion of the greenwich solar errors, and i had a man at work in my rooms, engaged on the calculation of the errors. i wrote to bouvard at paris for observations of the sun, but he recommended me to wait for the tables which bessel was preparing. i was busy too about my lectures: on sept. th i have a set of plans of printing presses from hansard the printer (who in a visit to cambridge had found me making enquiries about them), and i corresponded with messrs gilbert about optical constructions, and with w. and s. jones, eastons, and others about pumps, hydraulic rams, &c. on sept. th occurred a very magnificent aurora borealis. "i do not find when the investigation of corrections of solar elements was finished, or when my extracts from burckhardt, connaissance des temps , were made. but these led me to suspect an unknown inequality in the sun's motion. on sept. th and th i find the first suspicions of an inequality depending on Ã� mean longitude of venus-- Ã� mean longitude of earth. the thing appeared so promising that i commenced the investigation of the perturbation related to this term, and continued it (a very laborious work) as fast as i was able, though with various interruptions, which in fact were necessary to keep up my spirits. on oct. th i went to london for the board of longitude meeting. here i exhibited the results of my sun investigations, and urged the correction of the elements used in the nautical almanac. dr young objected, and proposed that bouvard should be consulted. professor woodhouse, the plumian professor, was present, and behaved so captiously that some members met afterwards to consider how order could be maintained. i believe it was during this visit to london that i took measures of hammersmith suspension bridge for an intended lecture-model. frequently, but not always, when in london, i resided at the house of mr sheepshanks and his sister miss sheepshanks, woburn place. my quires, at this time, abound with suggestions for lectures and examinations. "on some day about the end of november or beginning of december , when i was walking with mr peacock near the outside gate of the trinity walks, on some mention of woodhouse, the plumian professor, mr peacock said that he was never likely to rise into activity again (or using some expression importing mortal illness). instantly there had passed through my mind the certainty of my succeeding him, the good position in which i stood towards the university, the probability of that position being improved by improved lectures, &c., &c., and by increased reputation from the matters in which i was now engaged, the power of thus commanding an increase of income. i should then have, independent of my fellowship, some competent income, and a house over my head. i was quite aware that some time might elapse, but now for the first time i saw my way clearly. the care of the observatory had been for two or three years attached to the plumian professorship. a grace was immediately prepared, entrusting the temporary care of the observatory to dr french, to me, mr catton, mr sheepshanks, and mr king (afterwards master of queens' college). on dec. th i have a note from mr king about going to the observatory. "on dec. th my paper on corrections of the elements of the solar tables was presented to the royal society. on dec. th, at h. m. a.m. (sunday morning), i arrived at the result of my calculations of the new inequality. i had gone through some fluctuations of feeling. usually the important part of an inequality of this kind depends entirely on the eccentricities of the orbits, but it so happened that from the positions of the axes of the orbits, &c., these terms very nearly destroyed each other. after this came the consideration of inclinations of orbits; and here were sensible terms which were not destroyed. finally i arrived at the result that the inequality would be about "; just such a magnitude as was required. i slipped this into whewell's door. this is, to the time of writing ( ), the last improvement of any importance in the solar theory. some little remaining work went on to dec. th, and then, being thoroughly tired, i laid by the work for revision at some future time. i however added a postscript to my royal society paper on solar errors, notifying this result. "on dec. th i went to bury. while there i heard from whewell that woodhouse was dead. i returned to cambridge and immediately made known that i was a candidate for the now vacant plumian professorship. of miscellaneous scientific business, i find that on oct. th professor barlow of woolwich prepared a memorial to the board of longitude concerning his fluid telescope (which i had seen at woodford), which was considered on nov. st, and i had some correspondence with him in december. in june and august my trigonometry was printing. "on jan. th, , i came from london. it seems that i had been speculating truly 'without book' on perturbations of planetary elements, for on jan. th and th i wrote a paper on a supposed error of laplace, and just at the end i discovered that he was quite right: i folded up the paper and marked it 'a lesson.' i set two papers of questions for smith's prizes (there being a deficiency of one examiner, viz. the plumian professor). "before the beginning of whewell and i had determined on repeating the dolcoath experiments. on jan. th i have a letter from davies gilbert (then president of the royal society) congratulating me upon the solar theory, and alluding to our intended summer's visit to cornwall. we had somehow applied to the board of longitude for pendulums, but dr young wished to delay them, having with capt. basil hall concocted a scheme for making lieut. foster do all the work: whewell and i were indignant at this, and no more was said about it. on jan. th dr young, in giving notice of the board of longitude meeting, informs me that the clocks and pendulums are ready. "i had made known that i was a candidate for the plumian professorship, and nobody thought it worth while to oppose me. one person at least (earnshaw) had intended to compete, but he called on me to make certain that i was a candidate, and immediately withdrew. i went on in quality of syndic for the care of the observatory, ingrafting myself into it. but meantime i told everybody that the salary (about _£ _) was not sufficient for me; and on jan. th i drafted a manifesto or application to the university for an increase of salary. the day of election to the professorship was feb. th. as i was officially (as lucasian professor) an elector, i was present, and i explained to the electors that i could not undertake the responsibility of the observatory without augmentation of income, and that i requested their express sanction to my application to the university for that purpose. they agreed to this generally, and i was elected. i went to london immediately to attend a meeting of the board of longitude and returned on feb. th. on feb. th i began my lectures (which, this year, included mechanics, optics, pneumatics, and hydrostatics) in the room below the university library. the number of names was . the lectures terminated on mar. nd. "on feb. th i received from mr pond information on the emoluments at greenwich observatory. i drew up a second manifesto, and on feb. th i wrote and signed a formal copy for the plumian electors. on feb. th i met them at caius lodge (the master, dr davy, being vice-chancellor). i read my paper, which was approved, and their sanction was given in the form of a request to the vice-chancellor to permit the paper to be printed and circulated. my paper, with this request at the head, was immediately printed, and a copy was sent to every resident m.a. (more than went out in one day). the statement and composition of the paper were generally approved, but the university had never before been taken by storm in such a manner, and there was some commotion about it. i believe that very few persons would have taken the same step. mr sheepshanks wrote to me on mar. th, intimating that it was desperate. i had no doubt of success. whewell told me that some people accused me of bad faith, in omitting allusion to the _£ _ a year received as member of the board of longitude, and to the profits of lectures. i wrote him a note, telling him that i had most certain information of the intention to dissolve the board of longitude (which was done in less than six months), and that by two years' lectures i had gained _£ _ (the expenses being _£ _, receipts _£ _). this letter was sent to the complaining people, and no more was said. by the activity of sheepshanks and the kindness of dr davy the business gradually grew into shape, and on mar. st a grace passed the senate for appointing a syndicate to consider of augmentation. sheepshanks was one of the syndicate, and was understood to represent, in some measure, my interests. the progress of the syndicate however was by no means a straightforward one. members of the senate soon began to remark that before giving anything they ought to know the amount of the university revenue, and another syndicate was then appointed to enquire and report upon it. it was more than a year before my syndicate could make their recommendation: however, in fact, i lost nothing by that delay, as i was rising in the estimation of the university. the observatory house was furnished, partly from woodhouse's sale, and partly from new furniture. my mother and sister came to live with me there. on mar. th i began the observatory journal; on mar. th i slept at the observatory for the first time, and on apr. th i came to reside there permanently, and gave up my college rooms." chapter iv. at cambridge observatory. from his taking charge of the cambridge observatory to his residence at greenwich observatory as astronomer royal. from march th to jan. st . "i attended a meeting of the board of longitude on apr. rd. and again on june th; this was the last meeting: sheepshanks had previously given me private information of the certainty of its dissolution.--on apr. th i visited mr herschel at slough, where one evening i saw saturn with his -foot telescope, the best view of it that i have ever had.--in june i attended the greenwich observatory visitation.--before my election (as plumian professor) there are various schemes on my quires for computation of transit corrections, &c. after apr. th there are corrections for deficient wires, inequality of pivots, &c. and i began a book of proposed regulations for observations. in this are plans for groups of stars for r.a. (the transit instrument being the only one finished): order of preference of classes of observations: no reductions to be made after dinner, or on sunday: no loose papers: observations to be stopped if reductions are two months in arrear: stars selected for parallax.--the reduction of transits begins on apr. th. on may th mr pond sent me some moon-transits to aid in determining my longitude.--dr young, in a letter to me of may th, enquires whether i will accept a free admission to the royal society, which i declined. on may th i was elected to the astronomical society.--towards the end of the year i observed encke's comet: and determined the latitude of the observatory with sheepshanks's repeating circle.--on my papers i find a sketch of an article on the figure of the earth for the encyclopaedia metropolitana. "as early as feb. rd i had been in correspondence with t. jones, the instrument-maker, about pendulums for a repetition of the dolcoath experiments. invitations had been received, and everything was arranged with whewell. sheepshanks, my brother, and mr jackson of ipswich (caius coll.) were to go, and we were subsequently joined by sedgwick, and lodge (magdalene coll.). on july rd sheepshanks and i started by salisbury, taking sherborne on our way to look at the church, which had alarmed the people by signs of a crack, and arrived at camborne on july th. on the th we set up the pendulums, and at once commenced observations, our plan being, to have no intermission in the pendulum observations, so that as soon as the arc became too small a fresh series was started. on july th we raised the instruments, and sheepshanks, who managed much of the upper operations, both astronomical and of pendulums, mounted the pendulums together in his observatory. we went on with our calculations, and on august th, on returning from a visit to john williams at barncoose, we heard that there was a 'run' in dolcoath, that is a sinking of the whole mass of rock where it had been set free by the mine excavations: probably only a few inches, but enough to break the rock much and to stop the pumps. on aug. th the calculations of our observations shewed that there was something wrong, and on the th i perceived an anomaly in the form of the knife edge of one pendulum, and of its agate planes, and suggested cautions for repeating the observations. we determined at once to repeat them: and as the water was rising in the mine there was no time to be lost. we again sent the instruments down, and made observations on the th, th and th. on the th i sent the instruments up, for the water was near our station, and sedgwick, whewell, and i went on a geological expedition to the lizard. on our return we met sheepshanks and the others, and found the results of the last observations unsatisfactory. the results of comparing the pendulums were discordant, and the knife edge of the faulty pendulum had very sensibly altered. we now gave up observations, with the feeling that our time had been totally lost, mainly through the fault of the maker of the pendulum (t. jones). on the th we made an expedition to penzance and other places, and arrived at cambridge on the th of september. "in the course of the work at dolcoath we made various expeditions as opportunity offered. thus we walked to carn brea and witnessed the wrestling, the common game of the country. on another occasion sedgwick, whewell, and i had a capital geological expedition to trewavas head to examine granite veins. we visited at pendarves and trevince, and made the expedition to the lizard already referred to, and saw many of the sights in the neighbourhood. after visiting penzance on the conclusion of our work we saw cape cornwall (where whewell overturned me in a gig), and returned homewards by way of truro, plymouth (where we saw the watering-place and breakwater: also the dockyard, and descended in one of the working diving-bells), exeter, salisbury, and portsmouth. in returning from camborne in i lost the principal of our papers. it was an odd thing that, in going through exeter on our way to camborne in , i found them complete at exeter, identified to the custodian by the dropping out of a letter with my address. "on my return to cambridge i was immediately immersed in the work of the observatory. the only instrument then mounted at the observatory was the transit. i had no assistant whatever.--a mr galbraith of edinburgh had questioned something in one of my papers about the figure of the earth. i drew up a rather formal answer to it: whewell saw my draft and drew up a much more pithy one, which i adopted and sent to the philosophical magazine.--for comparing our clocks at the upper and lower stations of dolcoath we had borrowed from the royal observatory, greenwich, six good pocket chronometers: they were still in the care of mr sheepshanks. i arranged with him that they should be sent backwards and forwards a few times for determining the longitude of cambridge observatory. this was done on oct. st, nd, rd: the result was ° , and this has been used to the present time ( ). it evinced an error in the trigonometrical survey, the origin of which was found, i think, afterwards (dr pearson in a letter of dec. th spoke of the mistake of a may-pole for a signal-staff). i drew up a paper on this, and gave it to the cambridge philosophical society on nov. th. (my only academical paper this year.)--i had several letters from dr young, partly supplying me with calculations that i wanted, partly on reform or extension of the nautical almanac (which dr young resisted as much as possible). he considered me very unfairly treated in the dissolution of the board of longitude: professor lax wished me to join in some effort for its restoration, but i declined. "as my reduction of observations was kept quite close, i now began to think of printing. in regard to the form i determined to adopt a plan totally different from that of any other observations which i had seen. the results were to be the important things: i was desirous of suppressing the separate wires of transits. but upon consulting herschel and other persons they would not agree to it, and i assented to keeping them. i applied to the press syndicate to print the work, and on nov. th at the request of t. musgrave (afterwards archbishop of york) i sent a specimen of my ms.: on nov. th they granted copies, and the printing soon commenced." "during a winter holiday at playford i wrote out some investigations about the orbits of comets, and on jan. rd i returned to cambridge. the smith's prize examination soon followed, in which i set a paper of questions as usual. on feb. th i made notes on liesganig's geodetic work at the british museum. "i was naturally anxious now about the settlement of my salary and of the observatory establishment. i do not know when the syndicate made their report, but it must have been in the last term of . it recommended that the salary should be annually made up (by grace) to _£ _: that an assistant should be appointed with the assent of the vice-chancellor and dismissable by the plumian professor: and that a visiting syndicate should be appointed, partly official and partly of persons to be named every year by grace. the grace for adopting this report was to be offered to the senate on feb. th. the passing of the grace was exposed to two considerable perils. first, i found out (just in time) that a senior fellow of trinity (g.a. browne) was determined to oppose the whole, on account of the insignificant clause regarding dismissal of assistants, which he regarded as tyrannical. i at once undertook that that clause should be rejected. secondly, by the absurd constitution of the 'caput' at cambridge, a single m.a. had the power of stopping any business whatever, and an m.a. actually came to the senate house with the intention of throwing out all the graces on various business that day presented to the senate. luckily he mistook the hour, and came at instead of , and found that all were dispatched. the important parts of the grace passed without any opposition: but i mustered some friends who negatived that part which had alarmed g.a. browne, and it was corrected to his satisfaction by a new grace on mar. th. i was now almost set at rest on one of the great objects of my life: but not quite. i did not regard, and i determined not to regard, the addition to my salary as absolutely certain until a payment had been actually made to me: and i carefully abstained, for the present, from taking any steps based upon it. i found for assistant at the observatory an old lieutenant of the royal navy, mr baldrey, who came on mar. . "on may th i began lectures: there were names. the lectures were improving, especially in the optical part. i do not find note of the day of termination.--i do not know the actual day of publication of my first small volume of cambridge observations, , and of circulation. the date of the preface is apr. th . i have letters of approval of it from davies gilbert, rigaud, and lax. the system which i endeavoured to introduce into printed astronomical observations was partially introduced into this volume, and was steadily improved in subsequent volumes. i think that i am justified, by letters and other remarks, in believing that this introduction of an orderly system of exhibition, not merely of observations but of the steps for bringing them to a practical result--quite a novelty in astronomical publications--had a markedly good effect on european astronomy in general.--in feb. and march i have letters from young about the nautical almanac: he was unwilling to make any great change, but glad to receive any small assistance. south, who had been keeping up a series of attacks on young, wrote to me to enquire how i stood in engagements of assistance to young: i replied that i should assist young whenever he asked me, and that i disapproved of south's course.--the date of the first visitation of the (cambridge) observatory must have been near may th: i invited south and baily to my house; south and i were very near quarrelling about the treatment of young.--in a few days after dr young died: i applied to lord melville for the superintendence of the nautical almanac: mr croker replied that it devolved legally upon the astronomer royal, and on may th pond wrote to ask my assistance when i could give any. on june th i was invited to the greenwich visitation, to which i believe i went on the th. "i had long desired to see switzerland, and i wished now to see some of the continental observatories. i was therefore glad to arrange with mr lodge, of magdalene college (perhaps years senior to myself), to make a little tour. capt. w.h. smyth and others gave me introductions. i met lodge in london, and we started for calais on july th . we visited a number of towns in belgium (at brussels i saw the beginning of the observatory with quetelet), and passed by cologne, frankfort, fribourg, and basle to zurich. thus far we had travelled by diligence or posting: we now procured a guide, and travelled generally on foot. from the th to the st august we travelled diligently through the well-known mountainous parts of switzerland and arrived at geneva on the st august. here i saw m. gautier, m. gambard, and the beginning of the observatory. mr lodge was now compelled to return to cambridge, and i proceeded alone by chambéry to turin, where i made the acquaintance of m. plana and saw the observatory. i then made a tour through north italy, looking over the observatories at milan, padua, bologna, and florence. at leghorn i took a passage for marseille in a xebeque, but after sailing for three days the weather proved very unfavourable, and i landed at spezia and proceeded by genoa and the cornici road to marseille. at marseille i saw m. gambart and the observatory, and passed by avignon, lyons, and nevers to orléans, where i visited my old host m. legarde. thence by paris, beauvais, and calais to london and cambridge, where i arrived on the th october. i had started with more than _£ _ and returned with _ s. d_. the expedition was in many ways invaluable to me. "on my return i found various letters from scientific men: some approving of my method for the mass of the moon: some approving highly of my printed observations, especially d. gilbert, who informed me that they had produced good effect (i believe at greenwich), and herschel.--on nov. th i gave the royal astronomical society a paper about deducing the mass of the moon from observations of venus: on nov. th a paper to the cambridge philosophical society on a correction to the length of a ball-pendulum: and on dec. th a paper on certain conditions under which perpetual motion is possible.--the engravings for my figure of the earth in the encyclopaedia metropolitana were dispatched at the end of the year. some of the paper (perhaps much) was written after my return from the continent.--i began, but never finished, a paper on the form of the earth supposed to be projecting at middle latitudes. in this i refer to the printed paper which nicollet gave me at paris. i believe that the investigations for my paper in the encyclopaedia metropolitana led me to think the supposition unnecessary.--on nov. th i was elected member of the geological society. "on nov. th notice was given of a grace to authorize payment to me of _£ . s. d._, in conformity with the regulations adopted on feb. th, and on nov. th the grace passed the senate. on nov. th the vice-chancellor wrote me a note enclosing the cheque. on nov. rd (practically the first day on which i could go) i went to london and travelled to edensor, where i arrived on the th. here i found richarda smith, proposed to her, and was accepted. i stayed there a few days, and returned to cambridge." "on jan. th the smith's prize paper was prepared. i was (with my assistant, mr baldrey) vigorously working the transit instrument and its reductions, and gradually forming a course of proceeding which has had a good effect on european astronomy. and i was preparing for my marriage. "on mar. th i started with my sister to london, and arrived at edensor on the afternoon of the th. on the th i started alone for manchester and liverpool. through mr mason, a cotton-spinner at calver, near edensor, i had become acquainted with mr john kennedy of manchester, and i had since been acquainted with dr traill of liverpool. amongst other things, i saw the works of the manchester and liverpool railway, then advancing and exciting great interest, and saw george stephenson and his son. on mar. th i was married to richarda smith by her father in edensor. we stopped at edensor till apr. st, and then started in chaises by way of newark and kettering (where we were in danger of being stopped by the snow), and arrived at cambridge on apr. rd. "i was now busy in preparing for lectures, especially the part of the optical lectures which related to the theory of interferences and polarization. i think it was now that my wife drew some of my lecture pictures, exhibiting interference phenomena. my lectures began on apr. th and finished on may th. the number of names was . they were considered an excellent course of lectures. "may th is the date of my preface to the observations: all was then printed. apparently i did not go to the visitation of the greenwich observatory this year.--i was at this time pressing tulley, the optician, about an object-glass for the mural circle.--a new edition of my 'tracts' was wanted, and i prepared to add a tract on the undulatory theory of light in its utmost extent. the syndicate of the university press intimated through dr turton that they could not assist me (regarding the book as a second edition). on july th i have some negociation about it with deighton the bookseller.--on may th i have a note from whewell about a number of crystals of plagiedral quartz, in which he was to observe the crystalline indication, and i the optical phenomena.--the report of the syndicate for visiting the observatory is dated june th: it is highly laudatory.--the proctor (barnard of king's college) requested me to name the moderator for the next b.a. examination: i named mr challis. "on june th my wife and i went, in company with professor and mrs henslow, to london and oxford; at oxford we were received in christchurch college by dr and mrs buckland. my wife and i then went to bedford to visit capt. and mrs smyth, and returned to cambridge on the rd. on july th we went on a visit to my mother and uncle at playford. while there i took a drive with my uncle into some parts near the valley of the gipping, in which i thought that the extent of the chalk was inadequately exhibited on greenough's map, and communicated my remarks to buckland. "i find letters from dr robinson and col. colby about determining longitudes of certain observatories by fire signals: i proposed chronometers as preferable. also from herschel, approving of my second volume of observations: and from f. baily, disclaiming the origination of the attack on the old nautical almanac (with which i suppose i had reproached him). on july th i received a summons from south to a committee for improving the nautical almanac; and subsequently a letter from baily about schumacher's taking offence at a passage of mine in the cambridge observations, on the comparative merits of ephemerides, which i afterwards explained to his satisfaction. "on aug. th my wife and i started for edensor, and after a short stay there proceeded by manchester to cumberland, where we made many excursions. we returned by edensor, and reached cambridge on oct. th, bringing my wife's sister susanna on a visit. my mother had determined, as soon as my intention of marriage was known to her, to quit the house, although always (even to her death) entertaining the most friendly feelings and fondness for my wife. it was also judged best by us all that my sister should not reside with us as a settled inhabitant of the house. they fixed themselves therefore at playford in the farm-house of the luck's farm, then in the occupation of my uncle arthur biddell. on oct. st i have a letter from my sister saying that they were comfortably settled there. "in this month of october (principally, i believe) i made some capital experiments on quartz, which were treated mathematically in a paper communicated in the next year to the cambridge philosophical society. in some of these my wife assisted me, and also drew pictures.--on nov. th the grace for paying me _£ . s. d._ to make my income up to _£ _ passed the senate.--i made three journeys to london to attend committees, one a committee on the nautical almanac, and one a royal society committee about two southern observatories.--on dec. st i have a letter from maclear (medical practitioner and astronomer at biggleswade) about occultations.--in this december i had a quartz object-glass by cauchaix mounted by dollond, and presented it to the observatory.--in this december occurred the alarm from agrarian fires. there was a very large fire at coton, about a mile from the observatory. this created the most extraordinary panic that i ever saw. i do not think it is possible, without having witnessed it, to conceive the state of men's minds. the gownsmen were all armed with bludgeons, and put under a rude discipline for a few days." "on jan. th i went with my wife, first to miss sheepshanks in london, at , woburn place, and next to the house of my wife's old friend, the rev. john courtney, at sanderstead, near croydon. i came to london on one day to attend a meeting of the new board of visitors of the greenwich observatory. formerly the board of visitors consisted of the council of the royal society with persons invited by them (in which capacity i had often attended). but a reforming party, of which south, babbage, baily and beaufort were prominent members, had induced the admiralty to constitute a new board, of which the plumian professor was a member. mr pond, the astronomer royal, was in a rather feeble state, and south seemed determined to bear him down: sheepshanks and i did our best to support him. (i have various letters from sheepshanks to this purpose.)--on jan. nd we returned to cambridge, and i set an examination paper for smith's prizes as usual.--on jan. th i have a letter from herschel about improving the arrangement of pond's observations. i believe that much of this zeal arose from the example of the cambridge observations. "on feb. st my paper 'on the nature of the light in the two rays of quartz' was communicated to the philosophical society: a capital piece of deductive optics. on mar. nd i went to london, i suppose to attend the board of visitors (which met frequently, for the proposed reform of pond's observations, &c.). as i returned on the outside of the coach there occurred to me a very remarkable deduction from my ideas about the rays of quartz, which i soon tried with success, and it is printed as an appendix to the paper above mentioned. on mar. th my son george richard was born." miscellaneous matters in the first half of this year are as follows: "faraday sends me a piece of glass for amici (he had sent me a piece before).--on apr. th i dispatched the preface of my observations: this implies that all was printed.--on apr. th i began my lectures and finished on may th. there were names. a very good series of lectures.--i think it was immediately after this, at the visitation of the cambridge observatory, that f. baily and lieut. stratford were present, and that sheepshanks went to tharfield on the royston downs to fire powder signals to be seen at biggleswade (by maclear) and at bedford (by capt. smyth) as well as by us at cambridge.--on may th i received _£ _ for my article on the figure of the earth from baldwin the publisher of the encyclopaedia metropolitana.--i attended the greenwich visitation on june rd.--on june th the observatory syndicate made their report: satisfactory. "on july th i started with my wife and infant son for edensor, and went on alone to liverpool. i left for dublin on the day on which the loss of the 'rothsay castle' was telegraphed, and had a bad voyage, which made me ill during my whole absence. after a little stay in dublin i went to armagh to visit dr robinson, and thence to coleraine and the giant's causeway, returning by belfast and dublin to edensor. we returned to cambridge on sept. th. "up to this time the observatory was furnished with only one large instrument, namely the -foot transit. on feb. th of this year i had received from thomas jones ( , charing cross) a sketch of the stone pier for mounting the equatoreal which he was commissioned to make: and the pier was prepared in the spring or summer. on sept. th part of the instrument was sent to the observatory; other parts followed, and jones himself came to mount it. on sept. th i received simms's assurance that he was hastening the mural circle.--in this autumn i seriously took up the recalculation of my long inequality of venus and the earth, and worked through it independently; thus correcting two errors. on nov. th i went to slough, to put my paper in the hands of mr herschel for communication to the royal society. the paper was read on nov. th.--this was the year of the first meeting of the british association at york. the next year's meeting was to be at oxford, and on oct. th i received from the rev. w. vernon harcourt an invitation to supply a report on astronomy, which i undertook: it employed me much of the winter, and the succeeding spring and summer.--the second edition of my tracts was ready in october. it contained, besides what was in the first edition, the planetary theory, and the undulatory theory of light. the profit was _£ _.--on nov. th i presented to the cambridge philosophical society a paper 'on a remarkable modification of newton's rings': a pretty good paper.--in november the copley medal was awarded to me by the royal society for my advances in optics.--amongst miscellaneous matters i was engaged in correspondence with col. colby and capt. portlock about the irish triangulation and its calculation. also with the admiralty on the form of publication of the greenwich and cape observations." "in january my examination paper for smith's prizes was prepared as usual.--two matters (in addition to the daily routine of observatory work) occupied me at the beginning of this year. one was the translation of encke's paper in successive numbers of the astronomische nachrichten concerning encke's comet; the university press printed this gratuitously, and i distributed copies, partly by the aid of capt. beaufort.--the other was the report on astronomy for the british association, which required much labour. my reading for it was principally in the university library (possibly some in london), but i borrowed some books from f. baily, and i wrote to capt. beaufort about the possible repetition of lacaille's meridian arc at the cape of good hope. the report appears to have been finished on may nd.--at this time the reform bill was under discussion, and one letter written by me (probably at sheepshanks's request) addressed i think to mr drummond, lord althorp's secretary, was read in the house of commons. "optics were not neglected. i have some correspondence with brewster and faraday. on mar. th i gave the cambridge philosophical society a paper 'on a new analyzer,' and on mar. th one 'on newton's rings between two substances of different refractive powers,' both papers satisfactory to myself.--on the death of mr f. fallows, astronomer at the cape of good hope observatory, the admiralty appointed mr henderson, an edinburgh lawyer, who had done some little things in astronomical calculation. on jan. th i discussed with him observations to be made, and drew up his official instructions which were sent on jan. th.--on feb. th sir james south writes that encke's comet is seen: also that with his -inch achromatic, purchased at paris, and which he was preparing to mount equatoreally, he had seen the disk of aldebaran apparently bisected by the moon's limb.--capt. beaufort and d. gilbert write in march about instructions to dunlop, the astronomer at paramatta. i sent a draft to capt. beaufort on apr. th. "the preface to my observations is dated mar. th. the distribution of the book would be a few weeks later.--on may th i began my lectures: names: i finished on may th.--the mounting of the equatoreal was finished some time before the syndicate visitation at the end of may, but jones's charge appeared to be exorbitant: i believe it was paid at last, but it was considered unfair.--on june nd i went to london: i presume to the greenwich visitation.--i went to oxford to the meeting of the british association (lodging i think with prof. rigaud at the observatory) on june th, and read part of my report on astronomy in the theatre. "on june th i started with my wife for the highlands of scotland. after a short stay at edensor, we went by carlisle to glasgow, and through the lake district to inverness. thence by auchnanault to balmacarra, where we were received by mr lillingstone. after an expedition in skye, we returned to balmacarra, and passed on to invermoriston, where we were received by grant of glenmoriston. we then went to fort william and oban, and crossed over to mull, where we were received by maclean of loch buy. we returned to oban and on to edinburgh, where we made a short stay. then to melrose, where we were received by sir d. brewster, and by edensor to cambridge, where we arrived on sept. th. "i received (at edinburgh i believe) a letter from arago, writing for the plans of our observing-room shutters.--mr vernon harcourt wrote deprecating the tone of my report on astronomy as related to english astronomers, but i refused to alter a word.--sheepshanks wrote in september in great anxiety about the cambridge circle, for which he thought the pier ought to be raised: i would have no such thing, and arranged it much more conveniently by means of a pit. on oct. th simms says that he will come with the circle immediately, and jones on sept. th says that he will make some alteration in the equatoreal: thus there was at last a prospect of furnishing the observatory properly.--on oct. th, i have encke's thanks for the translation of the comet paper.--one of the desiderata which i had pointed out in my report on astronomy was the determination of the mass of jupiter by elongations of the th satellite: and as the equatoreal of the cambridge observatory was on the point of coming into use, i determined to employ it for this purpose. it was necessary for the reduction of the observations that i should prepare tables of the motion of jupiter's th satellite in a form applicable to computations of differences of right-ascension. the date of my tables is oct. rd, .--in october the observatory syndicate made their report: quite satisfactory. "on oct. th sheepshanks wrote asking my assistance in the penny cyclopaedia: i did afterwards write 'gravitation' and 'greenwich.' --capt. beaufort wrote in november to ask my opinion on the preface to an edition of groombridge's catalogue which had been prepared by h. taylor: sheepshanks also wrote; he had objected to it. this was the beginning of an affair which afterwards gave me great labour.--vernon harcourt writes, much offended at some terms which i had used in reference to an office in the british association. "the equatoreal mounting which troughton and simms had been preparing for sir james south's large telescope had not entirely succeeded. i have various letters at this time from sheepshanks and simms, relating to the disposition which sir james south shewed to resist every claim till compelled by law to pay it.--a general election of members of parliament was now coming on: mr lubbock was candidate for the university. on nov. th i had a letter from sedgwick requesting me to write a letter in the newspapers in favour of lubbock; which i did. on dec. th i have notice of the county voting at newmarket on dec. th and th: i walked there to vote for townley; he lost the election by two or three votes in several thousands. "the mural circle was now nearly ready in all respects, and it was known that another assistant would be required. mr richardson (one of the assistants of greenwich observatory) and mr simms recommended to me mr glaisher, who was soon after appointed, and subsequently became an assistant at greenwich.--on dec. th i have a letter from bessel (the first i believe). i think that i had written to him about a general reduction of the greenwich planetary observations, using his tabulae regiomontanae as basis, and that this was his reply approving of it." "on jan. th my daughter elizabeth was born.--i prepared an examination paper for smith's prizes as usual.--on jan. th i received notice from simms that he had received payment (_£ _) for the mural circle from the vice-chancellor. about this time the circle was completely made serviceable, and i (with mr glaisher as assistant) immediately began its use. a puzzling apparent defect in the circle (exhibiting itself by the discordance of zenith points obtained by reflection observations on opposite sides of the zenith) shewed itself very early. on feb. th i have letters about it from sheepshanks and simms.--on jan. th i received notice from f. baily that the astronomical society had awarded me their medal for my long inequality of venus and the earth: on feb. th i went to london, i suppose to receive the medal.--i also inspected sir j. south's telescope, then becoming a matter of litigation, and visited mr herschel at slough: on feb. th i wrote to sir j. south about the support of the instrument, hoping to remove one of the difficulties in the litigation; but it produced no effect.--herschel wrote to me, from poisson, that pontécoulant had verified my long inequality. "mar. th is the date of the preface to my volume of observations: it was of course distributed a few weeks later.--in my report on astronomy i had indicated the mass of jupiter as a subject requiring fresh investigation. during the last winter i had well employed the equatoreal in observing elongations in r.a. of the th satellite. to make these available it was necessary to work up the theory carefully, in which i discovered some remarkable errors of laplace. some of these, for verification, i submitted to mr lubbock, who entirely agreed with me. the date of my first calculations of the mass of jupiter is mar. st: and shortly after that i gave an oral account of them to the cambridge philosophical society. the date of my paper for the astronomical society is april th. the result of my investigations (which was subsequently confirmed by bessel) entirely removed the difficulty among astronomers; and the mass which i obtained has ever since been received as the true one. "on apr. th my wife's two sisters, elizabeth and georgiana smith, came to stay with me.--on apr. nd i began lectures, and finished on may st: there were names. during the course of the lectures i communicated a paper to the philosophical society 'on the calculation of newton's experiments on diffraction.'--i went to london on the visitation of the greenwich observatory: the dinner had been much restricted, but was now made more open.--it had been arranged that the meeting of the british association was to be held this year at cambridge. i invited sir david brewster and mr herschel to lodge at the observatory. the meeting lasted from june th to th. we gave one dinner, but had a breakfast party every day. i did not enter much into the scientific business of the meeting, except that i brought before the committee the expediency of reducing the greenwich planetary observations from . they agreed to represent it to the government, and a deputation was appointed (i among them) who were received by lord althorp on july th. on aug. rd herschel announced to me that _£ _ was granted. "on aug. th i started with my wife for edensor. at leicester we met sedgwick and whewell: my wife went on to edensor, and i joined sedgwick and whewell in a geological expedition to mount sorrel and various parts of charnwood forest. we were received by mr allsop of woodlands, who proved an estimable acquaintance. this lasted four or five days, and we then went on to edensor.--on aug. th herschel wrote to me, communicating an offer of the duke of northumberland to present to the cambridge observatory an object-glass of about inches aperture by cauchaix. i wrote therefore to the duke, accepting generally. the duke wrote to me from buxton on aug. rd (his letter, such was the wretched arrangement of postage, reaching bakewell and edensor on the th) and on the th i drove before breakfast to buxton and had an interview with him. on sept. st the duke wrote, authorizing me to mount the telescope entirely, and he subsequently approved of cauchaix's terms: there was much correspondence, but on dec. th i instructed cauchaix how to send the telescope.--on our return we paid a visit to dr davy, master of caius college, at heacham, and reached cambridge on oct. th. "groombridge's catalogue, of which the editing was formally entrusted to mr henry taylor (son of taylor the first-assistant of the greenwich observatory), had been in some measure referred to sheepshanks: and he, in investigating the work, found reason for thinking the whole discreditable. about may he first wrote to me on his rising quarrel with h. taylor, but on sept. th he found things coming to a crisis, and denounced the whole. capt. beaufort the hydrographer (in whose office this matter rested) begged me with baily to decide upon it. we did not at first quite agree upon the terms of investigation &c., but after a time all was settled, and on oct. th the admiralty formally applied, and i formally accepted. little or nothing had been done by mr baily and myself, when my work was interrupted by illness. "sheepshanks had thought that something might be done to advance the interests of myself or the observatory by the favour of lord brougham (then lord chancellor), and had urged me to write an article in the penny cyclopaedia, in which lord brougham took great interest. i chose the subject 'gravitation,' and as i think wrote a good deal of it in this autumn: when it was interrupted by my illness. "on dec. th , having at first intended to attend the meeting of the philosophical society and then having changed my mind, i was engaged in the evening on the formulae for effects of small errors on the computation of the solar eclipse of . a dizziness in my head came on. i left off work, became worse, and went to bed, and in the night was in high fever with a fierce attack of scarlet fever. my wife was also attacked but very slightly. the first day of quitting my bedroom was dec. st. somewhere about the time of my illness my wife's sister, susanna smith, who was much reduced in the summer, died of consumption. "miscellaneous notes in are as follows: henderson (at the cape) could not endure it much longer, and on oct. th stratford writes that maclear had just sailed to take his place: henderson is candidate for the edinburgh observatory.--stratford writes on dec. nd that the madras observations have come to england, the first whose arrangement imitates mine.--on nov. rd herschel, just going to the cape, entrusted to me the revisal of some proof sheets, if necessary: however it was never needed.--in november i sat for my portrait to a painter named purdon (i think): he came to the house and made a good likeness. a pencil portrait was taken for a print-seller (mason) in cambridge: it was begun before my illness and finished after it.--i applied through sheepshanks for a copy of maskelyne's observations, to be used in the reduction of the planetary observations: and on dec. th (from my bedroom) i applied through prof. rigaud to the delegates of the clarendon press for a copy of bradley's observations for the same. the latter request was refused. in october i applied to the syndics of the university press for printed forms for these reductions: the syndics agreed to grant me , copies." "on jan. th i went with my wife to london for the recruiting of my strength. we stayed at the house of our friend miss sheepshanks, and returned on feb. th.--i drew up a paper of questions for smith's prizes, but left the whole trouble of examination and adjudication to professor miller, who at my request acted for me.--while i was in london i began to look at the papers relating to groombridge's catalogue: and i believe that it was while in london that i agreed with mr baily on a report condemnatory of h. taylor's edition, and sent the report to the admiralty. the admiralty asked for further advice, and on feb. th i replied, undertaking to put the catalogue in order. on mar. th capt. beaufort sent me all the papers. some time however elapsed before i could proceed with it. "there was in this spring a furious discussion about the admission of dissenters into the university: i took the liberal side. on apr. th there was a letter of mine in the cambridge newspaper.--on apr. th i began lectures, and finished on may th: there were names.--my 'gravitation' was either finished or so nearly finished that on jan. th i had some conversation with knight the publisher about printing it. it was printed in the spring, and on apr. th sheepshanks sent a copy of it to lord brougham. i received from knight _£ . s. d._ for this paper.--on may th i went to london, i believe to attend one of the soirées which the duke of sussex gave as president of the royal society. the duke invited me to breakfast privately with him the next morning. he then spoke to me, on the part of the government, about my taking the office of astronomer royal. on may th i wrote him a semi-official letter, to which reference was made in subsequent correspondence on that subject. "on may th my son arthur was born.--in june the observatory syndicate made a satisfied report.--on june th i went to the greenwich visitation, and again on june th i went to london, i believe for the purpose of trying the mounting of south's telescope, as it had been strengthened by mr simms by sheepshanks's suggestions. i was subsequently in correspondence with sheepshanks on the subject of the arbitration on south's telescope, and my giving evidence on it. on july th, as i was shortly going away, i wrote him a report on the telescope, to be used in case of my absence. the award, which was given in december, was entirely in favour of simms.--on july rd i went out, i think to my brother's marriage at ixworth in suffolk.--on aug. st i started for edensor and cumberland, with my wife, sister, and three children: georgiana smith joined us at edensor. we went by otley, harrogate, ripon, and stanmoor to keswick, from whence we made many excursions. on aug. th i went with whewell to the clouds on skiddaw, to try hygrometers. mr baily called on his way to the british association at edinburgh. on sept. th we transferred our quarters to ambleside, and after various excursions we returned to edensor by skipton and bolton. on sept. th i went to doncaster and finningley park to see mr beaumont's observatory. on sept. th we posted in one day from edensor to cambridge. "on aug. th mr spring rice (lord monteagle) wrote to me to enquire whether i would accept the office of astronomer royal if it were vacant. i replied (from keswick) on aug. th, expressing my general willingness, stipulating for my freedom of vote, &c., and referring to my letter to the duke of sussex. on oct. th lord auckland, first lord of the admiralty, wrote: and on oct. th i provisionally accepted the office. on oct. th i wrote to ask for leave to give a course of lectures at cambridge in case that my successor at cambridge should find difficulty in doing it in the first year: and to this lord auckland assented on oct. st. all this arrangement was for a time upset by the change of ministry which shortly followed. "amongst miscellaneous matters, in march i had some correspondence with the duke of northumberland about the cauchaix telescope. in august i had to announce to him that the flint-lens had been a little shattered in cauchaix's shop and required regrinding: finally on dec. th i announced its arrival at cambridge.--in the planetary reductions, i find that i employed one computer (glaisher) for weeks.--in november the lalande medal was awarded to me by the french institut, and mr pentland conveyed it to me in december.--on march th i gave the cambridge philosophical society a paper, 'continuation of researches into the value of jupiter's mass.' on apr. th, 'on the latitude of cambridge observatory.' on june th, 'on the position of the ecliptic,' and 'on the solar eclipse of ,' to the royal astronomical society. on nov. th, 'on computing the diffraction of an object glass,' to the cambridge society. and on dec. rd, 'on the calculation of perturbations,' to the nautical almanac: this paper was written at keswick between aug. nd and th.--i also furnished mr sheepshanks with investigations regarding the form of the pivots of the cape circle." "on jan. th i was elected correspondent of the french academy; and on jan. th mr pentland sent me _£ . s._, the balance of the proceeds of the lalande medal fund.--i prepared my paper for smith's prizes, and joined in the examination as usual. "there had been a very sudden change of administration, and sir r. peel was now prime minister as first lord of the treasury, and lord lyndhurst was lord chancellor. on jan. th i wrote to lord lyndhurst, asking him for a suffolk living for my brother william, which he declined to give, though he remembered my application some years later. whether my application led to the favour which i shortly received from the government, i do not know. but, in dining with the duke of sussex in the last year, i had been introduced to sir r. peel, and he had conversed with me a long time, and appeared to have heard favourably of me. on feb. th he wrote to me an autograph letter offering a pension of _£ _ per annum, with no terms of any kind, and allowing it to be settled if i should think fit on my wife. i wrote on feb. th accepting it for my wife. in a few days the matter went through the formal steps, and mr whewell and mr sheepshanks were nominated trustees for my wife. the subject came before parliament, by the whig party vindicating their own propriety in having offered me the office of astronomer royal in the preceding year; and spring rice's letter then written to me was published in the times, &c." * * * * * the correspondence relating to the pension above-mentioned is given below, and appears to be of interest, both as conveying in very felicitous terms the opinion of a very eminent statesman on the general subject of such pensions, and as a most convincing proof of the lofty position in science which the subject of this memoir had then attained. whitehall gardens, _feb. _. sir, you probably are aware that in a resolution voted by the house of commons in the last session of parliament, an opinion was expressed, that pensions on the civil list, ought not thereafter to be granted by the crown excepting for the satisfaction of certain public claims, among which those resting on scientific or literary eminence were especially mentioned. i trust that no such resolution would have been necessary to induce me as minister of the crown fully to recognize the justice of such claims, but i refer to the resolution, as removing every impediment to a communication of the nature of that which i am about to make to you. in acting upon the principle of the resolution in so far as the claims of science are concerned, my _first_ address is made to you, and made directly, and without previous communication with any other person, because it is dictated exclusively by public considerations, and because there can be no advantage in or any motive for indirect communication. i consider you to have the first claim on the royal favour which eminence in those high pursuits to which your life is devoted, can give, and i fear that the emoluments attached to your appointment in the university of cambridge are hardly sufficient to relieve you from anxiety as to the future on account of those in whose welfare you are deeply interested. the state of the civil list would enable me to advise the king to grant a pension of three hundred pounds per annum, and if the offer be acceptable to you the pension shall be granted either to mrs airy or yourself as you may prefer. i beg you distinctly to understand that your acquiescence in this proposal, will impose upon you no obligation personal or political in the slightest degree. i make it solely upon public grounds, and i ask you, by the acceptance of it, to permit the king to give some slight encouragement to science, by proving to those who may be disposed to follow your bright example, that devotion to the highest branches of mathematical and astronomical knowledge shall not necessarily involve them in constant solicitude as to the future condition of those, for whom the application of the same talents to more lucrative pursuits would have ensured an ample provision. i have the honor to be, sir, with true respect and esteem, your faithful servant, robert peel. _mr professor airy, &c., &c., cambridge_. observatory, cambridge, _ , feb. _. sir, i have the honor to acknowledge your letter of the th acquainting me with your intention of advising the king to grant a pension of _£ _ per annum from the civil list to me or mrs airy. i trust you will believe that i am sensible of the flattering terms in which this offer is made, and deeply grateful for the considerate manner in which the principal arrangement is left to my choice, as well as for the freedom from engagement in which your offer leaves me. i beg to state that i most willingly accept the offer. i should prefer that the pension be settled on mrs airy (by which i understand that in case of her surviving me the pension would be continued to her during her life, or in the contrary event would cease with her life). i wish that i may have the good fortune to prove to the world that i do not accept this offer without an implied engagement on my part. i beg leave again to thank you for your attention, and to assure you that the form in which it is conveyed makes it doubly acceptable. with sincere respect i have the honor to be, sir, your very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _the right hon. sir robert peel, bart., first lord of the treasury, &c., &c._ whitehall, _feb. th _. sir, i will give immediate directions for the preparation of the warrant settling the pension on mrs airy--the effect of which will be, as you suppose, to grant the pension to her for her life. i assure you i never gave an official order, which was accompanied with more satisfaction to myself than this. i have the honor to be, sir. your faithful servant, robert peel. _mr professor airy, &c., &c., cambridge_. * * * * * "on march th i started (meeting sheepshanks at kingstown) for ireland. we visited dublin observatory, and then went direct to markree near sligo, to see mr cooper's telescope (our principal object). we passed on our return by enniskillen and ballyjamesduff, where my former pupil p. morton was living, and returned on apr. rd.--on apr. th i was elected to the royal society, edinburgh.--apr. nd my wife wrote me from edensor that her sister florence was very ill: she died shortly after.--on may th i began lectures and finished on may th: there were names.--my former pupil guest asks my interest for the recordership of birmingham.--in june was circulated the syndicate report on the observatory.--the date of the preface to the observations is june th. "the ministry had been again changed in the spring, and the whigs were again in power. on june th lord auckland, who was again first lord of the admiralty (as last year), again wrote to me to offer me the office of astronomer royal, or to request my suggestions on the filling up of the office. on june th i wrote my first reply, and on june th wrote to accept it. on june th lord auckland acknowledges, and on june nd the king approved. lord auckland appointed to see me on friday, june rd, but i was unwell. i had various correspondence with lord auckland, principally about buildings, and had an appointment with him for august th. as lord auckland was just quitting office, to go to india, i was introduced to mr charles wood, the secretary of the admiralty, with whom principally the subsequent business was transacted. at this meeting lord auckland and mr wood expressed their feeling, that the observatory had fallen into such a state of disrepute that the whole establishment ought to be cleared out. i represented that i could make it efficient with a good first assistant; and the other assistants were kept. but the establishment was in a queer state. the royal warrant under the sign manual was sent on august th. it was understood that my occupation of office would commence on october st, but repairs and alterations of buildings would make it impossible for me to reside at greenwich before the end of the year. on oct. st i went to the observatory, and entered formally upon the office (though not residing for some time). oct th is the date of my official instructions. "i had made it a condition of accepting the office that the then first assistant should be removed, and accordingly i had the charge of seeking another. i determined to have a man who had taken a respectable cambridge degree. i made enquiry first of mr bowstead (brother to the bishop) and mr steventon: at length, consulting mr hopkins (a well-known private tutor at cambridge), he recommended to me mr robert main, of queens' college, with whom i corresponded in the month (principally) of august, and whom on august th i nominated to the admiralty. on oct. st f.w. simms, one of the assistants (who apparently had hoped for the office of first assistant, for which he was quite incompetent) resigned; and on dec. th i appointed in his place mr james glaisher, who had been at cambridge from the beginning of , and on dec. th the admiralty approved. "during this quarter of a year i was residing at cambridge observatory, visiting greenwich once a week (at least for some time), the immediate superintendence of the observatory being placed with mr main. i was however engaged in reforming the system of the greenwich observatory, and prepared and printed skeleton forms for reductions of observations and other business. on dec. th i resigned my professorship to the vice-chancellor. but i continued the reduction of the observations, so that not a single figure was left to my successor: the last observations were those of halley's comet. the preface to my cambridge observations is dated aug. nd, . "in regard to the northumberland telescope, i had for some time been speculating on plans of mounting and enclosing the instrument, and had corresponded with simms, a. biddell, cubitt, and others on the subject. on apr. th tulley the younger was endeavouring to adjust the object-glass. on may st i plainly asked the duke of northumberland whether he would defray the expense of the mounting and building. on june th he assented, and money was placed at a banker's to my order. i then proceeded in earnest: in the autumn the building was erected, and the dome was covered before the depth of winter. i continued in to superintend the mounting of the instrument. "in regard to the planetary reductions: to july th j. glaisher had been employed weeks, and from july th to jan. th, , weeks. mr spring rice, when chancellor of the exchequer, had promised money, but no official minute had been made, and no money had been granted. on aug. st i applied to mr baring (secretary of the treasury). after another letter he answered on oct. th that he found no official minute. after writing to vernon harcourt and to spring rice, the matter was arranged: my outlay was refunded, and another sum granted.--in regard to groombridge's observations, i find that on dec. th certain trial reductions had been made under my direction by j. glaisher.--i had attempted some optical experiments in the summer, especially on the polarization of sky-light; but had been too busy with the observatory to continue them. "in august my wife was in a critical state of health.--in december i received information regarding merchant ships' chronometers, for which i had applied to mr charles parker of liverpool.--on dec. th mr spring rice and lord john russell offered me knighthood, but i declined it.--on july rd i went into suffolk with my wife's sisters elizabeth and georgiana, and returned on august rd: this was all the holiday that i got in this year.--on the th of august i saw mr taylor, the admiralty civil architect in london, and the extension of buildings at greenwich observatory was arranged.--i made various journeys to greenwich, and on dec. th, having sent off our furniture, we all quitted the cambridge observatory, and stayed for some days at the house of miss sheepshanks. "thus ended a busy and anxious year." * * * * * with reference to the offer of knighthood above-mentioned, airy's reply is characteristic, and the short correspondence relating to it is therefore inserted.--the offer itself is an additional proof of the high estimation in which he stood at this time. downing street, _dec. th _. my dear sir, i have been in communication with my colleague lord john russell which has made me feel rather anxious to have the pleasure of seeing you, but on second thoughts it has occurred to me that the subject of my communication would render it more satisfactory to you to receive a letter than to pay a visit. in testimony of the respect which is felt for your character and acquirements, there would be every disposition to recommend you to his majesty to receive the distinction of knighthood. i am quite aware that to you individually this may be a matter of small concern, but to the scientific world in general it will not be indifferent, and to foreign countries it will mark the consideration felt for you personally as well as for the position which you occupy among your learned contemporaries. from a knowledge of the respect and esteem which i feel for you lord john russell has wished that the communication should be made through me rather than through any person who had not the pleasure of your acquaintance. pray let me hear from you and believe me my dear sir, with compliments to mrs airy, very truly yours, t. spring rice. p.s.--it may be right to add that when a title of honor is conferred on grounds like those which apply to your case, no fees or charges of any kind would be payable. observatory, cambridge, _ , dec. th_. my dear sir, i beg to acknowledge your letter of the th, which i have received at this place, conveying to me an intimation of the wish of his majesty's ministers to recommend me to the king for the honor of knighthood. i beg to assure you that i am most sensible to the liberality which i have experienced from the government in other as well as in pecuniary matters, and that i am very highly gratified by the consideration (undeserved by me, i fear) which they have displayed in the present instance. and if i now request permission to decline the honor offered to me, i trust i may make it fully understood that it is not because i value it lightly or because i am not anxious to receive honors from such a source. the unalterable custom of this country has attached a certain degree of light consideration to titles of honor which are not supported by considerable fortune; or at least, it calls for the display of such an establishment as may not be conveniently supported by even a comfortable income. the provision attached to my official situation, and the liberality of the king towards one of the members of my family, have placed me in a position of great comfort. these circumstances however have bound me to consider myself as the devoted servant of the country, and to debar myself from efforts to increase my fortune which might otherwise have been open to me. i do not look forward therefore to any material increase of income, and that which i enjoy at present is hardly sufficient, in my opinion, to support respectably the honor which you and lord john russell have proposed to confer upon me. for this reason only i beg leave most respectfully to decline the honor of knighthood at the present time. i have only to add that my services will always be at the command of the government in any scientific subject in which i can be of the smallest use. i am, my dear sir, your very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _the right honorable t. spring rice_. * * * * * "in brief revision of the years from to i may confine myself to the two principal subjects--my professorial lectures, and my conduct of the cambridge observatory. "the lectures as begun in included ordinary mechanics, ordinary hydrostatics and pneumatics (i think that i did not touch, or touched very lightly, on the subjects connected with the hydraulic ram), and ordinary optics (with a very few words on polarization and depolarization). in the two first were generally improved, and for the third (optics) i introduced a few words on circular polarization. i believe that it was in that i made an addition to the syllabus with a small engraving, shewing the interference of light in the best practical experiment (that of the flat prism); and i went thoroughly into the main points of the undulatory theory, interference, diffraction, &c. in i believe i went (in addition to what is mentioned above) into polarization and depolarization of all kinds. my best lecture diagrams were drawn and painted by my wife. the lectures were universally pronounced to be valuable. the subjects underwent no material change in , , , , ; and i believe it was a matter of sincere regret to many persons that my removal to greenwich terminated the series. each lecture nominally occupied an hour. but i always encouraged students to stop and talk with me; and this supplement was usually considered a valuable part of the lecture. practically the lecture, on most days, occupied two hours. i enjoyed the lectures much: yet i felt that the labour (in addition to other work) made an impression on my strength, and i became at length desirous of terminating them. "the observatory, when i took charge of it, had only one instrument--the transit-instrument the principles however which i laid down for my own direction were adapted to the expected complete equipment, planets (totally neglected at greenwich) were to be observed. observations were to be reduced completely, and the reductions were to be exhibited in an orderly way: this was a novelty in astronomy. i considered it so important that i actually proposed to omit in my publication the original observations, but was dissuaded by herschel and others. i sometimes suspended, observations for a short time, in order to obtain leisure for; the reductions. i had at first no intention of correcting the places of the fundamental stars as settled at greenwich. but i found myself compelled to do so, because they were not sufficiently accurate; and then i took the course of observing and reducing as an independent observer, without reference to any other observatory. i introduced the principle of not correcting instrumental errors, but measuring them and applying numerical corrections. i determined my longitude by chronometers, and my latitude by a repeating circle borrowed from mr sheepshanks, which i used so well that the result; was only half a second in error. the form of my reductions in the published volume for is rather irregular, but the matter is good: it soon attracted attention. in the process was much the same: i had an assistant, mr baldrey. in still the same, with the additions:--that i formally gave the corrections of relative right-ascension of fundamental stars (without alteration of equinox, which i had not the means of obtaining) to be used in the year ; and that i reduced completely the observed occultations (with a small error, subsequently corrected). in the system of correction of broken transits was improved: the errors of assumed r.a. of fundamental stars were exhibited: mean solar time was obtained from sidereal time by time of transit of [symbol: aries] (computed by myself): the method of computing occultations was improved. in the small equatoreal was erected, and was soon employed in observations of the elongation of the th satellite of jupiter for determining the mass of jupiter. the mural circle was erected at the end of the year, but not used. the calculation of r.a. of fundamental stars was made homogeneously with the others: separate results of all were included in ledgers: a star-catalogue was formed: all as to the present time ( ). with the equatoreal the difference of n.p.d. of mars and stars was observed. "with the beginning of the mural circle was established at work, a second assistant (mr glaisher) was appointed, and the observatory might be considered complete. i made experiments on the graduations of the circle. i detected and was annoyed by the r--d. i determined the latitude. i exhibited the separate results for n.p.d. of stars in ledger, and their means in catalogue. i investigated from my observations the place of equinox and the obliquity of the ecliptic. i made another series of observations of jupiter's th satellite, for the mass of jupiter. i observed the solar eclipse with the equatoreal, by a method then first introduced, which i have since used several times at cambridge and greenwich with excellent effect. the moon and the planets were usually observed till near two in the morning. correction for defective illumination applied when necessary. the volume is very complete, the only deficiency being in the observation of moon and planets through the severe morning hours. in the only novelties are--examination of the graduations of the declination circle of the equatoreal (excessively bad): observations of a spot on jupiter for rotation, and of mars and stars. in (including january ) there is a more complete examination of the equatoreal graduations: parallax and refraction for equatoreal observations: a spot on jupiter: a series of observations on jupiter's th satellite for the mass of jupiter: mars and stars: halley's comet (the best series of observations which could be made in the season): and a short series of meteorological observations, on a plan suggested by sir john herschel then at the cape of good hope. "i cannot tell precisely in which year i introduced the following useful custom. towards the end of each year i procured a pocket-book for the following year with a space for every day, and carefully examining all the sources of elements of observations, and determining the observations to be made every day, i inserted them in the pocket-book. this system gave wonderful steadiness to the plan of observations for the next year. the system has been maintained in great perfection at the observatory of greenwich. (the first of these pocket-books which prof. adams has found is that for .) printed skeleton forms were introduced for all calculations from . in the greenwich observatory library there is a collection, i believe complete, of printed papers commencing with my manifesto, and containing all syndicate reports except for (when perhaps there was none). it seems from these that my first written report on observations, &c., was on may th, . the first syndicate report is on may th, ." * * * * * a few remarks on airy's private life and friends during his residence at cambridge observatory may be here appropriately inserted. amid the laborious occupations recorded in the foregoing pages, his social life and surroundings appear to have been most pleasant and congenial. at that period there were in residence in cambridge, and particularly at trinity, a large number of very brilliant men. airy was essentially a cambridge man. he had come up poor and friendless: he had gained friends and fame at the university, and his whole work had been done there. from the frequent references in after times both by him and his wife to their life at cambridge, it is clear that they had a very pleasant recollection of it, and that the social gatherings there were remarkably attractive. he has himself recorded that with whewell and sedgwick, and his accomplished sisters-in-law, who were frequently on long visits at the observatory, they formed pretty nearly one family. his friendship with whewell was very close. although whewell was at times hasty, and rough-mannered, and even extremely rude, yet he was generous and large-minded, and thoroughly upright. [footnote: the following passage occurs in a letter from airy to his wife, dated , sept. th: "i am sorry that ---- speaks in such terms of the 'grand master,' as she used to be so proud of him: it is only those who have _well_ gone through the ordeal of quarrels with him and almost insults from him, like sheepshanks and me, that thoroughly appreciate the good that is in him: i am sure he will never want a good word from me."] in power of mind, in pursuits, and interests, airy had more in common with whewell than with any other of his friends. it was with whewell that he undertook the experiments at dolcoath: it was to whewell that he first communicated the result of his remarkable investigation of the long inequality of venus and the earth; and some of his optical researches were conducted jointly with whewell. whewell took his degree in , seven years before airy, and his reputation, both for mathematical and all-round knowledge, was extremely and deservedly great, but he was always most generous in his recognition of airy's powers. thus in a letter of mar. th, (life of william whewell by mrs stair douglas), he says, "airy is certainly a most extraordinary man, and deserves everything that can be said of him"; and again in the autumn of he writes to his aunt, "you mentioned a difficulty which had occurred to you in one of your late letters; how airy should be made professor while i was here, who, being your nephew, must of course, on that account, deserve it better than he could. now it is a thing which you will think odd, but it is nevertheless true, that airy is a better mathematician than your nephew, and has moreover been much more employed of late in such studies.... seriously speaking, airy is by very much the best person they could have chosen for the situation, and few things have given me so much pleasure as his election." how much whewell depended upon his friends at the observatory may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to his sister on dec. st, . "we have lately been in alarm here on the subject of illness. two very near friends of mine, prof. and mrs airy, have had the scarlet fever at the same time; she more slightly, he very severely. they are now, i am thankful to say, doing well and recovering rapidly. you will recollect that i was staying with them at her father's in derbyshire in the summer. they are, i think, two of the most admirable and delightful persons that the world contains." and again on dec. th, , he wrote to his sister ann, "my friends--i may almost say my dearest friends --professor airy and his family have left cambridge, he being appointed astronomer royal at greenwich--to me an irreparable loss; but i shall probably go and see how they look in their new abode." their close intercourse was naturally interrupted by airy's removal to greenwich, but their friendly feelings and mutual respect continued without material break till whewell's death. there was frequent correspondence between them, especially on matters connected with the conduct and teaching of the university, in which they both took a keen interest, and a warm welcome at trinity lodge always awaited mr and mrs airy when they visited cambridge. in a letter written to mrs stair douglas on feb. th, , enclosing some of whewell's letters, there occurs the following passage: "after the decease of mrs whewell, whewell wrote to my wife a mournful letter, telling her of his melancholy state, and asking her to visit him at the lodge for a few days. and she did go, and did the honours of the house for several days. you will gather from this the relation in which the families stood." whewell died on mar. th, , from the effects of a fall from his horse, and the following extract is from a letter written by airy to whewell's niece, mrs sumner gibson, on hearing of the death of his old friend: "the master was, i believe, my oldest surviving friend (beyond my own family), and, after an acquaintance of years, i must have been one of his oldest friends. we have during that time been connected privately and officially: we travelled together and experimented together: and as opportunity served (but i need not say in very different degrees) we both laboured for our college and university. a terrible blank is left on my mind." sedgwick was probably years older than airy: he took his degree in . but the astonishing buoyancy of spirits and bonhomie of sedgwick fitted him for all ages alike. he was undoubtedly the most popular man in cambridge in modern times. his ability, his brightness and wit, his fearless honesty and uprightness, his plain-speaking and good humour, rendered him a universal favourite. his close alliance with airy was much more social than scientific. it is true that they made some geological excursions together, but, at any rate with airy, it was far more by way of recreation than of serious study, and sedgwick's science was entirely geological. their friendship continued till sedgwick's death, though it was once or twice imperilled by sedgwick's impulsive and hasty nature. peacock took his degree in (herschel's year), and was therefore probably years older than airy. he was the earliest and staunchest friend of airy in his undergraduate years, encouraged him in every possible way, lent him books, assisted him in his studies, helped him with wise advice on many occasions, and took the greatest interest in his success. he was a good and advanced mathematician, and with a great deal of shrewdness and common-sense he united a singular kindness and gentleness of manner. it is therefore not to be wondered at that he was regarded by airy with the greatest esteem and affection, and though they were afterwards separated, by peacock becoming dean of ely and airy astronomer royal, yet their warm friendship was never broken. the following letter, written by airy to mrs peacock on receiving the news of the death of the dean, well expresses his feelings towards his old friend: trinity lodge, cambridge, _ , dec. _. my dear madam, i have desired for some time to express to you my sympathies on occasion of the sad bereavement which has come upon me perhaps as strongly as upon any one not connected by family ties with my late friend. but i can scarcely give you an idea how every disposable moment of my time has been occupied. i am now called to cambridge on business, and i seize the first free time to write to you. my late friend was the first person whom i knew in college (i had an introduction to him when i went up as freshman). from the first, he desired me to consider the introduction not as entitling me to a mere formal recognition from him, but as authorizing me at all times to call on him for any assistance which i might require. and this was fully carried out: i referred to him in every difficulty: i had the entire command of his rooms and library (a very important aid in following the new course of mathematics which he had been so instrumental in introducing into the university) in his occasional absences: and in all respects i looked to him as to a parent. all my debts to other friends in the university added together are not comparable to what i owe to the late dean. latterly i need not say that i owed much to him and that i owe much to you for your kind notice of my two sons, even since the sad event which has put it out of his power to do more. in the past summer, looking to my custom of making a visit to cambridge in some part of the october term, i had determined that a visit to ely this year should not depend on the chance of being free to leave cambridge, but that, if it should be found convenient to yourself and the dean, the first journey should be made to ely. i wish that i had formed the same resolution one or two years ago. with many thanks for your kindness, and with deep sympathy on this occasion, i am, my dear madam, yours very faithfully, g.b. airy. sheepshanks was a fellow of trinity, in orders: he was probably seven years older than airy (he took his degree in ). he was not one of airy's earliest friends, but he had a great taste and liking for astronomy, and the friendship between them when once established became very close. he was a very staunch and fearless friend, an able and incisive writer, and remarkably energetic and diligent in astronomical investigations. he, or his sister, miss sheepshanks, had a house in london, and sheepshanks was very much in london, and busied himself extremely with the work of the royal observatory, that of the board of longitude, and miscellaneous astronomical matters. he was most hospitable to his friends, and while airy resided at cambridge his house was always open to receive him on his frequent visits to town. in the various polemical discussions on scientific matters in which airy was engaged, sheepshanks was an invaluable ally, and after airy's removal to greenwich had more or less separated him from his cambridge friends, sheepshanks was still associated with him and took a keen interest in his greenwich work. and this continued till sheepshanks's death. the warmest friendship always subsisted between the family at the observatory and mr and miss sheepshanks. there were many other friends, able and talented men, but these four were the chief, and it is curious to note that they were all much older than airy. it would seem as if airy's knowledge had matured in so remarkable a manner, and the original work that he produced was so brilliant and copious, that by common consent he ranked with men who were much his seniors: and the natural gravity and decorum of his manners when quite a young man well supported the idea of an age considerably greater than was actually the case. chapter v. at greenwich observatory-- to . "through the last quarter of i had kept everything going on at the greenwich observatory in the same manner in which mr pond had carried it on. with the beginning of my new system began. i had already prepared printed skeleton forms (a system totally unknown to mr pond) which were now brought into use. and, having seen the utility of the copying press in merchants' offices, i procured one. from this time my correspondence, public and private, is exceedingly perfect. "at this time the dwelling house was still unconnected with the observatory. it had no staircase to the octagon room. four new rooms had been built for me on the western side of the dwelling house, but they were not yet habitable. the north-east dome ground floor was still a passage room. the north terrace was the official passage to the north-west dome, where there was a miserable equatoreal, and to the -foot zenith tube (in a square tower like a steeple, which connected the n.w. dome with flamsteed's house). the southern boundary of the garden ran down a hollow which divides the peninsula from the site of the present magnetic observatory, in such a manner that the principal part of the garden was fully exposed to the public. the computing room was a most pitiful little room. there was so little room for me that i transported the principal table to a room in my house, where i conducted much of my own official business. a large useless reflecting telescope (ramage's), on the plan and nearly of the size of sir w. herschel's principal telescope, encumbered the centre of the front court. "on jan. th i addressed mr buck, agent of the princess sophia of gloucester, ranger of greenwich park, for leave to enclose a portion of the ground overlooking my garden. this was soon granted, and i was partially delivered from the inconvenience of the public gaze. the liberation was not complete till the magnetic ground was enclosed in . "in the inferior departments of the admiralty, especially in the hydrographic office (then represented by captain beaufort) with which i was principally connected, the observatory was considered rather as a place for managing government chronometers than as a place of science. the preceding first assistant (taylor) had kept a book of letter references, and i found that out of letters, related to government chronometers only. on jan. th i mentally sketched my regulations for my own share in chronometer business. i had some correspondence with captain beaufort, but we could not agree, and the matter was referred to the admiralty. finally arrangements were made which put the chronometer business in proper subordination to the scientific charge of the observatory. "in my first negociations with the admiralty referring to acceptance of the office of astronomer royal, in , lord auckland being then first lord of the admiralty, i had stipulated that, as my successor at cambridge would be unprepared to carry on my lectures, i should have permission to give a final course of lectures there. at the end of lord auckland was succeeded by lord minto: i claimed the permission from him and he refused it. when this was known in cambridge a petition was presented by many cambridge residents, and lord minto yielded. on april th i went to cambridge with my wife, residing at the bull inn, and began lectures on april st: they continued (apparently) to may th. my lecture-room was crowded (the number of names was ) and the lectures gave great satisfaction. i offered to the admiralty to put all the profits in their hands, and transmitted a cheque to the accountant general of the navy: but the admiralty declined to receive them. "on june th the annual visitation of the observatory was held, mr f. baily in the chair. i presented a written report on the observatory (a custom which i had introduced at cambridge) in which i did not suppress the expression of my feelings about chronometer business. the hydrographer, captain beaufort, who was one of the official visitors, was irritated: and by his influence the report was not printed. i kept it and succeeding reports safe for three years, and then the board of visitors agreed to print them; and four reports were printed together, and bound with the greenwich observations of . "in the course of this year i completed the volume of observations made at cambridge observatory in and on nov. th the printed copies were distributed. about the end of the dome for the northumberland telescope was erected: but apparently the polar frame was not erected." the following account of an accident which occurred during the construction of the dome is extracted from a letter by airy to his wife dated jan. st. "the workmen's account of the dome blowing off is very curious: it must have been a strange gust. it started suddenly when the men were all inside and beaumont was looking up at it: the cannon balls were thrown in with great violence (one of them going between the spokes of ransomes' large casting), and instantly after the dome had started, the boards of the outside scaffolding which had been tossed up by the same gust dropped down into the gap which the dome had left. it is a wonder that none of the men were hurt and that the iron was not broken. the dome is quite covered and i think does not look so well as when the hooping was visible." "previous to i had begun to contemplate the attachment of magnetic observations to the observatory, and had corresponded with prof. christie, prof. lloyd, prof. j. d. forbes, and mr gauss on the subject. on jan. th i addressed a formal letter to the admiralty, and on jan. th received their answer that they had referred it to the board of visitors. on march th i received authority for the expenditure of _£ _, and i believe that i then ordered merz's -foot magnet. the visitors met on feb. th and after some discussion the site was chosen and the extent of ground generally defined, and on dec. nd mr spring rice (lord monteagle) as chancellor of the exchequer virtually effected the transfer of the ground. but no further steps were taken in . a letter on a systematic course of magnetic observations in various parts of the world was addressed by baron alexander humboldt to the duke of sussex, president of the royal society; and was referred to prof. christie and me. we reported on it on june th , strongly recommending the adoption of the scheme. "a plan had been proposed by the promoters of the london and gravesend railway (col. landman, engineer) for carrying a railway at high level across the bottom of the park. on jan. th i received orders from the admiralty to examine into its possible effect in producing vibrations in the observatory. after much correspondence, examination of ground, &c., i fixed upon a part of the greenwich railway (not yet opened for traffic) near the place where the croydon trunk line now joins it, as the place for trains to run upon, while i made observations with a telescope viewing a collimator by reflection in mercury at the distance of feet. the experiments were made on jan. th, and i reported on feb. th. it was shewn that there would be some danger to the observatory. on nov. nd mr james walker, engineer, brought a model of a railway to pass by tunnel under the lower part of the park: apparently this scheme was not pressed. "in addition to the routine work of the observatory, a special set of observations were made to determine the mass of jupiter.--also the solar eclipse of may th was observed at greenwich in the manner which i had introduced at cambridge.--the ordnance zenith sector, and the instruments for the st helena observatory were brought for examination.--much attention was given to chronometers, and various steps were taken for their improvement.--i had some important correspondence with mr (sir john) lubbock, upon the lunar theory generally and his proposed empirical lunar tables. this was the first germ of the great reduction of lunar observations which i subsequently carried out.--in october i was nominated on the council of the royal society, having been admitted a fellow on feb. th . i was president of the astronomical society during this and the preceding year ( and ). "my connection with groombridge's catalogue of stars began in , and the examination, in concert with mr baily, of the edition printed by mr henry taylor, resulted in its condemnation. in i volunteered to the admiralty to prepare a new edition, and received their thanks and their authority for proceeding. it required a great deal of examination of details, and much time was spent on it in : but it was not brought to the state of readiness for press. "my predecessor, mr pond, died on sept. th , and was interred in halley's tomb in lee churchyard." * * * * * the following letter was written by airy in support of the application for a pension to mrs pond, who had been left in great distress: to henry warburton, esq. "the points upon which in my opinion mr pond's claims to the gratitude of astronomers are founded, are principally the following. _first_ and chief, the accuracy which he introduced into all the principal observations. this is a thing which from its nature it is extremely difficult to estimate now, so long after the change has been made, and i can only say that so far as i can ascertain from books the change is one of very great extent: for certainty and accuracy, astronomy is quite a different thing from what it was, and this is mainly due to mr pond. the most striking exemplification of this is in his laborious working out of every conceivable cause or indication of error in the circle and the two circles: but very great praise is also due for the new system which he introduced in working the transit. in comparing mr pond's systems of observation with dr maskelyne's, no one can avoid being impressed with the inferiority of dr maskelyne's. it is very important to notice that the continental observatories which have since attracted so much attention did not at that time exist or did not exist in vigour. _secondly_, the attention bestowed by mr pond on those points (chiefly of sidereal astronomy) which he regarded as fundamental: to which such masses of observations were directed as entirely to remove the doubts from probable error of individual observations or chance circumstances which have injured many other determinations. _thirdly_, the regularity of observation. the effect of all these has been that, since the commencement of mr pond's residence at greenwich, astronomy considered as an accurate representation of the state of the heavens in the most material points has acquired a certainty and an extent which it never had before. there is no period in the history of the science so clean. on some matters (in regard to the choice of observations) i might say that my own judgment would have differed in some degree from mr pond's, but one thing could have been gained only by giving up another, and upon the general accuracy no improvement could have been made. mr pond understood nothing of physical astronomy; but neither did anybody else, in england. "the supposed decrease of general efficiency in the last few years is to be ascribed to the following causes: . mr pond's ill health. . the inefficiency of his first assistant. . the oppression of business connected with chronometers. "the last of these, as i have reason to think, operated very far. business of this nature which (necessarily) is _daily_ and _peremptory_ will always prevail over that which is _general_ and _confidential_. i will not trouble you with an account of the various ways in which the chronometer business teazed the astronomer royal (several alterations having been made at my representation), but shall merely remark that much of the business had no connection whatever with astronomy. "i beg to submit these remarks to your perusal, requesting you to point out to me _what part_ of them should be laid before any of the king's ministers, _at what time, in what shape_, and to whom addressed. i am quite sure that mrs pond's claims require nothing to ensure favourable consideration but the impression of such a feeling of mr pond's astronomical merits as must be entertained by any reasonable astronomer; and i am most anxious to assist in conveying this impression. "of private history: i went to suffolk for a week on mar. th. on sept. th my son wilfrid (my fourth child) was born. in october i made an excursion for a week round the coast of kent. in november i went to my brother's house at keysoe in bedfordshire: i was much exposed to cold on the return-journey, which probably aggravated the illness that soon followed. from nov. th i was ill; made the last journal entry of the year on dec. th; the next was on jan. th, . i find that in this year i had introduced arthur biddell to the tithe commutation office, where he was soon favourably received, and from which connection he obtained very profitable employment as a valuer." "my connection with cambridge observatory was not yet finished. i had determined that i would not leave a figure to be computed by my successor. in october i had (at my private expense) set mr glaisher to work on reducing the observations of sun, moon, and planets made in , , ; and subsequently had the calculations examined by mr hartnup. this employed me at times through . i state here, once for all, that every calculation or other work in reference to the cambridge observatory, in this and subsequent years, was done at my private expense. the work of the northumberland telescope was going on through the year: from nov. th to th i was at cambridge on these works. "an object-glass of - / inches aperture (a most unusual size at this time, when it was difficult to find a -inch or -inch glass) had been presented to the greenwich observatory by my friend mr sheepshanks, and on mar. th i received from the admiralty authority for mounting it equatoreally in the empty south dome, which had been intended for a copy of the palermo circle.--in the month of july the admiralty wished for my political assistance in a greenwich election, but i refused to give any.--on jan. rd i gave notice to the admiralty that i had finished the computations of groombridge's catalogue, and was ready to print. the printing was authorized and proceeded (the introduction was finished on nov. nd), but the book was not quite ready till the beginning of .--in connection with the cavendish experiment: on june th i wrote to spring rice (chancellor of the exchequer) for _£ _, which was soon granted: and from this time there is a great deal of correspondence (mainly with mr baily) upon the details of the experiment and the theory of the calculation.--on july th i saw the descent of the parachute by which mr cocking was killed. i attended the coroner's inquest and gave evidence a few days later. "the planetary reductions from to had been going on: the computers (glaisher, hartnup, and thomas) worked in the octagon room, and considerable advance was made.--in consequence of the agitation of the proposal by mr lubbock to form empirical tables of the moon, for which i proposed to substitute complete reduction of the observations of the moon from , the british association at york (oct. rd, ) appointed a deputation (including myself) to place the matter before the government. i wrote on the matter to mr wood (lord halifax) stating that it would be proper to raise the first assistant's salary, and to give me more indefinite power about employing computers. in all these things i received cordial assistance from mr wood. the chancellor of the exchequer (mr spring rice) received us on dec. th: statements were furnished by me, and the business was sanctioned immediately.--during this year i was very much engaged in correspondence with lubbock and others on improvements of the lunar theory. "in the operations of and a great quantity of papers had been accumulated. i had kept them in reasonably good order, tied up in bundles: but this method began to fail in convenience, as the number increased. the great lines of classification were however now well understood. i believe it was in the latter part of the year that i finally settled on the principle of arranging papers in packets and subordinate packets, every paper being flat, by the use of four punched holes in every paper. i have never seen any principle of arrangement comparable to this. it has been adopted with the greatest ease by every assistant, and is used to the present time ( ) without alteration. "on jan. rd i was informed unofficially by mr wood (admiralty secretary) that the addition of the magnetic ground was sanctioned. on feb. th mr rhodes (an officer of the department of woods and works) came to put me formally in possession of the ground. between apr. th and may th the ground was enclosed, and my garden was completely protected from the public. the plan of the building was settled, and numerous experiments were made on various kinds of concrete: at last it was decided to build with wood. "after a dinner given by lord burlington, chancellor, the first meeting of the london university was held on mar. th, and others followed. on apr. th i handed to the chancellor a written protest against a vote of a salary of _£ _ to the registrar: which salary, in fact, the government refused to sanction. dissensions on the question of religious examination were already beginning, but i took little part in them. "in mr henderson had resigned the superintendance of the cape of good hope observatory, and mr maclear was appointed. i recommended the same official instructions for him (they had included an allusion to la caille's arc of meridian) with an addition on the probability of trigonometrical survey, on aug. th, . on feb. th, , i wrote to beaufort suggesting that bradley's sector should be used for verifying the astronomical determinations, and subsequently received the approval of the admiralty. in june sir j. herschel and i had an interview with mr wood on the cape equipment generally. the sector was erected with its new mounting, careful drawings were made of every part, instructions were prepared for its use, and on aug. th it was sent to woolwich dockyard and shipped for the cape. "of private history: on aug. rd i started with my wife for an excursion in south wales, &c. on sept. th i gave a lecture in the town hall of neath. while at swansea we received news of the death of my wife's father, the rev. richard smith, and returned at once.--in this year arthur biddell bought the little eye estate for me." "cambridge observatory:--on dec. th, , i had set mr glaisher to work in collecting the annual results for star-places from the cambridge observations, to form one catalogue: i examined the calculations and the deduced catalogue, and on dec. , , presented it to the royal astronomical society, under the title of 'the first cambridge catalogue.'--for the northumberland telescope i was engaged with simms about the clockwork from time to time up to apr. th, and went to cambridge about it. the instrument was brought to a useable state, but some small parts were still wanting. "at greenwich:--in april i drew up a little history of the observatory for the penny cyclopaedia.--on june th the lords of the admiralty paid a short visit to the observatory: on this occasion mr wood suggested a passage connecting the observatory with the dwelling-house, and i subsequently prepared sketches for it; it was made in the next year.--in the course of the year the sheepshanks equatoreal was mounted, and encke's comet was observed with it from oct. th to nov. th.--on mar. st, &c. i reported to the admiralty on the selection of chronometers for purchase, from a long list: this was an important beginning of a new system.--the magnetic observatory was built, in the form originally planned for it (a four-armed cross with equal arms, one axis being in the magnetic meridian) in the beginning of this year. (no alteration has since been made in form up to the present time, , except that the north arm has been lengthened feet a few years ago.) on may st a magnet was suspended for the first time, mr baily and lieut. (afterwards sir william) denison being present.--groombridge's catalogue was finished, and on mar. rd i arranged for sending out copies.--the planetary reductions were carried on vigorously. on may st, , the treasury assented to the undertaking of the lunar reductions and allotted _£ , _ for it: preparations were made, and in the autumn computers were employed upon it. it will easily be seen that this undertaking added much to my labours and cares.--the geodetic affairs of the cape of good hope began to be actively pressed, and in february beaufort wrote to me in consequence of an application from maclear, asking about a standard of length for maclear (as foundation for a geodetic survey). i made enquiries, and on mar. th wrote to mr wood, alluding also generally to the want of a national english standard after the destruction of the houses of parliament. on apr. th the admiralty sanctioned my procuring proper standard bars.--in connection with the cavendish experiment, i have an immense quantity of correspondence with mr baily, and all the mathematics were furnished by me: the experiment was not finished at the end of the year.--the perturbations of uranus were now attracting attention. i had had some correspondence on this subject with dr hussey in , and in with eugène bouvard. on feb. th, of , i wrote to schumacher regarding the error in the tabular radius-vector of uranus, which my mode of reducing the observations enabled me to see. "the national standards of length and weight had been destroyed in the fire of the houses of parliament. on may th i received a letter from mr spring rice, requesting me to act (as chairman) with a committee consisting of f. baily, j.e. drinkwater bethune, davies gilbert, j.g.s. lefevre, j.w. lubbock, g. peacock, and r. sheepshanks, to report on the steps now to be taken. i accepted the charge, and the first meeting was held at the observatory on may nd; all subsequent meetings in london, usually in the apartments of the royal astronomical society. i acted both as chairman and as working secretary. our enquiries went into a very wide field, and i had much correspondence. "on jan. th mr wood wrote to me, mentioning that capt. johnson had made some observations on the magnetism of iron ships, and asking whether they ought to be continued; a steamer being offered at _£ _ per week. i applied to beaufort for a copy of johnson's observations, and on jan. th replied very fully, discouraging such observations; but recommending a train of observations expressly directed to theoretical points. on feb. th i reported that i had examined the deptford basin, and found that it would do fairly well for experiments. on july th, , capt. beaufort wrote to me that the admiralty wished for experiments on the ship, the 'rainbow,' then in the river, and enquired whether i would undertake them and what assistance i desired, as for instance that of christie or barlow. i replied that one person should undertake it, either christie, barlow, or myself, and that a basin was desirable. on july th and th i looked at the basins of woolwich and deptford, approving the latter. on july st the admiralty gave me full powers. from july rd i was almost entirely employed on preparations. the course of operations is described in my printed paper: the original maps, curves, and graphical projections, are in the bound mss.: 'correction of compass in iron ships--"rainbow,"' at the greenwich observatory. the angular disturbances were found on july th and th, requiring some further work on a raft, so that they were finally worked out on aug. th. i struggled hard with the numbers, but should not have succeeded if it had not occurred to me to examine the horizontal magnetic intensities. this was done on aug. th, and the explanation of the whole was suggested at once: graphical projections were made on aug. th and th for comparison of my explanation with observations, and the business was complete. on aug. th and th i measured the intensity of some magnets, to be used in the ship for correction. it is to be remarked that, besides the effect of polar magnetism, there was no doubt of the existence of an effect of induced magnetism requiring correction by other induced magnetism: and experiments for this were made in the magnetic observatory. all was ready for trial: and on aug. th i carried my magnets and iron correctors to deptford, mounted them in the proper places, tried the ship, and the compass, which had been disturbed degrees to the right and degrees to the left, was now sensibly correct. on aug. st i reported this to the admiralty, and on aug. th i tried the ship to gravesend. on aug. th i had the loan of her for an expedition with a party of friends to sheerness, and on sept. th i accompanied her to gravesend, on her first voyage to antwerp.--on oct. th application was made to me by the owner of the 'ironsides' to correct her compasses. in consequence of this i went to liverpool on oct. th, and on this occasion made a very important improvement in the practical mode of performing the correction.--on nov. th i reported to the admiralty in considerable detail. on dec. th i had an interview with lord minto (first lord of the admiralty) and mr wood. they refused to sanction any reward to me.--the following is a copy of the report of the captain of the 'rainbow' after her voyage to antwerp: 'having had the command of the rainbow steamer the two voyages between london and antwerp, i have the pleasure to inform you that i am perfectly satisfied as to the correctness of the compasses, and feel quite certain they will continue so. i took particular notice from land to land from our departure and found the bearings by compass to be exact.'"--the following extracts from letters to his wife refer to the "ironsides": on oct. th he writes, "i worked up the observations so much as to see that the compass disturbance is not so great as in the 'rainbow' ( ° instead of °), but quite enough to make the vessel worthless; and that it is quite different in direction from that in the 'rainbow'--so that if they had stolen one of the 'rainbow' correctors and put it into this ship it would have been much worse than before." and on nov. st he writes, "on wednesday i again went to the ship and tried small alterations in the correctors: i am confident now that the thing is very near, but we were most abominably baffled by the sluggishness of the compass." "the university of london:--on jan. th i attended a sub-committee meeting on the minimum of acquirements for b.a. degree, and various meetings of the senate. on july th i intimated to mr spring rice my wish to resign. i had various correspondence, especially with mr lubbock, and on dec. th i wrote to him on the necessity of stipends to members of senate. the dissensions on religious examination became very strong. i took a middle course, demanding examination in the languages and books, but absolutely refusing to claim any religious assent. i expressed this to dr jerrard, the principal representative on the religious side, by calling on him to substitute the words 'recognition of christian literature' for 'recognition of christian religion': i addressed a printed letter to lord burlington (chancellor) and the members of the senate, on this subject. "of private history: in january i made a short excursion in norfolk and suffolk, and visited prof. sedgwick at norwich. in april i paid a short visit to mr courtney at sanderstead, with my wife. on june th my son hubert was born. in september i went with my sister by cambridge, &c., to luddington, where i made much enquiry concerning my father and the family of airy who had long been settled there. we then visited various places in yorkshire, and arrived at brampton, near chesterfield, where mrs smith, my wife's mother, now resided. and returned by rugby. i had much correspondence with my brother and for him about private pupils and a better church living. i complained to the bishop of norwich about the mutilation of a celebrated monument in playford church by the incumbent and curate." the following extracts are from letters to his wife relating to the above-mentioned journeys: close, norwich. _ , jan. _. i do not know what degree of cold you may have had last night, but here it was (i believe) colder than before--thermometer close to the house at °. i have not suffered at all. however i do not intend to go to lowestoft. brampton. _ , sept. th_. we began to think that we had seen enough of scarborough, so we took a chaise in the afternoon to pickering, a small agricultural town, and lodged in a comfortable inn there. on wednesday morning at we started by the railroad for whitby, in a huge carriage denominated the lady hilda capable of containing persons or more drawn by one horse, or in the steep parts of the railway by two horses. the road goes through a set of defiles of the eastern moorlands of yorkshire which are extremely pretty: at first woody and rich, then gradually poorer, and at last opening on a black moor with higher moors in sight: descending in one part by a long crooked inclined plane, the carriage drawing up another load by its weight: through a little tunnel: and then along a valley to whitby. the rate of travelling was about miles an hour. betsy declares that it was the most agreeable travelling that she ever had. yesterday (saturday) caroline drove betsy and miss barnes drove me to clay cross to see the works at the great railroad tunnel there. coming from the north, the railroad passes up the chesterfield valley close by the town and continues up the same valley, till it is necessary for it to enter the valley which runs the opposite way towards buttersley: the tunnel passes under the high ground between these two vallies: so that it is in reality at the water-shed: it is to be i think more than a mile long, and when finished feet clear in height, so it is a grand place. we saw the preparations for a blast, and heard it fired: the ladies stopping their ears in due form. "cambridge observatory:--on mar. th i went to cambridge on the business of the northumberland telescope: i was subsequently engaged on the accounts, and on aug. th i finally resigned it to prof. challis, who accepted it on aug. th. on sept. th i communicated its completion and the settlement of accounts to the duke of northumberland. the total expense was _£ . s. d._ + francs for the object-glass. "at greenwich observatory:--on jan. rd i received the last revise of the observations, and on jan. th the first sheet for .--in july i report on selection from a long list of chronometers which had been on trial, and on sept. nd i pointed out to capt. beaufort that the system of offering only one price would be ruinous to the manufacture of chronometers, and to the character of those supplied to the admiralty: and that i would undertake any trouble of classifying the chronometers tried. this letter introduced the system still in use ( ), which has been most beneficial to the manufacture. on sept. th i proposed that all trials begin in the first week of january: this also has been in use as an established system to the present time.--it was pointed out to me that a certain chronometer was affected by external magnetic power. i remedied this by placing under it a free compass magnet: a stand was specially prepared for it. i have never found another chronometer sensibly affected by magnetism.--in november and december i tried my new double-image micrometer.--between may th and oct. th a fireproof room was constructed in the southern part of the quadrant room; and in november a small shed was erected over the entrance to the north terrace.--the position of the free meridional magnet (now mounted in the magnetic observatory) was observed at every m. through hours on feb. nd and rd, may th and th, aug. th and st, and nov. th and th. this was done in cooperation with the system of the magnetic union established by gauss in germany.--the reduction of the greenwich planetary and lunar observations, to , went on steadily. i had six and sometimes seven computers constantly at work, in the octagon room.--as in i had a great amount of correspondence with mr baily on the cavendish experiment.--i attended as regularly as i could to the business of the university of london. the religious question did not rise very prominently. i took a very active part, and have a great deal of correspondence, on the nature of the intended examinations in hydrography and civil engineering.--on the standards commission the chief work was in external enquiries.--on june th i had enquiries from john quincey adams (u.s.a.) on the expense, &c., of observatories: an observatory was contemplated in america.--i had correspondence about the proposed establishment of observatories at durham, glasgow, and liverpool. "i had in this year a great deal of troublesome and on the whole unpleasant correspondence with the admiralty about the correction of the compass in iron ships. i naturally expected some acknowledgment of an important service rendered to navigation: but the admiralty peremptorily refused it. my account of the experiments &c. for the royal society is dated april th. the general success of the undertaking soon became notorious, and (as i understood) led immediately to extensive building of iron ships: and it led also to applications to me for correction of compasses. on jan. th i was addressed in reference to the royal sovereign and royal george at liverpool; july th the orwell; may th two russian ships built on the thames; sept. th the ships of the lancaster company. "i had much work in connection with the cape of good hope observatory, chiefly relating to the instrumental equipment and to the geodetical work. as it was considered advisable that any base measured in the cape colony should be measured with compensation bars, i applied to major jervis for the loan of those belonging to the east indian survey, but he positively refused to lend them. on jan. th i applied to col. colby for the compensation bars of the british survey, and he immediately assented to lending them. col. colby had suggested to the ordnance department that capt. henderson and several sappers should be sent to use the measuring bars, and it was so arranged. it still appeared desirable to have the command of some soldiers from the garrison of cape town, and this matter was soon arranged with the military authorities by the admiralty. "the following are the principal points of my private history: it was a very sad year. on jan. th i went with my wife to norwich, on a visit to prof. sedgwick, and in june i visited sir j. herschel at slough. on june th my dear boy arthur was taken ill: his malady soon proved to be scarlet fever, of which he died on june th at in the morning. it was arranged that he should be buried in playford churchyard on the th, and on that day i proceeded to playford with my wife and my eldest son george richard. at chelmsford my son was attacked with slight sickness, and being a little unwell did not attend his brother's funeral. on july st at h. m. in the morning he also died: he had some time before suffered severely from an attack of measles, and it seemed probable that his brain had suffered. on july th he was buried by the side of his brother arthur in playford churchyard.--on july rd i went to colchester on my way to walton-on-the-naze, with my wife and all my family; all my children had been touched, though very lightly, with the scarlet fever.--it was near the end of this year that my mother quitted the house (luck's) at playford, and came to live with me at greenwich observatory, where she lived till her death; having her own attendant, and living in perfect confidence with my wife and myself, and being i trust as happy as her years and widowhood permitted. my sister also lived with me at the observatory." "in the latter part of , and through , i had much correspondence with the admiralty, in which i obtained a complete account of the transfer of the observatory from the ordnance department to the admiralty, and the transfer of the visitation of the observatory from the royal society to the present board of visitors. in i found that the papers of the board of longitude were divided between the royal society and the admiralty: i obtained the consent of both to bring them to the observatory. "in this year i began to arrange about an annual dinner to be held at the visitation.--my double-image micrometer was much used for observations of circumpolar double stars.--in magnetism and meteorology, certain quarterly observations were kept up; but in november the system of incessant eye-observations was commenced. i refused to commence this until i had secured a 'watchman's clock' for mechanical verification of the regular attendance of the assistants.--with regard to chronometers: in this year, for the first time, i took the very important step of publishing the rates obtained by comparisons at the observatory. i confined myself on this occasion to the chronometers purchased by the admiralty. in march a pigeon-house was made for exposure of chronometers to cold.--the lunar and planetary reductions were going on steadily.--i was consulted about an observatory at oxford, where i supported the introduction of the heliometer.--the stipend of the bakerian lecture was paid to me for my explanation of brewster's new prismatic fringes.--the business of the cape observatory and survey occupied much of my time.--in the rev. h. j. rose (editor of the encyclopaedia metropolitana) had proposed my writing a paper on tides, &c.; in oct. i gave him notice that i must connect tides with waves, and in that way i will take up the subject. much correspondence on tides, &c., with whewell and others followed. "with regard to the magnetical and meteorological establishment. on june th mr lubbock reported from the committee of physics of the royal society to the council in favour of a magnetic and meteorological observatory near london. after correspondence with sheepshanks, lord northampton, and herschel, i wrote to the council on july th, pointing out what the admiralty had done at greenwich, and offering to cooperate. in a letter to lord minto i stated that my estimate was _£ _, including _£ _ to the first assistant: lubbock's was _£ , _. on aug. th the treasury assented, limiting it to the duration of ross's voyage. on aug. th wheatstone looked at our buildings and was satisfied. my estimate was sent to the admiralty, viz. _£ _ outfit, _£ _ annual expense; and glaisher to be superintendent. i believe this was allowed for the present; for the following year it was placed on the estimates. most of the contemplated observations were begun before the end of : as much as possible in conformity with the royal society's plan. mr hind (subsequently the superintendent of the nautical almanac) and mr paul were the first extra assistants. "of private history. on feb. th i went to cambridge with my paper on the going fusee. on mar. th i went to visit mrs smith, my wife's mother, at brampton near chesterfield. i made a short visit to playford in april and a short expedition to winchester, portsmouth, &c., in june. from sept. th to oct. rd i was travelling in the north of england and south of scotland." [this was an extremely active and interesting journey, in the course of which a great number of places were visited by airy, especially places on the border mentioned in scott's poems, which always had a great attraction for him. he also attended a meeting of the british association at glasgow and made a statement regarding the planetary and lunar reductions: and looked at a site for the glasgow observatory.] "in november i went for a short time to cambridge and to keysoe (my brother's residence). on dec. th my daughter hilda was born (subsequently married to e.j. routh). in this year i had a loss of _£ _ by a fire on my eye estate." * * * * * the following extracts are from letters to his wife. some of them relate to matters of general interest. they are all of them characteristic, and serve to shew the keen interest which he took in matters around him, and especially in architecture and scenery. the first letter relates to his journey from chesterfield on the previous day. flamsteed house, _ , april _. i was obliged to put up with an outside place to derby yesterday, much against my will, for i was apprehensive that the cold would bring on the pain in my face. of that i had not much; but i have caught something of sore throat and catarrh. the coach came up at about minutes past . it arrived in derby at minutes or less past (same guard and coachman who brought us), and drew up in the street opposite the inn at which we got no dinner, abreast of an omnibus. i had to go to a coach office opposite the inn to pay and be booked for london, and was duly set down in a way-bill with _name_; and then entered the omnibus: was transferred to the railway station, and then received the railway ticket by shouting out my name. if you should come the same way, you would find it convenient to book your place at chesterfield to london by your name (paying for the whole, namely, coach fare, omnibus fare _-/ _, and railway fare _£ . s. d._ first class). then you will only have to step out of the coach into the omnibus, and to scream out once or twice to the guard to make sure that you are entered in the way-bill and that your luggage is put on the omnibus. * * * * * flamsteed house, greenwich, _ , april _. i forgot to tell you that at lord northampton's i saw some specimens of the daguerrotype, pictures made by the camera obscura, and they surpass in beauty of execution anything that i could have imagined. baily who has two or three has promised to lend them for your inspection when you return. also i saw some post-office stamps and stamped envelopes: i do not much admire the latter. * * * * * the following relates to the fire on his eye farm, referred to above: playford, _ , april _. on wednesday (yesterday) went with my uncle to the eye estate, to see the effects of the fire. the farming buildings of every kind are as completely cleared away as if they had been mown down: not a bit of anything but one or two short brick walls and the brick foundations of the barns and stacks. the aspect of the place is much changed, because in approaching the house you do not see it upon a back-ground of barns, &c., but standing alone. the house is in particularly neat and good order. i did not think it at all worth while to make troublesome enquiries of the people who reside there, but took mr case's account. there seems no doubt that the fire was caused by the maid-servant throwing cinders into a sort of muck-place into which they had been commonly thrown. i suppose there was after all this dry weather straw or muck drier than usual, and the cinders were hotter than usual. the whole was on fire in an exceedingly short time; and everything was down in less than an hour. two engines came from eye, and all the population of the town (as the fire began shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon). it is entirely owing to these that my house, and the farm (sewell's) on the opposite side of the road, were not burned down. at the beginning of the fire the wind was n.e. which blew directly towards the opposite farm (sewell's): although the nearest part of it (tiled dwelling house) was yards off or near it, and the great barn (thatched roof) considerably further, yet both were set on fire several times. all this while, the tail of my house was growing very hot: and shortly after the buildings fell in burning ruins, the wind changed to n.w., blowing directly to my house. if this change had happened while the buildings were standing and burning, there would have been no possibility of saving the house. as it was, the solder is melted from the window next the farm-yard, and the roof was set on fire in three or four places. one engine was kept working on my house and one on the opposite farm. a large pond was pretty nearly emptied. mr case's horses and bullocks were got out, not without great difficulty, as the progress of the fire was fearfully rapid. a sow and nine pigs were burnt, and a large hog ran out burnt so much that the people killed it immediately. * * * * * george inn, winchester, _ , june _. at winchester we established ourselves at the george and then without delay proceeded to st cross. i did not know before the nature of its hospital establishment, but i find that it is a veritable set of alms-houses. the church is a most curious specimen of the latest norman. i never saw one so well marked before--norman ornaments on pointed arches, pilasters detached with cushion capitals, and various signs: and it is clearly an instance of that state of the style when people had been forced by the difficulties and inelegancies of the round arch in groining to adopt pointed arches for groining but had not learnt to use them for windows.......this morning after breakfast went to the cathedral (looking by the way at a curious old cross in the street). i thought that its inside was wholly norman, and was most agreeably surprised by finding the whole inside groined in every part with excellent late decorated or perpendicular work. yet there are several signs about it which lead me to think that the whole inside has been norman, and even that the pilasters now worked up into the perpendicular are norman. the transepts are most massive old norman, with side-aisles running round their ends (which i never saw before). the groining of the side aisles of the nave very effective from the strength of the cross ribs. the clerestory windows of the quire very large. the organ is on one side. but the best thing about the quire is the wooden stall-work, of early decorated, very beautiful. a superb lady chapel, of early english. * * * * * portsmouth, _ , june _. we left winchester by evening train to the dolphin, southampton, and slept there. at nine in the morning we went by steamboat down the river to ryde in the isle of wight: our steamer was going on to portsmouth, but we thought it better to land at ryde and take a boat for ourselves. we then sailed out (rather a blowing day) to the vessel attending col. pasley's operations, and after a good deal of going from one boat to another (the sea being so rough that our boat could not be got up to the ships) and a good deal of waiting, we got on board the barge or lump in which col. pasley was. here we had the satisfaction of seeing the barrel of gunpowder lowered (there was more than a ton of gunpowder), and seeing the divers go down to fix it, dressed in their diving helmets and supplied with air from the great air-pump above. when all was ready and the divers had ascended again, the barge in which we were was warped away, and by a galvanic battery in another barge (which we had seen carried there, and whose connection with the barrel we had seen), upon signal given by sound of trumpet, the gunpowder was fired. the effect was most wonderful. the firing followed the signal instantaneously. we were at between and yards from the place (as i judge), and the effects were as follows. as soon as the signal was given, there was a report, louder than a musket but not so loud as a small cannon, and a severe shock was felt at our feet, just as if our barge had struck on a rock. almost immediately, a very slight swell was perceived over the place of the explosion, and the water looked rather foamy: then in about a second it began to rise, and there was the most enormous outbreak of spray that you can conceive. it rose in one column of or feet high, and broad at the base, resembling a stumpy sheaf with jagged masses of spray spreading out at the sides, and seemed to grow outwards till i almost feared that it was coming to us. it sunk, i suppose, in separate parts, for it did not make any grand squash down, and then there were seen logs of wood rising, and a dense mass of black mud, which spread gradually round till it occupied a very large space. fish were stunned by it: our boatmen picked up some. it was said by all present that this was the best explosion which had been seen: it was truly wonderful. then we sailed to portsmouth.......the explosion was a thing worth going many miles to see. there were many yachts and sailing boats out to see it (i counted before they were at the fullest), so that the scene was very gay. * * * * * here are some notes on york cathedral after the fire: red lion hotel, redcar, _ , sept. _. my first letter was closed after service at york cathedral. as soon as i had posted it, i walked sedately twice round the cathedral, and then i found the sexton at the door, who commiserating me of my former vain applications, and having the hope of lucre before his eyes, let me in. i saw the burnt part, which looks not melancholy but unfinished. every bit of wood is carried away clean, with scarcely a smoke-daub to mark where it has been: the building looks as if the walls were just prepared for a roof, but there are some deep dints in the pavement, shewing where large masses have fallen. the lower parts of some of the columns (to the height of or feet) are much scaled and cracked. the windows are scarcely touched. i also refreshed my memory of the chapter-house, which is most beautiful, and which has much of its old gilding reasonably bright, and some of its old paint quite conspicuous. and i looked again at the old crypt with its late norman work, and at the still older crypt of the pre-existing church. * * * * * "the routine work of the observatory in its several departments was carried on steadily during this year.--the camera obscura was removed from the n.w. turret of the great room, to make way for the anemometer.--in magnetism and meteorology the most important thing was the great magnetic storm of sept. th, which revealed a new class of magnetic phenomena. it was very well observed by mr glaisher, and i immediately printed and circulated an account of it.--in april i reported that the planetary reductions were completed, and furnished estimates for the printing.--in august i applied for , copies of the great skeleton form for computing lunar tabular places, which were granted.--i reported, as usual, on various papers for the royal society, and was still engaged on the cavendish experiment.--in the university of london i attended the meeting of dec. th, on the reduction of examiners' salaries, which were extravagant.--i furnished col. colby with a plan of a new sector, still used in the british survey.--i appealed to colby about the injury to the cistern on the great gable in cumberland, by the pile raised for the survey signal.--on jan. rd occurred a most remarkable tidal disturbance: the tide in the thames was feet too low. i endeavoured to trace it on the coasts, and had a vast amount of correspondence: but it elicited little. "of private history: i was a short time in suffolk in march.--on mar. st i started with my wife (whose health had suffered much) for a trip to bath, bristol, cardiff, swansea, &c. while at swansea we received news on apr. th of the deadly illness of my dear mother. we travelled by neath and cardiff to bath, where i solicited a rest for my wife from my kind friend miss sutcliffe, and returned alone to greenwich. my dear mother had died on the morning of the th. the funeral took place at little whelnetham (near bury) on may st, where my mother was buried by the side of my father. we went to cambridge, where my wife consulted dr haviland to her great advantage, and returned to greenwich on may th.--on may th to th i was at sanderstead (rev. j. courtney) with whewell as one sponsor, at the christening of my daughter hilda.--in september i went for a trip with my sister to yorkshire and cumberland, in the course of which we visited dent (sedgwick's birthplace), and paid visits to mr wordsworth, miss southey, and miss bristow, returning to greenwich on the th sept.--from june th to th i visited my brother at keysoe." the following extracts are from letters written to his wife while on the above trip in yorkshire and cumberland: red lion inn, redcar, _ , sept. _. we stopped at york: went to the tavern hotel. in the morning (friday) went into the cathedral. i think that it improves on acquaintance. the nave is now almost filled with scaffolding for the repair of the roof, so that it has not the bare unfinished appearance that it had when i was there last year. the tower in which the fire began seems to be a good deal repaired: there are new mullions in its windows, &c. we stopped to hear part of the service, which was not very effective. * * * * * here are notes of his visit to dentdale in yorkshire, the birthplace of his friend sedgwick: king's head, kendal, _ , sept. _. the day was quite fine, and the hills quite clear. the ascent out of hawes is dull; the little branch dale is simple and monotonous, and so are the hills about the great dale which are in sight. the only thing which interested us was the sort of bird's-eye view of hardraw dell, which appeared a most petty and insignificant opening in the great hill side. but when we got to the top of the pass there was a magnificent view of ingleborough. the dale which was most nearly in front of us is that which goes down to ingleton, past the side of ingleborough. the mountain was about nine miles distant. we turned to the right and immediately descended dent-dale. the three dales (to hawes, to ingleton, and to dent) lay their heads together in a most amicable way, so that, when at the top, it is equally easy to descend down either of them. we found very soon that dent-dale is much more beautiful than that by which we had ascended. the sides of the hills are steeper, and perhaps higher: the bottom is richer. the road is also better. the river is a continued succession of very pretty falls, almost all of which have scooped out the lower strata of the rock, so that the water shoots clear over. for several miles (perhaps ) it runs upon bare limestone without a particle of earth. from the head of the dale to the village of dent is eight miles. at about half-way is a new chapel, very neat, with a transept at its west end. the village of dent is one of the strangest places that i ever saw. narrow street, up and down, with no possibility of two carriages bigger than children's carts passing each other. we stopped at the head inn and enquired about the geolog: but he is not in the country. we then called on his brother, who was much surprised and pleased to see us. his wife came in soon after (his daughter having gone with a party to see some waterfall) and they urged us to stop and dine with them. so we walked about and saw every place about the house, church, and school, connected with the history of the geolog: and then dined. i promised that you should call there some time when we are in the north together and spend a day or two with them. mr sedgwick says it is reported that whewell will take sedbergh living (which is now vacant: trinity college is patron). then we had our chaise and went to sedbergh. the very mouth of dent-dale is more contracted than its higher parts. sedbergh is embosomed among lumping hills. then we had another carriage to drive to kendal. * * * * * here is a recollection of wordsworth: salutation, ambleside, _ , sept. _. we then got our dinner at lowwood, and walked straight to ambleside, changed our shoes, and walked on to rydal to catch wordsworth at tea. miss wordsworth was being drawn about in a chair just as she was seven years ago. i do not recollect her appearance then so as to say whether she is much altered, but i think not. mr wordsworth is as full of good talk as ever, and seems quite strong and well. mrs wordsworth looks older. their son william was at tea, but he had come over only for the day or evening. there was also a little girl, who i think is mrs wordsworth's niece. "in this year i commenced a troublesome work, the description of the northumberland telescope. on sept. th i wrote to the duke of northumberland suggesting this, sending him a list of plates, and submitting an estimate of expense _£ _. on sept. th i received the duke's assent. i applied to prof. challis (at the cambridge observatory) requesting him to receive the draughtsman, sly, in his house, which he kindly consented to do. "with regard to estimates. i now began to point out to the admiralty the inconvenience of furnishing separate estimates, viz. to the admiralty for the astronomical establishment, and to the treasury for the magnetical and meteorological establishment.--the great work of the lunar reductions proceeded steadily: computers were employed on them.--with regard to the magnetical and meteorological establishment: i suppose that james ross's expedition had returned: and with this, according to the terms of the original grant, the magnetical and meteorological establishments expired. there was much correspondence with the royal society and the treasury, and ultimately sir r. peel consented to the continuation of the establishments to the end of .--in this year began my correspondence with mr mitchell about the cincinnati observatory. on aug. mr mitchell settled himself at greenwich, and worked for a long time in the computing room.--and in this year mr aiken of liverpool first wrote to me about the liverpool observatory, and a great deal of correspondence followed: the plans were in fact entirely entrusted to me.--july th was the day of the total eclipse of the sun, which i observed with my wife at the superga, near turin. i wrote an account of my observations for the royal astronomical society.--on jan. th i notified to mr goulburn that our report on the restoration of the standards was ready, and on jan. th i presented it. after this followed a great deal of correspondence, principally concerning the collection of authenticated copies of the old standards from all sides.--in some discussions with capt. shirreff, then captain superintendent of the chatham dockyard, i suggested that machinery might be made which would saw ship-timbers to their proper form, and i sent him some plans on nov. th. this was the beginning of a correspondence which lasted long, but which led to nothing, as will appear hereafter.--on dec. th, being on a visit to dean peacock at ely, i examined the drainage scoop wheel at prickwillow, and made a report to him by letter, which obtained circulation and was well known.--on may th the manuscript of my article, 'tides and waves,' for the encyclopaedia metropolitana was sent to the printer. i had extensive correspondence, principally on local tides, with whewell and others. tides were observed for me by colby's officers at southampton, by myself at christchurch and poole, at ipswich by ransome's man; and a great series of observations of irish tides were made on my plan under colby's direction in june, july and august.--on sept. th mr goulburn, chancellor of the exchequer, asked my opinion on the utility of babbage's calculating machine, and the propriety of expending further sums of money on it. i replied, entering fully into the matter, and giving my opinion that it was worthless.--i was elected an honorary member of the institution of civil engineers, london. "the reduction and printing of the astronomical observations had been getting into arrear: the last revise of the observations went to press on may th, . on aug. th came into operation a new organization of assistants' hours of attendance, &c., required for bringing up reductions. i worked hard myself and my example had good effect." his reference to this subject in his report to the visitors is as follows: "i have in one of the preceding articles alluded to the backwardness of our reductions. in those which follow it i trust that i have sufficiently explained it. to say nothing of the loss, from ill health, of the services of most efficient assistants, i am certain that the quantity of current work will amply explain any backwardness. perhaps i may particularly mention that in the observations of there was an unusual quantity of equatoreal observations, and the reductions attending these occupied a very great time. but, as regards myself, there has been another cause. the reduction of the ancient lunar and planetary observations, the attention to chronometer constructions, the proposed management of the printing of papers relating to important operations at the cape of good hope; these and similar operations have taken up much of my time. i trust that i am doing well in rendering greenwich, even more distinctly than it has been heretofore, the place of reference to all the world for the important observations, and results of observations, on which the system of the universe is founded. as regards myself, i have been accustomed, in these matters, to lay aside private considerations; to consider that i am not a mere superintendent of current observations, but a trustee for the honour of greenwich observatory generally, and for its utility generally to the world; nay, to consider myself not as mere director of greenwich observatory, but (however unworthy personally) as british astronomer, required sometimes by my office to interfere (when no personal offence is given) in the concerns of other establishments of the state. if the board supports me in this view there can be little doubt that the present delay of computations, relating to current observations, will be considered by them as a very small sacrifice to the important advantage that may be gained by proper attention to the observations of other times and other places." "of private history: in february i went for a week to playford and norwich, visiting prof. sedgwick at the latter place. on mar. st my third daughter christabel was born. in march i paid a short visit to sir john herschel at hawkhurst. from june th to aug. th i was travelling with my wife on the continent, being partly occupied with the observation of the total eclipse of the sun on july th. the journey was in switzerland and north italy. in december i went to cambridge and ely, visiting dr peacock at the latter place." from feb. rd to th airy was engaged on observations of tides at southampton, christchurch, poole, and weymouth. during this expedition he wrote frequently (as he always did) to his wife on the incidents of his journey, and the following letters appear characteristic: king's arms, christchurch, or xchurch, _ , feb. _. the lower of the above descriptions of my present place of abode is the correct one, as i fearlessly assert on the authority of divers direction-posts on the roads leading to it (by the bye this supports my doctrine that x in latin was not pronounced eks but khi, because the latter is the first letter of christ, for which x is here traditionally put). finding this morning that yolland (who called on me as soon as i had closed the letter to you) was perfectly inclined to go on with the tide observations at southampton, and that his corporals of sappers were conducting them in the most exemplary manner, i determined on starting at once. however we first went to look at the new docks (mud up to the knees) and truly it is a very great work. there is to be enclosed a good number of acres of water feet deep: one dock locked in, the other a tidal dock or basin with that depth at low water. they are surrounded by brick walls eight feet thick at top, or more at bottom; and all the parts that ever can be exposed are faced with granite. the people reckon that this work when finished will attract a good deal of the london commerce, and i should not be surprised at it. for it is very much easier for ships to get into southampton than into london, and the railway carriage will make them almost one. a very large steamer is lying in southampton water: the oriental, which goes to alexandria. the lady mary wood, a large steamer for lisbon and gibraltar, was lying at the pier. the said pier is a very pleasant place of promenade, the water and banks are so pretty, and there is so much liveliness of ships about it. well i started in a gig, in a swashing rain, which continued off and on for a good while. of the miles, i should think that were across the new forest. i do not much admire it. as for norman william's destruction of houses and churches to make it hunting ground, that is utter nonsense which never could have been written by anybody that ever saw it: but as to hunting, except his horses wore something like mud-pattens or snow-shoes, it is difficult to conceive it. almost the whole forest is like a great sponge, water standing in every part. in the part nearer to xchurch forest trees, especially beeches, seem to grow well. we stopped to bait at lyndhurst, a small place high up in the forest: a good view, such as it is, from the churchyard. the hills of the isle of wight occasionally in sight. on approaching xchurch the chalk cliffs of the west end of the isle of wight (leading to the needles) were partly visible; and, as the sun was shining on them, they fairly blazed. xchurch is a small place with a magnificent-looking church (with lofty clerestory, double transept, &c., but with much irregularity) which i propose to visit to-morrow. also a ruin which looks like an abbey, but the people call it a castle. there is a good deal of low land about it, and the part between the town and the sea reminded me a good deal of the estuary above cardigan, flat ill-looking bogs (generally islands) among the water. i walked to the mouth of the river (more than two miles) passing a nice little place called sandford, with a hotel and a lot of lodgings for summer sea-people. at the entrance of the river is a coastguard station, and this i find is the place to which i must go in the morning to observe the tide. i had some talk with the coastguard people, and they assure me that the tide is really double as reported. as i came away the great full moon was rising, and i could read in her unusually broad face (indicating her nearness to the earth) that there will be a powerful tide. i came in and have had dinner and tea, and am now going to bed, endeavouring to negociate for a breakfast at six o'clock to-morrow morning. it is raining cats and dogs. * * * * * luce's hotel, weymouth, _ , feb. _. this morning when i got up i found that it was blowing fresh from s.w. and the sea was bursting over the wall of the eastern extremity of the esplanade very magnanimously. so (the swell not being favourable for tide-observations) i gave them up and determined to go to see the surf on the chesil bank. i started with my great-coat on, more for defence against the wind than against rain; but in a short time it began to rain, and just when i was approaching the bridge which connects the mainland with the point where the chesil bank ends at portland (there being an arm of the sea behind the chesil bank) it rained and blew most dreadfully. however i kept on and mounted the bank and descended a little way towards the sea, and there was the surf in all its glory. i cannot give you an idea of its majestic appearance. it was evidently very high, but that was not the most striking part of it, for there was no such thing as going within a considerable distance of it (the occasional outbreaks of the water advancing so far) so that its magnitude could not be well seen. my impression is that the height of the surf was from to feet. but the striking part was the clouds of solid spray which formed immediately and which completely concealed all the other operations of the water. they rose a good deal higher than the top of the surf, so the state of things was this. a great swell is seen coming, growing steeper and steeper; then it all turns over and you see a face just like the pictures of falls of niagara; but in a little more than one second this is totally lost and there is nothing before you but an enormous impenetrable cloud of white spray. in about another second there comes from the bottom of this cloud the foaming current of water up the bank, and it returns grating the pebbles together till their jar penetrates the very brain. i stood in the face of the wind and rain watching this a good while, and should have stood longer but that i was so miserably wet. it appeared to me that the surf was higher farther along the bank, but the air was so thickened by the rain and the spray that i could not tell. when i returned the bad weather abated. i have now borrowed somebody else's trowsers while mine are drying (having got little wet in other parts, thanks to my great-coat, which successfully brought home a hundredweight of water), and do not intend to stir out again except perhaps to post this letter. * * * * * flamsteed house, _ , may _. yesterday after posting the letter for you i went per steamboat to hungerford. i then found mr vignoles, and we trundled off together, with another engineer named smith, picking up stratford by the way, to wormwood scrubs. there was a party to see the atmospheric railway in action: including (among others) sir john burgoyne, whom i met in ireland several years ago, and mr pym, the engineer of the dublin and kingstown railway, whom i have seen several times, and who is very sanguine about this construction; and mr clegg, the proposer of the scheme (the man that invented gas in its present arrangements), and messrs samuda, two jews who are the owners of the experiment now going on; and sir james south! with the latter hero and mechanician we did not come in contact. unfortunately the stationary engine (for working the air-pump which draws the air out of the pipes and thus sucks the carriages along) broke down during the experiment, but not till we had seen the carriage have one right good run. and to be sure it is very funny to see a carriage running all alone "as if the devil drove it" without any visible cause whatever. the mechanical arrangements we were able to examine as well after the engine had broken down as at any time. and they are very simple and apparently very satisfactory, and there is no doubt of the mechanical practicability of the thing even in places where locomotives can hardly be used: whether it will pay or not is doubtful. i dare say that the commissioners' report has taken a very good line of discrimination. * * * * * "in march i wrote to dr wynter (vice-chancellor) at oxford, requesting permission to see bradley's and bliss's manuscript observations, with the view of taking a copy of them. this was granted, and the books of transits were subsequently copied under mr breen's superintendence. --the following paragraph is extracted from the report to the visitors: 'in the report of last year, i stated that our reductions had dropped considerably in arrear. i have the satisfaction now of stating that this arrear and very much more have been completely recovered, and that the reductions are now in as forward a state as at any time since my connection with the observatory.' in fact the observations of were sent to press on mar. st, .--about this year the annual dinner at the visitation began to be more important, principally under the management of capt. w.h. smyth, r.n.--in november i was enquiring about an -inch object-glass. i had already in mind the furnishing of our meridional instruments with greater optical powers.--on july th the admiralty referred to me a memorial of mr j.g. ulrich, a chronometer maker, claiming a reward for improvements in chronometers. i took a great deal of trouble in the investigation of this matter, by books, witnesses, &c., and finally reported on nov. th that there was no ground for claim.--in april i received the first application of the royal exchange committee, for assistance in the construction of the clock: this led to a great deal of correspondence, especially with dent.--the lunar reductions were going on in full vigour.--i had much work in connection with the cape observatory: partly about an equatoreal required for the observatory, but chiefly in getting maclear's work through the press.--in this year i began to think seriously of determining the longitude of valencia in ireland, as a most important basis for the scale of longitude in these latitudes, by the transmission of chronometers; and in august i went to valencia and examined the localities. in september i submitted a plan to the admiralty, but it was deferred.--the new commission for restoring the standards was appointed on june th, i being chairman. the work of collecting standards and arranging plans was going on; mr baily attending to standards of length, and prof. w.h. miller to standards of weight. we held two meetings.--a small assistance was rendered to me by mr charles may (of the firm of ransomes and may), which has contributed much to the good order of papers in the observatory. mr robert ransome had remarked my method of punching holes in the paper by a hand-punch, the places of the holes being guided by holes in a piece of card, and said that they could furnish me with something better. accordingly, on aug. th mr may sent me the punching machine, the prototype of all now used in the observatory. "on sept. th was made my proposal for an altazimuth instrument for making observations of the moon's place more frequently and through parts of her orbit where she could never be observed with meridional instruments; the most important addition to the observatory since its foundation. the board of visitors recommended it to the admiralty, and the admiralty sanctioned the construction of the instrument and the building to contain it." the following passage is quoted from the address of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors at the special meeting of nov. th, : "the most important object in the institution and maintenance of the royal observatory has always been the observations of the moon. in this term i include the determination of the places of fixed stars which are necessary for ascertaining the instrumental errors applicable to the instrumental observations of the moon. these, as regards the objects of the institution, were merely auxiliaries: the history of the circumstances which led the government of the day to supply the funds for the construction of the observatory shews that, but for the demands of accurate lunar determinations as aids to navigation, the erection of a national observatory would never have been thought of. and this object has been steadily kept in view when others (necessary as fundamental auxiliaries) were passed by. thus, during the latter part of bradley's time, and bliss's time (which two periods are the least efficient in the modern history of the observatory), and during the latter part of maskelyne's presidency (when, for years together, there is scarcely a single observation of the declination of a star), the observations of the moon were kept up with the utmost regularity. and the effect of this regularity, as regards its peculiar object, has been most honourable to the institution. the existing theories and tables of the moon are founded entirely upon the greenwich observations; the observatory of greenwich has been looked to as that from which alone adequate observations can be expected, and from which they will not be expected in vain: and it is not perhaps venturing too much to predict that, unless some gross dereliction of duty by the managers of the observatory should occur, the lunar tables will always be founded on greenwich observations. with this impression it has long been to me a matter of consideration whether means should not be taken for rendering the series of observations of the moon more complete than it can be made by the means at present recognized in our observatories."--in illustration of the foregoing remarks, the original inscription still remaining on the outside of the wall of the octagon room of the observatory may be quoted. it runs thus: 'carolus ii's rex optimus astronomiae et nauticae artis patronus maximus speculam hanc in utriusque commodum fecit anno d'ni mdclxxvi regni sui xxviii curante iona moore milite rtsg.' "the ashburton treaty had been settled with the united states, for the boundary between canada and the state of maine, and one of its conditions was, that a straight line about miles in length should be drawn through dense woods, connecting definite points. it soon appeared that this could scarcely be done except by astronomical operations. lord canning, under secretary of the foreign office, requested me to nominate two astronomers to undertake the work. i strongly recommended that military officers should carry out the work, and capt. robinson and lieut. pipon were detached for this service. on mar. st they took lodgings at greenwich, and worked at the observatory every day and night through the month. my detailed astronomical instructions to them were drawn out on mar. th. i prepared all the necessary skeleton forms, &c., and looked to their scientific equipment in every way. the result will be given in . "of private history: in january i went to dover with my wife to see the blasting of a cliff there: we also visited sir j. herschel at hawkhurst. in april i was at playford, on a visit to arthur biddell. on apr. th my daughter annot was born. from july nd to august th i was travelling in the south of ireland, chiefly to see valencia and consider the question of determining its longitude: during this journey i visited lord rosse at birr castle, and returned to weymouth, where my family were staying at the time. in october i visited cambridge, and in december i was again at playford." the journey to cambridge (oct. th to th) was apparently in order to be present on the occasion of the queen's visit there on the th: the following letter relating to it was written to his wife: sedgwick's rooms, trinity college, cambridge. _ , oct. , thursday_. i have this morning received your letter: i had no time to write yesterday. there are more things to tell of than i can possibly remember. the dean of ely yesterday was in a most ludicrous state of misery because his servant had sent his portmanteau (containing his scarlet academicals as well as everything else) to london, and it went to watford before it was recovered: but he got it in time to shew himself to-day. yesterday morning i came early to breakfast with sedgwick. then i walked about the streets to look at the flags. cambridge never had such an appearance before. in looking along trinity street or trumpington street there were arches and flags as close as they could stand, and a cord stretched from king's entrance to mr deck's or the next house with flags on all its length: a flag on st mary's, and a huge royal standard ready to hoist on trinity gateway: laurels without end. i applied at the registrar's office for a ticket which was to admit me to trinity court, the senate house, &c., and received from peacock one for king's chapel. then there was an infinity of standing about, and very much i was fatigued, till i got some luncheon at blakesley's rooms at o'clock. this was necessary because there was to be no dinner in hall on account of the address presentation. the queen was expected at , and arrived about minutes after . when she drove up to trinity gate, the vice-chancellor, masters, and beadles went to meet her, and the beadles laid down their staves, which she desired them to take again. then she came towards the lodge as far as the sundial, where whewell as master took the college keys (a bundle of rusty keys tied together by a particularly greasy strap) from the bursar martin, and handed them to the queen, who returned them. then she drove round by the turret-corner of the court to the lodge door. almost every member of the university was in the court, and there was a great hurraing except when the ceremonies were going forward. presently the queen appeared at a window and bowed, and was loudly cheered. then notice was given that the queen and prince would receive the addresses of the university in trinity hall, and a procession was formed, in which i had a good place, as i claimed rank with the professors. a throne and canopy were erected at the top of the hall, but the queen did not sit, which was her own determination, because if she had sat it would have been proper that everybody should back out before presenting the address to the prince: which operation would have suffocated at least people. the queen wore a blue gown and a brown shawl with an immense quantity of gold embroidery, and a bonnet. then it was known that the queen was going to service at king's chapel at half past three: so everybody went there. i saw the queen walk up the antechapel and she looked at nothing but the roof. i was not able to see her in chapel or to see the throne erected for her with its back to the table, which has given great offence to many people. (i should have said that before the queen came i called on dr haviland, also on scholefield, also on the master of christ's.) after this she returned to trinity, and took into her head to look at the chapel. the cloth laid on the pavement was not long enough and the undergraduates laid down their gowns. several of the undergraduate noblemen carried candles to illuminate newton's statue. after this the prince went by torchlight to the library. then i suppose came dinner, and then it was made known that at half-past nine the queen would receive some members of the university. so i rigged myself up and went to the levée at the lodge and was presented in my turn; by the vice-chancellor as "ex-professor airy, your majesty's astronomer royal." the queen and the prince stood together, and a bow was made to and received from each. the prince recognised me and said "i am glad to see you," or something like that. next to him stood goulburn, and next lord lyndhurst, who to my great surprise spoke very civilly to me (as i will tell you afterwards). the queen had her head bare and a sort of french white gown and looked very well. she had the ribbon of the garter on her breast; but like a ninny i forgot to look whether she had the garter upon her arm. the prince wore his garter. i went to bed dead tired and got up with a headache.--about the degree to the prince and the other movements i will write again. * * * * * here is a note from cubitt relating to the blasting of the round down cliff at dover referred to above: great george street, _jan. th, _. my dear sir, _thursday_ next the th at is the time fixed for the attempt to blow out the foot of the "round down" cliff near dover. the galvanic apparatus has been repeatedly tried in place--that is by exploding cartridges in the very chambers of the rock prepared for the powder--with the batteries at feet distance they are in full form and act admirably so that i see but little fear of failure on that head. they have been rehearsing the explosions on the plan i most strongly recommended, that is--to fire each chamber by an independent battery and circuit and to discharge the three batteries simultaneously by signal or word of command which answers well and "no mistake." i shall write to sir john herschel to-day, and remain my dear sir, very truly yours, w. cubitt. g.b. airy, esq. * * * * * the following extracts are from letters to his wife written in ireland when on his journey to consider the determination of the longitude of valencia. skibbereen, _ , july _. by the bye, to shew the quiet of ireland now, i saw in a newspaper at cork this account. at some place through which a repeal-association was to pass (i forget its name) the repealers of the place set up a triumphal arch. the police pulled it down, and were pelted by the repealers, and one of the policemen was much bruised. o'connell has denounced this place as a disgrace to the cause of repeal, and has moved in the full meeting that the inhabitants of this place be struck off the repeal list, with no exception but that of the parish priest who was proved to be absent. and o'connell declares that he will not pass through this place. now for my journey. it is a sort of half-mountain country all the way, with some bogs to refresh my eyes. valencia hotel, _ , august _. it seems that my coming here has caused infinite alarm. the common people do not know what to conjecture, but have some notion that the "sappers and miners" are to build a bridge to admit the charge of cavalry into the island. an attendant of mrs fitzgerald expressed how strange it was that a man looking so mild and gentle could meditate such things "but never fear, maam, those that look so mild are always the worst": then she narrated how that her husband was building some stables, but that she was demanding of him "pat, you broth of a boy, what is the use of your building stables when these people are coming to destroy everything." i suspect that the people who saw me walking up through the storm yesterday must have thought me the prince of the powers of the air at least. hibernian hotel, tralee, _ , august _. i sailed from valencia to cahersiveen town in a sail-boat up the water (not crossing at the ferry). i had accommodated my time to the wish of the boatman, who desired to be there in time for prayers: so that i had a long waiting at cahersiveen for the mail car. in walking through the little town, i passed the chapel (a convent chapel) to which the people were going: and really the scene was very curious. the chapel appeared to be overflowing full, and the court in front of it was full of people, some sitting on the ground, some kneeling, and some prostrate. there were also people in the street, kneeling with their faces towards the gate pillars, &c. it seemed to me that the priest and the chapel were of less use here than even in the continental churches, and i do not see why both parties should not have stopped at home. when the chapel broke up, it seemed as if the streets were crammed with people. the turnout that even a small village in ireland produces is perfectly amazing. "in the course of i had put in hand the engraving of the drawings of the northumberland telescope at cambridge observatory, and wrote the description for letterpress. in the course of the work was completed, and the books were bound and distributed. "the building to receive the altazimuth instrument was erected in the course of the year; during the construction a foreman fell into the foundation pit and broke his leg, of which accident he died. this is the only accident that i have known at the observatory.--the electrometer mast and sliding frame were erected near the magnetic observatory.--the six-year catalogue of stars was finished; this work had been in progress during the last few years.--in may i went to woolwich to correct the compasses of the 'dover,' a small iron steamer carrying mails between dover and ostend: this i believe was the first iron ship possessed by the admiralty.--the lunar reductions were making good progress; computers were employed upon them. i made application for printing them and the required sum (_£ _) was granted by the treasury.--in this year commenced that remarkable movement which led to the discovery of neptune. on feb. th prof. challis introduced mr adams to me by letter. on feb. th i sent my observed places of uranus, which were wanted. on june th i also sent places to mr e. bouvard.--as regards the national standards, mr baily (who undertook the comparisons relating to standards of length) died soon, and mr sheepshanks then undertook the work.--i attended the meeting of the british association held at york (principally in compliment to the president, dr peacock), and gave an oral account of my work on irish tides.--at the oxford commemoration in june, the honorary degree of d.c.l. was conferred on m. struve and on me, and then a demand was made on each of us for _£ . s._ for fees. we were much disgusted and refused to pay it, and i wrote angrily to dr wynter, the vice-chancellor. the fees were ultimately paid out of the university chest. "in this year the longitude of altona was determined by m. struve for the russian government. for this purpose it was essential that facilities should be given for landing chronometers at greenwich. but the consent of the customhouse authorities had first to be obtained, and this required a good deal of negotiation. ultimately the determination was completed in the most satisfactory manner. the chronometers, forty-two in number, crossed the german sea sixteen times. the transit observers were twice interchanged, in order to eliminate not only their personal equation, but also the gradual change of personal equation. on sept. th otto struve formally wrote his thanks for assistance rendered. "for the determination of the longitude of valencia, which was carried out in this year, various methods were discussed, but the plan of sending chronometers by mail conveyance was finally approved. from london to liverpool the chronometers were conveyed by the railways, from liverpool to kingstown by steamer, from dublin to tralee by the mail coaches, from tralee to cahersiveen by car, from cahersiveen to knightstown by boat, and from knightstown to the station on the hill the box was carried like a sedan-chair. there were numerous other arrangements, and all succeeded perfectly without a failure of any kind. thirty pocket chronometers traversed the line between greenwich and kingstown about twenty-two times, and that between kingstown and valencia twenty times. the chronometrical longitudes of liverpool observatory, kingstown station, and valencia station are m . s, m . s, m . s; the geodetic longitudes, computed from elements which i published long ago in the encyclopaedia metropolitana, are m . s, m . s, m . s. it appears from this that the elements to which i have alluded represent the form of the earth here as nearly as is possible. on the whole, i think it probable that this is the best arc of parallel that has ever been measured. "with regard to the maine boundary: on may th col. estcourt, the british commissioner, wrote to me describing the perfect success of following out my plan: the line of miles was cut by directions laid out at the two ends, and the cuttings met within feet. the country through which this line was to pass is described as surpassing in its difficulties the conception of any european. it consists of impervious forests, steep ravines, and dismal swamps. a survey for the line was impossible, and a tentative process would have broken the spirit of the best men. i therefore arranged a plan of operations founded on a determination of the absolute latitudes and the difference of longitudes of the two extremities. the difference of longitudes was determined by the transfer of chronometers by the very circuitous route from one extremity to the other; and it was necessary to divide the whole arc into four parts, and to add a small part by measure and bearing. when this was finished, the azimuths of the line for the two ends were computed, and marks were laid off for starting with the line from both ends. one party, after cutting more than forty-two miles through the woods, were agreeably surprised, on the brow of a hill, at seeing directly before them a gap in the woods on the next line of hill; it opened gradually, and proved to be the line of the opposite party. on continuing the lines till they passed abreast of each other, their distance was found to be feet. to form an estimate of the magnitude of this error, it is to be observed that it implies an error of only a quarter of a second of time in the difference of longitudes; and that it is only one-third (or nearly so) of the error which would have been committed if the spheroidal form of the earth had been neglected. i must point out the extraordinary merit of the officers who effected this operation. transits were observed and chronometers were interchanged when the temperature was lower than ° below zero: and when the native assistants, though paid highly, deserted on account of the severity of the weather, the british officers still continued the observations upon whose delicacy everything depended. "of private history: from july rd to aug. th i was in ireland with my wife. this was partly a business journey in connection with the determination of the longitude of valencia. on jan. th i asked lord lyndhurst (lord chancellor) to present my brother to the living of helmingham, which he declined to do: but on dec. th he offered binbrooke, which i accepted for my brother." "a map of the buildings and grounds of the observatory was commenced in , and was still in progress.--on mar. th i was employed on a matter which had for some time occupied my thoughts, viz., the re-arrangement of current manuscripts. i had prepared a sloping box (still in use) to hold portfolios: and at this time i arranged papers a, and went on with b, c, &c. very little change has been made in these.--in reference to the time given to the weekly report on meteorology to the registrar general, the report to the board of visitors contains the following paragraph: 'the devotion of some of my assistants' time and labour to the preparation of the meteorological report attached to the weekly report of the registrar general, is, in my opinion, justified by the bearing of the meteorological facts upon the medical facts, and by the attention which i understand that report to have excited.'--on dec. th the sleep of astronomy was broken by the announcement that a new planet, astraea, was discovered by mr hencke. i immediately circulated notices.--but in this year began a more remarkable planetary discussion. on sept. nd challis wrote to me to say that mr adams would leave with me his results on the explanation of the irregularities of uranus by the action of an exterior planet. in october adams called, in my absence. on nov. th i wrote to him, enquiring whether his theory explained the irregularity of radius-vector (as well as that of longitude). i waited for an answer, but received none. (see the papers printed in the royal astronomical society's memoirs and monthly notices).--in the royal society, the royal medal was awarded to me for my paper on the irish tides.--in the royal astronomical society i was president; and, with a speech, delivered the medal to capt. smyth for the bedford catalogue of double stars.--on jan. st i was appointed (with schumacher) one of the referees for the king of denmark's comet medal: i have the king's warrant under his sign manual.--the tidal harbour commission commenced on apr. th: on july st my report on wexford harbour (in which i think i introduced important principles) was communicated. one report was made this year to the government.--in the matter of saw mills (which had begun in ), i had prepared a second set of plans in , and in this year mr nasmyth made a very favourable report on my plan. a machinist of the chatham dock yard, sylvester, was set to work (but not under my immediate command) to make a model: and this produced so much delay as ultimately to ruin the design.--on jan. st i was engaged on my paper 'on the flexure of a uniform bar, supported by equal pressures at equidistant points.'" (this was probably in connection with the support of standards of length, for the commission. ed.).--in june i attended the meeting of the british association at cambridge, and on the th i gave a lecture on magnetism in the senate house. the following quotation relating to this lecture is taken from a letter by whewell to his wife (see life of william whewell by mrs stair douglas): "i did not go to the senate house yesterday evening. airy was the performer, and appears to have outdone himself in his art of giving clearness and simplicity to the hardest and most complex subjects. he kept the attention of his audience quite enchained for above two hours, talking about terrestrial magnetism."--on nov. th i gave evidence before a committee of the house of commons on dover harbour pier. "with respect to the magnetical and meteorological establishment, the transactions in this year were most important. it had been understood that the government establishments had been sanctioned twice for three-year periods, of which the second would expire at the end of : and it was a question with the scientific public whether they should be continued. my own opinion was in favour of stopping the observations and carefully discussing them. and i am convinced that this would have been best, except for the subsequent introduction of self-registering systems, in which i had so large a share. there was much discussion and correspondence, and on june th the board of visitors resolved that 'in the opinion of the visitors it is of the utmost importance that these observations should continue to be made on the most extensive scale which the interests of those sciences may require.' the meeting of the british association was held at cambridge in june: and one of the most important matters there was the congress of magnetic philosophers, many of them foreigners. it was resolved that the magnetic observatory at greenwich be continued permanently. at this meeting i proposed a resolution which has proved to be exceedingly important. i had remarked the distress which the continuous two-hourly observations through the night produced to my assistants, and determined if possible to remove it. i therefore proposed 'that it is highly desirable to encourage by specific pecuniary reward the improvement of self-recording magnetical and meteorological apparatus: and that the president of the british association and the president of the royal society be requested to solicit the favourable consideration of her majesty's government to this subject,' which was adopted. in october the admiralty expressed their willingness to grant a reward up to _£ _. mr charles brooke had written to me proposing a plan on sept. rd, and he sent me his first register on nov. th. on nov. st the treasury informed the admiralty that the magnetic observatories will be continued for a further period. "the railway gauge commission in this year was an important employment. the railways, which had begun with the manchester and liverpool railway (followed by the london and birmingham) had advanced over the country with some variation in their breadth of gauge. the gauge of the colchester railway had been altered to suit that of the cambridge railway. and finally there remained but two gauges: the broad gauge (principally in the system allied with the great western railway); and the narrow gauge (through the rest of england). these came in contact at gloucester, and were likely to come in contact at many other points--to the enormous inconvenience of the public. the government determined to interfere, beginning with a commission. on july rd mr laing (then on the board of trade) rode to greenwich, bearing a letter of introduction from sir john lefevre and a request from lord dalhousie (president of the board of trade) that i would act as second of a royal commission (col. sir frederick smith, airy, prof. barlow). i assented to this: and very soon began a vigorous course of business. on july rd and th i went with prof. barlow and our secretary to bristol, gloucester, and birmingham: on dec. th i went on railway experiments to didcot: and on dec. th to jan. nd i went to york, with prof. barlow and george arthur biddell, for railway experiments. on nov. st i finished a draft report of the railway gauge commission, which served in great measure as a basis for that adopted next year. "of private history: i wrote to lord lyndhurst on feb. th, requesting an exchange of the living to which he had presented my brother in dec. for that of swineshead: to which he consented.--on jan. th i went with my wife on a visit to my uncle george biddell, at bradfield st george, near bury.--on june th i went into the mining district of cornwall with george arthur biddell.--from aug. th to sept. th i was travelling in france with my sister and my wife's sister, georgiana smith. i was well introduced, and the journey was interesting.--on oct. th my son osmund was born.--mr f. baily bequeathed to me _£ _, which realized _£ _." here are some extracts from letters written to his wife relating to the visit to the cornish mines, &c.-- pearce's hotel, falmouth, _ , june th, thursday_. then we walked to the united mines in gwennap. the day was very fine and now it was perfectly broiling: and the hills here are long and steep. at the united mines we found the captain, and he invited us to join in a rough dinner, to which he and the other captains were going to sit down. then we examined one of the great pumping engines, which is considered the best in the country: and some other engines. between and there was to be a setting out of some work to the men by a sort of dutch auction (the usual way of setting out the work here): some refuse ores were to be broken up and made marketable, and the subject of competition was, for how little in the pound on the gross produce the men would work them up. while we were here a man was brought up who was hurt in blasting: a piece of rock had fallen on him. at this mine besides the ladder ways, they have buckets sliding in guides by which the men are brought up: and they are just preparing for work another apparatus which they say is tried successfully at another mine (tresavean): there are two wooden rods _a_ and _b_ reaching from the top to the bottom, moved by cranks from the same wheel, so that one goes up when the other goes down, and vice versâ: each of these rods has small stages, at such a distance that when the rod _a_ is down and the rod _b_ is up, the first stage of _a_ is level with the first stage of _b_: but when the rod _a_ is up and the rod _b_ is down, the second stage of _a_ is level with the first stage of _b_: so a man who wants to descend steps on the first stage of _a_ and waits till it goes down: then he steps sideways on the first stage of _b_ and waits till it goes down: then he steps sideways to the second stage of _a_ and waits till it goes down, and so on: or if a man is coming up he does just the same. while we were here mr r. taylor came. we walked home (a long step, perhaps seven miles) in a very hot sun. went to tea to mr alfred fox, who has a house in a beautiful position looking to the outside of falmouth harbour. * * * * * penzance, _ , june , saturday_. yesterday morning we breakfasted early at falmouth, and before started towards gwennap. i had ascertained on thursday that john williams (the senior of a very wealthy and influential family in this country) was probably returned from london. so we drove first to his house burntcoose or barncoose, and found him and his wife at home. (they are quakers, the rest of the family are not.) sedgwick, and whewell, and i, or some of our party including me, had slept once at their house. they received george and me most cordially, and pressed us to come and dine with them after our visit to tresavean mine, of which intention i spoke in my last letter: so i named o'clock as hour for dinner. after a little stay we drove to tresavean, where i found the captain of the mine prepared to send an underground captain and a pit-man to descend with us. so we changed our clothes and descended by the ladders in the pumpshaft. pretty work to descend with the huge pump-rods (garnished with large iron bolts) working violently, making strokes of feet, close to our elbows; and with a nearly bottomless pit at the foot of every ladder, where we had to turn round the foot of the ladder walking on only a narrow board. however we got down to the bottom of the mine with great safety and credit, seeing all the mighty machinery on the way, to a greater depth than i ever reached before, namely feet. from the bottom of the pump we went aside a short distance into the lowest workings where two men nearly naked were driving a level towards the lode or vein of ore. here i felt a most intolerable heat: and upon moving to get out of the place, i had a dreadful feeling of feebleness and fainting, such as i never had in my life before. the men urged me to climb the ladders to a level where the air was better, but they might as well have urged me to lift up the rock. i could do nothing but sit down and lean fainting against the rocks. this arose entirely from the badness of the air. after a time i felt a trifle better, and then i climbed one short ladder, and sat down very faint again. when i recovered, two men tied a rope round me, and went up the ladder before me, supporting a part of my weight, and in this way i ascended four or five ladders (with long rests between) till we came to a level, fathoms below the adit or nearly fathoms below the surface, where there was a tolerable current of pretty good air. here i speedily recovered, though i was a little weak for a short time afterwards. george also felt the bad air a good deal, but not so much as i. he descended to some workings equally low in another place (towards which the party that i spoke of were directing their works), but said that the air there was by no means so bad. we all met at the bottom of the man-engine fathoms below the adit. we sat still a little while, and i acquired sufficient strength and nerve, so that i did not feel the slightest alarm in the operation of ascending by the man-engine. this is the funniest operation that i ever saw: it is the only absolute novelty that i have seen since i was in the country before: it has been introduced - / years in tresavean, and one day in the united mines. in my last letter i described the principle. in the actual use there is no other motion to be made by the person who is ascending or descending than that of stepping sideways each time (there being proper hand-holds) with no exertion at all, except that of stepping exactly at the proper instant: and not the shadow of unpleasant feeling in the motion. any woman may go with the most perfect comfort, if she will but attend to the rules of stepping, and forget that there is an open pit down to the very bottom of the mine. in this way we were pumped up to the surface, and came up as cool as cucumbers, instead of being drenched with perspiration. in my description in last letter i forgot to mention that between the stages on the moving rods which i have there described there are intermediate stages on the moving rods (for which there is ample room, inasmuch as the interval between the stages on each rod used by one person is feet), and these intermediate stages are used by persons _descending_: so that there are persons _ascending_ and persons _descending_ at the same time, who never interfere with each other and never step on the same stages, but merely see each other passing on the other rods--it is a most valuable invention. we then changed our clothes and washed, and drove to barncoose, arriving in good time for the dinner. i found myself much restored by some superb sauterne with water. when we were proposing to go on to camborne, mr and mrs williams pressed us so affectionately to stop that we at length decided on stopping for the night, only bargaining for an early breakfast this morning. this morning after breakfast, we started for redruth and camborne. the population between them has increased immensely since i was here before. &c. &c. * * * * * here is a letter written to his wife while he was engaged on the business of the railway gauge commission. it contains reminiscences of some people who made a great figure in the railway world at that time, and was preceded by a letter which was playfully addressed "from the palace of king hudson, york." george inn, york, _ , dec. _. i wrote yesterday from mr hudson's in time for the late post, and hope that my letter might be posted by the servant to whom it was given. our affairs yesterday were simple: we reached euston station properly, found watson there, found a carriage reserved for us, eat pork-pie at wolverton (not so good as formerly), dined at derby, and arrived in york at . . on the way watson informed me that the government have awarded us _£ _ each. sir f. smith had talked over the matter with us, and i laid it down as a principle that we considered the business as an important one and one of very great responsibility, and that we wished either that the government should treat us handsomely or should consider us as servants of the state acting gratuitously, to which they assented. i think the government have done very well. mr hudson, as i have said, met us on the platform and pressed us to dine with him (though i had dined twice). then we found the rival parties quarrelling, and had to arrange between them. this prevented me from writing for the early post. (i forgot to mention that saunders, the great western secretary, rode with us all the way). at hudson's we had really a very pleasant dinner: i sat between vernon harcourt and mrs malcolm (his sister georgiana) and near to mr hudson. this morning we were prepared at at the station for some runs. brunel and other people had arrived in the night. and we have been to darlington and back, with a large party in our experimental train. george arthur biddell rode on the engine as representing me. but the side wind was so dreadfully heavy that, as regards the wants of the case, this day is quite thrown away. we have since been to lunch with vernon harcourt (mrs harcourt not at home) and then went with him to look at the cathedral. the chapter-house, which was a little injured, has been pretty well restored: all other things in good order. the cathedral looks smaller and lower than french cathedrals. now that we have come in, the lord mayor of york has just called to invite us to dinner to-morrow.--i propose to george arthur biddell that he go to newcastle this evening, in order to see glass works and other things there to-morrow, and to return when he can. i think that i can persuade barlow to stop to see the experiments out, and if so i shall endeavour to return as soon as possible. the earliest day would be the day after to-morrow. * * * * * the following extract is from a letter written to mr murray for insertion in his handbook of france, relating to the breakwater at cherbourg, which airy had visited during his journey in france in the autumn of this year. royal observatory, greenwich, _ , oct. th_. my opinion on the construction i need not say ought not to be quoted: but you are quite welcome to found any general statement on it; or perhaps it may guide you in further enquiries. to make it clear, i must speak rather generally upon the subject. there are three ways in which a breakwater may be constructed. . by building a strong wall with perpendicular face from the bottom of the sea. . by making a bank with nothing but slopes towards the sea. . by making a sloping bank to a certain height and then building a perpendicular wall upon it.--now if the st of these constructions could be arranged, i have no doubt that it would be the best of all, because a sea does not _break_ against a perpendicular face, but recoils in an unbroken swell, merely making a slow quiet push at the wall, and not making a violent impact. but practically it is nearly impossible. the nd construction makes the sea to break tremendously, but if the sloping surface be made of square stone put together with reasonable care there is not the smallest tendency to unseat these stones. this is the principle of construction of plymouth breakwater. in the rd construction, the slope makes the sea to break tremendously, and then it strikes the perpendicular face with the force of a battering ram: and therefore in my opinion this is the worst construction of all. a few face-stones may easily be dislodged, and then the sea entering with this enormous force will speedily destroy the whole. this is the form of the cherbourg digue. from this you will gather that i have a full belief that plymouth breakwater will last very long, and that the digue of cherbourg, at least its upper wall, will not last long. the great bank will last a good while, gradually suffering degradation, but still protecting the road pretty well. i was assured by the officers residing on the digue that the sea which on breaking is thrown vertically upwards and then falls down upon the pavement does sometimes push the stones about which are lying there and which weigh three or four tons. i saw some preparations for the foundations of the fort at the eastern extremity of the digue. one artificial stone of concrete measured ' " Ã� ' " Ã� ' ", and was estimated to weigh kilogrammes. chapter vi. at greenwich observatory-- to . "on nov. th i proposed a change in the form of estimates for the observatory. the original astronomical part was provided by the admiralty, and the new magnetical and meteorological part was provided by the treasury: and the whole estimates and accounts of the observatory never appeared in one public paper. i proposed that the whole should be placed on the navy estimates, but the admiralty refused. i repeated this in subsequent years, with no success. meantime i always sent to the admiralty a duplicate of my treasury estimate with the proper admiralty estimate.--stephenson's railway through the lower part of the park, in tunnel about feet from the observatory, was again brought forward. on feb. th it was put before me by the government, and on march th i made experiments at kensal green, specially on the effect of a tunnel: which i found to be considerable in suppressing the tremors. on may th i made my report, generally favourable, supposing the railway to be in tunnel. on may th i, with mr stephenson, had an interview at the admiralty with lord ellenborough and sir george cockburn. the earl appeared willing to relax in his scruples about allowing a railway through the park, when sir george cockburn made a most solemn protest against it, on the ground of danger to an institution of such importance as the observatory. i have no doubt that this protest of sir george cockburn's really determined the government. on june th i was informed that the government refused their consent. after this the south eastern railway company adopted the line through tranquil vale.--in consequence of the defective state of paramatta observatory i had written to sir robert peel on april th raising the question of a general superintending board for colonial observatories: and on june th i saw mr gladstone at the colonial office to enquire about the possibility of establishing local boards. on june th a general plan was settled, but it never came to anything.--forty volumes of the observatory mss. were bound--an important beginning.--deep-sunk thermometers were prepared by prof. forbes.--on june nd sir robert inglis procured an order of the house of commons for printing a paper of sir james south's, ostensibly on the effects of a railway passing through greenwich park, but really attacking almost everything that i did in the observatory. i replied to this on july st by a letter in the athenaeum addressed to sir robert inglis, in terms so strong and so well supported that sir james south was effectually silenced." the following extract from a letter of airy's to the earl of rosse, dated dec. th , will shew how pronounced the quarrel between airy and south had become in consequence of the above-mentioned attack and previous differences: "after the public exposure which his conduct in the last summer compelled me to make, i certainly cannot meet him on equal terms, and desire not to meet him at all." (ed.).--"in the mag. and met. department, i was constantly engaged with mr charles brooke in the preparation and mounting of the self-registering instruments, and the chemical arrangements for their use, to the end of the year. with mr ronalds i was similarly engaged: but i had the greatest difficulty in transacting business with him, from his unpractical habits.--the equipment of the liverpool observatory, under me, was still going on: i introduced the use of siemens's chronometric governor for giving horary motion to an equatoreal there. i have since introduced the same principle in the chronograph barrel and the great equatoreal at greenwich: i consider it important.--on feb. th i received the astronomical society's medal for the planetary reductions.--in the university of london: at this time seriously began the discussion whether there should be a compulsory examination in matters bearing on religious subjects. after this there was no peace.--for discovery of comets three medals were awarded by schumacher and me: one to peters, two to de vico. a comet was seen by hind, and by no other observer: after correspondence, principally in , the medal was refused to him.--with respect to the railway gauge commission: on jan. st, in our experiments near york, the engine ran off the rails. on jan. th the commissioners signed the report, and the business was concluded by the end of april. our recommendation was that the narrow gauge should be carried throughout. this was opposed most violently by partisans of the broad gauge, and they had sufficient influence in parliament to prevent our recommendation from being carried into effect. but the policy, even of the great western railway (in which the broad gauge originated), has supported our views: the narrow gauge has been gradually substituted for the broad: and the broad now ( ) scarcely exists.--on june th lord canning enquired of me about makers for the clock in the clock tower of westminster palace. i suggested vulliamy, dent, whitehurst; and made other suggestions: i had some correspondence with e. b. denison, about clocks.--i had much correspondence with stephenson about the tubular bridge over the menai straits. stephenson afterwards spoke of my assistance as having much supported him in this anxious work: on dec. th i was requested to make a report, and to charge a fee as a civil engineer; but i declined to do so. in january i went, with george arthur biddell, to portsmouth, to examine lord dundonald's rotary engine as mounted in the 'janus,' and made a report on the same to the admiralty: and i made several subsequent reports on the same matter. the scheme was abandoned in the course of next year; the real cause of failure, as i believe, was in the bad mounting in the ship. "the engrossing subject of this year was the discovery of neptune. as i have said ( ) i obtained no answer from adams to a letter of enquiry. beginning with june th of i had correspondence of a satisfactory character with le verrier, who had taken up the subject of the disturbance of uranus, and arrived at conclusions not very different from those of adams. i wrote from ely on july th to challis, begging him, as in possession of the largest telescope in england, to sweep for the planet, and suggesting a plan. i received information of its recognition by galle, when i was visiting hansen at gotha. for further official history, see my communications to the royal astronomical society, and for private history see the papers in the royal observatory. i was abused most savagely both by english and french." the report to the visitors contains an interesting account of the great lunar reductions, from which the following passage is extracted: "of the third section, containing the comparison of observed places with tabular places, three sheets are printed, from to . this comparison, it is to be observed, does not contain a simple comparison of places, but contains also the coefficients of the various changes in the moon's place depending on changes in the elements.... the process for the correction of the elements by means of these comparisons is now going on: and the extent of this work, even after so much has been prepared, almost exceeds belief. for the longitude, ten columns are added in groups, formed in thirteen different ways, each different way having on the average about nine hundred groups. for the ecliptic polar distance, five columns are added in groups, formed in seven different ways, each different way having on the average about nine hundred groups. thus it will appear that there are not fewer than , additions of columns of figures. this part of the work is not only completed but is verified, so that the books of comparison of observed and tabular places are, as regards this work, completely cleared out. the next step is to take the means of these groups, a process which is now in hand: it will be followed by the formation and solution of the equations on which the corrections of the elements depend." the following remarks, extracted from the report to the visitors, with respect to the instrumental equipment of the observatory, embody the views of the astronomer royal at this time: "the utmost change, which i contemplate as likely to occur in many years, in regard to our meridional instruments, is the substitution of instruments of the same class carrying telescopes of larger aperture. the only instrument which, as i think, may possibly be called for by the demands of the astronomer or the astronomical public, is a telescope of the largest size, for the observation of faint nebulae and minute double stars. whether the addition of such an instrument to our apparatus would be an advantage, is, in my opinion, not free from doubt. the line of conduct for the observatory is sufficiently well traced; there can be no doubt that our primary objects ought to be the accurate determination of places of the fundamental stars, the sun, the planets, and, above all, the moon. any addition whatever to our powers or our instrumental luxuries, which should tend to withdraw our energies from these objects, would be a misfortune to the observatory." of private history: "in march i visited prof. sedgwick at norwich.--on mar. th the 'sir henry pottinger' was launched from fairbairn's yard on the isle of dogs, where i was thrown down and dislocated my right thumb.--from apr. th to th i was at playford.--on june th prof. hansen arrived, and stayed with me to july th.--from july th to th i was visiting dean peacock at ely.--from july rd to th i was at playford, where for the first time i lodged in my own cottage. i had bought it some time before, and my sister had superintended alterations and the addition of a room. i was much pleased thus to be connected with the happy scenes of my youth.--from aug. th to oct. th i was with my wife and her sister elizabeth smith on the continent. we stayed for some time at wiesbaden, as my nerves were shaken by the work on the railway gauge commission, and i wanted the wiesbaden waters. we visited various places in germany, and made a -days' excursion among the swiss mountains. at gotha we lodged with prof. hansen for three days; and it was while staying here that i heard from prof. encke (on sept. th) that galle had discovered the expected planet. we visited gauss at göttingen and miss caroline herschel at hannover. we had a very bad passage from hamburgh to london, lasting five days: a crank-pin broke and had to be repaired: after four days our sea-sickness had gone off, during the gale--a valuable discovery for me, as i never afterwards feared sea-sickness.--on dec. nd i attended the celebration of the th anniversary of trinity college." * * * * * the following extracts relating to the engines of the "janus" are taken from letters to his wife dated from portsmouth, jan. th and th, : as soon as possible we repaired to the dock yard and presented ourselves to the admiral superintendant--admiral hyde parker (not sir hyde parker). found that the "janus" had not arrived: the admiral superintendant (who does not spare a hard word) expressing himself curiously thereon. but he had got the proper orders from the admiralty relating to me: so he immediately sent for mr taplin, the superintendant of machinery: and we went off to see the small engine of lord d--d's construction which is working some pumps and other machinery in the yard. it was kept at work a little longer than usual for us to see it. and i have no hesitation in saying that it was working extremely well. it had not been opened in any way for half a year, and not for repair or packing for a much longer time.... this morning we went to the dock yard, and on entering the engine house there was shirreff, and lord d--d soon appeared. the "janus" had come to anchor at spithead late last night, and had entered the harbour this morning. blowing weather on saturday night. we had the engine pretty well pulled to pieces, and sat contemplating her a long time. before this denison had come to us. we then went on board the "janus" with shirreff but not with lord d--d. the engines were still hot, and so they were turned backwards a little for my edification. (this was convenient because, the vessel being moored by her head, she could thus strain backwards without doing mischief.) the vacuum not good. then, after a luncheon on board, it was agreed to run out a little way. but the engines absolutely stuck fast, and would not stir a bit. this i considered a perfect godsend. so the paddle-wheels (at my desire) were lashed fast, and we are to see her opened to-morrow morning. this morning (jan. th) we all went off to the "janus," where we expected to find the end of the cylinder (where we believe yesterday's block to have taken place) withdrawn. but it was not near it. after a great many bolts were drawn, it was discovered that one bolt could not be drawn, and in order to get room for working at it, it was necessary to take off the end of the other cylinder. and such a job! three pulley hooks were broken in my sight, and i believe some out of my sight. however this auxiliary end was at last got off: and the people began to act on the refractory bolt. but by this time it was getting dark and the men were leaving the dockyard, so i left, arranging that what they could do in preparation for me might be done in good time to-morrow morning. "on nov. th i circulated an address, proposing to discontinue the use of the zenith tube, because it had been found by a long course of comparative trials that the zenith tube was not more accurate than the mural circle. the address stated that 'this want of superior efficiency of the zenith tube (which, considered in reference to the expectations that had been formed of its accuracy, must be estimated as a positive failure) is probably due to two circumstances. one is, the use of a plumb-line; which appears to be affected with various ill-understood causes of unsteadiness. the other is, the insuperable difficulty of ventilating the room in which the instrument is mounted.'--on december th i circulated an address, proposing a transit circle, with telescope of inches aperture. the address states as follows: 'the clear aperture of the object-glass of our transit instrument is very nearly inches, that of our mural circle is very nearly inches.'--i had been requested by the master-general of ordnance (i think) to examine candidates for a mastership in woolwich academy, and i was employed on it in february and march, in conjunction with prof. christie.--in january i applied to lord auckland for money-assistance to make an astronomical journey on the continent, but he refused.--on mar. th sir james south addressed to the admiralty a formal complaint against me for not observing with the astronomical instruments: on mar. st i was triumphantly acquitted by the admiralty.--in june i was requested by the commissioners of railways to act as president of a commission on iron bridges (suggested by the fall of the bridge at chester). lord auckland objected to it, and i was not sorry to be spared the trouble of it.--in december i was requested, and undertook to prepare the astronomical part of the scientific manual for naval officers.--on sept. th occurred a very remarkable magnetic storm, to which there had been nothing comparable before. mr glaisher had it observed by eye extremely well, and i printed and circulated a paper concerning it.--hansen, stimulated by the lunar reductions, discovered two long inequalities in the motion of the moon, produced by the action of venus. in the report to the visitors this matter is thus referred to: 'in the last summer i had the pleasure of visiting prof. hansen at gotha, and i was so fortunate as to exhibit to him the corrections of the elements from these reductions, and strongly to call his attention to their certainty, the peculiarity of their fluctuations, and the necessity of seeking for some physical explanation. i have much pleasure in indulging in the thought, that it was mainly owing to this representation that prof. hansen undertook that quest, which has terminated in the discovery of his two new lunar inequalities, the most remarkable discovery, i think, in physical astronomy.'--in discussing points relating to the discovery of neptune, i made an unfortunate blunder. in a paper hastily sent to the athenaeum (feb. th) i said that arago's conduct had been indelicate. i perceived instantly that i had used a wrong expression, and by the very next post i sent an altered expression. this altered expression was not received in time, and the original expression was printed, to my great sorrow. i could not then apologize. but at what appeared to be the first opportunity, in december, i did apologize; and my apology was accepted. but i think that arago was never again so cordial as before.--on july th hebe was discovered. after this iris and flora. now commenced that train of discoveries which has added more than planets to the solar system.--on oct. th was an annular eclipse of the sun, of which the limit of annularity passed near to greenwich. to determine the exact place, i equipped observatories at hayes, lewisham south end, lewisham village, blackwall, stratford, walthamstow, and chingford. the weather was bad and no observation was obtained.--in the royal astronomical society: in , the dispute between the partisans of adams and le verrier was so violent that no medal could be awarded to either. in i (with other fellows of the society) promoted a special meeting for considering such a modification of the bye-laws that for this occasion only it might be permissible to give two medals. after two days' stormy discussion, it was rejected.--in the university of london: at a meeting in july, where the religious question was discussed, it was proposed to receive some testimonial from affiliated bodies, or to consider that or some other plan for introducing religious literature. as the propriety of this was doubtful, there was a general feeling for taking legal advice: and it was set aside solely on purpose to raise the question about legal consultation. _that_ was negatived by vote: and i then claimed the consideration of the question which we had put aside for it. by the influence of h. warburton, m.p., this was denied. i wrote a letter to be laid before the meeting on july th, when i was necessarily absent, urging my claim: my letter was put aside. i determined never to sit with warburton again: on aug. nd i intimated to lord burlington my wish to retire, and on aug. th he transmitted to the home secretary my resignation. he (lord burlington) fully expressed his opinion that my claim ought to have been allowed.--on june th, on the occasion of prince albert's state visit to cambridge, knighthood was offered to me through his secretary, prof. sedgwick, but i declined it.--in september, the russian order of st stanislas was offered to me, mr de berg, the secretary of embassy, coming to greenwich personally to announce it: but i was compelled by our government rules to decline it.--i invited le verrier to england, and escorted him to the meeting of the british association at oxford in june.--as regards the westminster clock on the parliamentary building: in may i examined and reported on dent's and whitehurst's clock factories. vulliamy was excessively angry with me. on may st a great parliamentary paper was prepared in return to an order of the house of lords for correspondence relating to the clock.--with respect to the saw mills for ship timber: work was going on under the direction of sylvester to mar. th. it was, i believe, at that time, that the fire occurred in chatham dock yard which burnt the whole of the saw-machinery. i was tired of my machinery: and, from the extending use of iron ships, the probable value of it was much diminished; and i made no effort to restore it." of private history: "in february i went to derby to see whitehurst's clock factory; and went on with my wife to brampton near chesterfield, where her mother was living.--from apr. st to th i was at playford.--on holy thursday, i walked the parish bounds (of greenwich) with the parish officers and others. from apr. th to th i was at birmingham (on a visit to guest, my former pupil, and afterwards master of caius college) and its neighbourhood, with george arthur biddell.--from june rd to th i was at oxford and malvern: my sister was at malvern, for water-cure: the meeting of the british association was at oxford and i escorted le verrier thither.--july th to th i was at brampton.--from august th to september th i was engaged on an expedition to st petersburg, chiefly with the object of inspecting the pulkowa observatory. i went by hamburg to altona, where i met struve, and started with him in an open waggon for lübeck, where we arrived on aug. th. we proceeded by steamer to cronstadt and petersburg, and so to pulkowa, where i lodged with o. struve. i was here engaged till sept. th, in the observatory, in expeditions in the neighbourhood and at st petersburg, and at dinner-parties, &c. i met count colloredo, count ouvaroff, count stroganoff, lord bloomfield (british ambassador), and others. on sept. th i went in a small steamer to cronstadt, and then in the vladimir to swinemünde: we were then towed in a passage boat to stettin, and i proceeded by railway to berlin. on sept. th i found galle and saw the observatory. on sept. th i went to potzdam and saw humboldt. on the th i went to hamburg and lodged with schumacher: i here visited repsold and rümker. on sept. th i embarked in the john bull for london, and arrived there on the evening of the th: on the th it was blowing 'a whole gale,' reported to be the heaviest gale known for so many hours; bullocks and sheep were thrown overboard.--from dec. rd to th i was at cambridge, and from the nd to st at playford." * * * * * here is a letter to his wife written from birmingham, containing a note of the progress of the ironwork for the menai bridge: edgbaston, birmingham, _ , apr. _. yesterday morning we started between and for stourbridge, first to see some clay which is celebrated all over the world as the only clay which is fit to make pots for melting glass, &c. you know that in all these fiery regions, fire-clay is a thing of very great importance, as no furnace will stand if made of any ordinary bricks (and even with the fire-clay, the small furnaces are examined every week), but this stourbridge clay is as superior to fire-clay as fire-clay is to common brick-earth. then we went to fosters' puddling and rolling works near stourbridge. these are on a very large scale: of course much that we saw was a repetition of what we had seen before, but there were slitting mills, machines for rolling the puddled blooms instead of hammering them, &c., and we had the satisfaction of handling the puddling irons ourselves. then we went to another work of the fosters not far from dudley, where part of the work of the tube bridge for the menai is going on. the fosters are, i believe, the largest iron masters in the country, and the two principal partners, the elder mr foster and his nephew, accompanied us in all our inspections and steppings from one set of works to another. the length of tube bridge which they have in hand here is only feet, about / of the whole length: and at present they are only busy on the bottom part of it: but it is a prodigious thing. i shall be anxious about it. then we went to other works of the fosters' at king's wynford, where they have blast furnaces: and here after seeing all other usual things we saw the furnaces tapped. in this district the fosters work the -yard coal in a way different from any body else: they work out the upper half of its thickness and then leave the ground to fall in: after a year or two this ground becomes so hard as to make a good safe roof, and then they work away the other half: thus they avoid much of the danger and difficulty of working the thick bed all at once. the ventilation of these mines scarcely ever requires fires, and then only what they call "lamps," those little fire-places which are used for giving light at night. (in the northumberland and durham pits, they constantly have immense roaring fires to make a draught.) then we came home through dudley. * * * * * during his stay in russia, there was a great desire manifested by the astronomers and scientific men of russia that he should be presented to the emperor. this would no doubt have taken place had not the movements of the court and his own want of time prevented it. the following letter to the british ambassador, lord bloomfield, relates to this matter: pulkowa, _ , august th_. _wednesday evening_. my lord, i had the honour yesterday to receive your lordship's note of sunday last, which by some irregularity in the communications with this place reached me, i believe, later than it ought. from this circumstance, and also from my being made acquainted only this afternoon with some official arrangements, i am compelled to trouble you at a time which i fear is less convenient than i could have desired. the object of my present communication is, to ask whether (if the movements of the court permit it) it would be agreeable to your lordship to present me to the emperor. in explanation of this enquiry, i beg leave to state that this is an honour to which, personally, i could not think of aspiring. my presence however at pulkowa at this time is in an official character. as astronomer royal of england, i have thought it my duty to make myself perfectly acquainted with the observatory of pulkowa, and this is the sole object of my journey to russia. it is understood that the emperor takes great interest in the reputation of the observatory, and i am confident that the remarks upon it which i am able to make would be agreeable to him. i place these reasons before you, awaiting entirely your lordship's decision on the propriety of the step to which i have alluded. i am to leave st petersburg on saturday the th of september. i have the honor to be my lord, your lordship's very faithful servant, g. b. airy. _lord bloomfield, &c., &c._ * * * * * it was probably in acknowledgment of this letter that in due time he received the following letter with the offer of the russian order of st stanislas: monsieur l'astronome royal, sa majesté l'empereur en appréciant les travaux assidus qui vous ont donné une place distinguée au rang des plus illustres astronomes de l'europe, et la coopération bienveillante, que vous n'avez cessé de témoigner aux astronomes russes dans les expéditions, dont ils étaient chargés, et en dernier lieu par votre visite à l'observatoire central de poulkova, a daigné sur mon rapport, vous nommer chevalier de la seconde classe de l'ordre impérial et royal de st stanislas. je ne manquerai pas de vous faire parvenir par l'entremise de lord bloomfield les insignes et la patente de l'ordre. veuillez en attendant, monsieur, recevoir mes sincères félicitations et l'assurance de ma parfaite considération. le ministre de l'instruction publique, cte ouvaroff. st pÃ�tersbourg, _ce_ _août_, ---------- _septbr._ _à mr g. b. airy, esq., astronome royal de s. m. britannique à greenwich_. * * * * * airy provisionally accepted the order, but wrote at once to lord john russell the following letter of enquiry: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , oct. _. my lord, in respect of the office of astronomer royal, i refer to the first lord of the treasury as official patron. in virtue of this relation i have the honour to lay before your lordship the following statement, and to solicit your instructions thereon. for conducting with efficiency and with credit to the nation the institution which is entrusted to me, i have judged it proper to cultivate intimate relations with the principal observatories of europe, and in particular with the great observatory founded by the emperor of russia at pulkowa near st petersburg. i have several times received mr struve, the director of that observatory, at greenwich: and in the past summer i made a journey to st petersburg for the purpose of seeing the observatory of pulkowa. since my return from russia, i have received a communication from count ouvaroff, minister of public instruction in the russian empire, informing me that the emperor of russia desires to confer on me the decoration of knight commander in the second rank of the order of st stanislas. and i have the honour now to enquire of your lordship whether it is permitted to me to accept from the emperor of russia this decoration. i have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's very obedient servant, g.b. airy. _the rt honble lord john russell, &c. &c. &c. first lord of the treasury_. * * * * * the answer was as follows: downing street, _october , _. sir, i am desired by lord john russell to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, of the th inst. and to transmit to you the enclosed paper respecting foreign orders by which you will perceive that it would be contrary to the regulations to grant you the permission you desire. i am, sir, your obedient servant, c.a. grey. _g. b. airy, esq_. * * * * * the passage in the regulations referred to above is quoted in the following letter to count ouvaroff: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , oct. _. sir, referring to your excellency's letter of the august/ september, and to my answer of the th september, in which i expressed my sense of the high honor conferred on me by his majesty the emperor of russia in offering me, through your excellency, the order of st stanislas, and my pride in accepting it:--i beg leave further to acquaint you that i have thought it necessary to make enquiry of lord john russell, first lord of her majesty's treasury, as to my competency to accept this decoration from his majesty the emperor of russia: and that his lordship in reply has referred me to the following regulation of the british court; " th. that no subject of her majesty could be allowed to accept the insignia of a foreign order from any sovereign of a foreign state, except they shall be so conferred in consequence of active and distinguished services before the enemy, either at sea, or in the field; or unless he shall have been actually employed in the service of the foreign sovereign." in consequence of the stringency of this regulation, it is my duty now to state to your excellency that i am unable to accept the decoration which his majesty the emperor of russia was pleased, through your excellency, to offer to me. i beg leave to repeat the expression of my profound reverence to his majesty and of my deep sense of the honor which he has done me. i have the honor to be, sir, your excellency's very faithful and obedient servant, g.b. airy. _to his excellency count ouvaroff, &c. &c._ in the course of the following year a very handsome gold medal, specially struck, was transmitted by count ouvaroff on the part of the emperor of russia, to mr airy. "in april i received authority to purchase of simms an -inch object-glass for the new transit circle for _£ _. the glass was tested and found satisfactory. while at playford in january i drew the first plans of the transit circle: and c. may sketched some parts. definite plans were soon sent to ransomes and may, and to simms in march. the instrument and the building were proceeded with during the year. the new transit circle was to be erected in the circle room, and considerable arrangement was necessary for continuing the circle observations with the existing instruments, whilst the new instrument was under erection. when the new transit is completely mounted, the old transit instrument may be removed, and the transit room will be free for any other purpose. i propose to take it as private room for the astronomer royal.--on may th i made my first proposal of the reflex zenith tube. the principle of it is as follows: let the micrometer be placed close to the object-glass, the frame of the micrometer being firmly connected with the object-glass cell, and a reflecting eye-piece being used with no material tube passing over the object-glass: and let a basin of quicksilver be placed below the object-glass, but in no mechanical connection with it, at a distance equal to half the focal length of the object-glass. such an instrument would at least be free from all uncertainties of twist of plumb-line, viscosity of water, attachment of upper plumb-line microscope, attachment of lower plumb-line microscope, and the observations connected with them: and might be expected, as a result of this extreme simplicity, to give accurate results.--a considerable error was discovered in the graduation of troughton's circle, amounting in one part to six seconds, which is referred to as follows: 'this instance has strongly confirmed me in an opinion which i have long held--that no independent division is comparable in general accuracy to engine-division,--where the fundamental divisions of the engine have been made by troughton's method, and where in any case the determination by the astronomer of errors of a few divisions will suffice, in consequence of the uniformity of law of error, to give the errors of the intermediate divisions.'--the method of observing with the altazimuth is carefully described, and the effect of it, in increasing the number of observations of the moon, is thus given for the thirteen lunations between , may , and , may . 'number of days of complete observations with the meridional instruments, ; number of days of complete observations with altitude and azimuth instrument, . the results of the observations appear very good; perhaps a little, and but a little, inferior to those of the meridional instruments. i consider that the object for which this instrument was erected is successfully attained.'--being satisfied with the general efficiency of the system arranged by mr brooke for our photographic records (of magnetical observations) i wrote to the admiralty in his favour, and on aug. th the admiralty ordered the payment of _£ _ to him. a committee of the royal society also recommended a reward of _£ _ to mr ronalds, which i believe was paid to him.--on may st the last revise of the lunar reductions was passed, and on may th, copies were sent for binding.--in this year schumacher and i refused a medal to miss mitchell for a comet discovered, because the rules of correspondence had not been strictly followed: the king of denmark gave one by special favour.--in this year occurred the discovery of saturn's th satellite by mr lassell: upon which i have various correspondence.--on the th of december the degree of ll.d. was conferred upon me by the university of edinburgh.--the ipswich lectures: a wish had been expressed that i would give a series of astronomical lectures to the people of ipswich. i therefore arranged with great care the necessary apparatus, and lectured six evenings in a room (i forget its name--it might be temperance hall--high above st matthew's street), from mar. th to the end of the week. a shorthand writer took them down: and these formed the 'ipswich lectures,' which were afterwards published by the ipswich museum (for whose benefit the lectures were given) and by myself, in several editions, and afterwards by messrs macmillan in repeated editions under the title of 'airy's popular astronomy.'--it had been found necessary to include under one body all the unconnected commissions of sewers for the metropolis, and lord morpeth requested me to be a member. its operations began on oct. th. in constitution it was the most foolish that i ever knew: consisting of, i think, some persons, who could not possibly attend to it. it came to an end in the next year." of private history: "i was at playford from jan. st to th, and again from jan. th to th: also at playford from june st to july th.--from aug. rd to sept. th i was in ireland on a visit to lord rosse at parsonstown, chiefly engaged on trials of his large telescope. i returned by liverpool, where i inspected the liverpool equatoreal and clockwork, and examined mr lassell's telescopes and grinding apparatus.--from dec. th to th i was at edinburgh with my wife, on a visit to prof. j. d. forbes. we made various excursions, and i attended lectures by prof. wilson and sir w. hamilton: on the th i gave a lecture in prof. forbes's room. i received the honorary degree of ll.d., and made a statement on the telescopes of lord rosse and mr lassell to the royal society of edinburgh. returned to greenwich by brampton." * * * * * here is a reminiscence of the "ipswich lectures," in a letter to his wife, dated playford, mar. , "at the proper time i went to the hall: found a chairman installed (mr western): was presented to him, and by him presented to the audience: made my bow and commenced. the room was quite full: i have rarely seen such a sea of faces; about i believe. everything went off extremely well, except that the rollers of the moving piece of sky would squeak: but people did not mind it: and when first a star passed the meridian, then jupiter, then some stars, and then saturn, he was much applauded. before beginning i gave notice that i should wait to answer questions: and as soon as the lecture was finished the chairman repeated this and begged people to ask. so several people did ask very pertinent questions (from the benches) shewing that they had attended well. others came up and asked questions." * * * * * the following extracts are from letters written to his wife while on his visit to lord rosse at parsonstown in ireland. on the way he stopped at bangor and looked at the tubular bridge works, which are thus referred to: "stopped at bangor, settled _pro tem_. at the castle, and then walked past the suspension bridge towards the tube works, which are about - / mile south-west of the suspension bridge. the way was by a path through fields near the water side: and from one or two points in this, the appearance of the suspension bridge was most majestic. the tube bridge consists of four spans, two over water and two over sloping land. the parts for the double tube over the water spans (four lengths of tube) are building on a platform as at conway, to be floated by barges as there: the parts over the sloping banks are to be built in their place, on an immense scaffolding. i suspect that, in regard to these parts, stephenson is sacrificing a great deal of money to uniformity of plan: and that it would have been much cheaper to build out stone arches to the piers touching the water.... the tube works are evidently the grand promenade of the idlers about bangor: i saw many scores of ladies and gentlemen walking that way with their baskets of provision, evidently going to gipsy in the fields close by." the castle, parsonstown, _ , aug. _. after tea it was voted that the night was likely to be fine, so we all turned out. the night was uncertain: sometimes entirely clouded, sometimes partially, but objects were pretty well seen when the sky was clear: the latter part was much steadier. from the interruption by clouds, the slowness of finding with and managing a large instrument (especially as their finding apparatus is not perfectly arranged) and the desire of looking well at an object when we had got it, we did not look at many objects. the principal were, saturn and the annular nebula of lyra with the -feet; saturn, a remarkable cluster of stars, and a remarkable planetary nebula, with the -feet. with the large telescope, the evidence of the quantity of light is prodigious. and the light of an object is seen in the field without any colour or any spreading of stray light: and it is easy to see that the vision with a reflecting telescope may be much more perfect than with a refractor. with these large apertures, the rings round the stars are insensible. the planetary nebula looked a mass of living and intensely brilliant light: this is an object which i do not suppose can be seen at all in our ordinary telescopes. the definition of the stars near the zenith is extremely good: with a high power (as ) they are points or very nearly so--indeed i believe quite so--so that it is clear that the whole light from the great -feet mirror is collected into a space not bigger than the point of a needle. but in other positions of the telescope the definition is not good: and we must look to-day to see what is the cause of this fault. it is not a fault in the telescope, properly so-called, but it is either a tilt of the mirror, or an edge-pressure upon the mirror when the telescope points lower down which distorts its figure, or something of that kind. so i could not see saturn at all well, for which i was sorry, as i could so well have compared his appearance with what i have seen before. i shall be very much pleased if we can make out what is the fault of adjustment, and so correct it as to get good images everywhere. it is evident that the figuring of the mirror, the polishing, and the general arrangement, are perfectly managed. the castle, parsonstown, _ , aug. _. yesterday we were employed entirely about the great telescope, beginning rather late. the principal objects had relation to the fault of definition when the telescope is pointed low (which i had remarked on the preceding night), and were, to make ourselves acquainted with the mechanism of the mirror's mounting generally, and to measure in various ways whether the mirror actually does shift its place when the telescope is set to different angles of elevation. for the latter we found that the mirror actually does tilt / of an inch when the tube points low. this of itself will not account for the fault but it indicates that the lower part is held fast in a way that may cause a strain which would produce the fault. these operations and reasonings took a good deal of time. lord rosse is disposed to make an alteration in the mounting for the purpose of correcting this possible strain. the castle, parsonstown, _ , aug. _. the weather here is still vexatious: but not absolutely repulsive. yesterday morning lord rosse arranged a new method of suspending the great mirror, so as to take its edgewise pressure in a manner that allowed the springy supports of its flat back to act. this employed his workmen all day, so that the proposed finish of polishing the new mirror could not go on. i took one camera lucida sketch of the instrument in the morning, dodging the heavy showers as well as i could; then, as the afternoon was extremely fine, i took another, with my head almost roasted by the sun. this last view is extremely pretty and characteristic, embracing parts of the mounting not shewn well in the others, and also shewing the castle, the observatory, and the -feet telescope. the night promised exceedingly well: but when we got actually to the telescope it began to cloud and at length became hopeless. however i saw that the fault which i had remarked on the two preceding nights was gone. there is now a slight exhibition of another fault to a much smaller extent. we shall probably be looking at the telescope to-day in reference to it. the castle, parsonstown, _ , sept. _. yesterday we made some alterations in the mounting of the great mirror. we found that sundry levers were loose which ought to be firm, and we conjectured with great probability the cause of this, for correction of which a change in other parts was necessary. the mirror was then found to preserve its position much more fixedly than before.... at night, upon trying the telescope, we found it very faulty for stars near the zenith, where it had been free from fault before. the screws which we had driven hard were then loosened, and immediately it was made very good. then we tried with some lower objects, and it was good, almost equally good, there. for saturn it was very greatly superior to what it had been before. still it is not satisfactory to us, and at this time a strong chain is in preparation, to support the mirror edgeways instead of the posts that there were at first or the iron hoop which we had on it yesterday. nobody would have conceived that an edgewise gripe of such a mass of metal could derange its form in this way. last night was the finest night we have had as regards clouds, though perhaps not the best for definition of objects. the castle, parsonstown, _ , sept. _. i cannot learn that the fault in the mirror had been noticed before, but i fancy that the observations had been very much confined to the zenith and its neighbourhood. "in july the new constant-service water-pipes to the observatory were laid from blackheath. before this time the supply of water to the observatory had been made by a pipe leading up from the lower part of the park, and was not constant.--in may the new staircase from my dwelling-house to the octagon room was commenced.--in the report to the visitors there is a curious account of mr breen's (one of the assistants) personal equation, which was found to be different in quantity for observations of the moon and observations of the stars.--the most important set of observations (of planets) was a series of measures of saturn in four directions, at the time when his ring had disappeared. they appear completely to negative the idea that saturn's form differs sensibly from an ellipsoid.--among the general remarks of the report the following appears: 'another change (in prospect) will depend on the use of galvanism; and as a probable instance of the application of this agent, i may mention that, although no positive step has hitherto been taken, i fully expect in no long time to make the going of all the clocks in the observatory depend on one original regulator. the same means will probably be employed to increase the general utility of the observatory, by the extensive dissemination throughout the kingdom of accurate time-signals, moved by an original clock at the royal observatory; and i have already entered into correspondence with the authorities of the south eastern railway (whose line of galvanic communication will shortly pass within nine furlongs of the observatory) in reference to this subject.'--i agreed with schumacher in giving no medal to mr g. p. bond; his comet was found to be petersen's. five medals were awarded for comets in (hind, colla, mauvais, brorsen, schweizer).--the liverpool observatory was finished this year: and the thanks of the town council were presented to me.--respecting fallows's observations at the cape of good hope: i had received the admiralty sanction for proceeding with calculations in , and i employed computers as was convenient. on july th of this year i was ready with final results, and began to make enquiries about fallows's personal history, and the early history of the cape observatory. on oct. rd i applied for sanction for printing, which was given, and the work was soon finished off, in the astronomical society's memoirs.--in the month of march i had commenced correspondence with various persons on the imperfect state of publication of the british survey. sheets of the map were issued by scores, but not one of them had an indication of latitude or longitude engraved. i knew that great pains had been taken in giving to the principal triangulation a degree of accuracy never before reached, and in fixing the astronomical latitudes of many stations with unequalled precision. finally i prepared for the council of the royal society a very strong representation on these subjects, which was adopted and presented to the government. it was entirely successful, and the maps were in future furnished with latitude and longitude lines.--i was elected president of the royal astronomical society on feb. th.--in june i went with sheepshanks to see some of the operation of measuring a base on salisbury plain. the following extract from a letter to his wife dated , june th, relates to this expedition: 'in the morning we started before eight in an open carriage to the plain: looking into old sarum on our way. the base is measured on what i should think a most unfavourable line, its north end (from which they have begun now, in verification of the old measure) being the very highest point in the whole plain, called beacon hill. the soldiers measure only feet in a day, so it will take them a good while to measure the whole seven miles. while we were there col. hall (colby's successor) and yolland and cosset came.'" of private history: "i made short visits to playford in january, april and july. from july th to sept. th i made an expedition with my wife to orkney and shetland.--from dec. th to th i was at hawkhurst, on a visit to sir john herschel." "the report to the board of visitors opens with the following paragraph: 'in recording the proceedings at the royal observatory during the last year, i have less of novelty to communicate to the visitors than in the reports of several years past. still i trust that the present report will not be uninteresting; as exhibiting, i hope, a steady and vigorous adherence to a general plan long since matured, accompanied with a reasonable watchfulness for the introduction of new instruments and new methods when they may seem desirable.'--since the introduction of the self-registering instruments a good many experiments had been made to obtain the most suitable light, and the report states that 'no change whatever has been made in these instruments, except by the introduction of the light of coal-gas charged with the vapour of coal-naptha, for photographic self-registration both of the magnetic and of the meteorological instruments.... the chemical treatment of the paper is now so well understood by the assistants that a failure is almost unknown. and, generally speaking, the photographs are most beautiful, and give conceptions of the continual disturbances in terrestrial magnetism which it would be impossible to acquire from eye-observation.' --amongst the general remarks of the report it is stated that 'there are two points which have distinctly engaged my attention. the first of these is, the introduction of the american method of observing transits, by completing a galvanic circuit by means of a touch of the finger at the instant of appulse of the transiting body to the wire of the instrument, which circuit will then animate a magnet that will make an impression upon a moving paper. after careful consideration of this method, i am inclined to believe that, in prof. mitchell's form, it does possess the advantages which have been ascribed to it, and that it may possess peculiar advantages in this observatory, where the time-connection of transits made with two different instruments (the transit and the altazimuth) is of the highest importance.... the second point is, the connection of the observatory with the galvanic telegraph of the south eastern railway, and with other lines of galvanic wire with which that telegraph communicates. i had formerly in mind only the connection of this observatory with different parts of the great british island: but i now think it possible that our communications may be extended far beyond its shores. the promoters of the submarine telegraph are very confident of the practicability of completing a galvanic connection between england and france: and i now begin to think it more than possible that, within a few years, observations at paris and brussels may be registered on the recording surfaces at greenwich, and vice versa.'--prof. hansen was engaged in forming lunar tables from his lunar theory, but was stopped for want of money. on mar. th i represented this privately to mr baring, first lord of the admiralty; and on mar. th i wrote officially to the admiralty, soliciting _£ _ with the prospect, if necessary, of making it _£ _. on apr. th the admiralty gave their assent. the existence of hansen's lunar tables is due to this grant.--the king of denmark's medal for comets was discontinued, owing to the difficulties produced by the hostility of prussia.--on aug. st i gave to the treasury my opinion on the first proposal for a large reflector in australia: it was not strongly favourable.--in august, being (with my wife and otto struve) on a visit to lady breadalbane at taymouth castle, i examined the mountain schehallien.--as in other years, i reported on several papers for the royal society, and took part in various business for them.--in the royal astronomical society i had much official business, as president.--in march i communicated to the athenaeum my views on the exodus of the israelites: this brought me into correspondence with miss corbaux, robert stephenson, capt. vetch, and prof. j.d. forbes.--in december i went to the london custom house, to see sir t. freemantle (chairman of customs), and to see how far decimal subdivisions were used in the custom house." of private history: "from mar. th to nd i was on an expedition to folkestone, dover, dungeness, &c.--from apr. rd to th at playford, and again for short periods in june and july.--from aug. st to sept. th i was travelling in scotland with my wife and otto struve (for part of the time). at edinburgh i attended the meeting of the british association, and spoke a little in section a. i was nominated president for at ipswich. we travelled to cape wrath and returned by inverness and the caledonian canal.--i was at playford for a short time in october and december." "in this year the great shed was built (first erected on the magnetic ground, and about the year transferred to the south ground).--the chronometers were taken from the old chronometer room (a room on the upper story fronting the south, now, , called library ) and were put in the room above the computing room (where they remained for or years, i think): it had a chronometer-oven with gas-heat, erected in .--the following passage is quoted from the report to the visitors:--'as regards meridional astronomy our equipment may now be considered complete. as i have stated above, an improvement might yet be made in our transit circle; nevertheless i do not hesitate to express my belief that no other existing meridional instrument can be compared with it. this presumed excellence has not been obtained without much thought on my part and much anxiety on the part of the constructors of the instrument (messrs ransomes and may, and mr simms). but it would be very unjust to omit the further statement that the expense of the construction has considerably exceeded the original estimate, and that this excess has been most liberally defrayed by the government.'--in december sir john herschel gave his opinion (to the admiralty, i believe) in favour of procuring for the cape observatory a transit circle similar to that at greenwich.--i had much correspondence about sending pierce morton (formerly a pupil of mine at cambridge, a clever gentlemanly man, and a high wrangler, but somewhat flighty) as magnetic assistant to the cape observatory: he was with me from may to october, and arrived at the cape on nov. th.--i was much engaged with the clock with conical motion of pendulum, for uniform movement of the chronographic barrel.--regarding galvanic communications: on sept. th i had prepared a draft of agreement with the south eastern railway company, to which they agreed. in november i wrote to sir t. baring (first lord of the admiralty) and to the admiralty for sanction, which was given on dec. th. in december i had various communications about laying wires through the park, &c., &c., and correspondence about the possibility of using sympathetic clocks: in june, apparently, i had seen shepherd's sympathetic clock at the great exhibition, and had seen the system of sympathetic clocks at pawson's, st paul's churchyard.--in the last quarter of this year i was engaged in a series of calculations of chronological eclipses. on sept. th mr bosanquet wrote to me about the eclipse of thales, and i urged on the computations related to it, through mr breen. in october the eclipse of agathocles (the critical eclipse for the motion of the moon's node) was going on. in october hansteen referred me to the darkness at stiklastad.--i went to sweden to observe the total eclipse of july th, having received assistance from the admiralty for the journeys of myself, mr dunkin, mr humphreys and his friend, and capt. blackwood. i had prepared a map of its track, in which an important error of the _berliner jahrbuch_ (arising from neglect of the earth's oblateness) was corrected. i gave a lecture at the royal institution, in preparation for the eclipse, and drew up suggestions for observations, and i prepared a scheme of observations for greenwich, but the weather was bad. the official account of the observations of the eclipse, with diagrams and conclusions, is given in full in a paper published in the royal astr. society's memoirs.--this year i was president of the british association, at the ipswich meeting: it necessarily produced a great deal of business. i lectured one evening on the coming eclipse. prince albert was present, as guest of sir william middleton: i was engaged to meet him at dinner, but when i found that the dinner day was one of the principal soirée days, i broke off the engagement.--on may th i had the first letter from e. hamilton (whom i had known at cambridge) regarding the selection of professors for the university of sydney. herschel, maldon, and h. denison were named as my coadjutors. plenty of work was done, but it was not finished till .--in connection with the clock for westminster palace, in february there were considerations about providing other clocks for the various buildings; and this probably was one reason for my examining shepherd's clocks at the great exhibition and at pawson's. in november i first proposed that mr e.b. denison should be associated with me. about the end of the year, the plan of the tower was supplied to me, with reference to the suspension of the weights and other particulars.--in admiral dundas (m.p. for greenwich and one of the board of admiralty) had requested me to aid the trustees of the dee navigation against an attack; and on mar. th i went to chester to see the state of the river. on jan. st i went to give evidence at the official enquiry.--at a discussion on the construction of the great exhibition building in the institution of civil engineers, i expressed myself strongly on the faulty principles of its construction.--in this year i wrote my first paper on the landing of julius caesar in britain, and was engaged in investigations of the geography, tides, sands, &c., relating to the subject." of private history: "i was several times at playford during january, and went there again on dec. rd.--in this year a very heavy misfortune fell on us. my daughter, elizabeth, had been on a visit to lady herschel at hawkhurst, and on apr. nd sir j. herschel wrote to me, saying that she was so well in health. she returned a few days later, and from her appearance i was sure that she was suffering under deadly disease. after some time, an able physician was consulted, who at once pronounced it to be pulmonary. a sea voyage was thought desirable, and my wife took her to shetland, where there was again a kind welcome from mr edmonston. but this, and the care taken on her return, availed nothing: and it was determined to take her to madeira. my wife and daughter sailed in the brig 'eclipse' from southampton on dec. th. the termination came in .--on nov. rd i went to bradfield, near bury: my uncle, george biddell, died, and i attended the funeral on nov. th.--from july th to aug. th i was in sweden for the observation of the eclipse, and returned through holland.--in october i was about a week at ventnor and torquay, and from dec. th to th at southampton, on matters connected with my daughter's illness." the following extracts are from letters to his wife, relating to the observation of the eclipse, his interview with the king of sweden, &c., and his visit to the pumping engines at haarlem: _july , half-past , morning_. the weather is at present most perfectly doubtful. nearly the whole sky is closely covered, yet there is now and then a momentary gleam of sun. the chances are greatly against much of the eclipse being seen. all is arranged to carry off the telescope, &c., at : they can be carted to the foot of the hill, and we have made out a walking-pass then to the top. we are to dine with mr dickson afterwards. _july , at night_. well we have had a glorious day. as soon as we started, the weather began to look better. we went up the hill and planted my telescope, and the sky shewed a large proportion of blue. at first i placed the telescope on the highest rock, but the wind blew almost a gale, and shook it slightly: so i descended about feet to one side. (the power of doing this was one of the elements in my choice of this station, which made me prefer it to the high hill beyond the river.) the view of scenery was inexpressibly beautiful. the beginning of eclipse was well seen. the sky gradually thickened from that time, so that the sun was in whitish cloud at the totality, and barely visible in dense cloud at the end of the eclipse. the progress of the eclipse brought on the wonderful changes that you know: just before the totality i saw a large piece of blue sky become pitch black; the horror of totality was very great; and then flashed into existence (i do not know how) a broad irregular corona with red flames _instantly seen_ of the most fantastic kind. the darkness was such that my assistant had very great trouble in reading his box chronometer. (a free-hand explanatory diagram is here given.) some important points are made out from this. st the red flames certainly belong to the sun. nd they certainly are in some instances detached. rd they are sometimes quite crooked. th they seem to be connected with spots. the corona was brilliant white. one star brilliant: i believe venus. i had no time to make observations of polarization, &c., although prepared. when the totality was more than half over i looked to n. and n.w., and in these regions there was the fullest rosy day-break light. after the sun-light reappeared, the black shadow went travelling away to the s.e. exactly like the thunder-storm from the main. the day then grew worse, and we came home here (after dinner) in pouring rain. stockholm, _ , aug. _. i then by appointment with sir edmund lyons went with him to the minister for foreign affairs, baron stjerneld, who received me most civilly. my business was to thank him for the orders which had been given to facilitate the landing of our telescopes, &c., &c. he was quite familiar with the names of my party, humphreys milaud, &c., so that i trust they have been well received (i have had no letter). he intimated, i suppose at sir e. lyons's suggestion, that perhaps king oscar might wish to see me, but that it would not be on tuesday. so i replied that i was infinitely flattered and he said that he would send a message to sir e. lyons by tuesday evening. now all this put me in a quandary: because i wanted to see upsala, miles off: and the steamboats on the mälar only go in the morning and return in the morning: and this was irreconcileable with waiting for his majesty's appointment which might be for wednesday morning. so after consultation sir e. lyons put me in the hands of a sort of courier attached to the embassy, and he procured a calèche, and i posted to upsala yesterday afternoon (knocking the people up at at night) and posted back this afternoon. and sure enough a message has come that the king expects me at to-morrow morning. posting of course is much dearer than steam-boat travelling, but it is cheap in comparison with england: two horses cost s. for nearly miles. at upsala there is a very good old cathedral, i suppose the only one in sweden: and many things about the university which interested me. i sent my card to professor fries, and he entirely devoted himself to me: but imagine our conversation--he spoke in _latin_ and i in french: however we understood each other very well. it is on the whole a dreary country except where enlivened by lakes: some parts are pine forests and birch forests, but others are featureless ground with boulder stones, like the worst part of the highlands. _august , wednesday, o'clock_. i rigged myself in black trowsers and white waistcoat and neckcloth this morning. sir edmund lyons called. baron wrede called on me: he had observed the eclipse at calmar and brought his drawing, much like mine. he conducted me to the palace. the minister for foreign affairs came to me. in the waiting-room i was introduced to the lieutenant-governor of christianstad, who had had the charge of humphreys and milaud. he had placed a _guard of soldiers_ round them while they were observing. they saw the eclipse well. captain blackwood went to helsingborg instead of bornholm, and saw well. i am sorry to hear that it was cloudy at christiania, mr dunkin's station. i heard some days ago that hind had lost his telescope, but i now heard a very different story: that he landed at ystad, and found a very bad hotel there: that he learnt from murray that the hotels at carlscrona (or wherever he meant to go) were much worse; and so he grew faint at heart and turned back. i was summoned in to the king and presented by the minister (stjerneld), and had a long conversation with him: on the eclipse, the arc of meridian, the languages, and the universities. we spoke in french. then baron wrede went with me to the rittershus (house of lords or nobles) in session, and to the gallery of scandinavian antiquities, which is very remarkable: the collection of stone axes and chisels, bronze do., iron do., ornaments, &c. is quite amazing. i was struck with seeing specimens from a very distant age of the maid of norway's brooch: the use of which i explained to the director. i dined and drove out with sir e. lyons, and called at the houses of the baron stjerneld and of the norwegian minister baron duë, and had tea at the latter. most of these people speak english well, and they seem to live in a very domestic family style. i should soon be quite at home here: for i perceive that my reception at court, &c., make people think that i am a very proper sort of person. * * * * * the extract concerning his visit to the pumping-engines at haarlem is as follows: leyden, _ , august , wednesday_. i went to see the great north holland canal, and went a mile or two in a horse-drawn-boat upon it: a very comfortable conveyance. saw windmills used for sawing timber and other purposes, as well as some for grinding and many for draining. yesterday at half-past one i went by railway to haarlem. i did not look at anything in the town except going through it and seeing that it is a curious fantastic place, but i drove at once to the burgomaster to ask permission to visit one of the three great pumping engines for draining the immense haarlem lake, and then drove to it. imagine a round tower with a steam-cylinder in its center; and the piston which works up-and-down, instead of working one great beam as they usually do, works _eight_, poking out on different sides of the round tower, and each driving a pump feet in diameter. i am glad to have seen it. then by railway here. * * * * * "galvanic communication was now established with lewisham station (thus giving power of communicating with london, deal, &c.).--from the report to the board of visitors it appears that, in the case of the transit circle, the azimuth of the instrument as determined by opposite passages of the pole star had varied four seconds; and in the case of the altazimuth, there was a discordance in the azimuthal zeros of the instrument, as determined from observations of stars. in both cases it was concluded that the discordances arose from small movements of the ground.--under the head of 'general remarks' in the report, the following paragraph occurs: 'it will be perceived that the number of equatoreal observations made here at present is small: and that they are rarely directed to new comets and similar objects which sometimes excite considerable interest. this omission is intentional. it is not because the instrumental means are wanting (for our equatoreals, though not comparable to those of either cambridge, or of pulkowa, are fully equal to those usually directed to such objects), but it is because these observations are most abundantly supplied from other observatories, public and private, and because the gain to those observations from our taking a part in them would, probably, be far less than the loss to the important class of observations which we can otherwise follow so well. moreover, i am unwilling to take any step which could be interpreted as attempting to deprive the local and private observatories of honours which they have so nobly earned. and, finally, in this act of abstinence, i am desirous of giving an example of adhesion to one principle which, i am confident, might be extensively followed with great advantage to astronomy:--the principle of division of labour.'--discoveries of small planets were now not infrequent: but the only one of interest to me is melpomene, for the following reason. on june i lost my most dear, amiable, clever daughter elizabeth: she died at southampton, two days after landing from madeira. on that evening mr hind discovered the planet; and he requested me to give a name. i remembered horace's 'praecipe lugubres cantus, melpomene,' and cowley's 'i called the buskin'd muse melpomene and told her what sad story i would write,' and suggested melpomene, or penthos: melpomene was adopted.--the first move about the deal time ball was in a letter from commander baldock to the admiralty, suggesting that a time ball, dropped by galvanic current from greenwich, should be attached to one of the south foreland lighthouses. the admiralty sent this for my report. i went to the place, and i suggested in reply (nov. th) that a better place would be at an old signal station on the chalk downs. the decisive change from this was made in .--as the result of my examination and enquiries into the subject of sympathetic clocks, i established sympathetic clocks in the royal observatory, one of which outside the entrance gate had a large dial with shepherd's name as patentee. exception was taken to this by the solicitor of a mr bain who had busied himself about galvanic clocks. after much correspondence i agreed to remove shepherd's name till bain had legally established his claim. this however was never done: and in shepherd's name was restored.--in nov. , denison had consented to join me in the preparation of the westminster clock. in feb. we began to have little disagreements. however on apr. th i was going to madeira, and requested him to act with full powers from me.--i communicated to the royal society my paper on the eclipses of agathocles, thales, and xerxes.--in the british association, i had presided at the ipswich meeting in , and according to custom i ought to attend at the meeting (held at belfast) to resign my office. but i was broken in spirit by the death of my daughter, and the thing generally was beyond my willing enterprise. i requested sir roderick murchison to act generally for me: which he did, as i understood, very gracefully.--in this year a proposal was made by the government for shifting all the meeting rooms of the scientific societies to kensington gore, which was stoutly resisted by all, and was finally abandoned." of private history: "i was at playford in january, and went thence to chester on the enquiry about the tides of the dee; and made excursions to halton castle and to holyhead.--from apr. th to may th i was on the voyage to and from madeira, and on a short visit to my wife and daughter there.--on june rd i went to southampton to meet my wife and daughter just landed from madeira: on june th my dear daughter elizabeth died: she was buried at playford on june th.--i was at playford also in july and december.--from sept. th to th i went to cumberland, viâ fleetwood and peel." "on may rd i issued an address to the individual members of the board of visitors, proposing the extension of the lunar reductions from . from this it appears that 'through the whole period (from to ), the places of the moon, deduced from the observations, are compared with the places computed in the nautical almanac: that is, with burckhardt's tables, which have been used for many years in computing the places of the nautical almanac.......very lately, however, mr adams has shewn that burckhardt's parallax is erroneous in formula and is numerically incorrect, sometimes to the amount of seven seconds. in consequence of this, every reduction of the observations of the moon, from to the present time, is sensibly erroneous. and the error is of such a nature that it is not easy, in general, to introduce its correction by any simple process.... the number of observations to the end of (after which time the parallax will be corrected in the current reductions) is about . an expense approaching to _£ _ might be incurred in their reduction.' subsequently i made application to the admiralty, and the _£ _ was granted on dec. th.--in the report to the visitors it is stated that with regard to the transit circle, changes are under contemplation in its reflection-apparatus: one of these changes relates to the material of the trough. 'several years ago, when i was at hamburgh, my revered friend prof. schumacher exhibited to me the pacifying effect of a copper dish whose surface had been previously amalgamated with quicksilver.......the rev. charles pritchard has lately given much attention to this curious property of the metals, and has brought the practical operation of amalgamation to great perfection. still it is not without difficulty, on account of a singular crystallization of the amalgam.'--with regard to the chronograph, the report states: 'the barrel apparatus for the american method of observing transits is not yet brought into use.... i have, however, brought it to such a state that i am beginning to try whether the barrel moves with sufficient uniformity to be itself used as the transit clock. this, if perfectly secured, would be a very great convenience, but i am not very sanguine on that point.'--a change had been made in the electrometer-apparatus: 'a wire for the collection of atmospheric electricity is now stretched from a chimney on the north-west angle of the leads of the octagon room to the electrometer pole.... there appears to be no doubt that a greater amount of electricity is collected by this apparatus than by that formerly in use.'--as regards the magnetical observations: 'the visitors at their last meeting, expressed a wish that some attempt should be made to proceed further in the reduction or digest of the magnetical results, if any satisfactory plan could be devised. i cannot say that i have yet satisfied myself on the propriety of any special plan that i have examined.... i must, however, confess that, in viewing the capricious forms of the photographic curves, my mind is entirely bewildered, and i sometimes doubt the possibility of extracting from them anything whatever which can be considered trustworthy.'--great progress had been made with the distribution of time. 'the same normal clock maintains in sympathetic movement the large clock at the entrance gate, two other clocks in the observatory, and a clock at the london bridge terminus of the south-eastern railway.... it sends galvanic signals every day along all the principal railways diverging from london. it drops the greenwich ball, and the ball on the offices of the electric telegraph company in the strand;... all these various effects are produced without sensible error of time; and i cannot but feel a satisfaction in thinking that the royal observatory is thus quietly contributing to the punctuality of business through a large portion of this busy country. i have the satisfaction of stating to the visitors that the lords commissioners of the admiralty have decided on the erection of a time-signal ball at deal, for the use of the shipping in the downs, to be dropped every day by a galvanic current from the royal observatory. the construction of the apparatus is entrusted to me. probably there is no roadstead in the world in which the knowledge of true time is so important.'--the report includes an account of the determination of the longitude of cambridge observatory by means of galvanic signals, which appear to have been perfectly successful.--under the head of general remarks the following passage appears: 'the system of combining the labour of unattached computers with that of attached assistants tends materially to strengthen our powers in everything relating to computation. we find also, among the young persons who are engaged merely to serve as computers, a most laudable ambition to distinguish themselves as observers; and thus we are always prepared to undertake any observations which may be required, although necessarily by an expenditure of strength which would usually be employed on some other work.'--considerable work was undertaken in preparing a new set of maps of our buildings and grounds.--on apr. rd there was a small fire in the magnetic observatory, which did little mischief.--in december i wrote my description of the transit circle.--lieut. stratford, the editor of the nautical almanac, died, and there was some competition for the office. i was willing to take it at a low rate, for the addition to my salary: mr main--and i think mr glaisher--were desirous of exchanging to it: prof. adams was anxious for it. the admiralty made the excellent choice of mr hind.--in october faraday and i, at lothbury, witnessed some remarkable experiments by mr latimer clark on a galvanic current carried four times to and from manchester by subterranean wires (more than miles) shewing the retardation of visible currents (at their maximum effect) and the concentration of active power. i made investigations of the velocity of the galvanic current.--i was engaged on the preliminary enquiries and arrangements for the deal time ball.--with respect to the westminster clock; an angry paper was issued by mr vulliamy. in october i expostulated with denison about his conduct towards sir charles barry: on november th i resigned.--on feb. th i was elected president of the royal astronomical society.--in the royal institution i lectured on the ancient eclipses.--on dec. th i was elected to the academy of brussels.--after preliminary correspondence with sir w. molesworth (first commissioner of works, &c.) and sir charles barry (architect of the westminster palace), i wrote, on may th, to mr gladstone about depositing the four parliamentary copies of standards, at the royal observatory, the royal mint, the royal society, and within a wall of westminster palace. mr gladstone assented on june rd.--on mar. th i wrote to mr gladstone, proposing to take advantage of the new copper coinage for introducing the decimal system. i was always strenuous about preserving the pound sterling. on may th i attended the committee of the house of commons on decimal coinage: and in may and september i wrote letters to the athenaeum on decimal coinage.--i had always something on hand about tides. a special subject now was, the cry about intercepting the tidal waters of the tyne by the formation of the jarrow docks, in jarrow slake; which fear i considered to be ridiculous." of private history: "from jan. th to th i was at playford.--on mar. th i went to dover to try time-signals.--from june th to aug. th i was at little braithwaite near keswick, where i had hired a house, and made expeditions with members of my family in all directions. on july th i went, with my son wilfrid, by workington and maryport to rose castle, the residence of bishop percy (the bishop of carlisle), and on to carlisle and newcastle, looking at various works, mines, &c.--on dec. th i went to playford." the chronograph barrel-apparatus for the american method of transits had been practically brought into use: "i have only to add that this apparatus is now generally efficient. it is troublesome in use; consuming much time in the galvanic preparations, the preparation of the paper, and the translation of the puncture-indications into figures. but among the observers who use it there is but one opinion on its astronomical merits--that, in freedom from personal equation and in general accuracy, it is very far superior to the observations by eye and ear."--the printing and publication of the observations, which was always regarded by airy as a matter of the first importance, had fallen into arrear: "i stated in my last report that the printing of the observations for was scarcely commenced at the time of the last meeting of the visitors. for a long time the printing went on so slowly that i almost despaired of ever again seeing the observations in a creditable state. after a most harassing correspondence, the printers were at length persuaded to move more actively, ... but the volume is still very much behind its usual time of publication."--"the deal time-ball has now been erected by messrs maudslays and field, and is an admirable specimen of the workmanship of those celebrated engineers. the galvanic connection with the royal observatory (through the telegraph wires of the south eastern railway) is perfect. the automatic changes of wire-communications are so arranged that, when the ball at deal has dropped to its lowest point, it sends a message to greenwich to acquaint me, not with the time of the beginning of its fall (which cannot be in error) but with the fact that it has really fallen. the ball has several times been dropped experimentally with perfect success; and some small official and subsidiary arrangements alone are wanting for bringing it into constant use."--the operations for the galvanic determination of the longitude of brussels are described, with the following conclusion: "thus, about effective signals were made, but only of these were admissible for the fundamental objects of the operation. the result, i need scarcely remark, claims a degree of accuracy to which no preceding determination of longitude could ever pretend. i apprehend that the probable error in the difference of time corresponds to not more than one or two yards upon the earth's surface.--a careful scheme had been arranged for the determination of the longitude of lerwick, but 'unfortunately, the demand for chronometers caused by our large naval armament has been so considerable that i cannot reckon on having at my disposal a sufficient number to carry on this operation successfully; and i have, therefore, unwillingly deferred it to a more peaceful time.'--the covering stone of halley's tomb in lee churchyard was much shattered, and i applied to the admiralty for funds for its complete restoration: these were granted on feb. rd.--in this year, under my cognizance, _£ _ was added to the hansen grant.--i had much correspondence and work in connection with the printing of maclear's work at the cape of good hope. in june, all accounts, &c. about the transit circle were closed at the admiralty, and the instrument was completely mounted at the cape.--dr scoresby (who in his own way was very imperious) had attacked my methods of correcting the compass in iron ships: i replied in a letter to the athenaeum on oct. th.--i made enquiries about operations for determining the longitude of vienna, but was utterly repelled by the foreign telegraph offices.--in the royal astronomical society; i prepared the address on presenting the medal to rümker.--in melbourne university: the first letter received was from the chancellor of the university dated jan. th, requesting that sir john herschel, prof. malden, mr lowe (subsequently chancellor of the exchequer), and i would select professors. we had a great deal of correspondence, meetings, examination of testimonials, &c., and on august th we agreed on wilson, rowe, mccoy, and hearn.--on feb. th i received the prussian order of merit.--i had correspondence with the treasury on the scale to be adopted for the maps of the british survey. i proposed / , and for some purposes / .--i printed a paper on the deluge, in which i shewed (i believe to certainty) that the deluge of genesis was merely a destructive flood of the nile.--being well acquainted with the mountains of cumberland, i had remarked that a 'man' or cairn of stones erected by the ordnance surveyors on the great gable had covered up a curious natural stone trough, known as one of the remarkable singularities of the country. this year, without giving any notice to the ordnance surveyors, i sent two wallers from borrowdale to the mountain top, to remove the 'man' about feet and expose the trough. sir henry james afterwards approved of my act, and refunded the expense.--i investigated the optical condition of an eye with conical cornea. "the harton colliery experiment: i had long wished to repeat the experiment which i had attempted unsuccessfully in and , of determining by pendulum-vibrations the measure of gravity at the bottom of a mine. residing near keswick this summer, and having the matter in my mind, i availed myself of an introduction from dr leitch to some gentlemen at south shields, for inspection of the harton colliery. i judged that it would answer pretty well. i find that on aug. th i wrote to mr anderson (lessee of the mine), and on the same day to the admiralty requesting authority to employ a greenwich assistant, and requesting _£ _ for part payment of expenses. on august th the admiralty assent. there were many preparations to be made, both personal and instrumental. my party consisted of dunkin (superintendant), ellis, criswick, simmons, pogson, and rümker: i did not myself attend the detail of observations. the observations began on oct. nd and ended on oct. st: supplementary observations were subsequently made at greenwich for examining the coefficient of temperature-correction. on oct. th i gave a lecture at south shields on the whole operation. in 'punch' of nov. th there was an excellent semi-comic account of the experiment, which as i afterwards found was written by mr percival leigh." of private history: "on jan. th i returned from playford. from mar. th to th i was at deal, and visited sir john herschel at hawkhurst.--from june th to aug. th i was staying with my family at the grange, in borrowdale near keswick: and also made an expedition to penrith, carlisle, newcastle, jarrow, &c.; and descended the harton pit.--in september and also in october i was at south shields on the harton experiments.--from dec. th to th i was at cambridge, and on the th i went to playford." the following letter, written in answer to a lady who had asked him to procure permission from lord rosse for her to observe with his telescope, is characteristic: royal observatory, greenwich. _ , september _. dear madam, the state of things with regard to lord rosse's telescope is this. if a night is fine, it is wanted for his use or for the use of professional astronomers. if it is not fine, it is of no use to anybody. now considering this, and considering that the appropriation of the telescope on a fine night to any body but a technical astronomer is a misapplication of an enormous capital of money and intellect which is invested in this unique instrument--it is against my conscience to ask lord rosse to place it at the service of any person except an experienced astronomer. no introduction, i believe, is necessary for seeing it in the day-time. the instrument stands unenclosed in the castle demesne, to which strangers are admitted without question, i believe............... faithfully yours, g.b. airy. "on may th it was notified to me (i think through the hydrographer) that the admiralty were not unwilling to increase my salary. i made application therefore; and on jan. st sir charles wood notified to me that the admiralty consented to have it raised from _£ _ to _£ _.--in the report to the board of visitors it appears that 'at the instance of the board of trade, acting on this occasion through a committee of the royal society, a model of the transit circle (with the improvement of perforated cube, &c. introduced in the cape transit circle) has been prepared for the great exhibition at paris.'--under the head of reduction of astronomical observations it is stated that 'during the whole time of which i have spoken, the galvanic-contact method has been employed for transits, with the exception of a few days, when the galvanic apparatus was out of order. from the clock errors, i have deduced the personal equations of the observers in our usual way.... the result is that the magnitude of the personal equations in the galvanic-touch method is not above half of that in the eye and ear method.'--with regard to the reduction of the magnetical observations, 'i have not yet felt sufficiently satisfied with any proposed method of discussing the magnetic results to devote any time to their further treatment.'--'the time-signal ball at deal was brought into regular use at the beginning of the present year. in a short time, however, its action was interrupted, partly by derangement of the apparatus, and partly by the severity of the weather, which froze the sulphuric acid to the state of jelly. i sent an assistant and workman to put it in order, and since that time it has generally acted very well.--application has been made to me from one of the important offices of government (the post office) for the galvanic regulation of their clocks.--on considering the risks to which various galvanic communications are liable, and the financial necessity for occupying wires as little as possible, i perceived that it was necessary to devise constructions which should satisfy the following conditions. first, that a current sent once a day should suffice for adjusting the clock, even if it had gone ten or more seconds wrong. secondly, that an occasional failure of the current should not stop the clock. i have arranged constructions which possess these characters, and the artist (mr c. shepherd) is now engaged in preparing estimates of the expense. i think it likely that this may prove to be the beginning of a very extensive system of clock regulation."--with respect to the operations for determining the longitude of paris, it is stated that, "the whole number of days of signal transmission was eighteen, and the whole number of signals transmitted was . the number of days considered available for longitude, in consequence of transits of stars having been observed at both observatories, was twelve, and the number of signals was . very great care was taken on both sides, for the adjustments of the instruments. the resulting difference of longitude, m. . s., is probably very accurate. it is less by nearly s. of time than that determined in by rocket-signals, under the superintendance of sir john herschel and col. sabine. the time occupied by the passage of the galvanic current appears to be / th of a second."--with regard to the pendulum experiments in the harton colliery, after mentioning that personal assistance had been sought and obtained from the observatories of cambridge, oxford, durham, and red hill, the report states that "the experiments appear to have been in every point successful, shewing beyond doubt that gravity is increased at the depth of feet by / th part. i trust that this combination may prove a valuable precedent for future associations of the different observatories of the kingdom, when objects requiring extensive personal organization shall present themselves."--on oct. th the astronomer royal printed an address to the individual members of the board of visitors on the subject of a large new equatoreal for the observatory. after a brief statement of the existing equipment of the observatory in respect of equatoreal instruments, the address continues thus: "it is known to the visitors that i have uniformly objected to any luxury of extrameridional apparatus, which would materially divert us from a steady adherence to the meridional system which both reason and tradition have engrafted on this observatory. but i feel that our present instruments are insufficient even for my wishes; and i cannot overlook the consideration that due provision must be made for future interests, and that we are nearer by twenty years to the time when another judgment must decide on the direction which shall be given to the force of the observatory."--"in august i had some correspondence about the egyptian wooden astronomical tablets with mr gresswell and others: they were fully examined by mr ellis.--in this year i was much engaged on schemes for compasses, and in june i sent my paper on discussions of ships' magnetism to the royal society.--on dec. th the mast of the observatory time-ball broke, and the ball fell in the front court.--on aug. th my valued friend mr sheepshanks died; and on aug. th i went to london to see the standard bars as left by him. afterwards, on oct. th i went to reading to collect the papers about standards left by mr sheepshanks.--i made a mechanical construction for euclid i. , with which i was well satisfied.--on apr. th i joined a deputation to the chancellor of the exchequer (sir g. cornewall lewis) on decimal coinage." of private history: "i was at playford for a large part of january.--on mar, th i went to reading, to visit mr sheepshanks, and afterwards to silchester and hereford.--on june st i went with my wife and two eldest sons to edinburgh and other places in scotland, but residing principally at oban, where i hired a house. amongst other expeditions, i and my son wilfrid went with the 'pharos' (northern lights steamer) to the skerry vohr lighthouse, &c. i also visited newcastle, &c., and returned to greenwich on aug. nd.--from oct. th to th i was at cambridge.--on dec. th i went to playford." chapter vii. at greenwich observatory-- to . "in the report to the visitors there is an interesting account of the difficulties experienced with the reflex zenith tube in consequence of the tremors of the quicksilver transmitted through the ground. attempts were made to reduce the tremor by supporting the quicksilver trough on a stage founded at a depth of feet below the surface, but it was not in the smallest degree diminished, and the report states that 'the experience of this investigation justifies me in believing that no practicable depth of trench prevents the propagation of tremor when the soil is like that of greenwich hill, a gravel, in all places very hard, and in some, cemented to the consistency of rock.'--with respect to the regulation of the post office clocks, 'one of the galvanic clocks in the post office department, lombard street, is already placed in connection with the royal observatory, and is regulated at noon every day ... other clocks at the general post office are nearly prepared for the same regulation, and i expect that the complete system will soon be in action.'--under the head of general remarks a careful summary is given of the work of the observatory, and the paragraph concludes as follows: 'lastly there are employments which connect the scientific observatory with the practical world; the distribution of accurate time, the improvement of marine time-keepers, the observations and communications which tend to the advantage of geography and navigation, and the study, in a practical sense, of the modifications of magnetism; a careful attention to these is likely to prove useful to the world, and conducive to the material prosperity of the observatory: and these ought not to be banished from our system.'--in september i prepared the first specification for the building to carry the s.e. dome.--in september, learning that hansen's lunar tables were finished in manuscript, i applied to lord clarendon and they were conveyed to me through the foreign office: in october i submitted to the admiralty the proposal for printing the tables, and in november i learned that the treasury had assented to the expense.--lieut. daynou's eclipses and occultations for longitudes of points in south africa, observed in and , were calculated here in this year.--on feb. th i made my first application to sir c. wood (first lord of the admiralty) for assistance to c. piazzi smyth to carry out the teneriffe experiment: grounding it in part on the failure of attempts to see the solar prominences. he gave encouragement, and on mar. th i transmitted piazzi smyth's memorial to the admiralty: on may nd the admiralty authorized an expense of _£ _. i drew up suggestions.--the sheepshanks fund: after the death of my friend richard sheepshanks, his sister miss anne sheepshanks wished to bestow some funds in connection with the university of cambridge, trinity college, and astronomy, to which his name should be attached. there must have been some conversation with me, but the first letter is one from de morgan in august. in september i had a conversation with miss sheepshanks, and sent her my first draft of a scheme, to which she assented. on sept. th i wrote to whewell (master of trinity) who was much trusted by miss sheepshanks: he consented to take part, and made some suggestions. there was further correspondence, but the business did not get into shape in this year.--in connection with the correction of the compass in iron ships: i discussed the observations made in the voyage of the royal charter. on feb. th i proposed to the admiralty a system of mounting the compasses with adjustable magnets, and it was ordered to be tried in the trident and transit.--in february i reported to the admiralty that the deal time-ball had been successful, and i proposed time-balls at portsmouth, plymouth, and sheerness. there was much correspondence in various directions about portsmouth and devonport, and in march i went to devonport and specially examined mount wise and the devonport column.--i had correspondence with sir howard douglas about the sea breaking over the unfinished dover pier. i have an idea that this followed evidence given by me to a harbour commission, in which i expressed as a certainty that the sea will not be made to break by a vertical wall." of private history: "i returned from playford on jan. th.--from june th to august th i was, with my son wilfrid, on an expedition to south italy and sicily: on our return from sicily, we remained for three days ill at marseilles from a touch of malaria.--on dec. nd i went to playford.--in acknowledgment of the pleasure which i had derived from excursions in the cumberland passes, i made a foot-bridge over a troublesome stream on the pass of the sty head." "in the report to the visitors, when on the subject of the altazimuth, the following paragraph occurs: 'i alluded in a preceding section to the cutting away of a very small portion of one of the rays of the three-armed pier which carries the altazimuth. the quality of the brickwork is the best that i have ever seen, and not a single brick was disturbed beyond those actually removed. yet the effect was to give the altazimuth an inclination of about ". this inclination evidently depends on the elasticity of the brickwork.'--with reference to the new s.e. equatoreal the report states that 'the support of the north or upper end of the polar axis has been received, and is planted within the walls of the building in a position convenient for raising it to its ultimate destination. it is one piece of cast-iron, and weighs nearly tons.'--small changes as previously mentioned had been noticed with regard to the zero of azimuth of the transit circle, and the report states that 'in regard to the azimuth of the transit circle, and the azimuth of its collimator, mr main has brought together the results of several years, and the following law appears to hold. there is a well-marked annual periodical change in the position of the transit circle, the southerly movement of the eastern pivot having its minimum value in september, and its maximum in march, the extreme range being about seconds; and there is a similar change, but of smaller amount, in the position of the collimator. i cannot conjecture any cause for these changes, except in the motion of the ground. there is also a well-marked connection between the state of level of the axis and the temperature. the eastern pivot always rises when the temperature rises, the extreme range being about seconds. i cannot offer any explanation of this.'--under the head of extraneous works the report states that 'the british government had for some years past contributed by pecuniary grants to the preparation of prof. hansen's lunar tables. in the last winter they undertook the entire expense of printing a large impression of the tables. the reading of the proof-sheets (a very considerable labour) has been effected entirely at the observatory. i may take this opportunity of stating that the use of these tables has enabled me, as i think, incontestably to fix the capture of larissa to the date b.c. , may . this identification promises to prove valuable, not merely for its chronological utility, but also for its accurate determination of an astronomical epoch, the point eclipsed being exactly known, and the shadow having been very small.'--in april i gave a lecture to the royal astronomical society on the methods available through the next years for the determination of the sun's parallax.--dr livingstone's observations for african longitudes were computed at the observatory.--the admiralty enquire of me about the feasibility of adopting piazzi smyth's construction for steadying telescopes on board ship: i gave a report, of mixed character, on the whole discouraging.--i had correspondence with g.p. bond and others about photographing the stars and moon.--on feb. th piazzi smyth's books, &c. relating to the teneriffe experiment were sent to me: i recommended that an abridged report should be sent to the royal society.--respecting the sheepshanks fund: there was correspondence with miss sheepshanks and whewell, but nothing got into shape this year: miss sheepshanks transferred to me _£ , _ lying at overend and gurney's.--in november experiments were made for the longitude of edinburgh, which failed totally from the bad state of the telegraph wire between deptford and the admiralty.--in june the first suggestion was made to me by capt. washington for time-signals on the lizard point: which in no long time i changed for the start point.--the admiralty call for estimates for a time-ball at portsmouth: on receiving them they decline further proceeding.--i was engaged in speculations and correspondence about the atlantic submarine cable.--in the royal astronomical society, i presented memoirs and gave lectures on the three great chronological eclipses (agathocles, thales, larissa)."--on dec. th airy wrote to the vice-chancellor of the university of cambridge, objecting to the proposed changes regarding the smith's prizes--a subject in which he took much interest, and to which he ascribed great importance.--on apr. th i was in correspondence with g. herbert of the trinity house, about floating beacons.--in july i reported to the treasury on the swedish calculating engine (i think on the occasion of mr farr, of the registrar-general's office, applying for one).--in november i had correspondence about the launch of the great eastern, and the main drainage of london." of private history: "on jan. th i returned from playford.--from june th to aug. th i was travelling in scotland with my wife and two eldest sons, chiefly in the west highlands. on our return we visited mrs smith (my wife's mother) at brampton.--on dec. th i went to playford." "in the minutes of the visitors it is noted that the new queen's warrant was received. the principal change was the exclusion of the astronomer royal and the other observatory officers from the board.--in the report to the visitors it is stated that 'the papers of the board of longitude are now finally stitched into books. they will probably form one of the most curious collections of the results of scientific enterprise, both normal and abnormal, which exists.'--it appears that the galvanic communications, external to the observatory, had been in a bad state, the four wires to london bridge having probably been injured by a thunderstorm in the last autumn, and the report states that 'the state of the wires has not enabled us to drop the ball at deal. the feeble current which arrives there has been used for some months merely as giving a signal, by which an attendant is guided in dropping the ball by hand.'--regarding the new equatoreal the report states that 'for the new south-east equatoreal, the object-glass was furnished by messrs merz and son in the summer of last year, and i made various trials of it in a temporary tube carried by the temporary mounting which i had provided, and finally i was well satisfied with it. i cannot yet say that i have certainly divided the small star of gamma andromedae; but, for such a test, a combination of favourable circumstances is required. from what i have seen, i have no doubt of its proving a first-rate object-glass.'--on march th was an annular eclipse of the sun, for the observation of which i sent parties fully equipped to bedford, wellingborough, and market harborough. the observations failed totally in consequence of the bad weather: i myself went to harrowden near wellingborough.--respecting the altazimuth, the report states that with due caution as to the zero of azimuth 'the results of observation are extremely good, very nearly equal to those of the meridional instrument; perhaps i might say that three observations with the altazimuth are equivalent to two with the transit circle.'--respecting meteorological observations the report states that 'the observations of the maximum and minimum thermometers in the thames, interrupted at the date of the last report, have been resumed, and are most regularly maintained. regarding the thames as the grand climatic agent on london and its neighbourhood, i should much regret the suppression of these observations.'--after much trouble the longitude of edinburgh had been determined: 'the retard of the current is . s very nearly, and the difference of longitudes m . s, subject to personal equations.'--the report concludes thus: 'with regard to the direction of our labours, i trust that i shall always be supported by the visitors in my desire to maintain the fundamental and meridional system of the observatory absolutely intact. this, however, does not impede the extension of our system in any way whatever, provided that such means are arranged for carrying out the extension as will render unnecessary the withdrawal of strength from what are now the engrossing objects of the observatory.'--i had much correspondence on comets, of which donati's great comet was one: the tail of this comet passed over arcturus on october th.--respecting the sheepshanks fund: in september i met whewell at leeds, and we settled orally the final plan of the scheme. on oct. th i saw messrs sharp, miss sheepshanks's solicitors, and drew up a draft of the deed of gift. there was much correspondence, and on nov. th i wrote to the vice-chancellor of cambridge university. a counter-scheme was proposed by dr philpott, master of st catharine's college. by arrangement i attended the council of the university on dec. rd, and explained my views, to which the council assented. on dec. th the senate accepted the gift of miss sheepshanks.--i had much correspondence throughout this year, with the treasury, herschel, sabine, and the royal society, about the continuation of the magnetic establishments. the reductions of the magnetic observations - were commenced in february of this year, under the direction of mr lucas, a computer who had been engaged on the lunar reductions.--in this year i came to a final agreement with the south eastern railway company about defining the terms of our connection with them for the passage of time signals. i was authorized by the admiralty to sign the 'protocol' or memorandum of agreement, and it was signed by the south eastern railway directors.--on aug. th i made my first proposal to sir john packington (first lord of the admiralty) for hourly time signals on the start point, and in september i went to the start to examine localities, &c. on dec. rd the admiralty declined to sanction it.--i presented to the royal society a paper about drawing a great-circle trace on a mercator's chart.--in october i gave a lecture on astronomy in the assembly room at bury.--on jan. th i was busied with my mathematical tracts for republication."--in this year airy published in the athenaeum very careful and critical remarks on the commissioners' draft of statutes for trinity college. he was always ready to take action in the interests of his old college. this paper procured him the warmest gratitude from the fellows of the college. of private history: "on jan. rd i returned from playford. from july th to aug. th i was on an expedition in switzerland with my two eldest sons. at paris we visited le verrier, and at geneva we visited gautier, de la rive, and plantamour. we returned by brussels.--on dec. rd i went to playford."--in this year was erected in playford churchyard a granite obelisk in memory of thomas clarkson. it was built by subscription amongst a few friends of clarkson's, and the negociations and arrangements were chiefly carried out by airy, who zealously exerted himself in the work which was intended to honour the memory of his early friend. it gave him much trouble during the years to . here is a letter to the editor of the athenaeum on some other trinity matters: _ , november _. dear sir, in the athenaeum of november , page , column , paragraph , there is an account of the erection of the statue of barrow in trinity college antechapel (cambridge) conceived in a spirit hostile to the university, and written in great ignorance of the facts. on the latter i can give the writer some information. the marquis of lansdowne, who was a trinity man and whose son was of trinity, intimated to the authorities of the college that he was desirous of placing in the antechapel a statue of _milton_. this, regard being had to the customs and the college-feelings of cambridge, was totally impossible. the antechapel of every college is sacredly reserved for memorials of the men of that college only; and milton was of christ's college. the marquis of lansdowne, on hearing this objection, left the choice of the person to be commemorated, to certain persons of the college, one of whom (a literary character of the highest eminence and a profound admirer of milton) has not resided in cambridge for many years. several names were carefully considered, and particularly one (not mentioned by your correspondent) of very great literary celebrity, but in whose writings there is ingrained so much of ribaldry and licentiousness that he was at length given up. finally the choice rested on barrow, not as comparable to milton, but as a person of reputation in his day and as the best who could be found under all the circumstances. cromwell never was mentioned; he was a member of sidney college: moreover it would have been very wrong to select the exponent of an extreme political party. but cromwell has i believe many admirers in cambridge, to which list i attach myself. i had no part in the negociations above mentioned, but i saw the original letters, and i answer for the perfect correctness of what i have stated. but as i am not a principal, i decline to appear in public. it is much to be desired, both for the athenaeum and for the public, that such an erroneous statement should not remain uncorrected. and i would suggest that a correction by the editor would be just and graceful, and would tend to support the athenaeum in that high position which it has usually maintained. i am, dear sir, yours very faithfully, g.b. airy. _hepworth dixon, esq._ "the report to the visitors states that 'the lunar reductions with amended elements (especially parallax) for correction of observations from to are now completed. it is, i think, matter of congratulation to the observatory and to astronomy, that there are now exhibited the results of uninterrupted lunar observations extending through more than a century, made at the same place, reduced under the same superintendence and on the same general principles, and compared throughout with the same theoretical tables.'--after reference to the great value of the greenwich lunar observations to prof. hansen in constructing his tables, and to the liberality of the british government in their grants to hansen, the report continues thus: 'a strict comparison of hansen's tables with the greenwich observations of late years, both meridional and extra-meridional, was commenced. the same observations had, in the daily routine of the observatory, been compared with the nautical almanac or burckhardt's tables. the result for one year only ( ) has yet reached me, but it is most remarkable. the sum of squares of residual errors with hansen's tables is only one-eighth part of that with burckhardt's tables. when it is remembered that in this is included the entire effect of errors and irregularities of observation, we shall be justified in considering hansen's tables as nearly perfect. so great a step, to the best of my knowledge, has never been made in numerical physical theory. i have cited this at length, not only as interesting to the visitors from the circumstance that we have on our side contributed to this great advance, but also because an innovation, peculiar to this observatory, has in no small degree aided in giving a decisive character to the comparison. i have never concealed my opinion that the introduction and vigorous use of the altazimuth for observations of the moon is the most important addition to the system of the observatory that has been made for many years. the largest errors of burckhardt's tables were put in evidence almost always by the altazimuth observations, in portions of the moon's orbit which could not be touched by the meridional instruments; they amounted sometimes to nearly " of arc, and they naturally became the crucial errors for distinction between burckhardt's and hansen's tables. those errors are in all cases corrected with great accuracy by hansen's tables.'--the report concludes with the following paragraph: 'with the inauguration of the new equatoreal will terminate the entire change from the old state of the observatory. there is not now a single person employed or instrument used in the observatory which was there in mr pond's time, nor a single room in the observatory which is used as it was used then. in every step of change, however, except this last, the ancient and traditional responsibilities of the observatory have been most carefully considered: and, in the last, the substitution of a new instrument was so absolutely necessary, and the importance of tolerating no instrument except of a high class was so obvious, that no other course was open to us. i can only trust that, while the use of the equatoreal within legitimate limits may enlarge the utility and the reputation of the observatory, it may never be permitted to interfere with that which has always been the staple and standard work here.'--concerning the sheepshanks fund: there was much correspondence about settling the gift till about feb. st. i took part in the first examination for the scholarship in october of this year, and took my place with the trinity seniority, as one of their number on this foundation, for some general business of the fund.--with respect to the correction of the compass in iron ships: i sent mr ellis to liverpool to see some practice there in the correction of the compass. in september i urged mr rundell to make a voyage in the great eastern (just floated) for examination of her compasses, and lent him instruments: very valuable results were obtained. mr archibald smith had edited scoresby's voyage in the royal charter, with an introduction very offensive to me: i replied fully in the athenaeum of nov. th.--the sale of gas act: an act of parliament promoted by private members of the house of commons had been passed, without the knowledge or recollection of the government. it imposed on the government various duties about the preparation of standards. suddenly, at the very expiration of the time allowed this came to the knowledge of government. on oct. st lord monteagle applied to me for assistance. on oct. th and nd i wrote to mr hamilton, secretary of the treasury, and received authority to ask for the assistance of prof. w.h. miller.--i made an examination of mr ball's eyes (long-sighted and short-sighted i think).--in february i made an analysis of the cambridge tripos examination, which i communicated to some cambridge residents." in a letter on this subject to one of his cambridge friends airy gives his opinion as follows: "i have looked very carefully over the examination papers, and think them on the whole very bad. they are utterly perverted by the insane love of problems, and by the foolish importance given to wholly useless parts of algebraical geometry. for the sake of these, every physical subject and every useful application of pure mathematics are cut down or not mentioned." this led to much discussion at cambridge. in this year the smith's prizes were awarded to the th and th wranglers. of private history: "on apr. th mrs smith (my wife's mother) died at brampton.--from july th to aug. nd i was in france (auvergne and the vivarais) with my two eldest sons. maclear travelled with us to paris.--on dec. rd i went to playford."--antiquities and historical questions connected with military movements had a very great attraction for airy. on his return from the expedition in france above-mentioned, he engaged in considerable correspondence with military authorities regarding points connected with the battle of toulouse. and in this year also he had much correspondence with the duke of northumberland concerning his map of the roman wall, and the military points relating to the same. "in june mr main accepted the office of radcliffe observer at oxford (mr johnson having died) and resigned the first assistancy at greenwich: in october mr stone was appointed first assistant.--at an adjourned meeting of the visitors on june th there were very heavy discussions on hansen's merits, and about the grant to him. papers were read from sir j. lubbock, babbage, south, whewell, and me. finally it was recommended to the government to grant _£ _ to hansen, which was paid to him.--in the report to the board of visitors the following remark occurs: 'the apparent existence of a discordance between the results of direct observations and reflection observations (after the application of corrections for flexure, founded upon observations of the horizontal collimator wires) to an extent far greater than can be explained by any disturbance of the direction of gravity on the quicksilver by its distance from the vertical, or by the attraction of neighbouring masses, perplexes me much.'--with respect to the discordance of dips of the dipping-needles, which for years past had been a source of great trouble and puzzle, the report states that 'the dipping-needles are still a source of anxiety. the form which their anomalies appear to take is that of a special or peculiar value of the dip given by each separate needle. with one of the -inch needles, the result always differs about a quarter of a degree from that of the others. i can see nothing in its mechanical construction to explain this.--reference is made to the spontaneous currents through the wires of telegraph companies, which are frequently violent and always occur at the times of magnetic storms, and the report continues 'it may be worth considering whether it would ever be desirable to establish in two directions at right angles to each other (for instance, along the brighton railway and along the north kent railway) wires which would photographically register in the royal observatory the currents that pass in these directions, exhibiting their indications by photographic curves in close juxtaposition with the registers of the magnetic elements.'--in connection with the reduction of the greenwich lunar observations from to , the report states that 'the comparison of hansen's lunar tables with the greenwich observations, which at the last visitation had been completed for one year only, has now been finished for the twelve years to . the results for the whole period agree entirely, in their general spirit, with those for the year cited in the last report. the greatest difference between the merits of burckhardt's and hansen's tables appears in the meridional longitudes , when the proportion of the sum of squares of errors is as (burckhardt) to (hansen). the nearest approach is in the altazimuth latitudes , when the proportion of the sum of squares of errors is as (burckhardt) to (hansen).'--a special address to the members of the board of visitors has reference to the proposals of m. struve for (amongst other matters) the improved determination of the longitude of valencia, and the galvanic determination of the extreme eastern station of the british triangles.--on sept. th i circulated amongst the visitors my remarks on a paper entitled 'on the polar distances of the greenwich transit-circle, by a. marth,' printed in the astronomische nachrichten; the paper by mr marth was an elaborate attack on the greenwich methods of observation, and my remarks were a detailed refutation of his statements.--on oct. th i made enquiry of sabine as to the advantage of keeping up magnetic observations. on oct. nd he wrote, avoiding my question in some measure, but saying that our instruments must be changed for such as those at kew (his observatory): i replied, generally declining to act on that advice.--in march and april i was in correspondence with mr cowper (first commissioner of works, &c.) about the bells of the westminster clock; also about the smoky chimneys of the various apartments of the palace. on apr. st i made my report on the clock and bells, foolscap pages. i employed a professional musician to examine the tones of the bells.--in november i was writing my book on probable errors, &c.--i was engaged on the tides of kurrachee and bombay.--the first examination of navy telescopes was made for the admiralty. --hoch's paper on aberration appeared in the astronomische nachrichten. this (with others) led to the construction of the water-telescope several years later.--in september i wrote in the athenaeum against a notion of sir h. james on the effect of an upheaval of a mountain in changing the earth's axis. in october i had drawn up a list of days for a possible evagation of the earth's poles: but apparently nothing was done upon them. "in this year i was a good deal occupied for the lighthouse commission. on feb. st admiral hamilton (chairman) applied to me for assistance. in april i went to chance's factory in birmingham on this business. in may i made my report on the start lighthouse, after inspection with the commission. in june, with my son hubert, i visited the whitby lighthouses, and discovered a fault of a singular kind which most materially diminished their power. this discovery led to a general examination of lighthouses by the trinity board, to a modification of many, and to a general improvement of system. on june th i reported on the lights at calais, cap de valde, grisnez, south foreland, and north foreland. in august i had been to the north foreland again, and in september to calais and the cap d'ailly. in october i went with my son hubert to aberdeen to see the girdleness lighthouse. on nov. th i made a general report. "this was the year of the great total solar eclipse visible in spain. at my representation, the admiralty placed at my command the large steamship 'himalaya' to carry about astronomers, british and foreign. some were landed at santander: i with many at bilbao. the eclipse was fairly well observed: i personally did not do my part well. the most important were mr de la rue's photographic operations. at greenwich i had arranged a very careful series of observations with the great equatoreal, which were fully carried out." the eclipse expedition to spain, shortly referred to above, was most interesting, not merely from the importance of the results obtained (and some of the parties were very fortunate in the weather) but from the character of the expedition. it was a wonderful combination of the astronomers of europe, who were all received on board the 'himalaya,' and were conveyed together to the coast of spain. the polyglot of languages was most remarkable, but the utmost harmony and enthusiasm prevailed from first to last, and this had much to do with the general success of the expedition. those who landed at bilbao were received in the kindest and most hospitable manner by mr c.b. vignoles, the engineer-in-chief of the bilbao and tudela railway, which was then under construction. this gentleman made arrangements for the conveyance of parties to points in the interior of the country which were judged suitable for the observation of the eclipse, and placed all the resources of his staff at the disposal of the expedition in the most liberal manner. the universal opinion was that very great difficulty would have been experienced without the active and generous assistance of mr vignoles. it is needless to say that the vote of thanks to mr vignoles, proposed by the astronomer royal during the return voyage, was passed by acclamation and with a very sincere feeling of gratitude: it was to the effect that 'without the great and liberal aid of mr c.b. vignoles, and the disinterested love of science evinced by him on this occasion, the success of the "himalaya" eclipse expedition could not have been ensured.' there is a graphic and interesting account of the reception of the party at bilbao given in the 'life of c.b. vignoles, f.r.s., soldier and civil engineer,' by o.j. vignoles, m.a. of private history: "on may th my venerable friend arthur biddell died. he had been in many respects more than a father to me: i cannot express how much i owed to him, especially in my youth.--from june th to th i visited the whitby lighthouses with my son hubert.--from july th to th i was in spain, on the 'himalaya' expedition, to observe the total eclipse: i was accompanied by my wife, my eldest son, and my eldest daughter.--from oct. th to th i went with my son hubert to aberdeen to see the girdleness lighthouse, making lateral trips to cumberland in going and returning.--on dec. st i went to playford." "in the report to the visitors there is great complaint of want of room. 'with increase of computations, we want more room for computers; with our greatly increased business of chronometers and time-distribution, we are in want of a nearly separate series of rooms for the time-department: we want rooms for book-stores; and we require rooms for the photographic operations and the computations of the magnetic department.'--the report gives a curious history of dr bradley's observations, which in had been transferred to the university of oxford, and proceeds thus: 'more lately, i applied (in the first instance through lord wrottesley) to the vice-chancellor, dr jeune, in reference to the possibility of transferring these manuscripts to the royal observatory.... finally, a decree for the transfer of the manuscript observations to the royal observatory, without any condition, was proposed to convocation on may nd, and was passed unanimously. and on may th my assistant, mr dunkin, was sent to oxford to receive them. and thus, after a delay of very nearly a century, the great work of justice is at length completed, and the great gap in our manuscript observations is at length filled up.'--with reference to the transit circle, it had been remarked that the collimators were slightly disturbed by the proximity of the gas-flames of their illuminators, and after various experiments as to the cause of it, the report proceeds thus: 'to my great surprise, i found that the disturbance was entirely due to the radiation of the flame upon a very small corner (about square inches) of the large and massive stone on which the collimator is planted. the tin plates were subsequently shaped in such a manner as to protect the stone as well as the metal; and the disturbance has entirely ceased.' --regarding the large s.e. equatoreal, the report states that 'on the character of its object-glass i am now able to speak, first, from the examination of mr otto struve, made in a favourable state of atmosphere; secondly, from the examinations of my assistants (i have not myself obtained a sight of a test-object on a night of very good definition). it appears to be of the highest order. the small star of gamma andromedae is so far separated as to shew a broad dark space between its components. some blue colour is shewn about the bright planets.'--it is noted in the report that 'the equatoreal observations of the solar eclipse are completely reduced; and the results are valuable. it appears from them that the error in right ascension of burckhardt's lunar tables at the time of the eclipse amounted to about "; while that of hansen's (ultimately adopted by mr hind for the calculation of the eclipse) did not exceed ".'--with regard to chronometers it is stated that 'by use of the chronometer oven, to which i have formerly alluded, we have been able to give great attention to the compensation. i have reason to think that we are producing a most beneficial effect on the manufacture and adjustment of chronometers in general.'--with regard to the cape of good hope observatory and survey, the admiralty enquire of me when the survey work will be completed, and i enquire of maclear 'how is the printing of your survey work?' in i began to press it strongly, and in very strongly.--i introduced a method (constantly pursued since that time at the royal observatory) for computing interpolations without changes of sign.--i had correspondence with herschel and faraday, on the possible effect of the sun's radiant heat on the sea, as explaining the curve of diurnal magnetic inequality. (that diurnal inequality was inferred from the magnetic reductions - , which were terminated in .)--regarding the proposal of hourly time-signals on the start point, i consulted telegraph engineers upon the practical points, and on dec. st i proposed a formal scheme, in complete detail. (the matter has been repeatedly brought before the admiralty, but has been uniformly rejected.)--i was engaged on the question of the bad ocular vision of two or three persons.--the british association meeting was held at manchester: i was president of section a. i gave a lecture on the eclipse of to an enormous attendance in the free trade hall." the following record of the lecture is extracted from dr e.j. routh's obituary notice of airy written for the proceedings of the royal society. "at the meeting of the british association at manchester in , mr airy delivered a lecture on the solar eclipse of to an assembly of perhaps persons. the writer remembers the great free trade hall crowded to excess with an immense audience whose attention and interest, notwithstanding a weak voice, he was able to retain to the very end of the lecture....the charm of professor airy's lectures lay in the clearness of his explanations. the subjects also of his lectures were generally those to which his attention had been turned by other causes, so that he had much that was new to tell. his manner was slightly hesitating, and he used frequent repetitions, which perhaps were necessary from the newness of the ideas. as the lecturer proceeded, his hearers forgot these imperfections and found their whole attention rivetted to the subject matter." of private history: "on jan. nd there was a most remarkable crystallization of the ice on the flooded meadows at playford: the frost was very severe.--from june th to aug. st i was at the grange near keswick (where i hired a house) with my wife and most of my family.--from nov. th to th i was on an expedition in the south of scotland with my son wilfrid: we walked with our knapsacks by the roman road across the cheviots to jedburgh.--on dec. st i went to playford." "the report to the board of visitors states that 'a new range of wooden buildings (the magnetic offices) is in progress at the s.s.e. extremity of the magnetic ground. it will include seven rooms.'--also 'i took this opportunity (the relaying of the water-main) of establishing two powerful fire-plugs (one in the front court, and one in the magnetic ground); a stock of fire-hose adapted to the "brigade-screw" having been previously secured in the observatory.'--'two wires, intended for the examination of spontaneous earth-currents, have been carried from the magnetic observatory to the railway station in the town of greenwich. from this point one wire is to be led to a point in the neighbourhood of croydon, the other to a point in the neighbourhood of dartford. each wire is to be connected at its two extremities with the earth. the angle included between the general directions of these two lines is nearly a right angle.'--'the kew unifilar magnetometer, adapted to the determination of the horizontal part of terrestrial magnetic force in absolute measure, was mounted in the summer of ; and till february, occasional observations ( in all) were taken simultaneously with the old and with the new instrument. the comparison of results shewed a steady but very small difference, not greater probably than may correspond to the omission of the inverse seventh powers of distance in the theoretical investigation; proving that the old instrument had been quite efficient for its purpose.'--great efforts had been made to deduce a law from the diurnal inequalities in declination and horizontal force, as shewn by the magnetic observations; but without success: the report states that 'the results are most amazing, for the variation in magnitude as well as in law. what cosmical change can be indicated by them is entirely beyond my power of conjecture.'--'i have alluded, in the two last reports, to the steps necessary, on the english side, for completing the great arc of parallel from valencia to the volga. the russian portion of the work is far advanced, and will be finished (it is understood) in the coming summer. it appeared to me therefore that the repetition of the measure of astronomical longitude between greenwich and valencia could be no longer delayed. two assistants of the royal observatory (mr dunkin and mr criswick) will at once proceed to valencia, for the determination of local time and the management of galvanic signals.'--'i now ask leave to press the subject of hourly time signals at the start point on the attention of the board, and to submit the advantage of their addressing the board of admiralty upon it. the great majority of outward-bound ships pass within sight of the start, and, if an hourly signal were exhibited, would have the means of regulating their chronometers at a most critical part of their voyage. the plan of the entire system of operations is completely arranged. the estimated expense of outfit is _£ _, and the estimated annual expense is _£ _; both liable to some uncertainty, but sufficiently exact to shew that the outlay is inconsiderable in comparison with the advantages which might be expected from it. i know no direction of the powers of the observatory which would tend so energetically to carry out the great object of its establishment, viz. "the finding out the so much desired longitude at sea."'--the attention of the visitors is strongly drawn to the pressure on the strength of the observatory caused by the observation of the numerous small planets, and the paragraph concludes thus: 'i shall, however, again endeavour to effect a partition of this labour with some other observatory.'--a small fire having occurred in the magnetic observatory, a new building of zinc, for the operation of naphthalizing the illuminating gas, is in preparation, external to the observatory: and thus one of the possible sources of accidental fire will be removed.--miss sheepshanks added, through me, _£ _ to her former gift: i transferred it, i believe, to the master and seniors of trinity college."--in this year airy contributed to the royal society two papers, one "on the magnetic properties of hot-rolled and cold-rolled malleable iron," the other "on the strains in the interior of beams." he gave evidence before the select committee on weights and measures, and also before the public schools commission. in the latter part of a difference arose between airy and major-general sabine, in consequence of remarks made by the latter at a meeting of the committee of recommendations of the british association. these remarks were to the effect "that it is necessary to maintain the complete system of self-registration of magnetic phenomena at the kew observatory, because no sufficient system of magnetic record is maintained elsewhere in england"; implying pointedly that the system at the royal observatory of greenwich was insufficient. this matter was taken up very warmly by airy, and after a short and acrimonious correspondence with sabine, he issued a private address to the visitors, enclosing copies of the correspondence with his remarks, and requesting the board to take the matter of this attack into their careful consideration. this address is dated november , and it was followed by another dated january , which contains a careful reply to the various points of general sabine's attack, and concludes with a distinct statement that he (the astronomer royal) can no longer act in confidence with sabine as a member of the board of visitors. of private history: there were the usual short visits to playford at the beginning and end of the year.--from june th to aug. th he was in scotland (chiefly in the western highlands) with his wife and his sons hubert and osmund. in the course of this journey he visited the corryvreckan whirlpool near the island of scarba, and the following paragraph relating to this expedition is extracted from his journal: "landed in black mile bay, island of luing, at . . here by previous arrangement with mr a. brown, agent of the steam-boat company, a -oared boat was waiting to take us to scarba and the corryvreckan. we were pulled across to the island of lunga, and rowed along its length, till we came to the first channel opening from the main sea, which the sailors called the little gulf. here the sea was rushing inwards in a manner of which i had no conception. streams were running with raving speed, sometimes in opposite directions side by side, with high broken-headed billows. where the streams touched were sometimes great whirls (one not many yards from our boat) that looked as if they would suck anything down. sometimes among all this were great smooth parts of the sea, still in a whirling trouble, which were surrounded by the mad currents. we seemed entirely powerless among all these." in the beginning of this year ( ) the duke of manchester, in writing to the rev. w. airy, had said, "i wish your brother, the astronomer royal, could be induced to have investigations made as to whether the aspects of the planets have any effect on the weather." this enquiry produced the following reply: a subject like that of the occult influences of the planets (using the word occult in no bad sense but simply as meaning not _thoroughly_ traced) can be approached in two ways--either by the à priori probability of the existence of such influences, or by the à posteriori evidence of their effects. if the two can be combined, the subject may be considered as claiming the dignity of a science. even if the effects alone are certain, it may be considered that we have a science of inferior degree, wanting however that definiteness of law and that general plausibility which can only be given when true causes, in accordance with antecedent experience in other cases, can be suggested. now in regard to the à priori probability of the existence of planetary influences, i am far from saying that such a thing is impossible. the discoveries of modern philosophy have all tended to shew that there may be many things about us, unknown even to the scientific world, but which well-followed accidents reveal with the most positive certainty. it is known that every beam of light is accompanied by a beam of chemical agency, totally undiscoverable to the senses of light or warmth, but admitting of separation from the luminous and warm rays; and producing photogenic effects. we know that there are disturbances of magnetism going on about us, affecting whole continents at a time, unknown to men in general, but traceable with facility and certainty, and which doubtless affect even our brains and nerves (which are indisputably subject to the influence of magnetism). now in the face of these things i will not undertake to say that there is any impossibility, or even any want of plausibility in the supposition that bodies external to the earth may affect us. it may well be cited in its favour that it is certain that the sun affects our magnetism (it is doubtful whether it does so _im_mediately, or mediately by giving different degrees of warmth to different parts of the earth), and it is believed on inferior evidence that the moon also affects it. it may therefore seem not impossible or unplausible that other celestial bodies may affect perhaps others of the powers of nature about us. but there i must stop. the denial of the impossibility is no assertion of the truth or probability, and i absolutely decline to take either side--either that the influences are real, or that the influences are unreal--till i see evidence of their effects. such evidence it is extremely difficult to extract from ordinary facts of observation. i have alluded to the sun's daily disturbance of the magnet as one of the most certain of influences, yet if you were to observe the magnet for a single day or perhaps for several days, you might see no evidence of that influence, so completely is it involved with other disturbances whose causes and laws are totally unknown. i believe that, in addition to the effects ascribable to newtonian gravitation (as general motion of the earth, precession of the equinoxes, and tides), this magnetic disturbance is the only one yet established as depending on an external body. men in general, however, do not think so. it appears to be a law of the human mind, to love to trace an effect to a cause, and to be ready to assent to any specious cause. thus all practical men of the lower classes, even those whose pecuniary interests are concerned in it, believe firmly in the influence of the moon upon the winds and the weather. i believe that every careful examiner of recorded facts (among whom i place myself as regards the winds) has come to the conclusion that the influence of the moon is not discoverable. i point out these two things (magnetic disturbances and weather) as tending to shew that notoriety or the assumed consent of practical men, are of no value. the unnotorious matter may be quite certain, the notorious matter may have no foundation. everything must stand on its own evidence, as completely digested and examined. of such evidence the planetary influence has not a particle. my intended short note has, in the course of writing, grown up into a discourse of very unreasonable length; and it is possible that a large portion of it has only increased obscurity. at any rate i can add nothing, i believe, which can help to explain more fully my views on this matter. * * * * * in this year ( , june th) airy received the honorary degree of ll.d. in the university of cambridge. he was nominated by the duke of devonshire, as appears from the following letter: lismore castle, ireland, _april th, _. my dear sir, it is proposed according to usage to confer a considerable number of honorary degrees on the occasion of my first visit to cambridge as chancellor of the university. i hope that you will allow me to include your name in that portion of the list which i have been invited to draw up. the ceremony is fixed for the th of june. i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, devonshire. _the astronomer royal_. * * * * * airy's reply was as follows: royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , april _. my lord duke, i am exceedingly gratified by your communication this day received, conveying a proposal which i doubt not is suggested by your grace's recollection of transactions now many years past. i have always been desirous of maintaining my connection with my university, and have in various ways interested myself practically in its concerns. it would give me great pleasure to have the connection strengthened in the flattering way which you propose. i had conceived that alumni of the university were not admissible to honorary degrees; but upon this point the information possessed by your grace, as chancellor of the university, cannot be disputed. i am, my lord duke, your grace's very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _his grace the duke of devonshire_. * * * * * there were in all honorary degrees of doctor of laws conferred on the th of june, including men of such eminence as armstrong, faraday, and fairbairn. in this year there were several schemes for a railway through the lower part of greenwich park, the most important being the scheme of the london, chatham and dover railway company. in reference to this scheme the report to the visitors states "i may say briefly that i believe that it would be possible to render such a railway innocuous to the observatory; it would however be under restrictions which might be felt annoying to the authorities of the railway, but whose relaxation would almost ensure ruin to the observatory."--"the meridional observations of mars in the autumn of have been compared with those made at the observatory of williamstown, near melbourne, australia, and they give for mean solar parallax the value . ", exceeding the received value by about / th part. (a value nearly identical with this . " has also been found by comparing the pulkowa and cape of good hope observations.)"--"the results of the new dip-instrument in and appear to give a firm foundation for speculations on the state and change of the dip. as a general result, i may state as probable that the value of dip in the middle of was about ° ', and in the middle of about ° '. the decrease of dip appears to be more rapid in the second half of this interval than in the first; the dip at beginning of being about ° '."--with reference to the re-determination of the longitude of valencia, it is stated that "the concluded longitude agrees almost exactly with that determined by the transmission of chronometers in ; and entitles us to believe that the longitudes of kingstown and liverpool, steps in the chronometer conveyance, were determined with equal accuracy."--"the computations, for inferring the direction and amount of movement of the solar system in space from the observed proper motions of stars, have been completed. the result is, that the sun is moving towards a point, r.a. °, n.p.d. ° (not very different from sir w. herschel's, but depending much in n.p.d. on the accuracy of bradley's quadrant observations), and that its annual motion subtends, at the distance of a star of the first magnitude, the angle . ". but the comparison, of the sum of squares of apparent proper motions uncorrected, with the sum of squares of apparent proper motions corrected for motion of sun, shews so small an advance in the explanation of the star's apparent movements as to throw great doubt on the certainty of results; the sum of squares being diminished by only / th part."--"i had been writing strongly to maclear on the delays in publishing both the geodetic work and the star catalogue at the cape of good hope: he resolves to go on with these works. in december i am still very urgent about the geodesy." of private history: there was the usual short visit to playford at the beginning and end of the year.--"from june th to august th i was travelling in the north and west of scotland with my wife, my youngest son osmund, and my daughter annot." * * * * * in this year the offer of knighthood (for the third time) was made to airy through the rt hon. sir george c. lewis, bart. the offer was accepted on feb. th, , but on the same day a second letter was written as follows: _ , feb. _. dear sir, i am extremely ignorant of all matters connected with court ceremonial, and in reference to the proposed knighthood would ask you:-- . i trust that there is no expense of fees. to persons like myself of small fortune an honour may sometimes be somewhat dear. . my highest social rank is that given by my academical degree of d.c.l. which i hold in the universities of oxford and cambridge. in regard to costume, would it be proper that i should appear in the scarlet gown of that degree? or in the ordinary court dress? i am, dear sir, yours very faithfully, g.b. airy. _the right honourable sir george c. lewis, bart., &c. &c. &c._ to this letter sir g.c. lewis replied that the fees would amount to about _£ _, an intimation which produced the following letter: royal observatory, greenwich, s.e. _ , feb. th_. dear sir, i have to acknowledge your letter of yesterday: and i advert to that part of it in which it is stated that the fees on knighthood amount to about _£ _. twenty-seven years ago the same rank was offered to me by lord john russell and mr spring rice (then ministers of the crown), with the express notice that no fees would be payable. i suppose that the usage (whatever it be) on which that notice was founded still subsists. to a person whose annual income little more than suffices to meet the annual expenses of a very moderate establishment, an unsought honour may be an incumbrance. it appears, at any rate, opposed to the spirit of such an honour, that it should be loaded with court expenses in its very creation. i hope that the principle stated in may serve as precedent on this occasion. i am, dear sir, your very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _the right honourable sir g. c. lewis, bart., &c. &c. &c._ no intimation however was received that the fees would be remitted on the present occasion, and after consideration the proposed knighthood was declined in the following letter: royal observatory, greenwich, s.e. _ , april _. dear sir, i have frequently reflected on the proposal made by you of the honour of knighthood to myself. i am very grateful to you for the favourable opinion which you entertain in regard to my supposed claims to notice, and for the kindness with which you proposed publicly to express it. but on consideration i am strongly impressed with the feeling that the conditions attached by established regulation to the conferring of such an honour would be unacceptable to me, and that the honour itself would in reality, under the circumstances of my family-establishment and in my social position, be an incumbrance to me. and finally i have thought it best most respectfully, and with a full sense of the kindness of yourself and of the queen's government towards me, to ask that the proposal might be deferred. there is another direction in which a step might be made, affecting my personal position in a smaller degree, but not tending to incommode me, which i would ask leave to submit to your consideration. it is, the definition of the rank of the astronomer royal. the singular character of the office removes it from ordinary rules of rank, and sometimes may produce a disagreeable contest of opinions. the only offices of similar character corresponding in other conditions to that of the british astronomer royal are those of the imperial astronomers at pulkowa (st petersburg) and paris. in russia, where every rank is clearly defined by that of military grade, the imperial astronomer has the rank of major-general. in france, the definition is less precise, but the present imperial astronomer has been created (as an attachment of rank to the office) a senator of the empire. i am, dear sir, your very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _the rt hon. sir george c. lewis, bart., &c. &c. &c._ sir g. c. lewis died before receiving this letter, and the letter was afterwards forwarded to lord palmerston. some correspondence followed between lord palmerston and airy on the subject of attaching a definite rank to the office of astronomer royal, as proposed in the above letter. but the home office (for various reasons set forth) stated that the suggestion could not be complied with, and the whole subject dropped. the following remarks are extracted from the report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors.--"in a very heavy squall which occurred in the gale of december of last year, the stay of the lofty iron pillar outside of the park rails, which carried our telegraph wires, gave way, and the pillar and the whole system of wires fell."--"an important alteration has been made in the magnetic observatory. for several years past, various plans have been under consideration for preventing large changes of temperature in the room which contains the magnetic instruments. at length i determined to excavate a subterraneous room or cellar under the original room. the work was begun in the last week in january, and in all important points it is now finished."--"in the late spring, some alarm was occasioned by the discovery that the parliamentary standard of the pound weight had become coated with an extraneous substance produced by the decomposition of the lining of the case in which it was preserved. it was decided immediately to compare it with the three parliamentary copies, of which that at the observatory is one. the national standard was found to be entirely uninjured."--"on november of last year, the transit instrument narrowly escaped serious injury from an accident. the plate chain which carries the large western counterpoise broke. the counterpoise fell upon the pier, destroying the massive gun-metal wheels of the lifting machinery, but was prevented from falling further by the iron stay of the gas-burner flue."--"the prismatic spectrum-apparatus had been completed in . achromatic object-glasses are placed on both sides of the prism, so that each pencil of light through the prism consists of parallel rays; and breadth is given to the spectrum by a cylindrical lens. the spectral lines are seen straighter than before, and generally it is believed that their definition is improved."--"for observation of the small planets, a convention has been made with m. le verrier. from new moon to full moon, all the small planets visible to h are observed at the royal observatory of greenwich. from full moon to new moon, all are observed at the imperial observatory of paris. the relief gained in this way is very considerable."--"in determining the variations in the power of the horizontal-force and vertical-force magnets depending on temperature, it was found by experiment that this depended materially on whether the magnet was heated by air or by water, and 'the result of these experiments (with air) is to give a coefficient for temperature correction four or five times as great as that given by the water-heatings,'"--"with regard to the discordances of the results of observations of dip-needles, experiments had been made with needles whose breadth was in the plane passing through the axis of rotation, and it appeared that the means of extreme discordances were, for an ordinary needle ' ", and for a flat needle ' "," and the report continues thus: "after this i need not say that i consider it certain that the small probable errors which have been attributed to ordinary needles are a pure delusion."--the report states that in the various operations connected with the trials and repairs of chronometers, and the system of time-signals transmitted to various time-balls and clocks, about one-fourth of the strength of the observatory is employed, and it continues thus: "viewing the close dependence of nautical astronomy upon accurate knowledge of time, there is perhaps no department of the observatory which answers more completely to the original utilitarian intentions of the founder of the royal observatory."--"with regard to the proposal of time-signals at the start point, it appears that communications referring to this proposal had passed between the board of admiralty and the board of trade, of which the conclusion was, that the board of trade possessed no funds applicable to the defraying of the expenses attending the execution of the scheme. and the admiralty did not at present contemplate the establishment of these time-signals under their own authority."--amongst other papers in this year, airy's paper entitled "first analysis of magnetic storms," &c., was read before the royal society. of private history: "there was the usual visit to playford in the beginning of the year.--from june th to rd i made an excursion with my son hubert to the isle of man, and the lake district.--from sept. th to th i was on a trip to cornwall with my two eldest sons, chiefly in the mining district.--in august of this year my eldest (surviving) daughter, hilda, was married to mr e.j. routh, fellow of st peter's college, cambridge, at greenwich parish church. they afterwards resided at cambridge." "our telegraphic communications of every kind were again destroyed by a snow-storm and gale of wind which occurred on jan. th, and which broke down nearly all the posts between the royal observatory and the greenwich railway station.--the report to the visitors states that 'the only change of buildings which i contemplate as at present required is the erection of a fire-proof chronometer room. the pecuniary value of chronometers stored in the observatory is sometimes perhaps as much as _£ _.'--the south eastern and london chatham and dover scheme for a railway through the park was again brought forward. there was a meeting of sir j. hanmer's committee at the observatory on may th. mr stone was sent hastily to dublin to make observations on earth-disturbance by railways there. i had been before the committee on may th. on sept. st i approved of an amended plan. in reference to this matter the report states that 'it is proper to remark that the shake of the altazimuth felt in the earthquake of , oct. th, when no such shake was felt with instruments nearer to the ground (an experience which, as i have heard on private authority, is supported by observation of artificial tremors), gives reason to fear that, at distances from a railway which would sufficiently defend the lower instruments, the loftier instruments (as the altazimuth and the equatoreals) would be sensibly affected.'--some of the magnets had been suspended by steel wires, instead of silk, of no greater strength than was necessary for safety, and the report states that 'under the pressure of business, the determination of various constants of adjustment was deferred to the end of the year. the immediate results of observation, however, began to excite suspicion; and after a time it was found that, in spite of the length of the suspending wire (about feet) the torsion-coefficient was not much less than / . the wires were promptly dismounted, and silk skeins substituted for them. with these, the torsion-coefficient is about / .'--the dip-instrument, which had given great trouble by the irregularities of the dip-results, had been compared with two dip-instruments from kew observatory, which gave very good and accordant results. 'it happened that mr simms, by whom our instruments now in use were prepared, and who had personally witnessed our former difficulties, was present during some of these experiments. our own instrument being placed in his hands (nov. th to th) for another purpose, he spontaneously re-polished the apparently faultless agate-bearings. to my great astonishment, the inconsistencies of every kind have nearly or entirely vanished. on raising and lowering the needles, they return to the same readings, and the dips with the same needle appear generally consistent.' some practical details of the polishing process by which this result had been secured are then given.--after numerous delays, the apparatus for the self-registration of spontaneous earth currents was brought into a working state in the month of march. a description of the arrangement adopted is given in the report.--'all chronometers on trial are rated every day, by comparison with one of the clocks sympathetic with the motor clock. every chronometer, whether on trial or returned from a chronometer-maker as repaired, is tried at least once in the heat of the chronometer-oven, the temperature being usually limited to ° fahrenheit; and, guided by the results of very long experience, we have established it as a rule, that every trial in heat be continued through three weeks.'--'the only employment extraneous to the observatory which has occupied any of my time within the last year is the giving three lectures on the magnetism of iron ships (at the request of the lords of the committee of council on education) in the theatre of the south kensington museum. the preparations, however, for these lectures, to be given in a room ill-adapted to them, occupied a great deal of my own time, and of the time of an assistant of the observatory.'--'referring to a matter in which the interests of astronomy are deeply concerned, i think it right to report to the visitors my late representation to the government, to the effect that, in reference to possible observation of the transit of venus in , it will be necessary in no long time to examine the coasts of the great southern continent.'" of private history: "there were the usual visits to playford at the beginning and end of the year.--from june th to th i was on a trip in wales with my sons hubert and osmund.--from sept. th to oct. nd i was staying with most of my family at portinscale near keswick: we returned by barnard castle, rokeby, &c." chapter viii. at greenwich observatory-- to . in this year the cube of the transit circle was pierced, to permit reciprocal observations of the collimators without raising the instrument. this involved the construction of improved collimators, which formed the subject of a special address to the members of the board of visitors on oct. st .--from the report to the visitors it appears that "on may rd , a thunderstorm of great violence passed very close to the observatory. after one flash of lightning, i was convinced that the principal building was struck. several galvanometers in the magnetic basement were destroyed. lately it has been remarked that one of the old chimneys of the principal building had been dislocated and slightly twisted, at a place where it was surrounded by an iron stay-band led from the telegraph pole which was planted upon the leads of the octagon room."--"on consideration of the serious interruptions to which we have several times been exposed from the destruction of our open-air park-wires (through snow-storms and gales), i have made an arrangement for leading the whole of our wires in underground pipes as far as the greenwich railway station."--"the committee of the house of commons, to whom the greenwich and woolwich line of the south eastern railway was referred, finally assented to the adoption of a line which i indicated, passing between the buildings of the hospital schools and the public road to woolwich."--"the galvanic chronometer attached to the s. e. equatoreal often gave us a great deal of trouble. at last i determined, on the proposal of mr ellis, to attempt an extension of mr r. l. jones's regulating principle. it is well known that mr jones has with great success introduced the system of applying galvanic currents originating in the vibrations of a normal pendulum, not to drive the wheelwork of other clocks, but to regulate to exact agreement the rates of their pendulums which were, independently, nearly in agreement; each clock being driven by weight-power as before. the same principle is now applied to the chronometer.... the construction is perfectly successful; the chronometer remains in coincidence with the transit clock through any length of time, with a small constant error as is required by mechanical theory."--"the printed volume of observations for has two appendixes; one containing the calculations of the value of the moon's semi-diameter deduced from occultations observed at cambridge and greenwich from to , and shewing that the occultation semi-diameter is less than the telescopic semi-diameter by "; the other containing the reduction of the planetary observations made at the royal observatory in the years - ; filling up the gap, between the planetary reductions - made several years ago under my superintendence, and the reductions contained in the greenwich volumes to the present time: and conducted on the same general principles."--"some trouble had been found in regulating the temperature of the magnetic basement, but it was anticipated that in future there would be no difficulty in keeping down the annual variation within about ° and the diurnal variation within °.--longitudes in america were determined in this year by way of valencia and newfoundland: finished by nov. th." of private history: in april he made a short visit to ventnor in the isle of wight.--from june th to july rd he was on an expedition in norway with his son osmund and his nephew gorell barnes.--there was probably a short stay at playford in the winter. in this and in the previous year ( ) the free-thinking investigations of colenso, the bishop of natal, had attracted much notice, and had procured him the virulent hostility of a numerous section. his income was withheld from him, and in consequence a subscription fund was raised for his support by his admirers. airy, who always took the liberal side in such questions, was a subscriber to the fund, and wrote the following letter to the bishop: royal observatory, greenwich, s.e., _ , july _. my lord, with many thanks i have to acknowledge your kind recollection of me in sending as a presentation copy the work on joshua, judges, and especially on the divided authorship of genesis; a work whose investigations, founded in great measure on severe and extensive verbal criticism, will apparently bear comparison with your lordship's most remarkable examination of deuteronomy. i should however not do justice to my own appreciation if i did not remark that there are other points considered which have long been matters of interest to me. on several matters, some of them important, my present conclusions do not absolutely agree with your lordship's. but i am not the less grateful for the amount of erudition and thought carefully directed to definite points, and above all for the noble example of unwearied research and freedom in stating its consequences, in reference to subjects which scarcely ever occupy the attention of the clergy in our country. i am, my lord, yours very faithfully, g.b. airy. _the lord bishop of natal_. * * * * * here also is a letter on the same subject, written to professor selwyn, professor of divinity at cambridge:-- royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e., _ , may _. my dear sir, the ms. concerning colenso duly arrived. i note your remarks on the merits of colenso. i do not write to tell you that i differ from you, but to tell you why i differ. i think that you do not make the proper distinction between a person who invents or introduces a tool, and the person who uses it. the most resolute antigravitationist that ever lived might yet acknowledge his debt to newton for the method of prime and ultimate ratios and the principles of fluxions by which newton sought to establish gravitation. so let it be with colenso. he has given me a power of tracing out truth to a certain extent which i never could have obtained without him. and for this i am very grateful. as to the further employment of this power, you know that he and i use it to totally different purposes. but not the less do i say that i owe to him a new intellectual power. i quite agree with you, that the sudden disruption of the old traditional view seems to have unhinged his mind, and to have sent him too far on the other side. i would not give a pin for his judgment. nevertheless, i wish he would go over the three remaining books of the tetrateuch. i know something of myers, but i should not have thought him likely to produce anything sound on such things as the hebrew scriptures. i never saw his "thoughts." i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, g.b. airy. _professor selwyn_. * * * * * the following letter has reference to airy's proposal to introduce certain physico-mathematical subjects into the senate-house examination for b.a. honors at cambridge. on various occasions he sharply criticized the papers set for the senate-house examination and the smith's prize examination, and greatly lamented the growing importance of pure mathematics and the comparative exclusion of physical questions in those examinations. his proposal as finally submitted in the letter that follows was somewhat modified (as regards the mode of introducing the subjects) from his original draft, in deference to the opinions of whewell, adams, routh, and other friends to whom he had submitted it. his proposal was favourably received by the mathematical board, and recommendations were made in the direction, though not to the extent, that he desired, and he subsequently submitted a memorandum on those recommendations: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , may _. my dear sir, you will perceive, from perusal of the enclosed paper, that i have acted on the permission which you kindly gave me, to transmit to you my proposal for extension of the mathematical education of the university in the physical direction. it is an unavoidable consequence of the structure of the university that studies there will have a tendency to take an unpractical form depending much on the personal tastes of special examiners. i trust that, as a person whose long separation from the daily business of the university has enabled him to see in some measure the wants of the external scientific and practical world, i may be forgiven this attempt to bring to the notice of the university my ideas on the points towards which their attention might perhaps be advantageously turned. i am, my dear sir, very faithfully yours, g.b. airy. _the rev. dr cartmell, master of christ's college and vice-chancellor._ royal observatory, greenwich, _ , may _. my dear mr vice-chancellor, about two years ago, by the kindness of the university, an opportunity was presented to me of orally stating what i conceived to be deficiencies in the educational course of the university as regards mathematical physics. since that time, the consideration of those deficiencies, which had long been present to me, has urged itself on my attention with greater force: and finally i have entertained the idea that i might without impropriety communicate to you my opinion, in a less fugitive form than on the occasion to which i have alluded: with the request that, if you should deem such a course appropriate, you would bring it before the board of mathematical studies, and perhaps ultimately make it known to the resident members of the senate. i will first give the list of subjects, which i should wish to see introduced, and to the prosecution of which the generally admirable course of the university is remarkably well adapted: and i will then, without entering into every detail, advert to the process by which i think it probable the introduction of these subjects could be effected. in the following list, the first head is purely algebraical, and the second nearly so: but they are closely related to observational science, and to the physical subjects which follow. some of the subjects which i exhibit on my list are partially, but in my opinion imperfectly, taught at present. i entirely omit from my list physical optics, geometrical astronomy, and gravitational astronomy of points: because, to the extent to which academical education ought to go, i believe that there is no teaching on these sciences comparable to that in the university of cambridge. (it is, of course, still possible that improvements may be made in the books commonly used.) it might, however, be a question, whether, as regards the time and manner of teaching them, some parts of these subjects might ultimately be associated with the other subjects included in my list. i. _list of subjects proposed for consideration_. ( ) partial differential equations to the second order, with their arbitrary functions: selected principally with reference to the physical subjects. ( ) the theory of probabilities as applied to the combination of observations. ( ) mechanics (including hydraulic powers) in the state which verges upon practical application, and especially including that part in which the abstract ideas of _power_ and _duty_ occur. ( ) attractions. this subject is recognized in the existing course of the university: but, so far as i can infer from examination-papers, it appears to be very lightly passed over. ( ) the figure of the earth, and its consequences, precession, &c. i believe that the proposal is sanctioned, of adopting some part of this theory in the ordinary course; but perhaps hardly so far as is desirable. ( ) the tides. ( ) waves of water. ( ) sound (beginning with newton's investigation); echoes; pipes and vibrating strings; acoustics; the mathematical part of music. ( ) magnetism, terrestrial and experimental, and their connection. (i omit for the present mineralogy and mathematical electricity.) this list of subjects appears formidable: but they are in reality easy, and would be mastered in a short time by the higher wranglers. ii. _mode of introducing these subjects into the university_. after much consideration, and after learning the opinions of several persons whose judgment claims my deepest respect, i propose the gradual introduction of these subjects into the examination for honors at admission to the b.a. degree, as soon as the preparation of books and the readiness of examiners shall enable the university to take that step. i conceive that, by a judicious pruning of the somewhat luxuriant growth of pure algebra, analytical geometry, and mere problems, sufficient leisure may be gained for the studies of the undergraduates, and sufficient time for the questions of the examiners. i do not contemplate that the students could advance very far into the subjects; but i know the importance of beginning them; and, judging from the train of thoughts, of reading, and of conversation, among the bachelors with whom i associated many years ago, i believe that there is quite a sufficient number who will be anxious to go deep into the subjects if they have once entered into them. if six wranglers annually would take them up, my point would be gained. the part which these gentlemen might be expected, in a short time, to take in the government of the university, would enable them soon to act steadily upon the university course: the efficiency of the university instruction would be increased; and the external character of the university would be raised. the real difficulties, and they are not light ones, would probably be found in providing examiners and books. at present, both are wanting within the university. where there is a great and well-founded objection to intrusting examinations to persons foreign to the university, and where the books have to be created with labour and with absolute outlay of money (for their sale could never be remunerative), the progress must be slow. still progress would be certain, if the authorities of the university should think the matter deserving of their hearty encouragement. requesting that you and the members of the university will accept this proposal as an indication of my deep attachment to my university, i am, my dear mr vice-chancellor, your very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _the rev. dr cartmell, &c. &c. vice-chancellor of the university of cambridge_. "in this year it was arranged that my treasury accounts were to be transferred to the admiralty, making the simplification which i had so long desired.--from the report to the visitors it appears that a relic of the geodetic operations commenced in for connecting the observatories of greenwich and paris, in the shape of an observing cabin on the roof of the octagon room, was shifted and supported in such a manner that the pressure on the flat roof was entirely avoided.--with regard to the transit circle, the new collimators with telescopes of seven inches aperture had been mounted. when the transit telescope directed vertically is interposed, the interruptions in the central cube impair the sharpness of definition, still leaving it abundantly good for general use. it had been regarded as probable that the astronomical flexure of the telescope, after cutting away small portions of the central cube, would be found sensibly changed: and this proved to be the case. the difference of flexures of the two ends has been altered more than a second of arc.--referring to a new portable altazimuth which had lately been tested, the report states as follows: 'i may mention that a study of defects in the vertical circle of a small altazimuth formerly used by me, and an inspection of the operations in the instrument-maker's work-shop, have convinced me that the principal error to be feared in instruments of this class is ovality of the graduated limb; this cannot be eliminated by two microscopes, and such an instrument should never be fitted with two only. our instrument has four.'--'in osler's anemometer, a surface of square feet is now exposed to the wind instead of one foot as formerly; and the plate is supported by weak vertical springs instead of rods running on rollers. its indications are much more delicate than formerly.'--'the meteors on nov. th were well observed. eight thousand and three hundred were registered. the variations of frequency at different times were very well noted. the points of divergence were carefully determined.'--referring to the gradual improvement in the steadiness of chronometers from to , it appears that from to the 'trial number' (which is a combination of changes of weekly rate representing the fault of the chronometer) varied from . s to . s, while from to it varied from . s to . s.--the following statement will shew the usual steadiness of the great clock on the westminster palace: on per cent. of days of observation, the clock's error was below s. on per cent, the error was between s and s. on per cent. it was between s and s. on per cent. between s and s. on per cent. between s and s.--the report contains an account of the determination of the longitude of cambridge u.s. by dr b. a. gould, by means of galvanic currents through the atlantic cable, in the spring of : and advantage was taken of this opportunity for re-determining the longitude of feagh main near valencia in ireland. the longitude of feagh main, found by different methods is as follows: by chronometers in , m . s; by galvanic communication with knight's town in , m . s; by galvanic communication with foilhommerum in , m . s. the collected results for longitude of cambridge u.s. from different sources are: by moon-culminators (walker in , and newcomb in - ), h m . s and h m . s respectively; by eclipses (walker in ), h m . s; by occultations of pleiades (peirce - , and - ), h m . s and h m . s respectively; by chronometers (w. c. bond in , and g. p. bond in ), h m . s and h m . s respectively; by atlantic cable , h m . s.--after noticing that many meteorological observatories had suddenly sprung up and had commenced printing their observations in detail, the report continues thus: 'whether the effect of this movement will be that millions of useless observations will be added to the millions that already exist, or whether something may be expected to result which will lead to a meteorological theory, i cannot hazard a conjecture. this only i believe, that it will be useless, at present, to attempt a process of mechanical theory; and that all that can be done must be, to connect phenomena by laws of induction. but the induction must be carried out by numerous and troublesome trials in different directions, the greater part of which would probably be failures.'--there was this year an annular eclipse; i made large preparations at the limits of the annularity; failed entirely from very bad weather."--in this year airy contributed a paper to the institution of civil engineers 'on the use of the suspension bridge with stiffened roadway for railway and other bridges of great span,' for which a telford medal was awarded to him by the council of the institution. and he communicated several papers to the royal society and the royal astronomical society. of private history: there was the usual visit to playford in january.--in april there was a short run to alnwick and the neighbourhood, in company with mr and mrs routh.--from june th to july th he was in wales with his two eldest sons, visiting uriconium, &c. on his return.--from august th to sept. th he spent a holiday in scotland and the lake district of cumberland with his daughter christabel, visiting the langtons at barrow house, near keswick, and isaac fletcher at tarn bank. in june of this year ( ) airy was elected an honorary fellow of his old college of trinity in company with connop thirlwall, the bishop of st david's. they were the first honorary fellows elected by the college. the announcement was made in a letter from the master of trinity (w.h. thompson), and airy's reply was as follows: royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , june th_. my dear master, i am very much gratified by your kind note received this morning, conveying to me the notice that the master and sixteen senior fellows had elected me, under their new powers, as honorary fellow of the college. it has always been my wish to maintain a friendly connection with my college, and i am delighted to receive this response from the college. the peculiar form in which the reference to the statute enables them to put it renders it doubly pleasing. as the statute is new, i should be obliged by a copy of it. and, at any convenient time, i should be glad to know the name of the person with whom i am so honorably associated. i am, my dear master, very faithfully yours, g.b. airy. * * * * * consequent on airy's proposals in for the introduction of new physical subjects into the senate-house examination and his desire that the large number of questions set in pure mathematics, or as he termed it "useless algebra," should be curtailed, there was a smart and interesting correspondence between him and prof. cayley, who was the great exponent and advocate of pure mathematics at cambridge. both of them were men of the highest mathematical powers, but diametrically opposed in their views of the use of mathematics. airy regarded mathematics as simply a useful machine for the solution of practical problems and arriving at practical results. he had a great respect for pure mathematics and all the processes of algebra, so far as they aided him to solve his problems and to arrive at useful results; but he had a positive aversion to mathematical investigations, however skilful and elaborate, for which no immediate practical value could be claimed. cayley on the contrary regarded mathematics as a useful exercise for the mind, apart from any immediate practical object, and he considered that the general command of mathematics gained by handling abstruse mathematical investigations (though barren in themselves) would be valuable for whatever purpose mathematics might be required: he also thought it likely that his researches and advances in the field of pure mathematics might facilitate the solution of physical problems and tend to the progress of the practical sciences. their different views on this subject will be seen from the letters that follow: royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , nov. _. my dear sir, i think it best to put in writing the purport of what i have said, or have intended to say, in reference to the mathematical studies in the university. first, i will remark on the study of partial differential equations. i do not know that one branch of pure mathematics can be considered higher than another, except in the utility of the power which it gives. measured thus, the partial differential equations are very useful and therefore stand very high, as far as the second order. they apply, to that point, in the most important way, to the great problems of nature concerning _time_, and _infinite division of matter_, and _space_: and are worthy of the most careful study. beyond that order they apply to nothing. it was for the purpose of limiting the study to the second order, and at the same time working it carefully, philosophically, and practically, up to that point, that i drew up my little work. on the general question of mathematical studies, i will first give my leading ideas on what i may call the moral part. i think that a heavy responsibility rests on the persons who influence most strongly the course of education in the university, to direct that course in the way in which it will be most useful to the students--in the two ways, of disciplining their powers and habits, and of giving them scientific knowledge of the highest and most accurate order (applying to the phenomena of nature) such as will be useful to them through life. i do not think that the mere personal taste of a teacher is sufficient justification for a special course, unless it has been adopted under a consideration of that responsibility. now i can say for myself that i have, for some years, inspected the examination papers, and have considered the bearing of the course which they imply upon the education of the student, and am firmly convinced that as regards men below the very few first--say below the ten first--there is a prodigious loss of time without any permanent good whatever. for the great majority of men, such subjects as abstract analytical geometry perish at once. with men like adams and stokes they remain, and are advantageous; but probably there is not a single man (beside them) of their respective years who remembers a bit, or who if he remembers them has the leisure and other opportunities of applying them. i believe on the other hand that a careful selection of physical subjects would enable the university to communicate to its students a vast amount of information; of accurate kind and requiring the most logical treatment; but so bearing upon the natural phenomena which are constantly before us that it would be felt by every student to possess a real value, that (from that circumstance) it would dwell in his mind, and that it would enable him to correct a great amount of flimsy education in the country, and, so far, to raise the national character. the consideration of the education of the reasoning habits suggests ideas far from favourable to the existing course. i am old enough to remember the time of mere geometrical processes, and i do not hesitate to say that for the cultivation of accurate mental discipline they were far superior to the operations in vogue at the present day. there is no subject in the world more favourable to logical habit than the differential calculus in all its branches _if logically worked in its elements_: and i think that its applications to various physical subjects, compelling from time to time an attention to the elementary grounds of the calculus, would be far more advantageous to that logical habit than the simple applications to pure equations and pure algebraical geometry now occupying so much attention. i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, g.b. airy. _professor cayley_. * * * * * dear sir, i have been intending to answer your letter of the th november. so far as it is (if at all) personal to myself, i would remark that the statutory duty of the sadlerian professor is that he shall explain and teach the principles of pure mathematics and apply himself to the advancement of the science. as to partial differential equations, they are "high" as being an inverse problem, and perhaps the most difficult inverse problem that has been dealt with. in regard to the limitation of them to the second order, whatever other reasons exist for it, there is also the reason that the theory to this order is as yet so incomplete that there is no inducement to go beyond it; there could hardly be a more valuable step than anything which would give a notion of the form of the general integral of a partial differential equation of the second order. i cannot but differ from you _in toto_ as to the educational value of analytical geometry, or i would rather say of modern geometry generally. it appears to me that in the physical sciences depending on partial differential equations, there is scarcely anything that a student can do for himself:--he finds the integral of the ordinary equation for sound--if he wishes to go a step further and integrate the non-linear equation (dy/dx)²(d²y/dt²) = a²(d²y/dx²) he is simply unable to do so; and so in other cases there is nothing that he can add to what he finds in his books. whereas geometry (of course to an intelligent student) is a real inductive and deductive science of inexhaustible extent, in which he can experiment for himself--the very tracing of a curve from its equation (and still more the consideration of the cases belonging to different values of the parameters) is the construction of a theory to bind together the facts--and the selection of a curve or surface proper for the verification of any general theorem is the selection of an experiment in proof or disproof of a theory. i do not quite understand your reference to stokes and adams, as types of the men who alone retain their abstract analytical geometry. if a man when he takes his degree drops mathematics, he drops geometry--but if not i think for the above reasons that he is more likely to go on with it than with almost any other subject--and any mathematical journal will shew that a very great amount of attention is in fact given to geometry. and the subject is in a very high degree a progressive one; quite as much as to physics, one may apply to it the lines, yet i doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, and the thoughts of men are widened with the progress of the suns. i remain, dear sir, yours very sincerely, a. cayley. cambridge, _ dec., _. * * * * * royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , december _. my dear sir, i have received with much pleasure your letter of december . in this university discussion, i have acted only in public, and have not made private communication to any person whatever till required to do so by private letter addressed to me. your few words in queens' hall seemed to expect a little reply. now as to the modern geometry. with your praises of this science--as to the room for extension in induction and deduction, &c.; and with your facts--as to the amount of space which it occupies in mathematical journals; i entirely agree. and if men, after leaving cambridge, were designed to shut themselves up in a cavern, they could have nothing better for their subjective amusement. they might have other things as good; enormous complication and probably beautiful investigation might be found in varying the game of billiards with novel islands on a newly shaped billiard table. but the persons who devote themselves to these subjects do thereby separate themselves from the world. they make no step towards natural science or utilitarian science, the two subjects which the world specially desires. the world could go on as well without these separatists. now if these persons lived only for themselves, no other person would have any title to question or remark on their devotion to this barren subject. but a cambridge examiner is not in that position. the university is a national body, for education of young men: and the power of a cambridge examiner is omnipotent in directing the education of the young men; and his responsibility to the cause of education is very distinct and very strong. and the question for him to consider is--in the sense in which mathematical education is desired by the best authorities in the nation, is the course taken by this national institution satisfactory to the nation? i express my belief that it is _not_ satisfactory. i believe that many of the best men of the nation consider that a great deal of time is lost on subjects which they esteem as puerile, and that much of that time might be employed on noble and useful science. you may remember that the commissions which have visited cambridge originated in a memorial addressed to the government by men of respected scientific character: sabine was one, and i may take him as the representative. he is a man of extensive knowledge of the application of mathematics as it has been employed for many years in the science of the world; but he has no profundity of science. he, as i believe, desired to find persons who could enter accurately into mathematical science, and naturally looked to the great mathematical university; but he must have been much disappointed. so much time is swallowed up by the forced study of the pure mathematics that it is not easy to find anybody who can really enter on these subjects in which men of science want assistance. and so sabine thought that the government ought to interfere, probably without any clear idea of what they could do. i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, g.b. airy. _professor cayley_. * * * * * dear sir, i have to thank you for your last letter. i do not think everything should be subordinated to the educational element: my idea of a university is that of a place for the cultivation of all science. therefore among other sciences pure mathematics; including whatever is interesting as part of this science. i am bound therefore to admit that your proposed extension of the problem of billiards, _if it_ were found susceptible of interesting mathematical developments, would be a fit subject of study. but in this case i do not think the problem could fairly be objected to as puerile--a more legitimate objection would i conceive be its extreme speciality. but this is not an objection that can be brought against modern geometry as a whole: in regard to any particular parts of it which may appear open to such an objection, the question is whether they are or are not, for their own sakes, or their bearing upon other parts of the science to which they belong, worthy of being entered upon and pursued. but admitting (as i do not) that pure mathematics are only to be studied with a view to natural and physical science, the question still arises how are they best to be studied in that view. i assume and admit that as to a large part of modern geometry and of the theory of numbers, there is no present probability that these will find any physical applications. but among the remaining parts of pure mathematics we have the theory of elliptic functions and of the jacobian and abelian functions, and the theory of differential equations, including of course partial differential equations. now taking for instance the problem of three bodies--unless this is to be gone on with by the mere improvement in detail of the present approximate methods--it is at least conceivable that the future treatment of it will be in the direction of the problem of two fixed centres, by means of elliptic functions, &c.; and that the discovery will be made not by searching for it directly with the mathematical resources now at our command, but by "prospecting" for it in the field of these functions. even improvements in the existing methods are more likely to arise from a study of differential equations in general than from a special one of the equations of the particular problem: the materials for such improvements which exist in the writings of hamilton, jacobi, bertrand, and bour, have certainly so arisen. and the like remarks would apply to the physical problems which depend on partial differential equations. i think that the course of mathematical study at the university is likely to be a better one if regulated with a view to the cultivation of science, as if for its own sake, rather than directly upon considerations of what is educationally best (i mean that the best educational course will be so obtained), and that we have thus a justification for a thorough study of pure mathematics. in my own limited experience of examinations, the fault which i find with the men is a want of analytical power, and that whatever else may have been in defect pure mathematics has certainly not been in excess. i remain, dear sir, yours sincerely, a. cayley. cambridge, _ th dec., _. * * * * * _ , december _. my dear sir, since receiving your letter of th i positively have not had time to express the single remark which i proposed to make on it. you state your idea that the educational element ought not to be the predominating element in the university. "i do not think that every thing should be subordinated to the educational element." i cannot conceal my surprise at this sentiment. assuredly the founders of the colleges intended them for education (so far as they apply to persons in statu pupillari), the statutes of the university and the colleges are framed for education, and fathers send their sons to the university for education. if i had not had your words before me, i should have said that it is impossible to doubt this. it is much to be desired that professors and others who exercise no control by force should take every method, not only of promoting science in themselves, but also of placing the promoted science before students: and it is much to be desired that students who have passed the compulsory curriculum should be encouraged to proceed into the novelties which will be most agreeable to them. but this is a totally different thing from using the compulsory force of examination to drive students in paths traced only by the taste of the examiner. for them, i conceive the obligation to the nation and the duty to follow the national sense on education (as far as it can be gathered from its best representatives) to be undoubted; and to be, in the intensity of the obligation and duty, most serious. i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, g.b. airy. _professor cayley_. * * * * * "in the south-east dome, the alteration proposed last year for rendering the building fire-proof had been completely carried out. the middle room, which was to be appropriated to chronometers, was being fitted up accordingly.--from the report it appears that 'our subterranean telegraph wires were all broken by one blow, from an accident in the metropolitan drainage works on groom's hill, but were speedily repaired.'--in my office as chairman of successive commissions on standards, i had collected a number of standards, some of great historical value (as ramsden's and roy's standards of length, kater's scale-beam for weighing great weights, and others), &c. these have been transferred to the newly-created standards department of the board of trade."--in the report is given a detailed account of the system of preserving and arranging the manuscripts and correspondence of the observatory, which was always regarded by airy as a matter of the first importance.--from a careful discussion of the results of observation mr stone had concluded that the refractions ought to be diminished. 'relying on this, we have now computed our mean refractions by diminishing those of bessel's fundamenta in the proportion of to . .'--the magnetometer-indications for the period - had been reduced and discussed, with remarkable results. it is inferred that magnetic disturbances, both solar and lunar, are produced mediately by the earth, and that the earth in periods of several years undergoes changes which fit it and unfit it for exercising a powerful mediate action.--the earth-current records had been reduced, and the magnetic effect which the currents would produce had been computed. the result was, that the agreement between the magnetic effects so computed and the magnetic disturbances really recorded by the magnetometers was such as to leave no doubt on the general validity of the explanation of the great storm-disturbances of the magnets as consequences of the galvanic currents through the earth.--referring to the difficulty experienced in making the meteorological observations practically available the report states thus: 'the want of meteorology, at the present time, is principally in suggestive theory.'--in this year airy communicated to the royal astronomical society a paper 'on the preparatory arrangements for the observation of the transits of venus and ': this subject was now well in hand.--the first report of the commissioners (of whom he was chairman) appointed to enquire into the condition of the exchequer standards was printed: this business took up much time.--he was in this year much engaged on the coinage commission. of private history: there was the usual winter visit to playford, and a short visit to cambridge in june.--from about aug. st to sept. rd he was travelling in switzerland with his youngest son and his two youngest daughters. in the course of this journey they visited zermatt. there had been much rain, the rivers were greatly flooded, and much mischief was done to the roads. during the journey from visp to zermatt, near st nicholas, in a steep part of the gorge, a large stone rolled from the cliffs and knocked their baggage horse over the lower precipice, a fall of several hundred feet. the packages were all burst, and many things were lost, but a good deal was recovered by men suspended by ropes. in this year also airy was busy with the subject of university examination, which in previous years had occupied so much of his attention, as will be seen from the following letters: royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , march _. my dear master, i have had the pleasure of corresponding with you on matters of university examination so frequently that i at once turn to you as the proper person to whom i may address any remarks on that important subject. circumstances have enabled me lately to obtain private information of a most accurate kind on the late mathematical tripos: and among other things, i have received a statement of every individual question answered or partly answered by five honour-men. i have collected the numbers of these in a small table which i enclose. i am struck with the _almost_ nugatory character of the five days' honour examination as applied to senior optimes, and i do not doubt that it is _totally_ nugatory as applied to junior optimes. it appears to me that, for all that depends on these days, the rank of the optimes is mere matter of chance. in the examinations of the civil service, the whole number of marks is published, and also the number of marks gained by each candidate. i have none of their papers at hand, but my impression is that the lowest candidates make about in ; and the fair candidates about in , instead of in or in as our good senior optimes. i am, my dear master, very truly yours, g.b. airy. _the rev. dr cookson, master of st peters college, &c. &c._ the table referred to in the above letter is as follows: number of questions, and numbers of answers to questions as given by several wranglers and senior optimes, in the examination of mathematical tripos for honours, , january , , , , . number of questions and riders in the printed papers. questions. riders. aggregate. in the papers of the days number of questions and riders answered. questions. riders. aggregate. by a wrangler, between the st and th - / - / in . by a wrangler, between the th and nd - / - / in . by a wrangler, between the nd and nd - / - / in . by a sen. opt. between the st and th - / - / in . by a sen. opt. between the th and th - / - / in . g.b. airy. _ , march _. * * * * * st peter's college lodge, cambridge, _march th, _. my dear sir, i am much obliged by your letter and enclosed paper. anything done in the last five days by a junior optime only shews (generally) that he has been employing some of his time _mischievously_, for he must have been working at subjects which he is quite unable to master or cramming them by heart on the chance of meeting with a stray question which he may answer. the chief part of the senior optimes are in something of the same situation. i think that the proposed addition of a day to the first part of the examination, in which "easy questions in physical subjects" may be set, is, on this account, a great improvement. our new scheme comes on for discussion on friday next, march , at p.m. in the arts school. it is much opposed by private tutors, examiners and others, and may possibly be thrown out in the senate this year, though i hope that with a little patience it may be carried, in an unmutilated form, eventually. the enclosed report on the smith's prize examination will be discussed at the same time. i will consider what is best to be done on the subject to which your note refers, without delay. with many thanks, i am, very faithfully yours, h.w. cookson, _the astronomer royal._ * * * * * in this year certain members of the senate of the university of cambridge petitioned parliament against the abolition of religious declarations required of persons admitted to fellowships or proceeding to the degree of m.a. the document was sent to airy for his signature, and his reply was as follows: royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , march _. my dear sir, though i sympathize to a great extent with the prayer of the petition to parliament which you sent to me yesterday, and assent to most of the reasons, i do not attach my signature to it, for the following considerations: . i understand, from the introductory clause, and from the unqualified character of the phrase "any such measures" in the second clause, that the petition objects to granting the m.a. degree without religious declaration. i do not see any adequate necessity for this objection, and i cannot join in it. . it appears to me that the colleges were intended for two collateral objects:--instruction by part of the fellows, on a religious basis; and support of certain fellows for scientific purposes, without the same ostentatious connection with religion. i like this spirit well, and should be glad to maintain it. . i therefore think (as i have publicly stated before) that the master of the college ought to be in holy orders; and so ought those of the fellows who may be expected to be usually resident and to take continuous part in the instruction. but there are many who, upon taking a fellowship, at once lay aside all thoughts of this: and i think that such persons ought not to be trammelled with declarations. . my modification of existing regulations, if it once got into shape, would i dare say be but a small fraction of that proposed by the "measures in contemplation." still i do not like to join in unqualified resistance to interference in the affairs of the established colleges, with that generality of opposition to interference which the petition seems to intimate. i agree with articles , , and ; and i am pleased with the graceful allusion in article to the assistance which has been rendered by the colleges, and by none perhaps so honourably as trinity, to the parishes connected with it. and i could much wish that the spirit of and could be carried out, with some concession to my ideas in _my_ paragraph , above. i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, g.b. airy. _rev. dr lightfoot._ * * * * * from the report to the board of visitors it appears that application had been made for an extension of the grounds of the observatory to a distance of feet south of the magnetic ground, and that a warrant for the annexation of this space was signed on , dec. . the new depôt for the printed productions of the observatory had been transferred to its position in the new ground, and the foundations for the great shed were completed.--"the courses of our wires for the registration of spontaneous terrestrial galvanic currents have been entirely changed. the lines to croydon and deptford are abandoned; and for these are substituted, a line from angerstein wharf to lady well station, and a line from north kent junction to morden college tunnel. at each of these points the communication with earth is made by a copper plate feet square. the straight line connecting the extreme points of the first station intersects that connecting the two points of the second station, nearly at right angles, and at little distance from the observatory.--the question of dependence of the measurable amount of sidereal aberration upon the thickness of glass or other transparent material in the telescope (a question which involves, theoretically, one of the most delicate points in the undulatory theory of light) has lately been agitated on the continent with much earnestness. i have calculated the curvatures of the lenses of crown and flint glass (the flint being exterior) for correcting spherical and chromatic aberration in a telescope whose tube is filled with water, and have instructed mr simms to proceed with the preparation of an instrument carrying such a telescope. i have not finally decided whether to rely on zenith-distances of gamma draconis or on right-ascensions of polaris. in any form the experiment will probably be troublesome.--the transit of mercury on , nov. th, was observed by six observers. the atmospheric conditions were favourable; and the singular appearances usually presented in a planetary transit were well seen.--mr stone has attached to the south-east equatoreal a thermo-multiplier, with the view of examining whether heat radiating from the principal stars can be made sensible in our instruments. the results hitherto obtained are encouraging, but they shew clearly that it is vain to attempt this enquiry except in the most superb weather; and there has not been a night deserving that epithet for some months past.--the preparations for observing the transits of venus were now begun in earnest. i had come to the conclusion, that after every reliance was placed on foreign and colonial observatories, it would be necessary for the british government to undertake the equipment of five or six temporary stations. on feb. th i sent a pamphlet on the subject to mr childers (first lord of admiralty), and in april i wrote to the secretary, asking authority for the purchase of instruments. on june nd authority is given to me for the instruments: the treasury assent to _£ , _. on august th i had purchased equatoreals.--i have given a short course of lectures in the university of cambridge on the subject of magnetism, with the view of introducing that important physical science into the studies of the university. the want of books available to students, and the novelty of the subject, made the preparation more laborious than the duration of the lectures would seem to imply."--in this year there was much work on the standards commission, chiefly regarding the suggested abolition of troy weight, and several papers on the subject were prepared by airy.--he also wrote a long and careful description of the great equatoreal at greenwich. of private history: there was the usual visit to playford in the winter. mrs airy was now becoming feebler, and did not now leave greenwich: since april of this year her letters were written in pencil, and with difficulty, but she still made great efforts to keep up the accustomed correspondence.--in april airy went to cambridge to deliver his lectures on magnetism to the undergraduates: the following passage occurs in one of his letters at this time: "i have a mighty attendance (there were names on my board yesterday), and, though the room is large with plenty of benches, i have been obliged to bring in some chairs. the men are exceedingly attentive, and when i look up i am quite struck to see the number of faces staring into mine. i go at , and find men at the room copying from my big papers: i lecture from to , and stop till after , and through the last hour some men are talking to me and others are copying from the papers; and i usually leave some men still at work. the men applaud and shew their respect very gracefully. there are present some two or three persons who attended my former lectures, and they say that i lecture exactly as i did formerly. one of my attendants is a man that they say cannot, from years and infirmity and habit, be induced to go anywhere else: dr archdall, the master of emmanuel. i find that some of my old lecturing habits come again on me. i drink a great deal of cold water, and am very glad to go to bed early."--from june th- th he was travelling in scotland, and staying at barrow house near keswick (the residence of mr langton), with his son hubert.--subsequently, from aug. th to st, he was again in the lake district, with his daughter christabel, and was joined there by his son hubert on the th. the first part of the time was spent at tarn bank, near carlisle, the residence of mr isaac fletcher, m.p. from thence he made several expeditions, especially to barrow in furness and seascale, where he witnessed with great interest the bessemer process of making steel. from barrow house he made continual excursions among the cumberland mountains, which he knew so well. "in this year mr stone, the first assistant, was appointed to the cape of good hope observatory, and resigned his post of first assistant. mr christie was appointed in his place.--from the report to the visitors it appears that 'a few months since we were annoyed by a failure in the illumination of the field of view of the transit circle. the reflector was cleaned, but in vain; at last it was discovered that one of the lenses (the convex lens) of the combination which forms the object-glass of a reversed telescope in the interior of the transit-axis, and through which all illuminating light must pass, had become so corroded as to be almost opaque.'--the south-east equatoreal has been partly occupied with the thermo-multiplier employed by mr stone for the measure of heat radiating from the principal stars. mr stone's results for the radiation from arcturus and alpha lyrae appear to be incontrovertible, and to give bases for distinct numerical estimation of the radiant heat of these stars.--in my last report i alluded to a proposed systematic reduction of the meteorological observations during the whole time of their efficient self-registration. having received from the admiralty the funds necessary for immediate operations, i have commenced with the photographic registers of the thermometers, dry-bulb and wet-bulb, from to .--our chronometer-room contains at present chronometers, including chronometers which have been placed here by chronometer-makers as competing for the honorary reputation and the pecuniary advantages to be derived from success in the half-year's trial to which they are subjected. i take this opportunity of stating that i have uniformly advocated the policy of offering good prices for the chronometers of great excellence, and that i have given much attention to the decision on their merits; and i am convinced that this system has greatly contributed to the remarkably steady improvement in the performance of chronometers. in the trial which terminated in august , the best chronometers (taking as usual the average of the first six) were superior in merit to those of any preceding year.--with the funds placed at my disposal for the transit of venus i purchased three -inch equatoreals, and have ordered two: i have also ordered altazimuths (with accurate vertical circles only), and clocks sufficient, as i expect, to equip five stations. for methods of observation, i rely generally on the simple eye-observation, possibly relieved of some of its uncertainty by the use of my colour-correcting eyepiece. but active discussion has taken place on the feasibility of using photographic and spectroscopic methods; and it will not be easy for some time to announce that the plan of observations is settled.--there can be no doubt, i imagine, that the first and necessary duty of the royal observatory is to maintain its place well as an observing establishment; and that this must be secured, at whatever sacrifice, if necessary, of other pursuits. still the question has not unfrequently presented itself to me, whether the duties to which i allude have not, by force of circumstances, become too exclusive; and whether the cause of science might not gain if, as in the imperial observatory of paris for instance, the higher branches of mathematical physics should not take their place by the side of observatory routine. i have often felt the desire practically to refresh my acquaintance with what were once favourite subjects: lunar theory and physical optics. but i do not at present clearly see how i can enter upon them with that degree of freedom of thought which is necessary for success in abstruse investigations." of private history: there was a longer visit than usual to playford, lasting till jan. th.--in april he made a short excursion (of less than a week) with his son hubert to monmouth, &c.--from june th to july nd he was staying at barrow house, near keswick, with his son hubert: during this time he was much troubled with a painful skin-irritation of his leg and back, which lasted in some degree for a long time afterwards.--from sept. th to oct. th he made an excursion with his daughter christabel to scarborough, whitby, &c., and again spent a few days at barrow house. "in april the assistants had applied for an increase of salary, a request which i had urged strongly upon the admiralty. on jan. of this year the admiralty answered that, on account of mr childers's illness, the consideration must be deferred to next year! the assistants wrote bitterly to me: and with my sanction they wrote to the first lord. on jan. st i requested an interview with mr baxter (secretary of the admiralty), and saw him on feb. rd, when i obtained his consent to an addition of _£ _. there was still a difficulty with the treasury, but on june th the liberal scale was allowed.--experiments made by mr stone shew clearly that a local elevation, like that of the royal observatory on the hill of greenwich park, has no tendency to diminish the effect of railway tremors.--the correction for level error in the transit circle having become inconveniently large, a sheet of very thin paper, / inch in thickness, was placed under the eastern y, which was raised from its bed for the purpose. the mean annual value of the level-error appears to be now sensibly zero.--as the siege and war operations in paris seriously interfered with the observations of small planets made at the paris observatory, observations of them were continued at greenwich throughout each entire lunation during the investment of the city.--the new water-telescope has been got into working order, and performs most satisfactorily. observations of gamma draconis have been made with it, when the star passed between h and h, with some observations for adjustment at a still more advanced time. as the astronomical latitude of the place of observation is not known, the bearing of these observations on the question of aberration cannot be certainly pronounced until the autumn observations shall have been made; but supposing the geodetic latitude to be accordant with the astronomical latitude, the result for aberration appears to be sensibly the same as with ordinary telescopes.--several years since, i prepared a barometer, by which the barometric fluctuations were enlarged, for the information of the public; its indications are exhibited on the wall, near to the entrance gate of the observatory. a card is now also exhibited, in a glass case near the public barometer, giving the highest and lowest readings of the thermometer in the preceding twenty-four hours.--those who have given attention to the history of terrestrial magnetism are aware that halley's magnetic chart is very frequently cited; but i could not learn that any person, at least in modern times, had seen it. at last i discovered a copy in the library of the british museum, and have been allowed to take copies by photolithography. these are appended to the magnetical and meteorological volume for .--the trials and certificates of hand-telescopes for the use of the royal navy have lately been so frequent that they almost become a regular part of the work of the observatory. i may state here that by availing myself of a theory of eyepieces which i published long since in the cambridge transactions, i have been able to effect a considerable improvement in the telescopes furnished to the admiralty.--the occurrence of the total eclipse of the sun in december last has brought much labour upon the observatory. as regards the assistants and computers, the actual observation on a complicated plan with the great equatoreal (a plan for which few equatoreals are sufficiently steady, but which when properly carried out gives a most complete solution of the geometrical problem) has required, in observation and in computation, a large expenditure of time.--my preparations for the transit of venus have respect only to eye-observation of contact of limbs. with all the liabilities and defects to which it is subject, this method possesses the inestimable advantage of placing no reliance on instrumental scales. i hope that the error of observation may not exceed four seconds of time, corresponding to about . " of arc. i shall be very glad to see, in a detailed form, a plan for making the proper measures by heliometric or photographic apparatus; and should take great interest in combining these with the eye-observations, if my selected stations can be made available. but my present impression is one of doubt on the certainty of equality of parts in the scale employed. an error depending on this cause could not be diminished by any repetition of observations."--after referring to the desirability of vigorously prosecuting the meteorological reductions (already begun) and of discussing the magnetic observations, the report concludes thus: "there is another consideration which very often presents itself to my mind; the waste of labour in the repetition of observations at different observatories..... i think that this consideration ought not to be put out of sight in planning the courses of different observatories."--in this year de launay's lunar theory was published. this valuable work was of great service to airy in the preparation of the numerical lunar theory, which he subsequently undertook.--in the latter part of this year airy was elected president of the royal society, and held the office during and . at this time he was much pressed with work, and could ill afford to take up additional duties, as the following quotation from a letter to one of his friends shews: "the election to the presidency of r.s. is flattering, and has brought to me the friendly remembrances of many persons; but in its material and laborious connections, i could well have dispensed with it, and should have done so but for the respectful way in which it was pressed on me." of private history: there was the usual winter visit to playford.--in april he made a short trip to cornwall with his daughter annot.--in june he was appointed a companion of the bath, and was presented at court on his appointment.--mrs airy was staying with her daughter, mrs routh, at hunstanton, during june, her state of health being somewhat improved.--from august st to th he was chiefly in cumberland, at barrow house, and at grange, borrowdale, where his son osmund was staying for a holiday. "from the report to the board of visitors it appears that 'the normal siderial clock for giving sidereal time by galvanic communication to the astronomical observatory was established in the magnetic basement in , june; that locality being adapted for it on account of the uniformity of temperature, the daily changed of temperature rarely exceeding ° fahrenheit. its escapement is one which i suggested many years ago in the cambridge transactions; a detached escapement, very closely analogous to the ordinary chronometer escapement, the pendulum receiving an impulse only at alternate vibrations.... the steadiness of rate is very far superior to any that we have previously attained.'--the aspect of railway enterprise is at present favourable to the park and to the observatory. the south-eastern railway company has made an arrangement with the metropolitan board of works for shifting the course of the great southern outfall sewer. this enables the company to trace a new line for the railway, passing on the north side of london street, at such a distance from the observatory as to remove all cause of alarm. i understand that the bill, which was unopposed, has passed the committee of the house of commons. i trust that the contest, which has lasted thirty-seven years, is now terminated.--the observations of draconis with the water-telescope, made in the autumn of , and the spring of , are reduced, the latter only in their first steps.... using the values of the level scales as determined by mr simms (which i have no reason to believe to be inaccurate) the spring and autumn observations of absolutely negative the idea of any effect being produced on the constant of aberration by the amount of refracting medium traversed by the light.--the great aurora of feb. was well observed. on this occasion the term borealis would have been a misnomer, for the phenomenon began in the south and was most conspicuous in the south. three times in the evening it exhibited that umbrella-like appearance which has been called (perhaps inaccurately) a corona. i have very carefully compared its momentary phenomena with the corresponding movements of the magnetometers. in some of the most critical times, the comparison fails on account of the violent movements and consequent faint traces of the magnetometers. i have not been able to connect the phases of aurora and those of magnetic disturbance very distinctly.--the report contains a detailed account of the heavy preparations for the observation of the transit of venus , including the portable buildings for the instruments, the instruments themselves (being a transit-instrument, an altazimuth, and an equatoreal, for each station), and first class and second-class clocks, all sufficient for the equipment of stations, and continues thus: i was made aware of the assent of the government to the wish of the board of visitors, as expressed at their last meeting, that provision should be made for the application of photography to the observation of the transit of venus. it is unnecessary for me to remark that our hope of success is founded entirely on our confidence in mr de la rue. under his direction, mr dallmeyer has advanced far in the preparation of five photoheliographs.... the subject is recognized by many astronomers as not wholly free from difficulties, but it is generally believed that these difficulties may be overcome, and mr de la rue is giving careful attention to the most important of them.--i take this opportunity of reporting to the board that the observatory was honoured by a visit of his majesty the emperor of brazil, who minutely examined every part."--after referring to various subjects which in his opinion might be usefully pursued systematically at the observatory, the report proceeds thus: "'the character of the observatory would be somewhat changed by this innovation, but not, as i imagine, in a direction to which any objection can be made. it would become, pro tanto, a physical observatory; and possibly in time its operations might be extended still further in a physical direction.'--the consideration of possible changes in the future of the observatory leads me to the recollection of actual changes in the past. in my annual reports to the visitors i have endeavoured to chronicle these; but still there will be many circumstances which at present are known only to myself, but which ought not to be beyond the reach of history. i have therefore lately employed some time in drawing up a series of skeleton annals of the observatory (which unavoidably partakes in some measure of the form of biography), and have carried it through the critical period, - . if i should command sufficient leisure to bring it down to , i think that i might then very well stop." (the skeleton annals here referred to are undoubtedly the manuscript notes which form the basis of the present biography. ed.)--"on feb. rd in this year i first (privately) formed the notion of preparing a numerical lunar theory by substituting delaunay's numbers in the proper equations and seeing what would come of it." of private history: there was the usual visit to playford--in this year later than usual--from feb. th to mar. th. the letters written during this visit are, as usual, full of freshness and delight at finding himself in his favourite country village.--on june th he went to barrow house, near keswick, to be present at the marriage of his second son hubert to miss s. c. langton, daughter of z. langton esq., of barrow house.--after the wedding he made a trip through the trossachs district of scotland with his daughter annot, and returned to greenwich on june th. on the th june airy was appointed a knight commander of the most honourable order of the bath: he was knighted by the queen at osborne on the th of july. in the course of his official career he had three times been offered knighthood, and had each time declined it: but it seemed now as if his scruples on the subject were removed, and it is probable that he felt gratified by the public recognition of his services. of course the occasion produced many letters of congratulation from his friends: to one of these he replied as follows: "the real charm of these public compliments seems to be, that they excite the sympathies and elicit the kind expressions of private friends or of official superiors as well as subordinates. in every way i have derived pleasure from these." from the assistants of the royal observatory he received a hearty letter of congratulation containing the following paragraph. "our position has naturally given us peculiar opportunities for perceiving the high and broad purposes which have characterized your many and great undertakings, and of witnessing the untiring zeal and self-denial with which they have been pursued." * * * * * on the th of march airy was nominated a foreign associate of the institut de france, to fill the place vacant by the death of sir john herschel. the following letter of acknowledgment shews how much he was gratified by this high scientific honour: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , march _. _�_ messieurs messieurs elie de beaumont, _et_ j.b. dumas, _secrétaires perpetuels de l'académie des sciences, institut de france._ gentlemen, i am honoured with your letter of march , communicating to me my nomination by the academy of sciences to the place rendered vacant in the class of foreign associates of the academy by the decease of sir john herschel, and enclosing copy of the decree of the president of the french republic approving the election. it is almost unnecessary for me to attempt to express to you the pride and gratification with which i receive this announcement. by universal consent, the title of _associé etranger de l'académie des sciences_ is recognised as the highest distinction to which any man of science can aspire; and i can scarcely imagine that, unless by the flattering interpretation of my friends in the academy, i am entitled to bear it. but in any case, i am delighted to feel that the bands of friendship are drawn closer between myself and the distinguished body whom, partly by personal intercourse, partly by correspondence, and in every instance by reputation, i have known so long. i beg that you will convey to the academy my long-felt esteem for that body in its scientific capacity, and my deep recognition of its friendship to me and of the honor which it has conferred on me in the late election. i have the honor to be gentlemen, your very faithful servant, g.b. airy. * * * * * on the th november airy was nominated a grand cross in the imperial order of the rose of brazil: the insignia of the order were accompanied by an autograph letter from the emperor of brazil, of which the following is a transcript. monsieur, vous êtes un des doyens de la science, et le président de l'illustre société, qui a eu la bienveillance d'inscrire mon nom parmi ceux de ses associés. la manière, dont vous m'avez fait les honneurs de votre observatoire m'a imposé aussi l'agréable devoir d'indiquer votre nom à l'empereur de brésil pour un témoignage de haute estime, dont je suis fort heureux de vous faire part personellement, en vous envoyant les décorations que vous garderez, an moins, comme un souvenir de ma visite à greenwich. j'espère que vous m'informerez, quand il vous sera aisé, des travaux de votre observatoire, et surtout de ce que l'on aura fait pour l'observation du passage de vénus et la détermination exacte de la passage. j'ai reçu déjà les _proceedings de la royal society_ lesquels m'intéressent vivement. je voudrais vous écrire dans votre langue, mais, comme je n'en ai pas l'habitude, j'ai craigné de ne pas vous exprimer tout-à-fait les sentiments de votre affectionné, d. pedro d'alcantara. rio, _ octobre, _. * * * * * airy's reply was as follows: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , november _. sire, i am honoured with your imperial majesty's autograph letter of october informing me that, on considering the attention which the royal society of london had been able to offer to your majesty, as well as the explanation of the various parts of the establishment of this observatory which i had the honor and the high gratification to communicate, you had been pleased to place my name in the imperial order of the rose, and to present to me the decorations of grand cross of that order. with pride i receive this proof of your majesty's recollection of your visit to the scientific institutions of great britain. the diploma of the appointment to the order of the rose, under the imperial sign manual, together with the decorations of the order, have been transmitted to me by his excellency don pereira de andrada, your majesty's representative at the british court. your majesty has been pleased to advert to the approaching transit of venus, on the preparations for which you found me engaged. it is unfortunate that the transit of will not be visible at rio de janeiro. for that of , rio will be a favourable position, and we reckon on the observations to be made there. your majesty may be assured that i shall loyally bear in mind your desire to be informed of any remarkable enterprise of this observatory, or of any principal step in the preparations for the transit of venus and of its results. i have the honor to be sire, your imperial majesty's very faithful servant, g.b. airy. _to his majesty the emperor of brazil._ * * * * * airy's old friend, adam sedgwick, was now very aged and infirm, but his spirit was still vigorous, and he was warm-hearted as ever. the following letter from him (probably the last of their long correspondence) was written in this year, and appears characteristic: trinity college, cambridge, _may , _. my dear airy, i have received your card of invitation for the st of june, and with great joy should i count upon that day if i thought that i should be able to accept your invitation: but alas i have no hope of the kind, for that humiliating malady which now has fastened upon me for a full year and a half has not let go its hold, nor is it likely to do so. a man who is journeying in the th year of his pilgrimage is not likely to throw off such a chronic malady. indeed were i well enough to come i am deaf as a post and half blind, and if i were with you i should only be able to play dummy. several years have passed away since i was last at your visitation and i had great joy in seeing mrs airy and some lady friends at the observatory, but i could not then attend the dinner. at that meeting were many faces that i knew, but strangely altered by the rude handling of old time, and there were many new faces which i had never seen before at a royal society meeting; but worse than all, all the old faces were away. in vain i looked round for wollaston, davy, davies gilbert, barrow, troughton, &c. &c.; and the merry companion admiral smyth was also away, so that my last visit had its sorrowful side. but why should i bother you with these old man's mopings. i send an old man's blessing and an old man's love to all the members of your family; especially to mrs airy, the oldest and dearest of my lady friends. i remain, my dear airy, your true-hearted old friend, his adam x sedgwick. mark p.s. shall i ever again gaze with wonder and delight from the great window of your observatory. the body of the above letter is in the handwriting of an amanuensis, but the signature and postscript are in sedgwick's handwriting. (ed.) * * * * * "chronographic registration having been established at the paris observatory, mr hilgard, principal officer of the american coast survey, has made use of it for determining the longitude of harvard from greenwich, through paris, brest, and st pierre. for this purpose mr hilgard's transit instrument was planted in the magnetic court. i understand that the result does not sensibly differ from that obtained by mr gould, through valentia and newfoundland.--it was known to the scientific world that several of the original thermometers, constructed by mr sheepshanks (in the course of his preparation of the national standard of length) by independent calibration of the bores, and independent determination of the freezing and boiling points on arbitrary graduations, were still preserved at the royal observatory. it was lately stated to me by m. tresca, the principal officer of the international metrical commission, that, in the late unhappy war in paris, the french original thermometers were destroyed; and m. tresca requested that, if possible, some of the original thermometers made by mr sheepshanks might be appropriated to the use of the international commission. i have therefore transferred to m. tresca the three thermometers a. , s. , s. , with the documentary information relating to them, which was found in mr sheepshanks's papers; retaining six thermometers of the same class in the royal observatory.--the sidereal standard clock continues to give great satisfaction. i am considering (with the aid of mr buckney, of the firm of e. dent and co.) an arrangement for barometric correction, founded on the principle of action on the pendulum by means of a magnet which can be raised or lowered by the agency of a large barometer.--the altazimuth has received some important alterations. an examination of the results of observations had made me dissatisfied with the bearings of the horizontal pivots in their y's. mr simms, at my request, changed the bearings in y's for bearing in segments of circles, a construction which has worked admirably well in the pivots of the transit circle." (and in various other respects the instrument appears to have received a thorough overhauling. ed.)--"with the consent of the royal society and of the kew committee, the kew heliograph has been planted in the new dome looking over the south ground. it is not yet finally adjusted.--some magnetic observations in the britannia and conway tubular bridges were made last autumn. for this purpose i detached an assistant (mr carpenter), who was aided by capt. tupman, r.m.a.; in other respects the enterprise was private and at private expense.--the rates of the first six chronometers (in the annual trials) are published, in a form which appears most likely to lead to examination of the causes that influence their merits or demerits. this report is extensively distributed to british and foreign horologists and instrument-makers. all these artists appear to entertain the conviction that the careful comparisons made at this observatory, and the orderly form of their publication, have contributed powerfully to the improvement of chronometers.--very lately, application has been made to me, through the board of trade, for plans and other information regarding time-signal-balls, to assist in guiding the authorities of the german empire in the establishment of time signals at various ports of that state. in other foreign countries the system is extending, and is referred to greenwich as its origin.--the arrangements and preparations for the observation of the transit of venus occupied much attention. with regard to the photoheliographs it is proposed to make trial of a plan proposed by m. janssen, for numerous photographs of venus when very near to the sun's limb. on apr. th the engaging of photographic teachers was sanctioned. observers were selected and engaged. a working model of the transit was prepared, and the use of de la rue's scale was practised. there was some hostile criticism of the stations selected for the observation of the transit, which necessitated a formal reply.--reference is made to the increase of facilities for making magnetical and meteorological observations. the inevitable result of it is, that observations are produced in numbers so great that complete reduction becomes almost impossible. the labour of reduction is very great, and it is concluded that, of the enormous number of meteorological observations now made at numerous observatories, very few can ever possess the smallest utility.--referring to my numerical lunar theory: on june th, , a theory was formed, nearly but not perfectly complete. numerical development of powers of a÷r and r÷a. factors of corrections to delaunay first attempted, but entirely in numerical form."--in march of this year airy was consulted by mr w.h. barlow, c.e., and mr thomas bouch (the engineer of the tay bridge, which was blown down in , and of a proposed scheme for a forth bridge in ) on the subject of the wind pressure, &c., that should be allowed for in the construction of the bridge. airy's report on this question is dated , apr. th: it was subsequently much referred to at the official enquiry into the causes of the failure of the tay bridge.--at the end of this year airy resigned the presidency of the royal society. in his address to the society on dec. st he stated his reasons in full, as follows: "the severity of official duties, which seem to increase, while vigour to discharge them does not increase; and the distance of my residence.... another cause is a difficulty of hearing, which unfits me for effective action as chairman of council." of private history: there was the usual visit to playford in january: also a short visit in may: and a third visit at christmas.--there was a short run in june, of about a week, to coniston, with one of his daughters.--and there was a trip to weymouth, &c., for about days, with one of his daughters, in the beginning of august--on his return from the last-mentioned trip, airy found a letter from the secretary of the swedish legation, enclosing the warrant under the royal sign manual of his majesty (oscar), the king of sweden and norway, by which he was nominated as a first class commander of the order of the north star, and accompanying the decorations of that order. "in this year mr glaisher resigned his appointment: i placed his department (magnetical and meteorological) under mr ellis.--a balance of peculiar construction has been made by mr oertling, from my instructions, and fixed near the public barometer at the entrance gate. this instrument enables the public to test any ordinary pound weight, shewing on a scale the number of grains by which it is too heavy or too light.--fresh counterpoises have been attached to the great equatoreal to balance the additional weight of the new spectroscope, which was finally received from mr browning's hands on may nd of the present year. the spectroscope is specifically adapted to sweeping round the sun's limb, with a view to mapping out the prominences, and is also available for work on stars and nebulae, the dispersive power being very readily varied. an induction-coil, capable of giving a six-inch spark, has been made for this instrument by mr browning.--some new classes of reductions of the meteorological observations from to have been undertaken and completed in the past year. the general state of this work is as follows: the diurnal changes of the dry-bulb thermometer, as depending on the month, on the temperature waves, on the barometric waves, on the overcast and cloudless states of the sky, and on the direction of the wind, have been computed and examined for the whole period; and the exhibition of the results is ready for press. the similar reductions for the wet-bulb thermometer are rapidly approaching completion. --regarding the preparations for the transit of venus expeditions. originally five stations were selected and fully equipped with equatoreals, transits, altazimuths, photoheliographs, and clocks; but i have since thought it desirable to supplement these by two branch stations in the sandwich islands and one in kerguelen's island; and the additional instruments thus required have been borrowed from various sources, so that there is now an abundant supply of instrumental means.... there will thus be available for observation of the transit of venus telescopes, nine of which will be provided with double-image-micrometers; and five photoheliographs; and for determination of local time, and latitude and longitude, there will be nine transits and six altazimuths.... all the observers have undergone a course of training in photography; first, under a professional photographer, mr reynolds, and subsequently under capt. abney, r.e., whose new dry-plate process is to be adopted at all the british stations.... a janssen slide, capable of taking photographs of venus and the neighbouring part of the sun's limb at intervals of one second, has been made by mr dallmeyer for each of the five photoheliographs."--attached to the report to the visitors is a copy of the instructions to observers engaged in the transit of venus expeditions, prepared with great care and in remarkable detail.--"in the past spring i published in the monthly notices of the royal astronomical society a statement of the fundamental points in a new treatment of the lunar theory, by which, availing myself of all that has been done in the best algebraical investigations of that theory, i trust to be able by numerical operations only to give greater accuracy to final results. considerable progress has been made in the extensive numerical developments, the work being done, at my private expense, entirely by a junior computer; and i hope, at any rate, to put it in such a state that there will be no liability to its entire loss. when this was reported to the board of visitors, it was resolved on the motion of prof. stokes, that this work, as a public expense, ought to be borne by the government; and this was forwarded to the admiralty. on june th i wrote to the secretary of the admiralty, asking for _£ _ for the present year, which after the usual enquiries and explanations was sanctioned on aug. th." of private history: there were short visits to playford in january, june, and october, but only for a few days in each case.--in march there was a run of two or three days to newnham (on the severn) to see the bore on the severn, and to malvern.--in july he went to newcastle to observe with mr newall's great telescope, but the weather was unfavourable: he then went on to barrow house near keswick, and spent a few days there, with excursions among the mountains.--on aug. th he went with his daughter christabel to the isle of arran, and then by glasgow to the trosachs, where he made several excursions to verify the localities mentioned in the "lady of the lake."--while in scotland he heard of the death of his brother, the rev. william airy, and travelled to keysoe in bedfordshire to attend the funeral; and returned to greenwich on aug. th. "in october of this year i wrote to the admiralty that i had grounds for asking for an increase of my salary: because the pension which had been settled on my wife, and which i had practically recognized as part of my salary, had been terminated by her death; so that my salary now stood lower by _£ _ than that of the director of studies of the royal naval college. the admiralty reply favourably, and on nov. th the treasury raise my salary to _£ _, .--for the service of the clock movement of the great equatoreal, a water-cistern has been established in the highest part of the ball-turret, the necessity for which arose from the following circumstance: the water clock was supplied by a small pipe, about feet in length, connected with the -inch observatory main (which passes through the park), at a distance of about feet from any other branch pipe. in spite of this distance i have seen that, on stopping the water-tap in the battery-basement under the north-east turret, the pressure in the gauge of the water clock has been instantly increased by more than lbs. per square inch. the consequent derangement of the water clock in its now incessant daily use became intolerable. since the independent supply was provided, its performance has been most satisfactory.--with the spectroscope the solar prominences have been mapped on days only; but the weather of the past winter was exceptionally unfavourable for this class of observation. after mapping the prominences, as seen on the c line, the other lines, especially f and b, have been regularly examined, whenever practicable. great care has been taken in determining the position, angle, and heights of the prominences in all cases. the spectrum of coggia's comet was examined at every available opportunity last july, and compared directly with that of carbon dioxide, the bands of the two spectra being sensibly coincident. fifty-four measures of the displacement of lines in the spectra of stars, as compared with the corresponding lines in the spectra of terrestrial elements (chiefly hydrogen), have been made, but some of these appear to be affected by a constant error depending on faulty adjustment of the spectroscope.--photographs of the sun have been taken with the kew photoheliograph on days; and of these have been selected for preservation. the moon, jupiter, saturn, and several stars (including the pleiades and some double stars) have been photographed with the great equatoreal, with fairly satisfactory results, though further practice is required in this class of work.--i would mention a supplemental mechanism which i have myself introduced into some chronometers. i have long remarked that, in ordinary good chronometers, the freedom from irregularities depending on mechanical causes is most remarkable; but that, after all the efforts of the most judicious makers, there is in nearly every case a perceptible defect of thermal compensation. there is great difficulty in correcting the residual fault, not only because an inconceivably small movement of the weights on the balance-curve is required, but also because it endangers the equilibrium of the balance. the mechanism adopted to remedy the defect is described in a paper in the horological journal of july by mr w. ellis, and has received the approval of some able chronometer-makers.--with respect to the transit of venus expeditions: the parties from egypt and rodriguez are returned. i am in continual expectation of the arrival of the other parties. i believe the eye-observations and the ordinary photographs to be quite successful; i doubt the advantage of the janssen; one of the double-image-micrometers seems to have failed; and the zenith-telescope gives some trouble. at three stations at rodriguez, and three at kerguelen, the observations appear to have been most successful. at the sandwich islands, two of the stations appear to have been perfectly successful (except that i fear that the janssen has failed), and a rich series of lunar observations for longitude is obtained. at new zealand, i grieve to say, the observations were totally lost, entirely in consequence of bad weather. there has been little annoyance from the dreaded 'black drop.' greater inconvenience and doubt have been caused by the unexpected luminous ring round venus.--with regard to the progress of my proposed new lunar theory: three computers are now steadily employed on the work. it will be remembered that the detail and mass of this work are purely numerical; every numerical coefficient being accompanied with a symbolical correction whose value will sometimes depend on the time, but in every case is ultimately to be obtained in a numerical form. of these coefficients, extracted (for convenience) from delaunay's results, there are for parallax, for longitude, for latitude; the arguments being preserved in the usual form."--after reviewing the changes that had taken place at the observatory during the past forty years, the report to the board of visitors concludes thus: "i much desire to see the system of time-signals extended, by clocks or daily signals, to various parts of our great cities and our dockyards, and above all by hourly signals on the start point, which i believe would be the greatest of all benefits to nautical chronometry. should any extension of our scientific work ever be contemplated, i would remark that the observatory is not the place for new physical investigations. it is well adapted for following out any which, originating with private investigators, have been reduced to laws susceptible of verification by daily observation. the national observatory will, i trust, always remain on the site where it was first planted, and which early acquired the name of 'flamsteed hill.' there are some inconveniences in the position, arising principally from the limited extent of the hill, but they are, in my opinion, very far overbalanced by its advantages."--in a letter on the subject of the smith's prizes examination at cambridge, which was always a matter of the greatest interest to him, airy renewed his objections to the preponderance in the papers of a class of pure mathematics, which he considered was never likely under any circumstances to give the slightest assistance to physics. and, as before, these remarks called forth a rejoinder from prof. cayley, who was responsible for many of the questions of the class referred to.--in this year airy completed his "notes on the earlier hebrew scriptures," which were shortly afterwards published as a book by messrs longmans, green, & co. in his letter to the publishers introducing the subject, he says, "for many years past i have at times put together a few sentences explanatory as i conceive of the geographical and historical circumstances connected with the principal events recorded in the hebrew scriptures. the view which i take is free, but i trust not irreverent. they terminate with a brief review of colenso's great work. the collection now amounts to a small book." from the references already given in previous years to his papers and correspondence on the geography of exodus, his correspondence with colenso, &c. &c., it will be seen that he took a great interest in the early history of the israelites.--on august th, , airy celebrated the bicentenary of the royal observatory by a dinner in the octagon room, which was attended by the presidents of the royal society and the r. astr. society, and by a large number of scientific gentlemen interested in astronomy.--in february he was revising his treatise on "probabilities." of private history: up to jan. th airy was at playford as usual.--for about a week in april he was in the isle of man with his daughter christabel.--in june there was a short trip to salisbury, blandford, and wimborne.--on august th he started with his daughter annot for a holiday in cumberland, but on the next day he was recalled by a telegram with the intelligence that a change for the worse had come over his wife's health. lady airy died on august th, . for the last five years of her life she had been very helpless from the effects of a paralytic stroke--a very sad ending to a bright and happy life--and had been continually nursed throughout this time by her two unmarried daughters with the greatest self-denial and devotion. her husband had been unremitting in his care and attention. nothing was wanting that the most thoughtful kindness could supply. and in all his trips and excursions his constant and kind letters shewed how anxious he was that she should participate in all his interests and amusements. from the nature of the case it could hardly be said that her death was unexpected, and he received the shock with the manly steadiness which belonged to him. lady airy was buried in playford churchyard.--from sept. nd to oct. he made a short expedition to wales (capel curig, &c.).--on dec. th he attended the commemoration at trinity college, cambridge.--on dec. nd he went as usual to playford. in this year airy received the high honour of the freedom of the city of london, in the following communication: stone, mayor.--a common council holden in the chamber of the guildhall of the city of london, on thursday the th day of april . resolved unanimously that the freedom of this city in a gold box of the value of one hundred guineas be presented to sir george biddell airy, k.c.b., d.c.l., ll.d. &c., astronomer royal, as a recognition of his indefatigable labours in astronomy, and of his eminent services in the advancement of practical science, whereby he has so materially benefited the cause of commerce and civilization. monckton. this resolution was forwarded with a letter from benjamin scott, the chamberlain. airy's reply was as follows: royal observatory, greenwich, s.e. _ , may _. dear sir, i have the honour to acknowledge your letter of april , accompanied with copy of the resolution of the common council of the city of london passed at their meeting of april , under signature of the town clerk, that the freedom of the city of london in a valuable box be presented to me, in recognition of works stated in the resolution. and i am requested by you to inform you whether it is my intention to accept the compliment proposed by the corporation. in reply, i beg you to convey to the right honorable the lord mayor and the corporation that i accept with the greatest pride and pleasure the honour which they propose to offer to me. the freedom of our great city, conferred by the spontaneous act of its municipal governors, is in my estimation the highest honour which it is possible to receive; and its presentation at this time is peculiarly grateful to me. i have the honour to be, sir, your very obedient servant, g.b. airy. _benjamin scott, esq., &c. &c. &c. chamberlain of the corporation of the city of london._ as it was technically necessary that a freeman of the city of london should belong to one or other of the city companies, the worshipful company of spectacle makers through their clerk (with very great appropriateness) enquired whether it would be agreeable that that company should have the privilege of conferring their honorary freedom on him, and added: "in soliciting your acquiescence to the proposal i am directed to call attention to the fact that this guild is permitted to claim all manufacturers of mathematical and astronomical instruments within the city of london, which is now pleaded as an apology for the wish that one so distinguished as yourself in the use of such instruments should be enrolled as a member of this craft." in his reply, accepting the freedom of the company, airy wrote thus: "i shall much value the association with a body whose ostensible title bears so close a relation to the official engagements which have long occupied me. i have had extensive experience both in arranging and in using optical and mathematical instruments, and feel that my own pursuits are closely connected with the original employments of the company." the freedom of the company was duly presented, and the occasion was celebrated by a banquet at the albion tavern on tuesday, july th. the freedom of the city of london was conferred at a court of common council held at the guildhall on thursday the th of november. in presenting the gold box containing the freedom, the chamberlain, in an eloquent speech, first referred to the fact that this was the first occasion on which the freedom had been conferred on a person whose name was associated with the sciences other than those of war and statecraft. he then referred to the solid character of his work, in that, while others had turned their attention to the more attractive fields of exploration, the discovery of new worlds or of novel celestial phenomena, he had incessantly devoted himself to the less interesting, less obtrusive, but more valuable walks of practical astronomy. and he instanced as the special grounds of the honour conferred, the compilation of nautical tables of extraordinary accuracy, the improvement of chronometers, the correction of the compasses of iron ships, the restoration of the standards of length and weight, and the transit of venus expeditions. in his reply airy stated that he regarded the honour just conferred upon him as the greatest and proudest ever received by him. he referred to the fact that the same honour had been previously conferred on the valued friend of his youth, thomas clarkson, and said that the circumstance of his succeeding such a man was to himself a great honour and pleasure. he alluded to his having received a small exhibition from one of the london companies, when he was a poor undergraduate at cambridge, and acknowledged the great assistance that it had been to him. with regard to his occupation, he said that he had followed it in a great measure because of its practical use, and thought it fortunate that from the first he was connected with an institution in which utility was combined with science. the occasion of this presentation was celebrated by a banquet at the mansion house on saturday july rd, , to sir george airy (astronomer royal) and the representatives of learned societies. there is no doubt that airy was extremely gratified by the honour that he had received. it was to him the crowning honour of his life, and coming last of all it threw all his other honours into the shade. to his independent and liberal spirit there was something peculiarly touching in the unsolicited approbation and act of so powerful and disinterested a body as the corporation of the city of london. chapter ix. at greenwich observatory from january st, , to his resignation of office on august th, . "at the door from the front court to the staircase of the octagon room (the original entrance to the observatory as erected by sir christopher wren), a small porch-shelter has been often desired. i proposed to fix there a fan-roof of quadrantal form, covering the upper flat stone of the external steps.--on a critical examination of the micrometer-screws of the transit circle it was found that the corrections, which range from - ° " to + ° ", indicate considerable wear in the screws; and it was found that as much as one-hundreth part of an inch had been worn away from some of the threads. the old screws were consequently discarded, and new ones were made by mr simms.--the adjustment of the spectroscope has occupied a great deal of attention. there was astigmatism of the prisms; and false light reflected from the base of the prisms, causing loss both of light and of definition. the latter defect was corrected by altering the angles, and then astigmatism was corrected by a cylindrical lens near the slit. the definition in both planes was then found to be perfect.--the number of small planets has now become so great, and the interest of establishing the elements of all their orbits so small,--while at the same time the light of all those lately discovered is very faint, and the difficulty and doubt of observation greatly increased,--that i have begun to think seriously of limiting future observations to a small number of these objects.--all observations with the spectroscope have been completely reduced; the measures of lines in the spectra of elements being converted into corresponding wave-lengths, and the observations of displacement of lines in the spectra of stars being reduced so as to exhibit the concluded motion in miles per second, after applying a correction for the earth's motion. sixteen measures of the f line in the spectrum of the moon as compared with hydrogen give a displacement corresponding to a motion of less than two miles a second, which seems to shew that the method of comparison now adopted is free from systematic error; and this is supported by the manner in which motions of approach and recession are distributed among the stars examined on each night of observation. the results recently obtained appear to be on the whole as consistent as can be expected in such delicate observations, and they support in a remarkable manner the conclusions of dr huggins, with regard to the motions of those stars which he examined.--photographs of the sun have been taken with the photoheliograph on days. on one of the photographs, which was accidentally exposed while the drop slit was being drawn up, there appears to be a faint image of a cloud-like prominence close to the sun's limb, though the exposure probably only amounted to a fraction of a second. a prominence of unusual brilliancy was seen with the spectroscope about the same time and in the same position with reference to the sun's limb. all groups of sun-spots and faculae have been numbered, and the dates of their first and last appearances entered up to the present time. areas of spots have been measured, and the measures have been reduced to millionths of the sun's visible hemisphere.--the examination of the readings of the deep-sunk thermometers from to has exhibited some laws which had been sufficiently established before this time, and some which were less known. among the former were the successive retardations of seasons in successive descents, amounting to about four months at the depth of feet; and the successive diminutions of the annual range of temperature. among the latter is the character of the changes from year to year, which the great length of this series of observations brings well to light. it is found that from year to year the mean temperature of the surface for the year, varying by three or four degrees of fahrenheit, follows in its changes the mean temperature of the atmosphere for the year, and that the changes of annual temperature are propagated downwards, retarded in phase and diminishing in amount of change, in the same manner (though probably not following the same law) as the season changes. the inference from this is, that changes of temperature come entirely from the exterior and in no discoverable degree from the interior; an inference which may be important in regard both to solar action and to geology. --referring to the transit of venus observations: in the astronomical part of the reductions, there has been great labour and difficulty in the determination of local sidereal times; some books of observations required extensive transcription; some instrumental errors are still uncertain; the latter determinations have perplexed us so much that we are inclined to believe that, in spite of the great facilities of reduction given by the transit instrument, it would be better to rely on the altazimuth for time-determinations.... in the photographic part, i have confined my attention entirely to measures of the distance between the centres of the sun and planet, a troublesome and complex operation.--referring to the progress of the numerical lunar theory: with a repetition of grant from the treasury, i have usually maintained four junior computers on this work. the progress, though considerable, has not been so great as i had hoped, by reason of the excessive personal pressure upon me during the whole year.--i wrote a letter of congratulation to le verrier on the completion of his great work of planetary tables.--on may th the queen was at south kensington, and i attended to explain the astronomical instruments, and shewed her majesty one of the transit of venus photographs." of private history: he returned from his playford visit on the th of january.--in april there was a two-day trip to colchester.--from june th to july th he was travelling in the north of scotland and the orkneys with his daughters, staying for a short time with mr webster, m.p., at aberdeen, and with mr newall at newcastle.--in september there was a week's run to birkenhead and keswick.--in november a week's run to playford.--from the th to th of december he was at cambridge, and on the th he went to playford for the usual winter stay there. "in april of this year i was much engaged on the subject of mr gill's expedition to ascension to observe for the determination of the parallax of mars at the approaching opposition of that planet.--a large direct-vision spectroscope has been quite recently made by mr hilger under mr christie's direction on a new plan, in which either great dispersion or great purity of spectrum is obtained by the use of 'half-prisms,' according as the incident pencil falls first on the perpendicular or on the oblique face. in this spectroscope either one or two half prisms can be used at pleasure, according to the dispersion required, and there is facility for increasing the train to three or four half-prisms, though the dispersion with two only is nearly double of that given by the large ten-prism spectroscope. the definition in this form of spectroscope appears to be very fine.--at the end of may , spectroscopic determinations of the sun's rotation were made by observations of the relative displacement of the fraunhofer lines at the east and west limbs respectively. the results are in close agreement with the value of the rotation found from observations of sun-spots. a similar determination has also been made in the case of jupiter, with equally satisfactory results.--an electrometer on sir william thomson's plan, for continuous photographic registration of atmospheric electricity has been received from mr white of glasgow. it was mounted in december.--the computation of the photographic records of the barometer from to has so far advanced that we can assert positively that there is no trace of lunar tide in the atmosphere; but that there is a strongly marked semi-diurnal solar tide, accompanied with a smaller diurnal tide. we are at present engaged in comparing the barometric measures with the directions of the wind.--regarding the distribution of the printed observations: there is no extensive wish for separate magnetic observations, but general magnetic results are in great demand, especially for mining operations, and to meet this a map of magnetic declination is furnished in the newspaper called the 'colliery guardian.'--as regards the operations for the transit of venus: the computing staff has by degrees been reduced to two junior computers within the observatory; and one or two computers external to the observatory, who are employed on large groups of systematic calculations. the principal part of the calculations remaining at the date of the last report was that applying to the determination of the geographical longitudes of fundamental stations. at the moment of my writing, the last of these (the longitude of observatory bay, kerguelen) is not absolutely finished:... the method of determining the geographical longitude of the principal station in each group by vertical transits of the moon has been found very successful at honolulu and rodriguez. for stations in high south latitude, horizontal transits are preferable.--as regards the numerical lunar theory: with the view of preserving, against the ordinary chances of destruction or abandonment, a work which is already one of considerable magnitude, i have prepared and have printed as appendix to the greenwich observations (with additional copies as for a separate work) the ordinary equations of lunar disturbance, the novel theory of symbolical variations, and the numerical developments of the quantities on the first side of the equations.--at various times from february to may i was engaged on the reduction of malta tides, and on a paper concerning the same.--in july i was awarded the albert medal for my compass corrections, and received the same from the prince of wales.--in february, campbell's instrument for the registration of sunshine was introduced: it was mounted in july." of private history: "i was at playford until jan. th, in close correspondence as usual with mr christie at the observatory, and attending to my numerical lunar theory.--from mar. th to apr. nd i went on a short trip to hereford, worcester, &c.--from june th to th i was at playford.--from aug. th to sept. th airy was on an expedition in ireland, chiefly in the north and west, with his daughters. when at dublin he visited grubb's instrument factory. on the return journey he stayed for some time in the lake district of cumberland, and took soundings in the neighbourhood of the place of the 'floating island' in derwentwater." airy took the greatest interest in antiquarian matters, whether military or ecclesiastical, and his feelings on such matters is well illustrated by the following letter: royal observatory, greenwich, s.e. _ , february _. dear sir, i venture to ask if you can assist me in the following matter. in the parish church of playford, near ipswich, suffolk, was a splendid brass tombstone to sir thomas felbrigg. by an act of folly and barbarism, almost unequalled in the history of the world, the incumbent and curate nearly destroyed the brass inscription surrounding the image of the knight. this tombstone is figured in gough's sepulchral antiquities, which, i presume, is to be found in the british museum. and i take the liberty to ask if you would kindly look at the engraving, and give me any suggestion as to the way in which some copies of it could be made, in a fairly durable form. i am connected with the parish of playford, and am anxious to preserve for it this memorial of a family of high rank formerly resident there. i am, dear sir, very faithfully yours, g.b. airy. _t. winter jones, esq._ to this request mr winter jones immediately acceded, and the engraving was duly photographed, and copies were circulated with a historical notice of sir george (not sir thomas) felbrigg and a history of the monument. sir george felbrigg was esquire-at-arms to edward iii., and lord of the manor of playford: he died in , and was buried in the north wall of playford church. the report to the board of visitors has this paragraph: "i continue to remark the approaching necessity for library extension. without having absolutely decided on a site, i may suggest that i should wish to erect a brick building, about feet by , consisting of two very low stories (or rather of one story with a gallery running round its walls), so low that books can be moved by hand without necessity for a ladder.--in the month of december, , the azimuthal error of the transit circle had increased to ". a skilful workman, instructed by mr simms, easily reduced the error to about ". (which would leave its mean error nearly ), the western y being moved to the north so far as to reduce the reading of the transit micrometer, when pointed to the south, from r. to r. . the level error was not sensibly affected.--the sidereal standard clock preserves a rate approaching to perfection, so long as it is left without disturbance of the galvanic-contact springs (touched by its pendulum), which transmit signals at every second of time to sympathetic clocks and the chronograph. a readjustment of these springs usually disturbs the rate.--to facilitate the observations of stars, a new working catalogue has been prepared, in which are included all stars down to the third magnitude, stars down to the fifth magnitude which have not been observed in the last two catalogues, and a list of stars of about the sixth magnitude of which the places are required for the united states coast survey. the whole number of stars in our new working list is about . it may be here mentioned that an extensive series of observations was made, during the autumn, of about stars, at the request of mr gill, for comparison with mars, ariadne, and melpomene.--on apr. th last, a very heavy fall of rain took place. between apr. d. h. and apr. d. h., . inch. was recorded, and per cent. of this, or . inch., fell in the eight hours between - / h. and - / h.; and on may , inch of rain fell in minutes, of which / inch fell in minutes.--the supplementary compensation continues to be applied with success to government chronometers which offer facilities for its introduction, and a marked improvement in the performance of chronometers returned after repair by the makers appears to have resulted from the increased attention now given to the compensation. of the competitive chronometers, have the supplementary compensation."--with regard to the reduction of the observations of the transit of venus: after reference to the difficulties arising from the errors and the interpretation of the language used by some of the observers, the report continues thus: "finally a report was made to the government on july th, giving as the mean result for mean solar parallax ". ; the results from ingress and from egress, however, differing to the extent of ". .... after further examination and consideration, the result for parallax has been increased to ". or ". . the results from photography have disappointed me much. the failure has arisen, perhaps sometimes from irregularity of limb, or from atmospheric distortion, but more frequently from faintness and from want of clear definition. many photographs, which to the eye appeared good, lost all strength and sharpness when placed under the measuring microscope. a final result ". was obtained from mr burton's measures, and ". from capt. tupman's.--with regard to the numerical lunar theory: a cursory collection of the terms relating to the areas (in the ecliptic) led me to suppose that there might be some error in the computations of the annual equation and related terms. a most jealous re-examination has however detected nothing, and has confirmed my belief in the general accuracy of the numerical computations. i dare not yet venture to assume an error in delaunay's theory; but i remember that the annual equation gave great trouble to the late sir john lubbock, and that he more than once changed his conclusions as to its true value.--in february i was engaged on the drawings and preparations for my intended lecture at cockermouth on the probable condition of the interior of the earth. the lecture was delivered in april.--at different times in the autumn i was engaged on diagrams to illustrate the passage of rays through eye-pieces and double-image micrometers.--the miscellaneous scientific correspondence, which was always going on, was in this year unusually varied and heavy." of private history: he was at playford till jan. th.--in april he went to cockermouth to deliver his lecture above-mentioned: the journey was by birmingham, where he stayed for two days (probably with his son osmund, who resided there), to tarn bank (the residence of isaac fletcher, m.p.): the lecture was delivered on the nd: he made excursions to thirlmere and barrow, and to edward i.'s monument, and returned to greenwich on the th.--from june th to th he was at playford.--from aug. th to sept. th he was travelling in scotland, visiting the tay bridge, the loch katrine waterworks, &c., and spent the last fortnight of his trip at portinscale, near keswick. on dec. rd he went to playford. "the manuscripts of every kind, which are accumulated in the ordinary transactions of the observatory, are preserved with the same care and arranged on the same system as heretofore. the total number of bound volumes exceeds . besides these there is the great mass of transit of venus reductions and manuscripts, which when bound may be expected to form about volumes.--with regard to the numerous group of minor planets, the berlin authorities have most kindly given attention to my representation, and we have now a most admirable and comprehensive ephemeris. but the extreme faintness of the majority of these bodies places them practically beyond the reach of our meridian instrument, and the difficulty of observation is in many cases further increased by the large errors of the predicted places.--after a fine autumn, the weather in the past winter and spring has been remarkably bad. more than an entire lunation was lost with the transit circle, no observation of the moon on the meridian having been possible between january and march , a period of more than seven weeks. neither sun nor stars were visible for eleven days, during which period the clock-times were carried on entirely by the preceding rate of the clock. the accumulated error at the end of this time did not exceed s' .--some difficulty was at first experienced with the thomson electrometer, which was traced to want of insulation. this has been mastered by the use of glass supporters, which carry some sulphuric acid. the instrument is now in excellent order, and the photographic registers have been perfectly satisfactory since , february, when the new insulators were applied.--from the annual curves of diurnal inequality, deduced from the magnetic reductions, most important inferences may be drawn, as to the connection between magnetic phenomena and sun-spots. these annual curves shew a well-marked change in close correspondence with the number of sun-spots. about the epoch of maximum of sun-spots they are large and nearly circular, having the same character as the curves for the summer months; whilst about the time of sun-spot minimum they are small and lemniscate-shaped, with a striking resemblance to the curves for the winter months. the connection between changes of terrestrial magnetism and sun-spots is shewn in a still more striking manner by a comparison which mr ellis has made between the monthly means of the diurnal range of declination and horizontal force, and dr r. wolf's 'relative numbers' for frequency of sun-spots.--the records of sunshine with campbell's registering sun-dial are preserved in a form easily accessible for reference, and the results are communicated weekly to the agricultural gazette.--prof. oppolzer's results for the determination of the longitudes of vienna and berlin, made in , have now been made public. they shew a remarkable agreement of the chronometric determination formerly made with the telegraphic. it may be of interest to recall the fact that a similar agreement was found between the chronometric and telegraphic determinations of the longitude of valentia.--for observing the transit of venus of , the general impression appears to be that it will be best to confine our observations to simple telescopic observations or micrometer observations at ingress and egress, if possible at places whose longitudes are known. for the first phenomenon (accelerated ingress) the choice of stations is not good; but for the other phenomena (retarded ingress, accelerated egress, retarded egress) there appears to be no difficulty.--with regard to the numerical lunar theory: respecting the discordance of annual equation, i suspend my judgment. i have now discussed the theory completely; and in going into details of secular changes, i am at this time engaged on that which is the foundation of all, namely, the change of excentricity of the solar orbit, and its result in producing lunar acceleration. an important error in the theoretical formulae for variations of radius vector, longitude, and latitude, was discovered; some calculations depending on them are cancelled."--referring to the magnitude of the printed volume of "greenwich observations," and the practicability of reducing the extent of it, the report states thus: "the tendency of external scientific movement is to give great attention to the phenomena of the solar disc (in which this observatory ought undoubtedly to bear its part). and i personally am most unwilling to recede from the existing course of magnetical and meteorological observations....the general tendency of these considerations is to increase the annual expenses of the observatory. and so it has been, almost continuously, for the last years. the annual ordinary expenses are now between - / and times as great as in my first years at the royal observatory.--mr gill was appointed to the cape observatory, and i wrote out instructions for him in march: there was subsequently much correspondence respecting the equipment and repairs of the cape observatory."--in the monthly notices of the royal astronomical society for january an article had appeared headed "notes on the late admiral smyth's cycle of celestial objects, vol. ii." by mr herbert sadler. in this article mr sadler had criticized the work of admiral smyth in a manner which airy regarded as imputing bad faith to admiral smyth. he at once took up the defence of his old friend very warmly, and proposed certain drafts of resolutions to the council of the society. these resolutions were moved, but were amended or negatived, and airy immediately resigned his office of vice-president. there was considerable negociation on the subject, and discussion with lord lindsay, and on may th airy's resolutions were accepted by the council.--in october airy inspected the "faraday" telegraph ship, then lying in the river near messrs siemens' works, and broke his finger by a fall on board the vessel.--in this year airy wrote and circulated a letter to the members of the senate of the university of cambridge, on the subject of the papers set in the smith's prizes examination. in this letter, as on former occasions, he objected much to the large number of questions in "purely idle algebra, arbitrary combinations of symbols, applicable to no further purpose." and in particular he singled out for comment the following question, which was one of those set, "using the term circle as extending to the case where the radius is a pure imaginary, it is required to construct the common chord of two given circles." this drew forth as usual a rejoinder from prof. cayley, who wrote enclosing a solution of his problem, but not at all to airy's satisfaction, who replied as follows: "i am not so deeply plunged in the mists of impossibles as to appreciate fully your explanation in this instance, or to think that it is a good criterion for university candidates." of private history: on jan. st he returned from playford.--on march nd he attended the funeral of his sister at little welnetham near bury st edmunds: miss elizabeth airy had lived with him at the observatory from shortly after his appointment.--for about a week at the end of april he was visiting matlock, edensor, and buxton.--from june th to july th he was staying at portinscale near keswick.--he was at playford for two or three days in october, and went there again on dec. rd for his usual winter holiday. the following letter, relating to the life of thomas clarkson, was written to dr merivale, dean of ely, after reading the account in the "times" of october th of the unveiling of a statue of clarkson near ware: royal observatory, greenwich, london, s.e. _ , october _. dear sir, pardon my intrusion on you, in reference to a transaction which has greatly interested me--the honour paid by you to the memory of thomas clarkson. with very great pleasure i have heard of this step: and i have also been much satisfied with the remarks on it in the "times." i well remember, in clarkson's "history of the abolition," which i read some years ago, the account of the circumstance, now commemorated by you, which determined the action of his whole subsequent life. it is not improbable that, among those who still remember clarkson, my acquaintance with him began at the earliest time of all. i knew him, intimately, from the beginning of to his death. the family which he represented must have occupied a very good position in society. i have heard that he sold two good estates to defray the expenses which he incurred in his personal labours for abolition: and his brother was governor of sierra leone (i know not at what time appointed). thomas clarkson was at st john's college; and, as i gather from circumstances which i have heard him mention, must have been a rather gay man. he kept a horse, and at one time kept two. he took orders in the church; and on one occasion, in the course of his abolition struggle, he preached in a church. but he afterwards resolutely laid aside all pretensions to the title of minister of the church, and never would accept any title except as layman. he was, however, a very earnest reader of theology during my acquaintance with him, and appeared to be well acquainted with the early fathers. the precise words in which was announced the subject for prize essay in the university were "anne liceat invitos in servitutem trahere." after the first great victory on the slave trade question, he established himself in a house on the bank of ullswater. i have not identified the place: from a view which he once shewed me i supposed it to be near the bottom of the lake: but from an account of the storm of wind which he encountered when walking with a lady over a pass, it seemed to be in or near patterdale. when the remains of a mountaineer, who perished in helvellyn (as described in scott's well-known poem), were discovered by a shepherd, it was to mr clarkson that the intelligence was first brought. he then lived at bury st edmunds. mrs clarkson was a lady of bury. but i cannot assign conjecturally any dates to his removals or his marriage. his only son took his b.a. degree, i think, about . i think it was in that he began his occupation of playford hall--a moated mansion near ipswich, formerly of great importance --where he lived as gentleman farmer, managing a farm leased from the marquis of bristol, and occupying a good position among the gentry of the county. a relative of mine, with whom i was most intimately acquainted, lived in the same parish (where in defiance of school rules i spent nearly half my time, to my great advantage as i believe, and where i still retain a cottage for occasional residence), and i enjoyed much of mr clarkson's notice. it was by his strong advice that i was sent to cambridge, and that trinity college was selected: he rode with me to rev. mr rogers of sproughton for introductory examination; he introduced me to rev. c. musgrave (subsequently of halifax), accidentally doing duty at grundisburgh, who then introduced me to sedgwick, peacock, and t. musgrave (subsequently of york). in , when i spent the summer at keswick, he introduced me to southey and wordsworth. mr clarkson lived about thirty years at playford hall, and died there, and lies interred with his wife, son, and grandson, in playford churchyard. i joined several friends in erecting a granite obelisk to his memory in the same churchyard. his family is extinct: but a daughter of his brother is living, first married to t. clarkson's son, and now mrs dickinson, of the rectory, wolferton. i am, my dear sir, very faithfully yours, g.b. airy. _the very reverend, the dean of ely._ "the admiralty, on final consideration of the estimates, decided not to proceed with the erection of a new library near the magnetic observatory in the present year. in the mean time the space has been cleared for the erection of a building by feet.--i have removed the electrometer mast (a source of some expense and some danger), the perfect success of sir william thomson's electrometer rendering all further apparatus for the same purpose unnecessary.--many years ago a double-image micrometer, in which the images were formed by the double refraction of a sphere of quartz, was prepared by mr dollond for capt. smyth, r.n. adopting the same principle on a larger scale, i have had constructed by mr hilger a micrometer with double refraction of a sphere of iceland spar. marks have been prepared for examination of the scale, but i have not yet had opportunity of trying it.--the spectroscopic determination of star-motions has been steadily pursued. the stars are taken from a working list of stars, which may eventually be extended to include all stars down to the fourth magnitude, and it is expected that in the course of time the motions of about stars may be spectroscopically determined.--a new pressure-plate with springs has been applied by mr browning to osler's anemometer, and it is proposed to make such modification as will give a scale extending to lbs. pressure on the square foot. other parts of the instrument have also been renewed.--as regards the reduction of the magnetical results since : in the study of the forms of the individual curves; their relations to the hour, the month, the year; their connection with solar or meteorological facts; the conjectural physico-mechanical causes by which they are produced; there is much to occupy the mind. i regret that, though in contemplation of these curves i have remarked some singular (but imperfect) laws, i have not been able to pursue them.--the mean temperature of the year was . °, being . ° below the average of the preceding years. the highest temperature was . ° on july , and the lowest . ° on dec. . the mean temperature was below the average in every month of the year; the months of greatest deviation being january and december, respectively . ° and . ° below the average; the months of april, may, july, and november were each between ° and ° below the average. the number of hours of bright sunshine, recorded with campbell's sunshine instrument, during , was only .--in the summer of commander green, u.s.n., came over to this country for the purpose of determining telegraphically the longitude of lisbon, as part of a chain of longitudes extending from south america to greenwich. a successful interchange of signals was made with commander green between greenwich and porthcurno on four nights, , june to . the results communicated by commander green shew that the longitude of lisbon observatory, as adopted in the nautical almanac, requires the large correction of + . ".--with regard to the coming transit of venus in : from the facility with which the requirements for geographical position are satisfied, and from the rapid and accurate communication of time now given by electric telegraph, the observation of this transit will be comparatively easy and inexpensive. i have attached greater importance than i did formerly to the elevation of the sun.... i remark that it is highly desirable that steps be taken now for determining by telegraph the longitude of some point of australia. i have stated as the general opinion that it will be useless to repeat photographic observations. --in april mr barlow called, in reference to the enquiry on the tay bridge disaster. (the bridge had been blown down on dec. th, .) i prepared a memorandum on the subject for the tay bridge commission, and gave evidence in a committee room of the house of lords on apr. th." (much of the astronomer royal's evidence on this occasion had reference to the opinions which he had expressed concerning the wind-pressure which might be expected on the projected forth bridge, in .)--in may airy was consulted by the postmaster-general in the matter of a dispute which had arisen between the post office and the telephone companies, which latter were alleged to have infringed the monopoly of the post office in commercial telegraphs: airy made a declaration on the subject.--in july mr bakhuyzen came to england to determine the longitude of leyden, on which he was engaged till sept. th, and carried on his observations at the observatory.--in july airy was much engaged in perusing the records of mr gill's work at the cape of good hope. of private history: on jan. th he returned from playford.--from june th to july th he was again at playford.--from september st to october th he was staying at portinscale near keswick.--on dec. rd he went again to playford for his winter holiday. respecting the agitation at cambridge for granting university degrees to women, the following extract from a letter addressed to a young lady who had forwarded a memorial on the subject for his consideration, and dated nov. th, , contains airy's views on this matter. "i have not signed the memorial which you sent for my consideration: and i will endeavour to tell you why. i entirely approve of education of young women to a higher pitch than they do commonly reach. i think that they can successfully advance so far as to be able clearly to understand--with gratification to themselves and with advantage to those whose education they will superintend--much of the results of the highest class of science which have been obtained by men whose lives are in great measure devoted to it. but i do not think that their nature or their employments will permit of their mastering the _severe_ steps of beginning (and indeed all through) and the _complicated_ steps at the end. and i think it well that this their success should be well known--as it is sure to be--among their relatives, their friends, their visitors, and all in whom they are likely to take interest. their connection with such a place as girton college is i think sufficient to lead to this. but i desire above all that all this be done in entire subservience to what i regard as _infinitely_ more valuable than any amount of knowledge, namely the delicacy of woman's character. and here, i think, our views totally separate. i do not imagine that the university degree would really imply, as regards education, anything more than is known to all persons (socially concerned in the happiness of the young woman) from the less public testimonial of the able men who have the means of knowing their merits. and thus it appears to me that the admission to university degree would simply mean a more extended publication of their names. i dread this." "the new line of underground telegraph wires has been completed by the officers of the general post office. the new route is down croom's hill in greenwich, and the result of this change, at least as regards the earth-current wires, and probably as regards the other wires, has not been satisfactory. it was soon found that the indications of the earth-current wires were disturbed by a continual series of petty fluctuations which almost completely masked the proper features of earth currents.... if this fault cannot be removed, i should propose to return to our original system of independent wires (formerly to croydon and dartford).--the new azimuth-mark (for the altazimuth), upon the parapet of the naval college, is found to be perfectly satisfactory as regards both steadiness and visibility. the observations of a low star for zero of azimuth have been omitted since the beginning of ; the mark, in combination with a high star, appearing to give all that is necessary for this purpose.--all the instruments have suffered from the congealing of the oil during the severe weather of the past winter, and very thorough cleaning of all the moving parts has been necessary.--the solar eclipse of , dec. , was well observed. the first contact was observed by four observers and the last contact by two. the computations for the observations have been exceptionally heavy, from the circumstance that the sun was very low ( ° ' z.d. at the last observation) and that it has therefore been necessary to compute the refraction with great accuracy, involving the calculation of the zenith distance for every observation. and besides this, eighty-six separate computations of the tabular r.a. and n.p.d. of cusps have been required.--amongst other interesting spectroscopic observations of the sun, a remarkable spectrum of a sun-spot shewing strong black lines or bands, each as broad as b_ , in the solar spectrum, was observed on , nov. and . these bands to which there is nothing corresponding in the solar spectrum (except some very faint lines) have also been subsequently remarked in the spectrum of several spots.--the police ship 'royalist' (which was injured by a collision in and had been laid up in dock) has not been again moored in the river, and the series of observations of the temperature of the thames is thus terminated. --part of the month of january was, as regards cold, especially severe. the mean temperature of the period january to ( days) was only . °, or . ° below the average; the temperature fell below ° on days, and rose above the freezing point only on days. the highest temperature in this period was . °, the lowest . °. on january th (while staying at playford) my son hubert and i noticed an almost imperceptible movement in the upper clouds from the south-east. on that night began the terrible easterly gale, accompanied with much snow, which lasted to the night of the th. the limiting pressure of lbs. on the square foot of osler's anemometer was twice exceeded during this storm.--with respect to the diurnal inequalities of magnetic horizontal force: assuming it to be certain that they originate from the sun's power, not immediately, but mediately through his action on the earth, it appears to me (as i suggested long ago) that they are the effects of the attraction of the red end or north end of the needle by the heated portions of our globe, especially by the heated sea, whose effect appears to predominate greatly over that of the land. i do not say that everything is thus made perfectly clear, but i think that the leading phenomena may be thus explained. and this is almost necessarily the way of beginning a science.--in the first few years after the strict and systematic examination of competitive chronometers, beginning with , the accuracy of chronometers was greatly increased. for many years past it has been nearly stationary. i interpret this as shewing that the effects of bad workmanship are almost eliminated, and that future improvement must be sought in change of some points of construction.--referring to the transit of venus in , the printing of all sections of the observations, with specimens of the printed forms employed, and remarks on the photographic operations, is very nearly completed. an introduction is begun in manuscript. i am in correspondence with the commission which is entrusted with the arrangements for observation of the transit of .--the numerical lunar theory has been much interrupted by the pressure of the transit of venus work and other business."--in his report to the board of visitors (his th and last), airy remarks that it would be a fitting opportunity for the expression of his views on the general objects of the observatory, and on the duties which they impose on all who are actively concerned in its conduct. and this he proceeds to do in very considerable detail.--on may th he wrote to lord northbrook (first lord of the admiralty) and to mr gladstone to resign his post of astronomer royal. from time to time he was engaged on the subject of a house for his future residence, and finally took a lease of the white house at the top of croom's hill, just outside one of the gates of greenwich park. on the th of august he formally resigned his office to mr w.h.m. christie, who had been appointed to succeed him as astronomer royal, and removed to the white house on the next day, august th. his holiday movements in the portion of the year up to august th consisted in his winter visit to playford, from which he returned on jan. th: and a subsequent visit to playford from june th to th. * * * * * the following correspondence relating to airy's retirement from office testifies in a remarkable manner to the estimation in which his services were held, and to the good feeling which subsisted between him and his official superiors. , downing street, whitehall, _june , _. dear sir george airy, i cannot receive the announcement of your resignation, which you have just conveyed to me, without expressing my strong sense of the distinction you have conferred upon the office of astronomer royal, and of the difficulty of supplying your place with a person of equal eminence. let me add the expression of my best wishes for the full enjoyment of your retirement from responsibility. i remain, dear sir george airy, faithfully yours, w.e. gladstone. * * * * * admiralty, _june th, _. sir, i am commanded by my lords commissioners of the admiralty to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the th instant, intimating your desire to retire on the th august next from the office of astronomer royal. . in reply i am to acquaint you that your wishes in this matter have been communicated to the prime minister, and that the further necessary official intimation will in due course be made to the treasury. . at the same time i am instructed by their lordships to convey to you the expression of their high appreciation of the remarkably able and gifted manner, combined with unwearied diligence and devotion to the public service (especially as regards the department of the state over which they preside), in which you have performed the duties of astronomer royal throughout the long period of forty-five years. . i am further to add that their lordships cannot allow the present opportunity to pass without giving expression to their sense of the loss which the public service must sustain by your retirement, and to the hope that you may long enjoy the rest to which you are so justly entitled. i am, sir, your obedient servant, robert hall. _sir g. b. airy, k.c.b. &c., &c., royal observatory, greenwich._ * * * * * admiralty, _ th june, _. sir, my lords commissioners of the admiralty have much pleasure in transmitting copy of a resolution passed by the board of visitors of the royal observatory on the th june last, bearing testimony to the valuable services you have rendered to astronomy, to navigation, and the allied sciences throughout the long period during which you have presided over the royal observatory. i am, sir, your obedient servant, robert hall. _sir george biddell airy, k.c.b. &c., &c., &c., royal observatory, greenwich._ "the astronomer royal (sir george b. airy) having announced his intention of shortly retiring from his position at the royal observatory, the following resolution proposed by professor j. c. adams, and seconded by professor g. g. stokes, was then unanimously adopted and ordered to be recorded in the minutes of the proceedings. "the board having heard from the astronomer royal that he proposes to terminate his connection with the observatory on the th of august next, desire to record in the most emphatic manner their sense of the eminent services which he has rendered to astronomy, to navigation and the allied sciences, throughout the long period of years during which he has presided over the royal observatory. "they consider that during that time he has not only maintained but has greatly extended the ancient reputation of the institution, and they believe that the astronomical and other work which has been carried on in it under his direction will form an enduring monument of his scientific insight and his powers of organization. "among his many services to science, the following are a few which they desire especially to commemorate: _(a)_ "the complete re-organization of the equipment of the observatory. _(b)_ "the designing of instruments of exceptional stability and delicacy suitable for the increased accuracy of observation demanded by the advance of astronomy. _(c)_ "the extension of the means of making observations of the moon in such portions of her orbit as are not accessible to the transit circle. _(d)_ "the investigation of the effect of the iron of ships upon compasses and the correction of the errors thence arising. _(e)_ "the establishment at the observatory and elsewhere of a system of time signals since extensively developed by the government. "the board feel it their duty to add that sir george airy has at all times devoted himself in the most unsparing manner to the business of the observatory, and has watched over its interests with an assiduity inspired by the strongest personal attachment to the institution. he has availed himself zealously of every scientific discovery and invention which was in his judgment capable of adaptation to the work of the observatory; and the long series of his annual reports to the board of visitors furnish abundant evidence, if such were needed, of the soundness of his judgment in the appreciation of suggested changes, and of his readiness to introduce improvements when the proper time arrived. while maintaining the most remarkable punctuality in the reduction and publication of the observations made under his own superintendance, he had reduced, collected, and thus rendered available for use by astronomers, the lunar and planetary observations of his predecessors. nor can it be forgotten that, notwithstanding his absorbing occupations, his advice and assistance have always been at the disposal of astronomers for any work of importance. "to refer in detail to his labours in departments of science not directly connected with the royal observatory may seem to lie beyond the province of the board. but it cannot be improper to state that its members are not unacquainted with the high estimation in which his contributions to the theory of tides, to the undulatory theory of light, and to various abstract branches of mathematics are held by men of science throughout the world. "in conclusion the board would express their earnest hope, that in his retirement sir george airy may enjoy health and strength and that leisure for which he has often expressed a desire to enable him not only to complete the numerical lunar theory on which he has been engaged for some years past, but also to advance astronomical science in other directions." * * * * * admiralty, _ th october, _. sir, i am commanded by my lords commissioners of the admiralty to transmit to you, herewith, a copy of a treasury minute, awarding you a special pension of _£ _ a year, in consideration of your long and brilliant services as astronomer royal. i am, sir, your obedient servant, robert hall. _sir g.b. airy, k.c.b., f.r.s., &c., &c. the white house, croom's hill, greenwich._ copy of treasury minute, dated th october, : my lords have before them a statement of the services of sir george biddell airy, k.c.b., f.r.s., who has resigned the appointment of astronomer royal on the ground of age. sir george airy has held his office since the year , and has also, during that period, undertaken various laborious works, demanding scientific qualifications of the highest order, and not always such as could strictly be said to be included among the duties of his office. the salary of sir g. airy as astronomer royal is _£ _ a year, in addition to which he enjoys an official residence rent free, and, under ordinary circumstances he would be entitled to a pension equal to two-thirds of his salary and emoluments. my lords, however, in order to mark their strong sense of the distinction which, during a long and brilliant career sir george airy has conferred upon his office, and of the great services which, in connection with, as well as in the discharge of, his duties, he has rendered to the crown and the public, decide to deal with his case under the ixth section of the superannuation act, , which empowers them to grant a special pension for special services. accordingly my lords are pleased to award to sir george biddell airy, k.c.b., f.r.s., a special retired allowance of _£ _ per annum. * * * * * the white house, croom's hill, greenwich, _ , october _. sir, i have the honour to acknowledge your letter of october , transmitting to me, by instruction of the lords commissioners of admiralty, copy of a treasury minute dated october , in which the lords commissioners of her majesty's treasury are pleased to award to me an annual retired allowance of _£ _ per annum. acknowledging the very liberal award of the lords commissioners of treasury, and the honourable and acceptable terms in which it is announced, i take leave at the same time to offer to their lordships of the admiralty my recognition of their lordships' kindness and courtesy in thus handing to me copy of the treasury minute. i have the honour to be, sir, your very obedient servant, g.b. airy. _the secretary of the admiralty,_ * * * * * from the assistants of the royal observatory, with whom he was in daily communication, whose faithful and laborious services he had so often thankfully recognized in his annual reports to the board of visitors, and to whom so much of the credit and success of the observatory was due, he received the following address: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , august _. dear sir, we cannot allow the official relation which has so long existed between yourself and us to terminate without expressing to you our sense of the admirable manner in which you have, in our opinion, upheld the dignity of the office of astronomer royal during the many years that you have occupied that important post. your long continued and varied scientific work has received such universal recognition from astronomers in all lands, that it is unnecessary for us to do more than assure you how heartily we join in their appreciation of your labours. we may however add that our position has given us opportunities of seeing that which others cannot equally well know, the untiring energy and great industry which have been therein displayed throughout a long and laborious career, an energy which leads you in retirement, and at fourscore years of age, to contemplate further scientific work. we would ask you to carry with you into private life the best wishes of each one of us for your future happiness, and that of your family, expressing the hope that the days of retirement may not be few, and assuring you that your name will long live in our remembrance. we are, dear sir, yours very faithfully, w.h.m. christie, edwin dunkin, william ellis, george strickland criswick, w. c. nash, a.m.w. downing, edward w. maunder, w.g. thackeray, thomas lewis. _sir g.b. airy, k.c.b., &c., &c., astronomer royal._ * * * * * royal observatory, greenwich, _ , august _. my dear mr christie, and gentlemen of the royal observatory, with very great pleasure i have received your letter of august . i thank you much for your recognition of the general success of the observatory, and of a portion of its conduct which--as you remark--can scarcely be known except to those who are every day engaged in it: but i thank you still more for the kind tone of your letter, which seems to shew that the terms on which we have met are such as leaves, after so many years' intercourse, no shadow of complaint on any side. reciprocating your wishes for a happy life, and in your case a progressive and successful one, i am, my dear mr christie and gentlemen, yours faithfully, g.b. airy. * * * * * throughout his tenure of office airy had cultivated and maintained the most friendly relations with foreign astronomers, to the great advantage of the observatory. probably all of them, at one time or another, had visited greenwich, and to most of them he was well known. on his retirement from office he received an illuminated address from his old friend otto struve and the staff of the pulkowa observatory, an illuminated address from the vorstand of the astronomische gesellschaft at berlin signed by dr auwers and the secretaries, a complimentary letter from the academy of sciences at amsterdam, and friendly letters of sympathy from dr gould, prof. newcombe, dr listing, and from many other scientific friends and societies. his replies to the russian and german addresses were as follows: royal observatory, greenwich, _ , august _. my dear sir, i received, with feelings which i will not attempt to describe, the address of yourself and the astronomers of pulkowa generally, on the occasion of my retirement from the office of astronomer royal. i can scarcely credit myself with possessing all the varied claims to your scientific regard which you detail. i must be permitted to attribute many of them to the long and warm friendship which has subsisted so long between the directors of the pulkowa observatory and myself, and which has influenced the feelings of the whole body of astronomers attached to that institution. on one point, however, i willingly accept your favourable expressions--i have not been sparing of my personal labour--and to this i must attribute partial success on some of the subjects to which you allude. in glancing over the marginal list of scientific pursuits, i remark with pleasure the reference to _optics_. i still recur with delight to the undulatory theory, once the branch of science on which i was best known to the world, and which by calculations, writings, and lectures, i supported against the laplacian school. but the close of your remarks touches me much more--the association of the name of w. struve and my own. i respected deeply the whole character of your father, and i believe that he had confidence in me. from our first meeting in (on a commission for improvement of the nautical almanac) i never ceased to regard him as superior to others. i may be permitted to add that the delivery of his authority to the hands of his son has not weakened the connection of myself with the observatory of poulkova. acknowledging gratefully your kindness, and that of all the astronomers of the observatory of poulkova, and requesting you to convey to them this expression, i am, my dear sir, yours most truly, g.b. airy. _to m. otto von struve, director of the observatory of poulkova and the astronomers of that observatory._ * * * * * royal observatory, greenwich, _ , august _. my dear sir, with very great pleasure i received the address of the astronomische gesellschaft on occasion of my intended resignation of the office of astronomer royal: dated july , and signed by yourself as president and messrs schoenfeld and winnecke as secretaries of the astronomische gesellschaft. i thank you much for the delicacy of your arrangement for the transmission of this document by the hands of our friend dr huggins. and i think you will be gratified to learn that it arrived at a moment when i was surrounded by my whole family assembled at my _jour-de-fête_, and that it added greatly to the happiness of the party. i may perhaps permit myself to accept your kind recognition of my devotion of time and thought to the interests of my science and my office. it is full reward to me that they are so recognized. as to the success or utility of these efforts, without presuming, myself, to form an opinion, i acknowledge that the connection made by the astronomische gesellschaft, between my name and the advance of modern astronomy, is most flattering, and will always be remembered by me with pride. it is true, as is suggested in your address, that one motive for my resignation of office was the desire to find myself more free for the prosecution of further astronomical investigations. should my health remain unbroken, i hope to enter shortly upon this undertaking. again acknowledging the kindness of yourself and the vorstand of the astronomische gesellschaft, and offering my best wishes for the continued success of that honourable institution, i am, my dear sir, yours very truly, g.b. airy. _to dr aimers and the vorstand of the astronomische gesellschaft._ chapter x. at the white house, greenwich. from his resignation of office on august th, , to his death on january nd, . history of his life after his resignation of office. on the th of august airy left the observatory which had been his residence for nearly years, and removed to the white house. whatever his feelings may have been at the severing of his old associations he carefully kept them to himself, and entered upon his new life with the cheerful composure and steadiness of temper which he possessed in a remarkable degree. he was now more than years old, and the cares of office had begun to weigh heavily upon him: the long-continued drag of the transit of venus work had wearied him, and he was anxious to carry on and if possible complete his numerical lunar theory, the great work which for some years had occupied much of his time and attention. his mental powers were still vigorous, and his energy but little impaired: his strong constitution, his regular habits of life, the systematic relief which he obtained by short holiday expeditions whenever he found himself worn with work, and his keen interest in history, poetry, classics, antiquities, engineering, and other subjects not immediately connected with his profession, had combined to produce this result. and in leaving office, he had no idea of leaving off work; his resignation of office merely meant for him a change of work. it is needless to say that his interest in the welfare and progress of the observatory was as keen as ever; his advice was always at the service of his successor, and his appointment as visitor a year or two after his resignation gave him an official position with regard to the observatory which he much valued. the white house, which was to be his home for the rest of his life, is just outside one of the upper gates of the park, and about a quarter of a mile from the observatory. here he resided with his two unmarried daughters. the house suited him well and he was very comfortable there: he preferred to live in the neighbourhood with which he was so familiar and in which he was so well known, rather than to remove to a distance. his daily habits of life were but little altered: he worked steadily as formerly, took his daily walk on blackheath, made frequent visits to playford, and occasional expeditions to the cumberland lakes and elsewhere. the work to which he chiefly devoted himself in his retirement was the completion of his numerical lunar theory. this was a vast work, involving the subtlest considerations of principle, very long and elaborate mathematical investigations of a high order, and an enormous amount of arithmetical computation. the issue of it was unfortunate: he concluded that there was an error in some of the early work, which vitiated the results obtained: and although the whole process was published, and was left in such a state that it would be a comparatively simple task for a future astronomer to correct and complete it, yet it was not permitted to the original author of it to do this. to avoid the necessity of frequent reference to this work in the history of airy's remaining years, it will be convenient to summarize it here. it was commenced in : "on feb. rd in this year i first (privately) formed the notion of preparing a numerical lunar theory by substituting delaunay's numbers in the proper equations and seeing what would come of it." from this time forward till his power to continue it absolutely failed, he pursued the subject with his usual tenacity of purpose. during his tenure of office every available opportunity was seized for making progress with his lunar theory, and in every report to the visitors a careful statement was inserted of the state in which it then stood. and, after his resignation of office, it formed the bulk of his occupation. in the theory was formed, and by it was so far advanced that he published in the monthly notices of the royal astronomical society a statement of the fundamental points of the theory. in , the theory having advanced to a stage where extensive arithmetical computation was required, he obtained a small grant from the government in aid of the expense of the work, and other grants were made in subsequent years. by the calculations were so far advanced that an opinion could be formed as to the probable accuracy of the theory, and the following remark is made: "a cursory collation of the terms relating to the areas (in the ecliptic) led me to suppose that there might be some error in the computations of the annual equation and related terms;" but no error could be discovered and the work proceeded. the complex character of the theory, and the extreme care required in the mathematical processes, are well illustrated by the following statement, which occurs in the report of , "an important error in the theoretical formulae for variations of radius vector, longitude, and latitude, was discovered; some calculations depending on them are cancelled." in and the work was continued, but was "sadly interrupted by the pressure of the transit of venus work and other business." after his resignation of the office of astronomer royal he had no further public assistance, and did much of the computations himself, but a sum of _£ _ was contributed by mr de la rue in furtherance of the work, and this sum was spent on computers. in his retirement the work made good progress, and on dec. st, , he made the following note: "i finished and put in general order the final tables of equations of variations. this is a definite point in the lunar theory.... i hope shortly to take up severely the numerical operations of the lunar theory from the very beginning." the work was continued steadily through , and on mar. th, , he made application through the board of visitors to the admiralty to print the work: after the usual enquiries as to the expense this was acceded to, and copy was sent to the printers as soon as it was ready. the first printed proofs were received on feb. th, , and the whole book was printed by the end of . from the frequent references in his journal to errors discovered and corrected during the progress of these calculations, it would seem likely that his powers were not what they had been, and that there was a probability that some important errors might escape correction. he was far too honest to blind himself to this possibility, and in the preface to his numerical lunar theory he says thus: "i have explained above that the principle of operations was, to arrange the fundamental mechanical equations in a form suited for the investigations of lunar theory; to substitute in the terms of these equations the numerical values furnished by delaunay's great work; and to examine whether the equations are thereby satisfied. with painful alarm, i find that they are not satisfied; and that the discordance, or failure of satisfying the equations, is large. the critical trial depends on the great mass of computations in section ii. these have been made in duplicate, with all the care for accuracy that anxiety could supply. still i cannot but fear that the error which is the source of discordance must be on my part. i cannot conjecture whether i may be able to examine sufficiently into this matter." he resolutely took in hand the revision of his work, and continued it till october . but it is clear from the entries in his journal that his powers were now unequal to the task, and although from time to time he suspected that he had discovered errors, yet it does not appear that he determined anything with certainty. he never doubted that there were important errors in the work, and later on he left the following private note on the subject: numerical lunar theory. _ , sept. _. i had made considerable advance (under official difficulties) in calculations on my favourite numerical lunar theory, when i discovered that, under the heavy pressure of unusual matters (two transits of venus and some eclipses) i had committed a grievous error in the first stage of giving numerical value to my theory. my spirit in the work was broken, and i have never heartily proceeded with it since. g.b. airy. probably the error referred to here is the suspected error mentioned above in his report of , as to which he subsequently became more certain. whatever may be the imperfections of the numerical lunar theory, it is a wonderful work to have been turned out by a man years old. in its idea and inception it embodies the experience of a long life actively spent in practical science. and it may be that it will yet fulfil the objects of its author, and that some younger astronomer may take it up, correct its errors (wherever they may be), and fit it for practical use. and then the labour bestowed upon it will not have been in vain. subject always to the absorbing occupations of the lunar theory he amused himself with reading his favourite subjects of history and antiquities. his movements during the remainder of the year were as follows: in september he paid a two days' visit to lady herschel at hawkhurst. from oct. th to th he was at the cumberland lakes and engaged in expeditions in the neighbourhood. from nov. th to th he was at cambridge, inspecting prof. stuart's workshops, and other scientific institutions. on dec. th he went to playford.--amongst miscellaneous matters: in november he wrote to mr rothery on the loss of the 'teuton' at some length, with suggestions for the safer construction of such vessels.--in october he was asked for suggestions regarding the establishment of a "standard time" applicable to the railway traffic in the united states: he replied as follows: _ , oct. _. sir, i have to acknowledge your letter of october , introducing to my notice the difficulty which appears to be arising in america regarding a "standard time," for extensive use throughout n. america "applicable to railway traffic only." the subject, as including considerations of convenience in all the matters to which it applies, is one of difficulties probably insuperable. the certainty, however, that objections may be raised to every scheme, renders me less timid in offering my own remarks; which are much at your service. i first comment upon your expression of "standard time... applicable to railway traffic only." but do you mean this as affecting the transactions between one railway and another railway, or as affecting each railway and the local interests (temporal and others) of the towns which it touches? the difference is so great that i should be disposed to adopt it as marking very strongly the difference to be made between the practices of railways among themselves and the practices of railways towards the public; and will base a system on that difference. as regards the practices of railways among themselves: if the various railways of america are joined and inosculated as they are in england, it appears to me indispensable that they have one common standard _among themselves_: say washington observatory time. but this is only needed for the office-transactions between the railways; it may be kept perfectly private; never communicated to the public at all. and i should recommend this as the first step. there will then be no difficulty in deducing, from these private washington times, the accurate local times at those stations (whose longitude is supposed to be fairly well known, as a sailor with a sextant can determine one in a few hours) which the railway authorities may deem worthy of that honour; generally the termini of railways. thus we shall have a series of bases of local time, of authoritative character, through the country. of such bases _we_ have two, greenwich and dublin: and they are separated by a sea-voyage. in the u.s. of america there must be a greater number, and probably not so well separated. still it is indispensable to adopt such a system of local centers. no people in this world can be induced to use a reckoning which does not depend clearly upon the sun. in all civilized countries it depends (approximately) on the sun's meridian passage. even the sailor on mid-ocean refers to that phenomenon. and the solar passage, with reasonable allowance, m. or m. one way or another, must be recognized in all time-arrangements as giving the fundamental time. the only practical way of doing this is, to adopt for a whole region the fundamental time of a center of that region. and to this fundamental time, the local time of the railway, as now entering into all the concerns of life, must be adapted. a solicitor has an appointment to meet a client by railway; a physician to a consultation. how is this to be kept if the railway uses one time and every other act of life another? there is one chain of circumstances which is almost peculiar--that of the line from new york to san francisco. here i would have two clocks at every station: those on the north side all shewing san francisco time, and those on the south all shewing new york time. every traveller's watch would then be available to the end of his journey. a system, fundamentally such as i have sketched, would give little trouble, and may i think be adopted with advantage. i am, sir, your faithful servant, g.b. airy. _mr edward barrington._ he returned from playford on jan. : his other movements during the year were as follows: from apr. th to may th he was at playford; and again from august st to th. from oct. th to nov. st he was travelling with his two unmarried daughters in the lake district of cumberland: the journey was by furness and coniston to portinscale near keswick; on oct. th he fell and sprained his ankle, and his excursions for the rest of the time were mainly conducted by driving. shortly after his return, on nov. th, while walking alone on blackheath, he was seized with a violent attack of illness, and lay helpless for some time before he was found and brought home: he seems however to have recovered to a great extent in the course of a day or two, and continued his lunar theory and other work as before. on june nd he made the following sad note, "this morning, died after a most painful illness my much-loved daughter-in-law, anna airy, daughter of professor listing of göttingen, wife of my eldest son wilfrid." in february he wrote out his reminiscences of the village of playford during his boyhood. in june he was much disturbed in mind on hearing of some important alterations made by the astronomer royal in the collimators of the transit circle, and some correspondence ensued on the subject.--during the year he had much correspondence on the subject of the subsidences on blackheath. the following letter was written in reply to a gentleman who had asked whether it could be ascertained by calculation how long it is since the glacial period existed: _ , july _. sir, i should have much pleasure in fully answering your questions of july if i were able to do so: but the subject really is very obscure. ( ) though it is recognized that the glacial period (or periods) is late, i do not think that any one has ventured to fix upon a rude number of years since elapsed. ( ) we have no reason to think that the mean distance of the earth from the sun has sensibly altered. there have been changes in the eccentricity of the orbit (making the earth's distance from the sun less in one month and greater in the opposite month), but i do not perceive that this would explain glaciers. ( ) i consider it to be certain that the whole surface of the earth, at a very distant period, was very hot, that it has cooled gradually, and (theoretically and imperceptibly) is cooling still. the glaciers must be later than these hot times, and later than our last consolidated strata: but this is nearly all that i can say. i am, sir, your obedient servant, g.b. airy. _james alston, esq._ from may nd to th he was at playford. from july th to th he was travelling in south wales with his daughters.--from oct. th to nov. th he was at playford.--between nov. th of this year and jan. th of the year , he sat several times to mr john collier for his portrait: the picture was exhibited in the academy of ; it is a most successful and excellent likeness. throughout the year he was very busy with the numerical lunar theory.--in march he was officially asked to accept the office of visitor of the royal observatory, which he accepted, and in this capacity attended at the annual visitation on june nd, and addressed a memorandum to the visitors on the progress of his lunar theory.--on march th he published in several newspapers a statement in opposition to the proposed braithwaite and buttermere railway, which he considered would be injurious to the lake district, in which he took so deep an interest.--in may he communicated to "the observatory" a statement of his objections to a theory advanced by mr stone (then president of the royal astronomical society) to account for the recognized inequality in the mean motion of the moon. this theory, on a subject to which airy had given his incessant attention for so many years, would naturally receive his careful attention and criticism, and it attracted much general notice at the time.--in december he wrote to the secretary of the royal astronomical society his opinion as to the award of the medal of the society. in this letter he stated the principles which guided him as follows: "i have always maintained that the award of the medal ought to be guided mainly by the originality of communications: that one advance in a new direction ought in our decision to outweigh any mass of work in a routine already established: and that, in any case, scientific utility as distinguished from mere elegance is indispensable."--in july lieut. pinheiro of the brazilian navy called with an autograph letter of introduction from the emperor of brazil. the lieutenant desired to make himself acquainted with the english system of lighthouses and meteorology, and airy took much trouble in providing him with introductions through which he received every facility for the thorough accomplishment of his object.--on oct. th he forwarded to prof. cayley proofs of euclid's propositions i. and iii. with the following remarks: "i place on the other side the propositions which may be substituted (with knowledge of euclid's vi. book) for the two celebrated propositions of the geometrical books. they leave on my mind no doubt whatever that they were invented as proofs by ratios, and that they were then violently expanded into cumbrous geometrical proofs."--on june th he declined to sign a memorial asking for the interment of mr spottiswoode in westminster abbey, stating as his reason, "i take it, that interment possessing such a public character is a public recognition of benefits, political, literary, or philosophical, whose effects will be great and durable. now i doubt whether it can be stated that mr spottiswoode had conferred such benefits on society. "but he adds at length his cordial recognition of mr spottiswoode's scientific services.--throughout his life airy was a regular attendant at church, and took much interest in the conduct of the church services. in october of this year he wrote a long letter to the vicar of greenwich on various points, in which occurs the following paragraph: "but there is one matter in the present form of the church service, on which my feeling is very strong, namely the (so-called, i believe) choral service, in the confession, the prayer, and the creed. i have long listened with veneration to our noble liturgy, and i have always been struck with the deep personally religious feeling which pervades it, especially those parts of it which are for 'the people.' and an earnest priest, earnestly pressing these parts by his vocal example on the notice of the people, can scarcely fail to excite a corresponding earnestness in them. all this is totally lost in the choral system. for a venerable persuasion there is substituted a rude irreverential confusion of voices; for an earnest acceptance of the form offered by the priest there is substituted--in my feeling at least--a weary waiting for the end of an unmeaning form." he also objected much to singing the responses to the commandments. from apr. th to may th he was at playford, concluding his journal there with the note "so ends a pleasant vacation."--on june th he went to cambridge and attended the trinity college commemoration service, and dined in hall.--from aug. th to sept. th he was at playford.--on sept. th he made an expedition to guildford and farnham.--during this year he was closely engaged on the numerical lunar theory, and for relaxation was reading theology and sundry books of the old testament. on june th he attended at the visitation of the royal observatory.--in a letter written in april to lt.-col. marindin, r.a., on the subject of wind pressure there occurs the following remark: "when the heavy gusts come on, the wind is blowing in directions changing rapidly, but limited in extent. my conclusion is that in arches of small extent (as in the tay bridge) every thing must be calculated for full pressure; but in arches of large extent (as in the forth bridge) every thing may be calculated for small pressure. and for a suspension bridge the pressure is far less dangerous than for a stiff arch."--in january he had some correspondence with professor tyndall on the theory of the "white rainbow," and stated that he thoroughly agreed with dr young's explanation of this phaenomenon. --the following is extracted from a letter on may st to his old friend otto struve: "i received from you about or weeks past a sign of your friendly remembrance, a copy of your paper on the annual parallax of aldebaran. it pleased me much. especially i was delighted with your noble retention of the one equation whose result differed so sensibly from that of the other equations. it is quite possible, even probable, that the mean result is improved by it. i have known such instances. the first, which attracted much attention, was capt. kater's attempt to establish a scale of longitude in england by reciprocal observations of azimuth between beachy head and dunnose. the result was evidently erroneous. but colonel colby, on examination of the original papers, found that some observations had been omitted, as suspicious; and that when these were included the mean agreed well with the scale of observation inferred from other methods."--in a letter to the rev. r.c.m. rouse, acknowledging the receipt of a geometrical book, there occurs the following paragraph: "i do not value euclid's elements as a super-excellent book of instruction--though some important points are better presented in it than in any other book of geometrical instruction that i have seen. but i value it as a book of strong and distinct reasoning, and of orderly succession of reasonings. i do not think that there is any book in the world which presents so distinctly the 'because...... therefore.......' and this is invaluable for the mental education of youth."--in may he was in correspondence with professor balfour stewart regarding a projected movement in terrestrial magnetism to be submitted to the british association. airy cordially approved of this movement, and supported it to the best of his ability, stating that in his opinion what was mainly wanted was the collation of existing records.--in january and february he was much pressed by prof. pritchard of oxford to give his opinion as to the incorrectness of statements made by dr kinns in his lectures on the scientific accuracy of the bible. airy refused absolutely to take part in the controversy, but he could not escape from the correspondence which the matter involved: and this led up to other points connected with the early history of the israelites, a subject in which he took much interest. from may th to june rd he was at playford.--from july nd to nd he was in the lake district. the journey was by windermere to kentmere, where he made enquiries concerning the airy family, as it had been concluded with much probability from investigations made by his nephew, the rev. basil r. airy, that the family was settled there at a very early date. some persons of the name of airy were still living there. he then went on by coniston and grasmere to portinscale, and spent the rest of his time in expeditions amongst the hills and visits to friends.--on july th he went to woodbridge in suffolk and distributed the prizes to the boys of the grammar school there.--from oct. th to nov. th he was again at playford.--throughout the year he was busily engaged on the numerical lunar theory, and found but little time for miscellaneous reading. of printed papers by airy in this year the most important was one on the "results deduced from the measures of terrestrial magnetic force in the horizontal plane," &c. this was a long paper, communicated to the royal society, and published in the phil. trans., and was the last scientific paper of any importance (except the volume of the numerical lunar theory) in the long list of "papers by g.b. airy." the preparation of this paper took much time.--of miscellaneous matters: in may a committee of the royal society had been appointed to advise the india office as to the publication of col. j. herschel's pendulum observations in india; and airy was asked to assist the committee with his advice. he gave very careful and anxious consideration to the subject, and it occupied much time.--in the early part of the year he was asked by sir william thomson to assist him with an affidavit in a lawsuit concerning an alleged infringement of one of his patents for the improvement of the compass. airy declined to make an affidavit or to take sides in the dispute, but he wrote a letter from which the following is extracted: "i cannot have the least difficulty in expressing my opinion that you have made a great advance in the application of my method of correcting the compass in iron ships, by your introduction of the use of short needles for the compass-cards. in my original investigations, when the whole subject was in darkness, i could only use existing means for experiment, namely the long-needle compasses then existing. but when i applied mechanical theory to explanation of the results, i felt grievously the deficiency of a theory and the construction which it suggested (necessarily founded on assumption that the proportion of the needle-length to the other elements of measure is small) when the length of the needles was really so great. i should possibly have used some construction like yours, but the government had not then a single iron vessel, and did not seem disposed to urge the enquiry. you, under happier auspices, have successfully carried it out, and, i fully believe, with much advantage to the science."--he wrote a paper for the athenaeum and had various correspondence on the subject of the badbury rings in dorsetshire, which he (and others) considered as identical with the "mons badonicus" of gildas, the site of an ancient british battle.--in february he was in correspondence with the astronomer royal on uniform time reckoning, and on considerations relating to it.--on june th he attended the annual visitation of the observatory, and brought before the board his investigations of the diurnal magnetic inequalities, and the revises of his lunar theory. from june th to july th he was at playford.--and again at playford from oct. th to nov. th.--on march th he had an attack of gout in his right foot, which continued through april and into may, causing him much inconvenience.--he was busy with the numerical lunar theory up to sept. th, when he was reading the last proof-sheet received from the printers: during this period his powers were evidently failing, and there are frequent references to errors discovered and corrected, and to uncertainties connected with points of the theory. but his great work on the numerical lunar theory was printed in this year: and there can be no doubt that he experienced a great feeling of relief when this was accomplished.--he was in correspondence with prof. adams as to the effect of his reduction of the coefficient of lunar acceleration on the calculation of the ancient historical eclipses.--he compiled a paper "on the establishment of the roman dominion in england," which was printed in .--he wrote a notice concerning events in the life of mr john jackson of rosthwaite near keswick, a well-known guide and much-respected authority on matters relating to the lake district.--he also wrote a short account of the connection of the history of mdlle de quéroualle with that of the royal observatory at greenwich.--on june th he attended at the annual visitation of the observatory. on may th to th he made a short visit to eastbourne and the neighbourhood.--from june th to july th he was at playford.--from aug. th to sept. th he was travelling in dorsetshire and wiltshire: he went first to weymouth, a very favourite centre for excursions with him, and afterwards visited bridport and lyme regis: then by dorchester to blandford, and visited the hod hill, badbury rings, &c.: at wimborne he was much interested in the architecture of the church: lastly he visited salisbury, old sarum, stonehenge, &c., and returned to greenwich.--from oct. th to nov. th he was at playford.--during this year he partly occupied himself with arranging his papers and drawings, and with miscellaneous reading. but he could not withdraw his thoughts from his lunar theory, and he still continued to struggle with the difficulties of the subject, and was constantly scheming improvements. his private accounts also now gave him much trouble. throughout his life he had been accustomed to keep his accounts by double entry in very perfect order. but he now began to make mistakes and to grow confused, and this distressed him greatly. it never seemed to occur to him to abandon his elaborate system of accounts, and to content himself with simple entries of receipts and expenses. this would have been utterly opposed to his sense of order, which was now more than ever the ruling principle of his mind. and so he struggled with his accounts as he did with his lunar theory till his powers absolutely failed. in his journal for this year there are various entries of mental attacks of short duration and other ailments ascribable to his advanced age. the last printed "papers by g.b. airy" belong to this year. one was the paper before referred to "on the establishment of the roman dominion in england": another was on the solution of a certain equation: and there were early reminiscences of the cambridge tripos, &c.--in february he attended a little to a new edition of his ipswich lectures, but soon handed it over to mr h.h. turner of the royal observatory.--on may rd he was drawing up suggestions for the arrangement of the seckford school, &c., at woodbridge.--on june th he attended the visitation of the royal observatory, when a resolution was passed in favour of complete photography of the star-sky. from the th to th of may he made a short expedition to bournemouth, and stopped on the way home to visit winchester cathedral.--from june th to aug. rd he was at playford; and again from oct. th to nov. th.--during the first half of the year he continued his examination of his lunar theory, but gradually dropped it. there are several references in his journal to his feelings of pain and weakness, both mental and bodily: at the end of march he had an attack of gout in the fingers of his right hand. during the latter part of the year he was troubled with his private accounts, as before.--he does not appear to have been engaged on any miscellaneous matters calling for special notice in this year. but he kept up his astronomical correspondence--with lockyer on the meteorite system of planetary formation; with pritchard on the work of the oxford university observatory; with adams on his numerical lunar theory, &c., and with others.--on june nd he attended the visitation of the royal observatory.--he amused himself occasionally with reading his favourite subjects of history and antiquities, and with looking over some of his early investigations of scientific questions. on june th he made a one-day's excursion to colchester.--from july nd to th he was in the cumberland lake district, chiefly at portinscale near keswick. while staying at portinscale he was seized with a sudden giddiness and fell upon the floor: he afterwards wrote a curious account of the visions which oppressed his brain immediately after the accident. he returned by solihull, where his son osmund was residing.--from oct. th to nov. th he was at playford. while there he drew up a short statement of his general state of health, adverting particularly to the loss of strength in his legs and failure of his walking powers.--his health seems to have failed a good deal in this year: on feb. th he had an accidental fall, and there are several entries in his journal of mental attacks, pains in his limbs, affection of his eye-sight, &c.--in the early part of the year he was much engaged on the history of the airy family, particularly on that of his father.--in this year the white house was sold by auction by its owners, and airy purchased it on may th.--he was still in difficulties with his private accounts, but was making efforts to abandon his old and elaborate system.--for his amusement he was chiefly engaged on theological notes which he was compiling: and also on early optical investigations, &c. on june st he attended the visitation of the royal observatory, and moved a resolution that a committee be appointed to consider whether any reduction can be effected in the amount of matter printed in the volume of observations of the royal observatory. during his tenure of office he had on various occasions brought this subject before the board of visitors, and with his usual tenacity of purpose he now as visitor pressed it upon their notice.--in may he zealously joined with others in an application to get for dr huggins a pension on the civil list.--in january he prepared a short paper illustrated with diagrams to exhibit the interference of solar light, as used by him in his lectures at cambridge in : but it does not appear to have been published.--in april he received a copy of a paper by mr rundell, referring to the complete adoption of his system of compass correction in iron ships, not only in the merchant service, but also in the navy. this was a matter of peculiar gratification to airy, who had always maintained that the method of tables of errors, which had been so persistently adhered to by the admiralty, was a mistake, and that sooner or later they would find it necessary to adopt his method of mechanical correction. the passage referred to is as follows: "the name of sir george airy, the father of the mechanical compensation of the compass in iron vessels, having just been mentioned, it may not be inappropriate to remind you that the present year is the fiftieth since sir george airy presented to the royal society his celebrated paper on this subject with the account of his experiments on the 'rainbow' and 'ironsides.' fifty years is a long period in one man's history, and sir george airy may well be proud in looking back over this period to see how complete has been the success of his compass investigation. his mode of compensation has been adopted by all the civilized world. sir william thomson, one of the latest and perhaps the most successful of modern compass adjusters, when he exhibited his apparatus in before a distinguished meeting in london, remarked that within the last ten years the application of sir george airy's method had become universal, not only in the merchant service, but in the navies of this and other countries, and added--the compass and the binnacles before you are designed to thoroughly carry out in practical navigation the astronomer royal's principles." from may th to th he was on an expedition to north wales, stopping at chester, conway, carnarvon, barmouth, and shrewsbury.--from june th to july th he was at playford; and again from oct. th to nov. th.--in this year his powers greatly failed, and he complained frequently of mental attacks, weakness of limbs, lassitude, and failure of sleep. he occupied himself as usual with his books, papers, and accounts; and read travels, biblical history, &c., but nothing very persistently. on june th he attended the visitation of the royal observatory.--from a letter addressed to him by mr j. hartnup, of liverpool observatory, it appears that there had grown up in the mercantile world an impression that very accurate chronometers were not needed for steam ships, because they were rarely running many days out of sight of land: and airy's opinion was requested on this matter. he replied as follows on mar. rd: "the question proposed in your letter is purely a practical one. ( ) if a ship is _likely_ ever to be two days out of sight of land, i think that she ought to be furnished with two _good_ chronometers, properly tested. ( ) for the proper testing of the rates of the chronometers, a rating of the chronometers for three or four days in a meridional observatory is necessary. a longer testing is desirable."--in march he was in correspondence, as one of the trustees of the sheepshanks fund, with the master of trinity relative to grants from the fund for cambridge observatory. from june th to july th he was at playford. and again from oct. th to dec. nd (his last visit). throughout the year his weakness, both of brain power and muscular power, had been gradually increasing, and during this stay at playford, on nov. th, he fell down in his bed-room (probably from failure of nerve action) and was much prostrated by the shock. for several days he remained in a semi-unconscious condition, and although he rallied, yet he continued very weak, and it was not until dec. nd that he could be removed to the white house. up to the time of his fall he had been able to take frequent drives and even short walks in the neighbourhood that he was so fond of, but he could take but little exercise afterwards, and on or about nov. th he made the following note: "the saddest expedition that i have ever made. we have not left home for several days." the rapid failure of his powers during this year is well exemplified by his handwriting in his journal entries, which, with occasional rallies, becomes broken and in places almost illegible. he makes frequent reference to his decline in strength and brain-power, and to his failing memory, but he continued his ordinary occupations, made frequent drives around blackheath, and amused himself with his family history researches, arrangement of papers, and miscellaneous reading: and he persisted to the last with his private accounts. his interest in matters around him was still keen. on june th he was driving along the greenwich marshes in order to track the course of the great sewer; and on august th he visited the crossness sewage works and took great interest in the details of the treatment of the sewage.--in march he contributed, with great satisfaction, to the fund for the portrait of his old friend sir g.g. stokes, with whom he had had so much scientific correspondence.--on july th an afternoon party was arranged to celebrate the th anniversary of his birthday (the actual anniversary was on july th). none of his early friends were there: he had survived them all. but invitations were sent to all his scientific and private friends who could be expected to come, and a large party assembled. the afternoon was very fine, and he sat in the garden and received his friends (many of whom had come from long distances) in good strength and spirits. it was a most successful gathering and was not without its meaning; for it was felt that, under the circumstances of his failing powers, it was in all probability a final leave-taking.--on july th he went down to the greenwich parish church at p.m., to be present at the illumination of the church clock face for the first time--a matter of local interest which had necessitated a good deal of time and money. on this occasion at the request of the company assembled in and around the vestry he spoke for about a quarter of an hour on time--the value of accurate time, the dissemination of greenwich time throughout the country by time-signals from the observatory, and the exhibition of it by time-balls, &c., &c.,--the subject to which so large a part of his life had been devoted. it was a pleasant and able speech and gave great satisfaction to the parishioners, amongst whom he had lived for so many years.--he received two illuminated addresses--one from the astronomer royal and staff of the royal observatory; the other from the vorstand of the astronomische gesellschaft at berlin--and various private letters of congratulation. the address from the staff of the observatory was worded thus: "we, the present members of the staff of the royal observatory, greenwich, beg to offer you our most sincere congratulations on the occasion of your th birthday. we cannot but feel how closely associated we are with you, in that our whole energies are directed to the maintenance and development of that practical astronomical work, of which you essentially laid the foundation. it affords us great pleasure to think that after the conclusion of your life's work, you have been spared to live so long under the shadow of the noble observatory with which your name was identified for half a century, and with which it must ever remain associated." after his return from playford he seemed to rally a little: but he soon fell ill and was found to be suffering from hernia. this necessitated a surgical operation, which was successfully performed on dec. th. this gave him effectual relief, and after recovering from the immediate effects of the operation, he lay for several days quietly and without active pain reciting the english poetry with which his memory was stored. but the shock was too great for his enfeebled condition, and he died peacefully in the presence of his six surviving children on jan. nd, . he was buried in playford churchyard on jan. th. the funeral procession was attended at greenwich by the whole staff of the royal observatory, and by other friends, and at his burial there were present two former fellows of the college to which he had been so deeply attached. appendix. list of printed papers by g.b. airy. list of books written by g.b. airy. printed papers by g.b. airy. with the instinct of order which formed one of his chief characteristics airy carefully preserved a copy of every printed paper of his own composition. these were regularly bound in large quarto volumes, and they are in themselves a striking proof of his wonderful diligence. the bound volumes are in number, and they occupy a space of ft. in. on a shelf. they contain papers, a list of which is appended, and they form such an important part of his life's work, that his biography would be very incomplete without a reference to them. he was very careful in selecting the channels for the publication of his papers. most of the early papers were published in the transactions of the cambridge philosophical society, but several of the most important, such as his paper "on an inequality of long period in the motions of the earth and venus," were published in the philosophical transactions of the royal society, and others, such as the articles on "the figure of the earth," "gravitation," "tides and waves," &c., were published in encyclopaedias. after his removal to greenwich nearly all his papers on scientific subjects (except astronomy), such as tides, magnetism, correction of the compass, &c., &c., were communicated to the royal society, and were published in the philosophical transactions. but everything astronomical was reserved for the royal astronomical society. his connection with that society was very close: he had joined it in its earliest days (the date of his election was may th, ), and regarded it as the proper medium for the discussion of current astronomical questions, and for recording astronomical progress. he was unremitting in his attendance at the monthly meetings of the society, and was several times president. in the memoirs of the society of his papers are printed, and in addition papers in the monthly notices. in fact a meeting of the society rarely passed without some communication from him, and such was his wealth of matter that sometimes he would communicate as many as papers on a single evening. for the publication of several short mathematical papers, and especially for correspondence on disputed points of mathematical investigation, he chose as his vehicle the philosophical magazine, to which he contributed papers. investigations of a more popular character he published in the athenaeum, which he also used as a vehicle for his replies to attacks on his work, or on the establishment which he conducted: in all he made communications to that newspaper. to various societies, such as the institution of civil engineers, the british association, the royal institution, &c., he presented papers or made communications on subjects specially suited to each; and in like manner to various newspapers: there were papers in this category. in so long an official life there would naturally be a great number of official reports, parliamentary returns, &c., and these, with other miscellaneous papers printed for particular objects and for a limited circulation, amounted in all to . under this head come his annual reports to the board of visitors, which in themselves contain an extremely full and accurate history of the observatory during his tenure of office. there are of these reports, and they would of themselves form a large volume of about pages. the following summary of his printed papers shews the manner in which they were distributed: summary of printed papers by g.b. airy. number of papers. in the transactions of the cambridge philosophical society in the philosophical transactions of the royal society in the proceedings of the royal society in the memoirs of the royal astronomical society in the monthly notices of the royal astronomical society in the philosophical magazine and journal in the athenaeum in encyclopedias, and in various newspapers and transactions in official reports, addresses, parliamentary returns, evidence before committees, lectures, letters, sundry treatises, and papers --- total printed papers by g.b. airy. date when read or published. title of paper. where published. nov. on the use of silvered glass for the mirrors camb. phil. soc. of reflecting telescopes. mar. on the figure assumed by a fluid homogeneous camb. phil. soc. mass, whose particles are acted on by their mutual attraction, and by small extraneous forces. may on the principles and construction of the camb. phil. soc. achromatic eye-pieces of telescopes, and on the achromatism of microscopes. trigonometry. encycl. metrop. feb. on a peculiar defect in the eye, and a camb. phil. soc. mode of correcting it. may on the forms of the teeth of wheels. camb. phil. soc. may on laplace's investigation of the attraction camb. phil. soc. of spheroids differing little from a sphere. june on the figure of the earth. phil. trans. nov. on the disturbances of pendulums and camb. phil. soc. balances, and on the theory of escapements. feb. remarks on a correction of the solar phil. trans. tables, required by mr south's observations. may on some passages in mr ivory's remarks phil. mag. on a memoir by m. poisson relating to the attraction of spheroids. may on the spherical aberration of the camb. phil. soc. may eyepieces of telescopes. dec. on the corrections in the elements of phil. trans. delambre's solar tables required by the observations made at the royal observatory, greenwich. feb. address to the members of the senate, on an improvement in the position of the plumian professor. nov. on the longitude of the cambridge observatory. camb. phil. soc. nov. on a method of determining the mass of astr. soc. the moon from transit observations of (memoirs) venus near her inferior conjunction. nov. on a correction requisite to be applied camb. phil. soc. to the length of a pendulum consisting of a ball suspended by a fine wire. dec. on certain conditions under which a camb. phil. soc. perpetual motion is possible. aug. figure of the earth. encycl. metrop. feb. on the nature of the light in the two camb. phil. soc. rays produced by the double refraction of quartz. apr. addition to the above paper. camb. phil. soc. nov. on a remarkable modification of newton's camb. phil. soc. rings. nov. on an inequality of long period in the phil. trans. motions of the earth and venus. jan. translation of encke's dissertation (on encke's comet) contained in nos. and of the astronomische nachrichten. mar. on a new analyzer, and its use in camb. phil. soc. experiments of polarization. mar. on the phenomena of newton's rings when formed between two transparent substances of different refractive powers. may report on the progress of astronomy trans brit. ass. during the present century. oct. report of the syndicate of the cambridge observatory. feb. remarks on mr potter's experiment on phil. mag. interference. apr. on the mass of jupiter, as determined r. astr. soc. from the observation of elongations of (memoirs) the fourth satellite. syllabus of a course of experimental lectures. may on the calculation of newton's camb. phil. soc. experiments on diffraction. may remarks on sir david brewster's paper phil. mag. "on the absorption of specific rays" &c. may results of the repetition of mr potter's phil. mag. experiment of interposing a prism in the path of interfering light. may on a supposed black bar formed by phil. mag. diffraction. june report on mr barlow's fluid-lens r. soc. (proc.) telescope mar. continuation of researches into the value r. astr. soc. of the mass of jupiter, by observation of (memoirs.) the elongations of the fourth satellite. apr. on the latitude of cambridge observatory camb. phil. soc. june report of the syndicate of the cambridge observatory. june on the position of the ecliptic, as inferred r. astr. soc. inferred from transit and circle (memoirs.) observations made at cambridge observatory in the year . june observations of the solar eclipse of july r. astr. soc. th, , made at cambridge observatory, (memoirs.) and calculations of the observations. nov. on the diffraction of an object-glass camb. phil. soc. with circular aperture. dec. on the calculation of the perturbations naut. alm. of the small planets and the comets of ( , app.) short period. may continuation of researches into the value r. astr, soc. of jupiter's mass. (memoirs.) june report of the syndicate of the cambridge observatory. june on the position of the ecliptic, as r. astr. soc. inferred from observations with the (memoirs.) cambridge transit and mural circle, made in the year . june on the time of rotation of jupiter. r. astr. soc. (memoirs.) feb. speech on delivering the medal of the r. astr. soc. r. astr. soc. to sir john herschel. (proc.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june report upon a letter (on a systematic r. soc. course of magnetic observations) addressed (proc.) by m. le baron de humboldt to his royal highness the president of the royal society (by s. hunter christie and g.b. airy). jan. continuation of researches into the value r. astr. soc. of jupiter's mass. (memoirs.) feb. speech on delivering the medal of the r. astr. soc. r. astr. soc. to professor rosenberger. (proc) mar. results of the observations of the sun, r. astr. soc. moon, and planets, made at cambridge (memoirs) observatory in the years , , and . may on the position of the ecliptic, as r. astr. soc. inferred from observations with the (memoirs) cambridge transit and mural circle, made in the year . june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. sept. address delivered in the town hall of neath. nov. on the parallax of alpha lyrae. r. astr. soc. (memoirs.) feb. address to the earl of burlington on religious examination in the university of london. mar. on the intensity of light in the camb. phil. soc. neighbourhood of a caustic. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. dec. a catalogue of stars, deduced from r. astr. soc. the observations made at the cambridge (memoirs.) observatory, from to ; reduced to january , . apr. account of experiments on iron-built phil. trans. ships, instituted for the purpose of discovering a correction for the deviation of the compass produced by the iron of the ships. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. nov. on the determination of the orbits of r. astr. soc. comets, from observations. (memoirs.) article "gravitation." penny cyclop. article "greenwich observatory." penny cyclop. mar. on a new construction of the camb. phil. soc. going-fusee. mar. on the regulator of the clock-work for r. astr. soc. effecting uniform movement of equatoreals. may on the correction of the compass in un. serv. journ. iron-built ships. (proc.) results of experiments on the disturbance j. weale. of the compass in iron-built ships. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on the theoretical explanation of an phil. trans. apparent new polarity in light. nov. supplement to the above paper. phil. trans. dec. on the diffraction of an annular aperture. phil. mag. dec. remarks on professor challis's investigation phil. mag. of the motion of a small sphere vibrating in a resisting medium. jan. correction to the above paper "on the phil. mag. diffraction," &c. mar. remarks on professor challis's reply to phil. mag. mr airy's objections to the investigation of the resistance of the atmosphere to an oscillating sphere. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july reply to professor challis, on the phil. mag. investigation of the resistance of the air to an oscillating sphere. oct. extraordinary disturbance of the magnets. nov. on the laws of the rise and fall of the phil. trans. tide in the river thames. dec. report of the commissioners appointed to consider the steps to be taken for restoration of the standards of weight and measure. apr. on the [greek: ichtis] of diodorus athenaeum. may account of the ordnance zenith sector. r. astr. soc. (proc.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. nov. observations of the total solar eclipse of r. astr. soc. july . (memoirs.) dec. remarks on the present state of hatcliff's private charity (greenwich). article on tides and waves. encyc. metrop. mar. on the laws of individual tides at phil. trans. southampton and at ipswich. apr. on monetary and metrical systems. athenaeum. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. sept. address to the individual members of the board of visitors of the royal observatory (proposing the altazimuth). oct. account of the northumberland equatoreal and dome, attached to the cambridge observatory. nov. address and explanation of the proposed altitude and azimuth instrument to the board of visitors of the royal observatory. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. dec. on the laws of the tides on the coasts of phil. trans. ireland, as inferred from an extensive series of observations made in connection with the ordnance survey of ireland. jan. on the flexure of a uniform bar r. astr. soc. supported by a number of equal pressures (memoirs.) applied at equidistant points, &c. feb. speech on delivering the medal of the r. astr. soc. r. astr. soc. to capt. smyth (proc.) may on a new construction of the divided r. astr. soc. eye-glass double-image micrometer. (memoirs.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july on wexford harbour. report of the gauge commissioners. and letter to sir e. ryan. may on the equations applying to light under phil. mag. the action of magnetism. may remarks on dr faraday's paper on phil. mag. ray-vibrations. may on a change in the state of an eye camb. phil. soc. affected with a mal-formation. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june account of the measurement of an arc of r. astr. soc. longitude between the royal observatory (month. not.) of greenwich and the trigonometrical station of feagh main, in the island of valentia. july letter to sir robert harry inglis, bart., athenaeum. m.p., in answer to sir james south's attack on the observations at the greenwich observatory. nov. on the bands formed by the partial phil. mag. interception of the prismatic spectrum. nov. account of some circumstances historically r. astr. soc. connected with the discovery of the (memoirs.) planet exterior to uranus. jan. reduction of the observations of halley's r. astr. soc. comet made at the cambridge observatory in (memoirs.) the years and . jan. on a proposed alteration of bessel's method r. astr. soc. for the computation of the corrections by (memoirs.) which the apparent places of stars are derived from the mean places. feb. on sir david brewster's new analysis of phil. mag. solar light. feb. on the name of the new planet. athenaeum. feb. mr adams and the new planet. athenaeum. plan of the buildings and grounds of the royal observatory, greenwich, with explanation and history. may explanation of hansen's perturbations of r. astr. soc. the moon by venus. (month. not.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. nov. address to the individual members of the board of visitors of the royal observatory. (zenith tube.) dec. results deduced from the occultations of r. astr. soc. stars and planets by the moon, observed (memoirs.) at cambridge observatory from to . feb. abstract of struve's "�tudes d'astronomie r. astr. soc. stellaire." (month. not.) mar. syllabus of lectures on astronomy to be delivered at the temperance hall, ipswich. apr. remarks on prof. challis's theoretical phil. mag. determination of the velocity of sound may supplement to a paper on the intensity of camb. phil. soc. light in the neighbourhood of a caustic. may address to individual members of the board of visitors. (new transit circle, reflex zenith tube, &c.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june corrections of the elements of the moon's r. astr. soc. orbit, deduced from the lunar (memoirs.) observations made at the royal observatory, of greenwich from to . aug. explanation of a proposed construction of zenith sector: addressed to the board of visitors of the royal observatory, greenwich. oct. on the construction of chinese balls athenaeum. description of the instruments of process used in the photographic self-registration of the magnetical and meteorological instruments at the royal observatory, greenwich. description of the altitude and azimuth instrument erected at the royal observatory, greenwich, in the year . astronomy. (tract written for the scientific manual.) mar. substance of the lecture delivered by the r. astr. soc. astronomer royal on the large reflecting (month. not.) telescopes of the earl of rosse and mr lassell. june on a difficulty in the problem of sound. phil. mag. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on instruments adapted to the measure of r. astr. soc. small meridional zenith distances. (month. not.) nov. results of the observations made by the r. astr. soc. rev. fearon fallows at the royal (memoirs.) observatory, cape of good hope, in the years , , . nov. on bell's calculating machine, and on r. astr. soc. lord rosse's telescope. (month. not.) nov. on the exodus of the israelites. athenaeum. dec. on the method of observing and recording r. astr. soc. transits, lately introduced in america, &c. (month. not.) jan. on a problem of geodesy. phil. mag. feb. address on presenting the medal of the r. astr. soc. r. astr. soc. to m. otto von struve. (month. not.) mar. on the present state and prospects of the r. inst. science of terrestrial magnetism. mar. on the exodus of the israelites athenaeum. mar. on the exodus of the israelites. athenaeum. may statement concerning assistance granted r. astr. soc. by the admiralty to hansen--also on (month. not.) henderson's numbers for the teeth of wheels. may on the weights to be given to the separate r. astr. soc. results for terrestrial longitudes, (memoirs.) determined by the observation of transits of the moon and fixed stars. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june letter from hansen on his lunar tables.--valz r. astr. soc. on an arrangement of double-image (month. not.) micrometer.--on the computation of longitude from lunar transits dec. on a method of regulating the clock-work r. astr. soc. for equatoreals. (month. not.) dec. supplement to a paper "on the regulation r. astr. soc. of the clock-work for effecting uniform (memoirs.) movement of equatoreals." dec. on the relation of the direction of the phil. trans. wind to the age of the moon, as inferred from observations made at the royal observatory, greenwich, from nov. to dec. jan. remarks on mr wyatt's paper on the inst. c.e. construction of the building for the (minutes.) exhibition of the works of industry of all nations in . feb. address on presenting the medal of the r. astr. soc. r. astr. soc. to dr annibale de (month. not.) gasparis. mar. letter to professor challis regarding the adams prize. mar. on caesar's place of landing in britain. athenaeum. suggestions to astronomers for the brit. assoc. observation of the total eclipse of the sun on july , . apr. on the determination of the probable r. astr. soc. stability of an azimuthal circle by (month. not.) observations of star and a permanent collimator. may on the total solar eclipse of , july . r. inst. (lecture.) may on the vibration of a free pendulum in an r. astr. soc. oval differing little from a straight line (memoirs) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july the president's address to the twenty-first athenaeum. meeting of the british association for the advancement of science, ipswich. oct. on julius caesar's expedition against naut. mag. england, in relation to his places of departure and landing. nov. account of the total eclipse of the sun on r. astr. soc. , july , as observed at göttenburg, (memoirs.) at christiania, and at christianstadt. dec. on the geography of the exodus. athenaeum. jan. on the solar eclipse of july , . r. astr. soc. (month. not.) on the place of caesar's departure from soc. of antiq. gaul for the invasion of britain, and (memoirs.) the place of his landing in britain, with an appendix on the battle of hastings. on a new method of computing the naut. alm. , perturbations of planets, by j.f. app. encke--translated and illustrated with notes by g.b. airy. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. feb. on the eclipses of agathocles, thales, phil. trans. and xerxes. feb. lecture on the results of recent r. inst. calculations on the eclipse of thales and eclipses connected with it. may address to the individual members of the board of visitors of the royal observatory, greenwich. (lunar reductions.) may on decimal coinage. athenaeum. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june lecture on the determination of the r. astr. soc. longitude of the observatory of (month. not.) cambridge by means of galvanic signals. sept. on decimal coinage. athenaeum. dec. description of the transit circle of the royal observatory, greenwich. (app. gr. observ. .) dec. regulations of the royal observatory, greenwich. (app. gr. observ. .) jan. on the telegraphic longitude of brussels. athenaeum. feb. address on presenting the gold medal of r. astr. soc. the r. astr. soc. to mr charles rümker. (month. not.) feb. on reforms in the university of cambridge. athenaeum. apr. letters relating to "the late m. mauvais." liter. gaz. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. sept. the deluge. private. oct. on the correction of the compass in iron athenaeum. ships. (scoresby's experiments.) nov. on the difference of longitude between r. astr. soc. the observatories of brussels and greenwich, (memoirs.) as determined by galvanic signals. jan. lecture at s. shields on the pendulum experiments in the harton pit, and letter on the results. feb. lecture on the pendulum experiments r. inst. lately made in the harton colliery for ascertaining the mean density of the earth. feb. on the correction of the compass in iron athenaeum. ships. (remarks on dr scoresby's investigations.) address on presenting the medal of the r. astr. soc. r. astr. soc. to the rev. william rutter (month. not.) dawes. feb. on the computation of the effect of the phil. trans. attraction of mountain masses, as disturbing the apparent astronomical latitude of stations in geodetic surveys. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. oct. address to the individual members of the board of visitors of the royal observatory, greenwich. (equatoreal.) nov. remarks upon certain cases of personal r. astr. soc. equation which appear to have hitherto (memoirs.) escaped notice, accompanied with a table of results. nov. discussion of the observed deviations of phil. trans. the compass in several ships, wood-built and iron-built: with a general table for facilitating the examination of compass-deviations. description of the reflex zenith tube of the royal observatory, greenwich. (app. to the greenwich obs. for .) jan. on professor peirce's criterion for astr. journ. discordant observations. (cambr.) jan. account of pendulum experiments undertaken phil. trans. in the harton colliery, for the purpose of determining the mean density of the earth. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. aug. on scheutz's calculating machine. phil. mag. aug. science and the government. (reply to athenaeum. statements in the morning chronicle about the instrumental equipment of the royal observatory.) may on the means which will be available for r. astr. soc. correcting the measure of the sun's (month. not.) distance in the next twenty-five years. may knowledge expected in computers and assistants in the royal observatory. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on the eclipse of agathocles, the eclipse r. astr. soc. at larissa, and the eclipse of thales. (memoirs.) with an appendix on the eclipse of stiklastad. june account of the construction of the new phil. trans. national standard of length, and of its principal copies. dec. letter to the vice-chancellor of cambridge university regarding smith's prizes. dec. on the substitution of methods founded camb. phil. soc. on ordinary geometry for methods based on the general doctrine of proportions, in the treatment of some geometrical problems description of the galvanic chronographic gr. obs. , apparatus of the royal observatory, app. greenwich. mar. suggestions for observation of the annular eclipse of the sun on , march - . mar. note on oltmann's calculation of the r. astr. soc. eclipse of thales. also on a method (month. not.) of very approximately representing the projection of a great circle upon mercator's chart. may the atlantic cable problem. naut. mag. may report of the ordnance survey commission; together with minutes of evidence and appendix. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on the mechanical conditions of the phil. mag. deposit of a submarine cable. july instructions and chart for observations r. astr. soc. of mars in right ascension at the (special.) opposition of for obtaining the measure of the sun's distance. aug. on the advantageous employment of photog. notes. stereoscopic photographs for the representation of scenery. nov. on the "draft of proposed new statutes athenaeum. for trinity college, cambridge." nov. letter to the vice-chancellor of the university of cambridge, offering the sheepshanks endowment. dec. suggestion of a proof of the theorem camb. phil. soc. that every algebraic equation has a root. manual of astronomy--for the admiralty. parly. paper. feb. letter to lord monteagle relating to the standards of weights and measures. feb. remarks on mr cayley's trigonometrical phil. mag. theorem, and on prof. challis's proof that equations have roots. mar. on the movement of the solar system in r. astr. soc. space. (memoirs.) apr. on the apparent projection of stars upon r. astr. soc. the moon's disc in occultations. also (month. not.) comparison of the lunar tables of burckhardt and hansen with observations of the moon made at the royal observatory, greenwich. apr. on the apparent projection of stars upon r. astr. soc. the moon's disc in occultations. (memoirs.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june abstract of maxwell's paper "on the r. astr. soc. stability of the motion of saturn's rings." (month. not.) july corrections of the elements of the moon's r. astr. soc. orbit, deduced from the lunar observations (memoirs.) made at the royal observatory of greenwich from to . sept. on the invasion of britain by julius caesar. athenaeum. (answer to mr lewin.) nov. on iron ships--the royal charter. athenaeum. (answer to archibald smith's remarks.) nov. circular requesting observations of small planets. dec. notice of the approaching total eclipse of r. astr. soc. the sun of july , , and suggestions (month. not.) for observation. dec. supplement to a proof of the theorem camb. phil. soc. that every algebraic equation has a root. jan. description of the new equatoreal at the r. astr. soc. royal observatory, greenwich. also (month. not.) abstract of an essay by gen. t.f. de schubert on the figure of the earth. jan. on the claudian or plautian invasion of athenaeum britain. feb. examination of navy -foot telescopes at the royal observatory, greenwich, , jan. to feb. . feb. report on the instrumental equipments ho. of commons. of the exchequer office of weights and (parly. paper.) measures, as regards the means for preventing fraud in the sale of gas to the public; and on the amendments which may be required to the existing legislation on that subject. mar. address on the approaching solar eclipse r. astr. soc. of july , , &c. (month. not.) may correspondence between the lords ho. of commons. commissioners of her majesty's treasury, (parly. paper.) &c., and the astronomer royal, relating to gas measurement, and the sale of gas act. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. and address to the members of the board in reference to struve's geodetic suggestions. june correspondence regarding the grant of _£ _ to prof. hansen for his lunar tables. sept. remarks on a paper entitled "on the polar distances of the greenwich transit circle, by a. marth." addressed to the members of the board of visitors. sept. on change of climate, in answer to athenaeum. certain speculations by sir henry james. oct. circular relating to the distribution of greenwich observations and other publications of the royal observatory. nov. account of observations of the total r. astr. soc. solar eclipse of , july , made (month. not.) at hereña, near miranda de ebro; &c. &c. nov. on change of climate: further discussion. athenaeum. letters on lighthouses, to the commission on lighthouses. dec. note on the translation of a passage in a r. astr. soc. letter of hansen's relating to (month. not.) coefficients. feb. on the temperature-correction of syphon athenaeum. barometers. march results of observations of the solar r. astr. soc. eclipse of july made at the royal (month. not.) observatory, greenwich, for determination of the errors of the tabular elements of the eclipse. also suggestion of a new astronomical instrument, for which the name "orbit-sweeper" is proposed. also theory of the regulation of a clock by galvanic currents acting on the pendulum. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on a supposed failure of the calculus of phil. mag. variations. july report of a committee of the r. soc. on r. soc.(proc.) the advisability of re-measuring the indian arc of meridian. sept. lecture at manchester on the great solar athenaeum. eclipse of july , . sept. the same lecture. london review. oct. examination paper for the sheepshanks exhibition. nov. translation of dr lamont's paper "on the phil. mag. most advantageous form of magnets." nov. note on a letter received from hansen on r. astr. soc. the lunar theory. also discussion of (month. not.) a result deduced by mr d'abbadie from observations of the total solar eclipse of , july . nov. instructions for observing the total eclipse of the sun on december . dec. on a projection by balance of errors for phil. mag. maps. dec. on the circularity of the sun's disk. r. astr. soc. also table of comparative number of (month. not.) observations of small planets. jan. on the direction of the joints in the phil. mag. faces of oblique arches. mar. review of "an historical survey of the athenaeum. astronomy of the ancients" by the rt hon. sir g. cornewall lewis. apr. notes for the committee on weights and measures, . may on the magnetic properties of hot-rolled phil. trans. and cold-rolled malleable iron. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june evidence given before the select committee on weights and measures. oct. biography of g.b. airy (probably in part london review. based upon data supplied by himself). oct. abstract of paper "on the strains in the athenaeum. interior of beams and tubular bridges." oct. translation of a letter from prof. lament phil. mag. on dalton's theory of vapour, &c. nov. on the strains in the interior of beams. phil. trans. nov. correspondence with sabine concerning his attack on the greenwich magnetic observations. (confidentially communicated to the board of visitors.) nov. evidence given before the public schools commission. nov. abstract of m. auwers's paper on the r. astr. soc. proper motion of procyon, and note on (month. not.) same. dec. abstract of mr safford's paper on the r. astr. soc. proper motion of sirius. also on the (month. not.) forms of lenses proper for the negative eye-pieces of telescopes. also on the measurements of the earth, and the dimensions of the solar system. also on fringes of light in solar eclipses. jan. address to the board of visitors on a further attack by sabine on the greenwich magnetic observations (confidential). jan. on the observations of saturn made at r. astr. soc. pulkowa and greenwich. (month. not.) feb. report to the board of trade on the proposed lines of railway through greenwich park. mar. determination of the longitude of valencia in ireland by galvanic signals in the summer of (app. iii. to the gr. astr. obsns. ). mar. on the movement of the solar system in r. astr. soc. space, deduced from the proper motions (memoirs.) of stars. by edwin dunkin (for g.b.a.). mar. on the visibility of stars in the pleiades r. astr. soc. to the unarmed eye. (month. not.) mar. on marriage odes. athenaeum. apr. further report as to the probable effects of the london, chatham and dover railway on the royal observatory in greenwich park. apr. determination of the sun's parallax from r. astr. soc. observations of mars during the (month. not.) opposition of . by e.j. stone (for g.b.a.). also remarks on struve's account of a local deviation in the direction of gravity, near moscow. also an account of an apparatus for the observation of the spectra of stars, and results obtained. apr. on the diurnal inequalities of phil. trans. terrestrial magnetism, as deduced from observations made at the royal observatory, greenwich, from to . may on the discordance between the results r. astr. soc. for zenith-distances obtained by direct (memoirs.) observation, and those obtained by observation by reflection from the surface of quicksilver. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july on the amount of light given by the r. astr. soc. moon at the greatest stage in the (month. not.) excentrically-total eclipse, , june . aug. plan of the buildings and grounds of the royal observatory, greenwich, with explanation and history. sept. on the origin of the apparent luminous r. astr. soc. band which, in partial eclipses of the (month. not.) sun, has been seen to surround the visible portion of the moon's limb. sept. on the invasions of britain by julius athenaeum. oct. caesar. oct. the earthquake as observed from greenwich. athenaeum. nov. on the numerical expression of the phil. mag. destructive energy in the explosions of steam-boilers, &c. nov. convention arranged between m. le verrier r. astr. soc. and the astronomer royal for meridional (month. not.) observations of the small planets, &c. nov. translation of hansen's paper r. astr. soc. "calculation of the sun's parallax (month. not.) from the lunar theory," with notes by g.b.a. dec. first analysis of magnetic storms, phil. trans. registered by the magnetic instruments in the royal observatory, greenwich, from to . jan. pontécoulant's paper "sur le coefficiant r. astr. soc. de l'�quation parallactique déduit de la (month. not.) théorie," with notes by g.b.a. jan. remarks on redman's paper on the east inst. c. e. coast (chesil bank, &c.). (minutes.) mar. note on a passage in capt. r. astr. soc. jacob's "measures of jupiter," &c. (month. not.) mar. notes for the committee on weights and ho. of comm. measures, . (parly. paper.) mar. on a method of slewing a ship without inst. nav. arch. the aid of the rudder. apr. comparison of the chinese record of solar r. astr. soc. eclipses in the chun tsew with the (month. not.) computations of modern theory. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on the transit of venus, , dec. . r. astr. soc. (month. not.) june on the bright band bordering the moon's r. astr. soc. limb in photographs of eclipses. (month. not.) notes on methods of reduction applicable to the indian survey. sept. a visit to the corryvreckan. athenaeum. sept. examination paper for the sheepshanks scholarship. jan. comparison of the transit-instrument in r. astr. soc. its ordinary or reversible form with the (month. not.) transit-instrument in its non-reversible form, as adopted at greenwich, the cape of good hope, and other observatories. mar. syllabus of a course of three lectures on "magnetical errors, &c., with special reference to iron ships and their compasses," delivered at the south kensington museum. apr. remarks on mr ellis's lecture on the horolog. journ. greenwich system of time signals. apr. free translation of some lines of virgil, athenaeum. "citharâ crinitus iopas," &c. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june note on my recommendation (in ) athenaeum. of government superintendence of the compasses of iron ships. also note on the birthplace of thomas clarkson. july on hemiopsy. phil. mag. aug. on the value of the moon's semidiameter r. astr. soc. as obtained by the investigations of (month. not.) hugh breen, esq., from occultations observed at cambridge and greenwich. sept. on "the land of goshen"--reply to "a athenaeum. suffolk incumbent." oct. address of the astronomer royal to the individual members of the board of visitors. (on improved collimators.) oct. note on an error of expression in two r. astr. soc. previous memoirs. also description and (month. not.) history of a quadrant made by abraham sharp. nov. on the possible derivation of the national athenaeum. name "welsh." essays on the invasion of britain by julius private. caesar; the invasion of britain by plautius, and by claudius caesar; the early military policy of the romans in britain; the battle of hastings. (with corr.) mar. on "the compass in iron ships." objections athenaeum. to passages in a lecture by archibald smith. apr. on the supposed possible effect of r. astr. soc. friction in the tides, in influencing the (month. not.) apparent acceleration of the moon's mean motion in longitude. also on a method of computing interpolations to the second order without changes of algebraic sign. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july papers relating to time signals on the ho. of comm. start point. (parly. paper.) sept. on the campaign of aulus plautius in athenaeum. britain. (reply to dr guest.) nov. on the continued change in an eye camb. phil. soc. affected with a peculiar malformation. dec. on the simultaneous disappearance of r. astr. soc. jupiter's satellites in the year . (month. not.) also inference from the observed movement of the meteors in the appearance of , nov. - . jan. memorandum for the consideration of the commission on standards. (policy of introducing metrical standards.) jan. on decimal weights and measures. athenaeum. feb. on the use of the suspension bridge with inst. c.e. stiffened roadway for railway and other (minutes.) bridges of great span. mar. computation of the lengths of the waves phil. trans. of light corresponding to the lines in the dispersion spectrum measured by kirchhoff. mar. corresponding numbers of elevation in r. obs. (also english feet, and of readings of aneroid meteor. soc. or corrected barometer in english apr. , .) inches. apr. remarks on sir w. denison's paper on inst. c.e. "the suez canal." (minutes.) may statement of the history and position of private. the blue-coat girls' school, greenwich. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june on certain appearances of the telescopic r. astr. soc. images of stars described by the rev. (month. not.) w.r. dawes. dec. note on the total solar eclipse of , r. astr. soc. aug. - . (month. not.) biography of g.b. airy. (probably corrected by himself.) jan. biography (with portrait) of g.b. airy. ill. lond. news. (probably corrected by himself.) feb. comparison of magnetic disturbances phil. trans. recorded by the self-registering magnetometers at the royal observatory, greenwich, with magnetic disturbances deduced from the corresponding terrestrial galvanic currents recorded by the self-registering galvanometers of the royal observatory. mar. address of the astronomer royal to the individual members of the board of visitors. (number of copies of observations.) june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july first report of the commissioners appointed parly. paper. to enquire into the condition of the exchequer standards. sept. the inundation at visp. athenaeum. nov. on the factorial resolution of the trinomial camb. phil. soc. x^n - cos n. a. + /x^n. dec. on the diurnal and annual inequalities phil. trans. of terrestrial magnetism, as deduced from observations made at the royal observatory from to , &c. dec. on the preparatory arrangements for the r. astr. soc. observation of the transits of venus (month. not.) and . dec. on the migrations of the welsh nations. athenaeum. mar. memorandum by the chairman (on the use of the troy weight) for the consideration of the members of the standards commission. apr. second report of the commissioners appointed parly. paper. to enquire into the condition of the exchequer (now board of trade) standards.--the metric system. april syllabus of lectures on magnetism to be delivered in the university of cambridge. apr. remarks on shelford's paper "on the inst. c.e. outfall of the river humber." (minutes.) june memorandum for the consideration of the standards commission, on the state of the question now before them regarding the suggested abolition of troy weight. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. supplementary memorandum by the astronomer royal on the proposed abolition of troy weight. july correspondence between the treasury, the ho. of comm. admiralty, and the astronomer royal, (parly. paper.) respecting the arrangements to be made for observing the transits of venus, which will take place in the years and . aug. note on atmospheric chromatic dispersion r. astr. soc. as affecting telescopic observation, and (month. not.) on the mode of correcting it. oct. description of the great equatoreal of the royal observatory, greenwich. greenwich observations, . app. feb. note on an extension of the comparison phil. trans. of magnetic disturbances with magnetic effects inferred from observed terrestrial galvanic currents; &c. &c. apr. on the question of a royal commission journ. soc. arts. for science. may letters to the first lord of the admiralty enclosing application of the assistants for an increase of salaries. may on decimal and metrical systems. journ. soc. arts. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. aug. on the meaning of the word "whippultree." athenaeum. oct. on the locality of "paradise." athenaeum. nov. on the locality of the roman gesoriacum. athenaeum. nov. recommendation of prof. miller for a r. soc.(proc.) royal medal of the royal society. (quoted by the president.) revised edition of "astronomy." man. naut. sci. jan. the burial of sir john moore. athenaeum. mar. letter to the hydrographer of the admiralty on the qualifications and claims of the assistants of the royal observatory. apr. remarks on the determination of a ship's r. soc. (proc.) place at sea. may remarks on samuelson's paper "description inst. c.e. of two blast furnaces," &c. (minutes.) may note on barometric compensation of the phil. mag. pendulum. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june remarks on mr abbott's observations on r. astr. soc. eta argûs. also on a.s. herschel's and (month. not.) j. herschel's mechanism for measuring time automatically in taking transits. erratum in results of greenwich r. astr. soc. observations of the solar eclipse of , (month. not.) july . also observations of the solar eclipse of , dec. - , made at the royal observatory, greenwich. aug. investigation of the law of the progress phil. mag. of accuracy in the usual process for forming a plane surface. nov. corrections to the computed lengths of phil. trans. waves of light for kirchhoff's spectral lines. on a supposed alteration in the amount r. soc. (proc.) of astronomical aberration of light, produced by the passage of the light through a considerable thickness of refracting medium. nov. biography of g.b. airy. (probably daily telegraph. corrected by himself.) dec. note on a special point in the r. astr. soc. determination of the elements of the (month. not.) moon's orbit from meridional observations of the moon. dec. proposed devotion of an observatory to r. astr. soc. observation of the phenomena of jupiter's (month. not.) satellites. jan. address to the council of the royal society on the propriety of continuing the grant to the kew observatory for meteorological observations. feb. experiments on the directive power of phil. trans. large steel magnets, of bars of magnetized soft iron, and of galvanic coils, in their action on external small magnets--with appendix by james stuart. feb. further observations on the state of an camb. phil. soc. eye affected with a peculiar malformation. mar. notes on scientific education, submitted to the royal commission on scientific instruction and the advancement of science. may on a supposed periodicity in the r. soc. (proc.) elements of terrestrial magnetism, with a period of - / days. nov. address (as president) delivered at the anniversary meeting of the royal society. dec. magnetical observations in the phil. trans. britannia and conway tubular iron bridges. feb. remarks on mr thornton's paper on inst. c.e. "the state railways of (minutes.) india"--chiefly in reference to the proposed break of gauge. mar. note on the want of observations of r. astr. soc. eclipses of jupiter's first satellite (month. not.) from to . mar. letter to the secretary of the r. astr. soc. admiralty on certain articles which (month. not.) had appeared in the public newspapers in regard to the approaching transit of venus. additional note to the paper on a r. soc. (proc.) supposed alteration in the amount of astronomical aberration of light produced by the passage of the light through a considerable thickness of refracting medium. apr. list of candidates for election into the royal society--classified. on the topography of the "lady of private. the lake." june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. nov. on the rejection, in the lunar r. astr. soc. theory, of the term of longitude (month. not.) depending for argument on eight times the mean longitude of venus minus thirteen times the mean longitude of the earth, introduced by prof. hansen; &c. dec. address (as president) delivered at the anniversary meeting of the royal society. jan. on a proposed new method of treating r. astr. soc. the lunar theory. (month. not.) may british expeditions for the observation of the transit of venus, , december . instructions to observers. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. aug. regulations of the royal observatory, greenwich. appendix to the greenwich observations, . oct. science and art. the moon as carved athenaeum. on lee church. nov. preparations for the observation of the r. astr. soc. transit of venus , december - . (month. not.) nov. remarks on the paper "on the nagpur inst. c.e. waterworks." (minutes.) dec. telegrams relating to the observations r. astr. soc. of the transit of venus , dec. . (month. not.) feb. remarks on mr prestwich's paper on the inst. c.e. origin of the chesil bank. (minutes.) feb letter to the rev. n. m. ferrers, on the subject of the smith's prizes. mar. on the method to be used in reducing r. astr. soc. the observations of the transit of (month. not.) venus , dec. . mar. report on the progress made in the r. astr. soc. calculations for a new method of (month. not.) treating the lunar theory. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. june apparatus for final adjustment of the horolog. journ. thermal compensation of chronometers, by the astronomer royal. nov. chart of the apparent path of mars, , r. astr. soc. with neighbouring stars. also (month. not.) spectroscopic observations made at the royal observatory, greenwich. also observations of the solar eclipse of , september - , made at the royal observatory, greenwich. jan. report by the astronomer royal on the r. astr. soc. present state of the calculations in his (month. not.) new lunar theory. jan. note on a point in the life of sir william athenaeum. herschel. mar. evidence given before the government committee on the meteorological committee. may on toasting at public dinners. public opinion. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors, aug. on a speech attributed to nelson. athenaeum. dec. spectroscopic results for the rotation of r. astr. soc. jupiter and of the sun, obtained at the (month. not.) royal observatory, greenwich. jan. stars to be compared in r.a. with mars, r. astr. soc. , for determination of the parallax (month. not.) of mars. mar. note by the astronomer royal on the r. astr. soc. numerical lunar theory. also remarks (month. not.) on le verrier's intra-mercurial planet. also on observations for the parallax of mars. mar. remarks on a paper on "the river inst. c.e. thames." (minutes.) apr. on observing for le verrier's intra-mercurial r. astr. soc. planet. also on the parallax of (month. not.) mars, and mr gill's proposed expedition. may on the vulgar notion that the sun or moon the observatory is smallest when overhead. (no. ). june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july report on the telescopic observations of ho. of commons the transit of venus , made in the parly. paper. expedition of the british government, and on the conclusion derived from those observations. sept. on spurious discs of stars produced by the observatory oval object-glasses. (no. ). sept. obituary notice of the work of le daily news. verrier--died sept. , . nov. on the value of the mean solar parallax the observatory &c. from the british telescopic observations (no. ). of the transit of venus . also remarks on prof. adams's lunar theory. nov. on the inferences for the value of mean r. astr. soc. solar parallax &c. from the telescopic (month. not.) observations of the transit of venus , which were made in the british expedition for the observation of that transit. numerical lunar theory: appendix to greenwich astronomical observations . dec. on the tides at malta. phil. trans. correspondence with le verrier on his the observatory planetary tables in . (no. ). on the proposal of the french committee the observatory to erect a statue to le verrier. also (no. ). on the observation of the approaching transit of mercury. mar. on the correction of the compass in phil. mag. iron ships without use of a fixed mark. mar. on the standards of length in the the times. guildhall, london. apr. report of lecture on "the probable w. cumberland condition of the interior of the times. earth." on the probable condition of the trans. of the interior of the earth--revised cumberland edition of above lecture. assoc., &c. june discussion of the observations of the observatory the transit of mercury on may . (no. ). abstract of lecture delivered at the observatory cockermouth on "the interior of the (no. ). earth." june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july remarks on the measurement of the the observatory photographs taken in the transit of (no. ). venus observations. july on the variable star r. scuti: the observatory distortion in the photo-heliograph. (no. ). remarks on mr gill's heliometric the observatory observations of mars. (no. ). dec. note on a determination of the mass r. astr. soc. of mars, and reference to his own (month. not.) determination in . also note on the conjunction of mars and saturn, , june . jan. on the remarkable conjunction of the observatory the planets mars and saturn which (no. ). will occur on , june . feb. on the names "cabul" and "malek." athenaeum feb. on faggot votes in cornwall in . athenaeum mar. letter on the examination papers for the smith's prizes. apr. drafts of resolutions proposed concerning sadler's notes on the late admiral smyth's "cycle of celestial objects." june letter to le verrier, dated , the observatory feb. , in support of the method (no. ). of least squares. june remarks in debate on sadler's the observatory "notes" above-mentioned. (no. ). june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. july index to the records of occasional r. astr. soc. observations and calculations made (month. not. at the royal observatory, greenwich, supplementary.) and to other miscellaneous papers connected with that institution. biography of g. b. airy (perhaps corrected by himself) in french, published at geneva. sept. on the construction and use of a phil. mag. scale for gauging cylindrical measures of capacity. on the theoretical value of the the observatory acceleration of the moon's mean (no. ). motion. on the secular acceleration of the observatory the moon--additional note. (no. ). apr. memoranda for the commission appointed to consider the tay bridge casualty. apr. on the theoretical value of the r. astr. soc. acceleration of the moon's mean (month. not.) motion in longitude produced by the change of eccentricity of the earth's orbit. may on the preparations to be made for r. astr. soc. observation of the transit of venus (month. not.) , dec. . on the present proximity of jupiter the observatory to the earth, and on the intervals of (no. ). recurrence of the same phaenomena. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. sept. on the _e muet_ in french. athenaeum. sept. excursions in the keswick keswick district. guardian. dec. description of flamsteed's the observatory equatoreal sextant, and remarks on (no. ). graham. addition to a paper entitled "on r. astr. soc. the theoretical value of the moon's (month. not. mean motion in longitude," &c. supplementary.) mar. effect on the moon's movement in r. astr. soc. latitude, produced by the slow (month. not.) change of position of the plane of the ecliptic. june report of the astronomer royal to the board of visitors. logarithms of the values of all inst. c. e. vulgar fractions with numerator and (minutes.) denominator not exceeding : arranged in order of magnitude. july a new method of clearing the lunar distance.--admiralty. aug. on a systematic interruption in the order phil. mag. of numerical values of vulgar fractions, when arranged in a series of consecutive magnitudes. sept. monthly means of the highest and r. soc. (proc.) lowest diurnal temperatures of the water of the thames, and comparison with the corresponding temperatures of the air at the royal observatory, greenwich. oct. on the proposed forth bridge. nature. dec. on the proposed forth bridge. nature. jan. on the ossianic poems. athenaeum. mar. on the proposed braithwaite and daily news. buttermere railway. times. standard. apr. memorandum on the progress of the numerical lunar theory, addressed to the board of visitors of the royal observatory, greenwich. letter on the apparent inequality in the the observatory mean motion of the moon. (no. ). aug. on a singular morning dream. nature. sept. power of organization of the common nature. mouse. nov. on chepstow railway bridge, with general nature. remarks suggested by that structure. mar. on the erroneous usage of the term athenaeum. "arterial drainage." on the comparison of reversible and the observatory non-reversible transit instruments. (no. ). nov. on an obscure passage in the koran. nature. (?) may an incident in the history of trinity athenaeum. college, cambridge. june incident no. in the history of trinity athenaeum. college, cambridge. nov. results deduced from the measure of phil. trans. terrestrial magnetic force in the horizontal plane, at the royal observatory, greenwich, from to . apr. integer members of the first centenary nature. satisfying the equation a² = b² + c². feb. on the earlier tripos of the university of nature. (?) cambridge: in mss. apr. on the establishment of the roman dominion nature. in south-east britain. july on a special algebraic function, and its camb. phil. soc. application to the solution of (?) some equations: in mss. books written by g. b. airy. mathematical tracts on physical astronomy, the figure of the earth, precession and nutation, and the calculus of variations. this was published in . in a nd edition published in the undulatory theory of optics was added to the above list. four editions of this work have been published, the last in . the undulatory theory of optics was published separately in . gravitation: an elementary explanation of the principal perturbations in the solar system. written for the penny cyclopaedia, and published previously as a book in . there was a nd edition in . trigonometry. this was written for the encyclopaedia metropolitana about , and was published as a separate book in under the title of "a treatise on trigonometry." six lectures on astronomy delivered at the meetings of the friends of the ipswich museum at the temperance hall, ipswich, in the month of march . these lectures under the above title, and that of "popular astronomy, a series of lectures," have run through twelve editions. on the algebraical and numerical theory of errors of observations and the combination of observations, st edition in , nd in , rd in . essays on the invasion of britain by julius caesar; the invasion of britain by plautius, and by claudius caesar; the early military policy of the romans in britain; the battle of hastings, with correspondence. collected and printed for private distribution in . an elementary treatise on partial differential equations. . on sound and atmospheric vibrations, with the mathematical elements of music. the st edition in , the nd in . a treatise on magnetism, published in . notes on the earlier hebrew scriptures, published in . numerical lunar theory, published in . index. accidents (see also illnesses) accounts acts and opponencies adams, prof. j.c. adams, john quincey agrarian fires aiken airy, william, father of g.b.a. airy, ann, mother of g.b.a. airy, william, brother of g.b.a., and basil r. airy, his son airy, arthur, brother of g.b.a. airy, elizabeth, sister of g.b.a. airy, richarda, wife of g.b.a. airy, children of g.b.a. george richard elizabeth arthur wilfrid hubert hilda christabel annot osmund allsop alnwick altazimuth instrument althorp, lord american observatories american method of recording observations (see galvanic registration) ampère ancient eclipses anderson, lessee of harton colliery anemometer (see meteorology) anniversary parties antiquarian researches and notes arago architecture (see cathedrals, &c.) astronomical society (see royal astr. soc.) astronomische gesellschaft athenaeum newspaper athenaeum club atkinson, senior wrangler atlantic cable atmospheric railway (see railways) auckland, lord aurora borealis australian observatories (see also observatories) auwers, dr babbage, charles baily, francis bakhuysen, of leyden balance (public balance) baldock, commander baldrey, assistant banks, optician baring, sir t. barlow, prof. barlow, w.h. barnard, proctor barnes, miss barnes, gorell barometers barry, sir c. barton, bernard baxter, secretary to the admiralty beacons, floating beaufort, captain beaumont's observatory bedingfield, pupil bell scholarships (see examinations) bessell, astronomer biddell, arthur, uncle of g.b.a. biddell, george, uncle of g.b.a. biddell, william, uncle of g.b.a. biddell, george arthur, son of arthur biddell biographical notes bissett, pupil blackwood, captain blakesley, canon blasting bliss's observations blomfield, g.b., pupil bloomfield, lord board of longitude boileau bond, g.p. books, written by g.b.a., appendix book society, cambr. bosanquet bouch, t. civ. eng. boundary of canada (see canada) bouvard, e. bowstead bradley's observations brazil, emperor of breakwaters (see harbours) breen, assistant brewster, sir d. bridges brinkley, dr bristow, miss britannia bridge (see bridges) brooke, charles british association brougham, lord browne, g.a. brunel, civ. eng. buck buckland, dr buckle, pupil burgoyne, sir j. burlington, lord burton busts (see portraits) calculating machines calvert cambridge observatory: assistants instruments printed observations general cambridge university cambridge observatory, u.s.a. canada boundary cankrein, pupil canning, lord cape of good hope, observatory and survey carpenter, assistant cartmell, dr case catalogues of stars (see stars) cathedrals and churches catton cavendish experiment cayley, prof. challis, prof. chalmers, dr cherbourg (see harbours) chesil bank childers childers, first lord of admiralty christchurch christie, prof. christie, astronomer royal chronographic barrel (see galvanic registration) chronometers churches (see cathedrals) church service cincinnati observatory clarendon, lord clark, latimer clarkson, thomas, and mrs clarkson cleasby, pupil clegg clinton, pupil clocks cockburn, sir g. coinage (see decimal coinage) colby, col. colchester colenso, bishop college hall collorado, count colonial observatories (see observatories) comets commissions compass corrections cookson, dr cooper, pupil cooper's telescope (see telescopes) copying press corbaux, miss corryvreckan whirlpool courtney, rev. j. cowper, first commissioner of works crawford, pupil criswick, assistant cropley, crosse, rev. e. cubitt, sir w. daguerrotypes dalhousie, lord davy, sir humphrey davy, dr daynou, lieut. deal time ball de berg decimal coinage and decimal subdividing dee navigation (see rivers) degrees (see also orders and elections to societies) deighton, publisher de la rive de la rue de launay deluge, the de morgan, a. denison, e.b. denison, sir w. denison, h. denmark, king of dent, clockmaker dent-dale devonshire, duke of dobbs, pupil dobree, lecturer docks (see harbours) dolcoath experiments dollond, instrument maker drainage drinkwater, bethune double-image micrometer douglas, sir h. dover (see harbours) dublin professorship (see professorships) dublin observatory (see observatories) duë, baron dundas, admiral dundonald, lord dunkin, assistant dunlop, astronomer durham observatory earnshaw earth currents eastons, manufacturers eclipses (see also ancient eclipses) edinburgh observatory edmonston, dr education (see university education) egyptian astronomical tablets elections to societies, &c. (see also degrees and orders) electricity, atmospheric ellenborough, lord ellis, w., assistant elphinstone encke and encke's comet encyclopaedia metropolitana engines (see steam-engines) equatoreal, large estcourt, col. evans, lecturer examinations exhibitions and prizes exodus of the israelites eye, defects of eye, estate at fallows, astronomer faraday farish farr fellowship field fisher fishmongers' company fletcher, isaac, m.p. floating island, derwentwater fluid telescope, barlow's foley forbes, prof. j.d. foster, messrs fox, alfred freedom of the city of london freemantle, sir t. french, dr friends, personal friends at cambridge fries, prof. galbraith galle galvanic communication, time-signals, clocks, and registration (see also earth currents) gambard gas act gauss gautier geodesy geology geological society germany gibson, pupil gilbert, messrs gilbert, davies gill, astronomer gladstone, w.e. glaisher, assistant glasgow observatory gordon gosset goulburn, chancellor of the exchequer gould, dr b.a. goussel graduation of circles grant, of glenmoriston great circle sailing (see navigation) great eastern (see ships) great exhibition great gable green, commander u.s.n. greenwich greenwich observatory, before his appointment as astronomer royal greenwich observatory: appointment as astronomer royal, and subsequently as visitor buildings and grounds in, instruments assistants computations papers and manuscripts (arrangement of) estimates printed observations visitations and reports general gresswell groombridge's catalogue (see stars) guest, caius college haarlem hall, col. halley and halley's comet hamilton hamilton, sir w.r. hamilton, admiral hansard hansen, prof. hansteen harbours harcourt, rev. w. vernon hartnup, astronomer harton colliery experiments haviland, dr hawkes, trinity college hebrew scriptures heliograph hencke henderson, astronomer henslow, prof. herbert, g. hereford herschel, sir john herschel, miss caroline herschel, col. j. hervey, pupil higman, tutor, trinity college hilgard, u.s.a. himalaya expedition hind, moderator hind, superintendent nautical almanac hopkins hovenden, pupil hudson huggins, dr humboldt, baron a. humphreys hussey, dr hustler, tutor, trinity college hyde parker, admiral hygrometers ibbotson, pupil iliff illnesses inequality, venus and earth inglis, sir r. institut de france institution of civil engineers inverness, northern institution of ipswich lectures ireland, notes of ivory jackson jackson, john james, sir h. janus (see steam-engines) jarrow (see harbours) jeffries jerrard, dr jervis, major jeune, dr, v.c. of oxford johnson, capt. johnson, astronomer jones, instrument-makers jones, r. journeys: scotland and cumberland; swansea; derbyshire, &c.; wales; keswick, &c.; cornwall, &c.; orléans; lake district, &c.; continent, observatories, &c.; cornwall, &c.; derbyshire; oxford &c.; cumberland; ireland; scotland; derbyshire, &c.; cumberland, &c.; ireland; kent; s. wales; luddington and yorkshire; border of scotland; s. wales; cumberland and yorkshire; south of ireland; ireland; france; cornwall; germany; petersburg, &c.; ireland; shetland; scotland; sweden; madeira; cumberland; cumberland; oban, &c.; italy and sicily; west highlands; switzerland; central france; spain (eclipse); cumberland; west highlands; west highlands; cumberland; norway; cumberland; switzerland; cumberland; cumberland; cumberland; scotland; scotland; n. of scotland; ireland; scotland, &c.; cumberland; cumberland; cumberland; cumberland; s. wales; cumberland ; cumberland julius caesar, landing of jupiter (see planets) keeling kennedy king, joshua kingstown knight, publisher knighthood, offers of lagarde laing landman, engineer langton lardner, dr lassell, and lassell's telescope latitude determinations lax, prof. lectures: college professorial miscellaneous lefevre, j.g.s. leitch, dr le verrier lewis, h. lewis, sir g.c. lightfoot, rev. dr lighthouses lightning lillingstone lindsay, lord listing, prof. liverpool observatory livingstone, dr lloyd, dr lloyd, prof. lockyer lodge london university london, freedom of the city long vacations, with pupils longitude determinations longitude, board of (see board of longitude) lowe, chancellor of the exchequer lubbock, sir john lucas (computer) lucasian professorship (see professorships) lunar reductions lunar theory and tables (see also numerical lunar theory) lyndhurst, lord lyons, sir e. macaulay, t.b. macdonnell, dr maclean, of loch buy maclear, astronomer madras observatory magnetic observatory and magnetism (see also meteorology, compass corrections, and earth currents) main, robert maine boundary (see canada) maiden, prof. malkin malta man-engines (see mines) manuscripts (see papers) mars (see planets) marshman, pupil marth, a. martin, trin. coll. maskelyne, astronomer mason mathematical investigations (see also appendix "printed papers") mathematical tracts mathematical subjects in maudslays and field may, ransomes and may medals melbourne university melville, lord mercury (see planets) merivale, dr meteorology meteors middleton, sir w. milaud military researches miller, prof. mines minto, lord mitchell, astronomer mitchell miss molesworth, sir w. monteagle, lord monument in playford church moon: observations of theory and tables of (see lunar theory and tables) reductions of observations of (see lunar reductions) mass of morpeth, lord morton, pierce, pupil murchison, sir r. murray, publisher musgrave, charles musgrave, t. archbishop myers nasmyth nautical almanac navigation neate, pupil neptune and uranus newall newcombe, prof. new forest northampton, lord northumberland telescope numerical lunar theory observatories: see american, australian, beaumont's, cambridge, cambridge u.s.a., cape of good hope, cincinnati, colonial, dublin, durham, edinburgh, glasgow, greenwich, liverpool, madras, oxford, paris, paramatta, pulkowa, st helena, williamstown occultations o'connell ogilby, pupil oppolzer, prof. opponencies (see acts and opponencies) optics orders (see also degrees and elections to societies) ouvaroff, count oxford observatory oxford, miscellaneous packington, sir j. palmerston, lord papers (see appendix "printed papers") papers, arrangement of parachute, fall of parallax (see sun) paramatta observatory parker, charles parker, vice-chancellor paris, dr paris observatory paris exhibition parliamentary elections pasley paul peacock, george pearson, dr peel, sir robert pendulum investigations and experiments penny cyclopaedia pension pentland percy, bishop personal sketch philosophical society, cambridge philpott, dr photography piers (see harbours) pinheiro, lieut. pipon, lieut. plana, astronomer planetary influences planetary reductions planets (see also transits of venus) plantamour playford plumian professorship (see professorships) pocket-books for observations pogson, astronomer pond, astronomer portlock, capt. portraits, busts, &c. post office, (clocks, &c.) post office, stamps and envelopes pouillet prince albert pritchard, rev. c. prizes (see exhibitions) probable errors professorships: dublin; lucasian; plumian public schools commission pulkowa observatory pupils: bedingfield; bissett; blomfield; buckle; cankrein; cleasby; clinton; cooper; crawford; dobbs; gibson; guest; hervey; hovenden; ibbotson; lewis; marshman; morton; neate; ogilby; parker; rosser; smith; tinkler; tottenham; turner; wigram; williamson pym, engineer queen, h.m. the queen, quéroualle, mdlle de quetelet railways, near observatory railway gauge commission railways, miscellaneous rain (see meteorology) rainbows ransomes, also ransomes and may , reach reflex zenith tube religious tests and views repsold rhodes richardson, assistant rigaud, prof. rivers robinson, dr robinson, capt. rogers, rev. rogers, school assistant romilly, lord ronalds rose, rev. h.j. rosse, lord, and rosse's telescope rosser, pupil rothery rothman round down cliff, blasting of rouse, rev. r.c. m. routh, dr e.j. royal astronomical society (see also appendix "printed papers") royal exchange clock royal institution royal society (see also appendix "printed papers") royal society of edinburgh rüncker, paramatta rüncker rundell rusby russell, lord john sabine, col. sadler, h. saint helena observatory samuda saturn (see planets) saunders, g.w. by saw-mills (see ship timbers) schehallien, mountain scholarship scholefield schumacher scientific manual scoop-wheels scoresby, dr scriptural researches (see hebrew scriptures) sedgwick, adam selwyn, prof. senate house examination (see also university education) sewers commission sheepshanks, rev. richard, and miss sheepshanks sheepshanks fund and scholarship shepherd, clock-maker ship-timbers, machinery for sawing, shirreff, capt. simmons simms, f.w. simms (see troughton and simms) skeleton forms sly, draughtsman smith, rev. r. smith, father-in-law of g.b.a., and mrs smith, smith, the misses smith, sisters of richarda airy, susanna; elizabeth; georgiana; florence; caroline smith, archibald smith, m., pupil smith's prizes smyth, capt. w.h. smyth, piazzi societies, &c., elections to (see elections) solar eclipses (see eclipses) solar inequality (see sun) solar system (see sun) solar tables (see sun) south, sir james south's telescope south-eastern railway southampton southey (poet) spectroscopy spottiswoode spring-rice, lord monteagle standards of length and weight, and standards commission stars start point steam-engines stephenson, george stephenson, robert steventon stewart, prof. balfour stjerneld, baron stokes, prof. stone, astronomer stratford, lieut. stroganoff, count strutt, lord belper strutt, jedediah struve, otto stuart, prof. j. sun: miscellaneous parallax of (see also transits of venus) eclipses of (see eclipses) inequality, venus and earth tables of surveys (see trigonometrical surveys) sussex, duke of, sutcliffe sutcliffe, miss sydney university sylvester sweden, king of tate taylor, architect taylor, first assistant to pond, taylor, h. telegraphs (see galvanic communications) telescopes (see also cambridge observatory instruments, and greenwich observatory instruments) teneriffe experiment thames, the river, theology (see also hebrew scriptures and colenso) thermometers thermo-multiplier thirlwall, bishop thomas, assistant thompson, master trin. coll. thomson, sir w. tidal harbour commission tides, time-signals and time (see also galvanic communication, &c.) time balls (see time signals) tinkler, pupil tottenham, pupil traill, dr transit circle, transits of venus trigonometrical survey trinity college, cambridge trinity house tripos examination (see senate-house examination) troughton and simms tulley, optician tupman, capt turner, pupil turton, prof. tutorship ulrich, j.g. universities (see cambridge, dublin, edinburgh, london, melbourne, oxford, sydney) university education (see also smith's prizes and senate-house examination) university press, uranus (see neptune) valencia (see also longitude determinations) venus (see planets, and transits of venus) venus and earth inequality (see inequality) vernon harcourt (see harcourt) vetch, capt. vibrations of ground vignoles, c.b., engineer vulliamy, clockmaker wales, prince of walker, byatt walker, james, engineer walker, sydney, warburton, h. washington, capt. water telescope (see also fluid telescope) watson waves (see tides) webster, m.p. for aberdeen western westminster clock (see also clocks) wexford harbour (see harbours) wheatstone whewell, william white house, the, wigram, pupil williams, john williamson, pupil williamstown observatory wilson, prof. winchester winds (see meteorology) winning wood, sir charles wood, dr woodbridge, suffolk woodhouse, prof. woolwich academy (see examinations) wordsworth, dr, master of trin. coll. wordsworth, poet wrede, baron wynter, vice-chancellor, oxford yolland, col. york cathedral young, dr the life of flavius josephus by flavius josephus translated by william whiston . the family from which i am derived is not an ignoble one, but hath descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among several people is of a different origin, so with us to be of the sacerdotal dignity, is an indication of the splendor of a family. now, i am not only sprung from a sacerdotal family in general, but from the first of the twenty-four [ ] courses; and as among us there is not only a considerable difference between one family of each course and another, i am of the chief family of that first course also; nay, further, by my mother i am of the royal blood; for the children of asamoneus, from whom that family was derived, had both the office of the high priesthood, and the dignity of a king, for a long time together. i will accordingly set down my progenitors in order. my grandfather's father was named simon, with the addition of psellus: he lived at the same time with that son of simon the high priest, who first of all the high priests was named hyrcanus. this simon psellus had nine sons, one of whom was matthias, called ephlias: he married the daughter of jonathan the high priest, which jonathan was the first of the sons of asamoneus, who was high priest, and was the brother of simon the high priest also. this matthias had a son called matthias curtus, and that in the first year of the government of hyrcanus: his son's name was joseph, born in the ninth year of the reign of alexandra: his son matthias was born in the tenth year of the reign of archclaus; as was i born to matthias in the first year of the reign of caius caesar. i have three sons: hyrcanus, the eldest, was born in the fourth year of the reign of vespasian, as was justus born in the seventh, and agrippa in the ninth. thus have i set down the genealogy of my family as i have found it described [ ] in the public records, and so bid adieu to those who calumniate me [as of a lower original]. . now, my father matthias was not only eminent on account of his nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of his righteousness, and was in great reputation in jerusalem, the greatest city we have. i was myself brought up with my brother, whose name was matthias, for he was my own brother, by both father and mother; and i made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding. moreover, when i was a child, and about fourteen years of age, i was commended by all for the love i had to learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law. and when i was about sixteen years old, i had a mind to make trim of the several sects that were among us. these sects are three:-- the first is that of the pharisees, the second that sadducees, and the third that of the essens, as we have frequently told you; for i thought that by this means i might choose the best, if i were once acquainted with them all; so i contented myself with hard fare, and underwent great difficulties, and went through them all. nor did i content myself with these trials only; but when i was informed that one, whose name was banus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both by night and by day, in order to preserve his chastity, i imitated him in those things, and continued with him three years. [ ] so when i had accomplished my desires, i returned back to the city, being now nineteen years old, and began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the pharisees, which is of kin to the sect of the stoics, as the greeks call them. . but when i was in the twenty-sixth year of my age, it happened that i took a voyage to rome, and this on the occasion which i shall now describe. at the time when felix was procurator of judea there were certain priests of my acquaintance, and very excellent persons they were, whom on a small and trifling occasion he had put into bonds, and sent to rome to plead their cause before caesar. these i was desirous to procure deliverance for, and that especially because i was informed that they were not unmindful of piety towards god, even under their afflictions, but supported themselves with figs and nuts. [ ] accordingly i came to rome, though it were through a great number of hazards by sea; for as our ship was drowned in the adriatic sea, we that were in it, being about six hundred in number, [ ] swam for our lives all the night; when, upon the first appearance of the day, and upon our sight of a ship of cyrene, i and some others, eighty in all, by god's providence, prevented the rest, and were taken up into the other ship. and when i had thus escaped, and was come to dieearchia, which the italians call puteoli, i became acquainted with aliturius, an actor of plays, and much beloved by nero, but a jew by birth; and through his interest became known to poppea, caesar's wife, and took care, as soon as possible, to entreat her to procure that the priests might be set at liberty. and when, besides this favor, i had obtained many presents from poppea, i returned home again. . and now i perceived innovations were already begun, and that there were a great many very much elevated in hopes of a revolt from the romans. i therefore endeavored to put a stop to these tumultuous persons, and persuaded them to change their minds; and laid before their eyes against whom it was that they were going to fight, and told them that they were inferior to the romans not only in martial skill, but also in good fortune; and desired them not rashly, and after the most foolish manner, to bring on the dangers of the most terrible mischiefs upon their country, upon their families, and upon themselves. and this i said with vehement exhortation, because i foresaw that the end of such a war would be most unfortunate to us. but i could not persuade them; for the madness of desperate men was quite too hard for me. . i was then afraid, lest, by inculcating these things so often, i should incur their hatred and their suspicions, as if i were of our enemies' party, and should run into the danger of being seized by them, and slain; since they were already possessed of antonia, which was the citadel; so i retired into the inner court of the temple. yet did i go out of the temple again, after manahem and the principal of the band of robbers were put to death, when i abode among the high priests and the chief of the pharisees. but no small fear seized upon us when we saw the people in arms, while we ourselves knew not what we should do, and were not able to restrain the seditious. however, as the danger was directly upon us, we pretended that we were of the same opinion with them, but only advised them to be quiet for the present, and to let the enemy go away, still hoping that gessius [florus] would not be long ere he came, and that with great forces, and so put an end to these seditious proceedings. . but, upon his coming and fighting, he was beaten, and a great many of those that were with him fell. and this disgrace which gessius [with cestius] received, became the calamity of our whole nation; for those that were fond of the war were so far elevated with this success, that they had hopes of finally conquering the romans. of which war another occasion was ministered; which was this:-- those that dwelt in the neighboring cities of syria seized upon such jews as dwelt among them, with their wives and children, and slew them, when they had not the least occasion of complaint against them; for they did neither attempt any innovation or revolt from the romans, nor had they given any marks of hatred or treacherous designs towards the syrians. but what was done by the inhabitants of scythopolis was the most impious and most highly criminal of all; [ ] for when the jews their enemies came upon them from without, they forced the jews that were among them to bear arms against their own countrymen, which it is unlawful for us to do; [ ] and when, by their assistance, they had joined battle with those who attacked them, and had beaten them, after that victory they forgot the assurances they had given these their fellow citizens and confederates, and slew them all, being in number many ten thousands [ , ]. the like miseries were undergone by those jews that were the inhabitants of damascus. but we have given a more accurate account of these things in the books of the jewish war. i only mention them now, because i would demonstrate to my readers, that the jews' war with the romans was not voluntary, but that, for the main, they were forced by necessity to enter into it. . so when gessius had been beaten, as we have said already, the principal men of jerusalem, seeing that the robbers and innovators had arms in great plenty, and fearing lest they, while they were unprovided of arms, should be in subjection to their enemies, which also came to be the case afterward; and, being informed that all galilee had not yet revolted from the romans, but that some part of it was still quiet; they sent me and two others of the priests, who were men of excellent characters, joazar and judas, in order to persuade the ill men there to lay down their arms, and to teach them this lesson,--that it were better to have those arms reserved for the most courageous men that the nation had [than to be kept there]; for that it had been resolved, that those our best men should always have their arms ready against futurity; but still so, that they should wait to see what the romans would do. . when i had therefore received these instructions, i came into galilee, and found the people of sepphoris in no small agony about their country, by reason that the galileans had resolved to plunder it, on account of the friendship they had with the romans, and because they had given their right hand, and made a league with cestius gallus, the president of syria. but i delivered them all out of the fear they were in, and persuaded the multitude to deal kindly with them, and permitted them to send to those that were their own hostages with gessius to dora, which is a city of phoenicia, as often as they pleased; though i still found the inhabitants of tiberias ready to take arms, and that on the occasion following:-- . there were three factions in this city. the first was composed of men of worth and gravity; of these julius capellus was the head. now he, as well as all his companions, herod the son of miarus, and herod the son of gamalus, and compsus the son of compsus; [for as to compsus's brother crispus, who had once been governor of the city under the great king [agrippa] [ ] he was beyond jordan in his own possessions;] all these persons before named gave their advice, that the city should then continue in their allegiance to the romans and to the king. but pistus, who was guided by his son justus, did not acquiesce in that resolution; otherwise he was himself naturally of a good and virtuous character. but the second faction was composed of the most ignoble persons, and was determined for war. but as for justus, the son of pistus, who was the head of the third faction, although he pretended to be doubtful about going to war, yet was he really desirous of innovation, as supposing that he should gain power to himself by the change of affairs. he therefore came into the midst of them, and endeavored to inform the multitude that "the city tiberius had ever been a city of galilee, and that in the days of herod the tetrarch, who had built it, it had obtained the principal place, and that he had ordered that the city sepphoris should be subordinate to the city tiberias; that they had not lost this preeminence even under agrippa the father, but had retained it until felix was procurator of judea. but he told them, that now they had been so unfortunate as to be made a present by nero to agrippa, junior; and that, upon sepphoris's submission of itself to the romans, that was become the capital city of galilee, and that the royal library and the archives were now removed from them." when he had spoken these things, and a great many more, against king agrippa, in order to provoke the people to a revolt, he added that "this was the time for them to take arms, and join with the galileans as their confederates [whom they might command, and who would now willingly assist them, out of the hatred they bare to the people of sepphoris; because they preserved their fidelity to the romans], and to gather a great number of forces, in order to punish them." and as he said this, he exhorted the multitude, [to go to war;] for his abilities lay in making harangues to the people, and in being too hard in his speeches for such as opposed him, though they advised what was more to their advantage, and this by his craftiness and his fallacies, for he was not unskilful in the learning of the greeks; and in dependence on that skill it was, that he undertook to write a history of these affairs, as aiming, by this way of haranguing, to disguise the truth. but as to this man, and how ill were his character and conduct of life, and how he and his brother were, in great measure, the authors of our destruction, i shall give the reader an account in the progress of my narration. so when justus had, by his persuasions, prevailed with the citizens of tiberias to take arms, nay, and had forced a great many so to do against their wills, he went out, and set the villages that belonged to gadara and hippos on fire; which villages were situated on the borders of tiberias, and of the region of scythopolis. . and this was the state tiberias was now in. but as for gischala, its affairs were thus:-- when john, the son of levi, saw some of the citizens much elevated upon their revolt from the romans, he labored to restrain them, and entreated them that they would keep their allegiance to them. but he could not gain his purpose, although he did his endeavors to the utmost; for the neighboring people of gadara, gabara, and sogana, with the tyrians, got together a great army, and fell upon gischala, and took gischala by force, and set it on fire; and when they had entirely demolished it, they returned home. upon which john was so enraged, that he armed all his men, and joined battle with the people forementioned; and rebuilt gischala after a manner better than before, and fortified it with walls for its future security. . but gamala persevered in its allegiance to the romans, for the reason following:-- philip, the son of jacimus, who was their governor under king agrippa, had been unexpectedly preserved when the royal palace at jerusalem had been besieged; but, as he fled away, had fallen into another danger, and that was, of being killed by manahem, and the robbers that were with him; but certain babylonians, who were of his kindred, and were then in jerusalem, hindered the robbers from executing their design. so philip staid there four days, and fled away on the fifth, having disguised himself with fictitious hair, that he might not be discovered; and when he was come to one of the villages to him belonging, but one that was situated at the borders of the citadel of gamala, he sent to some of those that were under him, and commanded them to come to him. but god himself hindered that his intention, and this for his own advantage also; for had it not so happened, he had certainly perished. for a fever having seized upon him immediately, he wrote to agrippa and bernice, and gave them to one of his freed-men to carry them to varus, who at this time was procurator of the kingdom, which the king and his sister had intrusted him withal, while they were gone to berytus with an intention of meeting gessius. when varus had received these letters of philip, and had learned that he was preserved, he was very uneasy at it, as supposing that he should appear useless to the king and his sister, now philip was come. he therefore produced the carrier of the letters before the multitude, and accused him of forging the same; and said that he spake falsely when he related that philip was at jerusalem, fighting among the jews against the romans. so he slew him. and when this freed-man of philip did not return again, philip was doubtful what should be the occasion of his stay, and sent a second messenger with letters, that he might, upon his return, inform him what had befallen the other that had been sent before, and why he tarried so long. varus accused this messenger also, when he came, of telling a falsehood, and slew him. for he was puffed up by the syrians that were at caesarea, and had great expectations; for they said that agrippa would be slain by the romans for the crimes which the jews had committed, and that he should himself take the government, as derived from their kings; for varus was, by the confession of all, of the royal family, as being a descendant of sohemus, who had enjoyed a tetrarchy about libanus; for which reason it was that he was puffed up, and kept the letters to himself. he contrived, also, that the king should not meet with those writings, by guarding all the passes, lest any one should escape, and inform the king what had been done. he moreover slew many of the jews, in order to gratify the syrians of cesarea. he had a mind also to join with the trachonites in batanea, and to take up arms and make an assault upon the babylonian jews that were at ecbatana; for that was the name they went by. he therefore called to him twelve of the jews of cesarea, of the best character, and ordered them to go to ecbatana, and inform their countrymen who dwelt there, that varus hath heard that "you intend to march against the king; but, not believing that report, he hath sent us to persuade you to lay down your arms, and that this compliance will be a sign that he did well not to give credit to those that raised the report concerning you." he also enjoined them to send seventy of their principal men to make a defense for them as to the accusation laid against them. so when the twelve messengers came to their countrymen at ecbatana, and found that they had no designs of innovation at all, they persuaded them to send the seventy men also; who, not at all suspecting what would come, sent them accordingly. so these seventy went down to caesarea, together with the twelve ambassadors; where varus met them with the king's forces, and slew them all, together with the [twelve] [ ] ambassadors, and made an expedition against the jews of ecbatana. but one there was of the seventy who escaped, and made haste to inform the jews of their coming; upon which they took their arms, with their wives and children, and retired to the citadel at gamala, leaving their own villages full of all sorts of good things, and having many ten thousands of cattle therein. when philip was informed of these things, he also came to the citadel of gamala; and when he was come, the multitude cried aloud, and desired him to resume the government, and to make an expedition against varus, and the syrians of cesarea; for it was reported that they had slain the king. but philip restrained their zeal, and put them in mind of the benefits the king had bestowed upon them; and told them how powerful the romans were, and said it was not for their advantage to make war with them; and at length he prevailed with them. but now, when the king was acquainted with varus's design, which was to cut off the jews of caesarea, being many ten thousands, with their wives and children, and all in one day, he called to him equiculus modius, and sent him to be varus's successor, as we have elsewhere related. but still philip kept possession of the citadel of gamala, and of the country adjoining to it, which thereby continued in their allegiance to the romans. . now, as soon as i was come into galilee, and had learned this state of things by the information of such as told me of them, i wrote to the sanhedrim at jerusalem about them, and required their direction what i should do. their direction was, that i should continue there, and that, if my fellow legates were willing, i should join with them in the care of galilee. but those my fellow legates, having gotten great riches from those tithes which as priests were their dues, and were given to them, determined to return to their own country. yet when i desired them to stay so long, that we might first settle the public affairs, they complied with me. so i removed, together with them, from the city of sepphoris, and came to a certain village called bethmaus, four furlongs distant from tiberius; and thence i sent messengers to the senate of tiberius, and desired that the principal men of the city would come to me: and when they were come, justus himself being also with them, i told them that i was sent to them by the people of jerusalem as a legate, together with these other priests, in order to persuade them to demolish that house which herod the tetrarch had built there, and which had the figures of living creatures in it, although our laws have forbidden us to make any such figures; and i desired that they would give us leave so to do immediately. but for a good while capellus and the principal men belonging to the city would not give us leave, but were at length entirely overcome by us, and were induced to be of our opinion. so jesus the son of sapphias, one of those whom we have already mentioned as the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people, prevented us, and took with him certain galileans, and set the entire palace on fire, and thought he should get a great deal of money thereby, because he saw some of the roofs gilt with gold. they also plundered a great deal of the furniture, which was done without our approbation; for after we had discoursed with capellus and the principal men of the city, we departed from bethmaus, and went into the upper galilee. but jesus and his party slew all the greeks that were inhabitants of tiberias, and as many others as were their enemies before the war began. . when i understood this state of things, i was greatly provoked, and went down to tiberias, and took all the care i could of the royal furniture, to recover all that could be recovered from such as had plundered it. they consisted of candlesticks made of corinthian brass, and of royal tables, and of a great quantity of uncoined silver; and i resolved to preserve whatsoever came to my hand for the king. so i sent for ten of the principal men of the senate, and for capellus the son of antyllus, and committed the furniture to them, with this charge, that they should part with it to nobody else but to myself. from thence i and my fellow legates went to gichala, to john, as desirous to know his intentions, and soon saw that he was for innovations, and had a mind to the principality; for he desired me to give him authority to carry off that corn which belonged to caesar, and lay in the villages of upper galilee; and he pretended that he would expend what it came to in building the walls of his own city. but when i perceived what he endeavored at, and what he had in his mind, i said i would not permit him so to do; for that i thought either to keep it for the romans or for myself, now i was intrusted with the public affairs there by the people of jerusalem. but, when he was not able to prevail with me, he betook himself to my fellow legates; for they had no sagacity in providing for futurity, and were very ready to take bribes. so he corrupted them with money to decree, that all that corn which was within his province should be delivered to him; while i, who was but one, was outvoted by two, and held my tongue. then did john introduce another cunning contrivance of his; for he said that those jews who inhabited cesarea philippi, and were shut up by the order of the king's deputy there, had sent to him to desire him, that, since they had no oil that was pure for their use, he would provide a sufficient quantity of such oil for them, lest they should be forced to make use of oil that came from the greeks, and thereby transgress their own laws. now this was said by john, not out of his regard to religion, but out of his most flagrant desire of gain; for he knew that two sextaries were sold with them of caesarea for one drachma, but that at gischala fourscore sextaxies were sold for four sextaries. so he gave order that all the oil which was there should be carried away, as having my permission for so doing; which yet i did not grant him voluntarily, but only out of fear of the multitude, since, if i had forbidden him, i should have been stoned by them. when i had therefore permitted this to be done by john, he gained vast sums of money by this his knavery. . but when i had dismissed my fellow legates, and sent them back to jerusalem, i took care to have arms provided, and the cities fortified. and when i had sent for the most hardy among the robbers, i saw that it was not in my power to take their arms from them; but i persuaded the multitude to allow them money as pay, and told them it was better for them to give them a little willingly, rather than to [be forced to] overlook them when they plundered their goods from them. and when i had obliged them to take an oath not to come into that country, unless they were invited to come, or else when they had not their pay given them, i dismissed them, and charged them neither to make an expedition against the romans, nor against those their neighbors that lay round about them; for my first care was to keep galilee in peace. so i was willing to have the principal of the galileans, in all seventy, as hostages for their fidelity, but still under the notion of friendship. accordingly, i made them my friends and companions as i journeyed, and set them to judge causes; and with their approbation it was that i gave my sentences, while i endeavored not to mistake what justice required, and to keep my hands clear of all bribery in those determinations. . i was now about the thirtieth year of my age; in which time of life it is a hard thing for any one to escape the calumnies of the envious, although he restrain himself from fulfilling any unlawful desires, especially where a person is in great authority. yet did i preserve every woman free from injuries; and as to what presents were offered me, i despised them, as not standing in need of them. nor indeed would i take those tithes, which were due to me as a priest, from those that brought them. yet do i confess, that i took part of the spoils of those syrians which inhabited the cities that adjoined to us, when i had conquered them, and that i sent them to my kindred at jerusalem; although, when i twice took sepphoris by force, and tiberias four times, and gadara once, and when i had subdued and taken john, who often laid treacherous snares for me, i did not punish [with death] either him or any of the people forenamed, as the progress of this discourse will show. and on this account, i suppose, it was that god, [ ] who is never unacquainted with those that do as they ought to do, delivered me still out of the hands of these my enemies, and afterwards preserved me when i fell into those many dangers which i shall relate hereafter. . now the multitude of the galileans had that great kindness for me, and fidelity to me, that when their cities were taken by force, and their wives and children carried into slavery, they did not so deeply lament for their own calamities, as they were solicitous for my preservation. but when john saw this, he envied me, and wrote to me, desiring that i would give him leave to come down, and make use of the hot-baths of tiberias for the recovery of the health of his body. accordingly, i did not hinder him, as having no suspicion of any wicked designs of his; and i wrote to those to whom i had committed the administration of the affairs of tiberius by name, that they should provide a lodging for john, and for such as should come with him, and should procure him what necessaries soever he should stand in need of. now at this time my abode was in a village of galilee, which is named cans. . but when john was come to the city of tiberias, he persuaded the men to revolt from their fidelity to me, and to adhere to him; and many of them gladly received that invitation of his, as ever fond of innovations, and by nature disposed to changes, and delighting in seditions; but they were chiefly justus and his father pistus, that were earnest for their revolt from me, and their adherence to john. but i came upon them, and prevented them; for a messenger had come to me from silas, whom i had made governor of tiberias, as i have said already, and had told me of the inclinations of the people of tiberias, and advised me to make haste thither; for that, if i made any delay, the city would come under another's jurisdiction. upon the receipt of this letter of silas, i took two hundred men along with me, and traveled all night, having sent before a messenger to let the people of tiberias know that i was coming to them. when i came near to the city, which was early in the morning, the multitude came out to meet me; and john came with them, and saluted me, but in a most disturbed manner, as being afraid that my coming was to call him to an account for what i was now sensible he was doing. so he, in great haste, went to his lodging. but when i was in the open place of the city, having dismissed the guards i had about me, excepting one, and ten armed men that were with him, i attempted to make a speech to the multitude of the people of tiberias: and, standing on a certain elevated place, i entreated them not to be so hasty in their revolt; for that such a change in their behavior would be to their reproach, and that they would then justly be suspected by those that should be their governors hereafter, as if they were not likely to be faithful to them neither. . but before i had spoken all i designed, i heard one of my own domestics bidding me come down, for that it was not a proper time to take care of retaining the good-will of the people of tiberias, but to provide for my own safety, and escape my enemies there; for john had chosen the most trusty of those armed men that were about him out of those thousand that he had with him, and had given them orders when he sent them, to kill me, having learned that i was alone, excepting some of my domestics. so those that were sent came as they were ordered, and they had executed what they came about, had i not leaped down from the elevation i stood on, and with one of my guards, whose name was james, been carried [out of the crowd] upon the back of one herod of tiberias, and guided by him down to the lake, where i seized a ship, and got into it, and escaped my enemies unexpectedly, and came to tarichese. . now, as soon as the inhabitants of that city understood the perfidiousness of the people of tiberias, they were greatly provoked at them. so they snatched up their arms, and desired me to be their leader against them; for they said they would avenge their commander's cause upon them. they also carried the report of what had been done to me to all the galileans, and eagerly endeavored to irritate them against the people of tiberias, and desired that vast numbers of them would get together, and come to them, that they might act in concert with their commander, what should be determined as fit to be done. accordingly, the galileans came to me in great numbers, from all parts, with their weapons, and besought me to assault tiberias, to take it by force, and to demolish it, till it lay even with the ground, and then to make slaves of its inhabitants, with their wives and children. those that were josephus's friends also, and had escaped out of tiberias, gave him the same advice. but i did not comply with them, thinking it a terrible thing to begin a civil war among them; for i thought that this contention ought not to proceed further than words; nay, i told them that it was not for their own advantage to do what they would have me to do, while the romans expected no other than that we should destroy one another by our mutual seditions. and by saying this, i put a stop to the anger of the galileans. . but now john was afraid for himself, since his treachery had proved unsuccessful. so he took the armed men that were about him, and removed from tiberias to gischala, and wrote to me to apologize for himself concerning what had been done, as if it had been done without his approbation, and desired me to have no suspicion of him to his disadvantage. he also added oaths and certain horrible curses upon himself, and supposed he should be thereby believed in the points he wrote about to me. . but now another great number of the galileans came together again with their weapons, as knowing the man, how wicked and how sadly perjured he was, and desired me to lead them against him and promised me that they would utterly both him and gischala. hereupon i professed that i was obliged to them for their readiness to serve me, and that i would more than requite their good-will to me. however, i entreated them to restrain themselves, and begged of them to give me leave to do what i intended, which was to put an end to these troubles without bloodshed; and when i had prevailed with the multitude of the galileans to let me do so, i came to sepphoris. . but the inhabitants of this city having determined to continue in their allegiance to the romans, were afraid of my coming to them, and tried, by putting me upon another action, to divert me, that they might be freed from the terror they were in. accordingly, they sent to jesus, the captain of those robbers who were in the confines of ptolemais, and promised to give him a great deal of money, if he would come with those forces he had with him, which were in number eight hundred, and fight with us. accordingly, he complied with what they desired, upon the promises they had made him, and was desirous to fall upon us when we were unprepared for him, and knew nothing of his coming beforehand. so he sent to me, and desired that i would give him leave to come and salute me. when i had given him that leave, which i did without the least knowledge of his treacherous intentions beforehand, he took his band of robbers, and made haste to come to me. yet did not this his knavery succeed well at last; for as he was already nearly approaching, one of those with him deserted him, and came to me, and told me what he had undertaken to do. when i was informed of this, i went into the market-place, and pretended to know nothing of his treacherous purpose. i took with me many galileans that were armed, as also some of those of tiberias; and, when i had given orders that all the roads should be carefully guarded, i charged the keepers of the gates to give admittance to none but jesus, when he came, with the principal of his men, and to exclude the rest; and in case they aimed to force themselves in, to use stripes [in order to repel them]. accordingly, those that had received such a charge did as they were bidden, and jesus came in with a few others; and when i had ordered him to throw down his arms immediately, and told him, that if he refused so to do, he was a dead man, he seeing armed men standing all round about him, was terrified, and complied; and as for those of his followers that were excluded, when they were informed that he was seized, they ran away. i then called jesus to me by himself, and told him, "that i was not a stranger to that treacherous design he had against me, nor was i ignorant by whom he was sent for; that, however, i would forgive him what he had done already, if he would repent of it, and be faithful to me hereafter." and thus, upon his promise to do all that i desired, i let him go, and gave him leave to get those whom he had formerly had with him together again. but i threatened the inhabitants of sepphoris, that, if they would not leave off their ungrateful treatment of me, i would punish them sufficiently. . at this time it was that two great men, who were under the jurisdiction of the king [agrippa] came to me out of the region of trachonius, bringing their horses and their arms, and carrying with them their money also; and when the jews would force them to be circumcised, if they would stay among them, i would not permit them to have any force put upon them, [ ] but said to them, "every one ought to worship god according to his own inclinations, and not to be constrained by force; and that these men, who had fled to us for protection, ought not to be so treated as to repent of their coming hither." and when i had pacified the multitude, i provided for the men that were come to us whatsoever it was they wanted, according to their usual way of living, and that in great plenty also. . now king agrippa sent an army to make themselves masters of the citadel of gamala, and over it equieulus modius; but the forces that were sent were not allow to encompass the citadel quite round, but lay before it in the open places, and besieged it. but when ebutius the decurion, who was intrusted with the government of the great plain, heard that i was at simonias, a village situated in the confines of galilee, and was distant from him sixty furlongs, he took a hundred horsemen that were with him by night, and a certain number of footmen, about two hundred, and brought the inhabitants of the city gibea along with him as auxiliaries, and marched in the night, and came to the village where i abode. upon this i pitched my camp over against him, which had a great number of forces in it: but ebutius tried to draw us down into the plain, as greatly depending upon his horsemen; but we would not come down; for when i was satisfied of the advantage that his horse would have if we came down into the plain, while we were all footmen, i resolved to join battle with the enemy where i was. now ebutius and his party made a courageous opposition for some time; but when he saw that his horse were useless to him in that place, he retired back to the city gibea, having lost three of his men in the fight. so i followed him directly with two thousand armed men; and when i was at the city besara, that lay in the confines of ptolemais, but twenty furlongs from gibea, where ebutius abode, i placed my armed men on the outside of the village, and gave orders that they should guard the passes with great care, that the enemy might not disturb us until we should have carried off the corn, a great quantity of which lay there: it belonged to bernice the queen, and had been gathered together out of the neighboring villages into besara; so i loaded my camels and asses, a great number of which i had brought along with me, and sent the corn into galilee. when i had done this, i offered ebutius battle; but when he would not accept of the offer, for he was terrified at our readiness and courage, i altered my route, and marched towards neopolitanus, because i had heard that the country about tiberias was laid waste by him. this neopolitanus was captain of a troop of horse, and had the custody of scythopolis intrusted to his care by the enemy; and when i had hindered him from doing any further mischief to tiberias, i set myself to make provision for the affairs of galilee. . but when john, the son of levi, who, as we before told you, abode at gischala, was informed how all things had succeeded to my mind, and that i was much in favor with those that were under me, as also that the enemy were greatly afraid of me, he was not pleased with it, as thinking my prosperity tended to his ruin. so he took up a bitter envy and enmity against me; and hoping, that if he could inflame those that were under me to hate me, he should put an end to the prosperity i was in, he tried to persuade the inhabitants of tiberias and of sepphoris, [and for those of gabara he supposed they would be also of the same mind with the others,] which were the greatest cities of galilee, to revolt from their subjection to me, and to be of his party; and told them that he would command them better than i did. as for the people of sepphoris, who belonged to neither of us, because they had chosen to be in subjection to the romans, they did not comply with his proposal; and for those of tiberias, they did not indeed so far comply as to make a revolt from under me, but they agreed to be his friends, while the inhabitants of gabara did go over to john; and it was simon that persuaded them so to do, one who was both the principal man in the city, and a particular friend and companion of john. it is true, these did not openly own the making a revolt, because they were in great fear of the galileans, and had frequent experience of the good-will they bore to me; yet did they privately watch for a proper opportunity to lay snares for me; and indeed i thereby came into the greatest danger, on the occasion following. . there were some bold young men of the village of dabaritta, who observed that the wife of ptolemy, the king's procurator, was to make a progress over the great plain with a mighty attendance, and with some horsemen that followed as a guard to them, and this out of a country that was subject to the king and queen, into the jurisdiction of the romans; and fell upon them on a sudden, and obliged the wife of ptolemy to fly away, and plundered all the carriages. they also came to me to tarichese, with four mules' loading of garments, and other furniture; and the weight of the silver they brought was not small, and there were five hundred pieces of gold also. now i had a mind to preserve these spoils for ptolemy, who was my countryman; and it is prohibited [ ] by our laws even to spoil our enemies; so i said to those that brought these spoils, that they ought to be kept, in order to rebuild the walls of jerusalem with them when they came to be sold. but the young men took it very ill that they did not receive a part of those spoils for themselves, as they expected to have done; so they went among the villages in the neighborhood of tiberias, and told the people that i was going to betray their country to the romans, and that i used deceitful language to them, when i said, that what had been thus gotten by rapine should be kept for the rebuilding of the walls of the city of jerusalem; although i had resolved to restore these spoils again to their former owner. and indeed they were herein not mistaken as to my intentions; for when i had gotten clear of them, i sent for two of the principal men, dassion, and janneus the son of levi, persons that were among the chief friends of the king, and commanded them to take the furniture that had been plundered, and to send it to him; and i threatened that i would order them to be put to death by way of punishment, if they discovered this my command to any other person. . now, when all galilee was filled with this rumor, that their country was about to be betrayed by me to the romans, and when all men were exasperated against me, and ready to bring me to punishment, the inhabitants of tarichee did also themselves suppose that what the young men said was true, and persuaded my guards and armed men to leave me when i was asleep, and to come presently to the hippodrome, in order there to take counsel against me their commander. and when they had prevailed with them, and they were gotten together, they found there a great company assembled already, who all joined in one clamor, to bring the man who was so wicked to them as to betray them, to his due punishment; and it was jesus, the son of sapphias, who principally set them on. he was ruler in tiberias, a wicked man, and naturally disposed to make disturbances in matters of consequence; a seditious person he was indeed, and an innovator beyond every body else. he then took the laws of moses into his hands, and came into the midst of the people, and said, "o my fellow citizens! if you are not disposed to hate josephus on your own account, have regard, however, to these laws of your country, which your commander-in-chief is going to betray; hate him therefore on both these accounts, and bring the man who hath acted thus insolently, to his deserved punishment." . when he had said this, and the multitude had openly applauded him for what he had said, he took some of the armed men, and made haste away to the house in which i lodged, as if he would kill me immediately, while i was wholly insensible of all till this disturbance happened; and by reason of the pains i had been taking, was fallen fast asleep. but simon, who was intrusted with the care of my body, and was the only person that stayed with me, and saw the violent incursion the citizens made upon me, awaked me, and told me of the danger i was in, and desired me to let him kill me, that i might die bravely and like a general, before my enemies came in, and forced me [to kill myself], or killed me themselves. thus did he discourse to me; but i committed the care of my life to god, and made haste to go out to the multitude. accordingly, i put on a black garment, and hung my sword at my neck, and went by such a different way to the hippodrome, wherein i thought none of my adversaries would meet me; so i appeared among them on the sudden, and fell down flat on the earth, and bedewed the ground with my tears: then i seemed to them all an object of compassion. and when i perceived the change that was made in the multitude, i tried to divide their opinions before the armed men should return from my house; so i granted them that i had been as wicked as they supposed me to be; but still i entreated them to let me first inform them for what use i had kept that money which arose from the plunder, and, that they might then kill me if they pleased: and upon the multitude's ordering me to speak, the armed men came upon me, and when they saw me, they ran to kill me; but when the multitude bade them hold their hands, they complied, and expected that as soon as i should own to them that i kept the money for the king, it would be looked on as a confession of my treason, and they should then be allowed to kill me. . when, therefore, silence was made by the whole multitude, i spake thus to them: "o my countrymen! i refuse not to die, if justice so require. however, i am desirous to tell you the truth of this matter before i die; for as i know that this city of yours [tarichee] was a city of great hospitality, and filled with abundance of such men as have left their own countries, and are come hither to be partakers of your fortune, whatever it be, i had a mind to build walls about it, out of this money, for which you are so angry with me, while yet it was to be expended in building your own walls." upon my saying this, the people of taricheae and the strangers cried out, that "they gave me thanks, and desired me to be of good courage," although the galileans and the people of tiberias continued in their wrath against me, insomuch that there arose a tumult among them, while some threatened to kill me, and some bade me not to regard them; but when i promised them that i would build them walls at tiberias, and at other cities that wanted them, they gave credit to what i promised, and returned every one to his own home. so i escaped the forementioned danger, beyond all my hopes, and returned to my own house, accompanied with my friends, and twenty armed men also. . however, these robbers and other authors of this tumult, who were afraid, on their own account, lest i should punish them for what they had done, took six hundred armed men, and came to the house where i abode, in order to set it on fire. when this their insult was told me, i thought it indecent for me to run away, and i resolved to expose myself to danger, and to act with some boldness; so i gave order to shut the doors, and went up into an upper room, and desired that they would send in some of their men to receive the money [from the spoils] for i told them they would then have no occasion to be angry with me; and when they had sent in one of the boldest of them all, i had him whipped severely, and i commanded that one of his hands should be cut off, and hung about his neck; and in this case was he put out to those that sent him. at which procedure of mine they were greatly affrighted, and in no small consternation, and were afraid that they should themselves be served in like manner, if they staid there; for they supposed that i had in the house more armed men than they had themselves; so they ran away immediately, while i, by the use of this stratagem, escaped this their second treacherous design against me. . but there were still some that irritated the multitude against me, and said that those great men that belonged to the king ought not to be suffered to live, if they would not change their religion to the religion of those to whom they fled for safety: they spake reproachfully of them also, and said that they were wizards, and such as called in the romans upon them. so the multitude was soon deluded by such plausible pretenses as were agreeable to their own inclinations, and were prevailed on by them. but when i was informed of this, i instructed the multitude again, that those who fled to them for refuge ought not to be persecuted: i also laughed at the allegation about witchcraft, [ ] and told them that the romans would not maintain so many ten thousand soldiers, if they could overcome their enemies by wizards. upon my saying this, the people assented for a while; but they returned again afterwards, as irritated by some ill people against the great men; nay, they once made an assault upon the house in which they dwelt at tarichess, in order to kill them; which, when i was informed of, i was afraid lest so horrid a crime should take effect, and nobody else would make that city their refuge any more. i therefore came myself, and some others with me, to the house where these great men lived, and locked the doors, and had a trench drawn from their house leading to the lake, and sent for a ship, and embarked therein with them, and sailed to the confines of hippos: i also paid them the value of their horses; nor in such a flight could i have their horses brought to them. i then dismissed them, and begged of them earnestly that they would courageously bear i this distress which befell them. i was also myself i greatly displeased that i was compelled to expose those that had fled to me to go again into an enemy's country; yet did i think it more eligible that they should perish among the romans, if it should so happen, than in the country that was under my jurisdiction. however, they escaped at length, and king agrippa forgave them their offenses. and this was the conclusion of what concerned these men. . but as for the inhabitants of the city of tiberias, they wrote to the king, and desired him to send them forces sufficient to be a guard to their country; for that they were desirous to come over to him: this was what they wrote to him. but when i came to them, they desired me to build their walls, as i had promised them to do; for they had heard that the walls of tarichess were already built. i agreed to their proposal accordingly; and when i had made preparation for the entire building, i gave order to the architects to go to work; but on the third day, when i was gone to tarichess, which was thirty furlongs distant from tiberias, it so fell out, that some roman horsemen were discovered on their march, not far from the city, which made it to be supposed that the forces were come from the king; upon which they shouted, and lifted up their voices in commendations of the king, and in reproaches against me. hereupon one came running to me, and told me what their dispositions were, and that they had resolved to revolt from me: upon hearing which news i was very much alarmed; for i had already sent away my armed men from tarichess, to their own homes, because the next day was our sabbath; for i would not have the people of tarichess disturbed [on that day] by a multitude of soldiers; and indeed, whenever i sojourned at that city, i never took any particular care for a guard about my own body, because i had had frequent instances of the fidelity its inhabitants bore to me. i had now about me no more than seven armed men, besides some friends, and was doubtful what to do; for to send to recall my own forces i did not think proper, because the present day was almost over; and had those forces been with me, i could not take up arms on the next day, because our laws forbade us so to do, even though our necessity should be very great; and if i should permit the people of tarichess, and the strangers with them, to guard the city, i saw that they would not be sufficient for that purpose, and i perceived that i should be obliged to delay my assistance a great while; for i thought with myself that the forces that came from the king would prevent me, and that i should be driven out of the city. i considered, therefore, how to get clear of these forces by a stratagem; so i immediately placed those my friends of tarichee, on whom i could best confide, at the gates, to watch those very carefully who went out at those gates: i also called to me the heads of families, and bade every one of them to seize upon a ship [ ] to go on board it, and to take a master with them, and follow him to the city of tiberias. i also myself went on board one of those ships, with my friends, and the seven armed men already mentioned, and sailed for tiberias. . but now, when the people of tiberias perceived that there were no forces come from the king, and yet saw the whole lake full of ships, they were in fear what would become of their city, and were greatly terrified, as supposing that the ships were full of men on board; so they then changed their minds, and threw down their weapons, and met me with their wives and children, and made acclamations to me with great commendations; for they imagined that i did not know their former inclinations [to have been against me]; so they persuaded me to spare the city. but when i was come near enough, i gave order to the masters of the ships to cast anchor a good way off the land, that the people of tiberias might not perceive that the ships had no men on board; but i went nearer to the people in one of the ships, and rebuked them for their folly, and that they were so fickle as, without any just occasion in the world, to revolt from their fidelity to me. however, assured them that i would entirely forgive them for the time to come, if they would send ten of the ringleaders of the multitude to me; and when they complied readily with this proposal, and sent me the men forementioned, i put them on board a ship, and sent them away to tarichese; and ordered them to be kept in prison. . and by this stratagem it was that i gradually got all the senate of tiberias into my power, and sent them to the city forementioned, with many of the principal men among the populace, and those not fewer in number than the other. but when the multitude saw into what great miseries they had brought themselves, they desired me to punish the author of this sedition: his name was clitus, a young man, bold and rash in his undertakings. now, since i thought it not agreeable to piety to put one of my own people to death, and yet found it necessary to punish him, i ordered levi, one of my own guards, to go to him, and cut off one of clitus's hands; but as he that was ordered to do this, was afraid to go out of the ship alone, among 'so great a multitude, i was not willing that the timorousness of the soldier should appear to the people of tiberias. so i called to clitus himself and said to him, "since thou deservest to lose both thine hands for thy ingratitude to me, be thou thine own executioner, lest, if thou refusest so to be, thou undergo a worse punishment." and when he earnestly begged of me to spare him one of his hands, it was with difficulty that i granted it. so, in order to prevent the loss of both his hands, he willingly took his sword, and cut off his own left hand; and this put an end to the sedition. . now the men of tiberias, after i was gone to taricheae, perceived what stratagem i had used against them, and they admired how i had put an end to their foolish sedition, without shedding of blood. but now, when i had sent for some of those multitudes of the people of tiberias out of prison, among whom were justus and his father pistus, i made them to sup with me; and during our supper time i said to them, that i knew the power of the romans was superior to all others, but did not say so [publicly] because of the robbers. so i advised them to do as i did, and to wait for a proper opportunity, and not to be uneasy at my being their commander; for that they could not expect to have another who would use the like moderation that i had done. i also put justus in mind how the galileans had cut off his brother's hands before ever i came to jerusalem, upon an accusation laid against him, as if he had been a rogue, and had forged some letters; as also how the people of gamala, in a sedition they raised against the babylonians, after the departure of philip, slew chares, who was a kinsman of philip, and withal how they had wisely punished jesus, his brother justuses sister's husband [with death]. when i had said this to them during supper time, i in the morning ordered justus, and all the rest that were in prison, to be loosed out of it, and sent away. . but before this, it happened that philip, the son of jacimus, went out of the citadel of gamala upon the following occasion: when philip had been informed that varus was put out of his government by king agrippa, and that equieulus modius, a man that was of old his friend and companion, was come to succeed him, he wrote to him, and related what turns of fortune he had had, and desired him to forward the letters he sent to the king and queen. now, when modius had received these letters, he was exceedingly glad, and sent the letters to the king and queen, who were then about berytus. but when king agrippa knew that the story about philip was false, [for it had been given out, that the jews had begun a war with the romans, and that this philip had been their commander in that war,] he sent some horsemen to conduct philip to him; and when he was come, he saluted him very obligingly, and showed him to the roman commanders, and told them that this was the man of whom the report had gone about as if he had revolted from the romans. he also bid him to take some horsemen with him, and to go quickly to the citadel of gamala, and to bring out thence all his domestics, and to restore the babylonians to batanea again. he also gave it him in charge to take all possible care that none of his subjects should be guilty of making any innovation. accordingly, upon these directions from the king, he made haste to do what he was commanded. . now there was one joseph, the son of a female physician, who excited a great many young men to join with him. he also insolently addressed himself to the principal persons at gamala, and persuaded them to revolt from the king; and take up arms, and gave them hopes that they should, by his means, recover their liberty. and some they forced into the service, and those that would not acquiesce in what they had resolved on, they slew. they also slew chares, and with him jesus, one of his kinsmen, and a brother of justus of tiberias, as we have already said. those of gamala also wrote to me, desiring me to send them an armed force, and workmen to raise up the walls of their city; nor did i reject either of their requests. the region of gaulanitis did also revolt from the king, as far as the village solyma. i also built a wall about seleucia and soganni, which are villages naturally of ver great strength. moreover, i, in like manner, walled several villages of upper galilee, though they were very rocky of themselves. their names are jamnia, and meroth, and achabare. i also fortified, in the lower galilee, the cities tarichee, tiberias, sepphoris, and the villages, the cave of arbela, bersobe, selamin, jotapata, capharecho, and sigo, and japha, and mount tabor. [ ] i also laid up a great quantity of corn in these places, and arms withal, that might be for their security afterward. . but the hatred that john, the son of levi, bore to me, grew now more violent, while he could not bear my prosperity with patience. so he proposed to himself, by all means possible, to make away with me; and built the walls of gischala, which was the place of his nativity. he then sent his brother simon, and jonathan, the son of sisenna, and about a hundred armed men, to jerusalem, to simon, the son of gamaliel, [ ] in order to persuade him to induce the commonalty of jerusalem to take from me the government over the galileans, and to give their suffrages for conferring that authority upon him. this simon was of the city of jerusalem, and of a very noble family of the sect of the pharisees, which are supposed to excel others in the accurate knowledge of the laws of their country. he was a man of great wisdom and reason, and capable of restoring public affairs by his prudence, when they were in an ill posture. he was also an old friend and companion of john; but at that time he had a difference with me. when therefore he had received such an exhortation, he persuaded the high priests, ananus, and jesus the son of gamala, and some others of the same seditious faction, to cut me down, now i was growing so great, and not to overlook me while i was aggrandizing myself to the height of glory; and he said that it would be for the advantage of the galileans, if i were deprived of my government there. ananus also, and his friends, desired them to make no delay about the matter, lest i should get the knowledge of what was doing too soon, and should come and make an assault upon the city with a great army. this was the counsel of simon; but artanus the high priest demonstrated to them that this was not an easy thing to be done, because many of the high priests and of the rulers of the people bore witness that i had acted like an excellent general, and that it was the work of ill men to accuse one against whom they had nothing to say. . when simon heard ananus say this, he desired that the messengers would conceal the thing, and not let it come among many; for that he would take care to have josephus removed out of galilee very quickly. so he called for john's brother, [simon,] and charged him that they should send presents to ananus and his friends; for, as he said, they might probably by that means persuade them to change their minds. and indeed simon did at length thus compass what he aimed at; for artanus, and those with him, being corrupted by bribes, agreed to expel me out of galilee, without making the rest of the citizens acquainted with what they were doing. accordingly, they resolved to send men of distinction as to their families, and of distinction as to their learning also. two of these were of the populace, jonathan [ ] and ananias, by sect pharisees; while the third, jozar, was of the stock of the priests, and a pharisee also; and simon, the last of them, was of the youngest of the high priests. these had it given them in charge, that, when they were come to the multitude of the galileans, they should ask them, what was the reason of their love to me? and if they said that it was because i was born at jerusalem, that they should reply, that they four were all born at the same place; and if they should say, it was because i was well versed in their law, they should reply, that neither were they unacquainted with the practices of their country; but if, besides these, they should say, they loved me because i was a priest, they should reply, that two of these were priests also. . now, when they had given jonathan and his companions these instructions, they gave them forty thousand [drachmae] out of the public money: but when they heard that there was a certain galilean that then sojourned at jerusalem, whose name was jesus, who had about him a band of six hundred armed men, they sent for him, and gave him three months pay, and gave him orders to follow jonathan and his companions, and be obedient to them. they also gave money to three hundred men that were citizens of jerusalem, to maintain them all, and ordered them also to follow the ambassadors; and when they had complied, and were gotten ready for the march, jonathan and his companions went out with them, having along with them john's brother and a hundred armed men. the charge that was given them by those that sent them was this: that if i would voluntarily lay down my arms, they should send me alive to the city of jerusalem; but that, in case i opposed them, they should kill me, and fear nothing; for that it was their command for them so to do. they also wrote to john to make all ready for fighting me, and gave orders to the inhabitants of sepphoris, and gabara, and tiberins, to send auxiliaries to john. . now, as my father wrote me an account of this, [for jesus the son of gamala, who was present in that council, a friend and companion of mine, told him of it,] i was very much troubled, as discovering thereby that my fellow citizens proved so ungrateful to me, as, out of envy, to give order that i should be slain: my father earnestly pressed me also in his letter to come to him, for that he longed to see his son before he died. i informed my friends of these things, and that in three days' time i should leave the country, and go home. upon hearing this, they were all very sorry, and desired me, with tears in their eyes, not to leave them to be destroyed; for so they thought they should be, if i were deprived of the command over them: but as i did not grant their request, but was taking care of my own safety, the galileans, out of their dread of the consequence of my departure, that they should then be at the mercy of the robbers, sent messengers over all galilee to inform them of my resolution to leave them. whereupon, as soon as they heard it, they got together in great numbers, from all parts, with their wives and children; and this they did, as it appeared to me, not more out of their affection to me, than out of their fear on their own account; for while i staid with them, they supposed that they should suffer no harm. so they all came into the great plain, wherein i lived, the name of which was asochis. . but wonderful it was what a dream i saw that very night; for when i had betaken myself to my bed, as grieved and disturbed at the news that had been written to me, it seemed to me, that a certain person stood by me, [ ] and said, "o josephus! leave off to afflict thy soul, and put away all fear; for what now grieves thee will render thee very considerable, and in all respects most happy; for thou shalt get over not only these difficulties, but many others, with great success. however, be not cast down, but remember that thou art to fight with the romans." when i had seen this dream, i got up with an intention of going down to the plain. now, when the whole multitude of the galileans, among whom were the women and children, saw me, they threw themselves down upon their faces, and, with tears in their eyes, besought me not to leave them exposed to their enemies, nor to go away and permit their country to be injured by them. but when i did not comply, with their entreaties, they compelled me to take an oath, that i would stay with them: they also cast abundance of reproaches upon the people of jerusalem, that they would not let their country enjoy peace. . when i heard this, and saw what sorrow the people were in, i was moved with compassion to them, and thought it became me to undergo the most manifest hazards for the sake of so great a multitude; so i let them know i would stay with them. and when i had given order that five thousand off them should come to me armed, and with provisions for their maintenance, i sent the rest away to their own homes; and when those five thousand were come, i took them, together with three thousand of the soldiers that were with me before, and eighty horsemen, and marched to the village of chabolo, situated in the confines of ptolimias, and there kept my forces together, pretending to get ready to fight with placidus, who was come with two cohorts of footmen, and one troop of horsemen, and was sent thither by cestius gallus to burn those villages of galilee that were near ptolemais. upon whose casting up a bank before the city ptolemais, i also pitched my camp at about the distance of sixty furlongs from that village. and now we frequently brought out our forces as if we would fight, but proceeded no further than skirmishes at a distance; for when placidus perceived that i was earnest to come to a battle, he was afraid, and avoided it. yet did he not remove from the neighborhood of ptolemais. . about this time it was that jonathan and his fellow legates came. they were sent, as we have said already, by simon, and ananus the high priest. and jonathan contrived how he might catch me by treachery; for he durst not make any attempt upon me openly. so he wrote me the following epistle: "jonathan and those that are with him, and are sent by the people of jerusalem, to josephus, send greeting. we are sent by the principal men of jerusalem, who have heard that john of gischala hath laid many snares for thee, to rebuke him, and to exhort him to be subject to thee hereafter. we are also desirous to consult with thee about our common concerns, and what is fit to be done. we therefore desire thee to come to us quickly, and to bring only a few men with thee; for this village will not contain a great number of soldiers." thus it was that they wrote, as expecting one of these two things; either that i should come without armed men, and then they should have me wholly in their power; or, if i came with a great number, they should judge me to be a public enemy. now it was a horseman who brought the letter, a man at other times bold, and one that had served in the army under the king. it was the second hour of the night that he came, when i was feasting with my friends, and the principal of the galileans. this man, upon my servant's telling me that a certain horseman of the jewish nation was come, was called in at my command, but did not so much as salute me at all, but held out a letter, and said, "this letter is sent thee by those that are come from jerusalem; do thou write an answer to it quickly; for i am obliged to return to them very soon." now my guests could not but wonder at the boldness of the soldier. but i desired him to sit down and sup with us; but when he refused so to do, i held the letter in my hands as i received it, and fell a talking with my guests about other matters. but a few hours afterwards, i got up, and when i had dismissed the rest to go to their beds, i bid only four of my intimate friends to stay, and ordered my servant to get some wine ready. i also opened the letter so, that nobody could perceive it; and understanding thereby presently the purportú of the writing, i sealed it up again, and appeared as if i had not yet read it, but only held it in my hands. i ordered twenty drachmae should be given the soldier for the charges of his journey; and when he took the money, and said that he thanked me for it, i perceived that he loved money, and that he was to be caught chiefly by that means; and i said to him, "if thou wilt but drink with us, thou shalt have a drachma for every glass thou drinkest." so he gladly embraced this proposal, and drank a great deal of wine, in order to get the more money, and was so drunk, that at last he could not keep the secrets he was intrusted with, but discovered them without my putting questions to him, viz. that a treacherous design was contrived against me, and that i was doomed to die by those that sent him. when i heard this, i wrote back this answer: "josephus to jonathan, and those that are with him, sendeth greeting. upon the information that you are come in health into galilee, i rejoice, and this especially because i can now resign the care of public affairs here into your hands, and return into my native country, which is what i have desired to do a great while; and i confess i ought not only to come to you as far as xaloth, but farther, and this without your commands. but i desire you to excuse me, because i cannot do it now, since i watch the motions of placidus, who hath a mind to go up into galilee; and this i do here at chabolo. do you therefore, on the receipt of this epistle, come hither to me. fare you well." . when i had written thus, and given the letter to be carried by the soldier, i sent along with him thirty of the galileans of the best characters, and gave them instructions to salute those ambassadors, but to say nothing else to them. i also gave orders to as many of those armed men, whom i esteemed most faithful to me, to go along with the others, every one with him whom he was to guard, lest some conversation might pass between those whom i sent and those who were with jonathan. so those men went [to jonathan]. but when jonathan and his partners had failed in this their first attempt, they sent me another letter, the contents whereof were as follows: "jonathan, and those with him, to josephus, send greeting. we require thee to come to us to the village gabaroth, on the third day, without any armed men, that we may hear what thou hast to lay to the charge of john [of gischala]." when they had written this letter, they saluted the galileans whom i sent, and came to japha, which was the largest village of all galilee, and encompassed with very strong walls, and had a great number of inhabitants in it. there the multitude of men, with their wives and children, met them, and exclaimed loudly against them; and desired them to be gone, and not to envy them the advantage of an excellent commander. with these clamors jonathan and his partners were greatly provoked, although they durst not show their anger openly; so they made them no answer, but went to other villages. but still the same clamors met them from all the people, who said, "nobody should persuade them to have any other commander besides josephus." so jonathan and his partners went away from them without success, and came to sepphoris, the greatest city of all galilee. now the men of that city, who inclined to the romans in their sentiments, met them indeed, but neither praised nor reproached me and when they were gone down from sepphoris to asochis, the people of that place made a clamor against them, as those of japha had done; whereupon they were able to contain themselves no longer, but ordered the armed men that were with them to beat those that made the clamor with their clubs. and when they came to gabara, john met them with three thousand armed men; but, as i understood by their letter that they had resolved to fight against me, i arose from chabolo, with three thousand armed men also; but left in my camp one of my fastest friends, and came to jotapata, as desirous to be near them, the distance being no more than forty furlongs. whence i wrote thus to them: "if you are very desirous that i should come to you, you know there are two hundred and forty cities and villages in galilee; i will come to any of them which you please, excepting gaburn and gischala; the one of which is john's native city, and the other in confederacy and friendship with him." . when jonathan and his partners had received this letter, they wrote me no more answers, but called a council of their friends together; and taking john into their consultation, they took counsel together by what means they might attack me. john's opinion was, that they should write to all the cities and villages that were in galilee; for that there must be certainly one or two persons in every one of them that were at variance with me, and that they should be invited to come to oppose me as an enemy. he would also have them send this resolution of theirs to the city of jerusalem, that its citizens, upon the knowledge of my being adjudged to be an enemy by the galileans, might themselves i also confirm that determination. he said also, that when this was done, even those galileans who were well affected to me, would desert me out of fear. when john had given them this counsel, what he had said was very agreeable to the rest of them. i was also made acquainted with these affairs about the third hour of the night, by the means of one saccheus, who had belonged to them, but now deserted them and came over to me, and told me what they were about; so i perceived that no time was to be lost. accordingly, i gave command to jacob, an armed man of my guard, whom i esteemed faithful to me, to take two hundred men, and to guard the passages that led from gahara to galilee, and to seize upon the passengers, and send them to me, especially such as were caught with letters about them: i also sent jeremias himself, one of my friends, with six hundred armed men, to the borders of galilee, in order to watch the roads that led from this country to the city jerusalem, and gave him charge to lay hold of such as traveled with letters about them, to keep the men in bonds upon the place, but to send me the letters. . when i had laid these commands upon them, i gave them orders, and bid them take their arms and bring three days' provision with them, and be with me the next day. i also parted those that were about me into four parts, and ordained those of them that were most faithful to me to be a guard to my body. i also set over them centurions, and commanded them to take care that not a soldier which they did not know should mingle himself among them. now, on the fifth day following, when i was at gabaroth, i found the entire plain that was before the village full of armed men, who were come out of galilee to assist me: many others of the multitude, also, out of the village, ran along with me. but as soon as i had taken my place, and began to speak to them, they all made an acclamation, and called me the benefactor and savior of the country. and when i had made them my acknowledgments, and thanked them [for their affection to me], i also advised them to fight with nobody, [ ] nor to spoil the country; but to pitch their tents in the plain, and be content with their sustenance they had brought with them; for i told them that i had a mind to compose these troubles without shedding any blood. now it came to pass, that on the very same day those who were sent by john with letters, fell among the guards whom i had appointed to watch the roads; so the men were themselves kept upon the place, as my orders were, but i got the letters, which were full of reproaches and lies; and i intended to fall upon these men, without saying a word of these matters to any body. . now, as soon as jonathan and his companions heard of my coming, they took all their own friends, and john with them, and retired to the house of jesus, which indeed was a large castle, and no way unlike a citadel; so they privately laid a band of armed men therein, and shut all the other doors but one, which they kept open, and they expected that i should come out of the road to them, to salute them. and indeed they had given orders to the armed men, that when i came they should let nobody besides me come in, but should exclude others; as supposing that, by this means, they should easily get me under their power: but they were deceived in their expectation; for i perceived what snares they had laid for me. now, as soon as i was got off my journey, i took up my lodgings over against them, and pretended to be asleep; so jonathan and his party, thinking that i was really asleep and at rest, made haste to go down into the plain, to persuade the people that i was an ill governor. but the matter proved otherwise; for, upon their appearance, there was a cry made by the galileans immediately, declaring their good opinion of me as their governor; and they made a clamor against jonathan and his partners for coming to them when they had suffered no harm, and as though they would overturn their happy settlement; and desired them by all means to go back again, for that they would never be persuaded to have any other to rule over them but myself. when i heard of this, i did not fear to go down into the midst of them; i went, therefore, myself down presently to hear what jonathan and his companions said. as soon as i appeared, there was immediately an acclamation made to me by the whole multitude, and a cry in my commendation by them, who confessed their thanks was owing to me for my good government of them. . when jonathan and his companions heard this, they were in fear of their own lives, and in danger lest they should be assaulted by the galileans on nay account; so they contrived how they might run away. but as they were not able to get off, for i desired them to stay, they looked down with concern at my words to them. i ordered, therefore, the multitude to restrain entirely their acclamations, and placed the most faithful of my armed men upon the avenues, to be a guard to us, lest john should unexpected fall upon us; and i encouraged the galileans to take their weapons, lest they should be disturbed at their enemies, if any sudden insult should be made upon them. and then, in the first place, i put jonathan and his partners in mind of their [former] letter, and after what manner they had written to me, and declared they were sent by the common consent to the people of jerusalem, to make up the differences i had with john, and how they had desired me to come to them; and as i spake thus, i publicly showed that letter they had written, till they could not at all deny what they had done, the letter itself convicting them. i then said, "o jonathan! and you that are sent with him as his colleagues, if i were to be judged as to my behavior, compared with that of john's, and had brought no more than two or three witnesses, [ ] good men and true, it is plain you had been forced, upon the examination of their characters beforehand, to discharge the accusations: that therefore you may be informed that i have acted well in the affairs of galilee, i think three witnesses too few to be brought by a man that hath done as he ought to do; so i gave you all these for witnesses. inquire of them [ ] how i have lived, and whether i have not behaved myself with all decency, and after a virtuous manner, among them. and i further conjure you, o galileans! to hide no part of the truth, but to speak before these men as before judges, whether i have in any thing acted otherwise than well." . while i was thus speaking, the united voices of all the people joined together, and called me their benefactor and savior, and attested to my former behavior, and exhorted me to continue so to do hereafter; and they all said, upon their oaths, that their wives had been preserved free from injuries, and that no one had ever been aggrieved by me. after this, i read to the galileans two of those epistles which had been sent by jonathan and his colleagues, and which those whom i had appointed to guard the road had taken, and sent to me. these were full of reproaches, and of lies, as if i had acted more like a tyrant than a governor against them, with many other things besides therein contained, which were no better indeed than impudent falsities. i also informed the multitude how i came by these letters, and that those who carried them delivered them up voluntarily; for i was not willing that my enemies should know any thing of the guards i had set, lest they should be afraid, and leave off writing hereafter. . when the multitude heard these things, they were greatly provoked at jonathan, and his colleagues that were with him, and were going to attack them, and kill them; and this they had certainly done, unless i had restrained the anger of the galileans, and said, that "i forgave jonathan and his colleagues what was past, if they would repent, and go to their own country, and tell those who sent them the truth, as to my conduct." when i had said this, i let them go, although i knew they would do nothing of what they had promised. but the multitude were very much enraged against them, and entreated me to give them leave to punish them for their insolence; yet did i try all methods to persuade them to spare the men; for i knew that every instance of sedition was pernicious to the public welfare. but the multitude was too angry with them to be dissuaded, and all of them went immediately to the house in which jonathan and his colleagues abode. however, when i perceived that their rage could not be restrained, i got on horseback, and ordered the multitude to follow me to the village sogane, which was twenty furlongs off gabara; and by using this stratagem, i so managed myself, as not to appear to begin a civil war amongst them. . but when i was come near sogane, i caused the multitude to make a halt, and exhorted them not to be so easily provoked to anger, and to the inflicting such punishments as could not be afterwards recalled: i also gave order, that a hundred men, who were already in years, and were principal men among them, should get themselves ready to go to the city of jerusalem, and should make a complaint before the people of such as raised seditions in the country. and i said to them, that "in case they be moved with what you say, you shall desire the community to write to me, and to enjoin me to continue in galilee, and to order jonathan and his colleagues to depart out of it." when i had suggested these instructions to them, and while they were getting themselves ready as fast as they could, i sent them on this errand the third day after they had been assembled: i also sent five hundred armed men with them [as a guard]. i then wrote to my friends in samaria, to take care that they might safely pass through the country: for samaria was already under the romans, and it was absolutely necessary for those that go quickly [to jerusalem] to pass through that country; for in that road you may, in three days' time, go from galilee to jerusalem. i also went myself, and conducted the old men as far as the bounds of galilee, and set guards in the roads, that it might not be easily known by any one that these men were gone. and when i had thus done, i went and abode at japha. . now jonathan and his colleagues, having failed of accomplishing what they would have done against me, sent john back to gischala, but went themselves to the city of tiberias, expecting it would submit itself to them; and this was founded on a letter which jesus, their then governor, had written them, promising that, if they came, the multitude would receive them, and choose to be under their government; so they went their ways with this expectation. but silas, who, as i said, had been left curator of tiberias by me, informed me of this, and desired me to make haste thither. accordingly, i complied with his advice immediately, and came thither; but found myself in danger of my life, from the following occasion: jonathan and his colleagues had been at tiberias, and had persuaded a great many of such as had a quarrel with me to desert me; but when they heard of my coming, they were in fear for themselves, and came to me; and when they had saluted me, they said, that i was a happy man in having behaved myself so well in the government of galilee; and they congratulated me upon the honors that were paid me: for they said that my glory was a credit to them, since they had been my teachers and fellow citizens; and they said further, that it was but just that they should prefer my friendship to them rather than john's, and that they would have immediately gone home, but that they staid that they might deliver up john into my power; and when they said this they took their oaths of it, and those such as are most tremendous amongst us, and such as i did not think fit to disbelieve. however, they desired me to lodge some where else, because the next day was the sabbath, and that it was not fit the city of tiberias should be disturbed [on that day]. . so i suspected nothing, and went away to tarichese; yet did i withal leave some to make inquiry in the city how matters went, and whether any thing was said about me: i also set many persons all the way that led from tarichese to tiberias, that they might communicate from one to another, if they learned any news from those that were left in the city. on the next day, therefore, they all came into the proseucha; [ ] it was a large edifice, and capable of receiving a great number of people; thither jonathan went in, and though he durst not openly speak of a revolt, yet did he say that their city stood in need of a better governor than it then had. but jesus, who was the ruler, made no scruple to speak out, and said openly, "o fellow citizens! it is better for you to be in subjection to four than to one; and those such as are of high birth, and not without reputation for their wisdom;" and pointed to jonathan and his colleagues. upon his saying this, justus came in and commended him for what he had said, and persuaded some of the people to be of his mind also. but the multitude were not pleased with what was said, and had certainly gone into a tumult, unless the sixth hour, which was now come, had dissolved the assembly, at which hour our laws require us to go to dinner on sabbath days; so jonathan and his colleagues put off their council till the next day, and went off without success. when i was informed of these affairs, i determined to go to the city of tiberias in the morning. accordingly, on the next day, about the first hour of the day, i came from tarichee, and found the multitude already assembled in the proseucha; but on what account they were gotten together, those that were assembled did not know. but when jonathan and his colleagues saw me there unexpectedly, they were in disorder; after which they raised a report of their own contrivance, that roman horsemen were seen at a place called union, in the borders of galilee, thirty furlongs distant from the city. upon which report, jonathan and his colleagues cunningly exhorted me not to neglect this matter, nor to suffer the land to be spoiled by the enemy. and this they said with a design to remove me out of the city, under the pretense of the want of extraordinary assistance, while they might dispose the city to be my enemy. . as for myself, although i knew of their design, yet did i comply with what they proposed, lest the people of tiberias should have occasion to suppose that i was not careful of their security. i therefore went out; but, when i was at the place, i found not the least footsteps of any enemy, so i returned as fast as ever i could, and found the whole council assembled, and the body of the people gotten together, and jonathan and his colleagues bringing vehement accusations against me, as one who had no concern to ease them of the burdens of war, and as one that lived luxuriously. and as they were discoursing thus, they produced four letters, as written to them from some people that lived at the borders of galilee, imploring that they would come to their assistance, for that there was an army of romans, both horsemen and footmen, who would come and lay waste the country on the third day; they desired them also to make haste, and not to overlook them. when the people of tiberias heard this, they thought they spake truth, and made a clamor against me, and said i ought not to sit still, but to go away to the assistance of their countrymen. hereupon i said [for i understood the meaning of jonathan and his colleagues] that i was ready to comply with what they proposed, and without delay to march to the war which they spake of, yet did i advise them, at the same time, that since these letters declared that the romans would make their assault in four several places, they should part their forces into five bodies, and make jonathan and his colleagues generals of each body of them, because it was fit for brave men, not only to give counsel, but to take the place of leaders, and assist their countrymen when such a necessity pressed them; for, said i, it is not possible for me to lead more than one party. this advice of mine greatly pleased the multitude; so they compelled them to go forth to the war. but their designs were put into very much disorder, because they had not done what they had designed to do, on account of my stratagem, which was opposite to their undertakings. . now there was one whose name was ananias [a wicked man he was, and very mischievous]; he proposed that a general religious fast [ ] should be appointed the next day for all the people, and gave order that at the same hour they should come to the same place, without any weapons, to make it manifest before god, that while they obtained his assistance, they thought all these weapons useless. this he said, not out of piety, but that they might catch me and my friends unarmed. now, i was hereupon forced to comply, lest i should appear to despise a proposal that tended to piety. as soon, therefore, as we were gone home, jonathan and his colleagues wrote to john to come to them in the morning, and desiring him to come with as many soldiers as he possibly could, for that they should then be able easily to get me into their hands, and to do all they desired to do. when john had received this letter, he resolved to comply with it. as for myself, on the next day, i ordered two of the guards of my body, whom i esteemed the most courageous and most faithful, to hide daggers under their garments, and to go along with me, that we might defend ourselves, if any attack should be made upon us by our enemies. i also myself took my breastplate, and girded on my sword, so that it might be, as far as it was possible, concealed, and came into the proseucha. . now jesus, who was the ruler, commanded that they should exclude all that came with me, for he kept the door himself, and suffered none but his friends to go in. and while we were engaged in the duties of the day, and had betaken ourselves to our prayers, jesus got up, and inquired of me what was become of the vessels that were taken out of the king's palace, when it was burnt down [and] of that uncoined silver; and in whose possession they now were? this he said, in order to drive away time till john should come. i said that capellus, and the ten principal men of tiberias, had them all; and i told him that they might ask them whether i told a lie or not. and when they said they had them, he asked me, what is become of those twenty pieces of gold which thou didst receive upon the sale of a certain weight of uncoined money? i replied, that i had given them to those ambassadors of theirs, as a maintenance for them, when they were sent by them to jerusalem. so jonathan and his colleagues said that i had not done well to pay the ambassadors out of the public money. and when the multitude were very angry at them for this, for they perceived the wickedness of the men, i understood that a tumult was going to arise; and being desirous to provoke the people to a greater rage against the men, i said, "but if i have not done well in paying our ambassadors out of the public stock, leave off your anger at me, for i will repay the twenty pieces of gold myself." . when i had said this, jonathan and his colleagues held their peace; but the people were still more irritated against them, upon their openly showing their unjust ill-will to me. when jesus saw this change in file people, he ordered them to depart, but desired the senate to stay; for that they could not examine things of such a nature in a tumult: and as the people were crying out that they would not leave me alone, there came one and told jesus and his friends privately, that john and his armed men were at hand: whereupon jonathan and his colleagues, being able to contain themselves no longer, [and perhaps the providence of god hereby procuring my deliverance, for had not this been so, i had certainly been destroyed by john,] said, "o you people of tiberias! leave off this inquiry about the twenty pieces of gold; for josephus hath not deserved to die for them; but he hath deserved it by his desire of tyrannizing, and by cheating the multitude of the galileans with his speeches, in order to gain the dominion over them." when he had said this, they presently laid hands upon me, and endeavored to kill me: but as soon as those that were with me saw what they did, they drew their swords, and threatened to smite them, if they offered any violence to me. the people also took up stones, and were about to throw them at jonathan; and so they snatched me from the violence of my enemies. . but as i was gone out a little way, i was just upon meeting john, who was marching with his armed men. so i was afraid of him, and turned aside, and escaped by a narrow passage to the lake, and seized on a ship, and embarked in it, and sailed over to tarichese. so, beyond my expectation, i escaped this danger. whereupon i presently sent for the chief of the galileans, and told them after what manner, against all faith given, i had been very near to destruction from jonathan and his colleagues, and the people of tiberias. upon which the multitude of the galileans were very angry, and encouraged me to delay no longer to make war upon them, but to permit them to go against john, and utterly to destroy him, as well as jonathan and his colleagues. however, i restrained them, though they were in such a rage, and desired them to tarry a while, till we should be informed what orders those ambassadors, that were sent by them to the city of jerusalem, should bring thence; for i told them that it was best for them to act according to their determination; whereupon they were prevailed on. at which time, also, john, when the snares he had laid did not take effect, returned back to gischala. . now, in a few days, those ambassadors whom he had sent, came back again and informed us, that the people were greatly provoked at ananus, and simon the son of gamaliel, and their friends; that, without any public determination, they had sent to galilee, and had done their endeavors that i might be turned out of the government. the ambassadors said further, that the people were ready to burn their houses. they also brought letters, whereby the chief men of jerusalem, at the earnest petition of the people, confirmed me in the government of galilee, and enjoined jonathan and his colleagues to return home quickly. when i had gotten these letters, i came to the village arbela, where i procured an assembly of the galileans to meet, and bid the ambassadors declare to them the anger of the people of jerusalem at what had been done by jonathan and his colleagues, and how much they hated their wicked doings, and how they had confirmed me in the government of their country, as also what related to the order they had in writing for jonathan and his colleagues to return home. so i immediately sent them the letter, and bid him that carried it to inquire, as well as he could, how they intended to act [on this occasion.] . now, when they had received that letter, and were thereby greatly disturbed, they sent for john, and for the senators of tiberias, and for the principal men of the gabarens, and proposed to hold a council, and desired them to consider what was to be done by them. however, the governors of tiberias were greatly disposed to keep the government to themselves; for they said it was not fit to desert their city, now it was committed to their trust, and that otherwise i should not delay to fall upon them; for they pretended falsely that so i had threatened to do. now john was not only of their opinion, but advised them, that two of them should go to accuse me before the multitude [at jerusalem], that i do not manage the affairs of galilee as i ought to do; and that they would easily persuade the people, because of their dignity, and because the whole multitude are very mutable. when, therefore, it appeared that john had suggested the wisest advice to them, they resolved that two of them, jonathan and ananias, should go to the people of jerusalem, and the other two [simon and joazar] should be left behind to tarry at tiberins. they also took along with them a hundred soldiers for their guard. . however, the governors of tiberias took care to have their city secured with walls, and commanded their inhabitants to take their arms. they also sent for a great many soldiers from john, to assist them against me, if there should be occasion for them. now john was at gischala. jonathan, therefore, and those that were with him, when they were departed from tiberias, and as soon as they were come to dabaritta, a village that lay in the utmost parts of galilee, in the great plain, they, about midnight, fell among the guards i had set, who both commanded them to lay aside their weapons, and kept them in bonds upon the place, as i had charged them to do. this news was written to me by levi, who had the command of that guard committed to him by me. hereupon i said nothing of it for two days; and, pretending to know nothing about it, i sent a message to the people of tiberias, and advised them to lay their arms aside, and to dismiss their men, that they might go home. but, supposing that jonathan, and those that were with him, were already arrived at jerusalem, they made reproachful answers to me; yet was i not terrified thereby, but contrived another stratagem against them, for i did not think it agreeable with piety to kindle the fire of war against the citizens. as i was desirous to draw those men away from tiberias, i chose out ten thousand of the best of my armed men, and divided them into three bodies, and ordered them to go privately, and lie still as an ambush, in the villages. i also led a thousand into another village, which lay indeed in the mountains, as did the others, but only four furlongs distant from tiberias; and gave orders, that when they saw my signal, they should come down immediately, while i myself lay with my soldiers in the sight of every body. hereupon the people of tiberias, at the sight of me, came running out of the city perpetually, and abused me greatly. nay, their madness was come to that height, that they made a decent bier for me, and, standing about it, they mourned over me in the way of jest and sport; and i could not but be myself in a pleasant humor upon the sight of this madness of theirs. . and now being desirous to catch simon by a wile, and joazar with him, i sent a message to them, and desired them to come a little way out of the city, and many of their friends to guard them; for i said i would come down to them, and make a league with them, and divide the government of galilee with them. accordingly, simon was deluded on account of his imprudence, and out of the hopes of gain, and did not delay to come; but joazar, suspecting snares were laid for him, staid behind. so when simon was come out, and his friends with him, for his guard, i met him, and saluted him with great civility, and professed that i was obliged to him for his coming up to me; but a little while afterward i walked along with him as though i would say something to him by myself; and when i had drawn him a good way from his friends, i took him about the middle, and gave him to my friends that were with me, to carry him into a village; and, commanding my armed men to come down, i with them made an assault upon tiberias. now, as the fight grew hot on both sides, and the soldiers belonging to tiberias were in a fair way to conquer me, [for my armed men were already fled away,] i saw the posture of my affairs; and encouraging those that were with me, i pursued those of tiberias, even when they were already conquerors, into the city. i also sent another band of soldiers into the city by the lake, and gave them orders to set on fire the first house they could seize upon. when this was done, the people of tiberinas thought that their city was taken by force, and so threw down their arms for fear, and implored, they, their wives, and children, that i would spare their city. so i was over-persuaded by their entreaties, and restrained the soldiers from the vehemency with which they pursued them; while i myself, upon the coming on of the evening, returned back with my soldiers, and went to refresh myself. i also invited simon to sup with me, and comforted him on occasion of what had happened; and i promised that i would send him safe and secure to jerusalem, and withal would give him provisions for his journey thither. . but on the next day, i brought ten thousand armed men with me, and came to tiberias. i then sent for the principal men of the multitude into the public place, and enjoined them to tell me who were the authors of the revolt; and when they told me who the men were, i sent them bound to the city jotapata. but as to jonathan and ananias, i freed them from their bonds, and gave them provisions for their journey, together with simon and joazar, and five hundred armed men who should guard them; and so i sent them to jerusalem. the people of tiberias also came to me again, and desired that i would forgive them for what they had done; and they said they would amend what they had done amiss with regard to me, by their fidelity for the time to come; and they besought me to preserve what spoils remained upon the plunder of the city, for those that had lost them. accordingly, i enjoined those that had got them, to bring them all before us; and when they did not comply for a great while, and i saw one of the soldiers that were about me with a garment on that was more splendid than ordinary, i asked him whence he had it; and when he replied that he had it out of the plunder of the city, i had him punished with stripes; and i threatened all the rest to inflict a severer punishment upon them, unless they produced before us whatsoever they had plundered; and when a great many spoils were brought together, i restored to every one of tiberias what they claimed to be their own. . and now i am come to this part of my narration, i have a mind to say a few things to justus, who hath himself written a history concerning these affairs, as also to others who profess to write history, but have little regard to truth, and are not afraid, either out of ill-will or good-will to some persons, to relate falsehoods. these men do like those who compose forged deeds and conveyances; and because they are not brought to the like punishment with them, they have no regard to truth. when, therefore, justus undertook to write about these facts, and about the jewish war, that he might appear to have been an industrious man, he falsified in what he related about me, and could not speak truth even about his own country; whence it is that, being belied by him, i am under a necessity to make my defense; and so i shall say what i have concealed till now. and let no one wonder that i have not told the world these things a great while ago. for although it be necessary for an historian to write the truth, yet is such a one not bound severely to animadvert on the wickedness of certain men; not out of any favor to them, but out of an author's own moderation. how then comes it to pass, o justus! thou most sagacious of writers, [that i may address myself to him as if he were here present,] for so thou boastest of thyself, that i and the galileans have been the authors of that sedition which thy country engaged in, both against the romans and against the king [agrippa, junior] for before ever i was appointed governor of galilee by the community of jerusalem, both thou and all the people of tiberias had not only taken up arms, but had made war with decapolis of syria. accordingly, thou hadst ordered their villages to be burnt, and a domestic servant of thine fell in the battle. nor is it i only who say this; but so it is written in the commentaries of vespasian, the emperor; as also how the inhabitants of decapolis came clamoring to vespasian at ptolemais, and desired that thou, who wast the author [of that war], mightest be brought to punishment. and thou hadst certainly been punished at the command of vespasian, had not king agrippa, who had power given him to have thee put to death, at the earnest entreaty of his sister bernice, changed the punishment from death into a long imprisonment. thy political administration of affairs afterward doth also clearly discover both thy other behavior in life, and that thou wast the occasion of thy country's revolt from the romans; plain signs of which i shall produce presently. i have also a mind to say a few things to the rest of the people of tiberias on thy account, and to demonstrate to those that light upon this history, that you bare no good-will, neither to the romans, nor to the king. to be sure, the greatest cities of galilee, o justus! were sepphoris, and thy country tiberias. but sepphoris, situated in the very midst of galilee, and having many villages about it, and able with ease to have been bold and troublesome to the romans, if they had so pleased, yet did it resolve to continue faithful to those their masters, and at the same time excluded me out of their city, and prohibited all their citizens from joining with the jews in the war; and, that they might be out of danger from me, they, by a wile, got leave of me to fortify their city with walls: they also, of their own accord, admitted of a garrison of roman legions, sent them by cestlus gallus, who was then president of syria, and so had me in contempt, though i was then very powerful, and all were greatly afraid of me; and at the same time that the greatest of our cities, jerusalem, was besieged, and that temple of ours, which belonged to us all, was in danger of falling under the enemy's power, they sent no assistance thither, as not willing to have it thought they would bear arms against the romans. but as for thy country, o justus: situated upon the lake of gennesareth, and distance from hippos thirty furlongs, from gadara sixty, and from scythopolis, which was under the king's jurisdiction, a hundred and twenty; when there was no jewish city near, it might easily have preserved its fidelity [to the romans,] if it had so pleased them to do, for the city and its people had plenty of weapons. but, as thou sayest, i was then the author [of their revolts]. and pray, o justus! who was that author afterwards? for thou knowest that i was in the power of the romans before jerusalem was besieged, and before the same time jotapata was taker by force, as well as many other fortresses, and a great many of the galileans fell in the war. it was therefore then a proper time, when you were certainly freed from any fear on my account, to throw away your weapons, and to demonstrate to the king and to the romans, that it was not of choice, but as forced by necessity, that you fell into the war against them; but you staid till vespasian came himself as far as your walls, with his whole army; and then you did indeed lay aside your weapons out of fear, and your city had for certain been taken by force, unless vespasian had complied with the king's supplication for you, and had excused your madness. it was not i, therefore, who was the author of this, but your own inclinations to war. do not you remember how often i got you under my power, and yet put none of you to death? nay, you once fell into a tumult one against another, and slew one hundred and eighty-five of your citizens, not on account of your good-will to the king and to the romans, but on account of your own wickedness, and this while i was besieged by the romans in jotapata. nay, indeed, were there not reckoned up two thousand of the people of tiberias during the siege of jerusalem, some of whom were slain, and the rest caught and carried captives? but thou wilt pretend that thou didst not engage in the war, since thou didst flee to the king. yes, indeed, thou didst flee to him; but i say it was out of fear of me. thou sayest, indeed, that it is i who am a wicked man. but then, for what reason was it that king agrippa, who procured thee thy life when thou wast condemned to die by vespian, and who bestowed so much riches upon thee, did twice afterward put thee in bonds, and as often obliged thee to run away from thy country, and, when he had once ordered thee to be put to death, he granted thee a pardon at the earnest desire of bernice? and when [after so many of thy wicked pranks] he made thee his secretary, he caught thee falsifying his epistles, and drove thee away from his sight. but i shall not inquire accurately into these matters of scandal against thee. yet cannot i but wonder at thy impudence, when thou hast the assurance to say, that thou hast better related these affairs [of the war] than have all the others that have written about them, whilst thou didst not know what was done in galilee; for thou wast then at berytus with the king; nor didst thou know how much the romans suffered at the siege of jotapata, or what miseries they brought upon us; nor couldst thou learn by inquiry what i did during that siege myself; for all those that might afford such information were quite destroyed in that siege. but perhaps thou wilt say, thou hast written of what was done against the people of jerusalem exactly. but how should that be? for neither wast thou concerned in that war, nor hast thou read the commentaries of caesar; of which we have evident proof, because thou hast contradicted those commentaries of caesar in thy history. but if thou art so hardy as to affirm, that thou hast written that history better than all the rest, why didst thou not publish thy history while the emperors vespasian and titus, the generals in that war, as well as king agrippa and his family, who were men very well skilled in the learning of the greeks, were all alive? for thou hast had it written these twenty years, and then mightest thou have had the testimony of thy accuracy. but now when these men are no longer with us, and thou thinkest thou canst not be contradicted, thou venturest to publish it. but then i was not in like manner afraid of my own writing, but i offered my books to the emperors themselves, when the facts were almost under men's eyes; for i was conscious to myself, that i had observed the truth of the facts; and as i expected to have their attestation to them, so i was not deceived in such expectation. moreover, i immediately presented my history to many other persons, some of whom were concerned in the war, as was king agrippa and some of his kindred. now the emperor titus was so desirous that the knowledge of these affairs should be taken from these books alone, that he subscribed his own hand to them, and ordered that they should be published; and for king agrippa, he wrote me sixty-two letters, and attested to the truth of what i had therein delivered; two of which letters i have here subjoined, and thou mayst thereby know their contents:-- "king agrippa to josephus, however, when thou comest to me, i will inform thee of a great many things which thou dost not know." so when this history was perfected, agrippa, neither by way of flattery, which was not agreeable to him, nor by way of irony, as thou wilt say, [for he was entirely a stranger to such an evil disposition of mind,] but he wrote this by way of attestation to what was true, as all that read histories may do. and so much shall be said concerning justus [ ] which i am obliged to add by way of digression. . now, when i had settled the affairs of tiberias, and had assembled my friends as a sanhedrim, i consulted what i should do as to john. whereupon it appeared to be the opinion of all the galileans, that i should arm them all, and march against john, and punish him as the author of all the disorders that had happened. yet was not i pleased with their determination; as purposing to compose these troubles without bloodshed. upon this i exhorted them to use the utmost care to learn the names of all that were under john; which when they had done, and i thereby was apprized who the men were, i published an edict, wherein i offered security and my right hand to such of john's party as had a mind to repent; and i allowed twenty days' time to such as would take this most advantageous course for themselves. i also threatened, that unless they threw down their arms, i would burn their houses, and expose their goods to public sale. when the men heard of this, they were in no small disorder, and deserted john; and to the number of four thousand threw down their arms, and came to me. so that no others staid with john but his own citizens, and about fifteen hundred strangers that came from the metropolis of tyre; and when john saw that he had been outwitted by my stratagem, he continued afterward in his own country, and was in great fear of me. . but about this time it was that the people of sepphoris grew insolent, and took up arms, out of a confidence they had in the strength of their walls, and because they saw me engaged in other affairs also. so they sent to cestius gallus, who was president of syria, and desired that he would either come quickly to them, and take their city under his protection, or send them a garrison. accordingly, gallus promised them to come, but did not send word when he would come: and when i had learned so much, i took the soldiers that were with me, and made an assault upon the people of sepphoris, and took the city by force. the galileans took this opportunity, as thinking they had now a proper time for showing their hatred to them, since they bore ill-will to that city also. they then exerted themselves, as if they would destroy them all utterly, with those that sojourned there also. so they ran upon them, and set their houses on fire, as finding them without inhabitants; for the men, out of fear, ran together to the citadel. so the galileans carried off every thing, and omitted no kind of desolation which they could bring upon their countrymen. when i saw this, i was exceedingly troubled at it, and commanded them to leave off, and put them in mind that it was not agreeable to piety to do such things to their countrymen: but since they neither would hearken to what i exhorted, nor to what i commanded them to do, [for the hatred they bore to the people there was too hard for my exhortations to them,] i bade those my friends, who were most faithful to me, and were about me, to give on reports, as if the romans were falling upon the other part of the city with a great army; and this i did, that, by such a report being spread abroad, i might restrain the violence of the galileans, and preserve the city of sepphoris. and at length this stratagem had its effect; for, upon hearing this report, they were in fear for themselves, and so they left off plundering and ran away; and this more especially, because they saw me, their general, do the same also; for, that i might cause this report to be believed, i pretended to be in fear as well as they. thus were the inhabitants of sepphoris unexpectedly preserved by this contrivance of mine. . nay, indeed, tiberias had like to have been plundered by the galileans also upon the following occasion:-- the chief men of the senate wrote to the king, and desired that he would come to them, and take possession of their city. the king promised to come, and wrote a letter in answer to theirs, and gave it to one of his bed-chamber, whose name was crispus, and who was by birth a jew, to carry it to tiberias. when the galileans knew that this man carried such a letter, they caught him, and brought him to me; but as soon as the whole multitude heard of it, they were enraged, and betook themselves to their arms. so a great many of them together from all quarters the next day, and came to the city asochis, where i then lodged, and made heavy clamors, and called the city of tiberias a traitor to them, and a friend to the king; and desired leave of me to go down and utterly destroy it; for they bore the like ill-will to the people of tiberias, as they did to those of sepphoris. . when i heard this, i was in doubt what to do, and hesitated by what means i might deliver tiberias from the rage of the galileans; for i could not deny that those of tiborias had written to the king, and invited him to come to them; for his letters to them, in answer thereto, would fully prove the truth of that. so i sat a long time musing with myself, and then said to them, "i know well enough that the people of tiberias have offended; nor shall i forbid you to plunder the city. however, such things ought to be done with discretion; for they of tiberias have not been the only betrayers of our liberty, but many of the most eminent patriots of the galileans, as they pretended to be, have done the same. tarry therefore till i shall thoroughly find out those authors of our danger, and then you shall have them all at once under your power, with all such as you shall yourselves bring in also." upon my saying this, i pacifie the multitude, and they left off their anger, and went their ways; and i gave orders that he who brought the king's letters should be put into bonds; but in a few days i pretended that i was obliged, by a necessary affair of my own, to out of the kingdom. i then called crispus privately, and ordered him to make the soldier that kept him drunk, and to run away to the king. so when tiberias was in danger of being utterly destroyed a second time, it escaped the danger by my skillful management, and the care that i had for its preservation. . about this time it was that justus, the son of pistus, without my knowledge, ran away to the king; the occasion of which i will here relate. upon the beginning of the war between the jews and romans, the people of tiberias resolved to submit to the king, and not to revolt from the romans; while justus tried to persuade them to betake themselves to their arms, as being himself desirous of innovations, and having hopes of obtaining the government of galilee, as well as of his own country [tiberias] also. yet did he not obtain what he hoped for, because the galileans bore ill-will to those of tiberias, and this on account of their anger at what miseries they had suffered from them before the war; thence it was that they would not endure that justus should be their governor. i myself also, who had been intrusted by the community of jerusalem with the government of galilee, did frequently come to that degree of rage at justus, that i had almost resolved to kill him, as not able to bear his mischievous disposition. he was therefore much afraid of me, lest at length my passion should come to extremity; so he went to the king, as supposing that he would dwell better and more safely with him. . now, when the people of sepphoris had, in so surprising a manner, escaped their first danger, they sent to cestius gallus, and desired him to come to them immediately, and take possession of their city, or else to send forces sufficient to repress all their enemies' incursions upon them; and at the last they did prevail with gallus to send them a considerable army, both of horse and foot, which came in the night time, and which they admitted into the city. but when the country round about it was harassed by the roman army, i took those soldiers that were about me, and came to garisme, where i cast up a bank, a good way off the city sepphoris; and when i was at twenty furlongs distance, i came upon it by night, and made an assault upon its walls with my forces; and when i had ordered a considerable number of my soldiers to scale them with ladders, i became master of the greatest part of the city. but soon after, our unacquaintedness with the places forced us to retire, after we had killed twelve of the roman footmen, and two horsemen, and a few of the people of sepphoris, with the loss of only a single man of our own. and when it afterwards came to a battle in the plain against the horsemen, and we had undergone the dangers of it courageously for a long time, we were beaten; for upon the romans encompassing me about, my soldiers were afraid, and fell back. there fell in that battle one of those that had been intrusted to guard my body; his name was justus, who at this time had the same post with the king. at the same time also there came forces, both horsemen and footmen, from the king, and sylla their commander, who was the captain of his guard: this sylla pitched his camp at five furlongs' distance from julias, and set a guard upon the roads, both that which led to cana, and that which led to the fortress gamala, that he might hinder their inhabitants from getting provisions out of galilee. . as soon as i had gotten intelligence of this, i sent two thousand armed men, and a captain over them, whose name was jeremiah, who raised a bank a furlong off julias, near to the river jordan, and did no more than skirmish with the enemy; till i took three thousand soldiers myself, and came to them. but on the next day, when i had laid an ambush in a certain valley, not far from the banks, i provoked those that belonged to the king to come to a battle, and gave orders to my own soldiers to turn their backs upon them, until they should have drawn the enemy away from their camp, and brought them out into the field, which was done accordingly; for sylla, supposing that our party did really run away, was ready to pursue them, when our soldiers that lay in ambush took them on their backs, and put them all into great disorder. i also immediately made a sudden turn with my own forces, and met those of the king's party, and put them to flight. and i had performed great things that day, if a certain fate had not been my hinderance; for the horse on which i rode, and upon whose back i fought, fell into a quagmire, and threw me on the ground, and i was bruised on my wrist, and carried into a village named cepharnome, or capernaum. when my soldiers heard of this, they were afraid i had been worse hurt than i was; and so they did not go on with their pursuit any further, but returned in very great concern for me. i therefore sent for the physicians, and while i was under their hands, i continued feverish that day; and as the physicians directed, i was that night removed to taricheee. . when sylla and his party were informed what happened to me, they took courage again; and understanding that the watch was negligently kept in our camp, they by night placed a body of horsemen in ambush beyond jordan, and when it was day they provoked us to fight; and as we did not refuse it, but came into the plain, their horsemen appeared out of that ambush in which they had lain, and put our men into disorder, and made them run away; so they slew six men of our side. yet did they not go off with the victory at last; for when they heard that some armed men were sailed from taricheae to juli, they were afraid, and retired. . it was not now long before vespasian came to tyre, and king agrippa with him; but the tyrians began to speak reproachfully of the king, and called him an enemy to the romans. for they said that philip, the general of his army, had betrayed the royal palace and the roman forces that were in jerusalem, and that it was done by his command. when vespasian heard of this report, he rebuked the tyrians for abusing a man who was both a king and a friend to the romans; but he exhorted the king to send philip to rome, to answer for what he had done before nero. but when philip was sent thither, he did not come into the sight of nero, for he found him very near death, on account of the troubles that then happened, and a civil war; and so he returned to the king. but when vespasian was come to ptolemais, the chief men of decapolis of syria made a clamor against justus of tiberias, because he had set their villages on fire: so vespasian delivered him to the king, to be put to death by those under the king's jurisdiction; yet did the king only put him into bonds, and concealed what he had done from vespasian, as i have before related. but the people of sepphoris met vespasian, and saluted him, and had forces sent him, with placidus their commander: he also went up with them, as i also followed them, till vespasian came into galilee. as to which coming of his, and after what manner it was ordered, and how he fought his first battle with me near the village taricheae, and how from thence they went to jotapata, and how i was taken alive, and bound, and how i was afterward loosed, with all that was done by me in the jewish war, and during the siege of jerusalem, i have accurately related them in the books concerning the war of the jews. however, it will, i think, be fit for me to add now an account of those actions of my life which i have not related in that book of the jewish war. . for when the siege of jotapata was over, and i was among the romans, i was kept with much care, by means of the great respect that vespasian showed me. moreover, at his command, i married a virgin, who was from among the captives of that country [ ] yet did she not live with me long, but was divorced, upon my being freed from my bonds, and my going to alexandria. however, i married another wife at alexandria, and was thence sent, together with titus, to the siege of jerusalem, and was frequently in danger of being put to death; while both the jews were very desirous to get me under their power, in order to haw me punished. and the romans also, whenever they were beaten, supposed that it was occasioned by my treachery, and made continual clamors to the emperors, and desired that they would bring me to punishment, as a traitor to them: but titus caesar was well acquainted with the uncertain fortune of war, and returned no answer to the soldiers' vehement solicitations against me. moreover, when the city jerusalem was taken by force, titus caesar persuaded me frequently to take whatsoever i would of the ruins of my country; and did that he gave me leave so to do. but when my country was destroyed, i thought nothing else to be of any value, which i could take and keep as a comfort under my calamities; so i made this request to titus, that my family might have their liberty: i had also the holy books by titus's concession. nor was it long after that i asked of him the life of my brother, and of fifty friends with him, and was not denied. when i also went once to the temple, by the permission of titus, where there were a great multitude of captive women and children, i got all those that i remembered as among my own friends and acquaintances to be set free, being in number about one hundred and ninety; and so i delivered them without their paying any price of redemption, and restored them to their former fortune. and when i was sent by titus caesar with cerealins, and a thousand horsemen, to a certain village called thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as i came back, i saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. i was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, while the third recovered. . but when titus had composed the troubles in judea, and conjectured that the lands which i had in judea would bring me no profit, because a garrison to guard the country was afterward to pitch there, he gave me another country in the plain. and when he was going away to rome, he made choice of me to sail along with him, and paid me great respect: and when we were come to rome, i had great care taken of me by vespasian; for he gave me an apartment in his own house, which he lived in before he came to the empire. he also honored me with the privilege of a roman citizen, and gave me an annual pension; and continued to respect me to the end of his life, without any abatement of his kindness to me; which very thing made me envied, and brought me into danger; for a certain jew, whose name was jonathan, who had raised a tumult in cyrene, and had persuaded two thousand men of that country to join with him, was the occasion of their ruin. but when he was bound by the governor of that country, and sent to the emperor, he told him that i had sent him both weapons and money. however, he could not conceal his being a liar from vespasian, who condemned him to die; according to which sentence he was put to death. nay, after that, when those that envied my good fortune did frequently bring accusations against me, by god's providence i escaped them all. i also received from vespasian no small quantity of land, as a free gift, in judea; about which time i divorced my wife also, as not pleased with her behavior, though not till she had been the mother of three children, two of whom are dead, and one whom i named hyrcanus, is alive. after this i married a wife who had lived at crete, but a jewess by birth: a woman she was of eminent parents, and such as were the most illustrious in all the country, and whose character was beyond that of most other women, as her future life did demonstrate. by her i had two sons; the elder's name was justus, and the next simonides, who was also named agrippa. and these were the circumstances of my domestic affairs. however, the kindness of the emperor to me continued still the same; for when vespasian was dead, titus, who succeeded him in the government, kept up the same respect for me which i had from his father; and when i had frequent accusations laid against me, he would not believe them. and domitian, who succeeded, still augmented his respects to me; for he punished those jews that were my accusers, and gave command that a servant of mine, who was a eunuch, and my accuser, should be punished. he also made that country i had in judea tax free, which is a mark of the greatest honor to him who hath it; nay, domitia, the wife of caesar, continued to do me kindnesses. and this is the account of the actions of my whole life; and let others judge of my character by them as they please. but to thee, o epaphroditus, [ ] thou most excellent of men! do i dedicate all this treatise of our antiquities; and so, for the present, i here conclude the whole. footnotes [footnote : we may hence correct the error of the latin copy of the second book against apion, sect. , [for the greek is there lost,] which says, there were then only four tribes or courses of the priests, instead of twenty-four. nor is this testimony to be disregarded, as if josephus there contradicted what he had affirmed here; because even the account there given better agrees to twenty-four than to four courses, while he says that each of those courses contained above men, which, multiplied by only four, will make not more than , priests; whereas the number , , as multiplied by , seems much the most probable, they being about one-tenth of the whole people, even after the captivity. see ezra : - ; nehemiah : - ; esdras : , , with ezra ; ; nehemiah : ; esdras : . nor will this common reading or notion of but four courses of priests, agree with josephus's own further assertion elsewhere, antiq. b. vii. ch. . sect. , that david's partition of the priests into twenty-four courses had continued to that day.] [footnote : an eminent example of the care of the jews about their genealogies, especially as to the priests. see against ap. b. sect. .] [footnote : when josephus here says, that from sixteen to nineteen, or for three years, he made trial of the three jewish sects, the pharisees, the sadducees, and the essens, and yet says presently, in all our copies, that he stayed besides with one particular ascetic, called banus, with him, and this still before he was nineteen, there is little room left for his trial of the three other sects. i suppose, therefore, that for, with him, the old reading might be, with them; which is a very small emendation, and takes away the difficulty before us. nor is dr. hudson's conjecture, hinted at by mr. hall in his preface to the doctor's edition of josephus, at all improbable, that this banus, by this his description, might well be a follower of john the baptist, and that from him josephus might easily imbibe such notions, as afterwards prepared him to have a favorable opinion of jesus christ himself, who was attested to by john the baptist.] [footnote : we may note here, that religious men among the jews, or at least those that were priests, were sometimes ascetics also, and, like daniel and his companions in babylon, daniel : - , ate no flesh, but figs and nuts, etc. only. this was like the austere diet of the christian ascetics in passion-week. constitut. v. .] [footnote : it has been thought the number of paul and his companions on ship-board, acts : , which are in our copies, are too many; whereas we find here, that josephus and his companions, a very few years after the other, were about .] [footnote : see jewish war, b. ii. ch. . sect. .] [footnote : the jews might collect this unlawfulness of fighting against their brethren from that law of moses, leviticus : , "thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbor;" and that, ver. , "thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" as well as from many other places in the pentateuch and prophets. see antiq. b. viii. ch. . sect. .] [footnote : that this herod agrippa, the father, was of old called a great king, as here, appears by his coins still remaining; to which havercamp refers us.] [footnote : the famous jewish numbers of twelve and seventy are here remarkable.] [footnote : our josephus shows, both here and every where, that he was a most religious person, and one that had a deep sense of god and his providence upon his mind, and ascribed all his numerous and wonderful escapes and preservations, in times of danger, to god's blessing him, and taking care of him, and this on account of his acts of piety, justice, humanity, and charity, to the jews his brethren.] [footnote : josephus's opinion is here well worth noting:-- that every one is to be permitted to worship god according to his own conscience, and is not to be compelled in matters of religion: as one may here observe, on the contrary, that the rest of the jews were still for obliging all those who married jewesses to be circumcised, and become jews, and were ready to destroy all that would not submit to do so. see sect. , and luke : .] [footnote : how josephus could say here that the jewish laws forbade them to "spoil even their enemies," while yet, a little before his time, our savior had mentioned it as then a current maxim with them, "thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy," matthew : , is worth our inquiry. i take it that josephus, having been now for many years an ebionite christian, had learned this interpretation of the law of moses from christ, whom he owned for the true melah, as it follows in the succeeding verses, which, though he might not read in st. matthew's gospel, yet might he have read much the same exposition in their own ebionite or nazarene gospel itself; of which improvements made by josephus, after he was become a christian, we have already had several examples in this his life, sect. , , , , , , and shall have many more therein before its conclusion, as well as we have them elsewhere in all his later writings.] [footnote : here we may observe the vulgar jewish notion of witchcraft, but that our josephus was too wise to give any countenance to it.] [footnote : in this section, as well as in the and . those small vessels that sailed on the sea of galilee, are called by josephus, i.e. plainly ships; so that we need not wander at our evangelists, who still call them ships; nor ought we to render them boats, as some do, their number was in all , as we learn from our author elsewhere. jewish war. b. ii. ch. . sect. .] [footnote : part of these fortifications on mount tabor may be those still remaining, and which were seen lately by mr. maundrel. see his travels, p. .] [footnote : this gamaliel may be the very same that is mentioned by the rabbins in the mishna, in juchasin, and in porta mosis, as is observed in the latin notes. he might be also that gamaliel ii., whose grandfather was gamaliel i., who is mentioned in acts : , and at whose feet st. paul was brought up, acts : . see prid. at the year .] [footnote : this jonathan is also taken notice of in the latin notes, as the same that is mentioned by the rabbins in porta mosis.] [footnote : this i take to be the first of josephus's remarkable or divine dreams, which were predictive of the great things that afterwards came to pass; of which see more in the note on antiq. b. iii. ch. . sect. . the other is in the war, b. iii. ch. . sect. , .] [footnote : josephus's directions to his soldiers here are much the same that john the baptist gave, luke : , "do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages." whence dr. hudson confirms this conjecture, that josephus, in some things, was, even now, a follower of john the baptist, which is no way improbable. see the note on sect. .] [footnote : we here learn the practice of the jews, in the days of josephus, to inquire into the characters of witnesses before they were admitted; and that their number ought to be three, or two at the least, also exactly as in the law of moses, and in the apostolical constitutions, b. ii. ch. . see horeb covenant revived, page , .] [footnote : this appeal to the whole body of the galileans by josephus, and the testimony they gave him of integrity in his conduct as their governor, is very like that appeal and testimony in the case of the prophet samuel, samuel : - , and perhaps was done by josephus in imitation of him.] [footnote : it is worth noting here, that there was now a great proseucha, or place of prayer, in the city of tiberias itself, though such proseucha used to be out of cities, as the synagogues were within them. of them, see le moyne on polycarp's epistle, page . it is also worth our remark, that the jews, in the days of josephus, used to dine at the sixth hour, or noon; and that in obedience to their notions of the law of moses also.] [footnote : one may observe here, that this lay pharisee, ananias, is we have seen he was, sect. , took upon him to appoint a fast at tiberias, and was obeyed; though indeed it was not out of religion, but knavish policy.] [footnote : the character of this history of justus of tiberias, the rival of our josephus, which is now lost, with its only remaining fragment, are given us by a very able critic, photius, who read that history. it is in the rd code of his bibliotheca, and runs thus: "i have read [says photius] the chronology of justus of tiberias, whose title is this, [footnote the chronology of] the kings of judah which succeeded one another. this [justus] came out of the city of tiberias in galilee. he begins his history from moses, and ends it not till the death of agrippa, the seventh [ruler] of the family of herod, and the last king of the jews; who took the government under claudius, had it augmented under nero, and still more augmented by vespasian. he died in the third year of trajan, where also his history ends. he is very concise in his language, and slightly passes over those affairs that were most necessary to be insisted on; and being under the jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a jew by birth, he makes not the least mention of the appearance of christ, or what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did. he was the son of a certain jew, whose name was pistus. he was a man, as he is described by josephus, of a most profligate character; a slave both to money and to pleasures. in public affairs he was opposite to josephus; and it is related, that he laid many plots against him; but that josephus, though he had his enemy frequently under his power, did only reproach him in words, and so let him go without further punishment. he says also, that the history which this man wrote is, for the main, fabulous, and chiefly as to those parts where he describes the roman war with the jews, and the taking of jerusalem."] [footnote : here josephus, a priest, honestly confesses that he did that at the command of vespasian, which he had before told us was not lawful for a priest to do by the law of moses, antiq. b. iii. ch. . sect. . i mean, the taking a captive woman to wife. see also against apion, b. i. sect. . but he seems to have been quickly sensible that his compliance with the commands of an emperor would not excuse him, for he soon put her away, as reland justly observes here.] [footnote : of this most remarkable clause, and its most important consequences, see essay on the old testament, page -- .] [footnote : of this epaphroditus, see the note on the preface to the antiquities.]