Immortal Memories Part 7

My heart is breaking! Rustow's letter will kill me. That you have betrayed me seems impossible! Even now I cannot believe in such shamelessness, in such frightful treachery. It is only for a moment that some one has overridden your will and obliterated your true self.

It is inconceivable that this can be your real, your abiding determination. You cannot have thrown aside all shame, all love, all fidelity, all truth. If you did, you would dishonour and disfigure humanity. There can be no truth left in the world if you are false, if you are capable of descending to this depth of abandonment, of breaking such holy oaths, of crus.h.i.+ng my heart. Then there is nothing more under the sun in which a man can still believe.

Have you not filled me with a longing to possess you? Have you not implored me to exhaust all proper measures, before carrying you away from Wabern? Have you not by your own lips and by your letters, sworn to me the most sacred oaths? Have you not declared to me, even in your last letters, that you were nothing, nothing but my loving wife, and that no power on earth should stay your resolution? And now, after you have bound this true heart of mine to yourself so strongly, this heart which when once it gives itself away gives itself for ever; now, when the battle has scarcely begun, do you cast me off? Do you betray me? Do you destroy me? If so, you succeed in doing what else no fate can do; you will have crushed and shattered one of the hardest of men, who could withstand unflinchingly all outward storms. No, I can never survive such treachery. It will kill me inwardly and outwardly. It is not possible that you are so dishonourable, so shameless, so reckless of duty, so utterly unworthy and infamous. If you were, you would deserve of me the most deadly hatred. You would deserve the contempt of the world. Helen, it is not your own resolution which you have communicated to Rustow. Some one has fastened it upon you by a coercion of your better feelings. Listen to me. If you abide by this resolution, you will lament it as long as you live.

Helen, true to my words, "_Je me charge du reste_," I shall stay here, and shall take all possible steps to break down your father's opposition. I have already excellent means in my hand, which will certainly not remain unused, and if they do not succeed, I shall still possess thousands of other means, and I will grind all hindrances to dust if you will but remain true to me. If you remain true, there is no limit to my strength or to my love of you, _Je me charge toujours du reste_! The battle is hardly begun, you cowardly girl. But can it be, that while I sit here, and have already achieved what seemed impossible, you are betraying me, and listening to the flattering words of another man? Helen, my fate is in your hands! But if you destroy me by this wicked treachery, from which I cannot recover, then may evil fall upon you, and my curse follow you to the grave! This is the curse of a true heart, of a heart that you wantonly break, and with which you have cruelly trifled. Yes, this curse of mine will surely strike you.

According to Rustow's message, you want your letters to be returned to you. In any case, you will never receive them otherwise than from me--after a personal interview. For I must and will speak to you personally, and to you alone. I must and will hear my death-doom from your own lips. It is only thus that I can believe what otherwise seems impossible to me.

I am continuing here to take further steps to win you, and when I have done all that is possible, I shall come to Geneva. Helen, our destinies are entwined!

F. La.s.sALLE. {213}

It is pitiable to realize the amount of false or imperfect friends.h.i.+p which led La.s.salle on to his ruin. Rustow was false, and Holthoff was false, if it were not rather that both looked upon La.s.salle's affection for this girl, half his age, as a mad freak to be cured and forgotten.

More might have been expected from the Countess, to whom La.s.salle had given so much pure and disinterested devotion; but here again, a sense of maternal owners.h.i.+p in La.s.salle was sufficient to justify, in such a woman, any means to keep him apart from this fancy of the hour. To the Countess, however, Helen had turned for help, and had received a note which had but enraged her, and made the breach between her and La.s.salle yet wider. In the after years, Helen published one letter and the Countess another as the actual reply of the Countess to Helen's appeal, and the truth will now never be known. Meanwhile Dr. Arndt, a nephew of von Donniges, had gone to Berlin to fetch Yanko von Racowitza. Of Yanko Helen has herself given us a pleasant picture, as the one man for whom she really cared until the overwhelming presence of La.s.salle appeared upon the scene, as her one friend during her persecution. Absent from La.s.salle's influence, it was not strange that the delicate Wallachian--even younger than herself and the slave of her every whim--should have an influence in her life. Had La.s.salle, however, had yet another personal interview with her, there can scarcely be a doubt that she would have been as he had once said, "as clay in the hands of the potter"--but this was not to be. La.s.salle came back to Geneva on August 23, and immediately wrote an earnest letter to Herr von Donniges, begging for an interview, and stating that he had not the least enmity towards him for what had happened. With the fear of the Foreign Minister at Munich before his eyes Helen's father could not well refuse again, and the interview took place. La.s.salle, according to von Donniges, demanded that Yanko von Racowitza should be forbidden the house, while he himself should have ready access to Helen. He further charged von Donniges with cruelty to his daughter, and was called a liar to his face, while even the cook was called upon the scene to give her evidence as to the domestic ethics of this family circle. The letter of von Donniges to Dr.

Haenle was clearly meant to be shown to the Foreign Minister, and the wily diplomatist naturally took the opportunity both to justify himself and to vilify La.s.salle. Then began a painful dispute as to whether Herr von Donniges had ill-used his daughter; the overwhelming evidence, which includes the testimony of that daughter, written long after her father's death, tending to prove the truth of La.s.salle's allegation. La.s.salle meanwhile found no opportunity of approaching Helen, and having every reason to believe that she was entirely faithless, gave up the struggle.

He referred to the girl in language characteristic of a despairing and jilted lover, and sent von Donniges a challenge, although many years before, in a political controversy, he had declined to fight--on principle. His seconds were to be General Becker and Colonel Rustow, and the latter has left us a long account of the affair.

On the appointed day, August 22, Rustow went everywhere to look for Herr von Donniges, but the minister had fled to Berne. Rustow then saw La.s.salle at the rooms of the Countess von Hatzfeldt. La.s.salle mentioned that he had that morning had his challenge accepted by von Racowitza, whose seconds were Count Keyserling and Dr. Arndt. Rustow insisted, both to La.s.salle and to Racowitza's friends, that von Donniges should have priority, but was overruled; and it was agreed that the duel should be fought that very evening. Rustow protested that he could not find another second in so short a time--General Becker does not seem to have been available--but at length it was arranged that General Bethlem should be asked to fill the office, and that the duel should take place on the following morning, August 28. There seems to have been considerable difficulty in finding suitable pistols, and at the last moment General Bethlem declined to be a second, and Herr von Hofstetten consented to act. Rustow called upon La.s.salle at the Victoria Hotel at five o'clock.

At half-past six the party started for Carouge, a village in the neighbourhood of Geneva, which they reached an hour later. La.s.salle was quite cheerful, and perfectly confident that he would come unharmed out of the conflict. The opponents faced one another and Racowitza wounded La.s.salle, who was carried by Rustow and Dr. Seiler to a coach, and thence to the Victoria Hotel, Geneva. He suffered dreadfully both then and afterwards, and was only relieved by a plentiful use of opium. Three days later, on Wednesday, August 31, 1864, he died.

Was it the chance shot of a delicate boy that killed one of the most remarkable men of the nineteenth century, or was it a planned attack upon one who loved the people? This last view was taken and is still taken by many of his followers; but it is needless to say that it has no foundation in fact. La.s.salle was killed by a chance shot, and killed in a duel which had not even the doubtful justification of hatred of his opponent. "Count me no longer as a rival; for you I have nothing but friends.h.i.+p," were the words written to Racowitza at the moment that he challenged von Donniges, and he declared on his death-bed that he died by his own hand.

The revolutionists of all lands a.s.sembled around his dead body, which was embalmed by order of the Countess. This woman talked loudly of vengeance, called not only von Racowitza but Helen a murderer, {218} little thinking that posterity would judge her more hardly than Helen.

She proposed to take the corpse in solemn procession through Germany; but an order from the Prussian Government disturbed her plans, and at Breslau, La.s.salle's native town, it was allowed to rest. La.s.salle is buried in the family vault in the Jewish Cemetery, and a simple monument bears the inscription:

HERE RESTS WHAT IS MORTAL OF FERDINAND La.s.sALLE, THE THINKER AND THE FIGHTER.

To understand the whole tragedy and to justify its great victim is to feel something of the strain which comes to every thinker and fighter who, like La.s.salle, writes and speaks persistently to vast audiences, often against great odds, and always with the prospect of a prison before him. That his nerves were utterly unstrung, that he was not his real self in those last days, is but too evident. Armed, as he claimed, with the entire culture of his century, a maker of history if ever there was one, he became the victim of a love drama which I suppose that Mr.

Matthew Arnold would describe as of the surgeon's apprentice order: but which, apart from his political creed, will always endear him to men and women who have "lived and loved."

And what shall we say of Helen von Donniges? Her own story is surely one of the most romantic ever written. In _My Relation to Ferdinand La.s.salle_, she tells how Yanko broke to her the news that he was going to fight La.s.salle, and how much she grieved. "La.s.salle will inevitably kill Yanko," she thought; and she pitied him, but her pity was not without calculation. "When Yanko is dead and they bring his body here, there will be a stir in the house," she said, "and I can then fly to La.s.salle."

But the hours flew by, and finally Yanko came to tell her that he had wounded his opponent. For the moment, and indeed until after La.s.salle's death, she hated her successful lover; but a little later his undoubted goodness, his tenderness and patience, won her heart. They were married, but he died within a year, of consumption. Being disowned by her relations, Helen then settled in Berlin, and studied for the stage. She herself relates how at Breslau on one occasion, when acting a boy's part in one of Moser's comedies, some of La.s.salle's oldest friends being present remarked upon her likeness to La.s.salle in his youth, a resemblance on which she and La.s.salle had more than once prided themselves. At a later date Frau von Racowitza married a Russian Socialist, S. E. Shevitch, then resident in America. M. Shevitch returned to Russia a few years after this and lived with his wife at Riga. Those who have seen Madame Shevitch describe her as one of the most fascinating women they have ever met. She and her husband were very happy in their married life. Madame Shevitch is now living in Munich.

Our great novelist and poet George Meredith has immortalized her in his _Tragic Comedians_.

VIII. LORD ACTON'S LIST OF THE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS

Every one has heard of Lord Avebury's (Sir John Lubbock's) Hundred Best Books, not every one of Lord Acton's. It is the privilege of the _Pall Mall Magazine_ {225} to publish this latter list, the final impression as to reading of one of the most scholarly men that England has known in our time. The list in question is, as it were, an omitted chapter of a book that was one of the successes of its year--_The Letters of Lord Acton to Miss Mary Gladstone_--published by Mr. George Allen. That series of letters made very pleasant reading. They showed Lord Acton not as a Dryasdust, but as a very human personage indeed, with sympathies invariably in the right place.

Nor can his literary interests be said to have been restricted, for he read history and biography with avidity, and probably knew more of theology than any other layman of modern times. In imaginative literature, however, his critical instinct was perhaps less keen. He called Heine "a bad second to Schiller in poetry," which is absurd; and he thought George Eliot the greatest of modern novelists. In arriving at the latter judgment he had the excuse of personal friends.h.i.+p and admiration for a woman whose splendid intellectual gifts were undeniable.

In one letter we find Lord Acton discussing with Miss Gladstone the eternal question of the hundred best books. Sir John Lubbock had complained to her of the lack of a guide or supreme authority on the choice of books. Lord Acton had replied that, "although he had something to learn on the graver side of human knowledge," Sir John would execute his own scheme better than almost anybody. We all know that Sir John Lubbock attempted this at a lecture delivered at the Great Ormond Street Working Men's College; that that lecture has been reprinted again and again in a book ent.i.tled _The Pleasures of Life_, and that the publishers have sold more than two hundred thousand copies--a kind of success that might almost make some of our popular novelists turn green with envy.

Later on in the correspondence Lord Acton quoted one of the popes, who said that "fifty books would include every good idea in the world."

"But," continued Lord Acton, "literature has doubled since then, and it would be hard to do without a hundred."

Lord Acton was possessed of the happy thought that he would like some of his friends and acquaintances each to name his ideal hundred best books--as for example Bishop Lightfoot, Dean Church, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, Professor Max Muller, Mr. J. R. Lowell, Professor E. A. Freeman, Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. John Morley, Sir Henry Maine, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Tennyson, Cardinal Newman, Mr. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, Professor Goldwin Smith, Mr. R. H. Hutton, Mr. Mark Pattison, and Mr. J. A.

Symonds. Strange to say, he thought there would be a surprising agreement between these writers as to which were the hundred best books.

I am all but certain, however, that there would not have been more than twenty books in common between rival schools of thought--the secular and the ecclesiastical--between, let us say, Mr. John Morley and Cardinal Newman. But it is probable that not one of these eminent men would have furnished a list with any similarity whatever to the remainder. Each would have written down his own hundred favourites, and herein may be admitted is an evidence of the futility of all such attempts. The best books are the books that have helped us most to see life in all its complex bearings, and each individual needs a particular kind of mental food quite unlike the diet that best stimulates his neighbour. Writing more than a year later, Lord Acton said that he had just drawn out a list of recommended authors for his son, as being the company he would like him to keep; but this list is not available--it is not the one before me.

That was compiled yet another twelve months afterwards, when we find Lord Acton sending to Miss Mary Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) his own ideal "hundred best books." This list is now printed for the first time. Evidently Miss Gladstone remonstrated with her friend over the character of the list; but Lord Acton defended it as being in his judgment really the hundred _best books_, apart from works on physical science--that it treated of principles that every thoughtful man ought to understand, and was calculated, in fact, to give one a clear view of the various forces that make history. "We are not considering," he adds, "what will suit an untutored savage or an illiterate peasant woman, who would never come to an end of the _Imitation_."

However, here is Lord Acton's list, which Mrs. Drew has been kind enough to place in the hands of the Editor of the _Pall Mall Magazine_. I give also Lord Acton's comment with which it opens, and I add in footnotes one or two facts about each of the authors:

"In answer to the question: Which are the hundred best books in the world?

"Supposing any English youth, whose education is finished, who knows common things, and is not training for a profession.

"To perfect his mind and open windows in every direction, to raise him to the level of his age so that he may know the (20 or 30) forces that have made our world what it is and still reign over it, to guard him against surprises and against the constant sources of error within, to supply him both with the strongest stimulants and the surest guides, to give force and fullness and clearness and sincerity and independence and elevation and generosity and serenity to his mind, that he may know the method and law of the process by which error is conquered and truth is won, discerning knowledge from probability and prejudice from belief, that he may learn to master what he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he may understand the origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems and the better motive of men who are wrong, to steel him against the charm of literary beauty and talent; so that each book, thoroughly taken in, shall be the beginning of a new life, and shall make a new man of him--this list is submitted":--

1. Plato--_Laws_--Steinhart's _Introduction_. {230a}

2. Aristotle--_Politics_--Susemihl's _Commentary_. {230b}

3. Epictetus--_Encheiridion_--_Commentary_ of Simplicius. {230c}

4. St. Augustine--_Letters_. {230d}

5. St. Vincent's _Commonitorium_. {231a}

6. Hugo of S. Victor--_De Sacramentis_. {231b}

7. St. Bonaventura--_Breviloquium_. {231c}

8. St. Thomas Aquinas--_Summa contra Gentiles_. {231d}

9. Dante--_Divina Commedia_. {232a}

10. Raymund of Sabunde--_Theologia Naturalis_. {232b}

11. Nicholas of Cusa--_Concordantia Catholica_. {232c}

12. Edward Reuss--_The Bible_. {232d}

13. Pascal's Pensees--_Havet's Edition_. {233a}

14. Malebranche, _De la Recherche de la Verite_. {233b}

15. Baader--_Speculative Dogmatik_. {233c}

16. Molitor--_Philosophie der Geschichte_. {233d}

17. Astie--_Esprit de Vinet_. {233e}

18. Punjer--_Geschichte der Religions-philosophie_. {234a}