The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine Part 16

After the above confession, the kindly-disposed reader will easily understand why I no longer found pleasure in my work on the Hegelian philosophy. I saw clearly that its publication would benefit neither the public nor the author. I comprehended that there is more nourishment for famis.h.i.+ng humanity in the most watery and insipid broth of Christian charity than in the dry and musty spider-web of the Hegelian philosophy.

I will confess all. Of a sudden I was seized with a mortal terror of the eternal flames. I know it is a mere superst.i.tion; but I was frightened.

And so, on a quiet winter's night, when a glowing fire was burning on my hearth, I availed myself of the good opportunity, and cast the ma.n.u.script of my work on the Hegelian philosophy into the flames. The burning leaves flew up the chimney with a strange and hissing sound.

Thank G.o.d! I was rid of it! Alas! would that I could destroy in the same manner all that I have ever published concerning German philosophy! But that is impossible, and since I cannot prevent their republication, as I lately learned to my great regret, no other course remains but to confess publicly that my exposition of German philosophy contains the most erroneous and pernicious doctrines.

...It is strange! during my whole life I have been strolling through the various festive halls of philosophy, I have partic.i.p.ated in all the orgies of the intellect, I have coquetted with every possible system, without being satisfied, like Messalina after a riotous night; and now, after all this, I suddenly find myself on the same platform whereon stands Uncle Tom. That platform is the Bible, and I kneel by the side of my dusky brother in faith with the same devotion.

What humiliation! With all my learning, I have got no farther than the poor ignorant negro who can hardly spell! It is even true that poor Uncle Tom appears to see in the holy book more profound things than I, who am not yet quite clear, especially in regard to the second part.

...But, on the other hand, I think I may flatter myself that I can better comprehend, in the first part of the holy book, the character of Moses. His grand figure has impressed me not a little. What a colossal form! I cannot imagine that Og, King of Bashan, could have looked more giant-like. How insignificant does Sinai appear when Moses stands thereon! That mountain is merely a pedestal for the feet of the man whose head towers in the heavens and there holds converse with G.o.d. May G.o.d forgive the sacrilegious thought! but sometimes it appears to me as if this Mosaic G.o.d were only the reflected radiance of Moses himself, whom he so strongly represents in wrath and in love. It were a sin, it were anthropomorphism, to a.s.sume such an ident.i.ty of G.o.d and his prophet; but the resemblance is most striking.

I had not previously much admired the character of Moses, probably because the h.e.l.lenic spirit was predominant in me, and I could not pardon the lawgiver of the Jews for his hate of the plastic arts. I failed to perceive that Moses, notwithstanding his enmity to art, was nevertheless himself a great artist, and possessed the true artistic spirit. Only, this artistic spirit with him, as with his Egyptian countrymen, was applied to the colossal and the imperishable. But not, like the Egyptians, did he construct his works of art from bricks and granite, but he built human pyramids and carved human obelisks. He took a poor shepherd tribe and from it created a nation which should defy centuries; a great, an immortal, a consecrated race, a G.o.d-serving people, who to all other nations should be as a model and prototype: he created Israel.

I have never spoken with proper reverence either of the artist or of his work, the Jews; and for the same reason--namely, my h.e.l.lenic temperament, which was opposed to Jewish asceticism. My prejudice in favour of h.e.l.las has declined since then. I see now that the Greeks were only beautiful youths, but that the Jews were always men, strong, unyielding men, not only in the past, but to this very day, in spite of eighteen centuries of persecution and suffering. Since that time I have learned to appreciate them better, and, were not all pride of ancestry a silly inconsistency in a champion of the revolution and its democratic principles, the writer of these pages would be proud that his ancestors belonged to the n.o.ble house of Israel, that he is a descendant of those martyrs who gave the world a G.o.d and a morality, and who have fought and suffered on all the battle-fields of thought.

The histories of the middle ages, and even those of modern times, have seldom enrolled on their records the names of such knights of the Holy Spirit, for they generally fought with closed visors. The deeds of the Jews are just as little known to the world as is their real character.

Some think they know the Jews because they can recognise their beards, which is all they have ever revealed of themselves. Now, as during the middle ages, they remain a wandering mystery, a mystery that may perhaps be solved on the day which the prophet foretells, when there shall be but one shepherd and one flock, and the righteous who have suffered for the good of humanity shall then receive a glorious reward.

You see that I, who in the past was wont to quote Homer, now quote the Bible, like Uncle Tom. In truth, I owe it much. It again awoke in me the religious feeling; and this new birth of religious emotion suffices for the poet, for he can dispense far more easily than other mortals with positive religious dogmas.

...The silliest and most contradictory reports are in circulation concerning me. Very pious but not very wise men of Protestant Germany have urgently inquired if, now that I am ill and in a religious frame of mind, I cling with more devotion than heretofore to the Lutheran evangelic faith, which, until now, I have only professed after a luke-warm, official fas.h.i.+on. No, dear friends, in that respect no change has taken place in me, and if I continue to adhere to the evangelic faith at all, it is because now, as in the past, that faith does not at all inconvenience me. I will frankly avow that when I resided in Berlin, like several of my friends, I would have preferred to separate myself from the bonds of all denominations, had not the rulers there refused a residence in Prussia, and especially in Berlin, to any who did not profess one of the positive religions recognised by the State. As Henry IV. once laughingly said, "Paris vaut bien une messe," so could I say, with equal justice, "Berlin is well worth a sermon." Both before and after, I could easily tolerate the very enlightened Christianity which at that time was preached in some of the churches of Berlin. It was a Christianity filtered from all superst.i.tion, even from the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, like mock-turtle soup without turtle. At that time I myself was still a G.o.d, and no one of the positive religions had more value for me than another. I could wear any of their uniforms out of courtesy, after the manner of the Russian Emperor, who, when he vouchsafes the King of Prussia the honour to attend a review at Potsdam, appears uniformed as a Prussian officer of the guard.

Now that my physical sufferings, and the reawakening of my religious nature, have effected in me many changes, does the uniform of Lutheranism in some measure express my true sentiments? How far has the formal profession become a reality? I do not propose to give direct answers to these questions, but I shall avail myself of the opportunity to explain the services which, according to my present views, Protestantism has rendered to civilisation. From this may be inferred how much more I am now in sympathy with this creed.

At an earlier period, when philosophy possessed for me a paramount interest, I prized Protestantism only for its services in winning freedom of thought, which, after all, is the foundation on which in later times Leibnitz, Kant, and Hegel could build. Luther, the strong man with the axe, must, in the very nature of things, have preceded these warriors, to open a path for them. For this service I have honoured the Reformation as being the beginning of German philosophy, which justified my polemical defence of Protestantism. Now, in my later and more mature days, when the religious feeling again surges up in me, and the s.h.i.+pwrecked metaphysician clings fast to the Bible,--now I chiefly honour Protestantism for its services in the discovery and propagation of the Bible. I say "discovery," for the Jews, who had preserved the Bible from the great conflagration of the sacred temple, and all through the middle ages carried it about with them like a portable fatherland, kept their treasure carefully concealed in their ghettos. Here came by stealth German scholars, the predecessors and originators of the Reformation, to study the Hebrew language and thus acquire the key to the casket wherein the precious treasure was enclosed. Such a scholar was the worthy Reuchlinus; and his enemies, the Hochstraaten, in Cologne, who are represented as the party of darkness and ignorance, were by no means such simpletons. On the contrary, they were far-sighted Inquisitors, who foresaw clearly the disasters which a familiar acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures would bring on the Church. Hence the persecuting zeal with which they sought to destroy the Hebrew writings, at the same time inciting the rabble to exterminate the Jews, the interpreters of these writings. Now that the motives of their actions are known, we see that, properly considered, each was in the right. This reactionary party believed that the spiritual salvation of the world was endangered, and that all means, falsehood as well as murder, were justifiable, especially against the Jews. The lower cla.s.ses, pinched by poverty, and heirs of the primeval curse, were embittered against the Jews because of the wealth they had ama.s.sed; and what to-day is called the hate of the proletariate against the rich, was then called hate against the Jews. In fact, as the latter were excluded from all owners.h.i.+p of land and from every trade, and relegated to dealing in money and merchandise, they were condemned by law to be rich, hated, and murdered. Such murders, it is true, were in these days committed under the mantle of religion, and the cry was, "We must kill those who once killed our G.o.d." How strange! The very people who had given the world a G.o.d, and whose whole life was inspired by the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, were stigmatised as deicides! The b.l.o.o.d.y parody of such madness was witnessed at the outbreak of the revolution in San Domingo, where a negro mob devastated the plantations with murder and fire, led by a negro fanatic who carried an immense crucifix, amid bloodthirsty cries of "The whites killed Christ; let us slay all whites!"

Yes, to the Jews the world is indebted for its G.o.d and His word. They rescued the Bible from the bankruptcy of the Roman empire, and preserved the precious volume intact during all the wild tumults of the migration of races, until Protestantism came to seek it and translated it into the language of the land and spread it broadcast over the whole world. This extensive circulation of the Bible has produced the most beneficent fruits, and continues to do so to this very day. The propaganda of the Bible Society have fulfilled a providential mission, which will bring forth quite different results from those antic.i.p.ated by the pious gentlemen of the British Christian Missionary Society. They expect to elevate a petty, narrow dogma to supremacy, and to monopolise heaven as they do the sea, making it a British Church domain--and see, without knowing it, they are demanding the overthrow of all Protestant sects; for, as they all draw their life from the Bible, when the knowledge of the Bible becomes universal, all sectarian distinctions will be obliterated.

While by tricks of trade, smuggling, and commerce the British gain footholds in many lands, with them they bring the Bible, that grand democracy wherein each man shall not only be king in his own house, but also bishop. They are demanding, they are founding, the great kingdom of the spirit, the kingdom of the religious emotions, and the love of humanity, of purity, of true morality, which cannot be taught by dogmatic formulas, but by parable and example, such as are contained in that beautiful, sacred, educational book for young and old--the Bible.

To the observant thinker it is a wonderful spectacle to view the countries where the Bible, since the Reformation, has been exerting its elevating influence on the inhabitants, and has impressed on them the customs, modes of thought, and temperaments which formerly prevailed in Palestine, as portrayed both in the Old and in the New Testament. In the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sections of Europe and America, especially among the Germanic races, and also to a certain extent in Celtic countries, the customs of Palestine have been reproduced in so marked a degree that we seem to be in the midst of the ancient Judean life. Take, for example, the Scotch Protestants: are not they Hebrews, whose names even are biblical, whose very cant smacks of the Phariseeism of ancient Jerusalem, and whose religion is naught else than a pork-eating Judaism?

It is the same in Denmark and in certain provinces of North Germany, not to mention the majority of the new sects of the United States, among whom the life depicted in the Old Testament is pedantically aped. In the latter, that life appears as if daguerreotyped: the outlines are studiously correct, but all is depicted in sad, sombre colours; the golden tints and harmonising colours of the promised land are lacking.

But the caricature will disappear sooner or later. The zeal, the imperishable and the true--that is to say, the morality--of ancient Judaism will in those countries bloom forth just as acceptably to G.o.d as in the old time it blossomed on the banks of Jordan and on the heights of Lebanon. One needs neither palm-trees nor camels to be good; and goodness is better than beauty.

The readiness with which these races have adopted the Judaic life, customs, and modes of thought is, perhaps, not entirely attributable to their susceptibility of culture. The cause of this phenomenon is, perhaps, to be sought in the character of the Jewish people, which always had a marked elective affinity with the character of the Germanic, and also to a certain extent with that of the Celtic races.

Judea has always seemed to me like a fragment of the Occident misplaced in the Orient. In fact, with its spiritual faith, its severe, chaste, even ascetic customs,--in short, with its abstract inner life,--this land and its people always offered the most marked contrasts to the population of neighbouring countries, who, with their luxuriantly varied and fervent nature of wors.h.i.+p, pa.s.sed their existence in a Bacchantic dance of the senses.

At a time when, in the temples of Babylon, Nineveh, Sidon, and Tyre, b.l.o.o.d.y and unchaste rites were celebrated, the description of which, even now, makes our hair stand on end, Israel sat under its fig-trees, piously chanting the praises of the invisible G.o.d, and exercised virtue and righteousness. When we think of these surroundings we cannot sufficiently admire the early greatness of Israel. Of Israel's love of liberty, at a time when not only in its immediate vicinity, but also among all the nations of antiquity, even among the philosophical Greeks, the practice of slavery was justified and in full sway,--of this I will not speak, for fear of compromising the Bible in the eyes of the powers that be. No Socialist was more of a terrorist than our Lord and Saviour.

Even Moses was such a Socialist; although, like a practical man, he attempted only to reform existing usages concerning property. Instead of striving to effect the impossible, and rashly decreeing the abolition of private property, he only sought for its moralisation by bringing the rights of property into harmony with the laws of morality and reason.

This he accomplished by inst.i.tuting the jubilee, at which period every alienated heritage, which among an agricultural people always consisted of land, would revert to the original owner, no matter in what manner it had been alienated. This inst.i.tution offers the most marked contrast to the Roman statute of limitations, by which, after the expiration of a certain period, the actual holder of an estate could no longer be compelled to restore the estate to the true owner, unless the latter should be able to show that within the prescribed time he had, with all the prescribed formalities, demanded rest.i.tution. This last condition opened wide the door for chicanery, particularly in a state where despotism and jurisprudence were at their zenith, and where the unjust possessor had at command all means of intimidation, especially against the poor who might be unable to defray the expense of litigation. The Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and that which he conquered with the strong arm he knew how to defend by the tricks of law. Only a nation of robbers and casuists could have invented the law of prescription, the statute of limitations, and consecrated it in that detestable book which may be called the bible of the Devil--I mean the codex of Roman civil law, which, unfortunately, still holds sway.

I have spoken of the affinity which exists between the Jews and the Germans, whom I once designated as the two pre-eminently moral nations.

While on this subject, I desire to direct attention to the ethical disapprobation with which the ancient German law stigmatises the statute of limitations: this I consider a noteworthy fact. To this very day the Saxon peasant uses the beautiful and touching aphorism, "A hundred years of wrong do not make a single year of right."

The Mosaic law, through the inst.i.tution of the jubilee year, protests still more decidedly. Moses did not seek to abolish the right of property; on the contrary, it was his wish that everyone should possess property, so that no one might be tempted by poverty to become a bondsman and thus acquire slavish propensities. Liberty was always the great emanc.i.p.ator's leading thought, and it breathes and glows in all his statutes concerning pauperism. Slavery itself he bitterly, almost fiercely, hated; but even this barbarous inst.i.tution he could not entirely destroy. It was rooted so deeply in the customs of that ancient time that he was compelled to confine his efforts to ameliorating by law the condition of the slaves, rendering self-purchase by the bondsman less difficult, and shortening the period of bondage.

But if a slave thus eventually freed by process of law declined to depart from the house of bondage, then, according to the command of Moses, the incorrigibly servile, worthless scamp was to be nailed by the ear to the gate of his master's house, and after being thus publicly exposed in this disgraceful manner, he was condemned to life-long slavery. Oh, Moses! our teacher, Rabbi Moses! exalted foe of all slavishness! give me hammer and nails that I may nail to the gate of Brandenburg our complacent, long-eared slaves in liveries of black-red-and-gold.

I leave the ocean of universal religious, moral, and historical reflections, and modestly guide my bark of thought back again into the quiet inland waters of autobiography, in which the author's features are so faithfully reflected.

In the preceding pages I have mentioned how Protestant voices from home, in very indiscreet questions, have taken for granted that with the reawakening in me of the religious feeling my sympathy for the Church had also grown stronger. I know not how clearly I have shown that I am not particularly enthusiastic for any dogma or for any creed; and in this respect I have remained the same that I always was. I repeat this statement in order to remove an error in regard to my present views, into which several of my friends who are zealous Catholics have fallen.

How strange! at the same time that in Germany Protestantism bestowed on me the undeserved honour of crediting me with a conversion to the evangelic faith, another report was circulating that I had gone over to Catholicism. Some good souls went so far as to a.s.sert that this latter conversion had occurred many years ago, and they supported this statement by definitely naming time and place. They even mentioned the exact date; they designated by name the church in which I had abjured the heresy of Protestantism, and adopted the only true and saving faith, that of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. The only detail that was lacking was how many peals of the bell had been sounded at this ceremony.

From the newspapers and letters that reach me I learn how widely this report has won credence; and I fall into a painful embarra.s.sment when I think of the sincere, loving joy which is so touchingly expressed in some of these epistles. Travellers tell me that the salvation of my soul has even furnished a theme for pulpit eloquence. Young Catholic priests seek permission to dedicate to me the first fruits of their pen. I am regarded as a s.h.i.+ning light--that is to be--of the Church. This pious folly is so well meant and sincere that I cannot laugh at it. Whatever may be said of the zealots of Catholicism, one thing is certain: they are no egotists; they take a warm interest in their fellow-men--alas!

often a little too warm an interest. I cannot ascribe that false report to malice, but only to mistake. The innocent facts were in this case surely distorted by accident only. The statement of time and place is quite correct. I was really in the designated church on the designated day, and I did there undergo a religious ceremony; but this ceremony was no hateful abjuration, but a very innocent conjugation. In short, after being married according to the civil law, I also invoked the sanction of the Church, because my wife, who is a strict Catholic, would not have considered herself properly married in the eyes of G.o.d without such a ceremony; and for no consideration would I shake this dear being's belief in the religion which she has inherited.

It is well, moreover, that women should have a positive religion.

Whether there is more fidelity among wives of the evangelic faith, I shall not attempt to discuss. But the Catholicism of the wife certainly saves the husband from many annoyances. When Catholic women have committed a fault, they do not secretly brood over it, but confess to the priest, and as soon as they have received absolution they are again as merry and light-hearted as before. This is much pleasanter than spoiling the husband's good spirits or his soup by downcast looks or grieving over a sin for which they hold themselves in duty bound to atone during their whole lives by shrewish prudery and quarrelsome excess of virtue. The confessional is likewise useful in another respect. The sinner does not keep her terrible secret preying on her mind; and since women are sure, sooner or later, to babble all they know, it is better that they should confide certain matters to their confessor than that they should, in some moment of overpowering tenderness, talkativeness, or remorse, blurt out to the poor husband the fatal confession.

Scepticism is certainly dangerous in the married state, and, although I myself was a free-thinker, I permitted no word derogatory to religion to be spoken in my house. In the midst of Paris I lived like a steady, commonplace townsman; and therefore when I married I desired to be wedded under the sanction of the Church, although in this country the civil marriage is fully recognised by society. My free-thinking friends were vexed at me for this, and overwhelmed me with reproaches, claiming that I had made too great concessions to the clergy. Their chagrin at my weakness would have been still greater had they known the other concessions that I had made to the hated priesthood. As I was a Protestant wedding a Catholic, in order to have the ceremony performed by a Catholic priest it was necessary to obtain a special dispensation from the archbishop, who in these cases exacts from the husband a written pledge that the offspring of the marriage shall be educated in the religion of the mother. But, between ourselves, I could sign this pledge with the lighter conscience since I knew the rearing of children is not my specialty, and as I laid down my pen the words of the beautiful Ninon de L'Enclos came into my mind--"O, le beau billet qu' a Lechastre!"

...I will crown my confessions by admitting that, if at that time it had been necessary in order to obtain the dispensation of the archbishop, I would have bound over not only the children but myself. But the ogre of Rome, who, like the monster in the fairy tales, stipulates that he shall have for his services the future births, was content with the poor children who were never born. And so I remained a Protestant, as before--a protesting Protestant; and I protest against reports which, without being intended to be defamatory, may yet be magnified so as to injure my good name.

...There is not a particle of unkindly feeling in my breast against the poor ogre of Rome. I have long since abandoned all feuds with Catholicism, and the sword which I once drew in the service of an idea, and not from private grudge, has long rested in its scabbard. In that contest I resembled a soldier of fortune, who fights bravely, but after the battle bears no malice either against the defeated cause or against its champions.

Fanatical enmity towards the Catholic Church cannot be charged against me, for there was always lacking in me the self-conceit which is necessary to sustain such an animosity. I know too well my own intellectual calibre not to be aware that with my most furious onslaughts I could inflict but little injury on a colossus such as the Church of St. Peter. I could only be a humble worker at the slow removal of its foundation stones, a task which may yet require centuries. I was too familiar with history not to recognise the gigantic nature of that granite structure. Call it, if you will, the bastile of intellect; a.s.sert, if you choose, that it is now defended only by invalids; but it is therefore not the less true that the bastile is not to be easily captured, and many a young recruit will break his head against its walls.

As a thinker and as a metaphysician, I was always forced to pay the homage of my admiration to the logical consistency of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and I may also take credit to myself that I have never by witticism or ridicule attacked its dogmas or its public wors.h.i.+p. Too much and too little honour has been vouchsafed me in calling me an intellectual kinsman of Voltaire. I was always a poet; and hence the poesy which blossoms and glows in the symbolism of Catholic dogma and culture must have revealed itself more profoundly to me than to ordinary observers, and in my youthful days I was often touched by the infinite sweetness, the mysterious, blissful ecstasy and awe-inspiring grandeur of that poetry. There was a time when I went into raptures over the blessed Queen of Heaven, and in dainty verse told the story of her grace and goodness. My first collection of poems shows traces of this beautiful Madonna period, which in later editions I weeded out with laughable anxiety.

The time for vanity has pa.s.sed, and everyone is at liberty to smile at this confession.

It will be unnecessary for me to say that, as no blind hate against the Catholic Church exists in me, so also no petty spite against its priests rankles in my heart. Whoever knows my satirical vein will surely bear witness that I was always lenient and forbearing in speaking of the human weaknesses of the clergy, although by their attacks they often provoked in me a spirit of retaliation. But even at the height of my wrath I was always respectful to the true priesthood; for, looking back into the past, I remembered benefits which they had once rendered me; for it is Catholic priests whom I must thank for my first instruction; it was they who guided the first steps of my intellect.

Pedagogy was the specialty of the Jesuits, and although they sought to pursue it in the interest of their order, yet sometimes the pa.s.sion for pedagogy itself, the only human pa.s.sion that was left in them, gained the mastery; they forgot their aim, the repression of reason and the exaltation of faith, and, instead of reducing men to a state of childhood, as was their purpose, out of the children they involuntarily made men by their instruction. The greatest men of the Revolution were educated in Jesuit schools. Without the training there acquired, that great intellectual agitation would perhaps not have broken out till a century later.

Poor Jesuit fathers! You have been the bugbear and the scapegoat of the liberals. The danger that was in you was understood, but not your merits. I could never join in the denunciations of my comrades, who at the mere mention of Loyola's name would always become furious, like bulls when a red cloth is held before them. It is certainly noteworthy, and may perhaps at the a.s.sizes in the valley of Jehoshaphat be set down as an extenuating circ.u.mstance, that even as a lad I was permitted to attend lectures on philosophy. This unusual favour was exceptional in my case, because the rector Schallmeyer was a particular friend of our family. This venerable man often consulted with my mother in regard to my education and future career, and once advised her, as she afterwards related to me, to devote me to the service of the Catholic Church, and send me to Rome to study theology. He a.s.sured her that through his influential friends in Rome he could advance me to an important position in the Church. But at that time my mother dreamed of the highest worldly honours for me. Moreover, she was a disciple of Rousseau, and a strict deist. Besides, she did not like the thought of her son being robed in one of those long black ca.s.socks, such as are worn by Catholic priests, and in which they look so plump and awkward. She knew not how differently, how gracefully, a Roman _abbate_ wears such a ca.s.sock, and how jauntily he flings over his shoulders the black silk mantle, which in Rome, the ever-beautiful, is the uniform of gallantry and wit.

Oh, what a happy mortal is such a Roman _abbate_! He serves not only the Church of Christ, but also Apollo and the Muses, whose favourite he is.

The Graces hold his inkstand for him when he indites the sonnets which, with such delicate cadences, he reads in the Accademia degli Arcadi. He is a connoisseur of art, and needs only to taste the lips of a young songstress in order to be able to foretell whether she will some day be a celeberrima cantatrice, a diva, a world-renowned prima-donna. He understands antiquities, and will write a treatise in the choicest Ciceronian Latin concerning some newly-unearthed torso of a Grecian Bacchante, reverentially dedicating it to the supreme head of Christendom, to the Pontifex Maximus, for so he addresses him. And what a judge of painting is the Signor _Abbate_, who visits the painters in their ateliers and directs their attention to the fine points of their female models! The writer of these pages had in him just the material for such an _abbate_, and was just suited for strolling in delightful _dolce far niente_ through the libraries, art galleries, churches, and ruins of the Eternal City, studying among pleasures, and seeking pleasure while studying. I would have read ma.s.s before the most select audiences, and during Holy Week I would have mounted the pulpit as a preacher of strict morality,--of course even then never degenerating into ascetic rudeness. The Roman ladies, in particular, would have been greatly edified, and through their favour and my own merit I would, perhaps, have risen eventually to high rank in the hierarchy of the Church. I would, perhaps, have become a monsignore, a violet-stocking; perhaps even a cardinal's red hat might have fallen on my head. The proverb says--

"There is no priestling, how small soe'er he be, That does not wish himself a Pope to be."

And so it might have come to pa.s.s that I should attain the most exalted position of all, for, although I am not naturally ambitious, I would yet not have refused the nomination for Pope, had the choice of the conclave fallen on me. It is, at all events, a very respectable office, and has a good income attached to it; and I do not doubt that I could have discharged the duties of my position with the requisite address. I would have seated myself composedly on the throne of St. Peter, presenting my toe for the kisses of all good Christians, the priests as well as the laity. With a becoming dignity I would have let myself be carried in triumph through the pillared halls of the great basilica, and only when it tottered very threateningly would I have clung to the arms of the golden throne, which is borne on the shoulders of six stalwart camerieri in crimson uniform. By their side walk bald-headed monks of the Capuchin order, carrying burning torches. Then follow lackeys in gala dress, bearing aloft immense fans of peac.o.c.ks' feathers, with which they gently fan the Prince of the Church. It is all just like Horace Vernet's beautiful painting of such a procession. With a like imperturbable sacerdotal gravity--for I can be very serious if it be absolutely necessary--from the lofty Lateran I would have p.r.o.nounced the annual benediction over all Christendom. Here, standing on the balcony, _in pontificalibus_ and with the triple crown upon my head, surrounded by my scarlet-hatted cardinals and mitred bishops, priests in suits of gold brocade and monks of every hue, I would have presented my holiness to the view of the swarming mult.i.tudes below, who, kneeling and with bowed heads, extended farther than the eye could reach; and I could composedly have stretched out my hands and blessed the city and the world.

But, as thou well knowest, gentle reader, I have not become a Pope, nor a cardinal, nor even a papal nuncio. In the spiritual as well as in the worldly hierarchy I have attained neither office nor rank; I have accomplished nothing in this beautiful world; nothing has become of me--nothing but a poet.

But no, I will not feign a hypocritical humility, I will not depreciate that name. It is much to be a poet, especially to be a great lyric poet, in Germany, among a people who in two things--in philosophy and in poetry--have surpa.s.sed all other nations. I will not with a sham modesty--the invention of worthless vagabonds--depreciate my fame as a poet. None of my countrymen have won the laurel at so early an age; and if my colleague, Wolfgang Goethe, complacently writes that "the Chinese with trembling hand paints Werther and Lotte on porcelain," I can, if boasting is to be in order, match his Chinese fame with one still more legendary, for I have recently learned that my poems have been translated into the j.a.panese language.

...But at this moment I am as indifferent to my j.a.panese fame as to my renown in Finland. Alas! fame, once sweet as sugared pine-apple and flattery, has for a long time been nauseous to me; it tastes as bitter to me now as wormwood. With Romeo, I can say, "I am the fool of fortune." The bowl stands filled before me, but I lack a spoon. What does it avail me that at banquets my health is pledged in the choicest wines, and drunk from golden goblets, when I, myself, severed from all that makes life pleasant, may only wet my lips with an insipid potion?

What does it avail me that enthusiastic youths and maidens crown my marble bust with laurel-wreaths, if meanwhile the shrivelled fingers of an aged nurse press a blister of Spanish flies behind the ears of my actual body. What does it avail me that all the roses of s.h.i.+raz so tenderly glow and bloom for me? Alas! s.h.i.+raz is two thousand miles away from the Rue d'Amsterdam, where, in the dreary solitude of my sick-room, I have nothing to smell, unless it be the perfume of warmed napkins.

Alas! the irony of G.o.d weighs heavily upon me! the great Author of the universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, wished to show the petty, earthly, so-called German Aristophanes that his mightiest sarcasms are but feeble banter compared with His, and how immeasurably he excels me in humour and in colossal wit.

Yes, the mockery which the Master has poured out over me is terrible, and horribly cruel is His sport. Humbly do I acknowledge His superiority, and I prostrate myself in the dust before Him. But, although I lack such supreme creative powers, yet in my spirit also the eternal reason flames brightly, and I may summon even the wit of G.o.d before its forum, and subject it to a respectful criticism. And here I venture to offer most submissively the suggestion that the sport which the Master has inflicted on the poor pupil is rather too long drawn out: it has already lasted over six years, and after a time becomes monotonous. Moreover, if I may take the liberty to say it, in my humble opinion the jest is not new, and the great Aristophanes of Heaven has already used it on a former occasion, and has, therefore, been guilty of plagiarism on His own exalted self. In order to prove this a.s.sertion, I will quote a pa.s.sage from the Chronicle of Luneberg. This chronicle is very interesting for those who seek information concerning the manners and customs of Germany during the middle ages. As in a fas.h.i.+on-journal, it describes the wearing-apparel of both s.e.xes which was in vogue at each particular period. It also imparts information concerning the popular ballads of the day, and quotes the opening lines of several of them. Among others, it records that during the year 1480 there were whistled and sung throughout all Germany certain songs, which for sweetness and tenderness surpa.s.sed any previously known in German lands.

Young and old, and the women in particular, were quite bewitched by these ballads, which might be heard the livelong day. But these songs, so the chronicle goes on to say, were composed by a young priest who was afflicted with leprosy, and lived a forlorn, solitary life, secluded from all the world. You are surely aware, dear reader, what a horrible disease leprosy was during the middle ages, and how the wretched beings afflicted with this incurable malady were driven out from all society and from the abodes of men, and were forbidden to approach any human being. Living corpses, they wandered to and fro, m.u.f.fled from head to foot, a hood drawn over the face, and carrying in the hand a bell, the Lazarus-bell, as it was called, through which they were to give timely warning of their approach, so that every one could get out of the way in time. The poor priest whose fame as a lyric poet the chronicle praised so highly was such a leper; and while all Germany, shouting and jubilant, sang and whistled his songs, he, a wretched outcast, in the desolation of his misery sat sorrowful and alone.

Oh, that fame was the old, familiar scorn, the cruel jest of G.o.d, the same as in my case, although there it appears in the romantic garb of the middle ages. The _blase_ king of Judea said rightly, There is no new thing under the sun. Perhaps that sun itself, which now beams so imposingly, is only an old warmed-up jest.

Sometimes among the gloomy phantasms that visit me at night I seem to see before me the poor priest of the Luneberg Chronicle, my brother in Apollo, and his sorrowful eyes stare strangely out of his hood; but almost at the same moment it vanishes, and, faintly dying away, like the echo of a dream, I hear the jarring tones of the Lazarus-bell.