University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
LIVES OF SCHOLARS.

The forebodings of the Baron proved true. In
the afternoon the weather changed. The western
wind began to blow, and its breath drew a cloud-veil
over the face of heaven, as a breath does over
the human face in a mirror. Soon the snow began
to fall. Athwart the distant landscape it swept
like a white mist. The storm-wind came from the
Alsatian hills, and struck the dense clouds aslant
through the air. And ever faster fell the snow, a
roaring torrent from those mountainous clouds.
The setting sun glared wildly from the summit of
the hills, and sank like a burning ship at sea,
wrecked in the tempest. Thus the evening set
in; and winter stood at the gate wagging his white
and shaggy beard, like an old harper, chanting an
old rhyme:—“How cold it is! how cold it is!”

“I like such a storm as this,” said Flemming,
who stood at the window, looking out into the tempest
and the gathering darkness. “The silent falling
of snow is to me one of the most solemn things
in nature. The fall of autumnal leaves does not
so much affect me. But the driving storm is
grand. It startles me; it awakens me. It is wild
and woful, like my own soul. I cannot help
thinking of the sea; how the waves run and toss
their arms about,—and the wind plays on those
great harps, made by the shrouds and masts of
ships. Winter is here in earnest! Whew! How
the old churl whistles and threshes the snow!
Sleet and rain are falling too. Already the trees
are bearded with icicles; and the two broad branches
of yonder pine look like the white mustache of
some old German Baron.”

“And to-morrow it will look more wintry still,”
said his friend. “We shall wake up and find that
the frost-spirit has been at work all night building
Gothic Cathedrals on our windows, just as
the devil built the Cathedral of Cologne. So

draw the curtains, and come sit here by the warm
fire.”

“And now,” said Flemming, having done as his
friend desired, “tell me something of Heidelberg
and its University. I suppose we shall lead about
as solitary and studious a life here as we did of
yore in little Göttingen, with nothing to amuse us,
save our own day-dreams.”

“Pretty much so,” replied the Baron; “which
cannot fail to please you, since you are in pursuit
of tranquillity. As to the University, it is, as you
know, one of the oldest in Germany. It was
founded in the fourteenth century by the Count
Palatine Ruprecht, and had in the first year more
than five hundred students, all busily committing to
memory, after the old scholastic wise, the rules of
grammar versified by Alexander de Villa Dei, and
the extracts made by Peter the Spaniard from
Michel Psellus's Synopsis of Aristotle's Organon,
and the Categories, with Porphory's Commentaries.
Truly, I do not much wonder, that Eregina
Scotus should have been put to death by

his scholars with their penknives. They must
have been pushed to the very verge of despair.”

“What a strange picture a University presents
to the imagination. The lives of scholars in their
cloistered stillness;—literary men of retired habits,
and Professors who study sixteen hours a day,
and never see the world but on a Sunday. Nature
has, no doubt, for some wise purpose, placed in
their hearts this love of literary labor and seclusion.
Otherwise, who would feed the undying
lamp of thought? But for such men as these, a
blast of wind through the chinks and crannies of
this old world, or the flapping of a conqueror's
banner, would blow it out forever. The light of
the soul is easily extinguished. And whenever I
reflect upon these things I become aware of the
great importance, in a nation's history, of the individual
fame of scholars and literary men. I fear,
that it is far greater than the world is willing to
acknowledge; or, perhaps I should say, than the
world has thought of acknowledging. Blot out
from England's history the names of Chaucer,

Shakspere, Spenser, and Milton only, and how
much of her glory would you blot out with them!
Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, and
how much would still be wanting to the completeness
of her glory! How would the history of
Spain look if the leaves were torn out, on which
are written the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega,
and Calderon! What would be the fame of Portugal,
without her Camoens; of France, without her
Racine, and Rabelais, and Voltaire; or Germany,
without her Martin Luther, her Goethe, and Schiller!—Nay,
what were the nations of old, without
their philosophers, poets, and historians! Tell
me, do not these men in all ages and in all places,
emblazon with bright colors the armorial bearings
of their country? Yes, and far more than this;
for in all ages and all places they give humanity
assurance of its greatness; and say; Call not this
time or people wholly barbarous; for thus much,
even then and there, could the human mind
achieve! But the boisterous world has hardly
thought of acknowledging all this. Therein it has
shown itself somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence
the great reproach, the general scorn, the loud derision,
with which, to take a familiar example,
the monks of the Middle Ages are regarded! That
they slept their lives away is most untrue. For in
an age when books were few,—so few, so precious,
that they were often chained to their oaken shelves
with iron chains, like galley-slaves to their benches,
these men, with their laborious hands, copied upon
parchment all the lore and wisdom of the past,
and transmitted it to us. Perhaps it is not too
much to say, that, but for these monks, not one line
of the classics would have reached our day. Surely,
then, we can pardon something to those superstitious
ages, perhaps even the mysticism of the
scholastic philosophy, since, after all, we can find
no harm in it, only the mistaking of the possible
for the real, and the high aspirings of the human
mind after a long-sought and unknown somewhat.
I think the name of Martin Luther, the monk of
Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monkhood
from the reproach of laziness! If this will
not, perhaps the vast folios of Thomas Aquinas
will;—or the countless manuscripts, still treasured
in old libraries, whose yellow and wrinkled pages
remind one of the hands that wrote them, and the
faces that once bent over them.”

“An eloquent homily,” said the Baron laughing,
“a most touching appeal in behalf of suffering
humanity! For my part, I am no friend of this
entire seclusion from the world. It has a very injurious
effect on the mind of a scholar. The Chinese
proverb is true; a single conversation across
the table with a wise man, is better than ten years'
mere study of books. I have known some of these
literary men, who thus shut themselves up from
the world. Their minds never come in contact
with those of their fellow-men. They read little.
They think much. They are mere dreamers.
They know not what is new nor what is old. They
often strike upon trains of thought, which stand
written in good authors some century or so back,
and are even current in the mouths of men around

them. But they know it not; and imagine they
are bringing forward something very original, when
they publish their thoughts.”

“It reminds me,” replied Flemming, “of what
Dr. Johnson said of Goldsmith, when he proposed
to travel abroad in order to bring home improvements;—`He
will bring home a wheelbarrow, and
call that an improvement.' It is unfortunately the
same with some of these scholars.”

“And the worst of it is,” said the Baron, “that,
in solitude, some fixed idea will often take root
in the mind, and grow till it overshadow all one's
thoughts. To this must all opinions come; no
thought can enter there, which shall not be wedded
to the fixed idea. There it remains, and
grows. It is like the watchman's wife, in the
tower of Waiblingen, who grew to such a size,
that she could not get down the narrow stair-case;
and, when her husband died, his successor was
forced to marry the fat widow in the tower.”

“I remember an old English comedy,” said
Flemming laughing, “in which a scholar is described,

as a creature, that can strike fire in the
morning at his tinder-box,—put on a pair of lined
slippers,—sit ruminating till dinner, and then go to
his meat when the bell rings;—one that hath a
peculiar gift in a cough, and a license to spit;—
or, if you will have him defined by negatives, he
is one that cannot make a good leg;—one that
cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly. What think
you of that?”

“That it is just as people are always represented
in English comedy,” said the Baron. “The
portrait is over-charged,—caricatured.”

“And yet,” continued Flemming, “no longer
ago than yesterday, in the Preface of a work by
Dr. Rosenkranz, Professor of Philosophy in the
University of Halle, I read this passage.”

He opened a book and read.

“Here in Halle, where we have no public garden
and no Tivoli, no London Exchange, no Paris
Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor Vienna Theatres,
no Strassburg Minster, nor Salzburg Alps,—
no Grecian ruins nor fantastic Catholicism, in fine,

nothing, which after one's daily task is finished,
can divert and refresh him, without his knowing or
caring how,—I consider the sight of a proof-sheet
quite as delightful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna.
I fill my pipe very quietly, take out my ink-stand
and pens, seat myself in the corner of my
sofa, read, correct, and now for the first time
really set about thinking what I have written. To
see this origin of a book, this metamorphosis of
manuscript into print, is a delight to which I give
myself up entirely. Look you, this melancholy
pleasure, which would have furnished the departed
Voss with worthy matter for more than one
blessed Idyl—(the more so, as on such occasions,
I am generally arrayed in a morning gown, though
I am sorry to say, not a calamanco one, with great
flowers;) this melancholy pleasure was already
grown here in Halle to a sweet, pedantic habit.
Since I began my hermit's life here, I have been
printing; and so long as I remain here, I shall
keep on printing. In all probability, I shall die
with a proof-sheet in my hand.”

“This,” said Flemming, closing the book, “is
no caricature by a writer of comedy, but a portrait
by a man's own hand. We can see by it how
easily, under certain circumstances, one may glide
into habits of seclusion, and in a kind of undress,
slipshod hardihood, with a pipe and a proof-sheet,
defy the world. Into this state scholars have too
often fallen; thus giving some ground for the prevalent
opinion, that scholarship and rusticity are
inseparable. To me, I confess, it is painful to see
the scholar and the world assume so often a hostile
attitude, and set each other at defiance. Surely,
it is a characteristic trait of a great and liberal
mind, that it recognises humanity in all its forms
and conditions. I am a student;—and always,
when I sit alone at night, I recognise the divinity
of the student, as she reveals herself to me in the
smoke of the midnight lamp. But, because solitude
and books are not unpleasant to me,—nay,
wished-for,—sought after,—shall I say to my
brother, Thou fool! Shall I take the world by the
beard and say, Thou art old, and mad!—Shall I

look society in the face and say, Thou art heartless!
—Heartless! Beware of that word! Life, says
very wisely the good Jean Paul, Life in every
shape, should be precious to us, for the same reason
that the Turks carefully collect every scrap of
paper that comes in their way, because the name
of God may be written upon it. Nothing is more
true than this, yet nothing more neglected!”

“If it be painful to see this misunderstanding
between scholars and the world,” said the Baron,
“I think it is still more painful to see the private
sufferings of authors by profession. How many
have languished in poverty, how many died broken-hearted,
how many gone mad with over-excitement
and disappointed hopes! How instructive
and painfully interesting are their lives!
with so many weaknesses,—so much to pardon,
—so much to pity,—so much to admire! I
think he was not so far out of the way, who said,
that, next to the Newgate Calendar, the Biography
of Authors is the most sickening chapter in
the history of man.”

“It is indeed enough to make one's heart
ache!” interrupted Flemming. “Only think of
Johnson and Savage, rambling about the streets of
London at midnight, without a place to sleep in;
Otway starved to death; Cowley mad, and howling
like a dog, through the aisles of Chichester
Cathedral, at the sound of church music; and
Goldsmith, strutting up Fleet Street in his peach-blossom
coat, to knock a bookseller over the pate
with one of his own volumes; and then, in his
poverty, about to marry his landlady in Green Arbour
Court.”

“A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, indeed,
do these poor devil authors have of it,”
replied the Baron; “and then at last must get
them to the work-house, or creep away into some
hospital to die.”

“After all,” said Flemming with a sigh, “poverty
is not a vice.”

“But something worse,” interrupted the Baron;
“as Dufresny said, when he married his laundress,
because he could not pay her bill. He

was the author, as you know, of the opera of Lot;
at whose representation the great pun was made;
—I say the great pun, as we say the great ton of
Heidelberg. As one of the performers was singing
the line, `L'amour a vaincu Loth,' (vingt
culottes,) a voice from the pit cried out, `Qu'il en
donne une à l'auteur!' ”

Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest;
and then, after a short pause, continued;

“And yet, if you look closely at the causes of
these calamities of authors, you will find, that many
of them spring from false and exaggerated ideas
of poetry and the poetic character; and from disdain
of common sense, upon which all character,
worth having, is founded. This comes from
keeping aloof from the world, apart from our fellow-men;
disdainful of society, as frivolous. By
too much sitting still the body becomes unhealthy;
and soon the mind. This is nature's law. She
will never see her children wronged. If the mind,
which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as
to trample upon its slave, the slave is never generous

enough to forgive the injury; but will rise and
smite its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch
mind been dethroned.”

“After all,” said the Baron, “we must pardon
much to men of genius. A delicate organization
renders them keenly susceptible to pain and pleasure.
And then they idealize every thing; and, in
the moonlight of fancy, even the deformity of vice
seems beautiful.”

“And this you think should be forgiven?”

“At all events it is forgiven. The world loves
a spice of wickedness. Talk as you will about
principle, impulse is more attractive, even when
it goes too far. The passions of youth, like unhooded
hawks, fly high, with musical bells upon
their jesses; and we forget the cruelty of the sport
in the dauntless bearing of the gallant bird.”

“And thus doth the world and society corrupt
the scholar!” exclaimed Flemming.

Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of
Prince Metternich. He then very slowly filled
his pipe, and began to smoke. Flemming was lost
in a day-dream.