University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
A COLLOQUY.

“And what think you of Tiedge's Urania,” said
the Baron smiling, as Paul Flemming closed the
book, and laid it upon the table.

“I think,” said Flemming, “that it is very
much like Jean Paul's grandfather,—in the highest
degree poor and pious.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed the Baron. “That is
the best criticism I have heard upon the book.
For my part, I dislike the thing as much as Goethe
did. It was once very popular, and lay about in
every parlour and bed-room. This annoyed the
old gentleman exceedingly; and I do not wonder
at it. He complains, that at one time nothing was
sung or said but this Urania. He believed in
Immortality; but wished to cherish his belief in

quietness. He once told a friend of his, that he
had, however, learned one thing from all this talk
about Tiedge and his Urania; which was, that the
saints, as well as the nobility, constitute an aristocracy.
He said he found stupid women, who were
proud because they believed in Immortality with
Tiedge, and had to submit himself to not a few
mysterious catechizings and tea-table lectures on
this point; and that he cut them short by saying,
that he had no objection whatever to enter into
another state of existence hereafter, but prayed
only that he might be spared the honor of meeting
any of those there, who had believed in it here;
for, if he did, the saints would flock around him
on all sides, exclaiming, Were we not in the
right? Did we not tell you so? Has it not all
turned out just as we said? And, with such a
conceited clatter in his ears, he thought that, before
the end of six months, he might die of ennui in
Heaven itself.”

“How shocked the good old ladies must have
been,” said Flemming.

“No doubt, their nerves suffered a little; but
the young ladies loved him all the better for being
witty and wicked; and thought if they could only
marry him, how they would reform him.”

“Bettina Brentano, for instance.”

“O no! That happened long afterwards.
Goethe was then a silver-haired old man of sixty.
She had never seen him, and knew him only by
his writings; a romantic girl of seventeen.”

“And yet much in love with the Sexagenarian.
And surely a more wild, fantastic, and, excuse me,
German passion never sprang up in woman's
breast. She was a flower, that worshipped the
sun.”

“She afterwards married Achim von Arnim,
and is now a widow. And not the least singular
part of the affair, is, that, having grown older, and
I hope colder, she should herself publish the letters
which passed between her and Goethe.”

“Particularly the letter in which she describes
her first visit to Weimar, and her interview with
the hitherto invisible divinity of her dreams. The

old gentleman took her upon his knees, and she
fell asleep with her head upon his shoulder. It
reminds me of Titania and Nick Bottom, begging
your pardon, always, for comparing your All-sided-One
to Nick Bottom. Oberon must have
touched her eyes with the juice of Love-in-idleness.
However, this book of Goethe's Correspondence
with a Child is a very singular and valuable
revelation of the feelings, which he excited
in female hearts. You say she afterwards married
Achim von Arnim?”

“Yes; and he and her brother, Clemens Brentano,
published that wondrous book, the Boy's
Wonder-Horn.”

“The Boy's Wonder-Horn!” said Flemming,
after a short pause, for the name seemed to have
thrown him into a reverie;—“I know the book
almost by heart. Of all your German books it is
the one which produces upon my imagination the
most wild and magic influence. I have a passion
for ballads!”

“And who has not?” said the Baron with a

smile. “They are the gypsy-children of song,
born under green hedgerows, in the leafy lanes
and by-paths of literature,—in the genial summer-time.”

“Why do you say summer-time and not summer?”
inquired Flemming. “The expression reminds
me of your old Minnesingers;—of Heinrich
von Ofterdingen, and Walter von der Vogelweide,
and Count Kraft von Toggenburg, and
your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von
Hohenfels. They were always singing of the
gentle summer-time. They seem to have lived
poetry, as well as sung it; like the birds who
make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees.”

“Is that from Shakspere?”

“No; from Lope de Vega.”

“You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity,
and the Aubades and Watch-Songs of the old
Minnesingers. What do you think of the shoe-maker
poets that came after them,—with their
guilds and singing-schools? It makes me laugh
to think how the great German Helicon, shrunk to

a rivulet, goes bubbling and gurgling over the pebbly
names of Zwinger, Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin,
Hellfire, Old Stoll, Young Stoll, Strong Bopp,
Dang Brotscheim, Batt Spiegel, Peter Pfort, and
Martin Gumpel. And then the Corporation of
the Twelve Wise Masters, with their stumpfereime
and klingende-reime, and their Hans Tindeisen's
rosemary-weise; and Joseph Schmierer's
flowery-paradise-weise, and Frauenlob's yellow-weise,
and blue-weise, and frog-weise, and looking-glass-weise!”

“O, I entreat you,” exclaimed Flemming,
laughing, “do not call those men poets! You
transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see
Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shaving
the burgomaster.”

“By the way,” interrupted the Baron, “did
you ever read Hoffmann's beautiful story of Master
Martin, the Cooper of Nuremberg? I will
read it to you this very night. It is the most
delightful picture of that age, which you can conceive.
But look! the sun has already set behind

the Alsatian hills. Let us go up to the castle
and look for the ghost in Prince Ruprecht's tower.
O, what a glorious sunset!”

Flemming looked at the evening sky, and a
shade of sadness stole over his countenance. He
told not to his friend the sorrow, with which his
heart was heavy; but kept it for himself alone.
He knew that the time, which comes to all
men,—the time to suffer and be silent,—had
come to him likewise; and he spake no word.
O well has it been said, that there is no grief like
the grief which does not speak.