Part 5 (1/2)
”In the vale I gladly linger, Smiling in the dusky night, For to me with rosy finger Proffers Love his cup of light.
”With its dew my spirit sunken Wafted is toward the skies, And I stand in this life drunken At the gate of paradise.
”Lulled in blessed contemplation, Vexes me no petty smart; O, the queen of all creation Gives to me her faithful heart.
”Many years of tearful sorrows Glorified this common clay,-- Thence a graven form it borrows, Life securing it for aye.
”Here the lapse of days evanished But a moment seems to me; Backward would I turn, if banished, Gazing hither gratefully.”
All were most agreeably surprised and eagerly wished to discover the singer.
After some search, they found in an angle of the right wall a deep sunken path, to which the footsteps seemed to lead them. Soon they thought they perceived a light, which became clearer as they approached. A new vault of greater extent than those they had yet pa.s.sed opened before them, in the further extremity of which they saw a human form sitting by a lamp, with a great book before him upon a slab, in which he appeared to be reading.
The figure turned towards them, arose, and came forward. He was a man whose age it were impossible to guess. He seemed neither old nor young, and no traces of time were discoverable, except in his smooth silvery hair, which was parted on his forehead. An indescribable air of serenity dwelt in his eyes, as if he were looking down from a clear mountain into an infinite spring.
He had sandals upon his feet, and wore no other dress except a large mantle cast around him, which added dignity to his n.o.ble form. He expressed no surprise at their unexpected arrival, and greeted them as old acquaintances and expected guests.
”It is pleasant indeed,” said he, ”that you have sought me. You are the first friends I have ever seen, though I have dwelt here a long season.
It seems that men are beginning to examine our s.p.a.cious and wonderful mansion a little more closely.”
The old man answered, ”We did not expect to find here so friendly a host. We had been told of wild beasts and spectres, but we now find ourselves most agreeably deceived. If we have disturbed your devotions or deep meditations, pardon it to our curiosity.”
”Can any sight be more delightful,” said the unknown, ”than the joyous and speaking countenance of man? Think not that I am a misanthrope, because you find me in this solitude. I have not shunned the world, but have only sought a retirement, where I could apply myself to my meditations undisturbed.”
”Have you never grieved for your own desolation, and do not hours sometimes come, when you are fearful, and long to hear a human voice?”
”Now, no more. There was a time in my youth, when a highly wrought imagination induced me to become a hermit. Dark forebodings busied my youthful fancy. I thought to find in solitude full nourishment for my heart. The fountain of my inner life seemed inexhaustible. But I soon learned that fulness of experience must be added to it, that a young heart cannot dwell alone; nay, that man, by manifold intercourse with his race, reaches a certain self-subsisting independence.”
”I myself believe,” said the old man, ”that there is a certain natural impulse to every mode of life; and that perhaps the experiences of increasing age lead of themselves to a withdrawal from human society.
It then seems as if society were devoted to activity as much for gain as for maintenance. It is powerfully impelled by a great hope, by a common object, and children and the aged seem not at home. Helplessness and ignorance exclude the first from it, while the latter, with every hope fulfilled, every object attained, and new hopes and objects no longer woven into their circle, turn back into themselves, and find enough employment in preparing for a higher existence. But more peculiar causes seem to have separated you entirely from men, and influenced you to resign all the comforts of society. Methinks that the tension of your mind must often relax, and give place to the most disagreeable emotions.”
”I have indeed felt that; but have learned to avoid it by a strict regularity in my mode of living. For this purpose I endeavor by exercise to preserve my health, and then there is no danger. Every day I walk for several hours and enjoy the light and air as much as possible; or I remain in these halls, and busy myself at certain times with basket-braiding and carving. I exchange my ware at distant places for provisions; I have brought many books with me, and thus time pa.s.ses like a moment. In these places I have acquaintances who know where I live, and from whom I learn what is going on in the world. These will bury me when I die, and take away my books.”
He led them nearer his seat, which was against the wall of the cave.
They noticed several books and a guitar lying upon the ground, and upon the wall hung a complete suit of armor apparently quite costly. The table consisted of five great stone slabs, put together in the form of a box. Upon the upper one were two sculptured male and female figures large as life, holding a garland of lilies and roses. Upon the side was inscribed,
”Frederick and Mary of Hohenzollern here returned to their native dust.”
The hermit inquired of his guests concerning their fatherland, and how they had journeyed into these regions. He was kind and communicative, and displayed great knowledge of the world.
The old man said, ”I see you have been a warrior; the armor betrays you.”
”The dangers and vicissitudes of war, the deep, poetic spirit connected with an armed host, tore me from my youthful solitude and determined the destiny of my life. Perhaps the long tumult, the innumerable events among which I have dwelt, awakened in me a yet stronger inclination for solitude, where numberless recollections make pleasant companions; and this the more, in proportion as our view of them is varied; a view which now first discovers their true connexion, their significance, and their occult tendency. The peculiar sense for the study of man's history develops itself but tardily, and rather through the silent influence of memory than by the more forcible impressions of the present. The nearest events seem but loosely connected, yet they sympathize so much the more curiously with the remote. And it is only when one is able to comprehend in one view a lengthened series, neither interpreting too literally, nor confounding the proper method with capricious fancies, that he detects the secret chain which binds the past to the future, and learns to rear the fabric of history from hope and memory. Yet only he can succeed in discovering the simple laws of history, to whom the whole past is present. We arrive only at incomplete and c.u.mbrous formulas, and are well content to find for ourselves an available prescription, that may sufficiently expound the riddle of our own short lives. But I can truly say that each rigorous view of the events of life causes us deep and inexhaustible pleasure, and raises us, of all speculations, the highest above earthly evils.
Youth reads history only from curiosity, as it cons a story; to maturity it becomes a divinely consoling and edifying companion, preparing it gently by its wise discourses for a higher and more embracing sphere of action, and acquainting it through intelligible images with the unknown world. The church is the dwelling-house of history, the church-yard its symbolic flower-garden. History should only be written by old and pious men, whose own is drawing to its close, and who have nothing more to hope for, but transplantation to the garden. Their descriptions will be neither obscure nor dull; on the contrary a ray from the spire will exhibit everything in the most exact and beautiful light, and the Holy Spirit will hover above these rarely stirred waters.”
”How true and obvious are your remarks,” said the old man. ”We ought certainly to spend more labor in faithfully recording the occurrences of our own times, and should leave our record as a devout bequest for posterity. There are a thousand remoter matters to which care and labor are devoted, while we trouble ourselves little with the nearer and weightier, the occurrences of our lives, and those of our relatives and generation, whose fleeting destiny we have comprehended in the idea of a Providence. We heedlessly suffer all traces of these to escape from our memories. Like consecrated relics, all facts of the past will be sought for by a wiser future, not indifferent to the biography of the most insignificant man, since in his life the lives of all his greater contemporaries will be more or less reflected.”
”It is also much to be regretted,” said the count of Hohenzollern, ”that even the few, who have undertaken to report the deeds and events of their times, have not carried out their designs, nor striven to give order and completeness to their observations; but have proceeded almost wholly at random in the choice and collection of their facts. Any one may easily see that he only can describe plainly and perfectly, that which he knows exactly, whose origin and consequences, object and use, are present to his mind; for otherwise there will be no description, but a bewildering mixture of imperfect statements. Let a child describe an engine, or a farmer a s.h.i.+p, and no one can gain anything useful or instructive from their words; and so is it with most historians, who are perhaps able enough even to be wearisome in relating and collecting facts; but who forget what is most note-worthy, what first makes history historical, and connects so many varied events in an agreeable and instructive whole. If I understand all this rightly, it appears to me necessary that a historian should be also a poet; for poets alone know the art of skilfully combining events. In their tales and fables I have often noticed, with silent pleasure, a tender sympathy with the mysterious spirit of life. There is more truth in their romances than in learned chronicles. Though the heroes and their fates are inventions, yet the spirit in which they are composed is true and natural. In some degree it matters not whether those persons, in whose fates we trace our own, ever did or did not exist. We seek to contemplate the great and simple spirit of an age's phenomena; and if this wish be gratified, we are not c.u.mbered about the certainty of the existence of their external forms.”[See Note II.]
”I have also been much attached to the poets on that account,” said the old man. ”Life and the world have become through them more clear and perceptible to me. It has appeared to me that they must be in alliance with the acute spirits of light, which penetrate and divide all natures, and spread over each a peculiar, softly tinted veil. By their songs I felt my own nature gently developed, and it could move, as it were, more freely, enjoy its social disposition and desires, poise with silent pleasure its limbs against each other, and in various forms excite delight a thousand-fold.”