Volume Ii Part 30 (1/2)
”That's a fact,” said W., with considerable earnestness.
”Yes,” said our guide; ”they said we have but one life to live, and we want to have some comfort in it.”
It is a curious fact, that just in proportion as a country is free and self-governed it has fewer public amus.e.m.e.nts. America and Scotland have the fewest of any, and Italy the most. Nevertheless, I am far from thinking that this is either necessary or desirable: the subject of providing innocent public amus.e.m.e.nts for the ma.s.ses is one that we ought seriously to consider. In Berlin, and in all other German cities, there are gardens and public grounds in which there are daily concerts of a high order, and various attractions, to which people can gain admittance for a very trifling sum. These refine the feelings, and cultivate the taste; they would be particularly useful in America in counteracting that tendency to a sordid materialism, which is one of our great national dangers.
We went over the Berlin Museum. In general style Greek--but Greek vitalized by the infusion of the German mind. In its general arrangements one of the most gorgeous and impressive combinations of art which I have seen. Here are the great frescoes of Kaulbach, Cornelius, and other German artists, who have so grafted Grecian ideas into the German stock that the growth has the foliage and coloring of a new plant. One set of frescoes, representing the climate and scenery of Greece, had on me a peculiar and magical effect. Alas! there never has been the Greece that we conceive; we see it under the soft, purple veil of distance, like an Alpine valley embraced by cloudy mountains; but there was the same coa.r.s.e dust and _debris_ of ordinary life there as with us. The true Arcadia lies beyond the grave. The collection of pictures is rich in historic curiosities--valuable as marking the progress of art. One Claude Lorraine here was a matchless specimen--a perfect victory over all the difficulties of green landscape painting.
LETTER XLV.
WITTENBERG.
MY DEAR:--
I am here in the station house at Wittenberg. I have been seeing and hearing to-day for you, and now sit down to put on paper the results of my morning. ”What make you from Wittenberg?” Wittenberg! name of the dreamy past; dimly a.s.sociated with Hamlet, Denmark, the moonlight terrace, and the Baltic Sea, by one line of Shakspeare; but made more living by those who have thought, loved, and died here; nay, by those who cannot die, and whose life has been life to all coming ages.
How naturally, on reaching a place long heard of and pondered, do we look round for something uncommon, quaint, and striking! Nothing of the kind was here; only the dead flat of this most level scenery, with its dreary prairie-like sameness. Certainly it was not this scenery that stirred up a soul in Luther, and made him nail up his theses on the Wittenberg church door.
”But, at any rate, let us go to Wittenberg,” said I; ”get a guide, a carriage, cannot you?” as I walked to one window of the station house and another, and looked out to see something wonderful. Nothing was in sight, however; and after the usual sputter of gutturals which precedes any arrangement in this country, we were mounted in a high, awkward carriage, and rode to the town. Two ancient round tower and a wall first met my eye; then a drawbridge, arched pa.s.sage, and portcullis. Under this pa.s.sage we pa.s.sed, and at our right hand was the church, where once was laid the worn form that had stood so many whirlwinds--where, in short, Luther was buried. But this we did not then know; so we drove by, and went to a hotel. Talked English and got German; talked French with no better success. At last, between W., G., and the dictionary, managed to make it understood that we wanted a guide to the Luther relics. A guide was after a time forthcoming, in the person of a little woman who spoke no English, whom, guide book in hand, we followed.
The church is ancient, and, externally, impressive enough; inside it is wide, cold, whitewashed, prosaic; whoever gets up feeling does it against wind and tide, so far as appearances are concerned. We advance to the spot in the floor where our guide raises a trap door, and shows us underneath the plate inscribed with the name of Luther, and by it the plate recording the resting-place of his well-beloved Philip Melanchthon; then to the grave of the Elector of Saxony, and John the Steadfast; on one side a full length of Luther, by Lucas Cranach; on the other, one of Melanchthon, by the same hand. Well, we have seen; this is all; ”He is not here, he is risen.” ”Is this all?” ”All,” says our guide, and we go out. I look curiously at the old door where Luther nailed up his theses; but even this is not the identical door; that was destroyed by the French. Still, under that arched doorway he stood, hammer and nails in hand; he held up his paper, he fitted it straight; rap, rap,--there, one nail--another--it is up, and he stands looking at it. These very stones were over that head that are now over mine, this very ground beneath his feet. As I turned away I gave an earnest look at the old church. Gra.s.s is growing on its b.u.t.tresses; it has a desolate look, though strong and well kept. The party pa.s.s on, and I make haste to overtake them.
Down we go, doing penance over the round paving stones; and our next halt is momentary. In the market-place, before the town house, (a huge, three-gabled building, like a beast of three horns,) stands Luther's bronze monument; apple women and pear women, onion and beet women, are thickly congregated around, selling as best they may. There stands Luther, looking benignantly, holding and pointing to the open Bible; the women, meanwhile, thinking we want fruit, hold up their wares and talk German. But our conductress has a regular guide's trot, inexorable as fate; so on we go.
Wittenberg is now a mean little town; all looks poor and low; yet it seems like a place that has seen better days. Houses, now used as paltry shops, have, some of them, carved oaken doors, with antic freaks of architecture, which seem to signify that their former owners were able to make a figure in the world. In fact, the houses seem a sort of phantasmagoria of decayed gentlefolk, in the faded, tarnished, old-fas.h.i.+oned finery of the past. Our guide halts her trot suddenly before a house, which she announces as that of Louis Cranach; then on she goes. Louis is dead, and Magdalen, his wife, also; so there is no one there to welcome us; on we go also. Once Louis was a man of more consequence.
Now we come to Luther's house--a part of the old convent. Wide yawns the stone doorway of the court; a grinning masque grotesquely looks down from its centre, and odd carvings from the sides. A colony of swallows have established their nests among the queer old carvings and gnome-like faces, and are twittering in and out, superintending their domestic arrangements. We enter a court surrounded with buildings; then ascend, through a strange doorway, a winding staircase, pa.s.sing small, lozenge-shaped window. Up these stairs _he_ oft trod, in all the moods of that manifold and wonderful nature--gay, joyous, jocose, fervent, defiant, imploring; and up these stairs have trod wondering visitors, thronging from all parts of the world, to see the man of the age. Up these stairs come Philip Melanchthon, Lucas Cranach, and their wives, to see how fares Luther after some short journey, or some new movement. Now, all past, all solitary; the stairs dirty, the windows dim.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _of Luther's room._]
And this is Luther's room. It was a fine one in its day, that is plain. The arched recesses of the windows; the roof, divided in squares, and, like the walls and cornice, painted in fresco; the windows, with their quaint, round panes,--all, though now so soiled and dim, speak plainly of a time when life was here, and all things wore a rich and joyous glow. In this room that great heart rejoiced in the blessedness of domestic life, and poured forth some of those exulting strains, glorifying the family state, which yet remain. Here his little Magdalen, his little Jacky, and the rest made joyous uproar.
There stands his writing table, a heavy ma.s.s of wood; clumsy as the time and its absurdities, rougher now than ever, in its squalid old age, and partly chipped away by relic seekers. Here he sat; here lay his paper; over this table was bent that head whose brain power was the earthquake of Europe. Here he wrote books which he says were rained, hailed, and snowed from the press in every language and tongue. Kings and emperors could not bind the influence from this writing table; and yet here, doubtless, he wrestled, struggled, prayed, and such tears as only he could shed fell upon it. Nothing of all this says the table. It only stands a poor, ungainly relic of the past; the inspiring angel is gone upward.
Catharine's nicely-carved cabinet, with its huge bunches of oaken flowers hanging down between its gla.s.s panels, shows Luther's drinking cup. There is also his embroidered portrait, on which, doubtless, she expended much thought, as she evidently has much gold thread. I seem to see her conceiving the bold design--she will work the doctor's likeness. She asks Magdalen Cranach's opinion, and Magdalen asks Lucas's, and there is a deal of discussion, and Lucas makes wise suggestions. In the course of many fireside chats, the thing grows.
Philip and his Kate, dropping in, are shown it. Little Jacky and Magdalen, looking shyly over their mother's shoulder, are wonderfully impressed with the likeness, and think their mother a great woman.
Luther takes it in hand, and pa.s.ses some jests upon it, which make them laugh all round, and so at last it grows to be a veritable likeness. Poor, faded, tarnished thing! it looks like a ghost now.
In one corner is a work of art by Luther--no less than a stove planned after his own pattern. It is a high, black, iron pyramid, panelled, each panel presenting in relief some Scripture subject. Considering the remote times, this stove is quite an affair; the figures are, some of them, spirited and well conceived, though now its l.u.s.tre, like all else here, is obscured by dust and dirt. Why do the Germans leave this place so dirty? The rooms of Shakspeare are kept clean and in repair; the Catholics enshrine in gold and silver the relics of their saints, but this Protestant Mecca is left literally to the moles and the bats.
I slipped aside a panel in the curious old windows, and looked down into the court surrounded by the university buildings. I fancied the old times when students, with their scholastic caps and books, were momently pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. I thought of the stir there was here when the pope's bull against Luther came out, and of the pattering of feet and commotion there were in this court, when Luther sallied out to burn the pope's bull under the oak, just beyond the city wall near by. The students thought it good fun; students are always progressive; they admired the old boy for his spirit; they threw up caps and shouted, and went out to see the ceremony with a will. Philip Melanchthon wondered if brother Martin was not going a little too fast, but hoped it would be overruled, and that all would be for the best! So, coming out, I looked longingly beyond the city gate, and wanted to go to the place of the oak tree, where the ceremony was performed, but the party had gone on.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _of Melanchthon's house._]
Coming back, I made a pause opposite the house on which is seen the inscription, ”Here Melanchthon lived, labored, and died.” A very good house it was, too, in its day; in architecture it was not unlike this.
I went across the street to take a good look at it; then I came over, and as the great arched door stood open, I took the liberty of walking in. Like other continental houses, this had an arched pa.s.sage running through to a back court and a side door. A stone stairway led up from this into the house, and a small square window, with little round panes, looked through into the pa.s.sage. A young child was toddling about there, and I spoke to it; a man came out, and looked as if he rather wondered what I might be about; so I retreated. Then I threaded my way past queer peaked-roofed buildings to a paved court, where stood the old church--something like that in Halle, a great Gothic structure, with two high towers connected by a gallery. I entered.
Like the other church it has been whitewashed, and has few architectural attractions. It is very large, with two galleries, one over the other, and might hold, I should think, five thousand people.
Here Luther preached. These walls, now so silent, rung to the rare melody of that voice, to which the Roman Catholic writers attributed some unearthly enchantment, so did it sway all who listened. Here, cl.u.s.tering round these pillars, standing on these flags, were myriads of human beings; and what heart-beatings, what surgings of thought, what tempests of feeling, what aspirations, what strivings, what conflicts shook that mult.i.tude, and possessed them as he spoke! ”I preach,” he said, ”not for professor this or that, nor for the elector or prince, but for poor Jack behind the door;” and so, striking only on the chords common to all hearts, he bowed all, for he who can inspire the illiterate and poor, callous with ignorance and toil, can move also the better informed. Here, also, that voice of his, which rose above the choir and organ, sang the alto in those chorals which he gave to the world. Monmouth, sung in this great church by five thousand voices, must needs have a magnificent sound.