Part 17 (2/2)
Maria only too soon became aware of the whole terrible secret. She fell into a long and severe nervous fever, and only arose from her sick bed to die a more weary death from the sure poison of incurable sorrow. She had written to her former lover a most moving letter, which a.s.sured him of her pardon, and in which she exhorted him to listen to the consolations of religion.
The kind girl had not desired the return of the little admonitory tokens of happy days; she had also retained his gifts, memorials of a pure and beautiful love, which a dreadful fate had destroyed.
Krusenstern, who spent two years in prison, is now come back again, and--you have seen him.
All had listened in silence to the recital. Of some of them, the pipes were gone out,--others blew powerfully clouds of smoke around them.
”Poor Krusenstern!” said Eckhard. ”I revoke all that I have said against him.”
”A most sorrowful history,” said the Englishman.
”And false notions about women is the cause of all,” said Von Kronen.
”The poor Krusenstern would never have gone so far if he had not regarded his love in too romantic a light. This mischief would never have happened if he had only read my favourite author, Lichtenberg, where he says,--'That the irresistible power of love can raise us, through its object, to the highest pitch of happiness, or plunge us down to the lowest gulf of misery, is poetical nonsense of young people, whose heads are yet only growing; which have no voices in the counsels of men; and for the most part are so constructed that they are never likely to have any.'”
”We must have no more such stories,” said Hoffmann, ”or the pleasures of the whole evening will be destroyed. The tea is ready; take your places, gentlemen.”
Mr. Traveller, tasting the tea, p.r.o.nounced it capital; and declared his astonishment that the Frau Philistine could prepare so excellent a beverage; but the host gave him to understand that he had brewed it himself. ”It is my favourite beverage,” said he, ”and when I spend the evening at home, serves me for supper; or I cook a beefsteak and potatoes in the little machine which stands yonder, and which is a good deal in vogue amongst the students.”
”So, so!” said the Englishman, ”that is very sensible now.”
While they thus chatted, the House-besom entered, and set upon the table a handsomely-shaped tart, which is called in this part of the country, a Radonen-cake, as a gift from Herr Schutz, in whose house Hoffmann was familiar. The cake was admired, and the host addressed himself to cut it up scientifically, when--zounds! the whole cake was nothing but a snow-ball, which had been made in a proper mould, and which had received the requisite colour from an ingenious powdering with brick-dust. ”So shalt thou return to the water out of which thou wert made,” exclaimed Hoffmann, as the whole company laughed heartily at the deception.
When tea was over, the company divided itself. The Englishman and Von Kronen plunged deep into a game at chess. The other four played at whist, and Hoffmann, as master of the house, did the honours, wandering first to this and then to that table. The whist party continued long; after the first rubber they obliged the host to join then, and so spun out their play to the fifth rubber. In the meantime the two others had terminated their game at chess, and seated themselves by the stove, smoking their pipes, and chatting over this and that.
”Has your pipe a good chair-way?” asked the Englishman, whom this student expression amused.
”It goes like a flute,” answered the other. ”Why you have made yourself master of the art of smoking, even to its very technical terms.”
”You can scarcely believe,” said Mr. Traveller, ”how much I am interested in every thing, that is German, of which smoking is one thing, and especially in all that is connected with its university system. So long as I continued in England, I did not trouble myself much on this head, but now I use all the endeavours I can to acquaint myself with the present const.i.tution of your universities. You must recommend to me a book in which I can find some notice of the origin of universities in general, and of the earlier fortunes of that of Heidelberg in particular.”
”The best book on that subject,” said Enderlin, who had come from the whist-table, ”is Von Kronen himself. He can give you such a lecture upon it, that all the rats in the house shall run out; for which reason they wished to appoint him, in Westphalia, to the office of chamber-hunter. _Tres faciunt collegium_, so let us erect him a _cathedra_, whence he may p.r.o.nounce his lecture.”
These arrangements were speedily made. In the meantime Von Kronen had put his visage into a very learned form, and begun:--
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF UNIVERSITIES.
Gentlemen,--Let us, as true sons of Minerva, exhibit an agreeable contrast to those people yonder, who have given themselves up to the burthen of play. May the honey of my words drop into your ears, and turn you into true disciples of wisdom. But the subject of our present lecture is the earlier fortunes of universities in general, and in particular of Ruperto-Carolo, that ancient fountain of knowledge, out of which we have drunk deep draughts.
”The sup of wisdom,” interrupted Enderlin, ”that we have eaten with a spoon, is a more beautiful metaphor--”
I warn the indiscreet hearer--said the _pro tempore_ professor, Von Kronen, sternly frowning,--of t.i.t ii. section 27, of the academical laws, where it is declared that--'insults towards persons who are placed in authority in the university, or towards the persons connected with them, shall be strictly punished; if they are offered from revenge, so must the punishment be made the sharper, and, according to circ.u.mstance, may be even penally amerced.' After this, let no man insult or interrupt.
Our European universities, as they at present exist, are the production of a comparatively late period, since, though we find inst.i.tutions resembling them in very early times, yet they were essentially and wholly different to ours. History shows us how, through the continually progressing culture of a people from age to age, inst.i.tutions for the fostering and diffusion of knowledge formed themselves; and thus we find, at first, the so-called Priest-Schools in Egypt, Persia, India, and amongst the Hebrews; amongst the Celtic people the cloister-like unions of the Druids, which in caves and solitary woods, imparted to the most distinguished of the youth oral instruction.
The business of teaching was confined to expounding of the laws, of the holy books, and so forth, and was communicated in verses. The educational inst.i.tutions of the Greeks were of a higher grade. The first and most celebrated High School was Athens; which also in still later times, maintained a high rank in this respect. We must here only remind ourselves of the gardens of Plato, in which he imparted his instructions in philosophy. The Cynosarges, where Antisthenes taught; the Poikyle or Stoa, where Zeno a.s.sembled his disciples; the gardens of Epicurus, and afterwards of the museum at Alexandria. Philosophy was the great science: as to them the Faculties, as well as the so-called Bread sciences (sciences made a trade or profession of) were totally unknown. The Greeks also possessed public libraries, as those at Alexandria and Pergamus. The educational inst.i.tutions of the Romans were modelled essentially upon those of the Greeks, and enjoyed the most extensive influence from the 607th year after the building of Rome; and the highest veneration was shown to professors from Greece, who taught in them philosophy and the arts. The Romans also held it indispensable to visit and study in the schools of Greece, and their young n.o.bility especially resorted to Athens, Rhodes, Alexandria, etc.
The Romans, moreover, were not acquainted with the division into Faculties, and every man of standing studied the liberal arts--studia humaniora--in their whole compa.s.s; and libraries, and collections of works and remains of art, were much more numerously and richly at their command. The study of philosophy was not the less zealously prosecuted than in Greece; but the grammatical philosophy of the Greek and Roman tongues, combined with rhetoric and poetry, were the highest objects of education. The continually increasing numbers of the immigrating Grecian professors, led to the founding of many other schools in Italy.
Amongst the most important was the Athenaeum, founded by the Emperor Hadrian, afterwards called the Schola Romana; those of the capitol, and other temples. Vespasian was the first to establish public professors of political science with fixed salaries. Antoninus Pius raised the so-called imperial schools, as did Valentinian those of Rome generally, to the higher distinction, by a thorough and salutary reform. Athens, however, still continued to maintain the highest reputation, down to the tenth century, to which people flocked from all countries.
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