But she did not long remain alone. As night was falling, and the hanging lamp began to exercise its full right and shed abroad a larger lustre, the door opened and the Architect entered the chapel. The chastely ornamented walls in the mild light looked more strange, more awful, more antique, than he was prepared to see them. Nanny was sitting on one side of the coffin. She recognized him immediately; but she pointed in silence to the pale form of her mistress. And there stood he on the other side, in the vigor of youth and of grace, with his arms drooping, and his hands clasped piteously together, motionless, with head and eye inclined over the inanimate body.

Once already he had stood thus before in the Belisarius; he had now involuntarily fallen into the same attitude. And this time how naturally! Here, too, was something of inestimable worth thrown down from its high estate. There were courage, prudence, power, rank, and wealth in one single man, lost irrevocably; there were qualities which, in decisive moments, had been of indispensable service to the nation and the prince; but which, when the moment was passed, were no more valued, but flung aside and neglected, and cared for no longer. And here were many other silent virtues, which had been summoned but a little time before by nature out of the depths of her treasures, and now swept rapidly away again by her careless hand—rare, sweet, lovely virtues, whose peaceful workings the thirsty world had welcomed, while it had them, with gladness and joy; and now was sorrowing for them in unavailing desire.

Both the youth and the girl were silent for a long time. But when she saw the tears streaming fast down his cheeks, and he appeared to be sinking under the burden of his sorrow, she spoke to him with so much truthfulness and power, with such kindness and such confidence, that, astonished at the flow of her words, he was able to recover himself, and he saw his beautiful friend floating before him in the new life of a higher world. His tears ceased flowing; his sorrow grew lighter: on his knees he took leave of Ottilie, and with a warm pressure of the hand of Nanny, he rode away from the spot into the night without having seen a single other person.

The surgeon had, without the girl being aware of it, remained all night in the church; and when he went in the morning to see her, he found her cheerful and tranquil. He was prepared for wild aberrations. He thought that she would be sure to speak to him of conversations which she had held in the night with Ottilie, and of other such apparitions. But she was natural, quiet, and perfectly self-possessed. She remembered accurately what had happened in her previous life; she could describe the circumstances of it with the greatest exactness, and never in anything which she said stepped out of the course of what was real and natural, except in her account of what had passed with the body, which she delighted to repeat again and again, how, Ottilie had raised herself up, had blessed her, had forgiven her, and thereby set her at rest for ever.

Ottilie remained so long in her beautiful state, which more resembled sleep than death, that a number of persons were attracted there to look at her. The neighbors and the villagers wished to see her again, and every one desired to hear Nanny's incredible story from her own mouth. Many laughed at it, most doubted, and some few were found who were able to believe.

Difficulties, for which no real satisfaction is attainable, compel us to faith. Before the eyes of all the world, Nanny's limbs had been broken, and by touching the sacred body she had been restored to strength again. Why should not others find similar good fortune? Delicate mothers first privately brought their children who were suffering from obstinate disorders, and they believed that they could trace an immediate improvement. The confidence of the people increased, and at last there was no one so old or so weak as not to have come to seek fresh life and health and strength at this place. The concourse became so great, that they were obliged, except at the hours of divine service, to keep the church and chapel closed.

Edward did not venture to look at her again; he lived on mechanically; he seemed to have no tears left, and to be incapable of any further suffering; his power of taking interest in what was going on diminished every day; his appetite gradually failed. The only refreshment which did him any good was what he drank out of the glass, which to him, indeed, had been but an untrue prophet. He continued to gaze at the intertwining initials, and the earnest cheerfulness of his expression seemed to signify that he still hoped to be united with her at last. And as every little circumstance combines to favor the fortunate, and every accident contributes to elate him; so do the most trifling occurrences love to unite to crush and overwhelm the unhappy. One day, as Edward raised the beloved glass to his lips, he put it down and thrust it from him with a shudder. It was the same and not the same. He missed a little private mark upon it. The valet was questioned, and had to confess that the real glass had not long since been broken, and that one like it belonging to the same set had been substituted in its place.

Edward could not be angry. His destiny had spoken out with sufficient clearness in the fact, and how should he be affected by the shadow? and yet it touched him deeply. He seemed now to dislike drinking, and thenceforward purposely to abstain from food and from speaking.

But from time to time a sort of restlessness came over him; he would desire to eat and drink something, and would begin again to speak. "Ah!" he said, one day to the Major, who now seldom left his side, "how unhappy I am that all my efforts are but imitations ever, and false and fruitless. What was blessedness to her, is pain to me; and yet for the sake of this blessedness I am forced to take this pain upon myself. I must go after her; follow her by the same road. But my nature and my promise hold me back. It is a terrible difficulty, indeed, to imitate the inimitable. I feel clearly, my dear friend, that genius is required for everything; for martyrdom as well as the rest."

What shall we say of the endeavors which in this hopeless condition were made for him? His wife, his friends, his physician, incessantly labored to do something for him. But it was all in vain: at last they found him dead. Mittler was the first to make the melancholy discovery; he called the physician, and examined closely, with his usual presence of mind, the circumstances under which he had been found. Charlotte rushed in to them; she was afraid that he had committed suicide, and accused herself and accused others of unpardonable carelessness. But the physician on natural, and Mittler on moral grounds, were soon able to satisfy her of the contrary. It was quite clear that Edward's end had taken him by surprise. In a quiet moment he had taken out of his pocketbook and out of a casket everything which remained to him as memorials of Ottilie, and had spread them out before him—a lock of hair, flowers which had been gathered in some happy hour, and every letter which she had written to him from the first and which his wife had ominously happened to give him. It was impossible that he would intentionally have exposed these to the danger of being seen by the first person who might happen to discover him.

But so lay the heart, which but a short time before had been so swift and eager, at rest now, where it could never be disturbed; and falling asleep, as he did, with his thoughts on one so saintly, he might well be called blessed. Charlotte gave him his place at Ottilie's side, and arranged that thenceforth no other person should be placed with them in the same vault. In order to secure this, she made it a condition under which she settled considerable sums of money on the church and the school.

So lie the lovers, sleeping side by side. Peace hovers above their resting-place. Fair angel faces gaze down upon them from the vaulted ceiling, and what a happy moment that will be when one day they wake again together!



SHAKESPEARE AND AGAIN SHAKESPEARE[1]

TRANSLATED BY JULIA FRANKLIN

So much has already been written of Shakespeare that it would seem as if nothing remained to be said; yet it is the peculiarity of a great mind ever to stimulate other minds. This time I propose to consider Shakespeare from more than one point of view—first as a poet in general, then as compared with poets ancient and modern, and finally, as a strictly dramatic poet. I shall endeavor to show what effect the imitation of his art has produced upon us and what effect it is capable of producing in general. I shall voice my agreement with what has already been said by repeating it upon occasion, but shall express my dissent positively and briefly, without involving myself in a conflict of opinions. Let us, then, take up the first point.



I

SHAKESPEARE AS A POET IN GENERAL

The highest that man can attain is the consciousness of his own thoughts and feelings, and a knowledge of himself which prepares him to fathom alien natures as well. There are people who are by nature endowed with such a gift and by experience develop it to practical uses. Thence springs the ability to conquer something, in a higher sense, from the world and affairs. The poet, too, is born with such an endowment, only he does not develop it for immediate mundane ends, but for a more exalted, universal purpose. If we rate Shakespeare as one of the greatest poets, we acknowledge at the same time that it has been vouchsafed to few to discern the world as he did: to few, in expressing their inward feelings of the world, to give the reader a more realizing sense of it. It becomes thoroughly transparent to us; we find ourselves suddenly the confidants of virtue and vice, of greatness and insignificance, of nobility and depravity—all this, and more, through the simplest means. If we seek to discover what those means are, it appears as if he wrought for our eyes; but we are deceived. Shakespeare's creations are not for the eyes of the body. I shall endeavor to explain myself.

Sight may well be termed the clearest of our senses, that through which transmissions are most readily made. But our inward sense is still clearer and its highest and quickest impressions are conveyed through the medium of the word; for that is indeed fructifying, while what we apprehend through our eyes may be alien to us and by no means as potent in its effects. Now, Shakespeare addresses our inward sense, absolutely; through it the realm of fancy created by the imagination is quickened into life and thus a world of impressions is produced for which we can not account, since the basis of the illusion consists in the fact that everything seems to take place before our eyes. But if we examine Shakespeare's dramas carefully, we find that they contain far less of sensuous acts than of spiritual expressions. He allows events to happen which may be readily imagined; nay, that it is better to imagine than to see. Hamlet's ghost, the witches in Macbeth, many deeds of horror, produce their effect through the imagination; and the abundant short interludes are addressed solely to that faculty. All such things pass before us fittingly and easily in reading, whereas they are a drag in representation and appear as disturbing, even as repellent elements.

Shakespeare produces his effects by the living word, and that may be best transmitted by recitation; the listener is not distracted by either good or inadequate representation. There is no greater or purer delight than to listen with closed eyes to a Shakespearean play recited, not declaimed, in a natural, correct voice. One follows the simple thread which runs through events of the drama. We form a certain conception of the characters, it is true, from their designation; but actually we have to learn from the course of the words and speeches what goes on within, and here all the characters seem to have agreed not to leave us in the dark, in doubt, in any particular.



To this end all conspire—heroes and mercenaries, masters and slaves, kings and messengers; the subordinate figures, indeed, being often more effective in this respect than the superior ones. Everything mysteriously brewing in the air at the time of some great world-event, all that is hidden in the human soul in moments of supreme experience, is given expression; what the spirit anxiously locks up and screens is freely and unreservedly exposed; we learn the meaning of life and know not how.

Shakespeare mates himself with the world-spirit; like it he pervades the world; to neither is anything concealed; but if it is the function of the world-spirit to maintain secrecy before, indeed often after, the event, it is the poet's aim to divulge the secret and make us confidants before the deed, or at least during its occurrence. The vicious man of power, well-meaning mediocrity, the passionate enthusiast, the calmly reflective character, all wear their hearts upon their sleeves, often contrary to all likelihood; every one is inclined to talk, to be loquacious. In short, the secret must out, should the stones have to proclaim it. Even inanimate objects contribute their share; all subordinate things chime in; the elements, the phenomena of the heavens, earth and sea, thunder and lightning, wild beasts, raise their voices, often apparently in parables, but always acting as accessories.

But the civilized world, too, must render up its treasures; arts and sciences, trades and professions, all offer their gifts. Shakespeare's creations are a great, animated fair, and for this richness he is indebted to his native land.

England, sea-girt, veiled in mist and clouds, turning its active interest toward every quarter of the globe, is everywhere. The poet lived at a notable and momentous time, and depicted its culture, its misculture even, in the merriest vein; indeed, he would not affect us so powerfully had he not identified himself with the age in which he lived. No one had a greater contempt for the mere material, outward garb of man than he; he understands full well that which is within, and here all are on the same footing. It is thought that he represented the Romans admirably; I do not find it so; they are all true-blue Englishmen, but, to be sure, they are men, men through and through, and the Roman toga, too, fits them. When we have seized this point of view, we find his anachronisms highly laudable, and it is this very disregard of the outer raiment that renders his creations so vivid.

Let these few words, which do not by any means exhaust Shakespeare's merits, suffice. His friends and worshipers would find much that might be added. Yet one remark more It would be difficult to name another poet each of whose works has a different underlying conception exerting such a dominating influence as we find in Shakespeare's.

Thus Coriolanus is pervaded throughout by anger that the masses will not acknowledge the preeminence of their superiors. In Julius Caesar everything turns upon the conception that the better people do not wish any one placed in supreme authority because they imagine, mistakenly, that they can work in unison. Anthony and Cleopatra, calls out with a thousand tongues that self-indulgence and action are incompatible. And further investigation will rouse our admiration of this variety again and again.



II

SHAKESPEARE COMPARED WITH THE ANCIENT AND THE MOST MODERN POETS

The interest that animates Shakespeare's great spirit lies within the limits of the world; for though prophecy and madness, dreams, presentiments, portents, fairies and goblins, ghosts, witches and sorcerers, form a magic element which color his creations at the fitting moment, yet those phantasms are by no means the chief components of his productions; it is the verities and experiences of his life that are the great basis upon which they rest, and that is why everything that proceeds from him appears so genuine and pithy. We perceive, therefore, that he belongs not so much to the modern world, which has been termed the romantic one, as to a naive world, since, though his significance really rests upon the present, he scarcely, even in his tenderest moments, touches the borders of longing, and then only at the outermost edge.

Nevertheless, more intimately examined, he is a decidedly modern poet, divided from the ancients by a tremendous gulf, not as regards outward form, which is not to be considered here at all, but as regards the inmost, the profoundest significance of his work.

I shall, in the first place, protect myself by saying that it is by no means my intention to adduce the following terminology as exhaustive or final; my attempt is, rather not so much to add a new contrast to those already familiar, as to point out that it is included in them. These contrasts are:

Antique Modern

Naive Sentimental

Pagan Christian

Heroic Romantic

Real Idealistic

Necessity Freedom

Sollen (Duty; shall; must; should). Wollen (Desire; inclination; would).

The greatest torments, as well as the most frequent, that beset man spring from the discordances in us all between duty and desire, between duty and performance (Vollbringen); and it is these discordances that so often embarrass man during his earthly course. The slightest confusion, arising from a trivial error which may be cleared up unexpectedly and without injury, gives rise to ridiculous situations. The greatest confusion, on the contrary, insoluble or unsolved, offers us the tragic elements.

Predominant in the ancient dramas is the discordance between duty and desire; in the modern, that between desire and performance. Let us, for the present, consider this decisive difference among the other contrasts, and see what can be done with it in both cases. Now this, now that side predominates, as I have remarked; but since duty and desire cannot be radically separated in man, both motives must be found simultaneously, even though the one should be predominant and the other subordinate. Duty is imposed upon man; "must" is a hard taskmaster; desire (das Wollen) man imposes upon himself; man's own will is his heaven. A persistent "should" is irksome; inability to perform is terrible; a persistent "would" is gratifying; and the possession of a firm will may yield solace even in case of incapacity to perform.

We may look at games of cards as a sort of poetic creation; they, too, consist of these two elements. The form of the game, combined with chance, takes the place of the "should" as the ancients recognized it under the name of fate; the "would," combined with the ability of the player, opposes it. Looked at in this way, I should call the game of whist ancient. The form of this game restricts chance, nay, the will itself; provided with partners and opponents, I must, with the cards dealt out to me, guide a long series of chances which there is no way of controlling. In the case of ombre and other like games, the contrary takes place. Here a great many doors are left open to will and daring; I can revoke the cards that fall to my share, can make them count in various ways, can discard half or all of them, can appeal from the decree of chance, nay, by an inverted course can reap the greatest advantage from the worst hand; and thus this class of games exactly resembles the modern method in thought and in poetic art.

Ancient tragedy is based upon an unavoidable "should," which is intensified and accelerated only by a counteracting "would." This is the point of all that is terrible in the oracles, the region where Oedipus reigns supreme. Sollen appears in a milder light as duty in Antigone. But all Sollen is despotic, whether it belongs to the domain of reason, as ethical and municipal laws, or to that of Nature, as the laws of creation, growth, dissolution, of life and death. We shudder at all this, without reflecting that it is intended for the general good. Wollen, on the contrary, is free, appears free, and favors the individual. Wollen, therefore, is flattering, and perforce took possession of men as soon as they learned to know it. It is the god of the new time; devoted to it, we have a dread of its opposite, and that is why there is an impassable gulf between our art, as well as our mode of thought, and that of the ancients. Through Sollen, tragedy becomes great and forceful; through Wollen, weak and petty. Thus has arisen the so-called drama, in which the awful power of Fate was dissolved by the will; but precisely because this comes to the aid of our weakness do we find ourselves moved if, after painful expectation, we finally receive but scant comfort.

If now, after these preliminary reflections, I turn to Shakespeare, I can not forbear wishing that my readers should themselves make the comparison and the application. Here Shakespeare stands out unique, combining the old and the new in incomparable fashion. Wollen and Sollen seek by every means, in his plays, to reach an equilibrium; they struggle violently with each other, but always in a way that leaves the Wollen at a disadvantage.

No one, perhaps, has represented more splendidly the great primal connection between Wollen and Sollen in the character of the individual. A person, from the point of view of his character, should: he is restricted, destined to some definite course; but as a man, he wills. He is unlimited and demands freedom of choice. At once there arises an inner conflict, and Shakespeare puts it in the forefront. But then an outer conflict supervenes, which often becomes acute through the pressure of circumstances, in the face of which a deficiency of will may rise to the rank of an inexorable fate. This idea I have pointed out before in the case of Hamlet; but it occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare; for as Hamlet is driven by the ghost into straits which he cannot pass through, so is Macbeth by witches, by Hecate, and by the arch-witch, his wife; Brutus by his friends; nay, even in Coriolanus, we find a similar thing—in short, the conception of a will transcending the capacity of the individual is modern. But as Shakespeare represents this trouble of the will as arising not from within but through outside circumstances, it becomes a sort of Fate and approaches the antique. For all the heroes of poetic antiquity strive only for what lies within man's power, and thence arises that fine balance between will, Fate, and performance; yet their Fate appears always as too forbidding, even where we admire it, to possess the power of attraction. A necessity which, more or less, or completely, precludes all freedom, does not comport with the ideas of our time; but Shakespeare approaches these in his own way; for, in making necessity ethical, he links, to our gratified astonishment, the ancient with the modern. If anything can be learned from him, it is this point that we should study in his school. Instead of exalting our romanticism—which may not deserve censure or contempt—unduly and exclusively, and clinging to it in a partisan spirit, whereby its strong, solid, efficient side is misjudged and impaired, we should strive to unite within ourselves those great and apparently irreconcilable opposites—all the more that this has already been achieved by the unique master whom we prize so highly, and, often without knowing why, extol above every one. He had, to be sure, the advantage of living at the proper harvest-time, of expending his activity in a Protestant country teeming with life, where the madness of bigotry was silent for a time, so that a man like Shakespeare, imbued with a natural piety, was left free to develop his real self religiously without regard to any definite creed.



III

SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIST

If lovers and friends of art wish fully to enjoy a creation of any kind, they delight in it as a whole, are permeated by the unity with which the artist has endowed it. To a person, on the other hand, who wishes to discuss such productions theoretically, to assert something about them, and therefore, to inform and instruct, discrimination becomes a duty. We believed we were fulfilling that duty in considering Shakespeare first as a poet in general, and then comparing him with the ancient and the most modern poets. And now we wish to complete our design by considering him as a dramatist.

Shakespeare's name and worth belong to the history of poetry; but it is doing an injustice to all the dramatists of earlier and later ages to present his entire merit as belonging to the history of the theatre.

A person of universally acknowledged talent may make a doubtful use of his endowments. Not everything produced by such a superior mind is done in the most perfect way. Thus Shakespeare belongs essentially to the history of poetry; in the history of the theatre he figures only accidentally. Because we can admire him unqualifiedly in the first, we must in the latter take into consideration the conditions to which he submitted and not extol those conditions as either virtues or models.

We distinguish closely allied forms of poetic creation, which, however, in a vivid treatment often merge into each other: the epic, dialogue, drama, stage play, may be differentiated. An epic requires oral delivery to the many by a single individual; dialogue, speech in private company, where the multitude may, to be sure, be listeners; drama, conversation in actions, even though perhaps presented only to the imagination; stage play, all three together, inasmuch as it engages the sense of vision and may be grasped under certain conditions of local and personal presence.

It is in this sense that Shakespeare's productions are most dramatic; he wins the reader by his mode of treatment, of disclosing man's innermost life; the demands of the stage appear unessential to him, and thus he takes an easy course, and, in an intellectual sense, we serenely follow him. We transport ourselves with him from one locality to another; our imagination supplies all the intermediate actions that he omits; nay, we are grateful to him for arousing our spiritual faculties in so worthy a fashion. By producing everything in theatrical form, he facilitates the activity of the imagination; for we are more familiar with the "boards that mean the world" than with the world itself, and we may read and hear the most singular things and yet feel that they might actually take place before our eyes on the stage; hence the frequent failure of dramatizations of popular novels.

Strictly speaking, however, nothing is dramatic except that which strikes the eye as symbolic—an important action which betokens one still more important. That Shakespeare could attain this height too is evidenced in the scene where the son and heir takes the crown from the side of the father slumbering on his deathbed, places it on his own head, and struts off with it.[2] But these are only episodes, scattered jewels separated by much that is undramatic. Shakespeare's whole mode of procedure finds something unaccommodating in the actual stage; his great talent is that of an epitomist, and since poets are, on the whole, epitomists of Nature, we must here, too, acknowledge Shakespeare's great merit; only we deny, at the same time, and that to his credit, that the stage was a worthy sphere for his genius. It is precisely this limitation of the stage, however, which causes him to restrict himself.

But he does not, like other poets, select particular materials for particular works; he makes an idea the central point and refers the earth and the universe to it. As he condenses ancient and modern history, he can utilize the material of every chronicle, and often adheres to it literally. Not so conscientiously does he proceed with the tales, as Hamlet attests. Romeo and Juliet is more faithful to tradition; yet he almost destroys its tragic content by the two comic figures, Mercutio and the nurse, probably presented by two popular actors—the nurse undoubtedly acted by a man. If we examine the structure of the play very closely, we notice that these two figures and the elements touching them, appear only as farcical interludes, which, with our love of the logical and harmonious, must strike us as intolerable.

But Shakespeare is most marvelous when he adapts and recasts plays already in existence. We can institute a comparison in the case of King John and Lear; for the older dramas are still extant. But in these instances, likewise, he is again rather a poet than a dramatist.

But let us, in conclusion, proceed to the solution of the riddle. The imperfection of the English stage has been represented to us by well-informed men. There is not a trace of those requirements of realism to which we have gradually become used through improvements in machinery, the art of perspective, the wardrobe, and from which it would be difficult to lead us back into the infancy of those beginnings, to the days of a stage upon which little was seen, where everything was only indicated, where the public was satisfied to assume the chamber of the king lying behind a green curtain, the trumpeter who sounded the trumpet always at a certain spot, and many like things. Who at present would permit such assumptions? Under those conditions Shakespeare's plays were highly interesting tales, only they were recited by a number of persons, who, in order to make somewhat more of an impression, were characteristically masked as the occasion demanded, moved about, came and went, but left it to the spectator's imagination to fancy at will paradise and palaces on the empty stage.

How, indeed, did Schroeder achieve the great credit of putting Shakespeare's plays upon the German stage but by epitomizing the epitomizer? Schroeder confined himself entirely to what was effective; he discarded everything else, indeed, even much that was essential, when it seemed to him that the effect upon his nation, upon his time, would be impaired. Thus it is true, for example, that by omitting the first scene of King Lear he changed the character of the piece; but he was right, after all, for in that scene Lear appears so ridiculous that one can not wholly blame his daughters. The old man awakens our pity, but we have no sympathy for him, and it is sympathy that Schroeder wished to arouse as well as abhorrence of the two daughters, who, though unnatural, are not absolutely reprehensible.

In the old play which is Shakespeare's source, this scene is productive, in the course of the play, of the most pleasing effects. Lear flees to France; daughter and son-in-law, in some romantic caprice, make a pilgrimage, in disguise, to the seashore, and encounter the old man, who does not recognize them. Here all that Shakespeare's lofty, tragic spirit has embittered is made sweet. A comparison of these dramas affords ever renewed pleasure to the lover of art.

In recent years, however, the notion has crept into Germany that Shakespeare must be presented on the German stage word for word, even if actors and audience should fairly choke in the process. The attempts, induced by an excellent, exact translation,[3] would not succeed anywhere—a fact to which the Weimar stage, after honest and repeated efforts, can give unexceptionable testimony. If we wish to see a Shakespearean play, we must return to Schroeder's adaptation; but the dogma that, in representing Shakespeare, not a jot or tittle may be omitted, senseless as it is, is constantly being reechoed. If the advocates of this view should retain the upper hand, Shakespeare would in a few years be entirely driven from the German stage. This, indeed, would be no misfortune; for the solitary reader, or the reader in company with others, would experience so much the purer delight.

The attempt, however, in the other direction, on which we have dilated above, was made in the arrangement of Romeo and Juliet for the Weimar stage. The principles upon which this was based, we shall set forth at the first opportunity, and it will perhaps then be recognized why that arrangement—the representation of which is by no means difficult, but must be carried out artistically and with precision—had no success on the German stage. Similar efforts are now in progress, and perhaps some result is in store for the future, even though such undertakings frequently fail at the first trial.



ORATION ON WIELAND (1813)[4]

TRANSLATED BY LOUIS H. GRAY, PH. D.

[To the Memory of the noble Poet, Brother, and Friend, Wieland.]

Most serene protector! Right worshipful master I Very honorable assembly I

Although under no circumstances does it become the individual to set himself in opposition to ancient, venerable customs, or of his own will to alter what our ancestors in their wisdom have deemed right and have ordained, nevertheless, had I really at my bidding the magician's wand which the muses in spirit intrusted to our departed friend, I should in an instant transform all these sad surroundings into those of joy. This darkness would straightway grow radiant before your eyes, and before you there would appear a hall decked for a feast, with varied tapestries and garlands of gaiety, joyous and serene as our friend's own life. Then your eyes, your spirit, would be attracted by the creations of his luxuriant imagination; Olympus with its gods, introduced by the Muses and adorned by the Graces, would be a living testimony that he who lived amid such glad surroundings, and who also departed from us in the spirit of that gladness, should be counted among the most fortunate of mankind, and should be interred, not with lamentation, but with expressions of joy and of exultation.

And yet, what I cannot present to the outward senses, may be offered to the inward. Eighty years, how much in how few syllables! Who of us dares hastily to run through so many years and to picture to himself the significance of them when well employed? Who of us would dare assert that he could in an instant measure and appraise the value of a life that was complete from every point of view?



If we accompany our friend step by step through all his days, if we regard him as a boy and as a youth, in his prime and in his old age, we find that to his lot fell the unusual fortune of plucking the bloom of each of these seasons; for even old age has its bloom, and the happiest enjoyment of this, also, was vouchsafed him. Only a few months have passed since for him the brethren of our lodge crowned their mysterious sphinx with roses, to show that, if the aged Anacreon undertook to adorn his exalted sensuality with the rose's light twigs, the ethical sensuousness, the tempered joy of life and wit which animated our noble friend also merited a rich and abundant garland.

Only a few weeks have elapsed since this excellent man was still with us, not merely present but active at our gatherings. It was through the midst of our intimate circle that he passed from things earthly; we were the nearest to him, even at the last; and if his fatherland as well as foreign nations celebrate his memory, where ought this to be done earlier and more emphatically than by us?

I have not, therefore, dared to disobey the mandates of our masters, and before this honorable assembly I speak a few words in his memory, the more gladly since they may be fleeting precursors of what in the future the world and our brotherhood shall do for him. This is the sentiment, and this the purpose, for the sake of which I venture to entreat a gracious hearing; and if what I shall say from an affection tested for almost forty years rather than for mere rhetorical effect—by no means well composed, but rather in brief sentences, and even in desultory fashion—may seem worthy neither of him who is honored nor of them who honor, then I must remark that here you may expect only a preliminary outline, a sketch, yes, only the contents and, if you so will, the marginal notes of a future work. And thus, then, without more delay, to the theme so dear, so precious, and, indeed, so sacred to us!

Wieland was born in 1733 near Biberach, a small imperial free-town in Swabia. His father, a Lutheran clergyman, gave him a careful training and imparted to him the first elements of education. He was then sent to the monastery of Bergen on the Elbe, where the truly pious Abbot Steinmetz presided over an educational institution of good repute. Thence he went to the University of Tuebingen, and then lived for some time as a private tutor in Bern, but he was soon attracted to Bodmer, at Zurich, who, like Gleim at a later date in North Germany, might be called the midwife of genius in South Germany. There he gave himself over entirely to the joy that arises from youth's self-creation, when talents develop under friendly guidance without being hampered by the higher requirements of criticism. Soon, however, he outgrew this stage, returned to his native town, and henceforth became his own teacher and trainer, while with ceaseless activity he pursued his inclination toward literature and poetry.

His mechanical official duties as the chief of the chancery robbed him, it is true, of time, though they could not deprive him of joy and courage; and that his spirit might not be dwarfed amid such narrow surroundings, he fortunately became acquainted with Count Stadion, whose estates lay in the vicinity, and who was a minister of the Prince Elector of Mainz. In this illustrious and well-appointed house the atmosphere of the world and of the court was for the first time wafted to him; he became no stranger to domestic and foreign affairs of state; and in the count he gained a patron for all his life. In consequence, he did not remain unknown to the Prince Elector of Mainz, and since the University of Erfurt was to be revived under Emmerich Joseph, our friend was summoned thither, thus exemplifying the tolerant sentiments which, from the beginning of the century, have spread among men who are akin through the Christian faith, and have even permeated humanity as a whole.

He could not labor long at Erfurt without becoming known to the Duchess Regent of Weimar, at whose court Count von Dalberg, so active in every form of good work, did not fail to introduce him. An adequate education of her princely sons was the chief object of a tender mother, herself highly cultured, and thus he was called thither to employ his literary talents and his moral endowments for the best interests of the princely house, for our weal, and for the weal of all.

The retirement promised him after the completion of his educational duties was given him at once, and since he received a more than promised alleviation of his domestic circumstances, he led, for nearly forty years, a life of complete conformity to his disposition and to his wishes.

The influence of Wieland on the public was uninterrupted and permanent. He educated his generation up to himself, giving to the taste and to the judgment of his contemporaries a decided trend, so that his merits have already been sufficiently recognized, appraised, and even portrayed. In many a work on German literature he is discussed as honorably as judiciously; I need only recall the laudations which Kuettner, Eschenburg, Manso, and Eichhorn have bestowed upon him.

And whence came the profound influence which he exercised on the Germans? It was a result of the excellence and of the openness of his nature. In him man and author had completely interpenetrated; he wrote poetry as a living soul, and lived the poet's life. In verse and prose he never hid what was at the instant in his mind and what each time he felt, so that judging he wrote and writing he judged. From the fertility of his mind sprang the fertility of his pen.

I do not employ the term "pen" as a rhetorical phrase; here it is valid in the strictest sense, and if a pious reverence pays homage to many an author by seeking to gain possession of the quill with which he formed his works, the quill of which Wieland availed himself, would surely be worthy of this distinction above many another. For the fact that he wrote everything with his own hand and most beautifully, and, at the same time, with freedom and with thoughtfulness; that he ever had before him what he had written, carefully examining, changing, improving, indefatigably fashioning and refashioning, never weary even of repeatedly transcribing voluminous works—this gave to his productions the delicacy, the gracefulness, the clearness, the natural elegance which can be bestowed on a work already completed, not by effort, but by unruffled, inspired attention.

This careful preparation of his writings had its origin in a happy conviction which apparently came to him toward the end of his residence in Switzerland, when impatience at production had in some measure subsided, and when the desire to present a perfected result to the public had become more decidedly and more obviously active.

Since, then, in him the man and the poet were a single individuality, we shall also portray the latter when we speak of the former. Irritability and versatility, the accompaniments of poetical and of rhetorical talents, dominated him to a high degree, but an acquired rather than an innate moderation kept them in equilibrium. Our friend was capable of enthusiasm in highest measure, and in youth he surrendered himself wholly to it, the more actively and assiduously since, in his case, for several years that happy period was prolonged when within himself the youth feels the worth and the dignity of the most excellent, be it attainable or not.

In that pure and happy field of the golden age, in that paradise of innocence, he dwelt longer than others. The house where he was born, in which a cultivated clergyman ruled as father; the ancient, linden-embowered monastery of Bergen on the Elbe, where a pious teacher kept up his patriarchal activity; Tuebingen, still monastic in its essential form; those simple Swiss dwellings about which the brooks murmured, which the lakes laved, and which the cliffs surrounded—everywhere he found another Delphi, everywhere the groves in which as a mature and cultivated youth he continued to revel even yet. There he was powerfully attracted by the monuments of the manly innocence of the Greeks which have been left us. Cyrus, Araspes, Panthea, and forms of equal loftiness revived in him; he felt the spirit of Plato weaving within him; he felt that he needed that spirit to reproduce those pictures for himself and for others—so much the more since he desired not so keenly to evoke poetic phantoms as, rather, to create a moral influence for actual beings.

Yet the very fact that he had the good fortune to dwell so protractedly in these loftier realms, and that he could long regard as the most perfect verity all that he thought, felt, imagined, dreamed, and fancied—this very fact embittered for him the fruit which he was obliged at last to pluck from the tree of knowledge.

Who can escape the conflict with the outer world? Even our friend is drawn into this strife; reluctantly he submits to contradiction by experience and by life; and since, after a long struggle, he succeeds not in uniting these august figures with those of the vulgar world, or that high desire with the demands of the day, he resolves to let the actual pass current as the necessary, and declares that what has thus far seemed real to him is phantasy.

Yet even here the individuality and the energy of his spirit reveals itself to be worthy of admiration. Despite all the fulness of his life, despite so strong a joy of living, despite noble inward talents and honorable spiritual desires and purposes, he feels himself wounded by the world and defrauded of his greatest treasures. Henceforth he can in experience nowhere find what had constituted his joy for so many years, and what had even been the inmost content of his life; yet he does not consume himself in idle lamentations, of which we know so many in the prose and verse of others, but he resolves upon counter-action. He proclaims war on all that cannot be demonstrated in reality; first and foremost, therefore, on Platonic love, then on all dogmatizing philosophy, especially its two extremes of Stoicism and Pythagoreanism. Furthermore, he works implacably against religious fanaticism, and against all that to reason appears eccentric.

But he is at once overwhelmed with anxiety lest he go too far, lest he himself act fantastically, and now he simultaneously begins battle against commonplace reality. He opposes everything which we are accustomed to understand under the name Philistinism—musty pedantry, provincialism, petty etiquette, narrow criticism, false prudery, smug complacency, arrogant dignity, and whatever names may be applied to all these unclean spirits, whose name is Legion.

Herein he proceeds in an absolutely natural manner, without preconceived purpose or self-consciousness. He stands before the dilemma of the conceivable and the real, and, as he must advise moderation to control or to unite the two, he must hold himself in check, and must be many-sided, since he wishes to be just.

He had long been attracted by the pure, rational uprightness of noble Englishmen, and by their influence in the moral sphere, by an Addison, by a Steele; but now in their society he finds a man whose type of thought is far more agreeable to him.

Shaftesbury, whom I need only mention to recall a great thinker to the mind of every well-informed man,—Shaftesbury lived at a time when much disturbance reigned in the religion of his native land, when the dominant church sought by force to subdue men of other modes of thought. State and morals were also threatened by much that must arouse the anxiety of the intelligent and right-thinking. The best counter-action to all this, he believed, was cheerfulness; in his opinion, only what was regarded with serenity would be rightly seen. He who could look serenely into his own bosom must be a good man. This was the main thing, and from it sprang all other good. Spirit, wit, and humor were, he held, the real agencies by which such a disposition should come in contact with the world. All objects, even the most serious, must be capable of such clarity and freedom if they were not bedizened with a merely arrogant dignity, but contained within themselves a true value which did not fear the test. In this spirited endeavor to become master of things it was impossible to avoid casting about for deciding authorities, and thus human reason was set as judge over the content, and taste over the manner, of presentation.

In such a man our Wieland now found, not a predecessor whom he was to follow, nor a colleague with whom he was to work, but a true elder twin brother in the spirit, whom he perfectly resembled, without being formed in his likeness; even as it could not be said of the Menaechmi which was the original, and which the copy.

What Shaftesbury, born in a higher station, more favored with worldly advantages, and more experienced by travel, office, and cosmopolitan knowledge, did in a wider circle and at a more serious period in sea-girt England, precisely this our friend, proceeding from a point at first extremely limited, accomplished through persistent activity and through ceaseless toil, in his native land, surrounded on every side by hills and dales; and the result was—to employ, in our condensed address, a brief but generally intelligible term—that popular philosophy whereby a practically trained intelligence is set in decision over the moral worth of things, and is made the judge of their aesthetic value.

This philosophy, prepared in England and fostered by conditions in Germany, was thus spread far and wide by our friend, in company with countless sympathizers, by poems and by scholarly works, even by life itself.

And yet, if we have found Shaftesbury and Wieland perfectly alike so far as point of view, temperament, and insight are concerned, nevertheless, the latter was far superior to the former in talent; for what the Englishman rationally taught and desired, the German knew how to elaborate poetically and rhetorically in verse and prose.

In this elaboration, however, the French mode of treatment was necessarily most suitable to him. Serenity, wit, spirit, and elegance are already at hand in France; his luxuriant imagination, which now desires to be occupied only with light and joyous themes, turns to tales of fairies and knights, which grant it the greatest freedom. Here, again, in the Arabian Nights and in the Bibliotheque universelle des romans, France offered him materials half-prepared and adapted, while the ancient treasures of this sort, which Germany possesses, still remained crude and unavailable.

It is precisely these poems which have most widely spread and most firmly established Wieland's fame. Their light-heartedness gained them access to everyone, and even the serious Germans deigned to be pleased with them; for all these works appeared indeed at a happy and favorable time. They were all written in the spirit which we have developed above. Frequently the fortunate poet undertook the artistic task of giving a high value to very mediocre materials by revising them; and though it cannot be denied that he sometimes permits reason to triumph over the higher powers, and at other times allows sensuality to prevail over the moral qualities, yet we must also grant that, in its proper place, everything which can possibly adorn noble souls gains supremacy.

Earlier than most of these works, though not the earliest of all, was the translation of Shakespeare. Wieland did not fear impairment of his originality by study; on the contrary, he was convinced at an early date that a lively, fertile spirit found its best stimulus not only in the adaptation of material that was already well known, but also in the translation of extant works.

In those days the translation of Shakespeare was a daring thought, for even trained litterateurs denied the possibility of the success of such an undertaking. Wieland translated freely, grasped the sense of his author, and omitted what appeared to him untranslatable; and thus he gave to his nation a general idea of the most magnificent works of another people, and to his generation an insight into the lofty culture of by-gone centuries.

Great as was the effect of this translation in Germany, it appears to have exercised little influence upon Wieland himself. He was too thoroughly antagonistic to his author, as is sufficiently obvious from the passages omitted and passed over, and still more from the appended notes, in which the French type of thought is evident.

On the other hand, the Greeks, with their moderation and clarity, are to him most precious models. He feels himself allied with them in taste; religion, customs, and legislation all give him opportunity to exercise his versatility, and since neither the gods nor the philosophers, and neither the nation nor the nations are any more compatible than politicians and soldiers, he everywhere finds the desired opportunity, amid his apparent doubts and jests, of repeatedly inculcating his equitable, tolerant, human doctrines.

At the same time, he takes delight in presenting problematical characters, and he finds pleasure, for example, in emphasizing the lovable qualities of a Musarion, a Lais, and a Phryne without regard to womanly chastity, and in exalting their practical wisdom above the scholastic wisdom of the philosophers.

But among these he also finds a man whom he can develop and set forth as the representative of his own convictions—I mean Aristippus. Here philosophy and worldly pleasure are through wise moderation so united in serene and welcome fashion that the wish arises to be a contemporary in so fair a land, and in such goodly company. Union with these educated, right-thinking, cultivated, joyous men is so welcome, and it even seems that so long as one may walk with them in thought, one's mind will be as theirs, and one will think as they.

In these circles our friend maintained himself by careful experiments, which are still more necessary to the translator than to the poet; and thus arose the German Lucian, which necessarily presented the Greek to us the more vividly since the author and the translator could be regarded as true kindred spirits.

But however much a man of such talents preaches decency, he will, nevertheless, sometimes feel himself tempted to transgress the boundaries of propriety and decorum, since from time immemorial genius has reckoned such escapades among its prerogatives. Wieland indulged this impulse when he sought to assimilate himself to the daring, extraordinary Aristophanes, and when he was able to translate his jests, as audacious as they were witty, though he toned them down with his own innate grace.

For all these presentations an insight into the higher plastic art was also obviously necessary, and since our friend was never vouchsafed the sight of those ancient masterpieces which still survive, he sought to rise to them in thought, to bring them before his eyes by the power of imagination; so that we cannot fail to be amazed to see how talent is able to form for itself a conception even of what is far away. Moreover, he would have been entirely successful if his laudable caution had not restrained him from taking decisive steps; for art in general, and especially the art of the ancients, can neither be grasped nor comprehended without enthusiasm. He who will not commence with amazement and with admiration finds no entrance into the holy of holies. Our friend, however, was far too cautious, and how could he have been expected to make in this single instance an exception from his general rule of life?

If, however, he was near akin to the Greeks in taste, in sentiment he was still more closely allied to the Romans—not that he would have allowed himself to be carried away by republican or by patriotic zeal, but he really finds his peers among the Romans, whereas he has, in a sense, only fictitiously assimilated himself to the Greeks. Horace has much similarity to him; himself an artist, and himself a man of the court and of the world, he intelligently estimates life and art; Cicero, philosopher, orator, statesman, and active citizen, also closely resembles him—and both arose from inconsiderable beginnings to great dignities and honors.

While our friend occupies himself with the works of both these men, how gladly would he transport himself back into their century and their surroundings, and transfer himself to their epoch, in order to transmit to us a clear picture of that past; and he succeeds amazingly. Perhaps, on the whole, more sympathy might be desired for the men with whom he is concerned, but such is his fear of partisanship that he prefers to take sides against them rather than on their behalf.

There are two maxims of translation. The one demands that the author of an alien nation be brought over to us so that we may regard him as our own; the other, on the contrary, lays upon us the obligation that we should transfer ourselves to the stranger and accommodate ourselves to his conditions, to his diction, and to his peculiarities. The advantages of both are sufficiently well known to all cultured men by masterly examples. Our friend, who here also sought the middle way, endeavored to combine both; yet, as a man of taste and feeling, in doubtful cases he gave the preference to the first maxim.

Perhaps no one has so keenly felt as he how complicated a task translation is. How deeply was he convinced that not the letter but the spirit giveth life! Consider how, in his introductions, he first endeavors to shift us to the period and to make us acquainted with the personages; how he then makes his author speak in a way which we already know, akin to our own thought and familiar to our ear; and how, finally, in his annotations, he seeks to explain and to obviate many a detail which might remain obscure, rouse doubt, and be offensive. Through this triple endeavor one can see clearly that he first has mastered his subject, and then he also takes the most praiseworthy pains to put us in a position in which his insight can be communicated to us, that we also may share the enjoyment with him.

Although he was equally master of many tongues, yet he clung to the two in which the value and the dignity of the ancient world have most purely been transmitted to us. For little as we would deny that many a treasure has been drawn and is still to be drawn from the mines of other ancient literatures, so little shall we be contradicted when we assert that the language of the Greeks and of the Romans has transmitted to us, down to this very day, priceless gifts which in content are equal to the best, and in form are superior to every other.

The organization of the German Empire, which includes so many small states within itself, herein resembled the Greek. Since the tiniest, most unimportant, and even invisible city had its special interests it was constrained to cherish and to maintain them, and to defend them against its neighbors. Accordingly, its youth were early roused and summoned to reflect upon affairs of state. And thus Wieland, too, as the chief of the chancery of one of the smallest imperial free-towns, was in a position calculated to make of him a patriot and, in the best sense of the term, a demagogue; as when later, in one such instance, he resolved to bring down upon himself the temporary disfavor of his patron, the neighboring Count Stadion, rather than to make an unpatriotic submission.

His Agathon itself teaches us that within this sphere as well he gave preference to sound principles; nevertheless, he took such interest in the realities of life that all his occupations and all his predilections ultimately failed to prevent him from thinking about the same. He particularly felt himself summoned anew to this when he dared promise himself a weighty influence on the training of princes from whom much might be expected.

In all the works of this type which he wrote a cosmopolitan spirit is manifest, and since they were composed at a time when the power of absolute monarchy was not yet shaken, it became his main purpose insistently to set their obligations before the rulers and to point them to the happiness which they should find in the happiness of their subjects.

Now, however, the epoch came when an aroused nation tore down all that had thus far stood, and seemed to summon the spirits of all the dwellers upon earth to a universal legislation. On this matter, likewise, he declared himself with cautious modesty; and by rational presentations, which he clothed under a variety of forms, he sought to produce some measure of equilibrium in the excited masses. Since, however, the tumult of anarchy became more and more furious, and since a voluntary union of the masses appeared inconceivable, he was the first once more to counsel absolutism and to designate the man to work the miracle of reestablishment.

If, now, it be remembered in this connection that our friend wrote concerning these matters not, as it were, after, but during, events, and that, as the editor of a widely-read periodical he had occasion—and was even compelled—on the spur of the moment to express his views each month, then he who is called to trace chronologically the course of his life will perceive, not without amazement, how attentively he followed the swift events of the day, and how shrewdly he conducted himself throughout as a German and as a thinking, sympathetic man. And here is the place to recall the periodical which was so important for Germany, the Deutscher Merkur. This undertaking was not the first of its kind, yet at that time it was new and significant. The name of its editor immediately created great confidence in it; for the fact that a man who was himself a poet also promised to introduce the poems of others into the world, and that an author to whom such magnificent works were due would himself pass judgment and publicly express his opinion—this aroused the greatest hopes. Moreover, men of worth quickly gathered about him, and this alliance of preeminent litterateurs was so active that the Merkur during a period of several years may be employed as a textbook of our literary history. On the public generally its influence was profound and significant, for if, on the one hand, reading and criticism became the possession of a greater multitude, the desire to give instant expression to his thoughts became active in everyone who had anything to give. More was sent to the editor than he expected and desired; his success awakened imitators; similar periodicals arose which crowded upon the public, first monthly, then weekly and daily, and which finally produced that confusion of Babel of which we were and are witnesses, and which, strictly speaking, springs from the fact that everyone wishes to talk, but no one is willing to listen..

The quality which maintained the value and the dignity of the Deutscher Merkur for many years was its editor's innate liberality. Wieland was not created to be a party leader; he who recognizes moderation as the chief maxim cannot make himself guilty of one-sidedness. Whatever excited his active spirit he sought to equalize within himself through taste and common sense, and thus he also treated his collaborators, for none of whom he felt very much enthusiasm; and as, while translating the ancient authors whom he so highly esteemed, he was accustomed frequently to attack them in his notes, so, by his disapproving annotations, he often vexed, and actually estranged, valued and even favorite contributors.

Even before this, our friend had been forced to endure full many an attack on account of major or minor writings; so much the less as the editor of a periodical could he escape literary controversies. Yet here, too, he shows himself ever the same. Such a paper war can never last long for him, and if it threatens to be in any degree protracted, he gives his opponent the last word and goes his wonted path.

Foreigners have sagaciously observed that German authors regard the public less than the writers of other nations, and that, therefore, one can tell from his writings the man who is developing himself, and the man who seeks to create something to his own satisfaction,—and, consequently, the character of these two types soon becomes obvious. This quality we have already ascribed to Wieland in particular; and it will be so much the more interesting to arrange and to follow his writings and his life in this sense, since, formerly and latterly, the attempt has been made to cast suspicion on our friend's character from these very writings. A large number of men are even yet in error regarding him, since they fancy that the man of many sides must be indifferent, and the versatile man must be wavering; it is forgotten that character is concerned simply and solely with the practical. Only in that which a man does and continues to do, and in that to which he is constant, does he reveal his character, and in this sense there has been no more steadfast man, no man constantly more true to himself, than Wieland. If he surrendered himself to the multiplicity of his emotions, and to the versatility of his thoughts, and if he permitted no single impression to gain dominion over him, in this very way he proved the firmness and the sureness of his mind. This witty man played gladly with his opinions, but—I can summon all contemporaries as witnesses—never with his convictions. And thus he won for himself many friends, and kept them. That he had any decided enemy is not known to me. In the enjoyment of his poetic works he lived for many years in municipal, civic, friendly, and social surroundings, and gained the distinction of a complete edition of his carefully revised works, and even of an edition de luxe of them.

But even in the autumn of his years he was destined to feel the influence of the spirit of the age, and in an unforeseen manner to begin a new life, a new youth. The blessings of sweet peace had long ruled over Germany; general outward safety and repose coincided most happily with the inward, human, cosmopolitan views of existence. The peaceful townsman seemed no longer to require his walls; they were dispensed with; and there was a yearning after rustic life. The security of landed property gave confidence to everyone; the untrammelled life of nature attracted everyone; and as man, born a social being, can often fancy to himself the sweet deceit that he lives better, easier, happier in isolation, so Wieland also, who had already been vouchsafed the highest literary leisure, seemed to look about him for an abode more quiet in which to cultivate the Muses; and when he found opportunity and strength to obtain an estate in the very vicinity of Weimar, he formed the resolution there to pass the remainder of his life. And here they who have often visited him, and who have lived with him, may tell in detail how it was precisely here that he appeared in all his charm as head of the house and of the family, as friend, and as husband, and especially how, since he could indeed withdraw from men but men could not dispense with him, he most delightfully developed his social virtues as a hospitable host.

While inviting younger friends to elaborate this idyllic portrayal, I may merely note, briefly and sympathetically, how this rural joy was troubled by the passing away of a dear woman friend who resided with them, and then by the death of his esteemed and careful consort. He laid these dear remains in his own property, and although he resolved to give up agricultural cares, which had become too intricate for him, and to dispense with the estate which for some years he had enjoyed, he retained for himself the place and the space between his two dear ones that there he, too, might find his resting place. And there, then, the honorable brethren have accompanied him, yea, brought him, and thus have they fulfilled his lovely and pleasant wish that posterity might visit and reverence his tomb within a living grove.

Yet not without a higher reason did our friend return to the city, for his devotion to his great patroness, the Duchess Dowager, had more than once given him sad hours in his rural retirement. He felt only too keenly how much it cost him to be far from her. He could not forego association with her, and yet he could enjoy it only with inconvenience and with discomfort. And thus, after he had seen his household now expanded and now contracted, now augmented and now diminished, now gathered together and now scattered, the exalted princess draws him into her own immediate circle. He returns, occupies a house very close to the princely residence, shares in the summer sojourn in Tiefurt, and now regards himself as a member of the household and of the court.

In very peculiar measure Wieland was born for the higher circles of society, and even the highest would have been his proper element; for since he nowhere wished to stand supreme, but gladly sought to take part in everything, and was inclined to express himself with moderation regarding everything, he must inevitably appear an agreeable companion, and in still higher degree he would have been such in a more light-hearted nation which did not take too seriously every form of recreation.

For his poetic and his literary aspirations were alike addressed immediately to life, and though he did not seek a practical end with absolute invariability, yet he ever had a practical aim before his eyes, whether it was near or far. Therefore his thought was always clear, his phraseology was lucid and readily intelligible, and since, with his extensive knowledge, he continually held to the interest of the day, followed it, and intelligently occupied himself with it, his conversation also was diversified and stimulating throughout; so that I have not readily become acquainted with anyone who more gladly received and more spiritedly responded to whatever happy idea others might bring forward.

Bearing in mind his type of thought, his mode of entertaining himself and others, and his honorable purpose of influencing his generation, he can scarcely be reproached for feeling an antagonism toward the more modern philosophical schools. When, at an earlier period, Kant gave merely the preludes of his greater theories in his minor writings, and in a lighter style seemed to express himself problematically upon the most weighty themes, then he still stood close enough to our friend; but when the huge system was erected, all those who had thus far gone their way poetizing and philosophizing in full freedom, were forced to see in Kant's monumental work a menacing citadel which would limit their serene excursions over the field of experience.

Yet not merely the philosophers, but also the poets, had much, and, indeed, everything, to fear from the new intellectual tendency, so soon as large numbers should allow themselves to be attracted by it. It would at first appear as though its purpose was mainly directed toward knowledge, and then toward the theory of morals and its immediately subsidiary subjects. It was readily obvious, however, that, if it was intended to establish, more firmly than had hitherto been the case, those weighty affairs of higher knowledge and of moral conduct, and if there the demand was made for a sterner, more coherent judgment, developed from the depths of humanity—it was readily obvious, I repeat, that taste also would soon be referred to such principles, and, therefore, the attempt would be made absolutely to set aside individual fancies, chance culture, and popular peculiarities, and to evoke a more general law as a deciding factor.

This was, moreover, actually realized, and in poetry a new epoch emerged which was necessarily as antagonistic to our friend as he was to it. From this time on he experienced many unfavorable judgments, yet without being very deeply influenced by them; and I here expressly mention this circumstance, since the consequent struggle in German literature is as yet by no means allayed and adjusted, and since a friend who desires to value Wieland's merits and sturdily to uphold his memory must be perfectly conversant with the situation of affairs, with the rise and with the sequence of opinions, and with the character and with the talents of the cooperators; he must know well the powers and the services of both sides; and, to work impartially, he must, in a sense, belong to both factions. Yet from those minor or major controversies which arose from his intellectual attitude I am drawn by a serious consideration, to which we must now turn.

The peace which for many years had blissfully dwelt amid our mountains and hills, and in our delightfully watered valleys, had long been, if not disturbed, at least threatened, by military expeditions. When the eventful day dawned which filled us with amazement and alarm, since the fate of the world was decided in our walks, even in those terrible hours toward which our friend's carefree life flowed on, fortune did not desert him, for he was saved first through the precaution of a young and resolute friend, and then through the attention of the French conquerors, who honored in him both the meritorious author, famed throughout the world, and a member of their own great literary institute.

Soon afterward he had to bear the loss of Amelia, so bitter to us all. Court and city endeavored to extend him every compensation, and soon afterward he was favored by two emperors with insignia of honor, the like of which he had not sought, and had not even expected, throughout his long life.

Yet in the day of joy as in the day of sorrow he remained constant to himself, and thus he exemplified the superiority of delicate natures, whose equanimity knows how to meet with moderation good and evil fortune alike.

But he appeared most remarkable of all, considered in body and in spirit, after the bitter calamity which befell him in such advanced years when, together with a beloved daughter, he was very severely injured by the overturning of his carriage. The painful results of the accident and the tedium of convalescence he bore with the utmost equanimity, and he comforted his friends rather than himself by the declaration that he had never met with a like misfortune, and it might well have seemed pleasing to the gods that in this way he discharge the debt of humanity. Now, moreover, he speedily recovered, since his constitution, like that of a youth, was quickly restored, and thus he became a proof for us of the way in which great physical strength may be combined with delicacy and clean living.

As, then, his philosophy of life remained firm even under this test; such an accident produced no change in his convictions or in his mode of life. Companionable after his recovery as before, he took part in the customary recreations of the social life of the court and of the city, and with true affection and with constant endeavor shared in the activities of the brethren of our lodge. But however much his eye seemed always fixed on things earthly, and on the understanding and utilization of them—yet, as a man of exceptional gifts, he could in no wise dispense with the extramundane and the supersensual. Here also that conflict, which we have deemed it our duty to portray in detail above, became evident in a remarkable degree; for though he appeared to reject everything which lay outside the bounds of general knowledge, and beyond the sphere of what may be exemplified from experience, none the less, while he did not transgress the lines so sharply drawn, he could never refrain, in tentative fashion, as it were, from peeping over them, and from constructing and representing, in his own way, an extramundane world, a state concerning which all the innate powers of our soul can give us no information.

Single traits of his writings afford manifold examples of this; but I may especially recall his Agathodaemon and his Euthanasie, and also those beautiful declarations, as rational as they were sincere, which he was permitted, only a short while since, to express openly and frankly before this assembly. For a confiding love toward our lodge of brethren had developed within him. Acquainted even as a youth with the historical traditions regarding the mysteries of the ancients, he indeed shunned, in conformity with his serene, lucid mode of thought, those dark secrets; yet he did not deny that precisely under these, perhaps uncouth, veils, higher conceptions had first been brought to barbarous and sensual men, that, through awe-inspiring symbols, powerful, illuminating ideas had been awakened, the belief in one God, ruling over all, had been introduced, virtue had been represented more desirably, and hope for the continuance of our existence had been purified both from the false terrors of a dark superstition and from the equally false demands of an Epicurean sensuality.

Then, as an aged man left behind on earth by so many valued friends and contemporaries, and feeling himself in many respects alone, he drew near to our dear lodge. How gladly he entered it, how constantly he attended our gatherings, vouchsafed his attention to our affairs, rejoiced in the reception of excellent young men, was present at our honorable banquets, and did not refrain from expressing his thoughts upon many a weighty matter—of this we are all witnesses; we have recognized it with friendly gratitude. Indeed, if this ancient lodge, often reestablished after many a change of time, required any testimony here, the most perfect would be ready at hand, since a talented man, intelligent, cautious, circumspect, experienced, benevolent, and moderate, felt that with us he found kindred spirits, and that with us he was in a company which he, accustomed to the best, so gladly recognized to be the realization of his wishes as a man and as a social being.

Although summoned by our masters to speak a few words concerning the departed, before this so distinguished and highly esteemed assembly, I might surely have ventured to decline to do so, in the conviction that not a fleeting hour, not loose notes superficially jotted down, but whole years, and even several well weighed and well ordered volumes are requisite worthily to celebrate his memory in consideration of the monument which he has worthily erected for himself in his works and in his influence. This delightful duty I undertook only in the conviction that what I have here said may serve as an introduction to what should in future be better done by others at the repeated celebration of his memory. If it shall please our honored masters to deposit in their ark, together with this essay, all that shall publicly appear concerning our friend, and, still more, what our brethren, whom he most greatly and most peculiarly influenced and who enjoyed an uninterrupted and a closer association with him, may confidentially express and communicate, then through this would be collected a treasure of facts, of information, and of valuations which might well be unique of its kind, and from which our posterity might draw, in after times, in order to protect, to maintain, and to hallow for evermore so worthy a memory with love unwavering.



THE PEDAGOGIC PROVINCE (1827)

TRANSLATED BY EDWARD BELL From WILHELM MEISTER'S TRAVELS

Our pilgrims had performed the journey according to program, and prosperously reached the frontier of the province in which they were to learn so many wonderful things. On their first entry they beheld a most fertile region, the gentle slopes of which were favorable to agriculture, its higher mountains to sheep-feeding, and its broad valleys to the rearing of cattle. It was shortly before the harvest, and everything was in the greatest abundance; still, what surprised them from the outset, was that they saw neither women nor men, but only boys and youths busy getting ready for a prosperous harvest, and even making friendly preparations for a joyous harvest-home. They greeted now one, and now another, and inquired about the master, of whose whereabouts no one could give an account. The address of their letter was: To the Master or to the Three, and this too the boys could not explain; however, they referred the inquirers to an overseer, who was just preparing to mount his horse. They explained their object; Felix's frank bearing seemed to please him; and so they rode together along the road.

Wilhelm had soon observed that a great diversity prevailed in the cut and color of the clothing, which gave a peculiar aspect to the whole of the little community. He was just on the point of asking his companion about this, when another strange sight was displayed to him; all the children, howsoever they might be occupied, stopped their work, and turned, with peculiar yet various gestures, toward the party riding past; and it was easy to infer that their object was the overseer. The youngest folded their arms crosswise on the breast, and looked cheerfully toward the sky; the intermediate ones held their arms behind them, and looked smiling upon the ground; the third sort stood erect and boldly; with arms at the side, they turned the head to the right, and placed themselves in a row, instead of remaining alone, like the others, where they were first seen.

Accordingly, when they halted and dismounted, just where several children had ranged themselves in various attitudes and were being inspected by the overseer, Wilhelm asked the meaning of these gestures.

Felix interposed, and said cheerfully: "What position have I to take, then?"

"In any case," answered the intendant, "at first the arms across the breast, and looking seriously and gladly upward, without turning your glance." He obeyed; how ever he soon exclaimed: "This does not please me particularly; I see nothing overhead; does it last long? But yes, indeed," he exclaimed joyfully, "I see two hawks flying from west to east; that must be a good omen!"

"It depends on how you take to it, how you behave yourself," rejoined the former; "now go and mingle with them, just as they mingle with each other."

He made a sign, the children forsook their attitudes, resumed their occupations or went on playing as before. "Will you, and can you," Wilhelm now asked, "explain to me that which causes my wonder? I suppose that these gestures, these positions, are greetings, with which they welcome you."

"Just so," answered the other; "greetings, that tell me at once at what stage of cultivation each of these boys stands."

"But could you," Wilhelm added, "explain to me the meaning of the graduation? For that it is such, is easy to see."

"That is the part of better people than me," answered the other; "but I can assure you of this much, that they are no empty grimaces, and that, on the contrary, we impart to the children, not indeed the highest, but still a guiding and intelligible explanation; but at the same time we command each to keep and cherish for himself what we may have chosen to impart for the information of each: they may not chat about it with strangers, nor amongst themselves, and thus the teaching is modified in a hundred ways. Besides this the secrecy has very great advantages; for if we tell people immediately and perpetually the reason of everything, they think that there is nothing behind. To certain secrets, even if they may be known, we have to show deference by concealment and silence, for this tends to modesty and good morals."

"I understand you," said Wilhelm. "Why should we not also apply spiritually, what is so necessary in bodily matters? But perhaps in another respect you can satisfy my curiosity. I am surprised at the great variety in the cut and color of their clothes, and yet I do not see all kinds of color, but a few only, and these in all their shades, from the brightest to the darkest. Still I observe, that in this there cannot be meant any indication of degrees of either age or merit; since the smallest and biggest boys mingled together, may be alike in cut and color, whilst those who are alike in gestures do not agree with one another in dress."

"As concerns this, too," their companion replied, "I cannot explain any further; yet I shall be much mistaken it you depart hence without being enlightened about all that you may wish to know."

They were now going in search of the master, whom they thought that they had found; but now a stranger could not but be struck by the fact that the deeper they got into the country, the more they were met by a harmonious sound of singing. Whatsoever the boys set about, in whatever work they were found engaged, they were for ever singing, and in fact it seemed that the songs were specially adapted to each particular occupation, and in similar cases always the same. If several children were in any place, they would accompany each other in turns.

Toward evening they came upon some dancing, their steps being animated and guided by choruses. Felix from his horse chimed in with his voice, and, in truth, not badly; Wilhelm was delighted with this entertainment, which made the neighborhood so lively. "I suppose," he observed to his companion, "you devote a great deal of care to this kind of instruction, for otherwise this ability would not be so widely diffused, or so perfectly developed."

"Just so," replied the other; "with us the art of singing forms the first step in education; everything else is subservient to it, and attained by means of it. With us the simplest enjoyment, as well as the simplest instruction, is enlivened and impressed by singing; and even what we teach in matters of religion and morals is communicated by the method of song. Other advantages for independent ends are directly allied; for, whilst we practise the children in writing down by symbols on the slate the notes which they produce, and then, according to the indication of these signs, in reproducing them in their throats, and moreover in adding the text, they exercise at the same time the hand, ear, and eye, and attain orthography and calligraphy quicker than you would believe; and, finally, since all this must be practised and copied according to pure metre and accurately fixed time, they learn to understand much sooner than in other ways the high value of measure and computation. On this account, of all imaginable means, we have chosen music as the first element of our education, for from this equally easy roads radiate in every direction."

Wilhelm sought to inform himself further, and did not hide his astonishment at hearing no instrumental music.

"We do not neglect it," replied the other, "but we practise it in a special place, inclosed in the most charming mountain-valley; and then again we take care that the different instruments are taught in places lying far apart. Especially are the discordant notes of beginners banished to certain solitary spots, where they can drive no one crazy; for you will yourself confess, that in well-regulated civil society scarcely any more miserable nuisance is to be endured than when the neighborhood inflicts upon us a beginner on the flute or on the violin. Our beginners, from their own laudable notion of wishing to be an annoyance to none, go voluntarily for a longer or shorter period into the wilds, and, isolated there, vie with one another in attaining the merit of being allowed to draw nearer to the inhabited world; on which account they are, from time to time, allowed to make an attempt at drawing nearer, which seldom fails, because in these, as in our other modes of education, we venture actually to develop and encourage a sense of shame and diffidence. I am sincerely glad that your son has got a good voice; the rest will be effected all the more easily."

They had now reached a place where Felix was to remain, and make trial of his surroundings, until they were disposed to grant a formal admission. They already heard from afar a cheerful singing; it was a game, which the boys were now enjoying in their play-hour. A general chorus resounded, in which each member of a large circle joined heartily, clearly, and vigorously in his part, obeying the directions of the superintendent. The latter, however, often took the singers by surprise, by suspending with a signal the chorus-singing, and bidding some one or other single performer, by a touch of his baton, to adapt alone some suitable song to the expiring tune and the passing idea. Most of them already showed considerable ability, a few who failed in the performance willingly paid their forfeit, without exactly being made a laughing-stock. Felix was still child enough to mix at once among them, and came tolerably well out of the trial. Thereupon the first style of greeting was conceded to him; he forthwith folded his arms on his breast, looked upward, and with such a droll expression withal, that it was quite plain that no hidden meaning in it had as yet occurred to him.

The pleasant spot, the kind reception, the merry games, all pleased the boy so well, that he did not feel particularly sad when he saw his father depart; he looked almost more wistfully at the horse as it was led away; yet he had no difficulty in understanding, when he was informed that he could not keep it in the present locality. On the other hand, they promised him that he should find, if not the same, at all events an equally lively and well-trained one when he did not expect it.

As the superior could not be found, the overseer said: "I must now leave you, to pursue my own avocations; but still I will take you to the Three, who preside over holy things: your letter is also addressed to them, and together they stand in place of the Superior."

Wilhelm would have liked to learn beforehand about the holy things, but the other replied. "The Three in return for the confidence with which you have left your son with us, will certainly, in accordance with wisdom and justice, reveal to you all that is most necessary. The visible objects of veneration, which I have called holy things, are included within a particular boundary, are not mingled with anything, or disturbed by anything; only at certain times of the year, the pupils, according to the stages of their education, are admitted to them, in order that they may be instructed historically and through their senses; for in this way they carry off with them an impression, enough for them to feed upon for a long time in the exercise of their duty."

Wilhelm now stood at the entrance of a forest-valley, inclosed by lofty walls; on a given signal a small door was opened, and a serious, respectable-looking man received our friend. He found himself within a large and beautifully verdant inclosure, shaded with trees and bushes of every kind, so that he could scarcely see some stately walls and fine buildings through the dense and lofty natural growth; his friendly reception by the Three, who came up by-and-by, ultimately concluded in a conversation, to which each contributed something of his own, but the substance of which we shall put together in brief.

"Since you have intrusted your son to us," they said, "it is our duty to let you see more deeply into our methods of proceeding. You have seen many external things, that do not carry their significance with them all at once; which of these do you most wish to have explained?"

"I have remarked certain seemly yet strange gestures and obeisances, the significance of which I should like to learn; with you no doubt what is external has reference to what is within, and vice versa; let me understand this relation."

"Well-bred and healthy children possess a great deal; Nature has given to each everything that he needs for time and continuance: our duty is to develop this; often it is better developed by itself. But one thing no one brings into the world, and yet it is that upon which depends everything through which a man becomes a man on every side. If you can find it out yourself, speak out."