IDYLLIC.
"HAPPY season of Childhood!" exclaims Teufelsdrockh: "Kind Nature, that
art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man's hut with
auroral radiance; and for thy Nursling hast provided a soft swathing of
Love and infinite Hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced round
(_umgaukelt_) by sweetest Dreams! If the paternal Cottage still shuts us
in, its roof still screens us; with a Father we have as yet a prophet,
priest and king, and an Obedience that makes us free. The young spirit has
awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we mean by Time; as yet Time
is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean; years to the child
are as ages: ah! the secret of Vicissitude, of that slower or quicker
decay and ceaseless down-rushing of the universal World-fabric, from the
granite mountain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in a
motionless Universe, we taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling
Universe is forever denied us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair Child,
for thy long rough journey is at hand! A little while, and thou too shalt
sleep no more, but thy very dreams shall be mimic battles; thou too, with
old Arnauld, wilt have to say in stern patience: 'Rest? Rest? Shall I
not have all Eternity to rest in?' Celestial Nepenthe! though a Pyrrhus
conquer empires, and an Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not; and
thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eyelids, on the
heart of every mother's child. For as yet, sleep and waking are one: the
fair Life-garden rustles infinite around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance,
and the budding of Hope; which budding, if in youth, too frost-nipt, it
grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly,
bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can find the kernel."
In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as Poets are wont, look back
on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say nothing of much
other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on with an almost
wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing "in trustful
derangement" among the woody slopes; the paternal Orchard flanking it as
extreme outpost from below; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among
beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, into the Black Sea,
into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how "the brave old Linden,"
stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all other
rows and clumps, towered up from the central _Agora_ and _Campus Martius_
of the Village, like its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat talking under
its shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied laborers
reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the young men and maidens
often danced to flute-music. "Glorious summer twilights," cries
Teufelsdrockh, "when the Sun, like a proud Conqueror and Imperial
Taskmaster, turned his back, with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his
fireclad bodyguard (of Prismatic Colors); and the tired brickmakers of this
clay Earth might steal a little frolic, and those few meek Stars would not
tell of them!"
Then we have long details of the _Weinlesen_ (Vintage), the Harvest-Home,
Christmas, and so forth; with a whole cycle of the Entepfuhl
Children's-games, differing apparently by mere superficial shades from
those of other countries. Concerning all which, we shall here, for obvious
reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as yet miniature
Philosopher's achievements under that "brave old Linden "? Or even where
is the use of such practical reflections as the following? "In all the
sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and defacements,
you shall discern a creative instinct (_schaffenden Trieb_): the Mankin
feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is to work. The choicest
present you can make him is a Tool; be it knife or pen-gun, for
construction or for destruction; either way it is for Work, for Change. In
gregarious sports of skill or strength, the Boy trains himself to
Co-operation, for war or peace, as governor or governed: the little Maid
again, provident of her domestic destiny, takes with preference to Dolls."
Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who it is that
relates it: "My first short-clothes were of yellow serge; or rather, I
should say, my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one and indivisible,
reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four limbs: of which fashion
how little could I then divine the architectural, how much less the moral
significance!"
More graceful is the following little picture: "On fine evenings I was
wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it
out-of-doors. On the coping of the Orchard-wall, which I could reach by
climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the
pruning-ladder, my porringer was placed: there, many a sunset, have I,
looking at the distant western Mountains, consumed, not without relish, my
evening meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of World's
expectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me; nevertheless I
was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and had an eye for their
gilding."
With "the little one's friendship for cattle and poultry" we shall not much
intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired a "certain deeper sympathy
with animated Nature:" but when, we would ask, saw any man, in a
collection of Biographical Documents, such a piece as this: "Impressive
enough (_bedeutungsvoll_) was it to hear, in early morning, the Swineherd's
horn; and know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds were, on all sides,
starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on the Heath. Or to see
them at eventide, all marching in again, with short squeak, almost in
military order; and each, topographically correct, trotting off in
succession to the right or left, through its own lane, to its own dwelling;
till old Kunz, at the Village-head, now left alone, blew his last blast,
and retired for the night. We are wont to love the Hog chiefly in the form
of Ham; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned beings here manifest
intelligence, perhaps humor of character; at any rate, a touching, trustful
submissiveness to Man,--who, were he but a Swineherd, in darned gabardine,
and leather breeches more resembling slate or discolored-tin breeches, is
still the Hierarch of this lower world?"
It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius is
quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly
favorable influences accompany him through life, especially through
childhood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded and continue
dunces. Herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an
inspired Prophet and a double-barrelled Game-preserver: the inner man of
the one has been fostered into generous development; that of the other,
crushed down perhaps by vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has exuded
and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at the bottom
of his stomach. "With which opinion," cries Teufelsdrockh, "I should as
soon agree as with this other, that an acorn might, by favorable or
unfavorable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or
the cabbage-seed into an oak.
"Nevertheless," continues he, "I too acknowledge the all-but omnipotence of
early culture and nurture: hereby we have either a doddered dwarf bush, or
a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree; either a sick yellow cabbage, or an
edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men,
especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the
characteristic circumstances of their Education, what furthered, what
hindered, what in any way modified it: to which duty, nowadays so pressing
for many a German Autobiographer, I also zealously address myself."--Thou
rogue! Is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and swineherd horns, that
an infant of genius is educated? And yet, as usual, it ever remains
doubtful whether he is laughing in his sleeve at these Autobiographical
times of ours, or writing from the abundance of his own fond ineptitude.
For he continues: "If among the ever-streaming currents of Sights,
Hearings, Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as in a Magic Hall, young
Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to select and specify,
perhaps these following were also of the number:
"Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so the young
creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical tendency given him
by the narrative habits of Father Andreas; who, with his
battle-reminiscences, and gray austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect, could
not but appear another Ulysses and 'much-enduring Man.' Eagerly I hung
upon his tales, when listening neighbors enlivened the hearth; from these
perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades itself, a dim world
of Adventure expanded itself within me. Incalculable also was the
knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old Men under the Linden-tree: the
whole of Immensity was yet new to me; and had not these reverend seniors,
talkative enough, been employed in partial surveys thereof for nigh
fourscore years? With amazement I began to discover that Entepfuhl stood
in the middle of a Country, of a World; that there was such a thing as
History, as Biography to which I also, one day, by hand and tongue, might
contribute.
"In a like sense worked the _Postwagen_ (Stage-coach), which, slow-rolling
under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through our Village:
northwards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards visibly at
eventide. Not till my eighth year did I reflect that this Postwagen could
be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere Law of
Nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on made highways, from far
cities towards far cities; weaving them like a monstrous shuttle into
closer and closer union. It was then that, independently of Schiller's
_Wilhelm Tell_, I made this not quite insignificant reflection (so true
also in spiritual things): _Any road, this simple Entepfuhl road, will
lead you to the end of the World_!
"Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far Africa, as I learned,
threading their way over seas and mountains, corporate cities and
belligerent nations, yearly found themselves with the month of May,
snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby? The hospitable Father (for cleanliness'
sake) had fixed a little bracket plumb under their nest: there they built,
and caught flies, and twittered, and bred; and all, I chiefly, from the
heart loved them. Bright, nimble creatures, who taught you the
mason-craft; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic incorporation, almost
social police? For if, by ill chance, and when time pressed, your House
fell, have I not seen five neighborly Helpers appear next day; and swashing
to and fro, with animated, loud, long-drawn chirpings, and activity almost
super-hirundine, complete it again before nightfall?
"But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's culture, where as
in a funnel its manifold influences were concentrated and simultaneously
poured down on us, was the annual Cattle-fair. Here, assembling from all
the four winds, came the elements of an unspeakable hurry-burly. Nut-brown
maids and nut-brown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, bedizened and
beribanded; who came for dancing, for treating, and if possible, for
happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the North; Swiss Brokers, Italian
Drovers, also topbooted, from the South; these with their subalterns in
leather jerkins, leather skull-caps, and long ox-goads; shouting in
half-articulate speech, amid the inarticulate barking and bellowing. Apart
stood Potters from far Saxony, with their crockery in fair rows; Nurnberg
Pedlers, in booths that to me seemed richer than Ormuz bazaars; Showmen
from the Lago Maggiore; detachments of the _Wiener Schub_ (Offscourings of
Vienna) vociferously superintending games of chance. Ballad-singers
brayed, Auctioneers grew hoarse; cheap New Wine (_heuriger_) flowed like
water, still worse confounding the confusion; and high over all, vaulted,
in ground-and-lofty tumbling, a particolored Merry-Andrew, like the genius
of the place and of Life itself.
"Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep heavenly
Firmament; waited on by the four golden Seasons, with their vicissitudes of
contribution, for even grim Winter brought its skating-matches and
shooting-matches, its snow-storms and Christmas-carols,--did the Child sit
and learn. These things were the Alphabet, whereby in aftertime he was to
syllable and partly read the grand Volume of the World: what matters it
whether such Alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small ungilt ones, so
you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of
looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded all: his existence was a
bright, soft element of Joy; out of which, as in Prospero's Island, wonder
after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach by charming.
"Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even then my felicity
was perfect. I had, once for all, come down from Heaven into the Earth.
Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay even in childhood a
dark ring of Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and often quite
overshone; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader and broader;
till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy, and threatened
to engulf me in final night. It was the ring of Necessity whereby we are
all begirt; happy he for whom a kind heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring
of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful prismatic diffractions; yet
ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole being, it is there.
"For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we have not
much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly to
look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have
understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. If good
Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were
the thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most. In
all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous
Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished? On
the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power
(_Thatkraft_) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how many
traces yet abide with me! In an orderly house, where the litter of
children's sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical; rather
to bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid much: wishes in any
measure bold I had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond of Obedience
inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often came in painful
collision with Necessity; so that my tears flowed, and at seasons the Child
itself might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith the whole fruitage of
our life is mingled and tempered.
"In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond measure safer to
err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our universal duty and destiny;
wherein whoso will not bend must break: too early and too thoroughly we
cannot be trained to know that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere
zero to Should, and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to
Shall. Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly Discretion, nay of
Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my upbringing. It was rigorous,
too frugal, compressively secluded, every way unscientific: yet in that
very strictness and domestic solitude might there not lie the root of
deeper earnestness, of the stem from which all noble fruit must grow?
Above all, how unskilful soever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest;
whereby every deficiency was helped. My kind Mother, for as such I must
ever love the good Gretchen, did me one altogether invaluable service: she
taught me, less indeed by word than by act and daily reverent look and
habitude, her own simple version of the Christian Faith. Andreas too
attended Church; yet more like a parade-duty, for which he in the other
world expected pay with arrears,--as, I trust, he has received; but my
Mother, with a true woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was
in the strictest acceptation Religious. How indestructibly the Good grows,
and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of Evil! The
highest whom I knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable,
before a Higher in Heaven: such things, especially in infancy, reach
inwards to the very core of your being; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies
build itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps; and Reverence, the
divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelopment of Fear.
Wouldst thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so rudely,
there was a God in Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son that only knew there
were two-and-thirty quarters on the family-coach?"
To which last question we must answer: Beware, O Teufelsdrockh, of
spiritual pride!