Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864», sayfa 4

But, on the other hand, as we have remarked, the seeds of the present Liberal party were sown during this same period of national disaster, and that, too, by the royal hand. The regeneration of Prussia is attributed by all to the indefatigable efforts of the minister, Baron von Stein, and, after he was deposed by command of Napoleon, of his successor, Count Hardenberg. Their work, however, consisted not only in abolishing villanage, the usufruct of royal lands, serfdom, the exemption of the nobility from taxation, and the oppressive monopoly of the guilds; in giving to all classes the right of holding landed possessions and high offices; in the reconstruction of the courts; in the enfranchisement of the cities; in the promotion of general education; in relieving military service of many abuses and severities;—this was not all: the king was moved to issue, October 27, 1810, an edict, in which he distinctly promised to give the people a constitution and a national parliamentary representation. A year later this promise was renewed. 'Our intention,' says the king, 'still is, as we promised in the edict of October 27, 1810, to give the nation a judiciously constituted representation.' That this promise was not immediately fulfilled is, considering the condition of the country, not specially surprising. Whatever may then have been the king's personal inclinations, there is perhaps no reason to doubt that he intended to introduce the constitution as soon as the return of peace should give him the requisite means of devoting to the subject his undivided attention. That the promise was originally drawn from him by the urgent influence of his counsellors, especially Von Stein and Hardenberg, there is every reason to believe. That he should have been inclined, unsolicited, to limit his own power, is more than can ordinarily be expected of monarchs. The bad love power because it gratifies their selfish lusts; the good, who really wish the weal of their subjects, can easily persuade themselves that the more freely they can use their power, the better it will be for all concerned. But, for whatever reasons, the pledge was given; yet, though Frederick William reigned thirty years after giving it, he never fulfilled the pledge. It may be that, had he done so, the party divisions which now agitate the land would not have been avoided. Conservatives might have complained that he had yielded too much to the unreasonable demands of an unenlightened populace; Liberals might have complained that he had not yielded enough; at all events, the opposing principles, of the divine right of kings, and of popular self-government, whatever form they might have taken, would have divided public sentiment. This may have been; but even more certain is it that the failure on the part of the monarch to carry out a promise solemnly and repeatedly made, a promise which he never would have made unless believing that it would gratify his people, could not but lead ultimately to a deep disaffection on the part of the people. His course resembled too much the equivocating prophecies of the witches in Macbeth; he kept the word of promise to the ear, and broke it to the hope. It is then not strange that many should have found their faith in royalty weakened, and come to the conclusion that whatever was to be gained in the point of popular government must be secured by insisting on it as a right which the Government nolens volens should be required to concede.

Such, in general terms, is the animus of the two political parties of Prussia. Turning to a more particular consideration of the historical progress of events, we find that the first movement toward a freer development of popular character was made by Frederick the Great. Throughout his life he was inclined, theoretically, to favor a republican form of government; and, although he was no friend of sudden changes, and did not think that the time had come for a radical change in Prussia, he yet recognized the truth that a king's duty is to act as the servant of the state; and, in spite of the sternness with which, in many relations, he exercised his power, he introduced some changes which may be regarded as the earnests of a permanent establishment of a constitutional government. These changes consisted specially in the increase of freedom which he allowed respecting the press, religion, and the administration of justice. But, as we have seen, nothing like a real limitation of the royal power was undertaken until the War of Liberation seemed to make it a national necessity. The changes which Frederick William's ministers made in the social and political condition of the people were in themselves of vast and permanent importance. They were made under the stimulus of a more or less clear recognition of the truth of natural, inalienable rights. Fighting against a people whose frightful aggressions were the product of this principle abnormally developed, they yet had to borrow their own weapons from the same armory. Or, if the republican principle was not at all approved, the course of the Government showed that it was so far believed in by the people that certain concessions to it were necessary as a matter of policy. But these changes were yet by no means equivalent to the introduction of republican elements in the Government. An approach was made toward the granting of equality of rights; but this was only granted; the Government was still absolute; strictly speaking, it had the right, so far as formal obligations were concerned, to remove the very privileges which it had given. But the promise of something more was given also. Besides the already-mentioned renewal of that promise, the king, June 3, 1814, in an order issued while he was in Paris, intimated his intention to come to a final conclusion respecting the particular form of the constitution after his return to Berlin. In May, 1815, he issued another edict, the substance of which was that provision should be made for a parliamentary representation of the people; that, to this end, the so-called estates of the provinces should be reorganized, and from them representatives should be chosen, who should have the right to deliberate respecting all subjects of legislation which concern the persons and property of citizens; and that a commission should be at once appointed, to meet in Berlin on the first of September, whose business should be to frame a constitution. But this commission was not then appointed, and of course did not meet on the first of September. Two years later the commissioners were named; but their work has never been heard of.

Here is to be discerned a manifest wavering in the mind of the king respecting the fulfilment of his intentions. The German States, taught by the bitter experience of the late war the disadvantages of their dismembered condition, and bound together more closely than ever before by the recollection of their common sufferings and common triumphs, saw the necessity of a real union, to take the place of the merely nominal one which had thus far existed in the shadowy hegemony of the house of Hapsburg. The German Confederation, essentially as it still exists, was organized at Vienna by the rulers of the several German States and representatives from the free cities, June 8, 1815. Although there was in this assembly no direct representation of the people, it is clear that its deliberations were in great part determined by the unmistakable utterances of the popular mind. For one of the first measures adopted was to provide that in all the States of the Confederacy constitutional governments should be guaranteed. Frederick William himself was one of the most urgent supporters of this provision. It is therefore not calculated to elevate our estimation of the openness, honesty, and simplicity for which this king is praised, and to which his general course seems to entitle him, that as late as March, 1818, in reply to a petition from the city of Coblenz, that he would grant the promised constitution, he remarked that 'neither the order of May 22, 1815, nor article xiii. of the acts of the Confederacy had fixed the time of the grant, and that the determination of this time must be left to the free choice of the sovereign, in whom unconditional confidence ought to be placed.' We are to account for this hesitation, however, not by supposing that he originally intended to delay the measure in question so long as he actually did delay it, but by the fears with which he was inspired by the popular demonstrations in the times following the close of the war. The fact was palpable, not only that the idea of popular rights, notwithstanding the miserable failure of the French Revolution, had become everywhere current, but that, together with this feeling, a desire for German unity was weakening the hold of the several princes on their particular peoples. At this time sprang up the so-called Deutsche Burschenschaft, organizations of young men, whose object was to promote the cause of German union. The tri-centennial anniversary of the Reformation, in 1817, was made the occasion of inflaming the public mind with this idea. The sentiment found ready access to the German heart. It was shared and advocated by many of the best and ablest men. As subsidiary to the same movement, was at the same time introduced the practice of systematic and social gymnastic exercises, an institution which still exists, and constitutes one of the most prominent features of the German movement. Immense concourses of gymnasts from all parts of Germany meet yearly to practise in friendly rivalry, and inspire one another with zeal for the good of the common fatherland. But the Burschenschaft in its pristine glory could not so long continue. The separate German Governments were naturally jealous of the influence of these organizations, and, though not able to accuse them of directly aiming at treason and revolution, were ready to seize the first pretext for striking at their power. A pretext was soon found. A certain Von Kotzebue, a novelist of some notoriety, suspected of being a Russian spy, wrote a book in which he attacked the Burschenschaft with great severity. A theological student at Jena, Karl Sand, whose enthusiasm in the cause of the Burschenschaft had reached the pitch of a half-insane fanaticism, took it upon him to avenge the wounded honor of the German name. He visited Kotzebue at the dwelling of the latter, delivered him a letter, and, while he was reading it, stabbed him with a dagger. Sand was of course executed, and, though it was proved that the crime was wholly his own, though the German Confederation, through a commission appointed specially for the purpose of searching all the papers of the participants in the Burschenschaft movement, found no evidence of anything like treasonable purposes, yet it was resolved that these 'demagogical intrigues' must cease. The Burschenschaft was pronounced a treasonable association; its members were punished by imprisonment or exile. The poet and professor Arndt and the professor Jahn, prominent leaders in the movement, were not only deposed from their professorships, but also imprisoned. The celebrated De Wette was removed from the chair of theology in the University of Berlin, simply because, on the ground that an erring conscience ought to be obeyed, he had excused the deed of Sand. In short, the princes intended effectually to crush the efforts which, though indirectly, were tending to undermine their thrones. Seemingly they succeeded. But they had only 'scotched the snake, not killed it.' It is easy to see that these developments must have shaken Frederick William's purpose. Of all things, the most unpleasant to a monarch is to be driven by his subjects. In the present case he saw not only a loosening of the loyalty which he felt to be due to him, but also a positive transfer of loyalty, if we may so speak, from the Prussian throne to the German people in general. If he should now grant a popular constitution, he would seem not only to be yielding to a pressure, but would be surrendering what he regarded as a sacred right, into the hands of ungrateful recipients. He therefore set himself against the popular current, gave up his former plan, and contented himself with restoring, in some degree, the form of government as it had existed before the establishment of the absolute monarchy. He gave, in 1823, to the estates of the provinces, a class of men consisting partly of nobles and owners of knights' manors, partly of representatives of the cities and of the peasants, the right of advising the crown in matters specially concerning the several provinces. Nothing further was done in the matter of modifying the constitution during the reign of Frederick William III., although he declared his intention of organizing a national diet.

Comparative quiet ensued till 1830, when the French revolution, followed by the insurrection of the Austrian Netherlands against Holland, and of Poland against Russia, again stirred the public mind. But, although the Polish revolution, on account of its local proximity and ancient political relations, threatened to involve Prussia in war, she yet escaped the danger, and passed through the excitement with little internal commotion. But the existence of disaffection was made manifest by sundry disturbances in the chief cities, which, however, were easily quelled. Suffering under no palpable oppression, accustomed once more to peace, seeing no prospect of gaining any radical change in the form of government except through violent and bloody measures, which, as experience had proved, would, after all, be likely to be unsuccessful, the masses of the people had little heart for a constant agitation in behalf of an indefinite and uncertain good. Those who did continue the agitation exhibited less of zeal for German unity and more for that sort of liberalism which had been current in France, than had marked the efforts of the Burschenschaft. Many of the leaders were obliged to escape the country, in order to avoid arrest.

In 1840, Frederick William IV. ascended the throne. According to the old custom, he summoned to Koenigsberg the estates of the provinces of Prussia and Posen to attend the coronation and take their oaths of fealty. On this occasion he inquired of this body whether they would elect twelve members of the East Prussian knighthood, to represent the old order of lords, and what privileges they wished to have secured. They replied that they saw no need of reviving that order; and as to privileges, instead of mentioning any in particular which they desired to see protected, they wished them all protected and confirmed. They then reminded the king of the promise of his father to give the nation a constitution and a diet. The king replied that their reasons for declining the first proposal were satisfactory, but the establishment of a general representation of the people he must decline to grant, 'on account of the true interests of the people intrusted to his care.' The dissatisfaction produced by this reply was somewhat tempered by the splendor of the coronation ceremonies, and by the hitherto unknown condescension of the king in addressing the assembled throng as he took upon him the vow to be a just judge, a faithful, provident, merciful prince, a Christian king, as his ever-memorable father had been. Personally he was a man of more than ordinary talents and of estimable character. High expectations could be, and were, entertained of the success of his reign. One of his first acts was to release from prison those who were there languishing for having been connected with the Burschenschaft. He manifested in his general policy a mildness and benevolence which, had he lived when nothing had ever been heard of a constitution, would have doubtless secured for him the uninterrupted lore and devotion of his subjects. As it was, it is probable that his reign would have been disturbed by no serious outbreak, had the occasion for disturbance not come from without.

ASLEEP

 
What, darling, asleep in this sylvan retreat!
Thy loose tresses sprinkled with rose petals sweet;
Blown in from the sunlight, some float to thy breast;
Less fragrant are they than their beautiful nest.
 
 
There flutt'ring a moment they rise and they sink,
As quivers a humbird his honey to drink,
Or fond doves a-wooing that shiver their wings,
Or throat of a song bird that throbs while he sings.
 
 
These petals at last swoon far down in thy snow,
Whose warm drifts of wonder they only can know;
And hidden they lie there all rocked by thy breath,
And pressed in soft odors to ravishing death.
 
 
Thine eyes their dear curtains now shut from the light,
Sweet veined and blue tinted they round to my sight,
Fair shells of deep oceans! And sometimes a shell,
When close to your ear, its home secrets will tell:
 
 
But in music so mystic, you cannot guess
The strange tales of Ocean it tries to confess.
So lady, thine eyelids, as skies shut the sea,
Or shells try to whisper, are whisp'ring to me.
 
 
As glad streams of day 'neath the dawn's glowing tide,
So white keys of laughter thy curving lips hide,
Warm gates of the morning, when morning is new,
And red for the sunshine of smiles to break through!
 
 
Thy round arms rest o'er thee so fair and so lone,
Like that white path of stars across the night's zone:
That pathway, when twilight late vanishing dies,
Embraces the earth, though it quits not the skies.
 
 
Thus stars kiss the hills, and the trees, and the plain,
Yet never can they kiss the stars back again;
Though yearning they thirst for those arms of the sky,
They never will taste the white home where they lie.
 
 
So rivers and oceans with influence sweet,
Their mighty hearts swelling loved Luna to greet,
Strain sobbing their bosoms to hold her dear face,
And thrilled to their depths with her luminous grace,
 
 
In tossing waves rapturous rise to her smile.
In vain! Their coy queen half receding the while,
In slow fainting cadence they sink to the shore,
And hoarse tones of love-hunger moan evermore.
 
 
Ah, lady, bright sleeper, my soul, like the sea,
Illumed with thy beauty, is trembling to thee:
I kneel in the silence, and drink in the air
That, fragrant and holy, has toyed with thy hair;
 
 
And hushed in thy presence with worshipping fear—
The breeze even stills when it reaches thine ear—
My lips dare not whisper in softest refrain
The trance of my heart in its passionate pain.
 
 
Oh, open thine eyes! let their smile make me brave—
The Queen e'en of Ocean will look at her slave!—
Let me drown in their light—deliciously drown,
And lay thy white hand on my head for a crown,
 
 
And chrism. And thus regally shrived, might I dare
Exhale the warm infinite incense of prayer
From my deep soul to thine. Nor then couldst thou know
The wealth of the censer. Thou wak'st!—must I go?
 

A CASTLE IN THE AIR

 
'I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;
I said, 'O soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.'
 

Tennyson.

Times are changed. Most people (i.e., Bostonians) now build their castles on the 'new land.'⁴ But I belong to the old school, and I still build mine in the air.

The situation has its advantages. As Miss Gail Hamilton observed, when I had the pleasure of exhibiting it to her, it is airy. I need scarcely add that it is the favorite haunt of those kindred spirits Ari-osto and Ary Scheffer. It is too high ever to be reached by any unsavory odors from the Back Bay. Cool in summer it is also, notwithstanding, remarkably warm in winter. My castle is quite too retired for any critics to intrude upon it. They cannot get at the plan of it even, unless in the event of its being shown them by my friend, the editor of a popular magazine, which is a betrayal too improbable to enter into my calculations.

There is no stucco or sham about my castle. Like a fair and frank republican, I built it all of pure freestone, from the doorsteps up to the observatory. This observatory—I will speak of it while I think of it—holds a telescope exactly like the one at Cambridge, except that the tube has a blue-glass spectacle to screw on, through which it does not put out one's eye to look at the moon.

My workmen never make mistakes nor keep me waiting. The painters paint, the upholsterers upholster, and the carpenters carpent precisely when and as I wish. I do not have to heat myself by running over the town for straw matting, nor to catch cold in crypts full of carpets. Everything that I order comes to my door as soon as I order.

Every time that I go down Washington street, I choose something in the shop windows for my castle—an engraving at Williams & Everett's, a mosaic or classic onyx at Jordan's, or a camel's hair—for a dressing gown, of course at Hovey's. It really costs surprisingly little, and is an agreeable exercise of taste and judgment. It is likewise an exercise of benevolence. I select as many things for my guests as I do for myself. My castle is never too full. Little by little my tastes change; and little by little, I let most of my old treasures go to make room for new ones.

But certain principles always prevail in my selections. For instance, as my particular friend, the Reverend George Herbert, remarked, as he looked about him on one of his visits to my castle: 'Sober handsomeness doth bear the bell.' I cannot admit anything gaudy, needlessly exotic, or impertinently obtruding the idea of dollars. Now a travelled lady, who had heard of my castle, once offered me for it a buhl cabinet, of angry and alarming redness and a huge idol of a gilded trough, standing on bandy legs, and gorged with artificial flowers. And I thanked her for her kind intentions, ordered a handcart, sent the lumber to auction, and applied the proceeds to the benefit of the insane.

Tapestry, however, clever bronzes, sheathed daggers from Hassam's with beetles crawling on the hilts, and illuminated, brazen-clasped old tomes abound at my castle. They come to me one by one, each bringing with it its separate pleasure. I have no fancy for buying up, at one fell swoop, the whole establishment of some bankrupt banker or confiscated Russian nobleman. Instead of slipping at once, like a dishonest hermit-crab, into the whole investment of somebody else, I rather choose to come by my own, as I suppose other more happily constituted shell-fish do, by gradual and individual accretion or secretion.

My winter parlor looks down Beacon street. It is lofty, like all the rest of my apartments, but otherwise small and snug. The floor is of a dark wood, polished to the utmost. The great wood-fire loves to wink at its own glowing face mirrored in this floor; and, when alone, I often skate upon it. But as I do not wish to see my less sure-footed friends disposed about it in writhing attitudes expressive of agony and broken bones, I usually keep it covered, up to a yard's breadth from the dark-carved wainscot, with a velvety carpet, which was woven for me at Wilton, and represents the casting scene in the 'Song of the Bell.' The window curtains are of velvet, of just the shade of purple that nestles in the centre of the most splendid kind of fuchsia, and have an Etruscan border and heavy fringes of gold bullion. The walls are covered with a crimson velvet paper, of the hue of the outer petals of that same fuchsia, with little golden suns shining over it everywhere. One end of the room is further lighted up by a portrait of the terrestrial fury Etna, in a full suit of grape vines and an explosion of fiery wrath. Opposite is a spirited scene, by an artist who shall be nameless, suggested by a passage in an interesting sermon by Jonathan Edwards. The contemplation of the latter picture, especially, makes a chance sensation of chilliness a luxury rather than the contrary.

My tawny Scotch terrier, Wye-I, always takes up his position on the purple plush cushion at one side of the fireplace, and the Maltese cat, Cattiva, on the crimson one opposite, by instinct, because most becoming severally to their complexions. The cat never catches mice. There are no mice in my castle for her to catch. The dog is much attached to her. He is considered remarkably intelligent. In gratitude for my forbearing to cut off his tail, he uses it as a brush, watches the coals, and, when they snap out, sweeps them up with it. He sometimes, with a natural sensibility which does him no discredit, accompanies the performance with the appropriate music which has earned him his name.

My summer parlor is much larger. It is paved with little hexagonal tiles, green, purple, and white alternately, like a bed of cool violets, with a border of marine shells in mosaic. The walls are cloaked as greatly as the Cloaca Maxima, with verdant leaves, light and dark, through which, here and there, peeps a rock. There is no arsenic among them. The windows look seaward to see the ships come and go. Venetian blinds, of the kind that turn up and down, admit only green light at noon, softer or brighter according to my mood. Lace curtains sweep the floor with a slumberous sound when the sea breeze breathes in. Some of my visitors might say that this room was too empty. I should promptly disagree with them. To a person of correct taste, not to speak of a philanthropic bias, it must be painful to see, in warm weather, anything which calls up a vision of warm handmaidens, laborious with their brooms and dusters. Therefore I must persist in admitting here little furniture besides the oriental bamboo couches and porcelain barrels that flank the room, with little daisy-and-moss-like chenille rugs beside them. One Canton tepoy holds my aquarium, and another, beside the most frequented of the lounges, the last number of the most weighty of North American periodicals. If ever I take a nap, it is here.

In the centre of the room, a white-marble Egeria, carved by Thorwaldsen, throws up between her hands a shaft of cold crystal water, pure as truth, which spreads into a silvery veil all around her, and plashes down in a snowy basin: no place could be more inviting for a bath. But in the winter Egeria shows her power of adaptation by furnishing instead a Geyser of hot water. Then I turn my scientific friends in here, when they call upon me, to make them feel at home.

In the position of Jack Horner, sits Miss Hosmer's Puck. Opposite is a mate production, which she never put on exhibition. It is Ariel, perched hiding in a honeysuckle, and leaning slyly out to play on an Æolian harp in a cottage latticed window.

Over the somewhat frequented couch of which I have spoken, there is a picture by Paul Delaroche of

 
'Sabrina fair
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose folds of her amber-dropping hair.'
 

On the other side hangs another painting which I prefer, partly perhaps because even in my castle I was for a time at a loss how to procure it. The subject was recommended to me by Hans Christian Andersen. It is the story of a beautiful princess. Are not Danish princesses always beautiful?

Her numerous brothers were so unfortunate as to be laid, by a witch, under a spell of a most inconvenient sort. Every morning they were turned into wild swans. Every day they were obliged to fly over many a league of gray ocean to the mainland and back to their home, an island in the midst of the sea. At every sunset they resumed their natural shape, and were princes all night. One day they met their sister on the shore. They undertook to carry her back with them. Her Weight made them slower than usual. A storm came up in the after noon. There was a sad probability of the swans being turned into princes again before they could possibly 'see her home.'

In my picture, half of the swans are a plumy raft for her, and row her through the air with their sweeping wings. Another relay, more tired, perhaps, make a canopy over her, and fan her as they fly. Their outstretched gaze sees only the island. But the princess, as she lies facing backward, sees the danger. In despairing, motionless silence, she looks at the sinking sun, with no color in her cheeks but that which he casts upon her. The red, warning sun looks awfully back, face to face with her, in the narrowing strip of blue sky between two horizontal bars of thundering clouds, which the lightning is beginning to chain together, that the night may come before its time, and the enchanted princes and their sister may drown in darkness.

Church did the water very well, and Paul Weber the island. Rosa Bonheur was so kind as to paint the swans—I need not say how. But the rest of the picture was such a perplexity to me that I could think of nothing better than to send for Mr. Laroy Sunderland to call one day when I was out, and knock up Raphael to draw the princess, and Salvator Rosa, the clouds, and Titian to see to the sky and light. When I came in again, the completed whole met me as a pleasant surprise.

Not far off are Landseer's 'Challenge,' and a few other Arctic pieces of his, which I look at in July to keep myself cool. But the chief of my pictures are in the picture gallery, at the top of my castle, lighted from above. Connoisseurs assure me, with rare candor, that the 'Transfiguration,' 'Last Judgment,' 'Assumption of the Virgin,' and so forth, there, are duplicates rather than copies of the originals.

In my library there is scarcely a single picture to be found, nor a statue, nor a bust even, except of the duskiest, self-hiding bronze overhead—only some dim, dark engraving, or brown, antiquated autograph, fading in a little black frame, or a signet ring hanging against the book written by the crumbled hand that once wore it—only relics having the power to excite thought without distracting attention– unobtrusive memorials of the dead with whom I am soon to live. Rich, black, old bookcases, carved all over in high relief, hold their immortal works or the records of their undying deeds. Even the writings of the living are sparingly admitted here. I stand on my guard constantly, lest I be enslaved by their influence. It is less by obsequiousness to the Present than by listening to the admonitions of the Past, that we may hope to gain a hearing from the Future.