A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

There are a few paintings worth looking at in the Romish church: one of them represents the rescue of a Count Schaffgotsch from drowning; and in the Evangelical church hang two portraits, one of the present king, the other of Blucher. But the museum established in the same building with the library, by the liberality of the Count, is the great attraction. Among the weapons you may see the scimitar which Sobieski snatched with his own hand from the grand vizier's tent when he raised the siege of Vienna; and near it a horsetail standard, a trophy of the same event, brought home by Johann Leopold von Schaffgotsch, one of the Count's ancestry. In other rooms are a collection of coins, of maps and charts—among them a few old globes, interesting to geographers—the Lord's Prayer in one hundred different languages, a model of the Riesengebirge, and other curiosities, which, with the library, afford abundant means for instruction and amusement. Then there is music twice a day in the Schloss garden, and the theatre is open in the evening, besides the numerous excursions to the hills and mountains around.

The Allée, about six hundred paces long, commands a striking view of the mountain chain from its farther end, where the ground falls away with gentle slope. I could see the prominent points which I had walked over a few days before; and nearer—about half an hour's walk—the Kynast, that much-talked-of ruin, crowning a dark-wooded hill. It attracts visitors as much by its story as by its lofty and picturesque situation. There once lived the beautiful but stony-hearted Cunigunda, who doomed many a wooer to destruction; for none could win her hand who had not first ridden his horse round the castle on the top of the wall. One after another perished; but she had vowed a vow, and would not relent. At last came one whose handsome face and noble form captivated at once the lady's heart. She would have spared him the adventure, but her vow could not be broken, and she watched with trembling heart while the stranger knight rode along the giddy height. He accomplished the task in safety; she would have thrown herself into his arms; but with a slap on her face, and a reproach for her cruelty, the Landgrave Albert of Thuringia—for he it was, who had a wife at home—turned his horse and galloped away.

While sauntering, I met the two Breslauers—my companions on the descent to the Grenzbäuden—and under their guidance explored yet more of the neighbourhood. The guard at the frontier had treated them mercifully, and after half an hour's detention in a little room up-stairs, let them go. Since then they had been making the usual round of excursions: to the fall of the Zacken, to the Norwegian church at Wang, to the Annakapelle, to Hirschberg, and other places—all within two or three hours' walk. Two days more and they would have to return to the counting-house at Breslau. Near the refreshment-houses in the fields young girls followed us offering packets of Oblatt for sale. This is a crisp cake, of agreeable flavour, thinner and lighter than the unleavened bread of the Jews, friendly to the enjoyment of a glass of beer on a hot afternoon; as we proved by eating a few packets while emptying our tankards in full view of the mountains, under an airy colonnade.

On our return to the village we met the Wirth from Schneekoppe, who had come down from his cloudy dwelling to bury a relative. I took the opportunity to send my compliments to Father Hübner, with a hint that his topographical information had not appeared to me of much more value than his man's morality.

Mineral springs are frequent in the mountains. Flinsberg, a quiet village on the Queiss, about four hours from Warmbrunn, in the Isergebirge, is resorted to by women, to whom the saline water impregnated with iron is peculiarly beneficial. One of the springs is so highly charged with carbonic acid gas that the villagers call it the Bierbrunnen (Beer Spring). And a short distance beyond Flinsberg, on the Bohemian side of the mountains, is Liebwerda, a romantic village, where springs of health bubble up, and Wallenstein's castle is within a walk. Quietest of all is Johannisbad, on the southern slope below Schneekoppe, not far from Marschendorf. There the fountains are lukewarm, and their influence is promoted by complete seclusion and repose.

CHAPTER XXVII

Hirschberg—The Officers' Tomb—A Night Journey—Spiller—Greifenberg—Changing Horses—A Royal Reply—A Griffin's Nest—Lauban—The Potato Jubilee—Görlitz—Peter and Paul Church—View from the Tower—The Landskrone—Jacob Böhme—The Hidden Gold—A Theosophist's Writings—The Tombs—The Underground Chapel—A Church copied from Jerusalem—The Public Library—Loebau—Herrnhut.

It was so dark when the omnibus from Warmbrunn arrived at Hirschberg—about five miles—that I lost the sight of its pretty environment, watered by the Bober and Zacken, and of its old picturesque houses, the gables of which were dimly visible against the sky. The town has more than seven thousand inhabitants, and for trade ranks next to Breslau. Its history is that of most towns along this side of Silesia: so much suffering by war, that you wonder how they ever survived. A memorial of the latest scourge is to be seen in the Hospital churchyard—a cast-iron monument in memory of three Prussians, who, wounded at Lützen in 1813, died here on the same day. Under their names runs the inscription: They died in an Iron time for a Golden.

Not being able to see anything, I booked a place by Stellwagen for Görlitz, and supped in preparation for a night of travel. We started at eleven, a company numerous enough to fill three vehicles, those lowest on the list taking their seats in the hindmost. As these hindmost carriages are changed at every stopping-place with the horses, I and other unfortunates had to turn out at unseasonable hours, and to find, in two instances, that we had not changed for the better—soft seats and cleanliness for hard seats and fustiness. So at Spiller: so at Greifenberg.

It adds somewhat to one's experiences to be roused from uneasy slumber at midnight with notice to alight. You feel for umbrella and knapsack, and step down into the chill gloom of a summer night; and while the leisurely work of changing goes on, stroll a little way up or down the roughly-paved street, looking at the strange old houses, all so still and lifeless, as if they were fast asleep as well as their inmates. Why should you be awake and shivering when honest folk are a-bed? and you feel an inclination to envy the sleepers. If you turn a corner and get out of sight of the Posthouse, the houses look still more lonely and unprotected: not a glimmer to be seen, and it seems unfair that every one should be comfortable but you. Or from the outside of a house you picture to yourself those who inhabit it; or, perhaps, you get a peep into the churchyard, or venture through a dark arch to what looks like an ancient cloister, and your drowsy thought gives way to strange imaginings.

But the night is chilly. Let us go into the Posthouse. There is comfort by the stove in the inner room, and the woman who has sat up to await our arrival brings an acceptable refreshment of coffee and cakes. Steaming coffee, with the true flavour; and not sixpence a cup, but six kreutzers. Then the driver blows his horn, and each one takes his allotted seat, to slumber if he can through another jolting stage.

Greifenberg, a town of three thousand inhabitants, on the Queiss, is proud of four things: manufacture of fine linen and damask, a griffin in its coat-of-arms, and a right royal word of the Great Frederick. Certain deputies having appeared before the monarch to thank him for his prompt and generous aid in restoring the town after a great fire in 1783—"For that am I here!" was his kingly reply.

About two miles distant is the Greifenstein, a basaltic hill, so named from a nest of young griffins found on the top of it at a date which no one can remember. It is now crowned by the ruins of a castle which was given by the Emperor Charles IV., in the fourteenth century, as a reward for service to the brave Silesian knight Schaffgotsch. Were it daylight we might see in the Romish church a vault which has been the burial-place of the Schaffgotsch family since 1546.

It was early morning when we came to Lauban, and changed carriages by the side of the grass-grown moat at a break in the old round-towered wall. The view from the adjacent Steinberg is described as equal in beauty to any other scene in Prussia. Unfortunately I had not time to judge for myself; but hope to go and see some future day. Perhaps, while waiting here, you will be reminded that Lauban was one of the Silesian towns which, on the 19th of August, 1836, held a jubilee to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the introduction of the potato into Europe by the famous circumnavigator Drake—as the promoters said. Of course potatoes cooked in many ways appeared plentifully at every table over half the province.

We reached Görlitz at eight, and for some reason, perhaps known to the driver, went through the streets in and out, up and down, across the Neisse to the Postamt in the new quarter, at a slow walking pace. I had three hours to wait for a train, and to improve the time, after comforting myself at the Goldenen Strauss, mounted to the top of the Peter and Paul church tower. Erected on a rocky eminence, rising steeply from the river, it commands a wide prospect. The town itself, a busy place of more than 18,000 inhabitants, closely packed, as in the olden time, around the church; spreading out beyond into broad, straight streets and squares, well-planted avenues, and pretty pleasure-grounds; and in this roomy border you see bleaching-greens, the barracks, the gymnasium, and observatory. From thence your eye wanders over the hills of Lusatia to the distant mountains—a fair region, showing a thousand slopes to the sun. About two miles distant the Landskrone rises from the valley of the Neisse—a conspicuous rocky hill bristling with trees. We got a glimpse of it from Schneekoppe; and now you will perhaps fancy it a watch-tower, midway between the Giant Mountains and the romantic highlands of Saxony.

The sight of that hill recalls the name of the "Teutonic philosopher"—Jacob Böhme. He was born at Alt-Seidenberg, about a mile from Görlitz, in 1575; and he relates that one day when employing himself as herdboy, to relieve the monotony of shoemaking, he discovered a cool bosky crevice on the Landskrone, and crept in for shelter from the heat of the sun. Inside, to his great surprise, he saw a wooden bowl, or vase, full of money, which he feared to touch, and went presently and told certain of his playmates of the discovery. With them he returned to the hill; but though they searched and searched again, they could never find the cleft, nor the wonderful hoard. A few years later, however, there came a cunning diviner, who, exploring with his rod, discovered the money and carried it off; and soon after perished miserably, for a curse had been declared on whomsoever should touch the gold.

Fate had other things in store for Jacob, and allured him from his last to write voluminous works on theosophy, wherein he discusses the most mysterious questions about the soul, its relations to God and the universe, and such like; and great became the poor shoemaker's repute among the learned. Some travelled from far to confer with him; some translated his books into French and English; some studied German that they might read them in the original; and even Isaac Newton used at times to divert his mind from laborious search after the laws of gravitation by perusal of Böhme's speculations. That Jacob was not a dreamer on all points is clear from what he used to pen for those who begged a scrap of his writing:

"Wem Zeit ist wie Ewigkeit,Und Ewigkeit wie die Zeit,Der ist befreit von allem Streit."9

There is something to be seen in the church itself as well as from the top of the tower. It is a singularly beautiful specimen of Gothic architecture of the fifteenth century. The great height of the nave, with the light and graceful form of the columns and arches, produce an admirable effect, to which the high altar, the carved stone pulpit, and the large organ do no violence. It is one of those buildings you could linger in for hours, contemplating now its fair proportions, now the old tombs and monuments, and quaint devices of the sculptor's art. Below the floor at the eastern end is an underground chapel, a century older than the church itself, hewn out of the solid rock. Preaching is held in it once a year. The attendant will make you aware in the dim light of a spring that simmers gently up and fills a basin scooped in the solid stone of the floor.

The church of the Holy Cross in the Nicolai suburb is remarkable as having been built, and with a sepulchre, after the original at Jerusalem by a burgomaster of Görlitz, who travelled twice to Jerusalem, in 1465 and in 1476, to procure the necessary plans and measurements for the work. There is a singularity about the sepulchre: it is always either too long or too short for any corpse that may be brought to it, and yet appears large enough for a Hercules.

The town possesses two good libraries, each containing about twenty thousand volumes. In the Rathsbibliothek you may see rare manuscripts, among them the Sachsenspiegel; and a book which purports to have been printed before the invention of printing, bearing date 1400! The other library belongs to the Society for the Promotion of Science, who have besides a good collection of maps, fossils, minerals, and philosophical instruments. Perhaps here in England writers and scholars in provincial towns will some day be able to resort to libraries and museums as easily as in the small towns of Germany. Many an English student would be thankful to find in his native town even one such library as those at Görlitz.

The train from Breslau kept good time. It dropped me at Loebau, where there is a church in which service is performed in the Wendish tongue. From hence a branch line runs to Zittau. I stopped half way at Herrnhut, the head-quarters of the Moravians: a place I had long wished to see.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Head-Quarters of the Moravians—Good Buildings—Quiet, Cleanliness, and Order—A Gottesdienst—The Church—Simplicity—The Ribbons—A Requiem—The Service—God's-Field—The Tombs—Suggestive Inscriptions—Tombs of the Zinzendorfs—The Pavilion—The Panorama—The Herrnhuters' Work—An Informing Guide—No Merry Voices—The Heinrichsberg—Pretty Grounds—The First Tree—An Old Wife's Gossip—Evening Service—A Contrast—The Sisters' House—A Stroll at Sunset—The Night Watch.

I had seen the Moravian colony at Zeist near Utrecht, and was prepared for a similar order of things at Herrnhut. A short distance from the station along the high road to Zittau, and you come to a well-built, quiet street, rising up a gentle ascent, where, strange sight in Saxony, the footways are paved with broad stone slabs. Farther on you come to a broad opening, where two other main streets run off, and here the inn, Gemeinlogis, and the principal buildings are situate, all substantially built of brick. Everywhere the same quietness, neatness, and cleanliness, the same good paving, set off in places by rows and groups of trees, and hornbeam hedges.

The innkeeper—or steward as he may be called, for he is a paid servant of the brotherhood—told me there would be a Gottesdienst (God's service) at three o'clock, and suggested my occupying the interval with the newspapers that lay on the table. There was the Görlitzer Anzeiger, published three times a week, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, four good quarto pages, for fifteen pence a quarter; and equally cheap the Zittauische Wochentliche Nachrichten. But I preferred a stroll through the village and into the spacious gardens, which, teeming with fruit, flowers, and vegetables, stretch away to the south, and unite with the pleasure-walks in the bordering wood.

At three I went to the church. Outside no pains have been taken to give it an ecclesiastical look; inside it contains a spacious hall, large enough to contain the whole community, with a gallery at each end, and on the floor two divisions of open seats made of unpainted fir placed opposite a dais along the wall. Whatever is painted is white—white walls, white panelling, white curtains to the windows, and a white organ. Something Quaker-like in appearance and arrangement. But when a number of women came in together wearing coloured cap-ribbons, passing broad and full under the chin, a lively contrast was opposed to the prevailing sobriety of aspect. The colours denote age and condition. The unmarried sisters put on cherry-red at sixteen, and change it after eighteen for pink. The married wear dark blue, and the widows white. Many a pretty, beaming face was there among them, yet sedate withal.

The choir assembled on each side of a piano placed in the opening between the benches, for the organ was undergoing a course of repair. No practical jokes among them, as in the cathedral on the Hradschin; but all sedate too. Presently came in from the door on the left five dignified-looking sisters, and took their seats on one half of the dais; then seven brethren, among whom a bishop or two, from the door on the right, to the other half; and their leader, a tall man of handsome, intelligent countenance, to the central seat at the desk.

The service was in commemoration of a sister whom in the morning the congregation had followed to her resting-place in the Gottesacker (God's acre). The choir stood up, all besides remaining seated, and sang a requiem, and sang it well; for the Moravians, wiser than the Quakers, do not cheat their hearts and souls of music. A hymn followed, in which the whole assembly joined, the several voices according to their part, till one great solemn harmony filled the building. Then the preacher at the desk, still sitting, began an exhortation, in which a testimony concerning the deceased was interwoven with simple Gospel truth. His word and manner were alike impressive; no passion, no whining. Rarely have I heard such ready, graceful eloquence, combined with a clear and ringing voice. He ended suddenly: a hymn was sung, at the last two lines of which every one stood up, and with a few words of prayer the service was closed. It had lasted an hour. The congregation, which numbered about three hundred, dispersed quietly, the children walking as sedately as their parents.

All the roads leading out of Herrnhut are pleasant avenues of trees—limes, oaks, beech, and birch. A short distance along the one leading to Berthelsdorf you come to a wooden arch bearing the inscription, "Christ is risen from the dead." It is the entrance to God's field; and if you turn on entering, you will see written on the inside of the arch, "And become the firstling of them that slept." The ground slopes gently upwards to the brow of the Hutberg, divided into square compartments by broad paths and clipped limes. Within these compartments are the graves; no mounds; nothing but rows of thick stone slabs, each about two feet in length, by one and a half in width, lying on the grass. All alike; no one honoured above the rest, except in some instances by a brief phrase in addition to the name, age, and birthplace. The first at the corner has been renewed, that a record of an interesting incident in the history of the place may not be lost. The inscription reads: Christian David, the Lord's servant, born the 31st December, 1690, at Senftleben in Moravia. Went home the 3rd February, 1751.

A carpenter: he felled the first tree for the building of Herrnhut, the 17th June, 1722.

Went home and fell asleep are favourite expressions occurring on many of the stones. A member of the Conference of Elders is a frequent memorial on the oldest slabs, numbers of which are blackened, and spotted with moss by age. There are two counts and not a few bishops among the departed, but the same plain slab suffices for all. The separation of the sexes is preserved even after death, some of the compartments being reserved exclusively for women. As you read the names of birthplaces, in lands remote, from all parts of Europe and oversea, the West Indies and Labrador, you will perhaps think that weary pilgrims have journeyed from far to find rest for their souls in peaceful Herrnhut.

There is, however, one marked exception to the rule of uniformity as regards the slabs. It is in favour of Count Zinzendorf and his wife and immediate relatives—a family deservedly held in high respect by the Brethren. Eight monumental tombs, placed side by side across the central path, perpetuate the names of the noble benefactors. Of the count himself it is recorded: He was appointed to bear fruit, and a fruit that yet remains.

On the summit of the hill, beyond the hedge of the burial-ground, a wooden pavilion is built with a circular gallery, from whence you get a fine panoramic view of the surrounding country. The innkeeper had given me the key, and I loitered away an hour looking out on the prospect. Now you see the Gottesacker, with its fifteen formal clipped squares, some yet untenanted, and room for enlargement; the red roofs and white walls of the village; and beyond, the fir-topped Heinrichsberg, and planted slopes which beautify the farther end of the place. Berthelsdorf, the seat of the Unität, stands pleasantly embowered at the foot of the eastern slope. You see miles of road, two or three windmills, and umbrageous green lines thinning off in the distance, the trees all planted by the Herrnhuters; and the fields, orchards, and plantations that fill all the space between, testify to the diligent husbandry of the Brethren.

Every place and prominent object within sight is indicated by a red line notched into the top rail of the balustrade, so that, while sauntering slowly round, you can read the name of any spire or distant peak that catches your eye. The summits are numerous, for hills rise on every side; among them you discover the Landskrone by Görlitz, and the crown of the Tafelfichte in the Isergebirge, the only one of the mountains within sight. It is a view that will give you a cheerful impression of Saxony.

The doorkeeper of the church had noticed a stranger, and came up for a talk. I asked him how much of what lay beneath our eyes belonged to the Brethren. "About two hundred acres," he answered, pointing all round, and to an isolated estate away in the direction of Zittau; "enough for comfort and prosperity." Once started, he proved himself no niggard of information. To give the substance of his words: "I like the place very well," he said, "and don't know of any discontent; though we have at times to lament that a brother falls away from us back into the worldly ways. Each fulfils his duty. We are none of us idle. We have weavers, shoemakers, harness-makers, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, workers in iron, lithographers, and artists; indeed, all useful trades; and our workmanship and manufactures are held in good repute. I am a cabinet-maker, and keep eight journeymen always at work. Each one from the age of eighteen to sixty takes his turn in the night-watch; and, night and day, the place is always as quiet as you see it now. You don't hear the voices of children at play, because children are never left to themselves. Whether playing or walking, they are always under the eye of an adult, as when in school. We do not think it right to leave them unwatched. We have service three times every Sunday, and at seven o'clock every evening; besides certain festivals, and a memorial service like that of this afternoon. The preacher you heard is considered a good one: his salary is four hundred dollars a year."

He interrupted his talk by an invitation to go and see the grounds of the Heinrichsberg. As we walked along the street, I could not fail again to remark the absence of sounds which generally inspire pleasure. No merry laughter, accompanied by hearty shouts and quick foot-tramp of boys at play. No running hither and thither at hide-and-seek; no trundling of hoops; no laughing girls with battledore and shuttlecock. I saw but two children, apparently brother and sister, and they were walking as soberly as bishops. I should like to know whether such a repressive system does really answer the purpose intended; for I could not help questioning, in Goldsmith's words, whether the virtue that requires so constant a guard be worth the expense of the sentinel.