The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864

But possibly these things might not be true. She reflected that the poet was wealthy; and as long as the world continues to be envious, riches will seldom fail to bring false report upon their possessor. He was a man of genius, also; and all such can scarcely fail to find rivals who will turn satirists and attack them in their homes and daily life. Certainly, it is not difficult for slander to magnify the genial gatherings of kindred spirits into scenes of wild debauchery. And it was also true, that if mere outside appearance is of any value as an index of what is hidden, the slight figure, the pale and almost girlish face, and the winning and courteous demeanor of the poet were far from indicating a man of low and debasing inclinations. Moreover, his writings as surely spoke the contrary; and as she thus reasoned, Ænone lifted from its case a vellum roll with which Emilius himself had presented her, containing many of his poems, exquisitely engrossed. These poems treated not upon the pleasures of wine and love—those fruitful and ever-varying subjects of the Horatian school. Instead of this, they pursued, in deep-sounding and majestically rolling dactyls, the less favorite and trodden track of Socrates and Plato, and discoursed upon temperance and honor—upon the satisfaction derived from a well-spent life, and the delights attending a peaceful death—upon the immateriality of the soul, and the reward bestowed by the gods upon those who have honored them by leading a virtuous career. As Ænone slowly turned over leaf after leaf of the parchment roll, she felt her heart perplexed within her. She could scarcely believe that none of those tales of reckless dissipation were true, for she remembered that some of them had reached her ear attended by evidence so circumstantial that it was impossible to reject them; but, if true, how account for these grand maxims of lofty morality? What object could their author have in thus uselessly playing the hypocrite, when amatory and bacchanalian choruses would not only have been more consonant with his own feelings, but doubtless more acceptable to the world? She had not yet learned what it often takes the wisest man a lifetime to discover—that every inconsistency of conduct is not hypocrisy, but that it is one of the most common idiosyncrasies of the mind to write and believe one thing, and as self-approvingly to feel and act the reverse.

With a sigh she closed the volume, and restored it to its place within the case. Why ponder upon such things as these? The real character of the poet Emilius was, after all, a matter of but little consequence to her. Whether the meeting at his house was a wild, reckless orgy, or a mere intellectual gathering of literary genius, it was none the less certain that her lord was tarrying there, away from her side. But perhaps, indeed, even this was a duty which he owed to his fame and station; and her face brightened up with new hope as the suggestion flashed upon her. It might be that at this feast there would be present some poet of lofty epic powers, or historian of wondrous descriptive talent, ranking as the brightest star of Roman literature; and either of these, if properly conciliated, would doubtless celebrate her lord's exploits so grandly that in future ages his campaign would shine with far greater lustre than if simply committed to parchment in the dry detail of unadorned fact, and so filed away in the national archives. It was most fitting, therefore, that he should not permit his impatient love for her to allow him to neglect the opportunity of cultivating, by a wise and condescending courtesy, the world-renowned talents of these men, and thereby redoubling the resplendence of his own bright fame.

Easily satisfying her mind with this pleasing reasoning, she retired for the night into the innermost apartment—a retreat adorned with every luxury which could gratify pride and administer to a cultivated taste. The floor was covered with tesselated marbles of different shades and arranged in ingenious and novel patterns. The ceiling was resplendent with allegorical frescoes by the most celebrated masters of the day. There were glowing paintings upon the walls, rich tapestries in the windows, embroidered hangings upon the bed. Beside the tables stood bronze figures holding forth lamps ready trimmed and lighted; fresh flowers had been placed in their allotted vases, and weighed down the air with perfume; and in a deep recess stood the bath ready filled, and scented with carefully plucked rose leaves floating upon the water. But all this display of magnificent luxury and elaborate taste, if regarded by her at all, now seemed to affect her with weariness rather than with pleasure.

Why, as she lay down upon her couch, and prepared to yield herself up to pleasant slumber, did her thoughts wander back to the time when poverty instead of luxury had been her lot? Why did those olden memories of the past so strongly haunt her? They were, perhaps, never entirely absent from her heart; but now they thronged about her with a force that would not bear repression. Perhaps it was that the very magnificence and pomp of power of which she was now the centre, recalled the memory of the distant past, by virtue of strong contrast alone; perhaps that the unsatisfied longing and vague foreboding of her soul necessarily impressed upon her the consciousness that wealth and honor alone cannot give perfect happiness, and thereby naturally led her thoughts back to the time when she had found true content in poverty and loneliness. However that might be, now, as she closed her eyes and shut out the view of the costly adornments around her, more vividly than ever before were pictured before her mind the scenes of her childhood: her father's cottage on the outskirts of Ostia—the olive grove upon the slope behind—the roadside well, where the villagers would sometimes gather about some invalided soldier from the German army, and listen to his tales of the last campaign—and in front, the bay, sparkling in the bright glare of the sun and laden with the corn-freighted ships of Alexandria.

And there, too, was the old wave-worn rock—the scene of her life's only romance—where, stealing out from her father's cabin at the evening hour, and seating herself so close to the waterline that the spray of the tideless sea would dash up and bathe her naked feet, she would wait in all innocence for the coming of the young sailor from Samos. How rapidly those hours used to pass! How pleadingly, on the last evening, he had knelt beside her, with his arm resting upon her knee, and there, gazing up into her face, had asked her for one long tress of hair! How foolish she had been to give it to him; and how earnestly he had vowed that he would come back some day, no longer poor and forlorn, but in his own two-masted vessel, with full banks of oars, manned by the slaves whom he would capture, and would then bear her away unto his own home! And how, like a silly girl, she had believed him, as though wandering sailor boys ever did come back to seek the loving hearts which had trusted them! And so the year had passed away, and, as she might well have known from the first, he had not returned. Nor was it to her regret; for but a little afterward the youthful patrician, already flushed with budding honors, had chanced to meet her; had loved her with a generous passion, lifting him above all sordid calculation about wealth or social differences, and had taught her in turn to bestow upon him an affection more true and absorbing than she had yet believed her heart was able to contain. And so her first romantic dream had ended, as all such childish dreams are apt to end. Let it go. Her heart had found its true bourne; she could well look back upon the past without regret, and smile at the youthful fancies connected with it.

One prayer to the gods—a further special invocation to her favorite goddess, who, at the foot of the couch, stretched forth marble arms lovingly toward her—and then the silver tinkling of the little courtyard fountain lulled her softly to sleep.

CARL FRIEDRICH NEUMANN, THE GERMAN HISTORIAN OF OUR COUNTRY

The first volume of a history of the United States by Carl Friedrich Neumann, of Berlin,2 has just been announced as the first history of our country ever written originally in the German language. The appearance of such a work at this juncture in our national existence, is a noteworthy event, and the man who takes so unique an interest in our affairs should be introduced to our people. Having known him personally and intimately for many years, I shall attempt such sketch, making much of it anecdotal, for which purpose material is not wanting.

Dr. Neumann, born near Bamberg, in the kingdom of Bavaria, of Jewish parents, is now about sixty-five years of age, was educated at Heidelberg, passed over to the Protestant church at Munich, afterward attended lectures at Göttingen, and soon after became rector of the gymnasium at Speyer, but was dismissed from this place on account of the freedom with which he expressed himself on some religious topics in his historical teachings. He gave private lessons for a time in Munich, and then went to learn in a Benedictine monastery in Venice the Armenian language. This was in 1827. In 1829 he studied the Chinese language in Paris, went over to London, and sailed thence to visit India and China. He collected for himself about ten thousand volumes of Chinese works, embracing every department of the literature of this language, and bought for the Royal Library at Berlin two thousand four hundred volumes. Such collections had been till then unknown in Europe, and hence this was quite an event. Returning in 1831 from India, he made a present of all his Chinese books to the Royal Library at Munich, and was appointed conservator of this collection, and professor of Chinese and Armenian in the university of that capital.

Of Dr. Neumann's attainments in Oriental literature I know only what fame says, nor does it concern us much in this sketch. I once, however, sat with him in a retiring room of the Munich Museum (a great reading room), when Baron Tautphoeus, whose accomplished wife is so well known in this country as authoress of the 'Initials' and 'Quits,' entered, and asked if we had seen the notice of Dr. Neumann in the last number of the London Times. The doctor had read it; I had not, but immediately did so. It made him the equal of the greatest orientalists of the past and present ages, comparing him particularly with Klaproth. The Times, it is true, had a motive for this notice, as always, both in its praises and its lampoons. It had found views of Dr. Neumann on British India which it desired to commend, but even in our view this would not cancel the eulogy. His authorship in connection with Chinese and Armenian philosophy and history is very considerable, and outside of this field he won, in 1847, a prize offered by the French Institute for the best work on the 'Historical Development of the Peoples of Southern Russia.'

What was to be done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general history and ethnography. His powers of elocution were of a high order, and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's or Pope's instinct for making rhymes—it was his nature, and could not be whipped out of him; and it was equally natural that it should assume the form of wit and humor.

There are not a few anecdotes in the popular mouth illustrating this trait. He seems to have had no great liking to that race of men called kings, and it is said that he once alluded to them, in a lecture, in the not very respectful remark that 'they were numbered, like the hacks in our streets.' The reader's apprehension of the point of another anecdote, in which Dr. Neumann appears in an attitude not very respectful to his own sovereign, Louis II of Bavaria, will depend upon his knowing something of the situation and history of the university buildings in Munich. The king, among the many things he did for the architectural adorning of the city, built a street to be called by his name. It is all outside of the old wall, and its outer end is closed by a triumphal arch. Next to this, and outside of the city as it then was, the king purchased ground, perhaps because it was cheap, and built the present university edifice. As much farther out of the then city proper lies the miserable little town of Schwabing. Professors and students disliked to be taken so far from their lodgings and their beerhouses, and the old university had been quite within the city. When the removal took place, Dr. Neumann sketched the history of the institution in a lecture, referring to its original establishment at Ingolstadt, its removal thence to Landschut, and thence to Munich, and then added, that 'his Majesty King Louis II had now been pleased to remove it to Schwabing.' We can imagine the sensation which such a sally would produce among students already stirred up for its appreciation, by having to walk from a half mile to a mile from those depots of beer barrels from which so many of them sucked their sluggish life and inspiration. But such jokes were not treason, or contempt of majesty, or anything else against law.

It should be added in this connection, for Dr. Neumann's benefit, that these stories, and many of the kind, are floating around, and are just like him, but I have never had any confirmation of them from him, and in all our intercourse, which was frequent and intimate for six years, while he spoke much and freely in favor of democratical and against monarchical institutions, I never found him indulging in coarse and clamorous denunciations of his king or Government.

When the great revolutionary movement of 1848 broke upon the land, the sovereigns of Germany saw and accepted their condition. The popular mind was so penetrated by this unrest, and the revolutionary leaders were so substantial in character, that resistance was folly, and the monarchs yielded, waiting the time when some change would enable them to divide the revolutionists and turn them against each other. They allowed and even encouraged the formation at Frankfort of a provisional Parliament, called the Fore-Parliament, which looked toward a permanent central Government at that place for united Germany. Of this body Dr. Neumann was a member. It was a fine field for the display of his free and liberal instincts, and we cannot conceive of his passing through its debates without making large drafts upon his exhaustless fund of humor and sarcasm. It would be strange, indeed, if he could witness the dawn of that freedom which he loved without showing signs of exultation, accompanied with occasional taunts at the regime which was passing away and seemed already beyond recovery.

But, although a regular Parliament followed—although a quasi emperor was elected in the person of the Archduke John of Austria, and his way, as he proceeded to Frankfort, was a perfect triumphal procession—although he selected his ministers, set them to work, and Parliament was progressing with its constitution, and this continued for almost a year, still, that which the shrewd ministers of some of the sovereigns had doubtless foreseen and waited for, came. Radicals outran their wiser and more rational brethren, and took up arms. They would demolish at once those sovereignties which would have died by the slow action of time, had the central Government been fully established and wisely administered. But this new Government rather deliberated than acted. That which more than all else arouses the German mind—the Schleswig-Holstein question, identified as it is with the great question of the unity of the Teutonic race—was not taken up by the Government at Frankfort, but by that at Berlin. In the mean time the several Governments of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria had gained the mastery over their own domestic revolutions, so that they could act more freely. Austria called home its archduke and its members in the Frankfort Parliament, and finally the whole movement subsided into the old order of things.

The various Governments were now in a position in which they could punish those disturbers of their peace who had endangered their very existence. Of these Dr. Neumann was one, and in 1852 he was notified that his lectures were no longer needed in the university of Munich. It was doubtless thought that he would make some slight formal concessions, and be permitted to continue his active duties, as others had done. But he felt too independent. He had means to live upon. His retiring pension could not be withheld. He could now, moreover, give his individual powers to authorship, without feeling hampered by the thought that he had a Government to please. He has persevered in this course, notwithstanding the express wish of the philosophical faculty for his return to active duty in the university.

He had been occupied with a history of the British empire in India. To this he gave increased attention, and published it some years ago; but the Indian rebellion breaking out soon after its publication, he was led to sketch its history as an appendix. His investigations in the East brought him in contact with the peculiar history of the Japanese empire, and he threw off by the way a brief history of Japan, devoting a chapter to the results of the American expedition thither.

It was while prosecuting his inquiries into the history of Eastern Asia, that he met with such evidences of the commercial enterprise of the United States, and obtained such views of the future of our country, as to conceive the thought of writing its history for the German people, commencing with the war of 1812, the point at which he considered our wonderful growth and expansion to have begun; and long before finishing his history of British India, he was collecting material for this work. He found, however, that he could not begin at the point he had chosen without striking upon roots and rudely severing them, which had struck deeply into the soil of all the earlier periods of our existence. His plan was therefore enlarged.

The breaking out of the rebellion was a sad blow to him—it could not have been more so to an American. It was likely not only to spoil our country, but his history of it. It either cut off or dimmed or confused that prospect of growth and expansion which had been stretched out interminably before him. He read the daily London Times—he had for years taken the New York Herald, and his reliance upon this sheet had been rather too implicit. Years before the breaking out of the rebellion, I had suggested this, and introduced to him the New York Times and Evening Post, one of which he has taken ever since, not, however, without occasional intervals of sighing for his old companion the Herald, much as his ancestors, after having left Egypt, sighed for its leeks and onions. Although he coupled the Herald and London Times—par nobile fratrum—as joint sharers of a favorite epithet of his—great liars—he still liked to read them.

Dr. Neumann had been a Democrat in his politics—for he was familiar with our distinctions in this country—but since the outbreak of the rebellion he has scarcely known where to place himself. He had made the personal acquaintance of Buchanan, when that 'old public functionary' was our Minister in London, and felt, as was quite natural, a little vain of this acquaintance when Buchanan became the head of the Government of that unseen land of his most enthusiastic admiration. The man, however, was less than the country, and he could drop him; but he still desired to see him succeeded by a Democrat. We often had little spats, in which I took the ground that such had been the extravagant demands of the South, made through the platforms of that party, that with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a Republican. But after the rebellion, his friends never knew what he was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause. In that land, where a thousand volunteers could not be raised to save a throne, how did his heart swell with just pride when the President called for seventy-five thousand, and afterward in succession for hundreds of thousands, and they came forth at the call! How depressed at instances of want of skill or decision in Government or generals! He nearly lost his patience with young men who were quietly pursuing their studies in Europe, when their country was in peril and its armies needed them; and he quite lost it when he met Americans who sympathized with the rebellion, or even seemed indifferent to their country's fortunes.

There was an American lady in Munich, soon after the rebellion broke out, whose husband had died some years before, while holding a position in the army which entitled her to a pension, for which she had drawn while there. She had heard of Professor Neumann's love for our country and country people, but had no idea of the strictness of his discrimination between the parties—thought that he might feel much like the thousands of Germans who quietly ask us which side we are on—she may, too, have inferred something from his having a brother in Savannah, Georgia. She soon found her mistake; for he informed her, in terms of no doubtful import, that his sympathy did not embrace those of her class; and thus the result of the pleasant visit she had promised herself was little short of being turned out doors.

About the 10th of December, 1861, we had at our house a little company of about thirty persons, and Dr. Neumann, with his wife and two daughters, was among them. An American gentleman, who had been known to his family and ours, had left for Russia two years before, and returned that very day, was one of the company, and we had not yet learned his views of secession. The first thing with Dr. Neumann and his daughters was to know how he stood on this question. They found him a rebel, and in giving him their minds in relation to this matter, one of the daughters expressed to him her wonder that I should allow him to enter my house as they would not allow him in theirs. The stir made in the company by this little brush at arms arrested the attention of all, and gave the Americans their first information as to where our quondam friend stood, as well as set them an example of zeal and enthusiasm in their own cause.

I must close this notice with an incident which lies quite outside of Dr. Neumann's relations to America and Americans. On his retirement from his university labors, he withdrew mainly from the exciting scenes of public life. But in November, 1859, occurred the centennial anniversary of Schiller's birth. Of all the men connected with German popular literature, Schiller is most in the hearts of the people of Germany. The spirit of liberty shown in his 'William Tell'—his exile from his native Wirtemberg for the free expressions used in the first play he ever wrote—his high order of genius as a poet and historian—the subjects he chose, and the way he treated them, and, finally, his social and domestic character, have all combined to endear him to the whole people. This festival was everywhere observed, and with the highest enthusiasm; for although Governments were afraid of its effects, they were still more afraid to refuse permission to hold it. It lasted for several days, on one of which was a great public dinner, with several hundred in attendance, of which Dr. Neumann consented to be one. Champagne flowed freely, and although I did not taste this beverage, and know by experience little of its effects, it was easy to perceive that the animation could not all be accounted for by love to the memory even of Schiller. Poems were read, and speeches were made describing his character as poet, historian, or otherwise, according to the fancy of each speaker. I remember one from Bodenstedt, than whom few stand higher in the walks of polite literature, and one from Sybel, than whom no one in Germany ranks higher as a historian. Dr. Neumann, who, like an old parade horse long withrawn from the excitements of a parade, felt amid these scenes the spirit of former days stirred within him, rose to speak. We shall be prepared to appreciate the effect when we get an idea of the preternatural sensitiveness of those who composed the audience. A well-known poet, who may perhaps be called the poet-laureate of Bavaria, had read a poem on the occasion. It contained nothing to which any one could object, as we might infer from his position with the king, and yet I heard the poet himself say a few days afterward that the editors of a certain well-known journal, in publishing it, left out the stanzas containing the word Freiheit (liberty), so fearful were they of not pitching their tune to a key that would suit royal and Government ears. A similar sensitiveness pervaded the whole body present—nearly all drew their bread and beer from the Government, and did not wish it stopped or diminished. This class had gotten up the meeting, and hoped to control it. When they saw Dr. Neumann rise, they felt that there was a man naturally fearless, and now quite beyond that special sense of danger which made them cautious. Recollection passed over his seven years' silence, and called up the power with which he had harangued in other years. Nor was it so much what he said as the man who said it, which produced the effect, and yet there was much in the speech. He said that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and historian; but nothing had been said of him as a politician, and he should speak of him in this character. The rising of such a man was an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe tremble from centre to circumference. The word politician was a second shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded to compare Schiller with Goethe—the former frankly addressing himself to his friend in correspondence on the great questions of their politics, and trying to draw him out, the latter, then a minister of state, cautiously and warily declining to expose his views—he but carried out the impression made in his rising and his announcement. It was the only properly stump speech—I use the phrase in the high sense in which it might be used of O'Connell or Clay—I ever heard in Germany.