Das landhaus am Rhein. English by Berthold Auerbach
CHAPTER II.
A SPIRIT'S VOICE BY NIGHT.
Roland was writing in his room, and, as he wrote, frequently utteringthe words aloud to himself. Eric sat silent, looking at the lamp. Whatwas the use now of wishing? He stood in front of the unpacked books;there were but few. During the last fifteen minutes before going to thetrain, he had gone once more into his father's study, and locked up thepapers left by him; glancing his eye around the library, he took down abook, the first volume of Sparks's handsome edition of the works ofBenjamin Franklin. This volume contained the autobiography and thecontinuation of the life. Some leaves were inserted in the handwritingof his father.
And now he read, on this the first night of his new occupation, thesewords,--
"Look at this! Here is a real man, the genius of sound understandingand of steadfast will. Electricity is always here in the atmosphere,but does not concentrate itself and become visible lightning.
"This is genius. Genius is nothing but electricity collected in theatmosphere of the soul.
"With this book a man would not be alone, if he were alone on anisland; he would be in the midst of the world.
"No philosopher, no poet, no statesman, no artisan, no member of thelearned professions, and yet all of these combined in one; a pet son,with Nature for his mother and Experience for his nurse; an outcastson, who, without scientific guidance, finds by himself all medicinalherbs in the wild woods.
"If I had a youth to educate, not for any special calling, but that hemight become a genuine man and a good citizen, I would place my handsupon his head and say, 'My son, become like Benjamin Franklin--no,--notthis; develop thine own being, as Benjamin Franklin developed his.'"
Eric rested his chin upon his hand, and gazed out into the darkness ofthe night.
What is that? Are there miracles in our life? He looked to the rightand to the left, as if he must have heard the voice of his father; asif he had not written, but was speaking the words,--My son, become likeBenjamin Franklin!
Eric, with great effort, continued his reading:--
"It is indeed well for us to form ourselves after the first men of theold world, the period of generative, elementary existence; thecharacters of the Bible and of Homer are not the creations of a single,highly endowed mind, but they are the embodiments of the primitive,national spirit in distinct forms, and embrace a far wider compass thanthe span of individual existence.
"Understand me well. I say, I know in modern history no other man,according to whose method of living and thinking a man of our day canform himself, except Benjamin Franklin.
"Why not Washington, who was so great and pure?
"Washington was a soldier and a statesman, but he was not an originaldiscoverer of the world within himself, and an unfolder of that worldfrom his own inner being. He exerted influence by ruling and guidingothers; Franklin, by ruling and guiding himself.
"When the time shall ever come, and it will come, that battles shall bespoken of as in this day we speak of cannibals; when honorable,industrious, humane labors shall constitute the history of humanity,then Franklin will be acknowledged.
"I would not willingly fall into that sanctimonious tone, the remnantof pulpit oratory, that comes out in us whenever we approach theeternal sanctities; and I hope our tone must be wholly different fromthat of those who claim to speak in the name of a spirit which theythemselves do not possess.
"God manifested himself to Moses, Jesus, Mohammed in the solitude ofthe desert; to Spinoza in the solitude of the study; to Franklin in thesolitude of the sea." (This last clause was stricken out, and thenagain inserted.) "Franklin is the man of sober understanding, who knowsnothing of enthusiasm.
"The world would not have much beauty if all human beings were likeFranklin; his nature is wholly destitute of the romantic element, (tobe expressed differently," was written in the margin, and attentioncalled to it by a cross,) "but the world would have uprightness,truthfulness, industriousness, and helpfulness. Now they use the wordlove, and take delight in their beautiful sentiments; but you arepermitted to speak about love when you have satisfied those fourrequirements." (This last sentence was underlined with red ink.)
"In Franklin there is something of Socrates, and there is speciallynoticeable a happy vein of humor; Franklin enjoys also a good laugh.
"Franklin is, through and through, good prose, intelligible,transparent, compact.
"We do not have to educate geniuses in the world. Every genius trainshimself, and can have no other trainer. In the world we have to formsubstantial, energetic members of the common weal. What thou dostspecially, whether thou makest shoe-pegs or marble statues, is not mybusiness but thine.
"We shall never be in a right position in regard to the world, ifwe do not believe in purity, in the noblest motives; the inmost ofhumanity is revealed to us only on this condition. There is no bettercoat-of-mail against assaults, than faith in the good which others do,and which one is to do himself; one hears then, within, the inspiringtones of martial music, and marches with light and free step onwardthrough the contest of life.
"It is the distinguishing and favorable feature in Franklin's life,that he is the self-made man; he is self-taught, and has discovered byhimself the forces of nature and the treasures of science; he is therepresentative of those, who, transplanted from Europe to America andin danger of deterioration and decay, attained a wholly newdevelopment.
"If we could have, like antiquity, a mythological embodiment of thatworld which is called America, which carried with it the gods ofEurope,--I mean those historical ideas which the colonists carried overwith them, and yet freely adopted into their own organic life,--wouldyou have these ideas embodied in a human form,--here stands BenjaminFranklin. He was wise, and no one taught him; he was religious, and hadno church; he was a lover of men, and yet knew very well how bad theywere.
"He not only knew how to draw the lightning from the clouds, but alsothe stormy elements of passion from the tempers of men; he has laidhold of those prudential maxims which are a security againstdestruction, and which fit one for self-guidance.
"The reason why I should take him for a master and a guide in theeducation of a human being, is this:--he represents the simple,healthy, human understanding, the firmly established and the safe; notthe erratic spirit of genius, but those virtues of head and of heartwhich steadily and quietly promote man's social happiness and his moralwell-being.
"Luther was the conqueror of the middle ages; Franklin is the first inmodern times to make himself. The modern man is no longer a martyr;Luther was none, and Franklin still less. No martyrdom.
"Franklin has introduced into the world no new maxim, but he hasexpressed with simplicity those which an honest man can find inhimself.
"In what Franklin is, and in what he imparts, there is nothingpeculiar, nothing exciting, nothing surprising, nothing mysterious,nothing brilliant nor dazzling; it is the water of life, the waterwhich all creatures stand in need of." (Here it was written on themargin,--Deep springs are yet to be bored for, and to be found here)"The man of the past eighteenth century had no idea of the people,could have none, for it was wrung and refined out of the free thinkingthat prevailed even to the very end of the century, even to therevolution.
"He who creates anew stands in a strange and hostile, or, at least,independent attitude towards that which already exists.
"Franklin is the son of this age; he recognizes only the in-born worthof men, not the inherited. (Deeper boring is yet to be done here)."
With paler ink, evidently later, it was written,--
"It is not by chance, that this first not only free-thinking,--for manyphilosophers were this,--but also free-acting man was a printer.
"In the sphere of books lies not the heroism,--I believe that theperiod of heroic development is past,--but the manhood of the new age.
"Because our influence is exerted through books, there can be no longerany grand, personal manifestation of power
Then at the conclusion there was written in blue ink,--
"Abstract rules can form no character, no human being, and can createno work of art. The living man, and the concrete work of art containall rules, as language contains all grammar, and these are the good andthe beautiful.
"He who knows the real men who have preceded him, so that they liveagain in him, enters into their circle; he sets his foot upon the holyground of existence, he is consecrated through the predecessors whotrode it before him."
And again, in a trembling hand, there was written, at a late period,clear across the previous writing:--
"Whoever takes a part in the up-building of the State and thecommunity, whoever fills an office and makes laws, whoever stands inthe midst of the science of his time, becomes antiquated in the courseof the new civilization that succeeds him; he is not, by virtue of hisposition, an archetypal pattern of the coming age. He only is so, whodiscerns, clears up, lays hold of and establishes anew, those eternallaws of the human spirit, which are the same from the beginning andthroughout all time; therefore Franklin is not a pattern, but rather amethod."
And now, finally, came the words, which were twice underlined:--
"My last maxim is this:--'Organic life, abstract laws!' We can makebrandy out of grain, but not grain out of brandy. He who understandsthat, has all that I have to say."
Eric had read so far, and now he leaned back, and endeavored to form anidea of his father's thought, and to catch the whole meaning of theseoften half-expressed utterances.
He felt as if he were walking upon a mountain-top in the midst ofclouds, and yet seeing the path and the goal.
He placed his hand upon the manuscript leaves, and a happy smile cameover his countenance; then he arose, and almost laughed aloud, for theexpression of the architect, on his arrival, occurred to him.
"We have it!"
"Yes," he cried, "I have it, I have the spring, from which clear,sparkling water shall flow forth for Roland and for me."
He found no rest; he opened the window, and looked out for a long timeon the night. The air was full of the fragrance of roses, the sky fullof the glory of stars; occasionally a nightingale sang, and thenceased, while in the distance, where the river was dammed up, the frogskept up a noisy croaking.
Now Eric heard a man's voice--it is the voice of Pranken below on thebalcony--which was saying in a loud tone,--
"We attach much, too much importance to it. Such a family-tutor oughtproperly to wear a livery; that would be the best."
"You are very merry to-day," replied Sonnenkamp.
"On the contrary, very serious; the sacred order of things, withoutwhich neither society nor the state can exist, has a sure support inthe differences of rank being maintained, if each one shows hisparticular class. Service--"
Eric closed the window softly; he deemed it unworthy to listen.
The nightingales sang outside in the thicket, and the frogs croaked inthe swamp.
"Each sings in its own way," said Eric to himself, as he thought of thecheering words of his father, and the expression of the young baron.