“happy season of childhood!” exclaims teufelsdrockh: “kind nature, that art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man’s hut with auroral radiance; and for thy nursling hast provided a soft swathing of love and infinite hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced round (umgaukelt) by sweetest dreams! if the paternal cottage still shuts us in, its roof still screens us; with a father we have as yet a prophet, priest and king, and an obedience that makes us free. the young spirit has awakened out of eternity, and knows not what we mean by time; as yet time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean; years to the child are as ages: ah! the secret of vicissitude, of that slower or quicker decay and ceaseless down-rushing of the universal world-fabric, from the granite mountain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in a motionless universe, we taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling universe is forever denied us, the balm of rest. sleep on, thou fair child, for thy long rough journey is at hand! a little while, and thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very dreams shall be mimic battles; thou too, with old arnauld, wilt have to say in stern patience: ‘rest? rest? shall i not have all eternity to rest in?’ celestial nepenthe! though a pyrrhus conquer empires, and an alexander sack the world, he finds thee not; and thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eyelids, on the heart of every mother’s child. for as yet, sleep and waking are one: the fair life-garden rustles infinite around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance, and the budding of hope; which budding, if in youth, too frost-nipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can find the kernel.”
in such rose-colored light does our professor, as poets are wont, look back on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say nothing of much other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on with an almost wearisome minuteness. we hear of entepfuhl standing “in trustful derangement” among the woody slopes; the paternal orchard flanking it as extreme outpost from below; the little kuhbach gushing kindly by, among beech-rows, through river after river, into the donau, into the black sea, into the atmosphere and universe; and how “the brave old linden,” stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered up from the central agora and campus martius of the village, like its sacred tree; and how the old men sat talking under its shadow (gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied laborers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the young men and maidens often danced to flute-music. “glorious summer twilights,” cries teufelsdrockh, “when the sun, like a proud conqueror and imperial taskmaster, turned his back, with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fireclad bodyguard (of prismatic colors); and the tired brickmakers of this clay earth might steal a little frolic, and those few meek stars would not tell of them!”
then we have long details of the weinlesen (vintage), the harvest–home, christmas, and so forth; with a whole cycle of the entepfuhl children’s-games, differing apparently by mere superficial shades from those of other countries. concerning all which, we shall here, for obvious reasons, say nothing. what cares the world for our as yet miniature philosopher’s achievements under that “brave old linden “? or even where is the use of such practical reflections as the following? “in all the sports of children, were it only in their wanton breakages and defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (schaffenden trieb): the mankin feels that he is a born man, that his vocation is to work. the choicest present you can make him is a tool; be it knife or pen-gun, for construction or for destruction; either way it is for work, for change. in gregarious sports of skill or strength, the boy trains himself to co-operation, for war or peace, as governor or governed: the little maid again, provident of her domestic destiny, takes with preference to dolls.”
perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who it is that relates it: “my first short-clothes were of yellow serge; or rather, i should say, my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one and indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four limbs: of which fashion how little could i then divine the architectural, how much less the moral significance!”
more graceful is the following little picture: “on fine evenings i was wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it out-of-doors. on the coping of the orchard-wall, which i could reach by climbing, or still more easily if father andreas would set up the pruning-ladder, my porringer was placed: there, many a sunset, have i, looking at the distant western mountains, consumed, not without relish, my evening meal. those hues of gold and azure, that hush of world’s expectation as day died, were still a hebrew speech for me; nevertheless i was looking at the fair illuminated letters, and had an eye for their gilding.”
with “the little one’s friendship for cattle and poultry” we shall not much intermeddle. it may be that hereby he acquired a “certain deeper sympathy with animated nature:” but when, we would ask, saw any man, in a collection of biographical documents, such a piece as this: “impressive enough (bedeutungsvoll) was it to hear, in early morning, the swineherd’s horn; and know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds were, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on the heath. or to see them at eventide, all marching in again, with short squeak, almost in military order; and each, topographically correct, trotting off in succession to the right or left, through its own lane, to its own dwelling; till old kunz, at the village-head, now left alone, blew his last blast, and retired for the night. we are wont to love the hog chiefly in the form of ham; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned beings here manifest intelligence, perhaps humor of character; at any rate, a touching, trustful submissiveness to man, — who, were he but a swineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches more resembling slate or discolored-tin breeches, is still the hierarch of this lower world?”
it is maintained, by helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly favorable influences accompany him through life, especially through childhood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded and continue dunces. herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an inspired prophet and a double-barrelled game-preserver: the inner man of the one has been fostered into generous development; that of the other, crushed down perhaps by vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has exuded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at the bottom of his stomach. “with which opinion,” cries teufelsdrockh, “i should as soon agree as with this other, that an acorn might, by favorable or unfavorable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak.
“nevertheless,” continues he, “i too acknowledge the all-but omnipotence of early culture and nurture: hereby we have either a doddered dwarf bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree; either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green one. of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their education, what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it: to which duty, nowadays so pressing for many a german autobiographer, i also zealously address myself.” — thou rogue! is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is educated? and yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is laughing in his sleeve at these autobiographical times of ours, or writing from the abundance of his own fond ineptitude. for he continues: “if among the ever-streaming currents of sights, hearings, feelings for pain or pleasure, whereby, as in a magic hall, young gneschen went about environed, i might venture to select and specify, perhaps these following were also of the number:
“doubtless, as childish sports call forth intellect, activity, so the young creature’s imagination was stirred up, and a historical tendency given him by the narrative habits of father andreas; who, with his battle-reminiscences, and gray austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another ulysses and ‘much-enduring man.’ eagerly i hung upon his tales, when listening neighbors enlivened the hearth; from these perils and these travels, wild and far almost as hades itself, a dim world of adventure expanded itself within me. incalculable also was the knowledge i acquired in standing by the old men under the linden-tree: the whole of immensity was yet new to me; and had not these reverend seniors, talkative enough, been employed in partial surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years? with amazement i began to discover that entepfuhl stood in the middle of a country, of a world; that there was such a thing as history, as biography to which i also, one day, by hand and tongue, might contribute.
“in a like sense worked the postwagen (stage-coach), which, slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through our village: northwards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards visibly at eventide. not till my eighth year did i reflect that this postwagen could be other than some terrestrial moon, rising and setting by mere law of nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on made highways, from far cities towards far cities; weaving them like a monstrous shuttle into closer and closer union. it was then that, independently of schiller’s wilhelm tell, i made this not quite insignificant reflection (so true also in spiritual things): any road, this simple entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the world!
“why mention our swallows, which, out of far africa, as i learned, threading their way over seas and mountains, corporate cities and belligerent nations, yearly found themselves with the month of may, snug-lodged in our cottage lobby? the hospitable father (for cleanliness’ sake) had fixed a little bracket plumb under their nest: there they built, and caught flies, and twittered, and bred; and all, i chiefly, from the heart loved them. bright, nimble creatures, who taught you the mason-craft; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic incorporation, almost social police? for if, by ill chance, and when time pressed, your house fell, have i not seen five neighborly helpers appear next day; and swashing to and fro, with animated, loud, long-drawn chirpings, and activity almost super-hirundine, complete it again before nightfall?
“but undoubtedly the grand summary of entepfuhl child’s culture, where as in a funnel its manifold influences were concentrated and simultaneously poured down on us, was the annual cattle-fair. here, assembling from all the four winds, came the elements of an unspeakable hurry-burly. nut-brown maids and nut-brown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, bedizened and beribanded; who came for dancing, for treating, and if possible, for happiness. topbooted graziers from the north; swiss brokers, italian drovers, also topbooted, from the south; these with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skull-caps, and long ox-goads; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid the inarticulate barking and bellowing. apart stood potters from far saxony, with their crockery in fair rows; nurnberg pedlers, in booths that to me seemed richer than ormuz bazaars; showmen from the lago maggiore; detachments of the wiener schub (offscourings of vienna) vociferously superintending games of chance. ballad-singers brayed, auctioneers grew hoarse; cheap new wine (heuriger) flowed like water, still worse confounding the confusion; and high over all, vaulted, in ground-and-lofty tumbling, a particolored merry–andrew, like the genius of the place and of life itself.
“thus encircled by the mystery of existence; under the deep heavenly firmament; waited on by the four golden seasons, with their vicissitudes of contribution, for even grim winter brought its skating-matches and shooting-matches, its snow-storms and christmas-carols, — did the child sit and learn. these things were the alphabet, whereby in aftertime he was to syllable and partly read the grand volume of the world: what matters it whether such alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read it? for gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded all: his existence was a bright, soft element of joy; out of which, as in prospero’s island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach by charming.
“nevertheless, i were but a vain dreamer to say, that even then my felicity was perfect. i had, once for all, come down from heaven into the earth. among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay even in childhood a dark ring of care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and often quite overshone; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader and broader; till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy, and threatened to engulf me in final night. it was the ring of necessity whereby we are all begirt; happy he for whom a kind heavenly sun brightens it into a ring of duty, and plays round it with beautiful prismatic diffractions; yet ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole being, it is there.
“for the first few years of our terrestrial apprenticeship, we have not much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly to look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. if good passivity alone, and not good passivity and good activity together, were the thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most. in all that respects openness of sense, affectionate temper, ingenuous curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could i have wished? on the other side, however, things went not so well. my active power (thatkraft) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how many traces yet abide with me! in an orderly house, where the litter of children’s sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical; rather to bear and forbear than to make and do. i was forbid much: wishes in any measure bold i had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond of obedience inflexibly held me down. thus already freewill often came in painful collision with necessity; so that my tears flowed, and at seasons the child itself might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered.
“in which habituation to obedience, truly, it was beyond measure safer to err by excess than by defect. obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break: too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to should, and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to shall. hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly discretion, nay of morality itself. let me not quarrel with my upbringing. it was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every way unscientific: yet in that very strictness and domestic solitude might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from which all noble fruit must grow? above all, how unskilful soever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest; whereby every deficiency was helped. my kind mother, for as such i must ever love the good gretchen, did me one altogether invaluable service: she taught me, less indeed by word than by act and daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple version of the christian faith. andreas too attended church; yet more like a parade-duty, for which he in the other world expected pay with arrears, — as, i trust, he has received; but my mother, with a true woman’s heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in the strictest acceptation religious. how indestructibly the good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of evil! the highest whom i knew on earth i here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, before a higher in heaven: such things, especially in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your being; mysteriously does a holy of holies build itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps; and reverence, the divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelopment of fear. wouldst thou rather be a peasant’s son that knew, were it never so rudely, there was a god in heaven and in man; or a duke’s son that only knew there were two-and-thirty quarters on the family-coach?”
to which last question we must answer: beware, o teufelsdrockh, of spiritual pride!
