Слике страница
PDF
ePub

THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE.

I SAT an hour to-day, John,
Beside the old brook stream
Where we were school-boys in old time
When manhood was a dream;
The brook is choked with fallen leaves,
The pond is dried away,

I scarce believe that you would know
The dear old place to-day.

The school-house is no more, John,
Beneath our locust trees,

The wild rose by the window's side
No more waves in the breeze;
The scattered stones look desolate,
The sod they rested on

Has been ploughed up by stranger hands,
Since you and I were gone.

The chestnut-tree is dead, John,
And, what is sadder now,

The broken grape-vine of our swing
Hangs on the withered bough.
I read our names upon the bark,
And found the pebbles rare
Laid up beneath the hollow side,
As we had piled them there.
Beneath the grass-grown bank, John,
I looked for our old spring
That bubbled down the alder path
Three paces from the swing;
The rushes grow upon the brink,
The pool is black and bare,
And not a foot for many a day
It seems has trodden there.

[blocks in formation]

The harebells quake, sway their blue coronals, What time the breeeze of dawn, piercing and keen,

Sweeps o'er their heathery bed. The ptarmigan
Springs startled up, as dropping fir-cones fall
Upon his couch of leaves. The russet hare,
Her long ears pricked, leaps from her last
night's form,

And bounding o'er the glade, is lost to sight. Within the whins, the red-legged coveys crouch,

And fear not sportsman's gun. Scarce e'er does foot

Of man crush down the few green blades that

[blocks in formation]

From The Edinburgh Review. "FATHER ARNDT."

With so much unconscious skill does he lead us into that simple country life, that ERNST MORITZ ARNDT, in his well- we pass with a certain feeling of regret to known song "What is the German's Fa- the part of his history where the young therland," may be said not only to have home life ends and the struggles of the asked of History a question, but to have world begin. With him they began early, dictated to her its answer, which now, and were, in some sense, self-imposed, after more than half a century, she echoes Filled with an unusual instinct of manlithrough the countless throats of the tri- ness, and in some sort, as we shall see, umphant German race. For, though Arndt fore-conscious of the part he should have was never a minister or a statesman; to play, he exercised himself whilst still a though history gives, as it should give (as child in every sort of hardship and disciArndt himself gave in all generous sin- pline, physical as well as moral. Many of cerity), the glory of the great liberation his verses refer to this period of his life to Von Stein and the other mighty leaders with a very striking and simple truthfulof that glorious time, still it was Arndt, ness. Having, like many another clever and Arndt alone, to whom the true in- boy, read very much more than his friends stinct of the race has given the proudest supposed, we find that even the perusal of all titles for a patriotic man. Others of Rousseau's works, so far from corruptmight be called guardians, defenders, ing, actually fortified his mind against saviours of their country, but his title was higher than these, since to every German heart the name of "Father Arndt" for many a year was as familiar as it was honoured and welcomed.

many temptations to evil, and strengthened him in his determination to become, with the aid of his self-imposed discipline, a man in the truest sense of the word. Sent to Stralsund to the upper school at seventeen, we find him, while zealous in his work and hearty in his play, yet persistently taking hours from his sleep to weary and harden his frame with long solitary walks of many miles at a time. An extract from his "Recollections" will not be here out of place :—

In ordinary circumstances it might be called a misnomer, for the man who was known at his death as "der Deutschester Deutsche," was Swedish born. His birth occurred at Schoritz, in the Island of Rügen, on the 26th of December, 1769, in the same year with "the Corsican," Napoleon I., whose might he helped at last "Every spot of wood and copse and seashore to overthrow. He gives us, in his "Recol- within a dozen miles of Stralsund was often lections," a charming picture of his boy- pressed by my wandering feet; the hours I hood's home, of his relatives and inti- spent thus and in the company of friends were mates, his growth and adventures. He taken from the night. Thank God! I never .recalls what all men can feel, while so few needed very much sleep; perhaps I should have can describe- the touching influences of wanted more but for my principle of keeping the early home, looked back upon, after a under my body, and bringing it into subjection lapse of sixty or seventy years, with more by hard discipline and constant weariness. And pleasure and distinctness than things so the years 1787, 1788, and 1789 saw me conwithin his closer gaze. In the genial sim- stantly pursuing this lonely course, and quoting plicity which was part of his nature, he to myself continually the words of Horace, interests his readers in the strict, manly, true motto: Hoc tibi proderit olim.'"' which many a time since have proved to me a honest father, who brought his boys up to "rough it" in life, and the gentle, praying, pious mother, whose sweet influence never faded from the soul of her famous son.

It may be well to remind our readers that the Island of Rugen, with that part of Pomerania including Greifswald and Stralsund, though Prussian

since 1815, was Swedish territory from 1720 till that date.

In his twentieth year, this young Christian philosopher for so he might be called, though his faith lay in what is nowa-days called the muscular form of Christianity finding his strength to resist temptation too small, took a great step consistent with the principles he had laid down for his life-guidance. He was brave

truly pious, faithful believer, as we may gather from his many hymns, and his famous "Catechism for the German Army and Landwehr," to which we shall have occasion to refer further on as one of the most influential and most characteristic of his many writings.

enough to run away from Stralsund alto- [the events and ideas of the period (1796). gether, and, with only a few shillings in That he was a conscientious and practical his pocket, to wander beyond Demmin, Christian then, even though not feeling seeking for employment as a clerk or farm-fitted for a clerical life, is unquestionable, bailiff. An old officer to whom he applied as is the fact that in after-years he was a took him in, treated him kindly, and promised to employ him, provided he obtained his father's consent; a kindly way of bringing the lad again into communication with his friends. In due time a reply came from his father, wisely leaving him a free choice as to his future course, but at the same time pointing out that if he wished Thus he arrived at twenty-eight years to be a farmer he could have no better of age, a man with all his energies active, opportunities for the purpose than by re- of more than average reading, and of exmaining at home. So he returned to his ceptional talent in various directions, but father's house at Löbnitz, where he re- without any settled course of life— the mained nearly two years, pursuing his sort of man over whom, in ordinary cirstudies and his bodily discipline with cumstances, even the wisest and most exundiminished energy; he says of this perienced are apt to hold up their hands

time:

a

“These nobler pursuits, however, (intellectual study), did not prevent my continuing my system of toil and endurance. I would sleep constantly on bare boards like a guard bed, or on faggots; sometimes in the open air, under haystack or a tree, wrapped up only in a cloak; or I would stretch off on long walks many miles in all directions, often starting after the rest of the household were in bed; and all to keep my frame hardy and under subjection. It greatly surprised and troubled my parents, whom I often saw shaking their heads over my oddities, but as they saw that in other points I behaved rationally, and did what I had to do like a man in his senses, they wisely let me go my own gait."

and shake their heads, and say, "Alas.
poor fellow, he has wasted his life."
Arndt, even here, followed the usual
course of such tardy, often too tardy,
choosers of a career. He resolved to
travel. His father, before the ruinous
wars of Napoleon had devastated Ger-
many and beggared its people, was a man
very well to do in a worldly sense, deriv-
ing his income from the profits of a very
extensive and prosperous farm; and he
seems to have acted throughout with true
wisdom and kindness towards his son.
He supplied him with the necessary means
for his support during his travels.
we must not suppose Arndt to have merely
undertaken this course for idleness sake.
He was one of those men who are con-
scious that they ripen late, because they'
are less ready to call themselves ripe than
others. But the sort of unsettled instinct
which for so many years had accustomed
him to wander, sent him, as it were, on
the grand tour" as a sort of finish to the
preparation of his life-work.
As his

But

66

When twenty-two years of age, he went to the University of Greifswald to study divinity, and then spent a year in that of Jena for the same purpose; and while a candidat, or, as we should say, while waiting for a title to orders, was invited by Kosegarten, the pastor of Altenkirchen, to undertake the post of tutor in his family. As is customary in Germany, a candidat," Recollections" tell us, his walking habit, begun as a corporeal discipline, was continued as the best means possible for the study of mankind, which became with him a sort of zoological passion.

if licensed, is permitted to preach before ordination, as Arndt frequently did, and as it appears with great success. And yet it was during his stay here that he came to the decision of not seeking ordination. So he travelled for the best part of two He admits his reason to have been the un-years (1798 and 1799), spending three settled state of his religious convictions, months in Vienna, traversing Hungary disturbed, like those of many others, by and crossing the Alps into Italy. When

in Tuscany the fresh outbreak of war | taken root in my mind, which even now, when changed his plans, and compelled him to my hair is white, will not altogether yield their leave Rome and Sicily unvisited. As the place to more far-sighted views. As a little war advanced he betook himself to Nice, news-reader between nine and twelve years old, thence to Marseilles and Paris, where he I had my political prejudices and prepossessions. spent the whole summer of 1799, making From my earliest remembrance I was a sturdy, his way slowly home in the autumn by perhaps an extravagant, royalist, probably unBrussels, Cologne, Frankfort, and Berlin. consciously made so by my daily surroundings. We mention these particulars of his jourMy father was no politician, but my two uncles, on the other hand, the one in his views a thorney, as showing how his sojourn among ough Swede and a worshipper of Gustav Adolf, these various nationalities gradually, with- the other a Prussian to the back-bone and an out his own consciousness, was fitting him upholder of the fame of Frederic the Great, for the part he was to play in the history each taught me to regard a king, such as they of his country. His pedestrian mode of exalted, as infinitely superior to any republic. travel was that best fitted, in conjunction As might be supposed, holding such strong with his own peculiar geniality of temper opinions in favour of monarchy, I always took and address, to supply him with a thorough the side of England against her revolted Amerknowledge of the various peoples whom ican colonies, when that subject gave occasion he visited, and to remove many prejudices to debate. which, in those days of difficult communication, might have warped his judgment and restricted his usefulness.

He next settled as a Privat-Docent or

tutor, at his first university - Greifswald.
This is the position generally first taken
by a German scholar who is ambitious of
becoming a professor. To
To this course
Arndt was led by the motive so strong in
most men at some time or other. He
had fallen in love while studying at
Greifswald, and, as the young lady was
the daughter of a professor there, he found
his establishment easy. He married, was
soon made a deputy-professor, and finally,
in 1805, professor-extraordinary, with a
salary of five hundred thalers. Yet, as if
to show that at that period of his life
and of the history of his country Arndt
was to be tinembarrassed by family ties,
his young wife died in childbed within a
year of her marriage.

To this period of his life we may assign his first political activity, and we shall abridge from his own words the account he gives of his political views and their history, describing, as he felt them to do, the kindred growth of sentiment and opinion in millions of his fellow-men:

[blocks in formation]

"And with regard to the French? While still a child, and at the time when my parents'

means had been insufficient to afford me such educational opportunities as I afterwards enjoyed, I had spent much of my time in reading such old chronicles and histories as came in my way. Such works, for instance, as those of Puffendorf and others, descriptive of the Thirty Years' War, of the ambitious intrigues and the atrocious deeds of Louis XIV. And these had filled me with dislike, almost with detestation, of the people whom he ruled. And so it was that I rejoiced at every French reverse I heard of, and was quite a little Englishman in my hatred of the race.

"Then in my young manhood came the Great Revolution, and its course gave rise to many discussions at home. Nor could I deny the truth of many of the accusations made against the government of Louis XVI., or dispute the justice of many of the principles laid down at the time by the revolutionary leaders, however desecrated and perverted those princiBut still I mourned over every reverse expeples may have been in the course of after events. rienced by the Germans and their allies, without being bound in any way to regard myself as one of them; living, as I did, a Swedish subject by the Baltic, far from the scene of conflict, and at heart far less a German than a Swede. Then came my years of travel, and I saw the French nation for myself; I learned to admire its amiability and gaiety, but also to measure its falsehood and deceit. I had lingered on my homeward journey at Aachen, Köln, Koblentz, and Mainz, and seen everywhere the remains of Germany's ancient glory trampled and dese

« ПретходнаНастави »