CHARACTERS CONNECTING THEMSELVES WITH STUDENT LIFE.
The appearance of the Red Fisherman in our last chapter has brought before our mind's eye some other of the creatures of the students, to whom we cannot better devote a brief chapter than in the present place. These are the Binsen-Bube, the Hofrath Dieh, and the Frau Gottliebin. And we would have the renowned Red Fisherman to understand, that we mean not in bringing these personages into connexion with his name to bring his dignity into question, nor for a moment to place in comparison with him the two former of these individuals, over whose heads he looks down from the clouds of fame. The Binsen-Bube, or as he is also called, the Blumen-Bube, that is, the Rush-boy, or the Flower-boy, will figure in another part of the volume, and therefore must first stand forth the Herr Hofrath Diehl, or in pure English, the Privy Counsellor Diehl, an individual on whom many foreigners must have stumbled in Heidelberg.
This individual has served for some thirty years to amuse the rackety young men by his original nonsense; and we lament to be obliged to say that the students of a former time were not wholly guiltless of originating the condition in which he now finds himself. He is a melancholy example of a student scathed in his career; and who has, from one unfortunate hour, sunk continually deeper and deeper into the depths of misery and insignificance. What part he played as a student we are not able precisely to state; but this must be certain, that he never could have been enlightened by the sun of reason as men on the average are, and now it is with him an everlasting eclipse. According to the opinions of some, he must unluckily have been walking under a great umbrella when reason was rained down from heaven. He thus early became a plaything in the hands of men who were base enough to abuse his simplicity. He received a forged letter, containing the intelligence that he was appointed a privy counsellor of the Hesse Darmstadt court, and the scoundrels who deceived him advised him to use some peculiar kind of pomatum, which should give to his head a look of official dignity. The upshot of this infamous business was that he lost nearly all his hair by this application, and was brought back from Darmstadt, whither he had gone to take possession of his office, to the university a crazed man. From the consequences of this lamentable history he has never recovered. His mind, weak before, has since remained hopelessly confused. He has continued to occupy a small chamber, where he employs himself busily in scheming and maturing plans for the improvement of the world; for the maintenance of the European balance of power; for the better pursuit of philosophy, and for bringing it into a better connexion and alliance with other branches of education; and in the discovery of an elixir of longevity. The results of his profound meditations are laid down in vast masses of manuscripts, which, alas! like the Journey from Stolpe to Danzig,[[22]] have never been able to find a publisher. Yet they are by no means useless to their author, if they are unappreciated by the world. He employs them as mattrasses and pillows for his bed; and he busies himself with scattering great quantities of water out of his window in order to dissipate those heavy vapours which have prevented the booksellers from perceiving what would be so greatly to their advantage. During the day, this singular man traverses all the streets, and goes round to all the Beer-kneips. With short and measured steps he walks about clad in an old coat which he owes to the kindness of some student. Now it is a polonaise, now a velvet frock, and anon it is a mackintosh. He wears, like the student, a little cap, from below which hangs his scanty and white hair. His countenance has a singular expression of mixed pride and humility, of friendliness and melancholy; and in his right hand he carries a light stick, in such a manner as if every moment he was about to raise it in the act of demonstrating some of his cosmopolitan propositions. This moment he picks up from the street some worthless fragment, and even a bit of wood for his fire; the next instant he whistles his little dog, a faithful companion to which he is most fondly attached; and now he is greeting this person and the other, with the words "How goes it, my friend, to-day, with thee?" for he stands on the Smollis with every body, that is, he puts himself on the familiar footing of thee and thou; to another, "Good-day, my dear son."
In the Kneips he seeks to attract attention by an harangue, or by his remarks on the affairs of the day. He then waits with quietness till the landlord, in requital for the drawing together of hearers, sets before him a small refreshment, or till a compassionate guest treats him to a choppin of beer, or presents him with a few kreutzers. Formerly he had a stall in the half-yearly fair, where he sold partly pins made by himself, and partly other wares, as knives and scissors, and such like, at double the price at which the man at the next stall, who furnished him with them, did. That our readers may have some idea of the character and quality of the worthy privy counsellor's compositions, of which he says he has at least eighteen thousand sheets by him, we give a specimen which was written expressly for us, and which the reader may or may not, just as he is disposed, try his teeth upon. We have, however, no doubt but that those sagacious and penetrating people who have put in the mouth of Jean Paul Richter so many things which he never thought of, will also do our Hofrath the same most obliging kindness, and wish right heartily that he may have the good fortune to find at least one such commentator.
A Treatise, composed at Heidelberg the 29th of October, 1840; and styled, a "Little Memorial and Gift of Friendship, from Friend von Diehl, Grand-ducal Privy Counsellor of Baden, and State Counsellor of the Mysteries of Heidelberg, to such of his friends as love the so-called Strictly Right, out of which every thing reasonable by degrees continually developes itself."
Now an author, who sees himself busy at his writing-table upon a composition, has to give to them that, as an inoculation of every thing, whatever it may be, which he has in his spirit consecrated to all worthiness, and so that it shall not be difficult to hear and understand, since it contains many incredible things. As he never in his time was so far advanced that he could learn to understand so much as he was striving after, as he was so poor, so very poor, therefore he was obliged to thrust back every thing of that kind to the period when finite things shall no longer be finite. It is to be desired that his inquiries should be continued either by himself, or by others of the student class who go forth as teachers, accompanied by the necessary academical freedom, that is without all enactments and restraint. Let the pen have its course, as his thoughts for the most part have unfolded themselves, the spirit and the eye running through the right hand, and his ideas thus walking forth upon paper. Spirit, eye, and hand! hands pressed together! then draws the eye every thing so through it, as the sucking babe draws milk, that it must burst forth in some shape, as that milk in the babe, if obstructed in its natural current, will spring through in eruptions. But the Princes should take care of this, who have power, to advance the wise, so that they may be able to live, that they may be safe from the claws of an old wife's company, and may not be thrown about as feathers in the world, called also the great city street,--that in the University cities those of the grade of witches may not wash away all that belongs to the liberty of the duel in general. Especially shines this out of the Bible, out of the Testament--where the Dutch prescribe the gospels as well as the epistles, like physic, that they may preach upon it as the Bauers to their servants, when they have cleared out their stables, "You must make a bee-hive; set about it, make it quickly with a dung-fork and the handle of a flail." Preaching such nonsense do the Dutch divines wring themselves out as an old woman wrings out a wet cloth, yielding only that which men have no occasion for, and without which they would be more of men than with it. Thus money and the necessaries of life are continually decreased, or rather are rolled out thinly till they overspread and cover up the spirit of man, as a surgeon spreads out his plaster to the extent of two and twenty yards.
Two and twenty years have I laboured incessantly to defeat these drifts of the old wives, for the good of all states, but the more I labour the more enemies spring up. Still must I of necessity stand up for the princes, since that dwells in me which man styles duty. During the half of that two and twenty years, I have written treatises for the guidance of students of jurisprudence and criminal law, adapted to all cases and occasions, after which, however, no man inquires. Students diverge continually farther and farther from my views of law, being influenced by the city clergy, who warn them against them through means of the post. I live in privacy with the great Director of the whole world; yet have the malicious city old wife gossips calumniated me. And this led them to the base action, for many a base deed is brought about through medicaments. The most grievous evils not only arise but continue--I will point out only a few of them. To injure a man in his eyesight irreparably,--to damage his hearing,--to cause his hair to fall off,--to induce epilepsy,--to make his very spirit stand still! Instead of that office of important study to which I believe myself advanced, thus came I to sit there where inexpressible pains are given, which make every thing in man, that is of the nature of man, cry out. But the hardest of all was to become a maniac! To keep off this, I wrote from nine to ten thousand sheets, drawn from life itself, to throw out and express the very kernel of knowledge, which must yet be printed. But I am so poor, that I am always on the point of starvation; for many years I have belted myself more tightly in. I lodge at Widow Ueberlin's on the Freisenberg, who could, if she pleased, from the Great Frederick of Prussia, turn herself into the Grand Turk himself. She was not, however, aware of this; therefore, I assumed the crown of human misery, and wrote this year six hundred and fifteen hefts (each about six sheets of paper). Think only of the diligence in my dwelling!
It were well if a learned man in Baden would set himself upon a winter's work, in writing out my manuscripts, in translating them, and sending them to the press, and to make an extract for each faculty, of such matter as relates to them. I am so poor that I am quite unable to defray the cost of such printing.
I am the life--I have rent the great secret out of the bosom of Nature. I am the sun, the love, the goodness, a secret that the common class of men have to thank the learned for. From year to year I have continually learned more thoroughly the contents of the surface of the earth. I am, however, only allowed to divulge certain glimpses of this knowledge, and I show it to true friends, wearing knowledge at my side, as the soldier his sabre.
The true Friend Frederick von Diehl.
Poor Hofrath von Diehl! A more melancholy and affecting history than his is not readily to be conceived; and amid the ravelled skein of his ideas, the memory of his grievous wrongs stands clear and imperishable. It would be difficult to refer to language more vividly descriptive of the surprise and anguish, and despair, to which a human spirit may be subjected by the base wantonness of others, than that which breaks forth amid the strange wanderings of this document of his. The injured eyesight and hearing--the hair burnt from his head as by lightning--the shock of astonishment when he finds himself, instead of advanced to the post of honour which had been delusively promised him, thrust "there where inexpressible pains are inflicted; pains which make every thing in man which is of the nature of man cry out;" a prey also to epilepsy, and above all to madness. Poor fellow! yet amid the smarting sense of his irreparable injuries he retains all his own humanity of feeling. He cherishes no hatred against mankind. His heart is sound; that is not injured, though his brain is; and he employs himself through the long years of his mental eclipse, with the perpetual hope and endeavour to benefit, not only his friends, his town, his countrymen, but all mankind. It is well that the gallant student in the spring-days of his career, while he runs on the green and gay path of Burschen-life, is kind to him. That he makes daily amends to him, for the crimes and follies of those in a day gone by. May the brave youths of Ruperto-Carolo long cherish this kind feeling to the unfortunate Hofrath! may they smoothen the few years of his earthly course to him! While he lives in the dreams of literary fame and of boundless philanthropy, may they blunt the tooth of that poverty of which he so painfully complains; and, finally, may the brave hands of the sons of the Muses, one day lay that weak but worthily-meaning head, on which some of their precursors heaped wantonly such a fearful calamity, peacefully and honourably at rest.
But amongst those who derive principally from the students their support, we must not forget the respectable, discreet, and amiable woman, who is to be found stationed every day at the corner of the university platz. Here the worthy Frau Gottliebin displays her treasures for sale,--cherries, grapes, plums, whatever fruit in fact the season affords, and of the finest quality, separated into small baskets-full. Every change of the season marks itself upon her stall by the apparition of some new luxury, and at Easter it is gay with many-coloured Easter-eggs for the children. In Germany, it is said, "sixty kreutzers make also a gulden," and the wisdom of this proverb has proved itself on this good woman. She not only possesses a small house of her own, but her son has studied at the university, taken his degree, and is already advanced to the dignity of a curate in the church; yes, the worthy old dame yet hopes, and that soon, to be able to congratulate him as pastor of a parish. Her daughter is married to a surgeon in the Upper Rhineland, and when from time to time the stand of the old lady is vacant, in front of the well-known Pfalz-hotel, nobody is afraid that it is because she is ill, or because the weather is too severe for her; for summer and winter, in the hottest sunshine and the bitterest frost, there she is at her post,--no, there is a new grandchild expected, and Frau Gottliebin has disappeared to pay a visit to her daughter. She has numbered many of the present teachers of the university amongst her customers, and takes a lively interest in the members of the institution. She is also very free with well-meaning advice when the course of life of any of the sons of the Muses is not to her satisfaction. The stranger who has not tasted of her wares we may well advise to cast an observant eye on her stall as he passes it, and can promise him, if he chooses from it, a luxurious refreshment.