NEW YEAR'S EVE.
The year's last hour retreating,
Peals out with solemn sound;
Drink brothers! your last greeting,
And wish him blessings round.
'Tis gone! with gray years blended,
That are for ever ended.
It brought much gladness, many woes,
And leaves us nearer to our close.
Voss.
The last evening of the year had arrived. It found the two friends Hoffmann and Freisleben in the room of the latter, where the friends were accustomed gladly to assemble. "Shall I light the lamp?" asked Freisleben. "No! let us sit in the dark. When the eye does not distract itself with outward objects, it then turns with delight to those images which memory brings before the mind." So the two sate; and they thought over all which this year had given and taken away; on all, after which they had striven, and which they had achieved; and on much, after which they had desired to strive and accomplish. Each was lost in this internal review, and the silence was only broken by one of the friends being so powerfully seized with the recollection of the past, that he must communicate his feeling to the other. "So then," said Freisleben, "another year of this beautiful university life is over! and when I call to mind that this year is a quarter, or a fifth of the whole, the words of a German writer are irresistibly forced upon me:--'The world may easily roll on, as it has hitherto done, yet for a million years; and in that period, five thousand years would be exactly proportionate to a quarter of a year in the life of a man of fifty,--scarcely a twelfth of our university life!' What have I done in the last quarter of a year? Eaten, drunken, electrified, made a calendar, laughed over the tricks of a kitten, and so are five thousand years of this little world run out, in which I move!"
Hoffmann.--Away with this calculation! To embellish the life of our friends, and to enjoy ourselves that life cheerily, that is the business of existence.
Freisleben.--The time spent at the university is certainly the most lovely time of our life; but even in that I am amazed to-day how one can be so merry, when one recollects how much more of unpleasant than pleasant the year has brought.
Hoffmann.--There I differ. Past pain is pleasant in memory, and past pleasure is pleasure both future and present Thus, it is only present and future pain that troubles us; a strong presumption of a sensible preponderance of enjoyment in the world, which is augmented by this circumstance, that we are constantly endeavouring to create enjoyment, whose fruition we can, in many cases, foretell with tolerable certainty, while, on the contrary, future pain can be much seldomer prognosticated exactly.
"Yes, to be sure! That is now clear, and I understand it," said Von Kronen, who had caught the end of this demonstration, "but that on which I have been reflecting is not yet clear to me. Perhaps you gentlemen who to-day are in so philosophical a mood can enlighten me upon it."
Freisleben.--What will come of it then?
Von Kronen.--The phenomenon is one of the most mysterious in nature. Yet--
Hoffmann.--Only out with it!
Von Kronen.--Tell me then how it comes to pass that cats have holes in their skins exactly where their eyes are?
Hoffmann.--Thou whimsical herring!
Von Kronen.--Without a joke, this is one of the three riddles that I will lay before you. If you can solve them, you shall smoke the whole evening genuine Havanna cigars, that I have received from Hamburgh as a Christmas present.
Freisleben.--That's worth something!
Hoffmann.--Samiel, help!
Von Kronen.--The first you have; so solve it.
Freisleben.--I will explain it to thee. The nose has here stretched the skin too much outwards, so that it has cracked it on both sides, exactly where the eyes are.
Von Kronen.--Well hit! Now for the second. Why do the hares sleep with open eyes?
Hoffmann.--Because their skin is too short to permit them to shut their eyes.
Von Kronen.--Bravo! Now the third. Where go the cats when they are three years old?
Hoffmann.--With thy confounded cats! If the talk was of foxes, or of some other reasonable cattle?
Von Kronen.--Yes! dear Lord Abbot[[44]] put it together, or I must pronounce sentence of asses on you.
Hoffmann.--Stop! I have it. They go into their fourth year!
Von Kronen:--
O damsel! O damsel! O damsel! now marry I thee,
Now marry I thee!
Mr. Traveller enters.--How are you, gentlemen? What an Egyptian darkness there is in the streets! It was all I could do to find the house.
Hoffmann.--There is moonshine in the calendar to-day.
Freisleben.--The police regulations in our city are very much like the clapper-mills in the cherry-trees. They stand still when the rattle is most needed, and make a terrible larum when, on account of the high wind, the sparrows don't come.
Von Kronen.--Tell me, Hoffmann, can a man blush red in the dark?
Hoffmann.--Another hard question! That a man may become pale with fear in the dark, I can believe; but blush red scarcely, since a man may be pale of himself, but blush only on account of himself and another.
Von Kronen.--Ay, that is true; but the question whether ladies can become red in the dark is a very difficult question; at least, one that cannot be settled in the light.
Freisleben.--Ask the magistrate why he does not light the streets better; that would be much more serviceable than these subtleties.
Von Kronen.--Dear Freisleben, in a country where the eyes of people who are in love shine in the dark, there is no need of lanterns.
Freisleben.--For thy satirical impertinence thou shalt go into the streets with me, on a voyage of discovery after some red wine. We will make booty of some bottles in one of the kneips, and then manufacture some glee-wine. It will relish with the cigars.
Mr. Traveller.--Capital! Hoffmann! let us hasten out too. We will buy sugar and spices.
Hoffmann.--Good! So every one makes himself a useful member of society.
In a short time all were again assembled; the table was moved forward to the stove. A light odour of cigars filled the room, and the wine, which was played around by the flames in the little coffee-kettle, began to sing. The cloves were now thrown in, the guests each took sugar, and Freisleben filled the glasses. Hoffmann had brought a guitar with him, and accompanied on it the following song:--
Down, down with the sorrows
And troubles of earth!
For what is our life made
But drinking and mirth!
Drink, and be glad, sirs,
Laugh and be gay;
Keep sober to-morrow,
But drink to-day!
Love's a deceiver,--
He'll cheat if he can;
Sweet innocent woman
Is wiser than man!
Trust her not, trust her not,
She will deceive!
Who wins her may gather
The sea in a sieve!
Laying up money
Is labour and care;
All you have toiled for
Is spent by the heir!
Knowledge is wearisome,
Save when the wise
Study whole volumes
In beautiful eyes!
So, down with the sorrows
And troubles of earth!
For what was our life made
But drinking and mirth!
Then drink and be glad, sirs,
Laugh and be gay;
Keep sober to-morrow,
But drink to-day.
"Seven Temptations." By Mrs. Howitt.
All repeat the last verse, and drink.
Freisleben.--Mr. Traveller, that song originates in your Fatherland. She who wrote it shall "live-hoch!" (They touch glasses.) Now, Von Kronen, let us have a German one.
Von Kronen sings:--
[THE SONG OF WINE.]
The song of wine is short and fine,
And joy and drinking doth combine.
Oh! he who cannot sing it yet,
Will learn it now we here are met.
The song of wine, etc.
Ye chat not long your cups among;
Wine fires the spirit into song,
He who can sing, high be his laud,--
He who sings not can hum accord.
Ye chat not long, etc.
Wine clears the blood, gives bolder mood,
And makes the heart all mild and good.
Wine is the death-blow to old Care!
A glorious call to do and dare!
Wine clears, etc.
The wine-elate, without estate,
And without castle 's rich and great.
Yes, gods we are when wine flows clear,
And old Olympus yet stands here.
The wine-elate, etc.
Join hand in hand; in Bacchus' land
All men are free, and equal stand.
O magic drink! thou noble wine!
The golden age for ever's thine.
Join hand in hand, etc.
Freisleben.--Our absent friends shall live! (They touch glasses.)
Mr. Traveller.--Will they return soon?
Von Kronen.--We expect them to-morrow, and their Christmas presents, which their Frau Mamma and Mamsel have given them. Pittschaft will be well packaged again, who would not on any account fail to spend his Christmas-eve in his Father-city.
Mr. Traveller.--The exchange of gifts at Christmas, as it is practised in Germany, pleases me much; and I am especially delighted with the Christ-tree.
Von Kronen.--Have you seen the huge tree at the Sattlermüllerei,[[45]] where the Hanseatic students hold their Christmas?
Mr. Traveller.--No. Do the students then also present each other with Christmas gifts?
Von Kronen.--One or other of the Chores frequently amuse themselves with this sport. I recollect that a society to which I belonged agreed to exchange Christmas gifts, of which none was to cost more than six kreutzer--twopence English money. The most droll things imaginable were brought on the occasion.
Hoffmann.--The glee-wine is famous; it warms one right through and through. Let us sing a beautiful song. He plays and all sing.