“And then, when we are there,” said Rücker, “we will call
on an old friend of my father’s, named Justinus Kerner. Did you ever hear of him?”
Did a Jew ever hear of Moses, or an American of General Washington? In five minutes I convinced my friend that I knew more about Kerner than he himself did. Whereupon it was decided that we should set forth on the following morning.
Blessed, beautiful, happy summer mornings in Suabia—green mounts and grey rocks with old castles—peasants harvesting hay—a Kirchweih, or peasant’s merry-making, with dancing and festivity—till we came to Weinsberg, and forthwith called on the ancient sage, whom we found with the two or three ladies and gentlemen of his family. I saw at a glance that they had the air of aristocracy. He received us very kindly, and invited us to come to dinner and sup with him.
The Weibertreue is an old castle which was in or at the end of Dr. Kerner’s garden. Once, when all the town had taken refuge in it from the Emperor Conrad, the latter gave the women leave to quit the fort, and also permission to every one to carry with her whatever was unto her most valuable, precious, or esteemed. And so the dames went forth, every one bearing on her back her husband.
In the tower of the castle, or in its wall, which was six feet thick, were eight or ten windows, gradually opening like trumpets, through which the wind blew all the time, and pleasantly enough on a hot summer day. In each of these the Doctor had placed an Æolian harp, and he who did not believe in fairies or the gentle spirit of a viewless sound should have sat in that tower and listened to the music as it rose and fell, as in endless solemn glees or part-singing; one harp stepping in, and pealing out richly and strangely as another died away, while anon, even as the new voice came, there thrilled in unison one or two more Ariels who seemed to be hurrying up to join the song. It was a marvellous strange thing of beauty, which resounded, indeed, all over Germany, for men spoke of it far and wide.
Quite as marvellous, in the evening, was the Doctor’s own performance on the single and double Jew’s harp. From this most unpromising instrument he drew airs of such exquisite beauty that one could not have been more astonished had he heard the sweet tones of Grisi drawn from a cat by twisting its tail. But we were in a land of marvels and wonders, or, as an English writer described it, “Weinsberg, a place on the Neckar, inhabited partly by men and women—some in and some out of the body—and partly by ghosts.” There were visions in the air, and dreams sitting on the staircases; in fact, when I saw the peasants working in the fields, I should not have been astonished to see them vanish into mist or sink into the ground.
And yet from the ruined castle of the Weibertreue Kerner pointed out to us a man walking along the road, and that man was the very incarnation of all that was sober, rational, and undream-like; for it was David Strauss, author of the “Life of Jesus.” And at him too I gazed with the awe due to a great man whose name is known to all the cultured world; and to me much more than the name; for I had read, as before mentioned, his “Life of Jesus” when I first went to Princeton.
Dr. Kerner took to me greatly, and said that I very much reminded him, in appearance and conversation, of what his most intimate friend, Ludwig Uhland, had been at my age; and as he repeated this several times, and spoke of it long after to friends, I think it must have been true, although I am compelled to admit that people who pride themselves on looking like this or that celebrity never resemble him in the least, mentally or spiritually, and are generally only mere caricatures at best.
On our return we climbed into an old Gothic church-tower, in which I found a fifteenth-century bell, bearing the words, Vivas voco, mortuos plango, fulgura frango, and much more—