The Serapion Brethren, Vol. II

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

from Mozart's 'Flauto Magico.'

"Presently he handed your little person over to me, and asked me to draw your horoscope, which I did. Afterwards I often came to your father's house, and you didn't disdain to suck at the little bags of almonds and raisins which I used to bring you. Then, when you were about six or eight, I went away on my peregrinations. When I got back to Berlin I saw with satisfaction that your father had sent you here from Münchberg to study the noble art of painting; because there is not a very large collection in Münchberg of works adapted for fundamental study, either in the shape of pictures, statues, bronzes, gems, or other art-treasures of value. That good native town of yours can scarcely vie with Rome, Florence, or Dresden in that respect; or perhaps even with what Berlin will one day become, when bran-new antiques, fished out of the Tiber, have been brought to it in some considerable quantity."

"Heavens!" Edmund cried, "the most vivid remembrances out of my childhood are awaking themselves in my mind. You are Herr Leonhard, are you not?"

"Certainly!" Leonhard answered. "Leonhard is my name. Yet I am a little astonished that you should remember me all this long time."

"I do, though," Edmund answered. "I know that I was always glad when you came to my father's, because you always brought me such delicious things to eat, and petted me. But I always felt a sort of reverential awe for you; in fact, more than that--a kind of oppressive anxiousness, which often lasted after you were gone. But what makes the remembrance of you remain so vividly in my mind is what my father used to say about you. He set great store by your friendship, because you had got him out of a number of troubles in the most wonderful way--out of some of those difficulties which come upon people in this world so often. And he used to speak in the most enthusiastic way about the extent to which you had penetrated into deep and mysterious branches of science; how you controlled many of the secret powers of Nature at your will. Not only that, but (begging your pardon for saying so) he often went so far as to give us to understand that you were really nobody other than Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew."

"Why not the Pied Piper of Hamelin? or the King of the Kobolds?" cried the goldsmith. "All the same, there is some foundation for the idea that there is something a little out of the everyday line about me--something which I don't care to talk about, for fear of giving rise to 'unpleasantness.' I certainly did some good turns to your papa, by means of my secret knowledge, or 'art.' He was particularly pleased with the horoscope which I cast for you at your birth."

"It wasn't so very clear, though," Edmund said. "My father often told me you said I should be a great something--either a great Artist, or a great Ass. At all events, I have to thank this utterance for my father's having given consent to my wish to be a painter; and don't you think your horoscope is going to turn out true?"

"Oh, most certainly," the goldsmith answered, very dryly; "there can be no doubt about that. At this moment you are in the fairest possible way to turn out a very remarkable Ass."

"What!" cried Edmund--"you tell me so to my face!--you----"

"It rests altogether with yourself," the goldsmith said, "to avoid the bad alternative of my horoscope, and turn out a very remarkable Painter. Your drawings and sketches show that you have a rich and lively imagination, much power of expression, and a great deal of cleverness in execution. You may raise a grand edifice on those foundations. Carefully keep away from all 'modish' exaggerations and eccentricities, and apply yourself to serious study. I congratulate you upon your efforts to imitate the grave, earnest simpleness of the old German masters. But, even in that direction, you must carefully shun the precipice which so many fall over. It needs a profound intelligence, and a mind strong enough to resist the enervating influence of the Modern School, to grasp, wholly, the true spirit of the old German masters, and to penetrate completely into the significance of their pictures. Without those qualifications, the true spark will never kindle in an artist's heart, nor the genuine inspiration produce works which, without being imitations, shall be worthy of a better age. Nowadays young fellows think that when they patch together something on a Biblical subject, with figures all skin and bone, faces a yard long, stiff angular draperies, a perspective all askew, they have painted a work in the style of the great old German masters. Dead-minded imitators of that description are like the country lad who holds his bonnet before his face while the Paternoster is being sung in church, and says if he doesn't remember the words, he knows the tune."