August, 1517.
Yes, our little Gretchen is certainly a remarkable child. Although she is not yet two years old, she knows all of us by name. She tyranizes over us all, except me. I deny her many things which she cries for; except when Gottfried is present, who, unfortunately, cannot bear to see her unhappy for a moment, and having (he says) had his temper spoilt in infancy by a cross nurse, has no notion of infant education, except to avoid contradiction. Christopher, who always professed a supreme contempt for babies, gives her rides on his shoulder in the most submissive manner. But best of all, I love to see her sitting on my blind father's knee, and stroking his face with a kind of tender, pitiful reverence, as if she felt there was something missing there.
I have taught her, too, to say Fritz's name, when I show her the little lock I wear of his hair; and to kiss Eva's picture. I cannot bear that they should be as lost or dead to her. But I am afraid she is perplexed between Eva's portrait and the picture of the Holy Virgin, which I teach her to bow and cross her forehead before; because sometimes she tries to kiss the picture of Our Lady, and to twist her little fingers into the sacred sign before Eva's likeness. However, by-and-by she will distinguish better. And are not Eva and Fritz indeed our family saints and patrons? I do believe their prayers bring down blessings on us all.
For our family has bean so much blessed lately! The dear mother's face looks so bright, and has regained something of its old sweet likeness to the Mother of Mercy. And I am so happy, so brimful of happiness. And it certainly does make me feel more religious than I did.
Not the home-happiness only, I mean, but that best blessing of all, that came first, before I knew that Gottfried cared for me,—the knowledge of the love of God to me,—that best riches of all, without which all our riches would be mere cares—the riches of the treasury of God freely opened to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Gottfried is better than I ever thought he was. Perhaps he really grows better every year; certainly he seems better and dearer to me.
Chriemhild and Ulrich are to be married very soon. He has gone now to see Franz von Sickingen, and his other relations in the Rhineland, and to make arrangements connected with his marriage. Last year Chriemhild and Atlantis stayed some weeks at the old castle in the Thuringian Forest, near Eisenach. A wild life it seemed to be, from their description, deep in the heart of the forest, in a lonely fortress on a rock, with only a few peasants' huts in sight; and with all kinds of strange legends of demon huntsmen, and elves, and sprites haunting the neighborhood. To me it seems almost as desolate as the wilderness where John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey; but Chriemhild thought it delightful. She made acquaintance with some of the poor peasants, and they seemed to think her an angel,—an opinion (Atlantis says) shared by Ulrich's old uncle and aunt, to say nothing of Ulrich himself. At first the aged Aunt Hermentrude was rather distant; but on the Schönberg pedigree having been duly tested and approved, the old lady at length considered herself free to give vent to her feelings, whilst the old knight courteously protested that he had always seen Chriemhild's pedigree in her face.
And Ulrich says there is one great advantage in the solitude and strength of his castle,—he could offer an asylum at any time to Dr. Luther, who has of late become an object of bitter hatred to some of the priests.
Dr. Luther is most kind to our little Gretchen, whom he baptized. He says little children often understand God better than the wisest doctors of divinity.
Thekla has experienced her first sorrow. Her poor little foundling, Nix, is dead. For some days the poor creature had been ailing, and at last he lay for some hours quivering, as if with inward convulsions; yet at Thekla's voice the dull, glassy eyes would brighten, and he would wag his tail feebly as he lay on his side. At last he died; and Thekla was not to be comforted, but sat apart and shed bitter tears. The only thing which cheered her was Christopher's making a grave in the garden for Nix, under the pear tree where I used to sit at embroidery in summer, as now she does. It was of no use to try to laugh her out of her distress. Her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears if any one attempted it. Atlantis spoke seriously to her on the duty of a little girl of twelve beginning to put away childish things; and even the gentle mother tenderly remonstrated, and said one day, when Dr. Luther had asked her for her favourite, and had been answered by a burst of tears, "My child, if you mourn so for a dog, what will you do when real sorrows come?"