Of the mother I cannot think of anything to say. She is just the mother—our own dear, patient, loving, little mother—unlike every one else in the world; and yet it seems as if there was nothing to say about her by which one could make any one else understand what she is. It seems as if she were to other people (with reverence I say it) just what the blessed Mother of God is to the other saints. St. Catherine has her wheel and her crown, and St. Agnes her lamb and her palm, and St. Ursula her eleven thousand virgins; but Mary, the ever-blessed, has only the Holy Child. She is the blessed woman, the Holy mother, and nothing else. That is just what the mother is. She is the precious little mother, and the best woman in the world, and that is all. I could describe her better by saying what she is not. She never says a harsh word to any one nor of any one. She is never impatient with the father, like our grandmother. She is never impatient with the children, like me. She never complains or scolds. She is never idle. She never looks severe and cross at us, like Aunt Agnes. But I must not compare her with Aunt Agnes, because she herself once reproved me for doing so; she said Aunt Agnes was a religious, a pure, and holy woman, far, far above her sphere or ours; and we might be thankful, if we ever reached heaven, if she let us kiss the hem of her garment.
Yes, Aunt Agnes is a holy woman—a nun; I must be careful what I say of her. She makes long, long prayers, they say,—so long that she has been found in the morning fainting on the cold floor of the convent church. She eats so little that Father Christopher, who is the convent confessor and ours, says he sometimes thinks she must be sustained by angels. But Fritz and I think that, if that is true, the angel's food cannot be very nourishing; for, when we saw her last, through the convent grating, she looked like a shadow in her black robe, or like that dreadful picture of death we saw in the convent chapel. She wears the coarsest sackcloth, and often, they say, sleeps on ashes. One of the nuns told my mother, that one day when she fainted, and they had to unloose her dress, they found scars and stripes, scarcely healed, on her fair neck and arms, which she must have inflicted on herself. They all say she will have a very high place in heaven; but it seems to me, unless there is a very great difference between the highest and lowest places in heaven, it is a great deal of trouble to take. But, then, I am not religious; and it is altogether so exceedingly difficult to me to understand about heaven. Will every one in heaven be always struggling for the high places? Because when every one does that at church on the great festival days, it is not at all pleasant; those who succeed look proud, and those who fail look cross. But, of course, no one will be cross in heaven, nor proud. Then how will the saints feel who do not get the highest places? Will they be pleased or disappointed? If they are pleased, what is the use of struggling so much to climb a little higher? And if they are not pleased, would that be saint-like? Because the mother always teaches us to choose the lowest places, and the eldest to give up to the little ones. Will the greatest, then, not give up to the little ones in heaven? Of one thing I feel sure: if the mother had a high place in heaven, she would always be stooping down to help some one else up, or making room for others. And then, what are the highest places in heaven? At the emperor's court, I know, they are the places nearest him; the seven Electors stand close around the throne. But can it be possible that any would ever feel at ease, and happy, so very near the Almighty? It seems so exceedingly difficult to please Him here, and so very easy to offend Him, that it does seem to me it would be happier to be a little further off, in some little quiet corner near the gate, with a good many of the saints between. The other day, Father Christopher ordered me such a severe penance for dropping a crumb of the sacred Host; although I could not help thinking it was as much the priest's fault as mine. But he said God would be exceedingly displeased; and Fritz told me the priests fast and torment themselves severely sometimes, for only omitting a word in the Mass.
Then the awful picture of the Lord Christ, with the lightnings in his hand! It is very different from the carving of him on the cross. Why did he suffer so? Was it, like Aunt Agnes, to get a higher place in heaven? or, perhaps, to have the right to be severe, as she is with us? Such very strange things seem to offend and to please God, I cannot understand it at all; but that is because I have no vocation for religion. In the convent, the mother says, they grow like God, and so understand him better.
Is Aunt Agnes, then, more like God than our mother? That face, still and pale as death; those cold, severe eyes; that voice, so hollow and monotonous, as if it came from a metal tube or a sepulchre, instead of from a heart! Is it with that look God will meet us, with that kind of voice he will speak to us? Indeed, the Judgment-day is very dreadful to think of; and one must indeed need to live many years in the convent not to be afraid of going to heaven.
Oh, if only our mother were the saint—the kind of good woman that pleased God—instead of Aunt Agnes, how sweet it would be to try and be a saint then; and how sure one would feel that one might hope to reach heaven, and that, if one reached it, one would be happy there!
Aunt Ursula Cotta is another of the women I wish were the right kind of saint. She is my father's first cousin's wife; but we have always called her aunt, because almost all little children who know her do,—she is so fond of children, and so kind to every one. She is not poor like us, although Cousin Conrad Cotta never made any discoveries, or even nearly made any. There is a picture of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, our sainted Landgravine, in our parish church, which always makes me think of Aunt Ursula. St. Elizabeth is standing at the gate of a beautiful castle, something like our castle of the Wartburg, and around her are kneeling a crowd of very poor people—cripples, and blind, and poor thin mothers, with little hungry-looking children—all stretching out their hands to the lady, who is looking on with such kindly compassionate looks, just like Aunt Ursula; except that St. Elizabeth is very thin and pale, and looks almost as nearly starved as the beggars around her, and Aunt Ursula is rosy and fat, with the pleasantest dimples in her round face. But the look in the eyes is the same—so loving, and true, and earnest, and compassionate. The thinness and pallor are, of course, only just the difference there must be between a saint who fasts, and does so much penance, and keeps herself awake whole nights saying prayers, as St. Elizabeth did, and a prosperous burgher's wife, who eats and sleeps like other people, and is only like the good Landgravine in being so kind to every one.
The other half of the story of the picture, however, would not do for Aunt Ursula. In the apron of the saint, instead of loaves of bread are beautiful clusters of red roses. Our grandmother told us the meaning of this. The good Landgravine's husband did not quite like her giving so much to the poor; because she was so generous she would have left the treasury bare. So she used to give her alms unknown to him. But on this day when she was giving away those loaves to the beggars at the castle gate, he happened suddenly to return, and finding her occupied in this way, he asked her rather severely what she had in her apron. She said "roses!"
"Let me see," said the Landgrave.