The following day put an end to her anxiety. It was a Palm Sunday, and that evening he wrote in his term-calendar “To-day the palm of life is won,” while, at a later hour, she confided to her diary the rejoicings of her heart. She prefaced the sentences with which she gave expression to her rapture by Chamisso-Schubert’s “I cannot understand it, I cannot believe it.”
She continues: “God, my God, how shall I thank thee for this unutterable bliss! No, it is too great and too much, my Heavenly Father. ‘Beloved!’ Beloved by him! My heart is full, but I cannot write! My soul rejoices in the thought; Beloved by him! But how can I prove myself worthy of him?”
The letters which he wrote to Elizabeth also lie before us, and it is not without deep emotion that we read these beautiful effusions of tender passion from the profoundly touched heart of a man to whom we had been accustomed to look up as an earnest teacher, and the dignified senior master of our science. Here we see him succumb with lovable weakness to a beautiful human emotion.
The passion for his “Lilli” compensates him for the magic of the East, which he had felt so deeply a short time before, and he calls her his “Shulamite” and his “Rose of Sharon.” Yet even in the bonds of love he preserves the fundamental instincts of his soul, and he writes to her: “Often and earnestly do I ask myself, my dear Lilli, whether it is not after all ignoble selfishness, when I feel such intense bliss in your devoted love, and in the consciousness that I have won you, so ardently beloved a spirit, for my own. But then again I feel that through your love all that is good in me is helped and strengthened, and I become capable of a higher and purer love towards God and our fellow beings, and then it seems as if it could not be wrong to desire such a relation with all the strength of one’s soul; as if this happiness were our vocation, seldom however to be attained untroubled, and never entirely unalloyed, upon this earth. Oh, my Lilli, what a rare and rich life would lie before us if the thoughts which we have exchanged in our letters should one day become an actual living reality, not only in word but in deed.”
The pure exultation of a maiden’s heart, overpowered by true love, re-echoes from her diary throughout the whole time of the betrothal. It is true that there were many differences of opinion between the betrothed, especially when religious questions were discussed, but his cheerful serenity was always able to make amends for whatever might have wounded her feelings in such disputes, and, taken as a whole, their betrothal was one long happy festival. He taught her the hieroglyphic alphabet, and wrote out for her little protestations of love in the picture writing of the old Egyptians. The learned man of five and thirty was unwearied in the invention of tender speeches, and it must have pleased Elizabeth-Lilli to have heard herself called, both in his letters and from his lips, by eighteen pet names,—she counted them herself. There was no lack on his side of verses, flowers, and acts of homage. In the house of the Partheys, who had adopted the orphan niece as a daughter, entertainment followed upon entertainment, gay excursions to the country were arranged, and masquerades, at which Elizabeth was obliged to appear in Turkish dress. But this gay life was contrary to her inclinations and to his likewise. The wedding was celebrated on the fifth of July, 1846, not in the old Nicolai house in Behren Street, where they had first known each other, but at Dresden. The excellent pastor Jonas, from Berlin, performed the marriage ceremony in the Church of Our Lady, and after a brilliant wedding banquet the young couple went to Pirna, the first stopping-place in a longer wedding trip which took them, by way of Paris, to England. There they were cordially received by the Bunsens, and the young wife found the eminent statesman and patron of her husband so kind and friendly that her fear of appearing embarrassed before him proved entirely unfounded.[93] She described vividly everything noteworthy that occurred to her, and depicted with a bold and ready pen the impression made on her by men and things. She saw her Richard received everywhere with the same respect and cordiality; the light of his fame enveloped and delighted her, but on their journey home a charming attention fell to her lot also, for at Cologne her father’s great mass, which she never yet heard, was performed in the most admirable manner as a mark of respect to her.
On the seventeenth of September they returned to Berlin, and “Richard” writes Elizabeth, “was forced to laugh at the childish delight which I showed in the beautiful big house, our own house, (in Behren Street) where I am to be mistress.”
They were soon installed, and the young couple, who were freed from all material anxiety by the comfortable property of the wife and the salary of the husband, could now return the hospitality which had been offered them on all sides. In spite of her strict piety the wife showed herself as much inclined as was her husband to social intercourse with agreeable guests. A few weeks after their return the young couple entertained a number of friends, and who these were we see from the memoranda before us. On the third of November, 1846, there met at their house Gerhard, v. Olfers, Homeyer, Max Müller, the Grimm brothers, Parthey, Carl Ritter, Ehrenberg, Lachmann, L. Ranke and E. Curtius. On the fifteenth of December there were assembled there A. v. Humboldt (who also visited them on other occasions, and for whom, Frau Elizabeth writes, she felt a genuine affection) v. Olfers, Boeckh, Pertz, Cornelius, v. Reumont, the Grimm brothers, Homeyers, Strack, the Partheys, Schelling and Bethmann.
Such a company of illustrious men could at that time be brought together nowhere but in Berlin, and if we consult the diary of Frau Lepsius and Lepsius’ later note-books, and appeal to our own memory, we shall und that the assemblage of noted colleagues and countrymen was constantly increased by a number of eminent strangers. Amongst them were scholars, travelers, statesmen, artists, and even the ambassadors of foreign powers, who were unwilling to leave Berlin without having visited the house of Lepsius. The most faithful friend of the family, beside the Partheys and Pinders, was the valued traveling companion of the young husband, Abeken, who had renounced his career as a divine, and was constantly rising to higher and higher positions in the Foreign Office.
How kindly Frederick William IV. was disposed to Lepsius may be inferred from the fact that soon after the return of the latter from his wedding trip the King sent him fifteen hundred thalers towards the establishment of the new household. Frau Elizabeth writes: “It is altogether a peculiar feeling; to have in hand such a large sum that seems as if it had fallen from heaven. I was quite troubled about our great good fortune in material things, and I reminded Richard of the ring of Polycrates. But as I read the day after in a letter from C. P. to Richard: ‘Whoever has behind him such a fruitful and undesecrated youth as you have, has a right to make claims upon life, which will not fail to reward you abundantly.’ Nevertheless one is astonished, and such a distribution of fortune seems almost unjust, if one considers what an immeasurable sum and what great wealth such a gift would be to poor people, and how to Richard it was only a pleasant proof of the King’s good-will, which he calmly put in the fund for setting our house in order. Five hundred thalers he reserved for current expenses, and soon it had all vanished as it had come.”
In his own house Lepsius stood at the helm with a steady hand, but his wife ever strove to make his voyage through life pleasant and happy.