Richard Lepsius, a biography

by Georg Ebers

She had sought once more, on Christmas eve, 1869, to win him over to the charms of that pious faith in miracles which filled her own soul, and to lead him to that fountain “whence alone flowed strength and happiness for her.” He answered her that she should not desire impossibilities, and should hold to that which was good in him, as he gladly contented himself with the many things that were excellent in her. Thereupon she wrote, “Truth and uprightness are family virtues of the Lepsius race. They have usually serene and well disposed natures, noble minds, which despise everything that is trivial, and a strong sense of honor. Richard adds to these a disposition to mediate and reconcile which makes him greatly beloved. Intelligence and clear sobriety of thought prevail among all the brothers and sisters. Richard has attained self-control and moderation amongst the manifold relations of life, and to this his prudence and his knowledge have added. Vain he is not; in short an homme comme il faut. At every moment he does what he thinks right, and therefore never has anything to repent of, (he once told me so himself.)” She then calls his character a well-regulated and symmetrical one, with a prevailing intellectual tendency, and, (we repeat), she exclaims after a married life of four and twenty years, and speaking with irritation, “If there were even any positive faults that I had to bear in Richard—but there are no faults, he has none, it is only community of faith which I miss.”

In this analysis of his character there are certainly many words of warm appreciation, and indeed his uprightness was such that every judgment, every expression of opinion which we hear him utter either publicly or in writing to his acquaintances, corresponds exactly to what is contained in confidential letters to his family, and the memoranda intended for himself alone. But his own wife sees in him only the well-meaning, faultless and stainless man of intellect, and forgets that for him, too, there must have been a time when he had to strive against those impulses and emotions to which few men are strangers. Regarding this conflict he had written to her in former years a beautiful and perfectly unreserved letter.

In this document, which gives us a key to the understanding of both his intrinsic and his external qualities, he writes: “I recognize an impulsive disposition as an old fault in myself, and I think I have observed it also in you. Impulsiveness is often beautiful and charming, and often resembles, in a small way, that which, on a large scale, is among the most splendid products of human inspiration and noble self-sacrifice. But it does not go deep, is not enduring in action, dissipates itself for inferior aims, impedes the quiet and blessed development of those tender and precious germs of grace, resignation, cheerful peace, and ready receptivity for whatever is good in all things and men, which slumber in every well-disposed nature. An impulsive temperament shows itself in every quick emotion which outruns kindness, in hasty judgment which so easily becomes prejudice, in a variable temper, upon which the blood should have no influence, in a tendency to complaint, against oneself as well as against others, and in love of criticism of oneself and others. On this account the diaries which I have sometimes kept have only helped me on the wrong way. The best remedy for an impulsive nature, and one which never fails in the long run, is a determination strengthened by religious conviction and faith to acknowledge to ourselves every disagreeable, disturbing, passionate impulse as wrong and unworthy of ourselves, and simply to put it aside, without regret and without considering ourselves martyrs. Besides this, there is great benefit in a regard for external forms, and refined, gentle manners. These require for their outer clothing freedom from passion, delicate and careful consideration, and an upright endeavor to reach what is really unattainable, and please all at once, except the wicked. It is an enviable thing to please whether among courtiers or in a students’ tavern, and yet to be neither a courtier nor rude. As you see, I say all these and a great many more things like them to myself, but do not follow them much in practice.”

This beautiful monition from a rigorously truthful man contains the confession that impulsiveness was an old fault of his own. But it includes at the same time a strong condemnation thereof, and a summons to battle against it. The remedy which he here declared to be efficacious he had tried on himself, and who knows with what grievous struggles he arrived at that dominion over the impulses of a strong nature, that restraint of external forms, and the practice of those refined and well-bred manners, which already distinguished him when he came to Rome, and which awakened the regard of Frau v. Bunsen (See page 98). It was certainly his honest and firm will and his manly strength, which led him to victory, but not these alone, for through his admonition we can hear the echo of Luther’s “Nothing is done by our own might, ... may the Right Man aid us in the fight.” His firm trust in God, his simple but genuine Christianity, free from every misinterpretation, self-torment and extravagance, supported him in that hard conflict.

In the beginning of his twentieth year he had already set before himself his ideal of life, and this, supported by the energy of his harmoniously constituted nature, he pursued to the end, first with struggle and conflict, and finally without any extraordinary effort, and as if of his own free will.

In Paris, on the occasion of the unveiling of the Vendôme column (Page 61) he wrote: “What can make a deeper impression than the strength of mind which shows itself in a composed bearing and an expression of control, in contrast with the unbridled passions of similar human minds.” To win this “composed bearing,” to acquire perfect command over unbridled impulses, was the aim of all his labor with himself. No, the character of a Lepsius did not come into the world as a thing completed, did not spring like Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus: it was won by hard, prolonged and repeated struggles.

In this campaign against an adversary who, however often he may be slain, continually wakens to new life, he accustomed himself to consider impulsiveness as an enemy, as a peace-breaker, as a disease of sound human nature. This latter, to his eyes, could only be truly great when ruled by calm self-control. Here we find an explanation of the words which he wrote to Bunsen when twenty-nine years old, and which must appear paradoxical and startling to the uninitiated. During his sojourn in England in 1839 his heart had been won by a lovely maiden, but his material circumstances would not permit him to woo her. All this he confessed to his sympathetic patron in reply to his enquiries, and added, “I hold every passion to be a defect in love, and why shall I, at the very outset, declare myself too weak to preserve the purity of true love, and keep it from cooling into passion?”

To all asceticism the healthy nature of this man, with his keen enjoyment of life, was a stranger, but for him the words “impulse” and “impulsiveness” had come to embody everything which transgresses the limits of an orderly and law-abiding life, everything which compels the rider, who should seek to govern his steed and guide it according to his will, to follow the animal instead wherever it may bear him. He at least knew how to compel the steed to submission. In England he seems to have shed warm heart’s blood in his effort to obtain the mastery over himself. There, where he found friendship, love, and the fullest inspiration, we often see him dissatisfied with himself, and hear him complain of “faint-heartedness and every sort of bondage.” (See page 100). He chiefly means here by “bondage” his faulty control over the powerful impulses of his nature, which he endeavors to subdue. Here he confesses to Bunsen (See page 127), that he daily feels he has not yet passed beyond the period of education.

His vivacious wife was astonished, when he was a mature man, to behold him rule over himself with entire and sovereign power, and guide the ship of his and her life. She was often forced to give expression to what she felt at this sight. “Richard,” she says, “always the same, I always depressed or excited.” On one occasion she compares herself with her husband in a different way, and says: “It is very true that it is better and makes one’s path easier through life, to be so passionless. One does not hope for too much, one is not so timid, one is not so much troubled, one does not have to struggle so much. But that is the way I am made, and at the bottom, I would not even care to be so self-poised; if one has a harder struggle, one has also more ardor and heartfelt delight.”

But the nature of this man cannot be called so perfectly self-poised, for he was as much beloved as a companion as he was esteemed as a scholar. He never showed in his manner the least trace of pedantry, and, as she herself had previously acknowledged, (See page 247) he gave himself up entirely and thoroughly to everything in which he engaged, whether it was social pleasures or the most serious affairs.