Berlin, Recollections, Nov. 1854 to Mch. 1855.
There are certain persons without any physiognomy, the catalogue of whose features, as, item, a Roman nose, item, a pair of black eyes, etc., gives you the entire contents of their faces. There is no difference of opinion about the looks of such people. All the world is agreed either that they are pretty or ugly. So it is with Berlin. Every one tells you it is an uninteresting modern city, with broad, monotonous streets; and when you see it, you cannot for the life of you get up an emotion of surprise, or make a remark about the place which you have not heard before.
The day after our arrival was Sunday, 6th November; the sun shone brightly, and we went to walk in the Linden, elbowing our way among the promeneurs endimanchés, who looked remarkably smart and handsome after the Thuringians. We had not gone far when we met a nice-looking old gentleman, with an order round his neck, and a gold-headed cane in his hand, who exclaimed, on seeing G., "Ist's möglich?" and then bade him heartily welcome. I saw at once it was the Varnhagen of whom I had heard so often. His niece, arrayed in smiles and a pink bonnet, was with him.
For the first six weeks, when the weather permitted, we took long walks in the Thiergarten, where the straight and uniform avenues of insignificant trees contrasted very disadvantageously with the charming variety of our beloved park at Weimar. Still, we now and then noticed a beautiful wintry effect, especially in the part most remote from the town, where the trees are finer and the arrangements more varied. One walk, which skirted the Thiergarten on the right-hand side coming from the town, we were particularly fond of, because it gave us on one side an open view, with water and a boat or two, which, touched by the magic of sunshine, was pleasant to see. At Berlin it was "a day of small things" with regard to the beautiful, and we made much of little.
Our little circle of acquaintances was very agreeable and varied. Varnhagen was a real treasure to G., for his library supplied all the deficiencies of the public one, where to ask for books was generally like "sinking buckets into empty wells." He is a man of real culture, kindliness, and polish (Germanly speaking); and he has besides that thorough liberalism, social, religious, and political, which sets the mind at ease in conversation, and delivers it from the fear of running against some prejudice, or coming suddenly on the sunk fence of some miserable limitation. The first morning he called on us he talked of his terrible disappointment in Carlyle, a subject to which he often returned. He evidently felt an antipathy to the "Teufelsdröckh," which, indeed, it was not difficult to understand from the mere manière d'étre of the two men. They had corresponded for years before they saw each other; and Varnhagen was, and is, a great admirer of Carlyle's best work, but he was thoroughly repelled by his rough, paradoxical talk, and, more justifiably, by the despotic doctrines which it has been his humor to teach of late. We were amused to hear that Carlyle said he should think no one could die at Berlin, "for in beds without curtains what Christian could give up the ghost?"
At Varnhagen's we met, for the first time, Professor Stahr, who was there with Fanny Lewald, Fräulein Solmar, Frau Muisch, Dr. Ring, Dr. Vehse, Gräfin von Kalkreuth, and Director Wilhelm Schadow, author of "Der Moderne Vasari." We talked of Goethe. Varnhagen brought out autographs and portraits, and read us an epigram of his own on the want of liberality which Goethe's family show about opening his house to the public. He showed us a portrait of Kleist, who shot himself, in company with Frau Vogel, near an inn on the way to Potsdam. There was no love-affair between them; they were both thoroughly unhappy—he poor and hopeless for the future; and she suffering from an incurable disease. In the evening they both wrote, on a single sheet of paper, letters to their friends, communicating their intention (this sheet Varnhagen possesses). Early in the morning they rose, took a cup of coffee, went to the brink of a piece of water in the neighborhood of the inn, and there shot themselves.
Du Bois Reymond spoke very decidedly of the German civilization as inferior to the English.
Varnhagen, when well, is a regular visitor at Fräulein Solmar's, who for many years has kept an open salon for her friends every evening but one in the week. Here the three-cornered chair next the sofa was reserved for him, except when General Pfuhl was there. This General Pfuhl is a fine specimen of an old soldier, who is at the same time a man of instruction and of strong social sympathies. He has been in the service of Prussia, has been within a hair's-breadth of being frozen to death, "and so following." He spoke French admirably, and always had something interesting and characteristic to tell or say. His appreciatory groans, always in the right place, when G. was reading "Shylock" did us both good, under the chills of a German audience. Fräulein Solmar is a remarkably accomplished woman—probably between fifty and sixty, but of that agreeable Wesen which is so free from anything startling in person or manner, and so at home in everything one can talk of, that you think of her simply as a delightful presence, and not as a woman of any particular age. She converses perfectly in French, well in English, and well also, as we were told, in Italian. There is not the slightest warmth of manner or expression in her, but always the same even cheerfulness and intelligence—in fact, she is the true type of the mistress of the salon. During the first half of our stay in Berlin we went about once a week to her house; but bad health and bad weather kept us away during the last six weeks, except for one or two evenings. Baron Sternberg, the novelist, used frequently to glide in when we were there, and cast strange, cold glances around, talking quietly to Fräulein Assing or some other lady who sat in a distant parallel of latitude.
One evening a Frenchman there amused us by saying that he found in Meyerbeer's "Huguenots" the whole spirit of the epoch of Charles IX. "Lisez les Chroniques"—"de Froissart?" suggested Mlle. Solmar. "Oui, quelque chose comme ça; ou bien les Chroniques de Brantôme ou de Mérimée, et vous trouverez que Meyerbeer a parfaitement exprimé tout cela; du moins c'est ce que je trouve, moi." I said, "Mais peut-être, Monsieur, c'est votre génie à vous qui a fait entrer les idées dans la musique." He answered with complacent deprecation. G. looked immovably serious, but was inwardly tickled by the audacity of my compliment, and the evident acceptance of it.
A still more interesting acquaintance was Professor Gruppe, who has written great books on the Greek drama and on Philosophy; has been a political writer; is a lyric and epic poet; has invented a beautiful kind of marbled paper for binding books; is an enthusiastic huntsman, and, withal, the most simple, kind-hearted creature in the world. His little wife, who is about twenty years younger than himself, seems to adore him, and it is charming to see the group they and their two little children make in their dwelling, up endless flights of stairs in the Leipziger Platz. Very pleasant evenings we had there, chatting or playing whist, or listening to readings of Gruppe's poems. We used to find him in a gray cloth Schlafrock, which I fancy was once a great-coat, and a brown velvet cap surmounting his thin gray hairs. I never saw a combination at all like that which makes up Gruppe's character. Talent, fertility, and versatility that seem to indicate a fervid temperament, and yet no scintillation of all this in his talk and manner; on the contrary, he seems slow at apprehending other people's ideas, and is of an almost childish naiveté in the value he attaches to poor jokes, and other trivialities. À propos of jokes, we noticed that during the whole seven months of our stay in Germany we never heard one witticism, or even one felicitous idea or expression, from a German!