CHRISTINE VON BISMARCK.
We select a few passages therefrom:—
“My friend lost her mother (Sophie Eleonore von Dewitz) in her earliest childhood, and her maternal grandmother (Louise Emilie von Dewitz, born a Von Zeethen of the family of Trebnitz) took her to live with her at Hoffelde. She was there nurtured in retirement and innocence, and already won my heart by her filial gentleness. There I found her once more, after years of war and life in a distant garrison, in perfect innocence, the charming picture of a blushing rose. O! that ye could return, ye hours of rapture! when the society of this sweet creature, who in her solitude had received nothing from art, but every thing from the hand of nature, filled my soul with such celestial joy, that in possessing her I forgot, not alone every evil of life, but even every minor grief! Return at least for an instant to my remembrance, ye sweetest of hours, for alas! the pang of sorrow will needs drive you away too soon! Above all, return, thou memory of yon magnificent spring night, upon which I wandered, between my best-beloved and her dear sister, in the outskirts of a majestic and peaceful forest, under the silvery moonlight, while the brooks trilled and the nightingale raised her sorrowing tones. My heart was instinct with love, and attuned to the enchanting prospect. I felt the beauty of the earth, and the still greater loveliness of innocence, indwelling those hearts so full of affection for me! But, no! this reminiscence is now too powerful for my feelings, and my tear-bedewed eye is too weak to bear the dazzling glory of joy! No other evening is destined for me on earth such as that was! She exists no longer who made that evening more charming to me than all the beauties of nature. She has left me forever! Soon afterwards our society was interrupted, our supposed felicity was bitterly destroyed. Our grandmother, the refuge of her grandchildren, the sustainer of all the poor of her neighborhood, died. My friend and I were parted, and the sorrow which succeeds all evanescent joy became our portion.
“Still it was not that terrible misery which now oppresses my heart. Well-founded hopes comforted and the tenderest affection aided us. My hopes were not in vain. The slight cloud which had veiled the morning sun—which gave me life—passed away, and his ray soon shone forth with accustomed glory. With anxious unrest I yearned to associate myself with my friend to the brink of the grave. Could I but have done so for eternity! Our compact, however, is not yet broken, and will endure as long as my tears can flow, and the soul of my beloved was too beautiful to prevent their flowing forever. Her excellent father, who might have bestowed her on a better and a richer man, gave her to me because my beloved would not have a better or richer man, nor any man save myself. What words, my father, could express my thanks for this favor, unless they could to some extent mark the value of your daughter, and stand in some relation to my lost happiness and my present grief! The silent tears that overflow my cheeks are more eloquent than words. You can not see my tears, but perchance God beholds them, and your daughter also. A tear is the only gratitude I can offer. May the conviction cheer you that you could not have given your virtuous daughter to any one who loved her more affectionately, faithfully, and unselfishly than I did!
“You then gave her to me, my father. The 5th of March, 1762, was the happiest day of my life. I still hear the words which my tender bride selected for herself: ‘Intreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me’ (Ruth i. 16, 17). I cherish the hope, the only hope now animating me, that even death does not part us.
“With what delight, my friend and my father, did I then receive her from your hand. Alas! that I had left her with thee! I declare with the sincerity of one who is comfortless that I should have done so, had I known that death would so soon have withdrawn her from my arms!
“I should then have lost eleven years of a life such as angels only lead; but I would willingly have sacrificed these happiest years of my earthly life. Then I felt as secure from such thoughts of death as if I were to retain her forever! but she left thee and her relatives in tears, and her peerless heart impelled her to ask my pardon for these very tears. Of this nature were all her imperfections. What happiness did I not anticipate in the future on the revelation of such tender sentiments; and the realization was still greater than my expectation. Our days passed away in happiness and peace. Could this state of things last forever? It was heaven upon earth, for me at least; for what can be preferred to this intimate association with a charming, joyous, tender, intelligent, and virtuous woman? Exclusively to love! exclusively to be beloved!
“Nature had endowed my friend with beauties of person and mind, by which she could not fail to please. The first would immediately fascinate the eye, the second preserved that fascination forever. Perhaps I ought only to dwell upon the last as the fountains of her virtues. But it would be ungrateful to be silent respecting the once visible half of the charming whole, by which alone we learn to know the other invisible portion, causing virtuous thoughts to grow into virtuous deeds, and without which I can not even realize any picture of my beloved friend. She was of noble form, pleasant and well formed. Her expression was exactly equivalent to its necessary power of pleasing. Her hair of dark yellow tint. Her forehead was prominent, which she herself regretted, but which made her more beautiful in the eyes of others. Her brow never betrayed pride or passion. Her eyes were bluish-gray—their expression was attentive and watchful, but joyous. Her heart was light, mild, and ever open, and ever performed what her eye promised. Her nose was very handsome, somewhat high in the centre, but not to the extent visible in ambitious or passionate women. Her cheeks were breathed upon by the happy bloom of health, and the still more lovely blush of shame readily rose. Her mouth, which never gave an untrue kiss, which never uttered a word of vanity, of slander, or of lust, displayed handsome, well-arranged teeth, and balmy lips. The gentle smile of this mouth, the seat of innocence, how soon, alas! was it to pass away! The outlines of the lower part of the face were soft, the chin well formed. The profile was artistic, and so excellent that a famous Berlin painter desired to sketch it for that alone. Her manners manifested a noble freedom, neatness, and good taste.”[18]
Thus does Bismarck’s grandfather depict his wife. There certainly is much of the sentimentality of the times in these characteristic sentences, but there is more—true affection and a cultivated sense. It evinces a well of poesy in the individual, that we grieve to find these thoughts clothed in the choicest French. The poet in him is then first justified when these periods are re-translated into German, for that they were thought in German is not to be doubted.