"On Christmas Eve, 1780, our dear sister Jettchen died, in her fourteenth year; nine days before we were playing merrily, when she was suddenly seized with a pain in her stomach. The doctor thought lightly of it, and probably mistook the real cause. After seven days she became visibly worse, was weak and pale as death; she left her couch for the last time in order to reach us our writing books. Yet no one seemed to anticipate her death. Alas! it followed that Christmas Eve, early; about four o'clock they awoke us to see her once more. Weeping loudly we rushed up to her. She did not know us. 'Good night! Jettchen!' we exclaimed, and my father prayed, tearfully. Our teacher stood by the death-bed and prayed: 'Now take my heart, and take me as I am to thee, thou dear Jesus!' (From the Kottbus hymn-book.)
"She departed amidst these prayers, and lay there in heavenly serenity. My little sister Rieckchen, three years and a half old, came up and said to the sick-nurse: 'When I die, lay me out in just such a white cloth as my Jettel.' And seventeen years afterwards the same woman did it!
"Before this, in the evening, we had to give our Christmas greetings. My brother and Jettchen exchanged greetings—very beautiful—in writing. 'She who was your chief is absent,' said my father, weeping. On the third day of the feast she was buried. She lay in a white dress with pale pink ribbons, a garland on her brown hair, and a small crucifix in her hand. 'Sleep well!' exclaimed our old nurse, 'till thy Saviour wakes thee!' We could not speak, we only sobbed. Often did my dearly beloved Jettchen appear to me in dreams, always lovely, quiet, and serious. Once she offered me a wreath; this was considered as a sign that I was to die, as I was soon after seriously ill. But since my childhood I have not been so fortunate as to dream once of her. She loved me tenderly! I may say very particularly so!
"Our sorrow was a little alleviated by our thoughts being distracted by a new building of my father's, a new garden-house; he had long wished for an extension and entire transformation of the garden. In less than two years all was finished, and now we passed most of our summer evenings there. The garden had ever been our place for exercise, and now it was enlarged. What pleasure it was to us, on the finishing of the new building, for the first time to eat our supper in the open air! And then we were allowed to remain out till ten o'clock, and go about under the starry heaven; and my father discharged small fireworks for us!
"In May, 1782, our good teacher left us, having received the rectorship at Seidenberg. Our sorrow was great, very great! He blessed us: 'Keep steadfastly to the instructions I have given you! Fear God, and all will go well with you!' These were his parting words. I threw myself on my bed and wept upon my pillow.
"My father was a strict, upright, honourable man. He had raised himself from bitter poverty to wealth, by his own exertions. With unremitting activity he only thought of maintaining and extending his business; of giving employment to many hundred manufacturers, and to securing an independence for us, his children. He worked daily ten and often eleven hours, only his garden drew him sometimes away; otherwise nothing else in the world. He was born to be a merchant, but in the highest sense; small accidental gains he despised, and I believe it would have been impossible for him to have been a retail dealer. He never made use of the frequent opportunities of becoming rich by bankruptcies; he walked steadily in the straight path, and was angry if his servants, in his absence at the fair, overcharged the purchasers. His external life was as simple as his inward principles. His furniture remained almost unchanged: the inherited plate kept its form; he only attached value to fine linen and good Rhine wine. His table was frugal; with the exception of high festival days, he had usually only one dish; of an evening frequently only potatoes or radishes. Wine only on Sundays, except on a summer evening in the garden. About once a year he gave an entertainment, then father Haupt would not do the thing shabbily. Champagne he could not bear; this, therefore, came very seldom. But he delighted in old Rhine and Hungarian wine, and bishop made of Burgundy. On Sunday evenings he walked in the fields, and now and then his life was diversified by a drive. He was, moreover, hospitable; very often foreign commercial friends came, and he frequently took his favourite clerks from the writing-room to dine with him. He was fond of talking politics, and often took correct views of the future. Though he was grave, he could be very cheerful, and often joked with us. He was open-handed to the highest degree; gave much to the poor, and gladly supported industrious people. Sometimes a great disinclination to the literary class came over him; therefore he frequently declaimed against the albums of the scholars; yet he never gave less than one thaler eight n. gr., often double, nay, three and four fold. All boasting was foreign to him, and he hated all ostentation of riches. If he heard that any members of his guild showed such ostentation, he only laughed most satirically; but when the boaster made himself too ridiculous he would say, 'We have not seen the end of it;' or, 'What wonderful things that man has;' or, at all events, at the utmost he said, 'I am not a nobody, either.' He was strictly religious, yet without superstition, against which, as well as against Popery, priestly pride, and hypocrisy, he would loudly declaim. He thought clearly on the most important subjects, as he himself knew, and was indeed almost alarmed, if he took, as he thought, too free views. It was touching to me; when once at Leipzig, during my studies there, he expressed himself freely upon confession, and then, drawing back with great modesty, said, 'Yet I am saying too much, Fritz, for I know that I am no deep thinking man.' He had, as a youth, read part of Wolf's philosophical works; but they were too dry for him. In his judgments of men he struck, as they say, the right nail on the head; yet he was, like all upright minds, often caustic, sharp, and bitter. If he had once said, 'The fellow is good for nothing!' he adhered to it.
"From his over-extensive business, in which he had no intelligent men, but only mere machines to assist him, we saw but little of him. He was obliged to intrust us to the tutor and the woman-kind; the result was that we felt more reverence than confidential tenderness for him. Yet we loved him from the bottom of our hearts, and his principles, his teaching, and his simple life worked upon us beneficially.
"Our aunt had, it is true, her good days, yet she never succeeded in entirely gaining our love. Her quarrels with the maids were more repugnant to us from the contrast of the familiarity with which it alternated; she managed to make use of my father's moments of vexation to gain her objects. But all this did not turn our hearts from her, as she did us no injury, and often even took our part against the ill-treatment of our new tutor. It was only that she was not fitted to captivate childish hearts. From this she took a great aversion to our nurse, to whom we clung with our whole souls, as she had brought up us four motherless orphans without any assistance. Belonging to a better class—her husband had rented a large property at Wernigerode—she had become impoverished by war, plunder, and a succession of misfortunes, her husband had died, and her children had partly gone out into the world and partly been brought up by relations. She had an excellent woman's head, a clear understanding, endless good-humour, cheerfulness, and suitable wit. If it is true that I have sometimes humorous ideas, a certain share in the development of this quality belongs to her. I well remember that I have gone on for a whole half-hour with her making bon-mots and allegories. 'With you I can joke.' With this good opinion I was often rewarded. Besides this she was skilful in a thousand things, and could always give advice. She was not disinclined to the 'Stillen im Lande,' which from her great sufferings the cup of which she had drained to the dregs, could be easily understood. Her heart was pure and pious, and she maintained in us the impression of our former tutor's admonitions, when his successor would almost have exterminated them by his teaching and course of life. Many of her relations, and also her son-in-law had become surgeons, and she had, as a maiden, given medical assistance. Therefore she possessed more than usual knowledge, and astonished a surgeon when she skilfully set my brother's foot, which he had dislocated. She understood osteology perfectly; perhaps indeed she sometimes had too much confidence in herself, but her remedies healed very quickly; and when the surgeon for four months vainly endeavoured to cure my brother's foot, and spoke of the bone being rotten, she shook her head; he was sent away, and in a month the foot was healed.
"The public even believed that she dealt in the black art, but we knew better. 'I have sworn to my lady,' (our mother), 'to give my life for you, if it can be of use to you, and I will keep what I vowed on her deathbed!' Peace be to her ashes! her wish to repose near 'her lady' has been fulfilled. 'Children! when I die, I have only one request,—lay me near your mother; ah! if I am only under the ledge of her tomb, I shall be content.'
"Such was the state of things in our house when the new tutor came—he was in every respect the contrary of his predecessor. The one simple, straightforward, and just, avoiding even the appearance of evil; the other a frivolous, flighty dandy, who—it was then a matter of importance—played with a lorgnette, and wore stiff polished boots even when he preached; in knowledge below his predecessor; in faith not knowing himself what he wished. The former weighed his words, this one often swore, and his pupils soon followed his example. He danced, rode, played at cards, &c. In short, quite a common-place master. Passionate, tyrannical, and severe upon our faults, or rather—for he did not concern himself much with our morals—harsh upon slight mistakes in the school-room. And yet we learned everything well, and knew more than all our playfellows; of that I am very certain.