The Stolbergs.
About this time the Counts Stolberg arrived at Frankfort; they were on a journey to Switzerland, and wished to make us a visit. The earliest productions of my dawning talent, which appeared in the Göttingen Musenalmanach, had led to my forming a friendly relation with them, and with all those other young men whose characters and labors are now well known. At that time rather strange ideas were entertained of friendship and love. They applied themselves to nothing more, properly speaking, than a certain vivacity of youth, which led to a mutual association and to an interchange of minds, full indeed of talent but nevertheless uncultivated. Such a mutual relation, which looked indeed like confidence, was mistaken for love, for genuine inclination; I deceived myself in this as well as others, and have, in more than one way, suffered from it many years. There is still in existence a letter of Bürger's belonging to that time, from which it may be seen that, among these companions, there was no question about the moral æsthetic. Every one felt himself excited, and thought that he might act and poetize accordingly.
The brothers arrived, bringing Count Haugwitz with them. They were received by me with open heart, with kindly propriety. They lodged at the hotel, but were generally with us at dinner. The first joyous meeting proved highly gratifying; but troublesome eccentricities soon manifested themselves.
A singular position arose for my mother. In her ready frank way, she could carry herself back to the middle age at once, and take the part of Aja with some Lombard or Byzantine princess. They called her nothing else but Frau Aja, and she was pleased with the joke; entering the more heartily into the fantasies of youth, as she believed she saw her own portrait in the lady of Götz von Berlichingen.
But this could not last long. We had dined together but a few times, when once, after enjoying glass after glass, our poetic hatred for tyrants showed itself, and we avowed a thirst for the blood of such villains. My father smiled and shook his head; my mother had scarcely heard of a tyrant in her life, however she recollected having seen the copperplate engraving of such a monster in Gottfried's Chronicle, viz., King Cambyses, whom he describes as having shot with an arrow the little son of an enemy through the heart, and boasting of his deed to the father's face; this still stood in her memory. To give a cheerful turn to the conversation which continually grew more violent, she betook herself to her cellar, where her oldest wines lay carefully preserved in large casks. There she had in store no less treasure than the vintages of 1706, '19, '26, and '48, all under her own especial watch and ward, which were seldom broached except on solemn festive occasions.
As she set before us the rich-colored wine in the polished decanter, she exclaimed: "Here is the true tyrant's blood! Glut yourselves with this, but let all murderous thoughts go out of my house!"
"Yes, tyrants' blood indeed!" I cried; "there is no greater tyrant than the one whose heart's blood is here set before you. Regale yourselves with it; but use moderation! for beware lest he subdue you by his spirit and agreeable taste. The vine is the universal tyrant who ought to be rooted up; let us therefore choose and reverence as our patron Saint the holy Lycurgus, the Thracian; he set about the pious work in earnest, and though at last blinded and corrupted by the infatuating demon Bacchus, he yet deserves to stand high in the army of martyrs above.
"This vine-stock is the very vilest tyrant, at once an oppressor, a flatterer, and a hypocrite. The first draughts of his blood are sweetly relishing, but one drop incessantly entices another after it; they succeed each other like a necklace of pearls, which one fears to pull apart."
If any should suspect me here of substituting, as the best historians have done, a fictitious speech for the actual address, I can only express my regret that no short-hand writer had taken down this peroration at once and handed it down to us. The thoughts would be found the same, but the flow of the language perhaps more graceful and attractive. Above all, however, in the present sketch, as a whole, there is a want of that diffuse eloquence and fulness of youth, which feels itself, and knows not whither its strength and faculty will carry it.