Scarcely had I compelled my friend hither, who would rather have been in the open country by the stream, among men, than he playfully assured me that I showed myself a true German, he related to me circumstantially, out of Tacitus, how our ancestors found pleasure in the feelings which nature so provides for us, in such solitudes, with her inartificial architecture. He had not been long discoursing of this, when I exclaimed, "Oh! why did not this precious spot lie in a deeper wilderness! why may we not train a hedge around it, to hallow and separate from the world both it and ourselves! Surely there is no more beautiful adoration of the Deity than that which needs no image, but which springs up in our bosom merely from the intercourse with nature!" What I then felt, is still present to me; what I said, I know not how to recall. Thus much, however, is certain, that the undetermined, widely-expanding feelings of youth and of uncultivated nations are alone adapted to the sublime, which, if it is to be excited in us through external objects, formless, or moulded into incomprehensible forms, must surround us with a greatness to which we are not equal.
All men, more or less, feel such a disposition of the soul, and seek to satisfy this noble necessity in various ways. But as the sublime is easily produced by twilight and night, when objects are blended, it is, on the other hand, scared away by the day, which separates and sunders everything, and so must it also be destroyed by every increase of cultivation, if it be not fortunate enough to take refuge with the beautiful, and unite itself closely with it, by which both become equally undying and indestructible.
The brief moments of such enjoyments were still more shortened by my meditative friend; but when I turned back into the world, it was altogether in vain that I sought, among the bright and barren objects around, again to arouse such feelings within me; nay, I could scarce retain even the remembrance of them. My heart, however, was too far spoiled to be able to compose itself; it had loved, and the object was snatched away from it; it had lived, and life to it was embittered. A friend who makes it too perceptible that he designs to form you, excites no feeling of comfort; while a woman who is forming you, while she seems to spoil you, is adored as a heavenly, joy-bringing being. But that form in which the idea of beauty manifested itself to me, had vanished far away; it often visited me under the shade of my oak trees, but I could not hold it fast, and I felt a powerful impulse to seek something similar in the distance.
Drawing From Nature.
I had imperceptibly accustomed, nay, compelled my friend and overseer to leave me alone; for even in my sacred grove, those undefined, gigantic feelings were not sufficient for me. The eye was, above all others, the organ by which I seized the world. I had, from childhood, lived among painters, and had accustomed myself to look at objects, as they did, with reference to art. Now I was left to myself and to solitude, this gift, half natural, half acquired, made its appearance. Wherever I looked, I saw a picture, and whatever struck me, whatever gave me delight, I washed to fix, and began, in the most awkward manner, to draw after nature. In this I lacked nothing less than everything; yet, though without any technical means, I obstinately persisted in trying to imitate the most magnificent things that offered themselves to my sight. Thus, to be sure, I acquired a great attention to objects; but I only seized them as a whole, so far as they produced an effect; and, little as nature had meant me for a descriptive poet, just as little would she grant me the capacity of a draughtsman for details. Since, however, this was the only way left me of expressing myself, I stuck to it with so much stubbornness, nay, even with melancholy, that I always continued my labours the more zealously, the less I saw they produced.
But I will not deny that there was a certain mixture of roguery; for I had remarked that if I chose for an irksome study a half-shaded old trunk, to the hugely curved roots of which clung well-lit fern, combined with twinkling maidenhair, my friend, who knew from experience that I should not be disengaged in less than an hour commonly resolved to seek, with his books, some other pleasant little spot. Now nothing disturbed me in prosecuting my taste, which was so much the more active, since my paper was endeared to me by the circumstance that I had accustomed myself to see in it, not so much what stood upon it, as what I had been thinking of at any time and hour when I drew. Thus plants and flowers of the commonest kind may form a charming diary for us, because nothing that calls back the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant; and even now it would be hard for me to destroy as worthless many things of the kind that have remained to me from different epochs, because they transport me immediately to those times which I remember with melancholy indeed, but not unwillingly.
But if such drawings may have had anything of interest in themselves, they were indebted for this advantage to the sympathy and attention of my father. He, informed by my overseer that I had become gradually reconciled to my condition, and, in particular, had applied myself passionately to drawing from nature, was very well satisfied—partly because he himself set a high value on drawing and painting, partly because gossip Seekatz had once said to him, that it was a pity I was not destined for a painter. But here again the peculiarities of the father and son came into conflict; for it was almost impossible for me to make use of a good, white, perfectly clean sheet of paper; grey old leaves, even if scribbled over on one side already, charmed me most, just as if my awkwardness had feared the touchstone of a white ground. Nor were any of my drawings quite finished; and how should I have executed a whole, which indeed I saw with my eyes, but did not comprehend, and how an individual object, which I had neither skill nor patience to follow out? The pedagogism of my father on this point, too, was really to be admired. He kindly asked for my attempts, and drew lines round every imperfect sketch. He wished, by this means, to compel me to completeness and fulness of detail. The irregular leaves he cut straight, and thus made the beginning of a collection, in which he wished, at some future time, to rejoice at the progress of his son. It was therefore by no means disagreeable to him when my wild, restless disposition sent me roving about the country; he rather seemed pleased when I brought back a parcel of drawings on which he could exercise his patience, and in some measure strengthen his hopes.
They no longer said that I might relapse into my former attachments and connexions; they left me by degrees perfect liberty. By accidental inducements and in accidental society I undertook many journeys to the mountain-range which, from my childhood, had stood so distant and solemn before me. Thus we visited Homburg, Kroneburg, ascended the Feldberg, from which the prospect invited us still further and further into the distance. Königstein, too, was not left unvisited; Wiesbaden, Schwalbach, with its environs, occupied us many days; we reached the Rhine, which, from the heights, we had seen winding along far off. Mentz astonished us, but could not chain a youthful mind, which was running into the open country; we were delighted with the situation of Biberich; and, contented and happy, we resumed our journey home.
This whole tour, from which my father had promised himself many a drawing, might have been almost without fruit; for what taste, what talent, what experience does it not require to seize an extensive landscape as a picture! I was again imperceptibly drawn into a narrow compass, from which I derived some profit; for I met no ruined castle, no piece of wall which pointed to antiquity, that I did not think an object worthy of my pencil, and imitate as well as I could. Even the stone of Drusus, on the ramparts of Mentz, I copied at some risk, and with inconveniences which every one must experience who wishes to carry home with him some pictorial reminiscences of his travels. Unfortunately I had again taken with me nothing but the most miserable common paper, and had clumsily crowded several objects into one sheet. But my paternal teacher was not perplexed at this; he cut the sheets apart, had the parts which belonged to each other put together by the bookbinder, surrounded the single leaves with lines, and thus actually compelled me to draw the outline of different mountains up to the margin, and to fill up the foreground with some weeds and stones.