XI.[ToC]
THE HOMES OF THE HUMBOLDTS.
n hour by tramway, northwest of Berlin, lies Tegel, the hereditary estate of the Humboldt family. About two hundred years ago its hills and dales, pine forests and sandy plains, were the property of the Great Elector. Some eighty years later, a Pomeranian Major in the army of Frederick the Great was high in favor with the King on account of his distinguished service in the Seven Years' War, and was rewarded by gifts and promotions. To William von Humboldt, eldest son of this Major and Royal Chamberlain, descended the château and lands of the former royal hunting-lodge of Tegel. Though this was not, in strict sense, the home of the more famous younger brother, Alexander, these were his ancestral acres. Here he often came to this brother, whose death in his arms in 1835 cast a lasting shadow over his lonely life; and here, beside the brother and his family, his mortal part lies buried.
A bright April morning was the time of our visit. The outskirts of a great city are seldom more free from unpleasant sights than the northern suburb through which we passed. Here and there, in the plain which surrounds Berlin, sandy knolls appear; now and then the tall chimney of a manufactory or a brewery pierces the sky; but the city insensibly gives place to the country. Clean-swept garden paths, trim hedges of gooseberry bushes just bursting into leaf, and hens scratching the freshly turned furrows, brought back a childlike delight in the spring-time; while the antiquarian tastes of later years were fed by glimpses of delicious old houses which raised their drooping eyelids in quaint gable-windows looking forth over ivy-mantled walls, as if in sleepy surprise at all the bustle and stir of this work-a-day world.
One or two hamlets had been passed, and the camp, from which we had met a train of artillery and many companies of soldiers on their way to the city, when the tram-conductor announced the village of Tegel, the end of the route. A few rods, and a turn to the left past some mills brings us to the entrance of the castle park. An obelisk, battered and ancient-looking enough to belong to the age of Cleopatra, stands beside the modest iron gate of the entrance. An old peasant-woman passing with a pack on her back answers our question by saying that this is an ancient milestone which formerly stood a little above its present site; and we surmise that its mutilated condition is due to relic-hunters. Inside the gate we see a grassy plain with sandy patches; here and there are deep open ditches for drainage; and avenues stretch off in several directions, bounded by rows of great overarching trees. We follow one reaching toward higher ground and forest-covered hills. On an elevation a few rods farther on stands the château,—the old hunting-lodge no more, but a two-story Roman villa, rectangular, with square towers at the corners, on each face of which is a carved frieze with a Greek inscription. Back of this "Schloss," but not hidden by it, on a smooth slope, is a large ancient one-story dwelling with side front, in good preservation. Its ivy mantle does not conceal the frame, which is filled in with stuccoed brick, and which alone would proclaim the age of the building. The long slope of the mossy roof must hide a wonderful old attic, for it is full of tiled "eyes" to admit light and air, and two or three single panes of glass are inserted in different places for the same purpose. Three windows on each side the low doorway in the front look forth on the quiet scene, the lace curtains within revealing glimpses of a cosey, homelike interior. On one side are supplementary buildings fit for companionship with this quaint home, and a fenced garden and ancient orchard, beyond which five woodmen were leisurely sawing an old-fashioned woodpile of immense size;—only princely estates can supply such a luxury in these degenerate days.
The shadow of death was in the villa. Two days before, Frau von Bülow, the last of the Humboldts, had been carried forth, to rest beside her husband and children, her father William, and her uncle Alexander von Humboldt. The gnarled and twisted stem of a venerable ivy clasps with two arms one of the most majestic of the tall trees before the house, one branch bearing large leaves of a tender green, the other small and beautifully outlined leaves of dark maroon exquisitely veined. Beds bordered with box are bright with pansies. We wander onward, along the great shaded avenue, with level green fields on either side. An opening suddenly sets a study in color before our eyes. The unbroken stretch of sward southward is in most vivid spring green; there is a gleam of blue water beyond the tender purple of a distant forest, overhung by the fleecy cumuli of a perfect but constantly changing sky. It is simple and beautiful beyond description. We approach some wooded hills, well cared for, but lifting themselves upward in the beauty of Nature, not art. Buttercups and star-grass and chickweed arrest us occasionally by the roadside, until a wooded pathway brings us to a plot surrounded by an iron fence. Within, an old woman is trimming the ivy overspreading a grave, and there are eight or ten other mounds, all ivy or flower covered, and with low headstones. At the west end of the enclosure is a semicircular stone platform, with a stone seat skirting the circumference. From the centre rises a lofty shaft of polished granite, bearing on its summit a statue of Hope, by Thorwaldsen. On the pedestal are the names of William von Humboldt and his noble wife, and near it the newly closed grave of this daughter, who at the age of eighty-five, after a distinguished life, sleeps here beneath the funeral wreaths which hide the mound, and bear, on long black or white ribbons, the names of societies and eminent families who have sent these tributes of remembrance and affection. White hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley perfume the air, and palm-branches lie on the new-made grave, above the flowers. I treasure an ivy leaf or two, given by the workwoman, and pick up a cone which has just fallen from a fir-tree upon the grave of Alexander, as I read the inscription on his headstone: "Thou too wilt at last come to the grave; how art thou preparing?" This simple epitaph, with name and age, is all, except his earthly work, that speaks for him who was once, after Napoleon Bonaparte, the most famous man in Europe, and who, in learning and in devotion to Nature, was as great as he was famous.
From the little burial-ground we took a hill-path, hoping for a more distant view than we had found but hardly expecting it. Ascending gradually, there were glimpses of forests and hills far to the northward; and a porter's lodge, and stables, in a vale amid the trees, revealed only by the distant baying of a hound, and the blue smoke curling upward. Still we wound along, over the hillsides and under the trees, pausing occasionally to rest on simple rustic seats, on which were carved the initials of former pilgrims to these scenes. Faring onward, there came a sudden burst of light and beauty.
"Far, far o'er hill and dale"