In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

shines the blue expanse of the Tegeler See, with sunshine flooding all the broad acres between. The fortress spires of Spandau and the dome of the royal palace of Charlottenburg spring from the purple, forest-rimmed horizon; and beyond is a tangle of history written on the sky in domes and palaces and spires, I know not what, nor how many. To the delight of this sudden vision is added the thought of the generations of men and women who have trod this forest path, and whose eyes have been gladdened by this sight, until a file of mounted knights and nobles, from the Great Elector through a line of kings and emperors, of grand dames and fair princesses, has swept in stately procession down the hill-side to be followed in imagination by the footsteps of many of the greatest men in literature, science, and philosophy which Europe has brought forth, and by those of statesmen and diplomatists from every quarter of the globe.

Returning to the château, we passed between it and the ancient house, when lo! a glance at the rear of the modern villa toward a second-story bay window under the spreading shade of a venerable tree told a new tale. I did not then know the history of the buildings, and it had seemed that only the low cottage was ancient, and the Roman villa comparatively modern. But here was a tell-tale slope of ancient roof, with a square port-hole of a window just beneath it, peeping forth behind the modern bay-window under the tree-tops, all out of harmony with the lines of Roman towers and roofs; and so we knew that the château was only modern in appearance, but ancient in reality.

A day full of quiet beauty, not unmingled with delight, this had proved; worth to the heart, in some moods, acres of canvas and chiselled marble within the walls of royal museums. But we were not yet quite satisfied. In the Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin stands a city house of the last century. Here, with a serving-man as the real master of his house,—with no wife, no child,—the author of "Kosmos" did much of his best work.

"I was often with my father in Humboldt's house during his lifetime," said my German hostess to me, after my return from these visits. "He lived among his books, in his study in the back of the house,—the second story, looking into the court; for he could not bear the noise of the street in the front rooms."

To this place we found our way in returning from Tegel. We stood before it in the street, and read the inscription on the marble tablet in the front wall: "In this house lived Alexander von Humboldt from the year 1842 till he went forth, May 6, 1859."

Entering the street door, we inquired of the bright-eyed little daughter of the porter, who had been left in charge, if we could see the second floor, where Humboldt used to live. "No," said the child; "there is nothing to see. Others live there now. As for Humboldt, you can see his statue before the University!"

The privilege of looking upon the home surroundings of Humboldt in Berlin was accorded us later, by an American gentleman into whose possession they had come. His massive old writing-desk, with a great mirror behind it, and deep drawers,—each bearing his seal,—where he kept his most valued curiosities and correspondence, and where now repose many of his autograph papers, is worth going far to see. Here, too, are a smaller writing-desk, his champagne glasses, quill pens, lamp-screen, candlestick, snuffers, and the last candle which he used. These and other significant and home-like memorials belong not to Germany, but to America, unless Germany repurchase them, as she should. Only in the house so long the home of their master will they fittingly repose, as the memorials of Goethe and Schiller adorn the homes that were theirs at Weimar.

During the conversation with the child of the porter at the house in Oranienburger Strasse, I had looked into the large and pleasant court, and saw the great vine clambering up over the wall which must have been in sight from the study. Here doubtless it was that Bayard Taylor, the famous young traveller visiting the famous old traveller, had the interview which he described so vividly that at the distance of more than thirty years recorded bits of the conversation remain distinctly traced in our memory.

"Humboldt showed me a chameleon," wrote Taylor, "remarking on its curious habit of casting one eye upward and the other downward at the same time,—'a faculty possessed also by some clergymen,'" added the facetious old man, as though he had discovered a new fact in natural history. Turning to a map of the Holy Land, Humboldt gave the young guest minute directions for his contemplated journey, until the very stones by the wayside seemed to grow familiar to the listener. "When were you there?" asked Mr. Taylor. "I was never there," replied Humboldt. "I prepared to go in 18—," naming a date thirty or forty years before. In such preparation for work lies an open secret of greatness.

In the little cemetery at Tegel, which has now no vacant place, Humboldt's epitaph speaks to the living. His virtues and his faults are left to the judgment of the Omniscient. In the gallery of her great men Germany places the colossal figure of Humboldt beside that of Goethe. More than one century must pass before the place of either is finally determined in the perspective of history.