Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

When Paul was thirteen, the family moved to Schwarzenbach, where he made the acquaintance of a young pastor, Vogel, who owned quite a valuable library, and encouraged him to educate himself. Given free access to the books, he began to read eagerly. Thinking that he should never own volumes for himself, he made blank-books, of three hundred pages each, from his father's sermon-paper, and began the almost interminable labor of copying whatever he thought he should need in law, medicine, philosophy, theology, natural history, and poetry. For nearly four years he worked thus, till he had quite a library of his own, and a wealth of information in his brain, which proved invaluable in the writing of after years. Such a boy could not fail of success.

Paul's father, meantime, had become despondent over his debts, small though they were, and died when his son was sixteen. The grandfather on the mother's side dying soon after, Frau Richter became entitled by will to his property. The remaining brothers and sisters at once went to law about the matter, preferring to spend the estate in the courts rather than have a favorite child enjoy it. Two years later, at eighteen, Paul started for college at Leipzig, hoping that in this cultured city he might teach while pursuing his own studies. Alas! scores had come with the same hope, and there was no work to be obtained. He found himself alone in a great city, poorly dressed, timid, sensitive, and without a hand to help. Many boys had brought letters of introduction to the professors, and thus of course received attention. He wrote to his mother, "The most renowned, whose esteem would be useful to me, are oppressed with business, surrounded by a multitude of respectable people, and by a swarm of envious flatterers. If one would speak to a professor without a special invitation, he incurs the suspicion of vanity. But do not give up your hopes. I will overcome all these difficulties. I shall receive some little help, and at length I shall not need it." All honor to the brave boy who could write so encouragingly in the midst of want and loneliness!

He longed to make the acquaintance of some learned people, but there was no opportunity. Finally, getting deeper and deeper into debt, he wrote to his mother, "As I have no longer any funds, I must continue to be trusted. But what can I at last expect? I must eat, and I cannot continue to be trusted. I cannot freeze, but where shall I get wood without money? I can no longer take care of my health, for I have warm food neither morning nor evening. It is now a long time since I asked you for twenty-six dollars; when they come, I shall scarcely be able to pay what I already owe. Perhaps the project I have in my head will enable me to earn for you and myself." Poor lad! how many hearts have ached from poverty just as did his. The mother was also in debt, but in some way she managed to obtain the money; for what will a mother not do for her child?

Paul worked on, but was soon in debt again. He could tell nobody but his devoted mother: "I will not ask you for money to pay my victualler," he wrote, "to whom I owe twenty-four dollars; nor my landlady to whom I am indebted ten; or even for other debts, that amount to six dollars. For these great sums I will ask no help, but for the following you must not deny me your assistance. I must every week pay the washerwoman, who does not trust. I must drink some milk every morning. I must have my boots soled by the cobbler, who does not trust; my torn cap must be repaired by the tailor, who does not trust; and I must give something to the maid-servant, who of course does not trust. Eight dollars of Saxon money will satisfy all, and then I shall need your help no longer."

He was keeping up courage, because he was writing a book! He told his mother, with his high dreams of young authorship, that he should bring home all his old shirts and stockings at vacation, for he should buy new ones then! It is well that all the mountains seem easy to climb in youth; when we are older, we come to know their actual height. The mother discouraged authorship, and hoped her boy would become a preacher; but his project was too dear to be given up. When his book of satirical essays, called "Eulogy of Stupidity," was finished, it was sent, with beating heart, to a publisher. In vain Paul awaited its return. He hoped it would be ready at Michaelmas fair, but the publisher "so long and so kindly patronized the book by letting it lie on his desk, that the fair was half over before the manuscript was returned." The boyish heart must have ached when the parcel came. He had not learned, what most authors are familiar with, the heart sickness from first rejected manuscripts. He had not learned, too, that fame is a hard ladder to climb, and that a "friend at court" is often worth as much, or more, than merit. Publishers are human, and cannot always see merit till fame is won.

For a whole year Paul tried in vain to find a publisher. Then he said to the manuscript, "Lie there in the corner together with school exercises, for thou art no better. I will forget, for the world would certainly have forgotten thee." Faint from lack of food, he says, "I undertook again a wearisome work, and created in six months a brand-new satire." This book was called the "Greenland Lawsuits," a queer title for a collection of essays on theology, family pride, women, fops, and the like.

Paul had now gained courage by failure. Instead of writing a letter, he went personally to every publisher in Leipzig, and offered his manuscript, and every publisher refused it. Finally he sent it to Voss of Berlin. On the last day of December, as he sat in his room, hungry, and shivering because there was no fire in the stove, there was a knock at the door, and a letter from Voss was handed in. He opened it hastily, and found an offer of seventy dollars for the "Greenland Lawsuits." Through his whole life he looked back to this as one of its supreme moments. It was not a great sum, only three dollars a week for the six months, but it was the first fruit of his brain given to the public. He was now nineteen. What little property the mother had possessed had wasted away in the lawsuits; one brother in his despair had drowned himself, and another had entered the army; but Paul still had hope in the future.

After a short vacation with his mother, he went back to Leipzig. The second volume of the "Greenland Lawsuits" was now published, and for this he received one hundred and twenty-six dollars,—nearly twice that given for the first volume. This did not take with the public, and the third volume was refused by every publisher. His money was gone. What could he do? He would try, as some other authors had done, the plan of writing letters to distinguished people, telling them his needs. He did so, but received no answers. Then, spurred on by necessity, he took the manuscript in his hand, and presented it himself at the doors of the learned; but he was either not listened to, or repulsed on every occasion. How one pities this lad of nineteen! How many wealthy men might have aided him, but they did not! He wrote a few essays for various periodicals, but these brought little money, and were seldom wanted. His high hopes for a literary career began to vanish.

It was evident that he must give up college life, for he could not get enough to eat. He had long discontinued his evening meal, making his supper of a few dried prunes. His boarding-mistress was asking daily for her dues. He could bear the privation and the disgrace no longer, and, packing his satchel, and borrowing a coat from a college boy, that he might not freeze, he stole away from Leipzig in the darkness of the twilight, and went home to his disconsolate mother. Is it any wonder that the poor are disconsolate? Is it any wonder that they regard the wealthy as usually cold and indifferent to their welfare? Alas! that so many of us have no wish to be our "brother's keeper."

Perhaps some of the professors and students wondered where the bright lad had gone; but the world forgets easily. Frau Richter received her college boy with a warm heart, but an empty purse. She was living with her two children in one room, supporting them as best she could by spinning, working far into the night. In this room, where cooking, washing, cleaning, and spinning were all carried on, Paul placed his little desk and began to write. Was the confusion trying to his thoughts? Ah! necessity knows no law. He says, "I was like a prisoner, without the prisoner's fare of bread and water, for I had only the latter; and if a gulden found its way into the house, the jubilee was such that the windows were nearly broken with joy." But with the strength of a noble and heroic nature, he adds, "What is poverty that a man should whine under it? It is but like the pain of piercing the ears of a maiden, and you hang precious jewels in the wound."