'He took her hand, and at the same time clasped his bride to his bosom, that heaved with unwonted emotion. She wept on his breast in silent joy.'
We would fain, if we had room, add to this the marriage sermon, preached by the bridegroom, and well preached too; for Jonas had knowledge, although, as he said himself, he never found half so much in books as is lying everywhere about the road.
Martha was just the wife for the honest, sensible hand-worker; and as it frequently happens with such characters, his affairs prospered from the date of his marriage. He took a larger house in a better situation for trade; and having presented the useless 'master-piece'—which nobody would buy—to the prince, he was rewarded by the dignity of 'Master-girdler to the Court.' But still 'uprightly and hardily the court-girdler lived with his wife, just as before; active in the workshop and warehouse, at markets and at fairs. Year after year fled, though, before the last guilder could be paid off, of the debt on the house. Days of joy and of sorrow succeeded each other in turn. They were all received with gratitude to God—these as well as those.'
We now come hastily to the third generation; for Jonas had a son called Veit, who was first apprenticed to his father, and then sent to travel as a journeyman. The patriarch had had no education at all; Jonas had snatched at his just as opportunities permitted; but Veit went regularly through the brief and practical curriculum fitted for a tradesman's son. He was, consequently, better informed and more refined than either his father or grandfather; and spent so much time in gaining a thorough insight into the branches connected with his own business, that honest Jonas was quite puzzled. 'Where did the boy get all these notions?' said he. 'He did not get them from me, I'm sure.' Veit had a bad opinion of the travelling custom, and for these reasons: 'How should these men, most of them badly brought up, attain to any greater perfection in their business, if they have left home and school without any preparation for it? No one can understand, if his understanding has not been developed. From one publican they go to another, and from one workshop to another; everywhere they find the old common track—the mechanical, mindless life of labour, just as in the very first place to which they were sent to learn their trade. At most, they acquire dexterity by practice. Now and then they learn a trick from a master, or get a receipt, which had been cautiously kept secret; when possessed of this, they think something of themselves. Even the character of these ramblers is not seldom destroyed by intercourse with their fellows. They learn drinking and rioting, gambling and licentiousness, caballing and debating. Many are ruined before they return to their native place. Believe me, dearest father, the time of travel is to very few a true school for life; one in which, through frequent change of good and evil days, the head acquires experience, the thoughts strength and clearness, the heart courage, and reliance on God. Very few, even of those who bring a scientific education with them, can gain much of value for their calling in life; extend their views, transfer and apply to their own line of business the inventions and discoveries that have been made in other departments of art and industry.'
Jonas understood little of the refinements of his son, but he opened his eyes when Veit obtained a lucrative appointment in a large metallic manufactory, first in London and then in Paris. In a letter informing his parents of this good-fortune, were enclosed the whole of the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself—a simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He is not ashamed of his old silver watch yet. It is not everybody that could act so. There must be strong legs to support such extraordinary good-luck. These the bursch has!"'
After years of absence, the young man at last walks suddenly into the paternal home, on his father's birthday, and makes them all scream and weep with joy. '"Hark ye, bursch!" exclaimed Jonas, who regarded him with fatherly delight, "thou seem'st to me almost too learned, too refined, and too elegant for Veit Jordan. What turner has cut so neat a piece of furniture out of so coarse a piece of timber?"' His stay, however, was short. M. and Mme Bellarme (his employer at Paris) 'had been loth, almost afraid, to let him go. The feeble state of health of the former began to be so serious, that he durst not engage in the bulk of his affairs. In the space of a year, both felt so complete confidence in Veit's knowledge of business, and in his honour, that they had taken him as a partner in trade, and in the foundry. Henceforth, M. Bellarme contributed his capital only; Veit his knowledge, care, and industry.'
The reform of the guilds, and the establishment of a technological school for the young hand-workers—both through the instrumentality of Jonas—we have no room to touch; for we must say a parting word on the reunion of the family by Veit's return permanently from abroad. Notwithstanding the prosperity of the now old couple, 'everything, ay, everything, was as he had left it years ago—as he had known it from childhood—only Christiane not. There stood yet the two well-scoured old deal-tables, wrinkled, though, from the protruding fibres of the wood; there were the straw-bottomed stools still; and at the window, Mother Martha's arm-chair, before which, as a child, he had repeated his lessons; there still hung the same little glass between the windows; and the wall-clock above the stove sent forth its tic-tac as fastly as ever. Father Jonas, in his enlarged workshop, with more journeymen and apprentices, smelted and hammered, filed and formed still, from morning to night, as before. The noble housewife flew about yet busy as a bee: she had managed the housekeeping without a servant since Christiane had been grown up. And Veit came back with the same cheerful disposition that he had ever shewn. In the simply-furnished rooms which Martha had fitted up for him, in the upper storey of the house, he forgot the splendid halls, the boudoirs, and antechambers of London, Paris, and the Bellarme estate; the Gobelin tapestry, the gold-framed pictures; the convenience of elegant furniture, and the artificial delicacies of the table on silver-plate.' Assisted by the patronage of the prince, he established a great foundry in his native town, of ball and cannon, bronze and brass; and on his marriage with the aforesaid Christiane, the sovereign made him a handsome present, in a handsome manner, 'as a small token of his gratitude to a family that had been so useful to the country.'
In addition to the hand-workers' school, there now arose, under the auspices of this family, a training-school for teachers, a labour-school for females, and other establishments. The town was embellished; the land in the neighbourhood rose in value; uncleanliness and barbarism in food, clothing and houses, disappeared. 'Only old men and women, grown rusty in the habits and the ignorance of many years, complain that the times are worse; at the sight of a higher civilisation, they complain of "the luxury and the pride of the world now-a-days;" as superstition dies out, they complain of "human incredulity, and the downfall of religion." "The day of judgment," say they, "is at hand."
'But Master Jonas, when seventy years had silvered his hair, stood almost equal to a strong man of thirty, happy, indeed, by the side of the pious Martha, in a circle of his children and children's children, honoured by his fellow-citizens, and honoured by his prince. He often told the story of his boyhood, how he used to go about hawking with Father Thaddaeus the tinker; and his face glowed with inward satisfaction, when he compared the former period with present changes, in the production of which he could never have imagined he was to have so considerable a share. Then he used to exclaim: "Have I not always said it? Clear understanding only in the head, love to one's neighbour in the heart, frugality in the stomach, and industry in the fingers—then: Hand-work stands on golden feet."'