Part 16
“I think of the hopes that are gone, Robin, And I mourn not their stay was fleet, For they fell as the leaves of the roses fall, And were even in falling sweet.”
“Do you think of the friends that are gone, Jeannie, As you sit by the fire at night? Do you wish they were round you again once more, By the hearth that they made so bright?”
“I think of the friends that are gone, Robin; They are dear to my heart as then; But the best and the dearest among them all I have never wished back again.”
* * * * *
“We have lived and loved together, Through many changing years; We have shared each other’s gladness, We have wept each other’s tears.
“I have never known a sorrow That was long unsoothed by thee; For thy smile can make a summer, Where darkness else would be.
“And let us hope the future As the past has been, will be; I will share with thee thy sorrows, And thou thy smiles with me.”
ANONYMOUS.
A GOOD OLD AGE.
FROM MOUNTFORD’S EUTHANASY.
A good old age is a beautiful sight, and there is nothing earthly that is as noble,--in my eyes, at least. And so I have often thought. A ship is a fine object, when it comes up into a port, with all its sails set, and quite safely, from a long voyage. Many a thousand miles it has come, with the sun for guidance, and the sea for its path, and the winds for its speed. What might have been its grave, a thousand fathoms deep, has yielded it a ready way; and winds that might have been its wreck have been its service. It has come from another meridian than ours; it has come through day and night; it has come by reefs and banks that have been avoided, and past rocks that have been watched for. Not a plank has started, nor one timber in it proved rotten. And now it comes like an answer to the prayers of many hearts; a delight to the owner, a joy to many a sailor’s family, and a pleasure to all ashore, that see it. It has been steered over the ocean, and been piloted through dangers, and now it is safe.
But still more interesting than this is a good life, as it approaches its threescore years and ten. It began in the century before the present; it has lasted on through storms and sunshine; and it has been guarded against many a rock, on which shipwreck of a good conscience might have been made. On the course it has taken, there has been the influence of Providence; and it has been guided by Christ, that day-star from on high. Yes, old age is even a nobler sight than a ship completing a long, long voyage.
On a summer’s evening, the setting sun is grand to look at. In his morning beams, the birds awoke and sang, men rose for their work, and the world grew light. In his mid-day heat, wheat-fields grew yellower, and fruits were ripened, and a thousand natural purposes were answered, which we mortals do not know of. And at his setting, all things seem to grow harmonious and solemn in his light.
But what is all this to the sight of a good life, in those years that go down into the grave? In the early days of it, old events had their happening; with the light of it many a house has been brightened; and under the good influence of it, souls have grown better, some of whom are now on high. And then the closing period of such a life,--how almost awful is the beauty of it! From his setting, the sun will rise again to-morrow; and he will shine on men and their work, and on children’s children and their labors. But when once finished, even a good life has no renewal in this world. It will begin again; but it will be in a new earth, and under new heavens. Yes, nobler than a ship safely ending a long voyage, and sublimer than the setting sun, is the old age of a just, a kind, and useful life.
A good old man is the best antiquity; one whom time hath been thus long a working, and, like winter fruit, ripened when others are shaken down. He looks over his former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard himself to begin again. The next door of death saps him not, but he expects it calmly, as his turn in nature. All men look on him as a common father, and on old age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. He practises his experience on youth, without harshness or reproof, and in his council is good company. You must pardon him if he likes his own times better than these, because those things are follies to him now, that were wisdom then; yet he makes us of that opinion, too, when we see him, and conjecture those times by so good a relic.--BISHOP EARLE.
MY PSALM.
BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.
I mourn no more my vanished years: Beneath a tender rain,-- An April rain of smiles and tears,-- My heart is young again.
The west winds blow, and, singing low, I hear the glad streams run; The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land, To harvest weed and tare; The manna dropping from God’s hand Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, I lay Aside the toiling oar; The angel sought so far away, I welcome at my door.
The airs of Spring may never play Among the ripening corn, Nor freshness of the flowers of May Blow through the Autumn morn;--
Yet shall the blue-eyed Gentian look Through fringèd lids to Heaven, And the pale Aster in the brook Shall see its image given;--
The woods shall wear their robes of praise, The south-wind softly sigh; And sweet, calm days, in golden haze, Melt down the amber sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word Rebuke an age of wrong; The graven flowers that wreathe the sword Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal, To build, as to destroy; Nor less my heart for others feel, That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds To give or to withhold, And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told.
Enough that blessings undeserved Have marked my erring track,-- That, wheresoe’er my feet have swerved, His chastening turned me back,--
That more and more a Providence Of love is understood, Making the springs of time and sense Sweet with eternal good,--
That death seems but a covered way Which opens into light, Wherein no blinded child can stray Beyond the Father’s sight,--
That care and trial seem at last, Through Memory’s sunset air, Like mountain-ranges, overpast, In purple distance fair,--
That all the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west winds play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day.
* * * * *
Over the winter glaciers, I see the summer glow, And, through the wild piled snow-drift, The warm rosebuds below.
R. W. EMERSON.
JOHN HENRY VON DANNECKER.
DERIVED FROM MRS. JAMESON’S SKETCHES, LONGFELLOW’S HYPERION, AND FROM VARIOUS EUROPEAN LETTERS.
This celebrated German sculptor was born in 1758, at Stuttgard. His father, who was one of the grooms of the Duke of Würtemberg, was a stupid, harsh man. He thought it sufficient for his son to know how to work in the stable; and how the gifted boy contrived to pick up the rudiments of reading and writing, he could not remember in after life. He had an extraordinary passion for drawing, and being too poor to buy paper and pencils, he used to scrawl figures with charcoal on the slabs of a neighboring stone-cutter. When his father discovered this, he beat him for his idleness; but his mother interfered to protect him. After he arrived at manhood, he was accustomed to speak of her with the utmost tenderness and reverence; saying that her promptings were the first softening and elevating influences he ever knew. His bright countenance and alert ways sometimes attracted the notice of the Duke, who saw him running about the precincts of the palace, ragged and barefoot; but he was far enough from foreseeing the wonderful genius that would be developed in this child of one of his meanest servants.
When John Henry was about thirteen years old, the Duke established a military school, into which poor boys, who manifested sufficient intelligence, might be admitted. As soon as he heard of this opportunity, he eagerly announced the intention of presenting himself as a candidate. His surly father became very angry at this, and told him he should stay at home and work. When the lad persisted in saying he wanted to get a chance to learn something, he beat him and locked him up. The persevering boy jumped out of the window, collected several of his comrades together, and proposed to them to go to the Duke and ask to be admitted into his school. The whole court happened to be assembled at the palace when the little troop marched up. Being asked by one of the attendants what they wanted, Dannecker replied, “Tell his Highness the Duke that we want to be admitted to the Charles School.” The Duke, who was amused by this specimen of juvenile earnestness, went out to inspect the boys. He led aside one after another, till only Dannecker and two others remained. He used to say afterward that he supposed himself rejected, and suffered such an agony of shame, that he was on the point of running away and hiding himself, when he discovered that those who had been led aside were the rejected ones. The Duke ordered the successful candidates to go next morning to the school, and dismissed them. The father did not dare to resist such high authority, but he was so enraged with his son, that he turned him out of the house and forbade him ever to enter it again. But his good mother packed up a little bundle of necessaries for him, accompanied him some distance on the road, and parted with him with tears and blessings.
He did not find himself well situated in this school. The teachers were accustomed to employ the poorer boys as servants, and he was kept so constantly at work, that what little he learned was mostly accomplished by stealth. But he met with one piece of great good fortune. Schiller, who afterward became world-renowned as a writer, was at this school. The two boys recognized kindred genius in each other, and formed a friendship which lasted through life. When he was fifteen years old, his remarkable talent for drawing caused him to be removed to the School of Art in Stuttgard, where he received instruction from Grubel, the sculptor. The next year, he obtained the highest prize for a statue of Milo, modelled in clay. The Duke, who had forgotten the bright, ragged boy that formerly attracted his attention, was astonished to hear he had carried off the highest honors of the School of Art. He employed him to carve cornices and ornaments for two new palaces he was building. Ten years were thus spent, during which he acquired a great deal of mere mechanical skill and dexterity. But he longed to improve himself by the sight of noble models; and at last he obtained leave to travel. The allowance granted him by his ducal patron was only one hundred and twenty dollars a year. With this he set off for Paris, where he studied in the galleries of the Louvre, often going the whole day without food, and in a dress too shabby to be considered respectable. Those who saw him thus perseveringly employed, passed by without recognizing the divine soul that dwelt within the forlorn exterior. He afterward went to Rome, where for some months, he wandered about among monuments and ruins, friendless and homesick. But luckily his illustrious countrymen, Herder and Goethe were there. He was introduced to them, and their conversation imbued him with higher ideas of Art than he had ever before received. The celebrated Italian sculptor, Canova, also became acquainted with him, and often visited him in his studio. There was but a year’s difference in their ages, and their friendship became intimate. He remained five years in Rome, and distinguished himself by the production of several fine statues. He then returned to his native country, where he married. At fifty years of age he was considered the greatest sculptor in Germany. The Grand Duke ennobled him, as the phrase is; though it seems absurd enough that wearing a ribbon in his button-hole, and being allowed to put _von_ before the name his genius had rendered illustrious, could add any nobility to a man like Dannecker.
His two most celebrated works are Ariadne riding on a panther, and his statue of Christ. The circumstances under which the latter was produced are very peculiar. Dannecker was a devout Lutheran, and he often meditated upon a statue of the Mediator between God and man as the highest problem of Art. He sought to embody it, but felt that something was wanting. A child, who was accustomed to run about his studio, came in while he was at his work. “Who do you think that is?” said the artist, pointing to his model. The child looked, and replied: “I don’t know; I guess it is some great king.” Ah, thought Dannecker, I have made the expression of power to predominate over love. The search after a perfect ideal of the Divine and human combined took complete possession of his mind. Filled with such thoughts, he fell asleep and dreamed of a face and form transcending anything he had conceived. He hastened to model it in clay, while the vision was still fresh in his mind. When it was shown to the child, he at once exclaimed, “That is the Redeemer. Mother reads to me about him, where he says, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’” This confirmed Dannecker in the belief that he had been directly inspired from above. Others regarded it as a dream produced by the intense activity of his thoughts concentrated upon one subject; but he always viewed it as an immediate revelation. He was fifty-eight years old when this sublime vision was presented to him in his sleep, and for eight years he devoted to it all the energies of mind and heart. He studied the Scriptures intently, and prayed for Divine assistance. His enthusiasm was a compound of Religion and Art. Under this combined influence, he said he felt as if he were pursued by some irresistible power, which visited him in his sleep, and often compelled him to rise in the night and embody the ideas which had been presented to him. When he was sixty-six years old, the glorious statue was completed. It is clothed in a simple robe reaching to the feet. The hair is parted on the forehead, and falls in ringlets over the shoulders. The head is purely moral and intellectual in its outline. One hand is pressed upon the bosom, the other extended, and the lips are partially unclosed, as if in the act of speaking. The expression is said to be a remarkable combination of majesty and tenderness, exciting involuntary reverence in all who look upon it.
Mrs. Jameson visited Dannecker in 1830. The statue was still standing in his studio. She says: “He told me that the figure had visited him in a dream three several times, and that he firmly believed he had been predestined to the work, and divinely inspired. I shall not easily forget the countenance of the good and gifted old man, as he leaned on the pedestal, with his cap in his hand, and his long gray hair waving round his face, looking up at his work with a mixture of reverence and exultation.”
This remarkable statue was purchased by the Emperor Alexander, and is now in Russia. A year after its completion, he made a colossal statue of the Evangelist John, for the royal chapel at Rothenberg. He had for many years been Professor of the Fine Arts at the Academy in Stuttgard, and the instructions he was obliged to give there, combined with the labors of his studio, kept him very constantly occupied. Mrs. Jameson again visited him in 1833, when he was seventy five years old. She says: “A change had come over him. His trembling hand could no longer grasp the mallet or guide the chisel. His fine benevolent countenance wore a childish smile, and was only now and then crossed by a gleam of awakened memory or thought. Yet he seemed perfectly happy. He walked backward and forward from his statue of Christ to his bust of Schiller, with an unwearied self-complacency, in which there was something mournful, yet delightful. While I was looking at the magnificent head of Schiller, he took my hand, and trembling with emotion, said, ‘We were friends from boyhood. I worked upon it with love and grief; and one can do no more.’ I took leave of Dannecker with emotion. I shall never see him again. But he is one of those who cannot die. Canova, after he was a melancholy invalid, visited his studio, and was so much struck by his childlike simplicity, his pure, unworldly nature, his genuine goodness, and lively, happy temperament, that he gave him the surname of _Il Beato_, The Blessed. And surely if that epithet can with propriety be bestowed upon any mortal, it is on him whose long life has been one of labor and of love; who has left behind him lasting memorials of his genius; who has never profaned to any unworthy purpose the talents which God has given him, but, in the midst of all the beautiful and exciting influences of Poetry and Art, has kept, from youth to age, a soul serene, a conscience and a life pure in the sight of God and man.”
Longfellow, in his prose-poem called “Hyperion,” thus introduces the renowned German artist, on a calm Sabbath forenoon:--“Flemming stole out into the deserted street, and went to visit the veteran sculptor Dannecker. He found him in his parlor, sitting alone, with his psalm-book and the reminiscences of his long life. As Flemming entered, he arose from the sofa and tottered toward him; a venerable old man, of low stature, and dressed in a loose white jacket, with a face like Franklin’s, his white hair flowing over his shoulders, and a pale blue eye.
“‘So you are from America,’ said he. ‘I have never been in America. I shall never go there. I am now too old. I have been in Paris and in Rome. But that was long ago. I am now seventy-eight years old.’
“He took Flemming by the hand, and made him sit by his side on the sofa. And Flemming felt a mysterious awe creep over him, on touching the hand of the good old man, who sat so serenely amid the gathering shade of years, and listened to life’s curfew-bell, telling, with eight and seventy solemn strokes, that the hour had come, when the fires of all earthly passion must be quenched within, and man must prepare to lie down and rest till morning.
“‘You see,’ he continued, ‘my hands are cold. They were warmer once. I am now an old man.’
“‘Yet these are the hands that sculptured the beautiful Ariadne and the Panther,’ replied Flemming. ‘The soul never grows old.’
“‘Nor does Nature,’ said the old man, pleased with this allusion to his great work, and pointing to the green trees before his window. ‘This pleasure I have left to me. My sight is still good. I can even distinguish objects on the side of yonder mountain. My hearing is also unimpaired. For all which I thank God.’
“Directing Flemming’s attention to a fine engraving which hung on the opposite wall of the room, he continued: ‘That is an engraving of Canova’s Religion. I love to sit here and look at it, for hours together. It is beautiful. He made the statue for his native town, where they had no church, until he built them one. He placed the statue in it. He sent me this engraving as a present. Ah, he was a dear, good man! The name of his native town I have forgotten. My memory fails me. I cannot remember names.’
“Fearful that he had disturbed the old man in his morning devotions, Flemming did not remain long; but he took his leave with regret. There was something impressive in the scene he had witnessed;--this beautiful old age of the artist; sitting by the open window, in the bright summer morning; the labor of life accomplished; the horizon reached, where heaven and earth meet; thinking it was angel’s music when he heard the church bells ring; himself too old to go. As he walked back to his chamber, he thought within himself whether he likewise might not accomplish something which should live after him;--might not bring something permanent out of this fast-fleeting life of man, and then sit down, like the artist, in serene old age, and fold his hands in silence. He wondered how a man felt when he grew so old, that he could no longer go to church, but must sit at home, and read the Bible in large print. His heart was full of indefinite longings, mingled with regrets; longings to accomplish something worthy of life; regret that as yet he had accomplished nothing, but had felt and dreamed only. Thus the warm days in spring bring forth passion-flowers and forget-me-nots. It is only after mid-summer, when the days grow shorter and hotter, that fruit begins to appear. Then the heat of the day brings forward the harvest; and after the harvest, the leaves fall, and there is a gray frost.”
Dannecker lived eighty-five years. His last drawing, done when he was extremely old, represented an angel guiding an aged man from the grave, and pointing to him the opening heaven. It was a beautiful occupation to console the last days of this truly Christian artist’s life.
When a good man dies,--one that hath lived innocently,--then the joys break forth through the clouds of sickness, and the conscience stands upright, and confesses the glories of God, and owns so much integrity that it can hope for pardon and obtain it too. Then the sorrows of sickness do but untie the soul from its chain, and let it go forth, first into liberty and then into glory.
JEREMY TAYLOR.
THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES.
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
That way look, my infant, lo! What a pretty baby-show! See the kitten on the wall, Sporting with the leaves that fall! Withered leaves--one, two, and three-- From the lofty Elder-tree! --See the kitten! how she starts, Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts, First at one, and then its fellow, Just as light and just as yellow! Such a light of gladness breaks, Pretty kitten, from thy freaks, Spreads, with such a living grace, O’er my little Laura’s face! Yes, the sight so stirs and charms Thee, baby, laughing in my arms, That almost I could repine That your transports are not mine; That I do not wholly fare Even as ye do, thoughtless pair! And I wall have my careless season, Spite of melancholy reason; Will walk through life in such a way, That, when time brings on decay, Now and then I may possess Hours of perfect gladsomeness. --Pleased by any random toy; By a kitten’s busy joy, Or an infant’s laughing eye, Sharing in the ecstasy. I would fare like that, or this; Find my wisdom in my bliss; Keep the sprightly soul awake; And have faculties to take, Even from things by sorrow wrought, Matter for a jocund thought; Spite of care and spite of grief, To gambol with Life’s falling leaf.
* * * * *