Conrad Gesner

“ Gesner, Konrad von, Swiss scholar and naturalist, born at Zurich; hampered by ill-health and poverty in his youth, he yet contrived by unremitting diligence to obtain an excellent education at Strasburg, Bourges, and Paris; in his twenty-first year he obtained an appointment in Zurich University, and in 1537 became professor of Greek at Lausanne; abandoning the idea he entertained of entering the Church, he determined to adopt the medical profession instead, graduated at Basel in 1540, and a year later went to Zurich to occupy the chair of Natural History and to practise as a doctor ”

“ I believe in Him through whom is forgiveness of sins; I believe in His mercy, His merits, His Word”—Fritz almost started, for at that moment one sentence spoken by the Holy One flashed across his memory, and by that sentence he stood condemned:—“If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Fritz Arnt thought of Carl Gesner.
“Have I not nourished hatred and malice in my heart for years?” thought the young soldier. “Then have my very prayers been a mockery; then am I still UNFORGIVEN. I dare face an earthly foe, but how dare I face a heavenly Judge? ”

“ GESNER, JOHANN MATTHIAS (1691–1761) , German classical scholar and schoolmaster, was born at Roth near Ansbach on the 9th of April 1691. He studied at the university of Jena, and in 1714 published a work on the Philopatris ascribed to Lucian. In 1715 he became librarian and conrector (vice-principal) at Weimar, in 1729 rector of the gymnasium at Ansbach, and in 1730 rector of the Thomas school at Leipzig. ”

“ Fritz glanced at the inscription, then at his mother, and smiled. Was it not strange that Carl Gesner should have happened to choose for the motto on the wall of the cottage the very words which had had such a deep effect on the heart of Fritz? There they were, to shine brightly from henceforth on his happy home, the parting words of his mother,—
It is God who giveth the Victory. ”

“ He sets down Gonzales' profuse apologies in full too. For it was Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the English, had come down to the inn with half his band, on his way to the sea. "His excellency," he explained, "rushed out with fierce impetuosity, and, moreover, was not known to us for a friend, and so we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had become of the witches, he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, then voiced calmly a moral reflection: "The passion for gold is pitiless in the very old, senor," he said. ”

“ It was nightfall, and wrapped in a cloak which was lent to him by Conrad, Hans crept through the darkest and most retired streets until he reached the convent, in order that he might relate his unfortunate adventure to his uncle and take leave of him.
Not without much shame and sorrow had Hans to acknowledge to the good father how he had neglected his oft-repeated cautions and advice, and it was indeed a grief to his uncle to find into what dangers and difficulties Hans had fallen, which would thus oblige him to leave his friends and protectors and suddenly go forth alone into the world. ”

“ He had one very favorite friend, who, like himself, had been a scholar in the convent, and this Conrad, for so he was called, being the son of a rich burgher in the town, Hans was led into companionship with many gay and thoughtless youths, who spent much of their time in feasting and pleasure taking, and who were not like Hans accustomed to labor from morning till night, and live on simple fare. ”

“ History, natural history, and books of travel are followed by the plays of Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller, while Gesner's idyls charm him, and he absorbs the stories and romances of Wieland. In 1808 he reads the early works of Schiller and admires the ideal enthusiasm of Don Carlos. ”

“ At that time of excitement all Prussians were ready to show kindness to the brave defenders of their land; and Fritz knew that even Carl might be willing to make friends with a young soldier then, for the farmer had 135such patriotic zeal as to talk of joining the army himself. But Fritz would have nothing to do with Carl Gesner. “I will never cross the threshold nor grasp the hand of a man who turned us all out of doors, and nearly killed my mother,” muttered Fritz to himself, as he strode past the house of the farmer. ”

“ In 1555 Gesner issued his narrative (Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati) of his excursion to the Gnepfstein (6299 ft.) , the lowest point in the Pilatus chain, and therein explains at length how each of the senses of man is refreshed in the course of a mountain excursion.
Lives by J. Hanhart (Winterthur, 1824) and J. Simler (Zürich, 1566) ; see also Lebert’s Gesner als Arzt (Zürich, 1854) . ”

“ Kurt and Conrad gave themselves great airs, for, being tall and robust and well skilled in all games of strength, they laid down the law whenever they appeared on the village green, and bragged so loudly that most people were afraid to contradict them, more especially as their father backed them up in everything. He thought they could do no wrong, whereas Hans was always wrong and of no use at all; he ought, in fact, to have been a girl, always pinned to his mother’s apron-string. ”

“ Now, however, the objectionable subject having once been introduced in reference to Eugénie's signature, the Baron inquired in a tone of the utmost indifference, as if asking for news of a very slight and distant acquaintance, how things were going on the Berkow estates.
"Badly, sir, very badly," said Conrad, turning to his father, but keeping his place at his sister's side. "Arthur fights like a man against the misfortunes which are assailing him on all sides, but I am afraid he will succumb to them at last. He has ten times more to battle against than the proprietors of the other works. ”

“ It did not, however, attain to great notoriety until in 1830 an anonymous article (by E. L. von Gerlach) appeared, which openly charged Wilhelm Gesenius and J. A. L. Wegscheider with infidelity and profanity, and on the ground of these accusations advocated the interposition of the civil power, thus giving rise to the prolonged Hallische Streit. In 1828 the first volume of Hengstenberg’s Christologie des Alten Testaments passed through the press; in the autumn of that year he became professor ordinarius in theology, and in 1829 doctor of theology. He died on the 28th of May 1869. ”

“ They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever!” (Dan. xii 3.)
130 THE VICTORY.
FRITZ ARNT was the son of a poor widow, who dwelt near the shore of the Rhine. He had been her chief comfort and helper since the day when Carl Gesner, the hard-hearted farmer, had turned her and her three children out of their cottage the very afternoon on which the funeral of her husband had taken place. In the middle of winter the sobbing widow had to go forth from her home ”

“ On a morning in September, Frau Arnt and her wounded son returned to their native village. Fritz, weak and lame, had to lean on his mother’s arm for support, as the two walked the short distance from the railway station.
“Strange that Wilhelm should not have been here to welcome us!” observed the widow. “He cannot have received my note to tell of our coming.”
“Don’t let us pass our old cottage, mother,” said Fritz faintly. “I have never liked to 144go near it since Carl Gesner turned us out of it.”
“Nay, my son; we must take the shortest path home,” said the widow. ”

“ But apparently Heyst was not a hermit by temperament. The sight of his land was not invincibly odious to him. We must believe this, since for some reason or other he did come out from his retreat for a while. Perhaps it was only to see whether there were any letters for him at the Tesmans. I don't know. No one knows. But this reappearance shows that his detachment from the world was not complete. And incompleteness of any sort leads to trouble. Axel Heyst ought not to have cared for his letters--or whatever it was that brought him out after something more than a year and a half in Samburan. ”

“ The Duc de Mersch looked swiftly over his shoulder toward the window.
“They seem to be angry there,” he said nervously. “Had not something better be done, Miss Granger?”
Miss Granger followed the direction of his eyes.
“Why,” she said, “we’re used to these differences of opinion. Besides, it’s only Monsieur Radet; he’s forever at war with someone or other.”
“He ought to be shown the door,” the Duc grumbled.
“Oh, as for that,” she answered, “we couldn’t. My aunt would be desolated by such a necessity. He is very influential in certain quarters. ”

“ It threw everything—the whole world—into more unpleasant relations with me than even the Greenland affair. They had not been talking about my aunt and her Salon, but about my . . . my sister. She was de Mersch's "Anglaise." I did not believe it, but probably all Paris—the whole world—said she was. And to the whole world I was her brother! Those two men who had looked at me over their shoulders had shrugged and said, "Oh, he's . . ." And the whole world wherever I went would whisper in asides, "Don't you know Granger? He's the brother. De Mersch employs him." ”

“ She was probably a member of some clique that called themselves Fourth Dimensionists—just as there had been pre-Raphaelites. It was a matter of cant allegory. I began to wonder how it was that I had never heard of them. And how on earth had they come to hear of me!
“She must have read something of mine,” I found myself musing: “the Jenkins story perhaps. It must have been the Jenkins story; they gave it a good place in their rotten magazine. She must have seen that it was the real thing, and....” When one is an author one looks at things in that way, you know. ”

“ I see it now—the wide sweep of the bay, the glittering sands, the wealth of green infinite and varied, the sea blue like the sea of a dream, the crowd of attentive faces, the blaze of vivid colour—the water reflecting it all, the curve of the shore, the jetty, the high-sterned outlandish craft floating still, and the three boats with tired men from the West sleeping unconscious of the land and the people and of the violence of sunshine. They slept thrown across the thwarts, curled on bottom-boards, in the careless attitudes of death. ”

“ What is true of Great Britain is true, though in less measure, of all other modern nations, and it is not necessary here to deal with more than the early manifestations of biography in the principal European literatures.
To Switzerland appears due the honour of having given birth to the earliest biographical dictionary ever compiled, the Bibliotheca Universalis of Konrad Gesner (1516-1565) , published at Zürich in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, from 1545 to 1549. ”

“ Occasional opportunities were afforded him of interviews with Ellen, which had resulted on his part in the fullest confirmation of his first impressions. Unfortunately, however, Count De Zeng knew but little of the female character, and hardly daring to hope for a prize which he valued so highly, he construed reserve into aversion, and failed to discover any sufficient encouragement in the conduct of Miss Gansevoort, to justify a direct avowal of his feelings. Thus, unfortunately, they parted; each uncertain of the other’s sentiments, but both painfully conscious of their own. ”

“ Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk—against his cupidity, his stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say “yes” or “no” to the simplest question) —against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in port (because he saw they were at his mercy) —and against his manner of walking, which to his (Hermann’s) mind showed a conceit positively unbearable. ”

“ On the other hand, in 1723, Elizabeth Gesner, sits opposite her husband in the sitting-room of the Conrectorat at Weimar; he is working at his "Chrestomathie des Cicero," and writes with one hand while he rocks the cradle with the other. Meanwhile Elizabeth industriously mends the clothes of her children, and playfully disputes with the little ones, who object to the patches, till at last the mother proposes to them to cut out the new pieces as sun, moon, and stars, and to sew them on in this beautiful form. ”

“ That’s all.”
“Confound his psychology,” muttered Jasper. “But a man with a voice like his is fit to talk to the angels. Is he incurable do you think?”
I said that I thought so. Nobody had prosecuted him yet, but no one would employ him any longer. His end would be, I feared, to starve in some hole or other.
“Ah, well,” reflected Jasper. “The Bonito isn’t trading to any ports of civilisation. That’ll make it easier for him to keep straight.”
That was true. The brig’s business was on uncivilised coasts, with obscure rajahs dwelling in nearly unknown bays ”

“ They had a pause of surprised silence. Gurnard wheeled and fixed me critically with his eye-glass. I took de Mersch a little apart, into a solitude of palm branches, and began to speak before he had asked me my errand.
“You must understand that I would not interfere without a good deal of provocation,” I was saying, when he cut me short, speaking in a thick, jovial voice.
“Oh, we will understand that, my good Granger, and then ...”
“It is about my sister,” I said—“you—you go too far. I must ask you, as a gentleman, to cease persecuting her.” ”