Friedrich von Tischendorf

“ And is not nature, on the whole, a life-tree, as it were, whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves and seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven, while, as the sap rises from the deep-hidden root into the mighty stem, the branches stir and move, and invisible forces sweep to and fro in its waving crown. ”

“ In the hieroglyphics there is, beside the bare literal meaning, a high symbolical inspiration, like a soul of life—like the breathing of a high in-dwelling spirit,—a deeply felt significancy—a lofty and beautiful design apparent through the dead character denoting any particular name or fact. ”

“ Colonel von Stille, already heard of (grave men of fifty, these two) ; milk-beard Munchow, an Adjutant, youngest of the promoted Munchows; Algarotti, indispensable for talk; and Fredersdorf, the House-Steward and domestic Factotum, once Private in Schwerin's Regiment, whom Bielfeld so admired at Reinsberg, foreseeing what he would come to. One of Friedrich's late acts was to give Factotum Fredersdorf an Estate of Land (small enough, I fancy, but with country-house on it) for solace to the leisure of so useful a man,—studious of chemistry too, as I have heard. Seven in all, besides the King. ”

“ In those fields of celestial light, too, and those brilliant hosts of heaven, which, as nature’s more retiring and lovelier charms, become visible only by night, and display themselves to the calm and tranquil soul, all is not in such perfect unison and harmony as the first impression would lead us to suppose. ”

“ The fearful conflict of thought is rather some double current, where, amid the crags and rocks, the pent-in waters, confining one another, beat up into foaming breakers—or, still more dangerous, beneath their apparently calm and smooth surface, they form the tearing whirlpool with its bottomless abyss, which, at the least incautious approach, hurries, irresistibly, into its vortex the tossing little boat of man’s brief existence. ”

“ Of the exalted geniuses who in single ages and nations have distinguished themselves from the great mass, and attained to that rare eminence—the reputation of the true artist; out of this short list of great names, how few can be selected of whose productions it can be truly said and boasted—Here in this picture we have something more than a mere general view, or the peculiar fantasy of an individual; here life and nature stand before us in their full truth and objective reality, and speak to us in that universal language, which is intelligible to men of all countries and all times! ”

“ If, then, that which is at most but the bright morning tint of hope should seek to keep back the sun, or would set itself up for the true luminary, then—supposing it for a moment to be possible—it would itself soon lower into dark clouds, and instead of the longed-for splendor of the full and glorious daylight, a dull, gray sky would cover the whole earth. ”

“ Then is nature itself nothing less than the ladder of resurrection, which, step by step, leads upward, or, rather, is carried from the abyss of eternal death up to the apex of light in the heavenly illumination. For, understanding it in this sense, it is impossible to think of nature without remembering at the same time the divine hand which has built this pyramid, and which, along this ladder, brings life out of death. ”

“ One thing is the solitary midnight lamp of silent meditation—and another the lightning which flashes athwart the gloomy heavens, or the dark lantern of the murderer stealing his way along in the night, or the torchlight in the robbers’ cave, where the spoil is divided, and new misdeeds are concerted. ”

“ Thus, then, the ever-swelling flood of thought in man’s inner being and cogitation is not any calmly-flowing stream, in which wave quietly follows and succeeds to wave, as through rich and fertile plains it pursues its course from some distant source to the wide and open sea. ”

“ He who weakly shrinks from the struggle, who will offer no resistance, who will endure no labour nor fatigue, can neither fulfil his own vocation, whatever it be, nor contribute aught to the general welfare of mankind.—But since man hath been the prey of discord, two different wills have contended within him for the mastery—a divine and a natural will. Even his freedom is no longer that happy freedom of celestial peace—the freedom of one who hath conquered and triumphed—but a freedom, as we now see it—the freedom of undetermined choice—of arduous, still undecided, struggle. ”

“ Is there, then, to be a party feud and a civil war in the heart of man, between soul and spirit, the two elements of his existence; just as if it were some ill-organized state where, in opposition to the supreme political power, some insubordinate body sets itself up in authority, and presumes to give the law? Ought, forsooth, the soul in secret to be liberal, and, in half-unbelief, to grant immunity to all manner of lusts and desires, while the spirit is legitimist in sentiment and constitutional in language? ”

“ Here, then, in this holy hope, is longing, that marvelous flower of the soul, expanded into its perfect and noblest fruit. If, in judging of the three, man looks to the end to which he is to attain—if, in thought, he places himself at this point of view, then assuredly will love appear the highest and the best; for hope ceases when fulfillment comes in, and sight enters into the place of faith, but love abideth forever. ”

“ How often, on the very countenance of the departed, does a calm and beautiful death like this leave its touching trace behind! How often do we see with astonishment a sweet smile, like that of a sleeping child, lingering on the well-known face, but in whose very sweetness is mingled a slight though scarce perceptible trace of some faint recollection of previous suffering. He who has once seen some dear friend or acquaintance so die, or beheld the beloved countenance after such a death, will assuredly cherish forever the remembrance of this soothing expression. ”

“ And if in its wanderings it should most love to stray in the rich and blooming garden of nature, then of the rare aromatic woods and seeds it there gathers, it may throw one or more into the fire, in order to add some sweet, ethereal incense to its warming and illuminating flames. ”

“ It is this, the first of all created things, which, with its pure splendor, lights up in brilliancy whatever in the rest of creation still retains aught of childlike innocence and blessed purity. It is the inner charm, the spiritual flower of nature, the hidden germ of that paradisiacal loveliness which, though veiled in this terrestrial shroud, still gleams forth occasionally. It is even that sacred beauty which fills to the full the true artist’s soul, even though he is never able fully and completely to realize it. ”

“ How often does it show us some mighty edifice of fortune, which, having no firm basis in the deep soil of truth and the divine order, owed its rapid growth and false splendor to some evil influence, falling suddenly in ruins, as if stricken by the invisible breath of a superior power. On such occasions the public feeling recognizes the hand which sets a limit to every temerity in the history of the world—to every extravagance of a false confidence—and appoints it its ultimate term. ”

“ Christianity in its primitive influence, was like an electric stroke, which traversed the world with the rapidity of lightning—like a magnetic fluid of life, which united even the most distant members of humanity in one animating pulsation. ”

“ When, lastly, the moment of completion arrives, then the close of this pursuit of a highest knowledge will be made by that full expansion of divine light which often, like a heavenly token of peace and reconciliation, shines forth in the very midst of the clouds of discontent, and dissolves all doubts before it. ”

“ But now, if nature—as, judging from its original design, we may and must assume—were a Paradise for the blessed spirits of the previous creation, for the first-born sons of light, then most assuredly has it not continued so, any more than the first man has remained in the garden of Eden. No doubt, over a few favored spots of the existing globe, a rich fullness of ravishing beauty still hovers, awakening in the heart, as it were, the fleeting images of Paradisaical innocence—dying strains of a primal harmony—mournful reminiscences of the happy infancy of creation. ”

“ Not only are will and understanding in frequent collision with one another, but each is at variance with itself. What the will resolves to-day it shrinks from to-morrow! How often does the understanding view the same subject in a different light at different times! How much do time, circumstance, and humour, place the same truth in a clearer or obscurer aspect! ”

“ Never, however, by itself, let it think and seek as it may, will it be able, without some other guide, to find the object of its longing, and, in its tragic blindness, to discover the clue of the labyrinthic mazes of its own thoughts, and at last to arrive at harmony with itself. ”

“ Forced to speak of the love of country, and to paint its genuine traits, I rejoice that I am standing on one of its chosen and most familiar scenes, where my hearers will understand me at the first sound, when I declare that the true enthusiasm of patriotism reveals itself most plainly in misfortune—in the midst of deep and lasting calamities. ”

“ And if ancient art and ancient poetry especially, with their mournful back-glances at the olden majesty long past and gone, come over us with emotions something like those of eventide, when the last parting gleam of the brilliant sun is fast setting behind the distant hills, so in their opposite aspect, as hope, turning its bold, enthusiastic eye toward the future, they may smile upon us as the rosy dawn which runs before the rising sun of truth, and that new time which is to shine and glow in its beams—or as the first beautiful ray of enthusiastic promise. ”

“ The pure and living faith of a loving soul abiding permanently in God, is properly the center of the human consciousness—the natural passage of life for the senses as they ascend into the heights, and for the mind or spirit as it penetrates into the depths. ”

“ Has the Sun of Righteousness yet penetrated, and cast its bright beams on all the relations of life, to the very inmost joints of soul and spirit? Can it with perfect truth be said, relatively to the whole human race, “And there is light”—that light, at least, which alone is good, even because it shall remain forever? For those meteoric sparks which flash across the universal night and darkness, from the systems of man’s wisdom, which, crossing and recrossing each other’s path, are soon again extinguished forever ”

“ This beautiful longing of youth, a fruitful fancy, and a loving soul, are the best and most precious gifts of benignant nature, that dispenses with so liberal a hand, or, rather, not of nature, but of that wonderful Intelligence that presides in and over it. They form, as it were, a fair garden of hidden life within man. ”

“ It is this mingling of feelings and emotions—where from amid the half-unconscious earthly longing a higher and more heavenly aspiration gleams out, that in youth, when man’s sensibility is first developed and expanded, gives to newly-waking love its peculiar magic charm, the inner grace of the youthful soul contributing as much if not more than even the bloom of corporeal beauty. ”

“ The most vivid diction, even the best and most felicitous, falls always far short of feeling. “Feeling is every thing”—the full center of the inner life, the point from which philosophy sets out, and to which it invariably returns. We might call it, if such an every-day expression would not sound and strike us as strange, the quintessence of the consciousness. ”

“ And the spirit of the age must itself be entirely converted and be brought to a knowledge and open confession of its error, and when once whatever in it is totally dead has been adjudged to eternal death, it will itself be renovated and purified in the fiery floods of the truly new times. ”

“ At other times it comes forward in an equally lavish and boundless prodigality of wit and raillery; sometimes, too, a serious humor lurks in the wit, while a mocking parody makes sport with the very humor, or a still loftier tone of irony, from its height of spiritual exaltation, soars above both wit and humor, and the whole work itself—nay, above all besides, and even the very universe. ”

“ Thus love, in its first soul-exciting contact, abiding attraction, and finally complete union, strikingly corresponds to the external sense of feeling. Faith is the inner ear of the spirit which is open to, catches up, and retains the imparted word of a higher revelation. Hope, however, is the eye, whose clear vision discerns, even in the remote distance, the objects of its profound and ardent longing. ”

“ When the heathenish mass of legends or myths and symbols had reached the height of confusion, and the evil had become otherwise incurable, one nation was chosen and set apart by God as His instrument in opening the eyes of men to the abyss of error in which the whole world was plunged, and to direct their looks exclusively to the future. ”

“ And as little can the free spirit of supreme knowledge look down from its own height on this center of the soul, and pay no regard either to faith or love. In the depths of sensuous observation, amid all the rich treasures of physical and historical science, it can not move as sovereign without being first invested with the luminous garment of pure faith and love. Otherwise it only hastens from one error to another to fall from the first abyss into a second and still deeper one. ”

“ But when it survives the youthful ebullition of the feelings, when it does but become deeper and more intense by time, when it is satisfied with no joys, and stifled by no sorrows of earth—when, from the midst of the struggles of life, and the pressure of the world, it turns, like a light-seeing eye upon the storm-tossed waves of the ocean of time, to the heaven of heavens, watching to discover there some star of eternal hope—then is it that true and genuine longing, which, directing itself to the divine, is itself also of a celestial origin. ”