Friedrich von der Tischendorf

“ If religion were at unity in itself, and totally free from party and controversy, and the state, as the public life, were in perfect harmony with it, and thoroughly pervaded by its life-giving spirit, humanity would, by such a consummation, have made a great step in advance toward that divine peace for which every human pacification, however imperfect, is the expression of a profound and imperishable longing—of a pursuit which, though ever attaining, is still never wholly abandoned. ”

“ That soul, he continues, which slumbers under the prodigious tomb-stone of outward nature—a soul, which is not alien, but half akin to us—is divided between the troubled, painful reminiscence of eternal death, in which it originated—and the bright flowers of celestial Hope, which grow on the borders of that dark abyss. ”

“ Or is it not, perhaps, one ever-renewed attempt to decipher more completely than hitherto the sybilline inscriptions on the piled-up rows and layers of tombs, which as nature grows older convert its great body into one vast catacomb, and so perchance to find therein the key to unlock and bring to light the far greater—nay, the greatest of all riddles—the riddle of death? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is not the great pulse of the ocean, in its ebb and flow, measured by it, as well as many periods, of the development of life? And is it not, when its operation is too powerful or violently exciting, the cause of a peculiar disease among men? As, therefore, the musical unisons in the melodious songs of birds, both find and wake a concordant echo in the heart of man, so, too, in a larger scale, the blood-soul of man, with its living pulsation and organic sensibility, is most nearly akin to and sympathizes with the earth and the whole earthly frame. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All-mighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself created the trees and flowers that He cultivates, has Himself made the good soil in which they grow, and brings down from heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain, and the sunshine that quicken and mature them into life and beauty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The prescient genius of Leibnitz had foretold a century and a half ago, that the study of languages would be found one day to throw a great light on history. No one better realized this prediction than Schlegel. In the first part of this work, he has proved, by his own example, that language is not a mere instrument of knowledge, but a science in itself; and when I consider the noble use he has made of his Sanscrit learning; when I contemplate all the great and brilliant results of his oriental researches, I must recal the sort of regret I expressed a few pages above. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ With a few slight shades of difference, the political views of Goerres mainly accord with those of Schlegel; but, living under the free government of Bavaria, the former is able boldly to proclaim truths which the latter at Vienna was able only to hint. Goerres unites the strong, practical sense of Gentz—the masterly learning and profound and comprehensive understanding of F. Schlegel—to great boldness of character, and a style of peculiar force and condensation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Faith, therefore, is, as it were, the heavenly firmament in the consciousness that divides the streams of spiritual life and of external and internal science that are above it, from those that are under it. If this boundary be taken away, or violently broken through, the light and the darkness are no longer held apart, but mingle together in one confused and orderless mass. The true light grows darker and gradually becomes extinct, while the darkness begins to shine with a false glare and the glimmering twilight of pernicious delusion. ”

“ Even here it is but a borrowed splendor from the true sun, a reflection from another and a higher luminary, that lights up the darkness. And while all the wonderful starry types of the spiritual world, which retire in the full day, come out in this magical twilight, so also deceptive phantoms, airy forms of gigantic magnitude, may mingle with the hovering and misty troop of shadows to which the earth-born vapors alone give birth and shape. And yet, notwithstanding this earthly intermixture, the art of the beautiful, whenever it retains its true nature, is in its essence directed to the divine. ”

“ If we could conceive an age or country where religion should entirely cease and be forgotten—where not only all positive faith and revelation, but even the universal belief in a Divinity above them, should die away and perish among men—the light of all higher and heaven-directed thoughts and aims should become extinct—that echo of eternity and of eternal love which the inmost feelings of the human soul spontaneously gives back, should be hushed forever—then and there at the self-same moment would all high art be withdrawn and disappear. ”