Joseph von Fraunhofer

“ Who has not experienced in his youth similar feelings on being introduced to the notice of a brilliant character, crowned with glory? Whose darling self, "I," has not sunk into utter insignificance before the giant-like idea we have formed of a renowned man! George von Fronsberg was accounted one of the most famous generals of his day. Italy, France, and Germany had witnessed his victories, and his name will go down to posterity in the annuls of the art of war, as the author and founder of a regular system, by which a body of infantry is trained to fight in ranks and companies. ”

“ Bereft of his beautiful wife, the son he idolized, the brother he himself unknowingly sent to his destruction, Francis Joseph of Austria is at once the most solitary and indomitable personality among the rulers of the world today. Never, through all his misfortunes, has his iron pride given way to complaint or regret ”

“ Her voice was deep and resonant as a masculine baritone, and of so carrying a quality that Franky started as though the words had been spoken at his ear.
"Gnädige Fräulein," von Herrnung answered, "I have already told you. When the Day comes for which we are preparing. When the great German nation shall abandon Christianity—cast off the rusty fetters of Morality and Virtue—call on the Ancient God of Battles—and beat out the iron sceptre of World Power with sword-blows upon the anvil of War."
"When we're all to be exterminated, he means!" Lady Wathe gasped behind her filmy handkerchief. ”

“ The two speeches sound like the last lingering echoes of mediævalism; and Francis Joseph, in spite of the successive shocks which experience has given him, probably retains more mediæval ideas than any other contemporary ruler. The superiority of the Habsburgs to the rest of mankind—at all events, of Austrian mankind—is not, for him, a proposition which needs to be demonstrated; it is a law of thought. He does not argue about it, or expect others to argue about it, but finds it in his consciousness together with his conceptions of space and time. ”

“ Always dodging in and out of the German Embassy. The Goblin frightful nuts on him.... Goin' to steer him through the next London Season—suppose he's lookin' out for a moneyed wife!"
"Hope he gets her!" Franky mentally commented. But he looked with new interest at his big blond German neighbour, mentally calculating that with all that bone, brawn, and muscle, von Herrnung couldn't tip the scale at less than sixteen stone.
Small-boned himself and of stature not above the medium, Franky appreciated height and size in other men. And von Herrnung was undeniably a son of Anak. ”

“ The introduction of the electric spark for the purpose of volatilizing metals was an important step in the development of spectral [433] analysis, but although used by both Wollaston and Fraunhofer its true value in that particular line was not realized for many years after their time.
Fraunhofer is not only celebrated as one of the founders of spectrum analysis, but he is well known also as the inventor of many important philosophical instruments, being the constructor of the great Dorpat parallactic telescope, called by Struve the giant refractor. ”

“ For it is extremely unlikely that in proposing to Pharaoh to set a man over this important business of collecting corn to last through the years of famine, it presented itself to Joseph as a conceivable result that he should be the person appointed—he a Hebrew, a slave, a prisoner, cleaned but for the nonce, could not suppose that Pharaoh would pass over all those tried officers and ministers of state around him and fix upon a youth who was wholly untried, and who might, by his different race and religion, prove obnoxious to the people. ”

“ But the truth is that Goethe's temporary preoccupation with religion is only another illustration of his "chameleon" temperament. In gay Leipzig he had promptly taken on the ways of a man about town; now in Frankfort he found himself in a very different society, and he as promptly entered into the spirit of it. The circle of which he now became a member was a company of religious persons, mostly women, friends or acquaintances of his mother. Its most prominent member was that Fräulein von Klettenberg, already mentioned, a woman of high rank, culture, and refinement. ”

“ For a brief moment in 1848 the Parliament of Kremsier laid down the fundamental law, “All power proceeds from the people,” and the Czech leader Dr. Rieger expounded this theme in one of his best speeches. But ever since this short-lived child of the revolution was dismissed and its home occupied by Austrian soldiers, each successive constitution in Austria has been not a democratic achievement, but the personal gift of Francis Joseph, designed as a cloak for theocratic monarchism, which claims to possess superhuman and divine rights. ”

“ He glanced in the direction of the squat block of gaily painted wooden buildings devoted to the inner needs of Fanshaw's clients. "The awning hides it, but I can see a bit of it still. Until it moves, I can go on talking. Frankly, I am in the position of the High Church curate who went out wild-pig shooting in the territories of the Limpopo with a single-bore hammer-gun of grandpapa's pattern—and got his choice of pot-shots between a lion and a rhino. Prinz Heinrich is my royal lion and von Herrnung,—who counted for little more than a bush-pig—has suddenly swelled into a rhinoceros." ”

“ The quartermaster of the insurgents was a man named Gold. He {10} was taken, as was also Von Shoultz, a Polish gentleman. Gold had a brother-in-law in Kingston, named Ford. Ford was anxious that some effort should be made to defend his relative. Leading lawyers refused the service. One morning Ford came to Macdonald's house before he was up. After much entreaty he persuaded Macdonald to undertake the defence. There could be practically no defence, however, and Von Shoultz, Gold, and nine others were condemned and hanged. Von Shoultz's career had been chequered. ”

“ At any rate, in this country, there is an amiable disposition to regard Franz Josef as a victim rather than an accomplice, a weakling writhing beneath the jack-boot of Prussia, impotent to hold his own. It may not be so. Time alone will reveal the truth. ”

“ They have no right to do that. We are in America. We are not in Russia. I like you, we will stick to our guns." And Fanny put out a warm little hand.
This short interview made Joseph happy. He had at least one ally; he could stand his father's importunities much more easily, though the parent presented the same stubborn opposition to his plans.
Then suddenly, Hirsh Roth told his son, "We are moving out from the Feldmans'. To do what he did to me, after all I did for him in all these years! I never again want to see a Feldman in my life," moaned the old man disconsolately. ”

“ What is this matter between you and my chief? Whenever his name is mentioned, you betray an amount of bitterness which cannot possibly have its origin in mere political opposition. You seem to know him intimately."
Brunnow's lips twitched:
"We were friends once," he answered, in a low voice; "young men together."
"Impossible!" exclaimed George. "You and----"
"His Excellency Baron Arno von Raven, Governor of the Province of R----, and closest friend and confidant of our present rulers," completed the Doctor, laying a sharp, scornful emphasis on each word. "That surprises you, does it not?" ”

“ His excitement and agitation on Fränzchen's account were great. At Colonel von Bullau's urgent suggestion Hans was sent to bring the child to Grunzenow after he had confessed that he loved Fränzchen and would cling to her as to nothing else in the world.
At first Lieutenant Rudolf had not known whether to laugh or to cry, to bless or to curse. But the pastor had laid his hand on his shoulder and said: "I should simply let him go and fetch his Fränzchen; he shall be my assistant in the 'Hunger parish'; their children shall keep our graves green." ”

“ It will not glitter on his head as the emblem of our national existence, for Joseph will never stain himself with a falsehood. The Bohemian courts are already abolished; if a Bohemian wishes to appeal to justice, he must travel to Vienna to do so. The old coins, weights and measures of our country have been abolished, that in all things we should be Austrian. Some years ago only members of the old Bohemian nobility were chosen as district captains, but now Germans are placed in those positions. Joseph will permit no Bohemian legislature to convene ”

“ He reached up an arm.
"I could easily convince you, Professor, of your error"--his eyes quailed and dropped to the floor--"but I--your arm, my dear Joseph; age is creeping upon me." He rose to his feet. "I am feeling really indisposed to-day--not at all bright; my solicitude for you, my dear b--"
He took two or three steps forward, tottered, clung to the apothecary, moved another step or two, and grasping the edge of the table stumbled into a chair which Frowenfeld thrust under him. ”

“ At the same time, and in order to paralyze any desire on the part of Francis Joseph to come to the aid of France, he mobilized both the Hungarian Government and the Austrian Liberals to compel Francis Joseph to dismiss his anti-Prussian Austrian Premier, Count Hohenwart, to break his promises to the Bohemians, and to surrender himself for the rest of his reign to the joint control of the Magyar minority in Hungary and the German minority in Austria. ”

“ Far above the ordinary stature of womanhood—you remember that Franky regarded her as a great galumphing creature—her head would yet have been much below the level of von Herrnung's, but for the height of the extraordinary diadem or turban that crowned her masses of dull cloudy-black hair. Folds of vivid emerald-green satin rose above a wide band of theatrical gilt tinsel, set with blazing stage rubies, and above the centre of the wearer's low, wide brow a fan-shaped panache of clipped white ospreys sprang, boldly challenging the eye. ”

“ Strange and startling as is such an explanation, yet scientific men will remember that when we {571} knew as little about the cause of the black lines seen in the spectrum of the sun as we now know about these appearances on the sun itself, Sir John Herschel suggested, in 1833, that very explanation which was the foundation of the memorable law announced by the German philosopher, Kirchhoff, in 1859—a law now universally accepted as affording a perfect solution to the long-standing puzzle of Fraunhofer's lines. ”

“ The Archduke Otto—brother of the present heir-apparent, and consequently Francis Joseph’s nephew—was the most amazing of all the Archdukes, and the one whose case most fittingly illustrates the usual generalisations about Habsburg degeneracy. The common people rather liked him; for he had the negative merit of not being proud, and was, in the main, the sort of gay and festive buffoon to whom the hearts of the common people, when untrammelled by considerations of morality, go out. ”

“ Now we, the members of the Privy Council of Franconia, having received and considered the testimony of Herman Krauss, doctor of medicine, physician to his [301] said Majesty, and of her Royal Highness, Hermengarde of Schwerin-Strelitz, Princess of Franconia, aunt to his Majesty, and of the illustrious Count von Sigismark, Chancellor of Franconia, and of Herr Paul Moritz, Minister of the Interior, Herr Auguste Bernal, his Majesty’s intimate friend, Karl Fink, his Majesty’s confidential attendant, and divers others, do hereby pronounce his said Majesty to be incapable of governing ”

“ Francis Joseph was always able to give his equals, and has gradually learnt to be able to give his inferiors, the impression that he is genial affability incarnate. It is not natural to him to be mean or paltry—he very much prefers to be splendid. But there is, and has always been, at the bottom of his mind, a certain confusion of thought. If he has not mistaken himself for God, at least he has mistaken the interests of the House of Habsburg for that Higher Law to which the ordinary laws of honour and morality which bind ordinary men must be subordinated. ”

“ Matters were at this juncture when an unexpected visit was paid to the cottage by a distant relative named Johann Mathias Frankh, the schoolmaster of Hainburg, a small town about four leagues from Rohrau. Frankh, who was himself a fair musician, happened to visit the family at the moment when they were engaged in their evening concert, and the sight of Joseph with his toy violin at once attracted his attention. ”

“ Hitherto we have been delighted by objects which addressed themselves as much to our aesthetic taste as to our scientific faculty; we have ridden pleasantly to the base of the final cone of Etna, and must now dismount and march through ashes and lava, if we would enjoy the prospect from the summit. Our problem is to connect the dark lines of Fraunhofer with the bright ones of the metals. The white beam of the lamp is refracted in passing through our two prisms, but its different components are refracted in different degrees, and thus its colours are drawn apart. ”

“ Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies in the battle of Sadowa. ”