Meissen

“ There is no greater tribute to pay to the inspiring genius behind the Royal Copenhagen Factory than to enumerate these instances of old factories with the prestige of Sèvres and Meissen hailing the newly awakened spirit of a younger factory. On every side, in these days, came the tribute of praise generously given by masters of technique and by rival workers in art. The Renaissance was something more than a name—it had become an accomplished fact. ”

“ In the beginning of 1546 he confided to Amsdorf his anxiety regarding Meissen, Leipzig and other places where licence prevailed, together with contempt of the Gospel and its ministers. “This much is certain: Satan and his whole kingdom is terribly wroth with our Elector. To this kingdom your men of Meissen belong; they are the most dissolute folk on earth. Leipzig is pride and avarice personified, worse than any Sodom could be.... A new evil that Satan is hatching for us may be seen in the spread of the spirit of the Münster Dippers. ”

“ Read, meanwhile, these Two bits of Autograph, thrown off incidentally, at different places, in the previous busy journeyings over Meissen-Freyberg country:—
1. FRIEDRICH TO MARQUIS D'ARGENS (at Berlin) .
"MEISSEN, 10th November, 1760.
... "I drove the enemy to the Gates of Dresden; they occupy their Camp of last Year; all my skill is not enough to dislodge them,"— [Chasm of Plauen, "a place impregnable, were it garrisoned by chimney-sweeps," says the King once] . "We have saved our reputation by the Day of Torgau: but don't imagine our enemies are so disheartened as to desire Peace. ”

“ More than any other, Lessing reformed German literature. His father, pastor at Kamenz, gave him his early instruction, and sent him to a famous school at Meissen, where he learned so rapidly that by royal decree he was admitted at seventeen to the University of Leipzig. Here his sturdy nature almost immediately asserted itself against the smug platitudes of the Leipzig critics. “I realized,” he wrote at this time, “that books might make me learned, but would never make me a man. I sought society to learn life.” ”

“ In the picturesque town of Meissen, in the district of Cur Saxony, lived an honest and worthy man, Christian Gottfried Hahnemann, an intelligent, patriotic and highly esteemed, though unassuming and unambitious member of that community, by trade a painter upon porcelain, known under the name of Dresden-China. ”

“ And he began to forget that he stood by a lady who sat upon a pedestal of gold-and-white china, with the year 1746 cut on it, and the Meissen mark.
“What will you be when you are a man?” said the little lady, sharply, for her black eyes were quick though her red lips were smiling. “Will you work for the Königliche Porcellan-Manufactur, like my great dead Kandler?” [68]
“I have never thought,” said August, stammering; “at least—that is—I do wish—I do hope to be a painter, as was Master Augustin Hirschvogel at Nürnberg.” ”

“ As Albert left no children, Meissen was seized by the emperor Henry VI. as a vacant fief of the empire; but Dietrich, called the Oppressed, secured the mark after Henry’s death in 1197. Dietrich married Jutta, daughter of Hermann I., landgrave of Thuringia, and was succeeded in 1221 by his infant son Henry, surnamed the Illustrious; who on arriving at maturity obtained as reward for supporting the emperor Frederick II. against the pope a promise to succeed his uncle, Henry Raspe IV., as landgrave of Thuringia. In 1243 Henry’s son Albert was betrothed to Margaret, daughter of Frederick II. ”

“ In pursuit of the same object he made an unsuccessful visit to Rome in 1510. Meanwhile he had also been lecturing on classics at Leipzig, but gradually turned his attention to theology and canon law. A prebend at Dresden (1509) and another at Meissen, which he obtained through Duke George’s influence, gave him means and leisure to pursue his studies. ”

“ At Sèvres, on the other hand, we shall see that the glaze of the hard porcelain contains no lime, while that substance is an essential constituent in the paste.
The Meissen porcelain, and indeed the German porcelains generally, form a typically hard and refractory group. But they have in a full measure les défauts de leurs qualités. Among them we may look in vain for that blending of the glaze and body that gives to the best Chinese porcelain a surface like that of polished marble; still less do we find in the enamel decoration the brilliancy and transparence of Oriental wares. ”

“ At first destined for a commercial life, he was in 1812 sent to the celebrated school at Pforta. In 1816 he entered the university of Leipzig, where he studied under Beck and Hermann. After holding subordinate posts at Zerbst and Meissen, he was in 1842 appointed professor of archaeology at Leipzig. He died at Meissen on the 30th of September 1846. ”

“ Dedo's son Dietrich II. inherited these lands, distinguished himself in warfare against the Poles, and married Matilda, daughter of Ekkard I., margrave of Meissen. Their son Dedo 11. obtained the Saxon east mark and lower Lusatia on the death of his uncle Ekkard II., margrave of Meissen, in 1046, but in 1069 he quarrelled with the emperor Henry IV. and was compelled to surrender his possessions. He died in 1075, and his lands were granted to his son Henry I., who in 1089 was invested with the mark of Meissen. ”

“ It manufactures drain-pipes, paper-roofing and machinery, and has saw-mills. Several coal-mines are in the vicinity. The town was built by a colony of Flemish immigrants in 1153. It was captured by the landgrave of Meissen in 1476, and belonged thenceforth to Saxony, until it was ceded to Prussia in 1815. Owing to its pleasant situation and accessibility, it has become a favourite residence of business men of Leipzig and Halle. ”

“ The flower-painter came first with realistic, well-shaded little nosegays, in the style of the Dutch painters of the day; then landscapes, views of real towns, sometimes in a purple-red monochrome, and surrounded by a gold rococo frame to imitate that of an oil picture. The free use of gold, however, in the European porcelain of this time, was to some extent a saving point. It helped, as gold always does, to pull together the decoration. On the earlier Meissen ware the gold is most solidly applied and has worn well. ”

“ The portrait of Müller shows him to have been a keen, virile, determined man, as we know, of endless resources, and possessed of abnormal [Pg 88] energy. In less than twenty years there had been a constant and untiring enthusiasm in order to bring the factory to such perfection that it would be able to compete with the older and larger factories of Meissen, Berlin, and Sèvres. ”

“ Genius, that indomitable and unquenchable spirit which overrides all obstacles, found Müller, with his crowd of untried soldier workmen and crude apprentices, ceaselessly working in the factory from five in the morning till seven in the evening, and often superintending the firing all night. In 1776 three workmen were inveigled from Meissen to the Court factory at Copenhagen, but only two out of the three showed any ability. Their supercilious manners, together with their higher wages, brought trouble in the factory among the other workmen, and Müller expelled them by force. ”

“ The young gentleman did so, and a tall, melancholy-looking clerk appeared.
“No. 18,” snarled Mr. Meeson, in the tone of peculiar amiability that he reserved for his employés, “make out the translation account of ‘Jemima’s Vow,’ and fill up a cheque of balance due to the author.”
No. 18 vanished like a thin, unhappy ghost, and Mr. Meeson once more addressed the girl before him. “If you want money, Miss Smithers,” he said, “you had better write us another book. I am not going to deny that your work is good work—a little too deep, and not quite orthodox enough, perhaps; but still good. ”

“ You take a girl’s book and make hundreds upon hundreds out of it, and give her fifty. You tie her down, so as to provide for successful swindling of the same sort, during future years, and then, when she comes to beg a few pounds of you, you show her the door. And now you wonder, Mr. Meeson, that respectable people will have nothing to do with you! Well, now, I tell you, my opinion is that the only society to which you would be really suited is that of cow-hide. Good morning,” and the large young man walked off, his very moustachios curling with wrath and contempt. ”

“ As specimens of a revolutionary eloquence which was, and with reason, irresistible to the youth of the Forties, read his glowing lines to the memory of Byron and George Sand.
Moritz Hartmann, Meissner's countryman and contemporary, is a figure cast in different metal; there is no flaw in him; he is a hero as well as an unusually gifted poet. No other German poet has loved liberty so faithfully and passionately from his earliest youth to the day of his death, or risked his life for it so daringly and so often. ”

“ I've enough for my wife and myself; nothing more is needed than to provide for my son!"
"Very well," cried Meiser; "I'll charge myself with the education of the little fellow!"
"Now, during the dozen days since I again became a citizen of the world, there is one word that I've heard spoken everywhere. At Paris, as well as at Berlin, people no longer speak of anything but millions; there is no longer any talk of anything else, and everybody's mouth is full of millions. ”

“ Metz is a noble city: finely situated, strongly fortified, and thickly inhabited. The Moselle encircles a portion of it in a very picturesque manner. The inn, called the Cheval Blanc, should rather be that of Cheval Noir--if it take its epithet from the colour of the interior--for a dirtier hotel can scarcely exist. It was a fine moonlight night when we left Metz, on a Sunday, resolving to sleep two stages on the road. ”

“ Those who have the money and have got a hold of people, so that they must write what they tell them, ain’t people to be cut by any Colonial Governor, my Lord!” And in his anger he fairly shook his fist at the unconscious Peer.
“Seem to be a little out of temper, Mr. Meeson,” said a voice at his elbow, the owner of which was a big young man with hard but kindly features and a large moustache. “What has the Governor been doing to you?”
“Doing, Mr. Tombey? He’s been cutting me, that’s all—me, Meeson!—cutting me as dead as offal, or something like it. ”

“ On the German side of the Rhine Adolf Menzel was the great pioneer of truth. The history of German art must do him honour as one who first had the genius and courage to break away from conventional forms of phrasing, and bring the truth of nature into art: at first, as in the case of Meissonier, it was nature in masquerade; but it was nature seen and rendered with all the sincerity of a man to whom the art of pose was wanting from the very first. ”

“ At that time life-masks happened to be quite the rage: people had their faces moulded in plaster just as nowadays they sit for a photograph; and young Meissonier related, not without vanity, that on the preceding Sunday he had taken the mask of the Johannot brothers, and he added that he knew those two princes of engraving quite intimately. ”

“ We needed rest, certainly; and so made up our minds to endure with equanimity the necessity we were under of not fatiguing ourselves to death from a principle of economy. The inn was tolerable, and the table d'hôte sufficiently good; and, best praise, quietly served, Metz is a clean, pleasant town, a little dull or so; but from the gardens on the ramparts we commanded a view of the hill-surrounded plain in which it is built, with the Moselle flowing peaceably at our feet. We hired a boat, and loitered several hours delightfully on the river ”

“ Encouraged by the Master's good humour, young Mieses timidly exhibited his new verses. Pinchas read the manuscript aloud to the confusion of the blushing boy.
'But it is full of genius!' he cried in genuine astonishment. 'I might have written it myself, except that it is so unequal—a mixture of diamonds and paste, like all Hebrew literature.' He indicated with flawless taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all unconscious reproductions from the English masterpieces Mieses had borrowed from the library in the Educational Alliance. ”

“ With a heavy heart she returned to the hut, pressed down by the weight of solitude, and the sense that in the midst of so much death she could not hope to escape. There was no human creature left alive in that vast lonely land, except the child and herself, and so far as she could see their fate would soon be as the fate of the others. When she got back to the hut, Dick was awake and was crying for her.
The still, stiff form of Mr. Meeson, stretched out beneath the sail, frightened the little lad, he did not know why. Augusta took him into her arms and kissed him passionately. ”

“ Meeson, as she approached the spot where he lay upon the rock. “If there is no paper or pen, we must write it in blood upon some linen. We can make a pen from the feathers of a bird. I read somewhere in a book of somebody who did that. It will do as well as anything else.”
Here was an idea, indeed, and one that Augusta jumped at. But in another moment her enthusiasm received a check. Where was there any linen to write on?
“Yes,” she said, “if you can find some linen. You have got on a flannel shirt, so have the two sailors, and little Dick is dressed in flannel, too.” ”

“ Poor Eustace grew pale and paler yet, till his handsome countenance became positively ghastly. It is wonderful how frightened young men are the first time that they propose. It wears off afterwards—with practice one gets accustomed to anything.
“Miss Smithers—Augusta,” he gasped, “I want to say something to you!” and he stopped dead.
“Yes, Mr. Meeson,” she answered cheerfully, “what is it?” ”