Nikolaus von Wolff

“ The little owl-eyed and thick-set lady with masses
of grey hair has smooth pink cheeks without a wrinkle.
She cannot be the daughter of the little red-faced
fellow dancing about inviting lion-headed Wolff the
druggist to play the piano! But she is. Wolff is a
terrific smoker: if the telephone goes off at night—so
his curled-haired wife whispers—he rises from bed but
cannot answer till he has lighted a cigarette. ”

“ Wolff looked up and found that his aunt's eyes were fixed on him.
"Hildegarde?" he asked, and for the first time he felt conscious of a lack of candour.
Frau von Arnim shook her head.
"Poor Hildegarde never plays," she reminded him gently. "It is Nora—Miss Ingestre. You remember her?"
"Yes," he said slowly. "She is not easily forgotten." After a moment's hesitation he added, "I never knew English people could be so charming. Those I have met on my travels have either been badly mannered boors or arrogant pokers. Miss Ingestre is either an exception or a revelation." ”

“ But what is worse than all, he has not even a boot or a wooden shoe to leave before him while he sleeps to-night, so that the Christ-child could put something there to comfort him in his misery."
And, carried away by the goodness of his heart, little Wolff took off the wooden shoe from his right foot, and laid it in front of the sleeping child. Then, limping along on his poor blistered foot and dragging his sock through the snow, he went back to his aunt's house. ”

“ I shall tell Wolff to-night. Things can't be worse than they are—and perhaps he will help."
Miles Ingestre looked at her keenly. An expression that was half cunning, half amused lifted the moody shadows from his face. It was obvious that she did not know what had passed between Wolff and himself, and it was not his intention to tell her. His promise to Wolff on the subject did not weigh with him—he had other and better reasons for keeping silence. In the first place, he had no wish to awaken any sense of gratitude towards her husband in Nora's heart; in the second, he still needed money. ”

“ In art one cannot be too exacting. We made up our minds years ago that there should be nothing doubtful here, and here is the only remaining space filled at last, and filled, as it should be, by a masterpiece. Yes," said the old nobleman, as he rubbed his hands, "thank heaven there is nothing doubtful here. Nothing remains for me now, Wolff, but to leave the treasures that it has been the labour of my life to accumulate ”

“ Probably the most romantic and thrilling of all Wolff's experiences were those which he encountered at Bokhara in 1832. "Adventures to the adventurous" is a truism, and Wolff was bold and daring to the last degree, otherwise he would not have accomplished his purpose. He dressed as a Turkoman, and so obtained an audience of the king, when he was denounced as a Russian spy by the Jews. By his wonderful adroitness he overcame all opposition, and received permission to evangelize the Jews, but was forbidden to hold religious converse with Moslems. ”

“ Peter-le-Poer, London.
Wolff was a singular personality. At home in any kind of society in Europe or Asia, he fascinated rather than charmed by his extraordinary vitality and nervous energy. He signed himself ‘Apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ for Palestine, Persia, Bokhara, and Balkh,’ and styled himself the Protestant Xavier. ”

“ There is nothing like having a clever junior, is there?"
He turned to Wolff with his easy, untroubled smile, but Wolff's face remained serious. He was buckling on his sword in preparation for departure, and appeared not to have heard his major's facetious self-depreciation.
"By the way, I have a small invitation for you, gnädige Frau," the elder officer went on. "A sort of peace-offering, as it were. My wife is driving out to see the Kaiser's review this afternoon, and asks if you would care to accompany her. If you have not seen it before it will be well worth your while to go." ”

“ Dominey laughed softly.
“Wolff would scarcely have been an easy man to abduct, would he,” he remarked, “even if we could hit upon any plausible reason for such a thing! As a matter of fact, Seaman,” he concluded, turning on his heel a little abruptly as he saw Rosamund standing in the avenue, “I cannot bring myself to treat this Johann Wolff business seriously. Granted that the man was a spy, well, let him get on with it. We are doing our job here in the most perfect and praiseworthy fashion. We neither of us have the ghost of a secret to hide from his employers.” ”

“ He is aggomblished."
"No, not accomplished yet, Wolff. I have only got through a part of it. I have caught my white elephant, but what am I to do with him? I know too well that my natural heir looks upon the contents of these galleries but as so many hundred thousand pounds' worth of hard cash. He is an honest man, and makes no secret of it."
"But his son, my lord, the young Mr. Lucius?"
"Ah! he is a mystery, Wolff, that I have failed to fathom. We have known him, my friend, since he was a little child. I can't tell why, Wolff, I have never trusted him. ”

“ The sound of the guns makes me quite nervous, and is very bad for your poor mother, but the squire says it is helping to produce the best shots in Europe, so we must not complain, but bring our sacrifice to the motherland with a cheerful countenance. Nevertheless, I am terribly troubled. If war should break out—which God forbid!—what will become of you, my poor child, out there in the enemy's country? Could you not make your mother's health an excuse to come back to us, at any rate until the present crisis is over? Wolff will surely understand that you cannot stay in Germany if there is war. ”

“ The principal events in Christian Wolff’s life are these: He was the son of a baker, and was born at Breslau in 1679. He first studied Theology and then Philosophy, and in 1707 he became Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy at Halle. Here the pietistic theologians, and more especially Lange, treated him in the basest manner. Piety did not trust this understanding; for piety, if it is true, embodies a content which is speculative in nature, and which passes beyond the understanding. ”

“ Hauptmann's creative power culminates, however, as he approaches the common folk. These are of two kinds: the Berlin populace and the Silesian peasants. The world of the former in all its shrewdness, impudence and varied lusts he has set down with quiet and cruel exactness in The Beaver Coat and The Conflagration. Mrs. Wolff, the protagonist of both plays, rises into a figure of epic breadth—a sordid and finally almost tragic embodiment of worldliness and cunning. When he approaches the peasants of his own countryside his touch is less hard, his method not quite so remorseless. ”

“ Neither is it clear why he held aloof from me, who am his superior in practically the same service. There we are, from the commencement, confronted with a very singular happening, but scarcely so singular as the denouement. Wolff vanished from your house that night into an English fortress. ”

“ When the anger of the people is roused, there is trouble for the Government.
In Vienna, though the Government had so far won a victory in turning the turbulent members out of the chamber, they felt there was danger in the air when the students surrounded Dr. Wolff as he was thrown out of the Reichsrath, and marched with him to his home, honoring him as a hero.
Later, matters began to grow still more serious. Masses of workingmen left their work, and began to parade the streets, crying out against the government that had usurped their rights. ”

“ This so angered the Government, which has successfully convinced its great human sheep-fold that Germany is the innocent victim of attack, that the Tageblatt was suppressed for nearly a week, and, like the ex-Socialist paper Vorwaerts, was permitted to reappear only after it promised "to be good." Theodor Wolff was personally silenced for several months. This was his greatest but not his only offence. All over Germany the people have been officially taught to regard this great war time as die grosse Zeit. ”

“ There were moments during Wolff's fortnight visit when she came to hate both, so intensely did she resent their attitude towards her future husband. The Rev. John, thanks to Mrs. Ingestre, remained formal and polite to Wolff's face. Behind his back he displayed an all-damning charity.
"Of course, we must not judge a foreigner by our standards," he would say pathetically, "and I daresay he is well-meaning, but I wish, my poor child——"
He would then break off, and look out of the window with an expression full of the most moving pity and regret.
Miles, fortified with the knowledge of exams. ”

“ When Wolff was eleven years old he was placed at the Protestant Lyceum at Stuttgart, but growing dissatisfied with it, he went to reside with his cousin, Moses Cohen, at Bamberg, and entered the Roman Catholic Lyceum of that place. He there made up his mind to become a Christian and a missionary like Francis Xavier. But he was unsettled in the extreme in his search after the truth, and wandered to Würzburg, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Halle, Prague, Vienna, Pressburg, back again to Vienna, Mölk, Munich, Anspach, Saxe Weimar, Heidelberg, Soleure, and finally arrived at Prague. ”

“ His whole newly born gravity had borne more the stamp of the stiff-lipped recklessness of an adventurer than the sober determination of a good soldier seeking a short cut to success; and Seleneck, who felt for Wolff an ungrudging admiration, boded no good for the future if the change continued. "I have seen a few dozen fellows go like that," he thought to himself, "and it has always ended in breakdown. Only in their case it was horses or cards, and I'll wager that neither play any part in Wolff's trouble. I wonder what the devil is the matter?" ”

“ He, too, stopped short when he [13] saw all the beautiful things that were in the chimney. But as he stood and looked, he heard people laughing in the street. What did it all mean?
By the side of the town pump many of the neighbors were standing. Each was telling what had happened at his home that morning. The boys who had rich parents and had been looking for beautiful gifts had found only long switches in their shoes.
But, in the meanwhile, Wolff and his aunt stood still and looked at the wonderful gifts around the two wooden shoes. Who had placed them there? ”

“ He was, in fact, about the last man one would have thought capable of "putting up" a fight. However, a somewhat wide experience has taught me that appearances in this connection are apt to be deceitful; the quiet, unassuming man is very often a dangerous customer.
One Sunday afternoon Simpson and I were taking a stroll together. We met Wolff, who had been my mate at "The Reef." Wolff was a man with the appearance of enormous strength, but he was slow in movement and muscle-bound. ”

“ If Wolff had only helped me a bit—if he hadn't been such a stuck-up prig, so beastly self-righteous. There, you needn't break out! I can't help it—it's the truth; it's not all my fault." He ran his shaky hand through his hair. "And, after all, there isn't so much to make a fuss about. Everybody in our set does that sort of thing, and I dare say Bauer will tide me over the worst. He's a decent fellow, and beastly rich. Look here, Nora"—his shifty eyes took an expression of stupid cunning—"if you asked him—you know he's a friend of yours—I'll be bound he'd help me." ”

“ I don’t know what in the nation your game is. I am as innocent as a baa lamb on the whole affair, and I simply obey your orders, not knowing that you yourself may not own the cable and that this mayn’t be a repairing job. If we are caught, will you bear me out in that statement? [59] —not that your evidence will be much good, I expect, but, still, it’s better than nothing.”
“If you obey our instructions,” said Wolff, “I will do as you say; and, to prove that I am playing fair with you, I will even now give you a detail of the commercial speculation that is behind all this business.” ”

“ Wolff had many conversations with persons who had been in close contact with Napoleon. He chanced to travel in company with a certain Monsieur Larabit, who, as a young officer of engineers, had superintended the repair and reconstruction of most of the defences of the island some forty years before, and who would often speak of the great interest taken by the Emperor in the completion of his palace (in reality little more than a country house) at San Martino ”

“ Peers and Commons are Unionists in desire to know when the pic-nic will be over, or, as Bryce put it to-night amid cheers, "When will finally and positively terminate the unparalleled and undignified position in which the country is placed?" In Lords the Markiss disowned a capital retort the reporters invented for him. On Monday, Rosebery understood to ask whether Wolff was [Pg 36] supposed to be in a state of suspended animation what time the Sultan made up his mind. The Markiss reported to have replied that Wolff was "rather in a state of animated expectancy." ”

“ When Grandolph, Wolff and Gorst, with Prince Arthur looking on, set themselves to "draw Gladstone," as was their custom of an afternoon, that astute personage became as a child in their hands. Grandolph led off with a question, to which long reply was made. Wolff, profusely grateful for the right hon. gentleman's courtesy, shunted the Premier on to another track, along which he cheerfully sprinted. Then came John o' Gorst. With the subtlety of a trained but not practising barrister he put a third question, drawing a third speech. ”