Schoppe

“ Schoppe sat like a Cato upon ruins, but, to be sure, upon the greatest of all; if the wise man ought to be a barometer-tube at the Equator, in which even the tornado produces little displacement, he was a wise man. Accidentally he tore open the Count's glued-up wings at an inn by means of the Hamburg Impartial Correspondent, which he found lying there. Schoppe read aloud out of it two extensive battles, wherein, as by an earthquake, lands instead of houses were buried, and whose wounds and tears only the evil genius of the earth could be willing to know ”

“ On Schoppe's face stood the warmth and haste of the self-conqueror. As men can be at once hard of hearing amidst the common din of life, and yet open to the finest musical tones, [65] so were Schoppe's inner ears hardened against the vulgar noise of ordinary impulse, but drank in thirstily all soft, low melodies of holier souls.
The Lector—loving the Count far more heartily than he was loved by him—was for taking the Librarian by storm at once to the castle, because just now was the most favorable hour, of court-recess, from half past four to half past five. Schoppe said he was on hand. ”

“ How often did Schoppe, otherwise so poor in expression, hold him fast with a long embrace, only to beguile the harassed one into a short repose. Incomprehensible to the physician the next morning were the energies of this iron and white-hot nature, which fever, pain, and walking had not yet bowed, and on which all prescribed ice-fields hissed and dried up,—and frightful appeared to him the consequences, as Albano continued to be his own incendiary, and, at every striking of the hour, fell on his knees and languished and looked for the heavenly apparition. ”

“ All at once Schoppe, out of patience with this general emotion, said: "What a masquerade for the sake of a mask! Rag and tag for a piece of rag-paper! Throw a man quietly into his hole, and call nobody to see. I always admire London and Paris, where they toll no alarm-bells, nor set the neighborhood stirring, when the undertaker carries one, who has fallen asleep, to bed." ”

“ Heiderscheid stepped out on the balcony, and caused the noisy swarming multitude to stretch out the forefinger and thumb, and repeat the oath after him. The mass, always fascinated, shouted their vivat; in the dazzled eyes gleamed the confident expectation of a better regency and love for the unknown individual. The Count, whom a multitude generally made enthusiastic, as it did Schoppe melancholy, glowed with the inspiration of brotherly love and thirst for achievement ”

“ We were torn from each other sleeping, Schoppe. That time has veiled itself, and remains so. Very wide awake will we be when we look on each other again. Of thee I know nothing; if Rabette does not write to me, I shall have to bear about with me and endure this burning impatience till our meeting in summer. Of myself what is there to write? I am changed even to my innermost being, and by an ingrasping giant-hand. When the sun passes over the zenith of countries, they all wrap themselves in a deep cloud ”

“ The Librarian's warmth toward the Count had grown very much with the Lector's coldness, and on similar grounds. The bold march out to Lilar and the passionate wildness of the youth had fastened him more closely to Albano's side. "I thought at first," said Schoppe, "the young man was coming to be nothing but an elderly one, when I saw him stalking along so to school. I often held the man in the moon—where notoriously, from an absence of thirst and atmosphere, there is nothing to drink—to be a greater tippler than he. ”

“ He peered longingly through the wavering seams of the laurel-foliage, out toward the shining hills, when Dian said, in his painter's-language: "Is it not as if all the gods stood, with thousands of cornucopias, on the mountains around Lago Maggiore, and poured down wine and cascades, till the lake, like a goblet of joy, foams over and gushes down with the brimming juice?" Schoppe replied: "Pleasures of exceeding flavor, like pineapples, have the misfortune, that, like pineapples, they make the gums bleed." ”

“ When they stepped into the second picture-chamber, Albano heard the Princess going away. As this apartment threatened him with still more rent veils of the unholiest, he took his leave without special ceremony, and went back without the Lector, who had to-day to give a reading.
Never did Schoppe grasp his throbbing hand more heartily than this time; the aspect of an abashed young man is almost fairer (especially rarer) than that of an abashed virgin; the former appears more tender and feminine, as the latter appears more strong and manly, by a mixture of the indignation of virtue. ”

“ Out of the flute-dell came the rest of the company, the Lector and others; Julienne constrained the lovers to a separation, saying: "Here is no Ischia; without me you cannot see each other here in the palace at all; I will announce it to thee always through thy father, when I am here."
When he stood alone in Lilar with the heavy thought of Schoppe and Linda, and surveyed the lovely regions and scenes of fair hours, then it seemed to him all at once as if, in the twilight, Elysium, like a charming face, distorted itself into an expression of scorn at him and at life. ”

“ But Schoppe was a giant that destroyed many more small boys, than any other giant, or ogre, and in a different way. By and bye, Hotap and Schoppe, who at first were rivals, became partners. [54] Instead of living in caves, they went into business and set up shops all over Switzerland. They lured young men into these shops, and set them to drinking poisonous stuff, which the giants made, so that the roads, and streets, and gutters at nights, and early in the morning, were often full of fellows lying asleep on the ground, or like pigs in the mud. ”

“ Thus do spirits dwell and melt together in the invisible land; and when the bodies again meet each other in the visible, the hearts find each other again mutually more acquainted. Unfortunately, among all the letters that his father received from Pestitz, he heard not one sound from his friend over the mountains, whom he had left behind in the dark relations of a strange, perplexing passion. He never reckoned silence as a fault against Schoppe, whose hatred and spite against all letter-writing he well knew. ”

“ Not long after that our three friends were going out into the street just at the hour when the noisy carriages rolled along to tea and play, when a litter was carried by before them with the seat backward, whereupon, however, a man was sitting. "Holy Father!" cried Schoppe, "in there sits, bodily, Cephisio, from Rome, who must sometime or other give me a sound drubbing."—"Softly, softly!" said Augusti, "that is the German gentleman; Cephisio is his Arcadian name." ”

“ The medical married couple had thought the pedagogical couple nested together; but Schoppe replied admirably well, and almost with some irony toward the more politely treated Augusti: "The more powerful and intellectual and great two men are, so much the less can they bear each other under one ceiling, as great insects, which live on fruits, are unsocial (for example, in every hazel-nut there sits only one chafer) , whereas the little ones, which only live on leaves,—for instance, the leaf-lice,—cleave together nest-wise." ”

“ Zesara would by all means have been glad to hold to his insatiable heart the friend whom fate had placed thereupon, constantly in every situation and [Pg 168] season as a brother-in-arms; but Schoppe has the right of it. Friends, lovers, and married people must have everything else in common, but not a chamber. The gross requisitions and trifling incidents of bodily presence gather as lamp-smoke around the pure, white flame of love. As the echo is always of more syllables the farther off our call starts, so must the soul from which we desire a fairer echo not be too near ours ”

“ Suffice it, he thought always of Schoppe's fine expression: "There are men and times at which and with whom nothing could be more refreshing to an honest man than—to give them a sound drubbing." Duelling is quite as good, thought the Count.
However, Schoppe must here be justified by an authority. Namely, the author himself, otherwise such a soft, warm swan-skin, could never stand behind card-table-chairs [Pg 229] without becoming a complete game-cock, and spreading out his scratching, bristly wing the wider the longer he idly looked on ”

“ The noble soul lay in the violent hands of a fever. He was just going out with him, when he beheld the Knight, who gazed upon him intently. "Only do not become numb and palsied again, my father!" said he, embraced him but gently, and forgot what he had been going to do.
Schoppe went for Doctor Sphex. Albano returned to his chamber, and walked slowly up and down there with bowed head and folded hands, and said to himself consolingly, "Only wait, however, till it strikes again." Sphex came and saw and—said, "It is simply an inflammatory fever." ”

“ I beg to live; killing is so great a deadly sin." Schoppe replied: "As to my understanding, of that another time! I have already shot thee in effigy, now will I not carry round in vain the deadly sin and the sting of conscience, but set myself about it in naturâ, thou hangman of souls, thou trepan of hearts!"
"Schoppe, Schoppe!" cried at this moment, several times over, at great distances, a something with Albano's voice. He looked swiftly round; nothing was to be seen. "Good Schoppe," it continued, "let my uncle go!" Now Schoppe blazed up, and raised his dagger for a thrust. ”

“ I have as yet been and done nothing; but when life is as yet an empty mist, canst thou overcome it, or seize it fast and dash it to pieces? Wilt thou one day, thou Uranide, love a man? then will I shrink back from no one. But words are to actions only the sawdust of the club of Hercules, as Schoppe says. So soon as war and freedom clash against each other, then will I deserve thee in the storm of the times, and bring with me to thee actions and immortal love. ”

“ The court simulates reality. The masks are a multiform mockery at their own unreality, and as such are regarded by Schoppe, who takes them off with the utmost ridicule in his masked puppet-show, which, with its reflection in the mirror, is again indefinitely multiplied in the many-sided reflector of Schoppe’s, or of Richter’s, or of the reader’s own imagination. The successive retreating and beholding in this scene is suggested to the reviewer by the fact that the last of these essays by Mr. Lynch is devoted in part to reviews. ”

“ Froulay had, among other carriages, brought with him also one containing several trumpeters and kettle-drummers, levied from all quarters, in which, for joke's sake, Schoppe stood, too, who did not often stay away from great processions of men, for this reason, because men never looked more ridiculous than when they did anything in mass and multitude. ”

“ Schoppe often ridiculed tutors of much information and manners, when they assumed he educated anything out of Albano or into him. He said: "The age educated, not a ninny; millions of men, not one; properly, at most, a pedagogical group of Pleiades sent their light after him,—namely, the seven ages of man, every age into the next following. The individual resembled very much the entire humanity, whose revolutions and improvements were nothing more than retouchings of a Schickaneder's magic flute by a Vulpius. ”

“ Schoppe continued: "So also our statues are no idle, dawdling citizens, but they all drive a trade;—such as are caryates hold up houses; such as are angels bear baptismal vessels; and heathen water-gods labor at the public fountains, and pour out water into the pitchers of the maidens."
The Count spoke warmly for us, the Lector brilliantly: the Knight remarked, that the German taste and the German talent for poetic beauties made good and explained their want of both for other beauties (on the ground of climate, form of government, poverty, &c.) ”

“ The Knight heard such talk with pleasure, though he neither laughed at nor imitated it; to him all colors in the prism of genius were agreeable. Only to the Architect it was not enough in Greek taste, and not courtly enough for the Lector. The latter turned round to the departing Dian, with a somewhat flattering air, while Schoppe was recovering breath for renewed detraction of us Germans, [Pg 42] and said: "Formerly Rome took away from other lands only works of art, but now artists themselves." ”

“ Could he help thinking of the cold young sister, whose voice now awaited him in Tartarus? And as Schoppe, with his puppet-parody, came to him, and he pointed out to him the street, and the latter said: "Bon! Friend Death sits [Pg 298] on his game-wagon, and glances quietly up, as if the friend would say, 'Bon! only dance on; I make my return trip, and carry you too to your place and spot,'"—how close must it have been to him under his sultry visor! At this second the pale mask came, with others, to the window; he opened his glowing face for coolness ”

“ Spirits should grow beside each other, not upon each other. We should, like God, as imperishable ones, love the perishable."
"Very good," said she, "if it only insures thee peace. As touching thy poor Schoppe, he has been thrust into the madhouse by way of punishment; but first let me give you a regular account. He dressed up a story about a second sister of thine before thy already so much excited father. One could have let this new distraction of intellect pass; but thy uncle was called, who told him to his face he had murdered the Baldhead ”

“ Schoppe referred the presentiment to the pressure of the rafters of his ruined pleasure-castle, which still lay upon his breast, and the remembrance of that Roquairol, now flying in the abyss, who had once drunk his health in the cellar, and afterwards confessed to him in Lilar. Albano followed at last, but reminded him of the fulfilment of another presentiment, which he had had on the hill above Arcadia.
"We neither of us play the best personages in love ”