Villa Eden Part 231

Have I already told you that our friend Knopf has found a charming little wife? She is full of intelligence, modesty, and energy. She, too, has had religious conflicts to undergo, as I have, not so severe; but then she has had a hard fight with herself. Lilian, too, young as she is, is far riper than her years, on account of her zeal for making converts.

She was sent to Germany, and our friend Knopf there accomplished a good work. Lillian has become a sister to me, and we talk much of how she shall go with us to the Rhine. She thinks, however, that Eric and I will remain here; but that will never be. Our home is there. You are our home. I kiss your eyes, cheeks, mouth, hands. Ah, let me kiss you once more, once more! You are my--ah! you do not know at all what you are; but you know that I am Your daughter, MANNA DOURNAY.

P.S. Dear Aunt Claudine, send me a great deal more good music, some soprano songs with harp accompaniment, and send them soon. At every tone I will think of you, and my naughty little finger, which you took so much trouble to train, is now perfectly obedient.

[Eric to Weidmann.]

When I stood before Abraham Lincoln, I thought of you, my revered friend. And because I have known, in my short life, what purely n.o.ble men breathe the same air with me, I was unembarra.s.sed and at my ease.

My lot is an exalted one: I can look in the faces of the best men of my age. And if wiseacres ever again tell me, condescendingly, that I am an idealist, I can reply to them, "I must be one, for I have met some of the n.o.blest of men on my life-road; I not only believe in the elevation of pure humanity--I know it."

I will only give one incident of our interview.

We heard the opinion expressed, among those who surrounded Lincoln, that the negroes ought not to be set free, because they would do no work unless forced.

Roland said to me in a low voice:--

"Do the slaveholders work without being forced?"

Lincoln noticed that the boy was saying something to me, and encouraged him to speak without reserve. Roland repeated his question quietly but earnestly. You, who have helped me to awaken this young spirit, will sympathize in my pleasure.

And now I will tell you about your nephew.

Oh, our blessed German life! In old times travellers took with them into foreign countries the images of their saints. We Germans carry our poets, our philosophers and musicians over the face of the whole globe; and your nephew's pleasant, comfortable, free home is the abode of true culture. Here, in the midst of the tumult of political and private life, reign immortal spirits, who bring a devotion, a serenity, a holy quiet, of a peculiar sort.

Your nephew has done well in always telling me not to believe, with most people here, that this war will be over in a few months. I now think not of the end, but only of the next day.

And, in the midst of this growth and change of historic movement, I feel that the individual is like the single cell in a tree, or else that we are like boys on the school-bench. We do not know the entire educational plan. We do not know the end to which all this leads. We must learn our lessons; and cell is built upon cell, knowledge is added to knowledge, until--who knows the end?

In the first great struggle, in the New World's war of independence, there were Germans sold by German princes, to fight for the English against the Americans, and but few of our countrymen, towering up among them like Steuben and Kalb, did battle for the Republic. At that period the French--Lafayette's name rings out clear among them--stood foremost among the New World's champions of freedom. To-day the Union army contains thousands of Germans, witnesses who have emigrated or been exiled. Why are there no Frenchmen? I know the reason, and so do you.

I see the poet of the future draw near. The great drama of our epoch, the strife between Caesarism and self-government, is presented to his gaze in dimensions such as no past age could know; he will compress the struggle within narrow limits.

The Republic of the United States has not yet existed a century. Oh, how different is the aspect of things here from what we had pictured to ourselves! I have found many who doubt the continuance of the Union; cultivated clergymen even told me that there was certainly more power of endurance in the monarchical form of government. That is the feeling of dejection and despair: but it is, I believe, only to be met with in single instances.

How often I am obliged to hear myself called a philosophical idealist!

And they tell me I shall soon be converted. Your nephew, whose comprehensive glance sees all sides of a subject, has solved this enigma for me. The people here have lived so long for their own ease alone, feeling their claims of the State only occasionally, as voters.

They must now pa.s.s through the school of military discipline, of staking their lives for the life of the nation--only as an education, of course, to be free again afterwards.

The so-called slavery question is not so nearly decided, by a great deal, as we supposed.

Your nephew thinks the complete abolition of slavery will become a necessary war measure of vital importance to the continued existence of the nation; that patriotism must be wedded to humanity--that the pure ideal must give place to utilitarianism and necessity--that the logic of events will bring about a decision not to be effected by the logic of thought. There is still a strong party here in the North who do not wish to proceed to the one extreme measure, as they call the absolute abolition of slavery; but hope to subdue the South by war instead.

We hope they will not succeed. The words "necessity of State," so often misused by tyrants, will now, we trust lead to Liberty.

How much one is obliged to hear against the negroes in this country!

That the four million slaves represent twenty hundred million dollars, is, of course, the point first mentioned; then that the blacks have many vices, as though a perfect model of virtue were to be expected from a down-trodden race. Any nation, so long held in bondage, tortured, martyred, condemned to ignorance, would have been just what they are. Moreover, tyranny has, in all ages, proclaimed the oppressed to be low beings, ignoring, of course, the fact that if they have some base tendencies, it is the oppression that has prepared the soil and implanted them.

I have made the acquaintance here of a distinguished negro, whose oration on the present situation and the future of his race I had heard. There was a touch of Demosthenes in it. He was a slave twenty-two years, and has acquired a complete scientific education.

Sometimes there is in his voice a quivering tone of lament, as of one drooping under a weight of sorrow, and I admire him for suppressing an avengeful anger. If a single man can do much for his race, this man, or one like him, might become an historic character.

But the heroic age is past, entirely and forever; now we must depend on community of action.

We are transported into the midst of an historical or logical unfolding of events. The attempts at peaceful reconciliation have been of no avail. In spite of the cry "No coercion!" an army had to be raised, and now the cry is, "No confiscation of property!" That means, no abolition of slavery, and yet this must be the second result, since it could not be the first.

The moral debt, neither noted down nor paid interest on, nor cancelled on change, is now becoming a great national debt of the Union, which the country will be obliged to liquidate with money and blood.

[Manna to the Mother.]

.... What a small matter was that night-riot made by men with blackened faces! I have lived through a pro-slavery riot. Doctor Fritz says it arose from the bitter opposition to the conscription. Many blacks were murdered, our friend Knopf's school was laid in ruins, and the negro orphan asylum burned to the ground, the poor black children rolling crying on the pavement. We have much to do. The world has much to make amends for.

[Eric to the Banker.]

.... I perfectly understand your sorrow over the fact that there are some Jews among the Secessionists. General Twiggs, commanding in Texas, who went over to the rebels with his army, fortress, and munitions of war, was a Jew.

And that speculators on change also lend a.s.sistance to the defenders of slavery! Why should they less than the professedly pious English?

Why do you require all the Jews, collectively and individually, to stand on the side of moral principle? They have the right of equality, even in ill-doing. They are, if one may be permitted to say so, equally justified in crime with other men. It must be shown, it is now being shown, that no religion has the monopoly of morality.

You complain that the pa.s.sion for enjoyment has invaded even your innermost circle of friends.

That belongs under the heading above indicated. The more I think over your letter, the more surely I arrive at this conclusion; the Jews, so long and so cruelly excluded from partic.i.p.ation in national affairs, and condemned to a sad cosmopolitism, will now, in their days of liberation, behave like natives of the different communities in which it is their lot to be, and will, above all, remain patriotic.

Moreover, I can a.s.sure you that many Jews are here among us, fighting with valor and self-sacrifice.

The young physician equipped by you is exceedingly able.

The money which you sent over is being conscientiously expended.

I hope yet to sing with your daughter-in-law, to whom please present my kind regards.

My wife joins me in cordial remembrances of you.

[The Professorin to Eric and Manna.]

All is well. Would that I, could send you some of the spring fragrance and beauty which surround us here. No tree bears blossoms as countless as the blessings which go out from my heart to you. Here we sit in peace, and you are out there in the battle. We can do nothing for you, only I say to you, my son, and to you, my daughter: whatever may come, abide quietly in the a.s.surance, that having followed the leadings of the spirit, we must silently recognize and bear our part. I have been in the next village; it must be like a recent settlement in America.

It is a beautiful and great thing to be able to help so many human beings to a cheerful and active existence.

My son, why do you not write whether you have inquired for Uncle Alphonso? Do not delay doing so. If he is yet living, tell him that I have never judged him unkindly, though he has been so hard upon us; and tell him that your father always preserved a brotherly feeling for him.

But ah, I do not know whether he is still alive. Do not delay to get some positive information.

Our friend Einsiedel is busy in arranging your father's papers.