forward " In an instant, almost the whole tragical, comical, of mixed character; away! company of Captain Marais stept out as vo- dramatic, and vividly given. We have a lunteers we fancied it was to storm the ene- grand Schwartzenberg Festival, and the Emmy's nearest battery, which was advancing peror himself, and all high persons present in through the corn-fields in front; and so, cheer-grand gala, with music, light, and crowned ing with loud shout, we hastened down the de- goblets, in a wooden pavilion, with upholstery clivity, when a second adjutant came in with and draperies: a rag of drapery flutters the the order that we were but to occupy the wrong way athwart some wax-light, shrivels Russbach, defend the passage of it, and not to itself up in quick fire, kindles the other drape. fire till the enemy was quite close. Scattering ries, kindles the gums and woods, and all ourselves into skirmishing order, behind wil- blazes into swift choking ruin; a beautifu! low-trunks, and high corn, we waited with Princess Schwartzenberg, lost in the mad tufirelocks ready; covered against cannon-balls, mult, is found on the morrow as ashes amid but hit by musket shots and howitzer grenades, the ashes! Then also there are soirees of Imwhich the enemy sent in great numbers to our perial notabilities; "the gentlemen walking quarter. About an hour we waited here, in about in varied talk, wherein you detect a certhe incessant roar of the artillery, which shot tain cautiousness; the ladies all solemnly both ways over our heads; with regret we soon ranged in their chairs, rather silent for ladies." remarked that the enemy's were superior, at Berthier is a "man of composure," not without Jeast, in number, and delivered twice as many higher capabilities. Denon, in spite of his shots as ours, which, however, was far better kind speeches, produces an ill effect on one; served; the more did we admire the active and in his habit habile, with court-rapier and zeal and valorous endurance by which the lace-cuffs, "looks like a dizened ape" Carunequal match was nevertheless maintained. dinal Maury in red stockings, he that was "The Emperor Napoleon meanwhile saw, once Abbe Maury, "pet son of the scarlet with impatience, the day passing on without a woman," whispers diplomatically in your ear, decisive result; he had calculated on striking in passing, Nous avons beaucoup de jou de vous the blow at once, and his great accumulated voir ici. But the thing that will best of all suit force was not to have directed itself all hither- us here, is the presentation to Napoleon himward in vain. Rapidly he arranged his troops self: for storming. Marshal Bernadotte got orders "On Sunday, the 22d of Ju., (1810.) was to press forward, over Atterkla, towards Wa- to be the Emperor's first levee after that fatal gram; and, by taking this place, break the occurrence of the fire; and we were told it middle of the Austrian line. Two deep storm- would be uncommonly fine and grand. In ing columns were at the same time to advance, Berlin I had often accidentally seen Napoleon, on the right and left, from Baumersdorf over and afterwards at Vienna and Schönbrunn; the Russbach; to scale the heights of the Aus- but always too far off for a right impression trian position, and sweep away the troops of him. At Prince Schwartzenberg's festival, there. French infantry had, in the mean while, the look of the man, in that whirl of horrible got up close to where we stood; we skirmish- occurrences, had effaced itself again. I as ers were called back from the Russbach, and sume, therefore, that I saw him for the first again went into the general line; along the time now, when I saw him rightly, near at whole extent of which a dreadful fire of mus- hand, with convenience, and a sufficient length ketry now began. This monstrous noise of of time. The frequent opportunities I afterthe universal, never-ceasing crack of shots, wards had, in the Tuileries and at St. Cloud, and still more, that of the infinite jingle of iron, (in the latter place especially, at the brilliant in handling more than twenty thousand mus-theatre, open only to the Emperor and his kets, all crowded together here, was the only new and entirely strange impression that I, in these my first experiences in war, could say I had got; all the rest was in part conformable to my preconceived notion, in part even below it: but every thing, the thunder of artillery never so numerous, every noise, I had heard or figured, was trifling, in comparison with this continuous storm-tumult of the small arms, as we call them-that weapon by which indeed our modern battles do chiefly become deadly." What boots it? Ensign Varnhagen and Generalissimo Archduke Karl are beaten; have to retreat in the best possible order. The sun of Wagram sets as that of Austerlitz had done; the war has to end in submission and marriage; and, as the great Atlantic tidestream rushes into every creek and alters the current there, so for our Varnhagen too a new chapter opens-the diplomatic one, in Paris first of all. Varnhagen's experiences "At the Court of Napoleon," as one of his sections is Beaded, are extremely entertaining. They are guests, where Talma, Fleury, and La Raucourt figured,) did but confirm, and, as it were. com. plete that first impression. "We had driven to the Tuileries, and arrived through a great press of guards and people at a chamber, of which I had already heard, under the name of Salle des Ambassa deurs. The way in which, here in this narrow ill-furnished pen, so many high personages stood jammed together, had something ludi crous and insulting in it, and was indeed the material of many a Paris jest.-The richest uniforms and court dresses were, with diff culty and anxiety, struggling hitherward and thitherward; intermixed with Imperial liveries of men handing refreshments, who always, by the near peril, suspended every motion of those about them. The talk was loud and vivacious on all sides; people seeking acquaintances, seeking more room, seeking better light Seriousness of mood, and dignified concentration of oneself, seemed foreign to all; and what a man could not bring with him, there was nothing here to produce. The whole matte had a distressful, offensive air; you found yourself ill off, and waited out of humour. My look, however, awelt with especial pleasure on the members of our Austrian Embassy, whose bearing and demeanour did not discredit the dignity of the old Imperial house.-Prince Schwartzenberg, in particular, had a stately aspect; ease without negligence, gravity without assumption, and over all an honest goodness of expression; beautifully contrasted with the smirking saloon-activity, the perked up courtierism and pretentious nullity of many here. still sounded through. His words were short hasty, as if shot from him, and on the most indifferent matters had a passionate rapidity; nay, when he wished to be kindly, it still sounded as if he were in anger. Such a raspy, untamed voice as that of his I have hardly heard. "His eyes were dark, overclouded, fixed on the ground before him; and only glanced backwards in side-looks now and then, swift and sharp, on the persons there. When he smiled, it was but the mouth and a part of the cheeks that smiled; brow and eyes remained gloomily motionless. If he constrained these also, as I have subsequently seen him do, his countenance took a still more distorted expression. This union of gloom and smile had something frightfully repulsive in it. I know not what to think of the people who have called this countenance gracious, and its kindliness attractive. Were not his features, though undeniably beautiful in the plastic sense, yet hard and rigourous like marble; foreign to all trust, incapable of any heartiness "We had formed ourselves into a half-circle in the Audience Hall, and got placed in "What he said, whenever I heard him several crowded ranks, when the cry of speaking, was always trivial both in purport L'Empereur!' announced the appearance of and phraseology; without spirit, without wit, Napoleon, who entered from the lower side of without force, nay, at times, quite poor and the apartment. In simple blue uniform, his ridiculous. Faber, in his Notices sur l'Inlittle hat under his arm, he walked heavily to- terieur de la France,' has spoken expressly wards us. His bearing seemed to me to ex- of his questions, those questions which Napress the contradiction between a will that poleon was wont to prepare before-hand for would attain something, and a contempt for certain persons and occasions, to gain credit those by whom it was to be attained. An im- thereby for acuteness and special knowledge. posing appearance he would undoubtedly have This is literally true of a visit he had made a liked to have; and yet it seemed to him not short while before to the great Library: all worth the trouble of acquiring; acquiring, I the way on the stairs he kept calling out about may say, for by nature he certainly had it not. that passage in Josephus where Jesus is made Thus there alternated in his manner a negli- mention of; and seemed to have no other task gence and a studiedness, which combined here but that of showing off this bit of learnthemselves only in unrest and dissatisfaction. ing; it had altogether the air of a question got He turned first to the Austrian Embassy, by heart. His gift lay in saying things which occupied one extremity of the half-sharp, or at least unpleasant; nay, when he circle. The consequences of the unlucky fes- wanted to speak in another sort, he often made tival gave occasion to various questions and no more of it than insignificance: thus it beremarks. The Emperor sought to appear fel once, as I myself witnessed in Saint-Cloud, sympathetic, he even used words of emotion; he went through a whole row of ladies, and but this tone by no means succeeded with him, repeated twenty times merely these three and accordingly he soon let it drop. To the words, "Il fait chaud." Russian Ambassador, Kurakin, who stood next, his manner had already changed into a rougher; and in his farther progress some face or some thought must have stung him, for he got into violent anger; broke stormfully out on some one or other, not of the most important there, whose name has now escaped me; could be pacified with no answer, but demanded always new; rated and threatened, and held the poor man, for a good space, in tormenting annihilation. Those who stood nearer, and were looking at this scene, not without anxteties of their own, declared afterwards that there was no cause at all for such fury; that the Emperor had merely been seeking an opportunity to vent his ill humour, and had done so even intentionally on this poor wight, that all the rest might be thrown into due terror, and every opposition beforehand beaten down. "As he walked on, he again endeavoured to speak more mildly; but his jarred humour "At this time there circulated a song on his second marriage; a piece composed in the lowest popular tone, but which doubtless had originated in the higher classes. Napoleon saw his power and splendour stained by a ballad, and breathed revenge; but the police could no more detect the author than they could the circulators. To me among others a copy, written in a bad hand and without name, had been sent by the city post; I had privately with friends amused myself over the bur. lesque, and knew it by heart. Altogether at the wrong time, exactly as the Emperor, gloomy and sour of humour, was now passing me, the words and tune of that song came into my head; and the more I strove to drive them back, the more decidedly they forced tirem selves forward; so that my imagination, excited by the very frightfulness of the thing, was getting giddy, and seemed on the point of breaking forth into the deadliest offence, when happily the audience came to an end; and deep repeated bows accompanied the exit of Napoleon; who to me had addressed none of his words, but did, as he passed, turn on me one searching glance of the eye, with the departure of which it seemed as if a real danger had vanished. "The Emperor gone, all breathed free, as if disloaded from a heavy burden. By degrees the company again grew loud, and then went over altogether into the noisy disorder and haste which had ruled at the commencement. The French courtiers especially took pains to redeem their late downbent and terrified bearing by a free jocularity now; and even in descending the stairs there arose laughter and quizzing at the levee, the soleninity of which had ended here." strongest feelings I have ever seen, and the completest mastery of them." Richter ad dresses her by the title geflügelte, “ winged one." Such a Rahel might be worth knowing. We find, on practical inquiry, that Rabe was of Berlin; by birth a Jewess, in easy no affluent circumstances; who lived, mostly there, from 1771 to 1833. That her youth passed in studies, struggles, disappointed pas sions, sicknesses, and other sufferings and vi vacities to which one of her excitable organi zation was liable. That she was deep in many spiritual provinces, in poetry, in art, in philosophy;-the first, for instance, or one of the first to recognise the significance of Goethe, and teach the Schlegels to do it. That she wrote nothing; but thought, did, and spoke, many things, which attracted notice, admiration spreading wider and wider. That in 1814 she became the wife of Varnhagen; the loved wife, though her age was forty-three, exceeding his by some twelve years or more, and she could never boast of beauty. That without beauty, without wealth, foreign ce she had grown in her silently progressive way to be the most distinguished woman in Berlin; admired, partly worshipped by all manner of high persons, from Prince Louis of Prussia downwards; making her mother's, and then her husband's house the centre of an altogether brilliant circle there. This is the Such was Varnhagen von Ense's presentation to Napoleon Bonaparte in the Palace of the Tuileries. What Varnhagen saw remains a possession for him and for us. The judgment he formed on what he saw will-depend upon circumstances. For the eye of the n-lebrity, or any artificial nimbus whatsoever, tellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing." Napoleon is a man of the sort which Varnhagen elsewhere calls daimonisch, a "demonic man;" whose meaning or magnitude is not very measurable by men; who, with his ownness of impulse and insight, with his mystery and strength, in a word, with his originality, (if we will under-social phenomenon of Rahel." What farther stand that,) reaches down into the region of the perennial and primeval, of the inarticulate and unspeakable; concerning whom innumerable things may be said, and the right thing not said for a long while, or at all. We will leave him standing on his own basis, at present; bullying the hapless, obscure functionary there; declaring to all the world the meteorological fact, Il fait chaud. could be readily done to understand such a social phenomenon we have endeavoured to do; with what success the reader shall see. First of all, we have looked at the Portrait of Rahel given in these volumes. It is a face full of thought, of affection, and energy; with no pretensions to beauty, yet loveable and attractive in a singular degree. The strong high brow and still eyes are full of contemplaVarnhagen, as we see, has many things to tion; the long upper lip (sign of genius, some write about; but the thing which beyond all say) protrudes itself to fashion a curved others he rejoices to write about, and would mouth, condemnable in academies, yet beauti gladly sacrifice all the rest to, is the memory fully expressive of laughter and affection, of of Rahel, his deceased wife. Mysterious indi- strong endurance, of noble silent scorn; the cations have of late years flitted round us, con- whole countenance looking as with cheerful cerning a certain Rahel, a kind of spiritual clearness through a world of great pain and queen in Germany, who seems to have lived disappointment; one of those faces which the in familiar relation to most of the distinguish- lady meant when she said, "But are not all ed persons of that country in her time. Travel-beautiful faces ugly, then, to begin with?" in lers to Germany, now a numerous sect with the next place, we have read diligently what us, ask you as they return from æsthetic capi- soever we could anywhere find written abou tals and circles, "Do you know Rahel?" Marquis Custine, in the Revue de Paris," (treating of this book of "Rahel's Letters,") says, by experience "She was a woman as extraordinary as Madame de Staël, for her faculties of mind, for her abundance of ideas, her light of soul, and her goodness of heart: she had, moreover, what the author of Corinne' did not pretend to, a disdain for oratory; she did not write. The silence of minds like hers is a force too. With more vanity, a person so superior would have sought to make a public for herself: but Rahel desired only friends. She spoke to communicate the life that was in her; never did she speak to be admired." Goethe testiSes that she is a “right woman; with the Rahel; and have to remark here that the things written about her, unlike some things written by her, are generally easy to read. Varnha gen's account of their intercourse; of his first young feelings towards her, his long waiting and final meeting of her in snowy weather under the Lindens, in company with a lady whom he knew, his tremulous speaking to bet there, the rapid progress of their intimacy. and so onward to love, to marriage: all this is touching and beautiful; a Petrarcan re mance, and yet a reality withal. Finally, we have read in these three thick volumes of Letters,-till in the second thick volume, the reading faculty unhappily broke down, and had to skip largely thenceforth. only diving here and there at a venture with "You could not speak with her a quarter of an hour without drawing from that fountain of light a shower of sparkles. The comic was at her command equally with the highest degree of the sublime. The proof that she was natural is, that she understood laughter as she did grief; she took it as a readier means of showing truth; all had us resonance in her, and her manner of receiving the impressions which you wished to communicate to her modified them in yourself: you loved her at first because she had admirable gifts; and then, what prevailed over every thing, because she was entertaining. She was nothing for you, or she was all; and she could be all to several at a time without exciting jealousy, so much did her noble nature participate in the source of all life, of all clearness. When one has lost in youth such friend," &c., &c. . . . "It seems to me you might define her in one word: she had the head of a sage and the heart of an apostle, and in spite of that, she was a child and a woman as much as any one can be. Her mind penetrated into the obscurest depths of nature; she was a thinker of as much and more clear considerab.e intervals! Such is the melan- | But after all, we can understand how talk of choly fact. It must be urged in defence that that kind, in an expressive ruth, with bright these volumes are of the toughest reading; deep eyes, and the vivacity of social move calculated, as we said for Germany, rather than ment, of question and response, may have been for England or us. To be written with such delightful; and moreover that, for those to indisputable marks of ability, nay of genius, whom they vividly recall such talk, these letters of depth and sincerity, they are the heaviest may still be delightful. Hear Marquis de Cus business we perhaps ever met with. The truth tine a little farther: is, they do not suit us at all. They are subjec-| five letters, what the metaphysicians call subjective, not objective; the grand material of them is endless depicturing of moods, sensations, miseries, joys, and lyrical conditions of the writer; no definite picture drawn, or rarely any, of persons, transactions, or events which the writer stood amidst: a wrong material, as it seems to us. To what end? To what end? we always ask. Not by looking at itself, but by looking at thing out of itself, and ascertaining and ruling these, shall the mind become known. "One thing above all other," says Goethe once, "I have never thought about think ing." What a thrift almost of itself equal to a fortune in these days: "habe nie ans Denken gedacht!" But how much wastefuller still it is to feel about Feeling! One is wearied of that; the healthy soul avoids that. Thou shalt look outward, not inward. Gazing inward on one's own self-why, this can drive one mad, like the monks of Athos, if at last too long. Unprofitable writing this subjective sort does seem ; -at all events, to the present reviewer, no reading is so insupportable. Nay, we ask, might not the world be entirely deluged by it, unlessness than our Theosophist Saint Martin, whom prohibited? Every mortal is a microcosm; to himself a macrocosm, or universe large as nature; universal nature would barely hold what he could say about himself. Not a dyspeptic tailor on any shopboard of this city but could furnish all England, the year through, with reading about himself, about his emotions, and internal mysteries of wo and sensibility, if England would read him. It is a course which leads nowhither; a course which should be avoided. she comprehended and admired; and she felt Add to all this, that such self-utterance on the part of Rahel, in these letters, is in the highest degree vapourous, vague. Her very mode of writing is complex, nay, is careless, incondite; with dashes and splashes, with notes of admi- This enthusiastic testimony of the clever senration, of interrogation, (nay, both together timental marquis is not at all incredible to us, sometimes,) with involutions, abruptness, in its way: yet from these letters we have no whirls, and tortuosities; so that even the thing whatever to produce that were adequate grammatical meaning is altogether burden- to make it good. As was said already, it is some to seize. And then when seized, alas, it not to be made good by excerpts and written is as we say, of due likeness to the phraseo- documents; its proof rests in the memory of logy; a thing crude, not articulated into pro- living witnesses. Meanwhile, from these same positions, but flowing out as in bursts of inter-wastes of sand, and even of quicksand danger. jection and exclamation. No wonder the reading faculty breaks down! And yet we do gather gold grains and precious thought here and there; though out of large wastes of sand and quicksand. In fine, it becomes clear, beyond doubting, both that this Rabel was a woman of rare gifts and worth, a woman of true genius; and also that her genius has passed away, and left no impress of itself there for us. These printed volumes produce the effect not of speech, but of multifarious, confused wind-music. It seems to require the aid of pantomime, to tell us what it means. ous to linger in, we will try to gather a few grains the most like gold, that it may be guessed, by the charitable, whether or not a Pactolus once flowed there: "If there be miracles, they are those that are in our breast; what we do not know, we call by that name. How astonished, almost how ashamed are we, when the inspired mo ment comes, and we get to know them!" "One is late in learning to be: and late in learning to speak the truth."-"I cannot, be "Revue de Paris," Novembre, 1837 cause I cannot lie. credit for it: I cannot, just as one cannot play upon the flute." "In the meanest hut is a romance, if you knew the hearts there." Fancy not that I take rentheses in life, which belong neither to us not to others: beautiful I name them, because they give us a freedom we could not get by sound sense. Who would volunteer to have a nervous fever? And yet it may save one's life. I love rage; I use it, and patronize it.”—“ Be not alarmed; I am commonly calmer. But when I write to a friend's heart, it comes to pass that the sultry laden horizon of my soul breaks out in lightning. Heavenly men love lightning." "So long as we do not take even the injustice which is done us, and which forces the burning tears from us; so long as we do not ake even this for just and right, we are in the thickest darkness, without dawn." "Manure with despair,-but let it be genuine; and you will have a noble harvest." "True misery is ashamed of itself: hides itself, and does not complain. You may know it by that." "What a commonplace man! If he did not live in the same time with us, no mortal would mention him." "To Varnhagen. . . One thing I must write to thee; what I thought of last night in bed, and for the first time in my life. That I, as a relative and pupil of Shakspeare, have, from my childhood upwards, occupied myself much with death, thou mayest believe. But never did my own death affect me; nay, I did not even think of this fact, that I was affected by "Have you remarked that Homer, when-it. ever he speaks of the water, is always great; as Goethe is, when he speaks of the stars." "If one were to say, 'You think it easy to be original: but no, it is difficult; it costs a whole life of labour and exertion,'-you would think him mad, and ask no more questions of him. And yet his opinion would be altogether true, and plain enough withal. Original, I grant, every man might be, and must be, if men did not almost always admit mere undigested hearsays into their head, and fling them out again undigested. Whoever honestly questions himself, and faithfully answers, is busied continually with a.l that presents itself in life; and is incessantly inventing, had the thing been invented never so long before. Honesty belongs as a first condition to good thinking; and there are almost as few absolute dunces as geniuses. Genuine dunces would always be original; but there are none of them genuine : they have almost always understanding enough to be dishonest." "He (the blockhead) tumbled out on me his definition of genius; the trivial old distinctions of intellect and heart; as if there ever was, or could be, a great intellect with a mean heart!" Now, last night there was something I had to write; I said Varnhagen must know this thing, if he is to think of me after I am dead. And it seemed to me as if I must die; as if my heart were flitting away over this earth, and I must follow it; and my death gave me pity: for never before, as I now saw, had I thought that it would give anybody pity of thee I knew it would do so, and yet it was the first time in my life I had seen this, or known that f had never seen it. In such solitude have I lived: comprehend it! I thought, when I am dead, then first will Varnhagen know what sufferings I had; and all his lamenting will be in vain; the figure of me meets him again through all eternity no more; swept away am I then, as our poor Prince Louis is. And no one can be kind to me then; with the strongest will, with the exertion of despair, no one: and this thought of thee about me was what at last affected me. I must write of this, though it af flict thee never so." ・・・ ..... "To Rose, a younger sister, on her marriage in Amsterdam.-Paris, 1801. Since thy last letter I am sore downcast. Gone art thou! No Rose comes stepping in to me with true foot and heart, who knows me altogether, knows all my sorrows altogether. When I am sick of body or soul, alone, alone thou comest not to me any more; thy room empty, quite empty, for ever empty. Thou art away, to try thy for tune. O Heaven! and to me not even trying "Slave-trade, war, marriage, working-class-is permitted. Am not I in luck! The garden es-and they are astonished, and keep clout- in the Lindenstrasse where we used to be with ing and remending?" "Goethe? When I think of him, tears come into my eyes: all other men I love with my own strength; he teaches me to love with his. My Poet!" "The whole world is, properly speaking, a tragic embarras." Hanne and Feu-was it not beautiful? I will call it Rose now; with Hanne and Hanse will I go often thither, and none shall know of it. ". . . . I here, Rahel the Jewess, feel Dost thou recollect that night when I was to set that I am as unique as the greatest appearance out with Fink the time before last! How in this earth. The greatest artist, philosopher thou hadst to sleep up stairs, and then to stay or poet, is not above me. We are of the same with me? O my sister, I might be as ill again element; in the same rank, and stand together.-though not for that cause: and thou too, Whichever would exclude the other, excludes only himself. But to me it was appointed not to write, or act, but to live: I lay in embryo till my century; and then was, in outward respects, so flung away. It is for this reason that I tell you. But pain, as I know it, is a life too: and I think with myself, I am one of those figures which Humanity was fated to evolve, and then never to use more, never to have more: Me no one can comfort.”—“Why not be beside oneself, dear friend? There are beautiful pa what may not lie before thee! But, no, thy name is Rose; thou hast blue eyes, and a far other life than I with my stars and black ones. Salute mamma a million times; tell her I congratulate her from the heart; the more so as I can never give her such a plea sure! God willed it not. But I, in her place, would have great pity for a child so circum stanced. Yet let her not lament for me. I know all her goodness, and thank her with my soul. Tell her I have the fate of nations and |