Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 54, April, 1862», страница 5

THE GERMAN BURNS

The extreme southwestern corner of Germany is an irregular right-angle, formed by the course of the Rhine. Within this angle and an hypothenuse drawn from the Lake of Constance to Carlsruhe lies a wild mountain-region—a lateral offshoot from the central chain which extends through Europe from west to east—known to all readers of robber-romances as the Black Forest. It is a cold, undulating upland, intersected with deep valleys which descend to the plains of the Rhine and the Danube, and covered with great tracts of fir-forest. Here and there a peak rises high above the general level, the Feldberg attaining a height of five thousand feet. The aspect of this region is stern and gloomy: the fir-woods appear darker than elsewhere; the frequent little lakes are as inky in hue as the pools of the High Alps; and the meadows of living emerald give but a partial brightness to the scenery. Here, however, the solitary traveller may adventure without fear. Robbers and robber-castles have long since passed away, and the people, rough and uncouth as they may at first seem, are as kindly-hearted as they are honest. Among them was born—and in their incomprehensible dialect wrote—Hebel, the German Burns.

We dislike the practice of using the name of one author as the characteristic designation of another. It is, at best, the sign of an imperfect fame, implying rather the imitation of a scholar than the independent position of a master. We can, nevertheless, in no other way indicate in advance the place which the subject of our sketch occupies in the literature of Germany. A contemporary of Burns, and ignorant of the English language, there is no evidence that he had ever even heard of the former; but Burns, being the first truly great poet who succeeded in making classic a local dialect, thereby constituted himself an illustrious standard, by which his successors in the same path must be measured. Thus, Bellman and Béranger have been inappropriately invested with his mantle, from the one fact of their being song-writers of a democratic stamp. The Gascon, Jasmin, better deserves the title; and Longfellow, in translating his "Blind Girl of Castèl-Cuillè," says,—

 
  "Only the lowland tongue of Scotland might
  Rehearse this little tragedy aright":—
 

a conviction which we have frequently shared, in translating our German author.

It is a matter of surprise to us, that, while Jasmin's poems have gone far beyond the bounds of France, the name of John Peter Hebel—who possesses more legitimate claims to the peculiar distinction which Burns achieved—is not only unknown outside of Germany, but not even familiarly known to the Germans themselves. The most probable explanation is, that the Alemannic dialect, in which he wrote, is spoken only by the inhabitants of the Black Forest and a portion of Suabia, and cannot be understood, without a glossary, by the great body of the North-Germans. The same cause would operate, with greater force, in preventing a translation into foreign languages. It is, in fact, only within the last twenty years that the Germans have become acquainted with Burns,—chiefly through the admirable translations of the poet Freiligrath.

To Hebel belongs the merit of having bent one of the harshest of German dialects to the uses of poetry. We doubt whether the lyre of Apollo was ever fashioned from a wood of rougher grain. Broad, crabbed, guttural, and unpleasant to the ear which is not thoroughly accustomed to its sound, the Alemannic patois was, in truth, a most unpromising material. The stranger, even though he were a good German scholar, would never suspect the racy humor, the naïve, childlike fancy, and the pure human tenderness of expression which a little culture has brought to bloom on such a soil. The contractions, elisions, and corruptions which German words undergo, with the multitude of terms in common use derived from the Gothic, Greek, Latin, and Italian, give it almost the character of a different language. It was Hebel's mother-tongue, and his poetic faculty always returned to its use with a fresh delight which insured success. His German poems are inferior in all respects.

Let us first glance at the poet's life,—a life uneventful, perhaps, yet interesting from the course of its development. He was born in Basle, in May, 1760, in the house of Major Iselin, where both his father and mother were at service. The former, a weaver by trade, afterwards became a soldier, and accompanied the Major to Flanders, France, and Corsica. He had picked up a good deal of stray knowledge on his campaigns, and had a strong natural taste for poetry. The qualities of the son were inherited from him rather than from the mother, of whom we know nothing more than that she was a steady, industrious person. The parents lived during the winter in the little village of Hausen, in the Black Forest, but with the approach of spring returned to Basle for their summer service in Major Iselin's house.

The boy was but a year old when his father died, and the discipline of such a restless spirit as he exhibited in early childhood seems to have been a task almost beyond the poor widow's powers. An incorrigible spirit of mischief possessed him. He was an arrant scape-grace, plundering cupboards, gardens, and orchards, lifting the gates of mill-races by night, and playing a thousand other practical and not always innocent jokes. Neither counsel nor punishment availed, and the entire weight of his good qualities, as a counterbalance, barely sufficed to prevent him from losing the patrons whom his bright, eager, inquisitive mind attracted. Something of this was undoubtedly congenital, and there are indications that the strong natural impulse, held in check only by a powerful will and a watchful conscience, was the torment of his life. In his later years, when he filled the posts of Ecclesiastical Counsellor and Professor in the Gymnasium at Carlsruhe, the phrenologist Gall, in a scientific séance, made an examination of his head. "A most remarkable development of"–, said Gall, abruptly breaking off, nor could he be induced to complete the sentence. Hebel, however, frankly exclaimed,—"You certainly mean the thievish propensity. I know I have it by nature, for I continually feel its suggestions." What a picture is presented by this confession! A pure, honest, and honorable life, won by a battle with evil desires, which, commencing with birth, ceased their assaults only at the brink of the grave! A daily struggle, and a daily victory!

Hebel lost his mother in his thirteenth year, but was fortunate in possessing generous patrons, who contributed enough to the slender means he inherited to enable him to enter the Gymnasium at Carlsruhe. Leaving this institution with the reputation of a good classical scholar, he entered the University of Erlangen as a student of theology. Here his jovial, reckless temperament, finding a congenial atmosphere, so got the upperhand that he barely succeeded in passing the necessary examination, in 1780. At the end of two years, during which time he supported himself as a private tutor, he was ordained, and received a meagre situation as teacher in the Academy at Lörrach, with a salary of one hundred and forty dollars a year! Laboring patiently in this humble position for eight years, he was at last rewarded by being transferred to the Gymnasium at Carlsruhe, with the rank of Sub-Deacon. Hither, the Markgraf Frederick of Baden, attracted by the warmth, simplicity, and genial humor of the man, came habitually to listen to his sermons. He found himself, without seeking it, in the path of promotion, and his life thenceforth was a series of sure and moderate successes. His expectations, indeed, were so humble that they were always exceeded by his rewards. When Baden became a Grand Duchy, with a constitutional form of government, it required much persuasion to induce him to accept the rank of Prelate, with a seat in the Upper House. His friends were disappointed, that, with his readiness and fluent power of speech, he took so little part in the legislative proceedings. To one who reproached him for this timidity he naively wrote,—"Oh, you have a right to talk: you are the son of Pastor N. in X. Before you were twelve years old, you heard yourself called Mr. Gottlieb; and when you went with your father down the street, and the judge or a notary met you, they took off their hats, you waiting for your father to return the greeting, before you even lifted your cap. But I, as you well know, grew up as the son of a poor widow in Hausen; and when I accompanied my mother to Schopfheim or Basle, and we happened to meet a notary, she commanded, 'Peter, jerk your cap off, there's a gentleman!'—but when the judge or the counsellor appeared, she called out to me, when they were twenty paces off, 'Peter, stand still where you are, and off with your cap quick, the Lord Judge is comin'!' Now you can easily imagine how I feel, when I recall those times,—and I recall them often,—sitting in the Chamber among Barons, Counsellors of State, Ministers, and Generals, with Counts and Princes of the reigning House before me." Hebel may have felt that rank is but the guinea-stamp, but he never would have dared to speak it out with the defiant independence of Burns. Socially, however, he was thoroughly democratic in his tastes; and his chief objection to accepting the dignity of Prelate was the fear that it might restrict his intercourse with humbler friends.

His ambition appears to have been mainly confined to his theological labors, and he never could have dreamed that his after-fame was to rest upon a few poems in a rough mountain-dialect, written to beguile his intense longing for the wild scenery of his early home. After his transfer to Carlsruhe, he remained several years absent from the Black Forest; and the pictures of its dark hills, its secluded valleys, and their rude, warm-hearted, and unsophisticated inhabitants, became more and more fresh and lively in his memory. Distance and absence turned the quaint dialect to music, and out of this mild home-sickness grew the Alemannic poems. A healthy oyster never produces a pearl.

These poems, written in the years 1801 and 1802, were at first circulated in manuscript among the author's friends. He resisted the proposal to collect and publish them, until the prospect of pecuniary advantage decided him to issue an anonymous edition. The success of the experiment was so positive that in the course of five years four editions appeared,—a great deal for those days. Not only among his native Alemanni, and in Baden and Würtemberg, where the dialect was more easily understood, but from all parts of Germany, from poets and scholars, came messages of praise and appreciation. Jean Paul (Richter) was one of Hebel's first and warmest admirers. "Our Alemannic poet," he wrote, "has life and feeling for everything,—the open heart, the open arms of love; and every star and every flower are human in his sight…. In other, better words,—the evening-glow of a lovely, peaceful soul slumbers upon all the hills he bids arise; for the flowers of poetry he substitutes the flower-goddess Poetry herself; he sets to his lips the Swiss Alp-horn of youthful longing and joy, while pointing with the other hand to the sunset-gleam of the lofty glaciers, and dissolved in prayer, as the sound of the chapel-bells is flung down from the mountains."

Contrast this somewhat confused rhapsody with the clear, precise, yet genial words wherewith Goethe welcomed the new poet. He instantly seized, weighed in the fine balance of his ordered mind, and valued with nice discrimination, those qualities of Hebel's genius which had but stirred the splendid chaos of Richter with an emotion of vague delight. "The author of these poems," says he, in the Jena "Literaturzeitung," (1804,) "is about to achieve a place of his own on the German Parnassus. His talent manifests itself in two opposite directions. On the one hand, he observes with a fresh, cheerful glance those objects of Nature which express their life in positive existence, in growth and in motion, (objects which we are accustomed to call lifeless,) and thereby approaches the field of descriptive poetry; yet he succeeds, by his happy personifications, in lifting his pictures to a loftier plane of Art. On the other hand, he inclines to the didactic and the allegorical; but here, also, the same power of personification comes to his aid, and as, in the one case, he finds a soul for his bodies, so, in the other, he finds a body for his souls. As the ancient poets, and others who have been developed through a plastic sentiment for Art, introduce loftier spirits, related to the gods,—such as nymphs, dryads, and hamadryads,—in the place of rocks, fountains, and trees: so the author transforms these objects into peasants, and countrifies [verbauert] the universe in the most naïve, quaint, and genial manner, until the landscape, in which we nevertheless always recognize the human figure, seems to become one with man in the cheerful enchantment exercised upon our fancy."

This is entirely correct, as a poetic characterization. Hebel, however, possesses the additional merit—no slight one, either—of giving faithful expression to the thoughts, emotions, and passions of the simple people among whom his childhood was passed. The hearty native kindness, the tenderness, hidden under a rough exterior, the lively, droll, unformed fancy, the timidity and the boldness of love, the tendency to yield to temptation, and the unfeigned piety of the inhabitants of the Black Forest, are all reproduced in his poems. To say that they teach, more or less directly, a wholesome morality, is but indifferent praise; for morality is the cheap veneering wherewith would-be poets attempt to conceal the lack of the true faculty. We prefer to let our readers judge for themselves concerning this feature of Hebel's poetry.

The Alemannic dialect, we have said, is at first harsh to the ear. It requires, indeed, not a little practice, to perceive its especial beauties; since these consist in certain quaint, playful inflections and elisions, which, like the speech of children, have a fresh, natural, simple charm of their own. The changes of pronunciation, in German words, are curious. K becomes a light guttural ch, and a great number of monosyllabic words—especially those ending in ut and üh—receive a peculiar twist from the introduction of e or ei: as gut, früh, which become guet, früeih. This seems to be a characteristic feature of the South-German dialects, though in none is it so pronounced as in the Alemannic. The change of ist into isch, hast into hesch, ich into i, dich into de, etc., is much more widely spread, among the peasantry, and is readily learned, even by the foreign reader. But a good German scholar would be somewhat puzzled by the consolidation of several abbreviated words into a single one, which occurs in almost every Alemannic sentence: for instance, in woni he would have some difficulty in recognizing wo ich; ságene does not suggest sage ihnen, nor uffeme, auf einem.

These singularities of the dialect render the translation of Hebel's poems into a foreign language a work of great difficulty. In the absence of any English dialect which possesses corresponding features, the peculiar quaintness and raciness which they confer must inevitably be lost. Fresh, wild, and lovely as the Schwarzwald heather, they are equally apt to die in transplanting. How much they lose by being converted into classical German was so evident to us (fancy, "Scots who have with Wallace bled"!) that we at first shrank from the experiment of reproducing them in a language still farther removed from the original. Certainly, classical English would not answer; the individual soul of the poems could never be recognized in such a garb. The tongue of Burns can be spoken only by a born Scot; and our Yankee, which is rather a grotesque English than a dialect, is unfortunately so associated with the coarse and the farcical—Lowell's little poem of "'Zekel's Courtship" being the single exception—that it seems hardly adapted to the simple and tender fancies of Hebel. Like the comedian whose one serious attempt at tragic acting was greeted with roars of laughter, as an admirable burlesque, the reader might, in such a case, persist in seeing fun where sentiment was intended.

In this dilemma, it occurred to us that the common, rude form of the English language, as it is spoken by the uneducated everywhere, without reference to provincial idioms, might possibly be the best medium. It offers, at least, the advantage of simplicity, of a directness of expression which overlooks grammatical rules, of natural pathos, even,—and therefore, so far as these traits go, may reproduce them without detracting seriously from the original. Those other qualities of the poems which spring from the character of the people of whom and for whom they were written must depend, for their recognition, on the sympathetic insight of the reader. We can only promise him the utmost fidelity in the translation, having taken no other liberty than the substitution of common idiomatic phrases, peculiar to our language, for corresponding phrases in the other. The original metre, in every instance, has been strictly adhered to.

The poems, only fifty-nine in number, consist principally of short songs or pastorals, and narratives. The latter are written in hexameter, but by no means classic in form. It is a rough, irregular metre, in which the trochees preponderate over the dactyls: many of the lines, in fact, would not bear a critical scansion. We have not scrupled to imitate this irregularity, as not inconsistent with the plain, ungrammatical speech of the characters introduced, and the homely air of even the most imaginative passages. The opening poem is a charmingly wayward idyl, called "The Meadow," (Die Wiese,) the name of a mountain-stream, which, rising in the Feldberg, the highest peak of the Black Forest, flows past Hausen, Hebel's early home, on its way to the Rhine. An extract from it will illustrate what Jean Paul calls the "hazardous boldness" of Hebel's personifications:—

 
  Beautiful "Meadow," daughter o' Feldberg, I
    welcome and greet you.
  Listen: I'm goin' to sing a song, and all in
    y'r honor,
  Makin' a music beside ye, follerin' wherever
    you wander.
  Born unbeknown in the rocky, hidden heart
    o' the mountain,
  Suckled o' clouds and fogs, and weaned by
    the waters o' heaven,
  There you slep' like a babblin' baby, a-kep'
    in the bed-room,
  Secret, and tenderly cared-for: and eye o'
    man never saw you,—
  Never peeked through a key-hole and saw
    my little girl sleepin'
  Sound in her chamber o' crystal, rocked in
    her cradle o' silver.
  Neither an ear o' man ever listened to hear
    her a-breathin',
  No, nor her voice all alone to herself
    a-laughin' or cryin'.
  Only the close little spirits that know every
    passage and entrance,
  In and out dodgin', they brought ye up and
    teached ye to toddle,
  Gev' you a cheerful natur', and larnt you
    how to be useful:
  Yes, and their words didn't go into one ear
    and out at the t'other.
  Stand on your slippery feet as soon as may
    be, and use 'em,
  That you do, as you slyly creep from your
    chamber o' crystal
  Out o' doors, barefoot, and squint up to
    heaven, mischievously smilin'.
  Oh, but you're pretty, my darlin', y'r eyes
    have a beautiful sparkle!
  Isn't it nice, out o' doors? you didn't guess
    't was so pleasant?
  Listen, the leaves is rustlin', and listen, the
    birdies a-singin'!
  "Yes," says you, "but I'm goin' furder, and
    can't stay to hear 'm:
  Pleasant, truly, 's my way, and more so the
    furder I travel."
 
 
  Only see how spry my little one is at her
    jumpin'!
  "Ketch me!" she shouts, in her fun,—"if
    you want me, foller and ketch me!"
  Every minute she turns and jumps in another
    direction.
 
 
  There, you'll fall from the bank! You see,
       she's done it: I said so.
  Didn't I say it? And now she wobbles
       furder and furder,
  Creepin' along on all-fours, then off on her
       legs she's a-toddlin',—
  Slips in the bushes,—"Hunt me!"—and
       there, on a sudden, she peeks out.
  Wait, I'm a-comin'! Back o' the trees I
       hear her a-callin':
  "Guess where I am!"—she's whims of her
       own, a plenty, and keeps 'em.
  But, as you go, you're growin' han'somer,
       bigger, and stronger.
  Where the breath o' y'r breathin' falls, the
       meadows is greener,
  Fresher o' color, right and left, and the
       weeds and the grasses
  Sprout up as juicy as can be, and posies o'
       loveliest colors
  Blossom as brightly as wink, and bees come
       and suck 'em.
  Water-wagtails come tiltin',—and, look!
       there's the geese o' the village!
  All are a-comin' to see you, and all want to
       give you a welcome;
  Yes, and you're kind o' heart, and you
       prattle to all of 'em kindly;
  "Come, you well-behaved creeturs, eat and
       drink what I bring you,—
  I must be off and away: God bless you,
       well-behaved creeturs!"¹
 

The poet follows the stream through her whole course, never dropping the figure, which is adapted, with infinite adroitness, and with the play of a fancy as wayward and unrestrained as her own waters, to all her changing aspects. Beside the Catholic chapel of Fair-Beeches she pauses to listen to the mass; but farther down the valley becomes an apostate, and attends the Lutheran service in the Husemer church. Stronger and statelier grown, she trips along with the step of a maiden conscious of her own beauty, and the poet clothes her in the costume of an Alemannic bride, with a green kirtle of a hundred folds, and a stomacher of Milan gauze, "like a loose cloud on a morning sky in spring-time." Thus equipped, she wanders at will over the broader meadows, around the feet of vineyard-hills, visits villages and churches, or stops to gossip with the lusty young millers. But the woman's destiny is before her; she cannot escape it; and the time is drawing near when her wild, singing, pastoral being shall be absorbed in that of the strong male stream, the bright-eyed son of the Alps, who has come so far to woo and win her.

 
  Daughter o' Feldberg, half-and-half I've got
       a suspicion
  How as you've virtues and faults enough now
       to choose ye a husband.
  Castin' y'r eyes down, are you? Pickin' and
       plattin' y'r ribbons?
  Don't be so foolish, wench!—She thinks I
       know nothin' about it,
  How she's already engaged, and each is
       a-waitin' for t'other.
  Don't I know him, my darlin', the lusty
       young fellow, y'r sweetheart?
 
 
  Over powerful rocks, and through the hedges
       and thickets,
  Right away from the snowy Swiss mountains
       he plunges at Rheineck
  Down to the lake, and straight ahead swims
       through it to Constance,
  Sayin': "'T's no use o' talkin', I'll have
       the gal I'm engaged to!"
 
 
  But, as he reaches Stein, he goes a little more slowly,
  Leavin' the lake where he's decently washed his feet and his body.
  Diessenhofen don't please him,—no, nor the convent beside it.
  For'ard he goes to Schaffhausen, onto the rocks at the corner;
  There he says: "It's no use o' talkin', I'll git to my sweetheart:
  Body and life I'll stake, cravat and embroidered suspenders."
  Woop! but he jumps! And now he talks to hisself, goin' furder,
  Giddy, belike, in his head, but pushes for'ard to Rheinau,
  Eglisau, and Kaiserstuhl, and Zurzach, and Waldshut,—
  All are behind him, passin' one village after another
  Down to Grenzach, and out on the broad and beautiful bottoms
  Nigh unto Basle; and there he must stop and look after his license.
 

* * * * *

 
  Look! isn't that y'r bridegroom a-comin' down yonder to meet you?—
  Yes, it's him, it's him, I hear't, for his voice is so jolly!
  Yes, it's him, it's him,—with his eyes as blue as the heavens,
  With his Swiss knee-breeches o' green, and suspenders o' velvet,
  With his shirt o' the color o' pearl, and buttons o' crystal,
  With his powerful loins, and his sturdy back and his shoulders,
  Grand in his gait, commandin', beautiful, free in his motions,
  Proud as a Basle Councilman,—yes, it's the big boy o' Gothard!²
 

The daring with which Hebel countrifies (or, rather, farmerizes, to translate Goethe's—word more literally) the spirit of natural objects, carrying his personifications to that point where the imaginative borders on the grotesque, is perhaps his strongest characteristic. His poetic faculty, putting on its Alemannic costume, seems to abdicate all ambition of moving in a higher sphere of society, but within the bounds it has chosen allows itself the utmost range of capricious enjoyment. In another pastoral, called "The Oatmeal Porridge," he takes the grain which the peasant has sown, makes it a sentient creature, and carries it through the processes of germination, growth, and bloom, without once dropping the figure or introducing an incongruous epithet. It is not only a child, but a child of the Black Forest, uttering its hopes, its anxieties, and its joys in the familiar dialect. The beetle, in his eyes, becomes a gross, hard-headed boor, carrying his sacks of blossom-meal, and drinking his mug of XX morning-dew; the stork parades about to show his red stockings; the spider is at once machinist and civil engineer; and even the sun, moon, and morning-star are not secure from the poet's familiarities. In his pastoral of "The Field-Watchmen," he ventures to say,—

 
  Mister Schoolmaster Moon, with y'r forehead wrinkled with teachin',
  With y'r face full o' larnin', a plaster stuck on y'r cheek-bone,
  Say, do y'r children mind ye, and larn their psalm and their texes?
 

We much fear that this over-quaintness of fancy, to which the Alemannic dialect gives such a racy flavor, and which belongs, in a lesser degree, to the minds of the people who speak that dialect, cannot be successfully clothed in an English dress. Let us try, therefore, a little poem, the sentiment whereof is of universal application:—

THE CONTENTED FARMER

 
  I guess I'll take my pouch, and fill
  My pipe just once,—yes, that I will!
  Turn out my plough and home'ards go:
  Buck thinks, enough's been done, I know.
 
 
  Why, when the Emperor's council's done,
  And he can hunt, and have his fun,
  He stops, I guess, at any tree,
  And fills his pipe as well as me.
 
 
  But smokin' does him little good:
  He can't have all things as he would.
  His crown's a precious weight, at that:
  It isn't like my old straw hat.
 
 
  He gits a deal o' tin, no doubt,
  But all the more he pays it out;
  And everywheres they beg and cry
  Heaps more than he can satisfy.
 
 
  And when, to see that nothin' 's wrong,
  He plagues hisself the whole day long,
  And thinks, "I guess I've fixed it now,"
  Nobody thanks him, anyhow.
 
 
  And so, when in his bloody clo'es
  The Gineral out o' battle goes,
  He takes his pouch, too, I'll agree,
  And fills his pipe as well as me.
 
 
  But in the wild and dreadfle fight,
  His pipe don't taste ezackly right:
  He's galloped here and galloped there,
  And things a'n't pleasant, anywhere.
 
 
  And sich a cursin': "Thunder!" "Hell!"
  And "Devil!" (worse nor I can tell:)
  His grannydiers in blood lay down,
  And yonder smokes a burnin' town.
 
 
  And when, a-travellin' to the Fairs,
  The merchant goes with all his wares,
  He takes a pouch o' th' best, I guess,
  And fills and smokes his pipe, no less.
 
 
  Poor devil, 't isn't good for you!
  With all y'r gold, you've trouble, too.
  Twice two is four, if stocks'll rise:
  I see the figgers in your eyes.
 
 
  It's hurry, worry, tare and tret;
  Ye ha'n't enough, the more ye get,—
  And couldn't use it, if ye had:
  No wonder that y'r pipe tastes bad!
 
 
  But good, thank God! and wholesome's mine:
  The bottom-wheat is growin' fine,
  And God, o' mornin's, sends the dew,
  And sends his breath o' blessin', too.
 
 
  And, home, there's Nancy bustlin' round:
  The supper's ready, I'll be bound,
  And youngsters waitin'. Lord! I vow
  I dunno which is smartest, now.
 
 
  My pipe tastes good; the reason's plain:
  (I guess I'll fill it once again:)
  With cheerful heart, and jolly mood,
  And goin' home, all things is good.
 

Hebel's narrative poems abound with the wayward pranks of a fancy which seems a little too restive to be entirely controlled by his artistic sense; but they possess much dramatic truth and power. He delights in the supernatural element, but approaches it from the gentler human side. In "The Carbuncle," only, we find something of that weird, uncanny atmosphere which casts its glamour around the "Tam O'Shanter" of Burns. A more satisfactory illustration of his peculiar qualities is "The Ghost's Visit on the Feldberg,"—a story told by a loafer of Basle to a group of beer-drinkers in the tavern at Todtnau, a little village at the foot of the mountain. This is, perhaps, the most popular of Hebel's poems, and we therefore translate it entire. The superstition that a child born on Sunday has the power of seeing spirits is universal among the German peasantry.

THE GHOST'S VISIT ON THE FELDBERG

Hark ye, fellows o' Todtnau, if ever I told you the Scythe-Ghost³ Was a spirit of Evil, I've now got a different story. Out of the town am I,—yes, that I'll honestly own to,– Related to merchants, at seven tables free to take pot-luck. But I'm a Sunday's child; and wherever the ghosts at the cross-roads Stand in the air, in vaults, and cellars, and out-o'-way places,– Guardin' hidden money with eyes like fiery sauce-pans, Washin' with bitter tears the spot where somebody's murdered, Shovellin' the dirt, and scratchin' it over with nails all so bloody,– Clear as day I can see, when it lightens. Ugh! how they whimper! Also, whenever with beautiful blue eyes the heavenly angels, Deep in the night, in silent, sleepin' villages wander, Peekin' in at the windows, and talkin' together so pleasant, Smilin' one at the t'other, and settin' outside o' the house-doors, So that the pious folks shall take no harm while they're sleepin': Then ag'in, when in couples or threes they walk in the grave-yard, Talkin' in this like: "There a faithful mother is layin'; And here's a man that was poor, but took no advantage o' no one: Take your rest, for you're tired,—we'll waken ye up when the time comes!" Clearly I see by the light o' the stars, and I hear them a-talkin'. Many I know by their names, and speak to, whenever I meet 'em, Give 'em the time o' day, and ask 'em, and answer their questions. "How do ye do?" "How's y'r watch?" "Praise God, it's tolerable, thank you!" Believe it, or not! Well, once on a time my cousin, he sent me Over to Todtnau, on business with all sorts o' troublesome people, Where you've coffee to drink, and biscuit they give you to soak in 't. "Don't you stop on the road, nor gabble whatever comes foremost," Hooted my cousin at startin', "nor don't you let go o' your snuff-box, Leavin' it round in the tavern, as gentlemen do, for the next time." Up and away I went, and all that my cousin he'd ordered Fairly and squarely I fixed. At the sign o' the Eagle in Todtnau Set for a while; then, sure o' my way, tramped off ag'in, home'ards, Nigh by the village, I reckoned,—but found myself climbin' the Feldberg, Lured by the birdies, and down by the brooks the beautiful posies: That's a weakness o' mine,—I ran like a fool after such things. Now it was dusk, and the birdies hushed up, settin' still on the branches. Hither and yonder a starlie stuck its head through the darkness, Peekin' out, as oncertain whether the sun was in bed yet,– Whether it mightn't come, and called to the other ones: "Come now!" Then I knowed I was lost, and laid myself down,—I was weary: There, you know, there's a hut, and I found an armful o' straw in 't. "Here's a go!" I thinks to myself, "and I wish I was safely Cuddled in bed to home,—or 't was midnight, and some little spirit Somewhere popped out, as o' nights when it's twelve they're accustomed, Passin' the time with me, friendly, till winds that blow early o' mornin's Blow out the heavenly lights, and I see the way back to the village." Now, as thinkin' in this like, I felt all over my watch-face,– Dark as pitch all around,—and felt with my finger the hour-hand, Found it was nigh onto 'leven, and hauled my pipe from my pocket, Thinkin': "Maybe a bit of a smoke'll keep me from snoozin'": Thunder! all of a sudden beside me was two of 'em talkin', Like as they'd business together! You'd better believe that I listened. "Say, a'n't I late a-comin'? Because there was, over in Mambach, Dyin', a girl with pains in the bones and terrible fever: Now, but she's easy! I held to her mouth the drink o' departure, So that the sufferin' ceased, and softly lowered the eyelids, Sayin': 'Sleep, and in peace,—I'll waken thee up when the time comes!' Do me the favor, brother: fetch in the basin o' silver Water, ever so little: my scythe, as you see, must be whetted." "Whetted?" says I to myself, "and a spirit?" and peeked from the window. Lo and behold, there sat a youngster with wings that was golden; White was his mantle, white, and his girdle the color o' roses, Fair and lovely to see, and beside him two lights all a-burnin'. "All the good spirits," says I, "Mr. Angel, God have you in keepin'!" "Praise their Master, the Lord," said the angel; "God thank you, as I do!" "Take no offence, Mr. Ghost, and by y'r good leave and permission, Tell me, what have you got for to mow?" "Why, the scythe!" was his answer. "Yes," says I, "for I see it; and that is my question exackly, What you're goin' to do with the scythe." "Why, to mow!" was his answer. Then I ventur'd to say: "And that is my question exackly, What you're goin' to mow, supposin' you're willin' to tell me." "Grass! And what is your business so late up here in the night-time?" "Nothin' special," I answered; "I'm burnin' a little tobacco. Lost my way, or most likely I'd be at the Eagle, in Todtnau. But to come to the subject, supposin' it isn't a secret, Tell me, what do you make o' the grass?" And he answered me: "Fodder!" "Don't understand it," says I; "for the Lord has no cows up in heaven." "Not precisely a cow," he remarked, "but heifers and asses. Seest, up yonder, the star?" and he pointed one out with his finger. "There's the ass o' the Christmas-Child, and Fridolin's heifers,⁴ Breathin' the starry air, and waitin' for grass that I bring 'em: Grass doesn't grow there,—nothin' grows but the heavenly raisins, Milk and honey a-runnin' in rivers, plenty as water: But they're particular cattle,—grass they must have every mornin', Mouthfuls o' hay, and drink from earthly fountains they're used to. So for them I'm a-whettin' my scythe, and soon must be mowin': Wouldn't it be worth while, if politely you'd offer to help me?" So the angel he talked, and this way I answered the angel: "Hark ye, this it is, just: and I'll go wi' the greatest o' pleasure. Folks from the town know nothin' about it: we write and we cipher, Reckon up money,—that we can do!—and measure and weigh out, Unload, and on-load, and eat and drink without any trouble. All that we want for the belly, in kitchen, pantry, and cellar, Comes in lots through every gate, in baskets and boxes, Runs in every street, and cries at every corner: 'Buy my cherries!' and 'Buy my butter!' and 'Look at my salad!' 'Buy my onions!' and 'Here's your carrots!' and 'Spinage and parsley!' 'Lucifer matches! Lucifer matches!' 'Cabbage and turnips!' 'Here's your umbrellas!' 'Caraway-seed and juniper-berries! Cheap for cash, and all to be traded for sugar and coffee!' Say, Mr. Angel, didst ever drink coffee? how do you like it?" "Stop with y'r nonsense!" then he said, but he couldn't help laughin'; "No, we drink but the heavenly air, and eat nothin' but raisins, Four on a day o' the week, and afterwards five on a Sunday. Come, if you want to go with me, now, for I'm off to my mowin', Back o' Todtnau, there on the grassy holt by the highway." "Yes, Mr. Angel, that will I truly, seein' you're willin': Seems to me that it's cooler: give me y'r scythe for to carry: Here's a pipe and a pouch,—you're welcome to smoke, if you want to." While I was talkin', "Poohoo!" cried the angel. A fiery man stood, Quicker than lightnin', beside me. "Light us the way to the village!" Said he. And truly before us marched, a-burnin', the Poohoo, Over stock and rock, through the bushes, a travellin' torch-light. "Handy, isn't it?" laughin', the angel said. —"What are ye doin'? Why do you nick at y'r flint? You can light y'r pipe at the Poohoo. Use him whenever you like: but it seems to me you're a-frightened,– You, and a Sunday's-child, as you are: do you think he will bite you?" "No, he ha'n't bit me; but this you'll allow me to say, Mr. Angel,– Half-and-half I mistrust him: besides, my tobacco's a-burnin'. That's a weakness o' mine,—I'm afeard o' them fiery creeturs: Give me seventy angels, instead o' this big burnin' devil!" "Really, it's dreadfle," the angel says he, "that men is so silly, Fearful o' ghosts and spectres, and skeery without any reason. Two of 'em only is dangerous, two of 'em hurtful to mankind: One of 'em's known by the name o' Delusion, and Worry the t'other. Him, Delusion, 's a dweller in wine: from cans and decanters Up to the head he rises, and turns your sense to confusion. This is the ghost that leads you astray in forest and highway: Undermost, uppermost, hither and yon the ground is a-rollin', Bridges bendin', and mountains movin', and everything double. Hark ye, keep out of his way!" "Aha!" I says to the angel, "There you prick me, but not to the blood: I see what you're after. Sober am I, as a judge. To be sure, I emptied my tankard Once, at the Eagle,—once,—and the landlord 'll tell you the same thing, S'posin' you doubt me. And now, pray, tell me who is the t'other?" "Who is the t'other? Don't know without askin'?" answered the angel. "He's a terrible ghost: the Lord forbid you should meet him! When you waken early, at four or five in the mornin', There he stands a-waitin' with burnin eyes at y'r bed-side, Gives you the time o' day with blazin switches and pinchers: Even prayin' don't help, nor helps all your Ave Marias! When you begin 'em, he takes your jaws and claps 'em together; Look to heaven, he comes and blinds y'r eyes with his ashes; Be you hungry, and eat, he pizons y'r soup with his wormwood; Take you a drink o' nights, he squeezes gall in the tankard; Run like a stag, he follows as close on y'r trail as a blood-hound; Creep like a shadow, be whispers: 'Good! we had best take it easy'; Kneels at y'r side in the church, and sets at y'r side in the tavern. Go wherever you will, there's ghosts a-hoverin' round you. Shut your eyes in y'r bed, they mutter: 'There 's no need o' hurry; By-and-by you can sleep, but listen! we've somethin' to tell you: Have you forgot how you stoled? and how you cheated the orphans? Secretly sinned?'—and this, and t'other; and when they have finished, Say it over ag'in, and you get little good o' your slumber." So the angel he talked, and, like iron under the hammer, Sparked and spirited the Poohoo. "Surely," I says to the angel, "Born on a Sunday was I, and friendly with many a preacher, Yet the Father protect me from these!" Says he to me, smilin': "Keep y'r conscience pure; it is better than crossin' and blessin'. Here we must part, for y'r way turns off and down to the village. Take the Poohoo along, but mind! put him out, in the meadow, Lest he should run in the village, settin' fire to the stables. God be with you and keep you!" And then says I: "Mr. Angel, God, the Father, protect you! Be sure, when you come to the city, Christmas evenin', call, and I'll hold it an honor to see you: Raisins I'll have at your service, and hippocras, if you like it. Chilly 's the air, o' evenin's, especially down by the river." Day was breakin' by this, and right there was Todtnau before me! Past, and onward to Basle I wandered, i' the shade and the coolness. When into Mambach I came, they bore a dead girl to the grave-yard, After the Holy Cross, and the faded banner o' Heaven, With the funeral garlands upon her, with sobbin' and weepin'. Ah, but she 'd heard what he said! he'll waken her up when the time comes. Afterwards, Tuesday it was, I got safely back to my cousin; But it turned out as he said,—I'd somewhere forgotten my snuff-box!

In this poem the hero of the story unconsciously describes himself by his manner of telling it,—a reflective action of the dramatic faculty, which Browning, among living poets, possesses in a marked degree. The "moral" is so skilfully inwoven into the substance of the narrative as to conceal the appearance of design, and the reader has swallowed the pill before its sugar-coating of fancy has dissolved in his mouth. There are few of Hebel's poems which were not written for the purpose of inculcating some wholesome lesson, but in none does this object prominently appear. Even where it is not merely implied, but directly expressed, he contrives to give it the air of having been accidentally suggested by the theme. In the following, which is the most pointedly didactic of all his productions, the characteristic fancy still betrays itself:—