Autobiography: Truth and Fiction Relating to My Life

That we children might not be wanting in every variety of life and learning, a teacher of the English language had to announce himself just at this time, who pledged himself to teach anybody not entirely raw in languages, English in four weeks, and to advance him to such a degree, that, with some diligence, he could help himself farther. His price was moderate, and he was indifferent as to the number of scholars at one lesson. My father instantly determined to make the attempt, and took lessons, together with my sister and myself, of this expeditious master. The hours were faithfully kept; there was no want of repeating our lessons; other exercises were neglected rather than this during the four weeks; and the teacher parted from us, and we from him, with satisfaction. As he remained longer in the town, and found many employers, he came from time to time to look after us and to help us, grateful that we had been among the first who placed confidence in him, and proud to be able to cite us as examples to the others.

My father, in consequence of this, entertained a new anxiety, that English might neatly stand in the series of my other studies in languages. Now, I will confess that it became more and more burdensome for me to take my occasions for study now from this grammar or collection of examples, now from that; now from one author, now from another, – and thus to divert my interest in a subject every hour. It occurred to me, therefore, that I might despatch all at the same time; and I invented a romance of six or seven brothers and sisters, who, separated from each other and scattered over the world, should communicate with each other alternately as to their conditions and feelings. The eldest brother gives an account, in good German, of all the manifold objects and incidents of his journey. The sister, in a ladylike style, with short sentences and nothing but stops, much as "Siegwart" was afterwards written, answers now him, now the other brothers, partly about domestic matters, and partly about affairs of the heart. One brother studies theology, and writes a very formal Latin, to which he often adds a Greek postscript. To another brother, holding the place of mercantile clerk at Hamburg, the English correspondence naturally falls; while a still younger one at Marseilles has the French. For the Italian was found a musician, on his first trip into the world; while the youngest of all, a sort of pert nestling, had applied himself to Jew-German, – the other languages having been cut off from him, – and, by means of his frightful ciphers, brought the rest of them into despair, and my parents into a hearty laugh at the good notion.

To obtain matter for filling up this singular form, I studied the geography of the countries in which my creations resided, and by inventing for those dry localities all sorts of human incidents which had some affinity with the characters and employments of my heroes. Thus my exercise-books became much more voluminous, my father was better satisfied, and I was much sooner made aware of my deficiency in both what I had acquired and possessed of my own.

Now, as such things, once begun, have no end nor limits, so it happened in the present case; for while I strove to attain the odd Jew-German, and to write it as well as I could read it, I soon discovered that I ought to know Hebrew, from which alone the modern corrupted dialect could be derived, and handled with any certainty. I consequently explained the necessity of my learning Hebrew to my father, and earnestly besought his consent; for I had a still higher object. Everywhere I heard it said, that, to understand the Old as well as the New Testament, the original languages were requisite. The latter I could read quite easily; because, that there might be no want of exercise, even on Sundays, the so-called Epistles and Gospels had, after church, to be recited, translated, and in some measure explained. I now purposed doing the same thing with the Old Testament, the peculiarities of which had always especially interested me.

My father, who did not like to do any thing by halves, determined to request the rector of our gymnasium, one Dr. Albrecht, to give me private lessons weekly, until I should have acquired what was most essential in so simple a language; for he hoped, that, if it would not be despatched as soon as English was learned, it could at least be managed in double the time.

Rector Albrecht was one of the most original figures in the world, – short, broad, but not fat, ill-shaped without being deformed; in short, an Aesop in gown and wig. His more than seventy-years-old face was completely twisted into a sarcastic smile; while his eyes always remained large, and, though red, were always brilliant and intelligent. He lived in the old cloister of the barefoot friars, the seat of the gymnasium. Even as a child, I had often visited him in company with my parents, and had, with a kind of trembling delight, glided through the long, dark passages, the chapels transformed into reception-rooms, the place broken up and full of stairs and corners. Without making me uncomfortable, he questioned me familiarly whenever we met, and praised and encouraged me. One day, on the changing of the pupils' places after a public examination, he saw me standing, as a mere spectator, not far from his chair, while he distributed the silver /proemia virtulis et diligentioe/. I was probably gazing very eagerly upon the little bag out of which he drew the medals: he nodded to me, descended a step, and handed me one of the silver pieces. My joy was great; although others thought that this gift, bestowed upon a boy not belonging to the school, was out of all order. But for this the good old man cared but little, having always played the eccentric, and that in a striking manner. He had a very good reputation as a schoolmaster, and understood his business; although age no more allowed him to practise it thoroughly. But almost more than by his own infirmities was he hindered by greater circumstances; and, as I already knew, he was satisfied neither with the consistory, the inspectors, the clergy, nor the teachers. To his natural temperament, which inclined to satire, and the watching for faults and defects, he allowed free play, both in his programmes and his public speeches; and, as Lucian was almost the only writer whom he read and esteemed, he spiced all that he said and wrote with biting ingredients. Fortunately for those with whom he was dissatisfied, he never went directly to work, but only jeered at the defects which he wanted to reprove, with hints, allusions, classic passages, and scripture-texts. His delivery, moreover, – he always read his discourses, – was unpleasant, unintelligible, and, above all, was often interrupted by a cough, but more frequently by a hollow, paunch-convulsing laugh, with which he was wont to announce and accompany the biting passages. This singular man I found to be mild and obliging when I began to take lessons of him. I now went to his house daily at six o'clock in the evening, and always experienced a secret pleasure when the outer door closed behind me, and I had to thread the long, dark cloister-passage. We sat in his library, at a table covered with oil-cloth, a much-read Lucian never quitting his side.

In spite of all my willingness, I did not get at the matter without difficulty; for my teacher could not suppress certain sarcastic remarks as to the real truth about Hebrew. I concealed from him my designs upon Jew-German, and spoke of a better understanding of the original text. He smiled at this, and said I should be satisfied if I only learned to read. This vexed me in secret, and I concentrated all my attention when we came to the letters. I found an alphabet something like the Greek, of which the forms were easy, and the names, for the most part, not strange to me. All this I had soon comprehended and retained, and supposed we should now take up reading. That this was done from right to left I was well aware. But now all at once appeared a new army of little characters and signs, of points and strokes of all sorts, which were in fact to represent vowels. At this I wondered the more, as there were manifestly vowels in the larger alphabet; and the others only appeared to be hidden under strange appellations. I was also taught that the Jewish nation, as long as it flourished, actually were satisfied with the former signs, and knew no other way of writing and reading. Most willingly, then, would I have gone on along this ancient and, as it seemed to me, easier path; but my worthy declared rather sternly that we must go by the grammar as it had been approved and composed. Reading without these points and strokes, he said, was a very hard undertaking, and could be accomplished only by the learned and those who were well practised. I must, therefore, make up my mind to learn these little characters; but the matter became to me more and more confused. Now, it seemed, some of the first and larger primitive letters had no value in their places, in order that their little after-born kindred might not stand there in vain. Now they indicated a gentle breathing, now a guttural more or less rough, and now served as mere equivalents. But finally, when one fancied that he had well noted every thing, some of these personages, both great and small, were rendered inoperative; so that the eyes always had very much, and the lips very little, to do.

As that of which I already knew the contents had now to be stuttered in a strange gibberish, in which a certain snuffle and gargle were not a little commended as something unattainable, I in a certain degree deviated from the matter, and diverted myself, in a childish way, with the singular names of these accumulated signs. There were "emperors," "kings," and "dukes,"⁹ which, as accents governing here and there, gave me not a little entertainment. But even these shallow jests soon lost their charm. Nevertheless I was indemnified, inasmuch as by reading, translating, repeating, and committing to memory, the substance of the book came out more vividly; and it was this, properly, about which I desired to be enlightened. Even before this time, the contradiction between tradition, and the actual and possible, had appeared to me very striking; and I had often put my private tutors to a non-plus with the sun which stood still on Gibeon, and the moon in the vale of Ajalon, to say nothing of other improbabilities and incongruities. Every thing of this kind was now awakened; while, in order to master the Hebrew, I occupied myself exclusively with the Old Testament, and studied it, though no longer in Luther's translation, but in the literal version of Sebastian Schmid, printed under the text, which my father had procured for me. Here, I am sorry to say, our lessons began to be defective in regard to practice in the language. Reading, interpreting, grammar, transcribing, and the repetition of words, seldom lasted a full half-hour; for I immediately began to aim at the sense of the matter, and, though we were still engaged in the first book of Moses, to utter several things suggested to me by the later books. At first the good old man tried to restrain me from such digressions, but at last they seemed to entertain him also. It was impossible for him to suppress his characteristic cough and chuckle: and, although he carefully avoided giving me any information that might have compromised himself, my importunity was not relaxed; nay, as I cared more to set forth my doubts than to learn their solution, I grew constantly more vivacious and bold, seeming justified by his deportment. Yet I could get nothing out of him, except that ever and anon he would exclaim with his peculiar, shaking laugh, "Ah! mad fellow! ah! mad boy!"

Still, my childish vivacity, which scrutinized the Bible on all sides, may have seemed to him tolerably serious and worthy of some assistance. He therefore referred me, after a time, to the large English biblical work which stood in his library, and in which the interpretation of difficult and doubtful passages was attempted in an intelligent and judicious manner. By the great labors of German divines the translation had obtained advantages over the original. The different opinions were cited; and at last a kind of reconciliation was attempted, so that the dignity of the book, the ground of religion, and the human understanding, might in some degree co-exist. Now, as often as towards the end of the lesson I came out with my usual questions and doubts, so often did he point to the repository. I took the volume, he let me read, turned over his Lucian; and, when I made any remarks on the book, his ordinary laugh was the only answer to my sagacity. In the long summer days he let me sit as long as I could read, many times alone; after a time he suffered me to take one volume after another home with me.

Man may turn which way he please, and undertake any thing whatsoever, he will always return to the path which nature has once prescribed for him. Thus it happened also with me in the present case. The trouble I took with the language, with the contents of the Sacred Scriptures themselves, ended at last in producing in my imagination a livelier picture of that beautiful and famous land, its environs and its vicinities, as well as of the people and events by which that little spot of earth was made glorious for thousands of years.

This small space was to see the origin and growth of the human race; thence we were to derive our first and only accounts of primitive history; and such a locality was to lie before our imagination, no less simple and comprehensible than varied, and adapted to the most wonderful migrations and settlements. Here, between four designated rivers, a small, delightful spot was separated from the whole habitable earth, for youthful man. Here he was to unfold his first capacities, and here at the same time was the lot to befall him, which was appointed for all his posterity; namely, that of losing peace by striving after knowledge. Paradise was trifled away; men increased and grew worse; and the Elohim, not yet accustomed to the wickedness of the new race, became impatient, and utterly destroyed it. Only a few were saved from the universal deluge; and scarcely had this dreadful flood ceased, than the well-known ancestral soil lay once more before the grateful eyes of the preserved.

Two rivers out of four, the Euphrates and Tigris, still flowed in their beds. The name of the first remained: the other seemed to be pointed out by its course. Minuter traces of paradise were not to be looked for after so great a revolution. The renewed race of man went forth hence a second time: it found occasion to sustain and employ itself in all sorts of ways, but chiefly to gather around it large herds of tame animals, and to wander with them in every direction.

This mode of life, as well as the increase of the families, soon compelled the people to disperse. They could not at once resolve to let their relatives and friends go forever: they hit upon the thought of building a lofty tower, which should show them the way back from the far distance. But this attempt, like their first endeavor, miscarried. They could not be at the same time happy and wise, numerous and united. The Elohim confounded their minds; the building remained unfinished; the men were dispersed; the world was peopled, but sundered.

But our regards, our interests, continue fixed on these regions. At last the founder of a race again goes forth from hence, and is so fortunate as to stamp a distinct character upon his descendants, and by that means to unite them for all time to come into a great nation, inseparable through all changes of place or destiny.

From the Euphrates, Abraham, not without divine guidance, wanders towards the west. The desert opposes no invincible barrier to his march. He attains the Jordan, passes over its waters, and spreads himself over the fair southern regions of Palestine. This land was already occupied, and tolerably well inhabited. Mountains, not extremely high, but rocky and barren, were severed by many watered vales favorable to cultivation. Towns, villages, and solitary settlements lay scattered over the plain, and on the slopes of the great valley, the waters of which are collected in Jordan. Thus inhabited, thus tilled, was the land: but the world was still large enough; and the men were not so circumspect, necessitous, and active, as to usurp at once the whole adjacent country. Between their possessions were extended large spaces, in which grazing herds could freely move in every direction. In one of these spaces Abraham resides; his brother Lot is near him: but they cannot long remain in such places. The very condition of a land, the population of which is now increasing, now decreasing, and the productions of which are never kept in equilibrium with the wants, produces unexpectedly a famine; and the stranger suffers alike with the native, whose own support he has rendered difficult by his accidental presence. The two Chaldean brothers move onward to Egypt; and thus is traced out for us the theatre on which, for some thousands of years, the most important events of the world were to be enacted. From the Tigris to the Euphrates, from the Euphrates to the Nile, we see the earth peopled; and this space also is traversed by a well-known, heaven-beloved man, who has already become worthy to us, moving to and fro with his goods and cattle, and, in a short time, abundantly increasing them. The brothers return; but, taught by the distress they have endured, they determine to part. Both, indeed, tarry in Southern Canaan; but while Abraham remains at Hebron, near the wood of Mamre, Lot departs for the valley of Siddim, which, if our imagination is bold enough to give Jordan a subterranean outlet, so that, in place of the present Dead Sea, we should have dry ground, can and must appear like a second Paradise, – a conjecture all the more probable, because the residents about there, notorious for effeminacy and wickedness, lead us to infer that they led an easy and luxurious life. Lot lives among them, but apart.

But Hebron and the wood of Mamre appear to us as the important place where the Lord speaks with Abraham, and promises him all the land as far as his eye can reach in four directions. From these quiet districts, from these shepherd-tribes, who can associate with celestials, entertain them as guests, and hold many conversations with them, we are compelled to turn our glance once more towards the East, and to think of the condition of the surrounding world, which, on the whole, perhaps, may have been like that of Canaan.

Families hold together: they unite, and the mode of life of the tribes is determined by the locality which they have appropriated or appropriate. On the mountains which send down their waters to the Tigris, we find warlike populations, who even thus early foreshadow those world-conquerors and world-rulers, and in a campaign, prodigious for those times, give us a prelude of future achievements. Chedor Laomer, king of Elam, has already a mighty influence over his allies. He reigns a long while; for twelve years before Abraham's arrival in Canaan, he had made all the people tributary to him as far as the Jordan. They revolted at last, and the allies equipped for war. We find them unawares upon a route by which, probably, Abraham also reached Canaan. The people on the left and lower side of the Jordan were subdued. Chedor Laomer directs his march southwards towards the people of the Desert; then, wending north, he smites the Amalekites; and, when he has also overcome the Amorites, he reaches Canaan, falls upon the kings of the valley of Siddim, smites and scatters them, and marches with great spoil up the Jordan, in order to extend his conquests as far as Lebanon.

Among the captives, despoiled, and dragged along with their property, is Lot, who shares the fate of the country in which he lives a guest. Abraham learns this, and here at once we behold the patriarch a warrior and hero. He hurriedly gathers his servants, divides them into troops, attacks and falls upon the luggage of booty, confuses the victors, who could not suspect another enemy in the rear, and brings back his brother and his goods, with a great deal more belonging to the conquered kings. Abraham, by means of this brief contest, acquires, as it were, the whole land. To the inhabitants he appears as a protector, savior, and, by his disinterestedness, a king. Gratefully the kings of the valley receive him; Melchisedek, the king and priest, with blessings.

Now the prophecies of an endless posterity are renewed; nay, they take a wider and wider scope. From the waters of the Euphrates to the river of Egypt all the lands are promised him, but yet there seems a difficulty with respect to his next heirs. He is eighty years of age, and has no son. Sarai, less trusting in the heavenly powers than he, becomes impatient: she desires, after the Oriental fashion, to have a descendant, by means of her maid. But no sooner is Hagar given up to the master of the house, no sooner is there hope of a son, than dissensions arise. The wife treats her own dependant ill enough, and Hagar flies to seek a happier position among other tribes. She returns, not without a higher intimation, and Ishmael is born.

Abraham is now ninety-nine years old, and the promises of a numerous posterity are constantly repeated: so that, in the end, the pair regard them as ridiculous. And yet Sarai becomes at last pregnant, and brings forth a son, to whom the name of Isaac is given.

History, for the most part, rests upon the legitimate propagation of the human race. The most important events of the world require to be traced to the secrets of families, and thus the marriages of the patriarchs give occasion for peculiar considerations. It is as if the Divinity, who loves to guide the destiny of mankind, wished to prefigure here connubial events of every kind. Abraham, so long united by childless marriage to a beautiful woman whom many coveted, finds himself, in his hundredth year, the husband of two women, the father of two sons; and at this moment his domestic peace is broken. Two women, and two sons by different mothers, cannot possibly agree. The party less favored by law, usage, and opinion must yield. Abraham must sacrifice his attachment to Hagar and Ishmael. Both are dismissed; and Hagar is compelled now, against her will, to go upon a road which she once took in voluntary flight, at first, it seems, to the destruction of herself and child; but the angel of the Lord, who had before sent her back, now rescues her again, that Ishmael also may become a great people, and that the most improbable of all promises may be fulfilled beyond its limits.

Two parents in advanced years, and one son of their old age – here, at last, one might expect domestic quiet and earthly happiness. By no means. Heaven is yet preparing the heaviest trial for the patriarch. But of this we cannot speak without premising several considerations.

If a natural universal religion was to arise, and a special revealed one to be developed from it, the countries in which our imagination has hitherto lingered, the mode of life, the race of men, were the fittest for the purpose. At least, we do not find in the whole world any thing equally favorable and encouraging. Even to natural religion, if we assume that it arose earlier in the human mind, there pertains much of delicacy of sentiment; for it rests upon the conviction of an universal providence, which conducts the order of the world as a whole. A particular religion, revealed by Heaven to this or that people, carries with it the belief in a special providence, which the Divine Being vouchsafes to certain favored men, families, races, and people. This faith seems to develop itself with difficulty from man's inward nature. It requires tradition, usage, and the warrant of a primitive time.

Beautiful is it, therefore, that the Israelitish tradition represents the very first men who confide in this particular providence as heroes of faith, following all the commands of that high Being on whom they acknowledge themselves dependent, just as blindly as, undisturbed by doubts, they are unwearied in awaiting the later fulfilments of his promises.

As a particular revealed religion rests upon the idea that one man may be more favored by Heaven than another, so it also arises pre-eminently from the separation of classes. The first men appeared closely allied, but their employments soon divided them. The hunter was the freest of all: from him was developed the warrior and the ruler. Those who tilled the field bound themselves to the soil, erected dwellings and barns to preserve what they had gained, and could estimate themselves pretty highly, because their condition promised durability and security. The herdsman in his position seemed to have acquired the most unbounded condition and unlimited property. The increase of herds proceeded without end, and the space which was to support them widened itself on all sides. These three classes seemed from the very first to have regarded each other with dislike and contempt; and as the herdsman was an abomination to the townsman, so did he in turn separate from the other. The hunters vanish from our sight among the hills, and reappear only as conquerors.

The patriarchs belonged to the shepherd class. Their manner of life upon the ocean of deserts and pastures gave breadth and freedom to their minds; the vault of heaven, under which they dwelt, with all its nightly stars, elevated their feelings; and they, more than the active, skilful huntsman, or the secure, careful, householding husbandman, had need of the immovable faith that a God walked beside them, visited them, cared for them, guided and saved them.

We are compelled to make another reflection in passing to the rest of the history. Humane, beautiful, and cheering as the religion of the patriarchs appears, yet traits of savageness and cruelty run through it, out of which man may emerge, or into which he may again be sunk.

That hatred should seek to appease itself by the blood, by the death, of the conquered enemy, is natural; that men concluded a peace upon the battle-field among the ranks of the slain may easily be conceived; that they should in like manner think to give validity to a contract by slain animals, follows from the preceding. The notion also that slain creatures could attract, propitiate, and gain over the gods, whom they always looked upon as partisans, either opponents or allies, is likewise not at all surprising. But if we confine our attention to the sacrifices, and consider the way in which they were offered in that primitive time, we find a singular, and, to our notions, altogether repugnant, custom, probably derived from the usages of war; viz., that the sacrificed animals of every kind, and whatever number was devoted, had to be hewn in two halves, and laid out on two sides: so that in the space between them were those who wished to make a covenant with the Deity.

Another dreadful feature wonderfully and portentously pervades that fair world; namely, that whatever had been consecrated or vowed must die. This also was probably a usage of war transferred to peace. The inhabitants of a city which forcibly defends itself are threatened with such a vow: it is taken by storm or otherwise. Nothing is left alive; men never: and often women, children, and even cattle, share a similar fate. Such sacrifices are rashly and superstitiously and with more or less distinctness promised to the gods; and those whom the votary would willingly spare, even his nearest of kin, his own children, may thus bleed, the expiatory victims of such a delusion.

In the mild and truly patriarchal character of Abraham, such a savage kind of worship could not arise; but the Godhead,¹⁰ which often, to tempt us, seems to put forth those qualities which man is inclined to assign to it, imposes a monstrous task upon him. He must offer up his son as a pledge of the new covenant, and, if he follows the usage, not only kill and burn him, but cut him in two, and await between the smoking entrails a new promise from the benignant Deity. Abraham, blindly and without lingering, prepares to execute the command: to Heaven the will is sufficient. Abraham's trials are now at an end, for they could not be carried farther. But Sarai dies, and this gives Abraham an opportunity for taking typical possession of the land of Canaan. He requires a grave, and this is the first time he looks out for a possession in this earth. He had before this probably sought out a twofold cave by the grove of Mamre. This he purchases, with the adjacent field; and the legal form which he observes on the occasion shows how important this possession is to him. Indeed, it was more so, perhaps, than he himself supposed: for there he, his sons and his grandsons, were to rest; and by this means the proximate title to the whole land, as well as the everlasting desire of his posterity to gather themselves there, was most properly grounded.

From this time forth the manifold incidents of the family life become varied. Abraham still keeps strictly apart from the inhabitants; and though Ishmael, the son of an Egyptian woman, has married a daughter of that land, Isaac is obliged to wed a kinswoman of equal birth with himself.

Abraham despatches his servant to Mesopotamia, to the relatives whom he had left behind there. The prudent Eleazer arrives unknown, and, in order to take home the right bride, tries the readiness to serve of the girls at the well. He asks to be permitted to drink; and Rebecca, unasked, waters his camels also. He gives her presents, he demands her in marriage, and his suit is not rejected. He conducts her to the home of his lord, and she is wedded to Isaac. In this case, too, issue has to be long expected. Rebecca is not blessed until after some years of probation; and the same discord, which, in Abraham's double marriage, arose through two mothers, here proceeds from one. Two boys of opposite characters wrestle already in their mother's womb. They come to light, the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. The former becomes the father's, the latter the mother's, favorite. The strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on. Esau is quiet and indifferent as to the birthright which fate has given him: Jacob never forgets that his brother forced him back. Watching every opportunity of gaining the desirable privilege, he buys the birthright of his brother, and defrauds him of their father's blessing. Esau is indignant, and vows his brother's death: Jacob flees to seek his fortune in the land of his forefathers.