The Home of Lepsius
Since Lepsius’ fortunate entrance into the haven of matrimony we have devoted our whole attention to estimating his scientific achievements as a master workman, leaving unmentioned his personal experiences, except so far as they fell within the sphere of his scholarly labors. We thought it better to depict his domestic life, and the man Lepsius, in the circle of his family and friends, quite apart from his scientific occupations. These latter were carried on in the sanctuary of his study, in the lecture room, or in the public library. No one ever understood more thoroughly than he how to disengage his mind from his special pursuits, and to enjoy intercourse with wife or child, with individuals or general society. None better knew how to participate with both intellect and heart in animated conversations on art or literature, science or politics. His special acquirements remained hidden until a desire was expressed for information on such subjects, and he was appealed to.
The Lepsius who returned from the Orient and founded a home of his own, was essentially different from the young scholar who had been reckoned among the conservatives in Göttingen, and whom we saw indignantly quit Schleiermacher’s lectures on the Life of Jesus, in Berlin. During a long sojourn in England, which had brought him into connection with the leaders of political life, he had learned to appreciate the rights of the people, and the advantages of a free state under a constitutional government. He had spent three years in the East under unusual conditions, always in a position of authority and subject to none. What can so quickly expand even the most limited views, what can more certainly conduce to an unfettered and vigorous use of existence, what can more strengthen even the feeblest self-confidence, what can lead with more imperious necessity to self-examination and to knowledge of one’s own faults and merits, than a prolonged sojourn in the East, and in the silent desert?
He had returned home entirely self-reliant, understanding himself and his aims, and capable of maintaining his own stand in the face of opposition. He had become a free-thinker of dispassionate and temperate views, who had learned to despise the barriers which prejudices and one-sided opinions of every kind malevolently set between men. He no longer held to the dogmas and formulas of a circumscribed confession, but he still adhered to that Christ to whom his free-thinking father had taught him to look up as the harbinger of pure self-sacrificing human love.
And the choice of this man had fallen upon a maiden of eighteen years. All who knew her as a bride speak of her as a charming, happy creature, full of childlike archness. But nevertheless passionate blood ran through the veins of this young girl; Elizabeth’s finely cultivated mind was restless and over-active, and her soul was completely filled with ardent and fanatical religious zeal.
What contrasts! Seldom has there been a pair in every respects so different; and yet they confirmed Schiller’s lines: “For where the severe with the tender, where the strong and the gentle unite.” Love was the metal of that bell whose voice had drawn them together, and bound them to each other for a life time. It gave forth a pleasant sound, and only one discord, which became especially perceptible in their latter years, and which was produced by the great difference in their religious convictions. This disturbed his ear but slightly, for, calm and assured of his own aims, happy in his work and in his life, he devoted his time to labor and science, and his intervals of recreation to his children, to social pleasures, to the learned societies of which he was a member, to his garden, to music, whose pleasures he gladly shared with his wife, and to his beloved chess. At first she had attempted to realize the dream of her girlhood, and to kindle his heart with the fire of her own enthusiasm; but in vain. Tranquilly and cheerfully he accompanied her to church, and whenever his occupations permitted it, usually on Sunday, he took part in the daily household worship which she had instituted. He allowed her to train the children, and to instil into them that religious feeling in which he himself was not wanting, and in which he recognized the loveliest flower of the soul, and of the feminine soul especially. But he warned her against excess and exaggeration, which were so alien to his own nature, and possibly this unsympathetic attitude towards what to her was highest and holiest, only contributed to cause in her ardent heart still warmer devotion to the doctrines of her positive Protestant faith. We should here assert, in the most decided manner, that this devotion was of the most unobtrusive kind. Frau Lepsius never gave it public manifestation, and the only ones whom she allowed to share in it were her nearest relatives, her pastor, and her diary. She was ever averse to the course of the zealots and pietists, who enjoyed such palmy days under Frederick IV., and once, on hearing a sermon by the famous pastor Knak, she left the church in indignation. The noble Jonas and the excellent Kögel were her pastors, and certainly had more frequently to moderate than to kindle her zeal. Her husband saw no reason for serious interference with the excessive religious aspirations of her soul, for to him she gave everything that a man can ask from the companion of his existence: a heart overflowing with love, esteem heightened to admiration, and a warm interest in all his labors and productions, even the most abstruse. In addition to this she cared with prudence, skill and indefatigable industry for the management and embellishment of the home, and there were few houses where the hostess was able to make her guests so thoroughly at ease. Nothing was farther from her thoughts than a puritanical renunciation of the pleasures and delights of this world, and she gave a zest to the household festivals by the inexhaustible fertility of her ideas in the way of original representations and spectacles. She pleased in society by her amiability and wit; she was the best of mothers; and as the children grew up she was so excellent and untiring a teacher that he, who had never had any confidence in his own ability as a pedagogue, was glad and thankful to resign to her the charge of the mental and moral education of the children. Among them were boys who were hard to govern, yet they all turned out excellently. In matters of charity he gave her entire liberty.
The inner being of this rare woman lies plain before us, and we are permitted to follow the life of the Lepsius family almost from day to day. We ourselves visited the house of Lepsius only as a friend and guest, but the diary of its mistress, some twenty volumes, makes us a member of the household. It is honest, simple, and yet written with great intuitive perception. A number of poems are intermingled with the excellent prose. They are mostly of religious tenor, and many of them are distinguished by their lofty strain and beautiful thoughts. The perusal of this journal has therefore afforded us genuine pleasure, and it has exhibited to our soul as well as to our sight, the character of a woman so singular and noble in her love, her activity and her aspiration that we separate from it with sincere admiration, but also with deep regret. It would be to abuse a great trust, were we to yield to the desire to portray the character of its author from the avowals contained in this journal, and yet this would excite quite different, and tenfold greater, interest than that of her husband. For how much less alluring to the psychologist is the calm progress of a man who came early to maturity, his successful contests with the impulses of youth, and his tranquil labors after the goal was attained, than the ceaseless struggles of a woman distinguished above thousands by the ardor of her soul and the keenness of her intellect. Yet we may be at least allowed to extract from the diary all that can serve to give the reader a clear idea of life in the home of Lepsius, its intercourse with the outside world, and the experiences of its head as a husband, and as a member of a select society.
Every betrothal has its history. Lilli (Elizabeth) Klein,92 who was greatly admired, had done some friends the favor to appear at an entertainment as the fourteenth guest. The ominous number thirteen was caused by Lepsius’ declining the invitation at a late moment. But, nevertheless, he appeared, after all the guests were assembled, and it was on this occasion that she made his acquaintance. “Oh Superstition” she wrote in her diary, “for the first time I bless thee.”
Even this first meeting had carried the day with her. The next Sunday she could not help thinking of him during the sermon, and when she visited him with several of her relations, amongst whom there were some young ladies, to inspect the curiosities which he had brought with him from the Orient, her young heart was not only disturbed, but deeply troubled, because he seemed to have paid more attention to her sister than to her, and she already loved him.
The following day put an end to her anxiety. It was a Palm Sunday, and that evening he wrote in his term-calendar “To-day the palm of life is won,” while, at a later hour, she confided to her diary the rejoicings of her heart. She prefaced the sentences with which she gave expression to her rapture by Chamisso-Schubert’s “I cannot understand it, I cannot believe it.”
She continues: “God, my God, how shall I thank thee for this unutterable bliss! No, it is too great and too much, my Heavenly Father. ‘Beloved!’ Beloved by him! My heart is full, but I cannot write! My soul rejoices in the thought; Beloved by him! But how can I prove myself worthy of him?”
The letters which he wrote to Elizabeth also lie before us, and it is not without deep emotion that we read these beautiful effusions of tender passion from the profoundly touched heart of a man to whom we had been accustomed to look up as an earnest teacher, and the dignified senior master of our science. Here we see him succumb with lovable weakness to a beautiful human emotion.
The passion for his “Lilli” compensates him for the magic of the East, which he had felt so deeply a short time before, and he calls her his “Shulamite” and his “Rose of Sharon.” Yet even in the bonds of love he preserves the fundamental instincts of his soul, and he writes to her: “Often and earnestly do I ask myself, my dear Lilli, whether it is not after all ignoble selfishness, when I feel such intense bliss in your devoted love, and in the consciousness that I have won you, so ardently beloved a spirit, for my own. But then again I feel that through your love all that is good in me is helped and strengthened, and I become capable of a higher and purer love towards God and our fellow beings, and then it seems as if it could not be wrong to desire such a relation with all the strength of one’s soul; as if this happiness were our vocation, seldom however to be attained untroubled, and never entirely unalloyed, upon this earth. Oh, my Lilli, what a rare and rich life would lie before us if the thoughts which we have exchanged in our letters should one day become an actual living reality, not only in word but in deed.”
The pure exultation of a maiden’s heart, overpowered by true love, re-echoes from her diary throughout the whole time of the betrothal. It is true that there were many differences of opinion between the betrothed, especially when religious questions were discussed, but his cheerful serenity was always able to make amends for whatever might have wounded her feelings in such disputes, and, taken as a whole, their betrothal was one long happy festival. He taught her the hieroglyphic alphabet, and wrote out for her little protestations of love in the picture writing of the old Egyptians. The learned man of five and thirty was unwearied in the invention of tender speeches, and it must have pleased Elizabeth-Lilli to have heard herself called, both in his letters and from his lips, by eighteen pet names,—she counted them herself. There was no lack on his side of verses, flowers, and acts of homage. In the house of the Partheys, who had adopted the orphan niece as a daughter, entertainment followed upon entertainment, gay excursions to the country were arranged, and masquerades, at which Elizabeth was obliged to appear in Turkish dress. But this gay life was contrary to her inclinations and to his likewise. The wedding was celebrated on the fifth of July, 1846, not in the old Nicolai house in Behren Street, where they had first known each other, but at Dresden. The excellent pastor Jonas, from Berlin, performed the marriage ceremony in the Church of Our Lady, and after a brilliant wedding banquet the young couple went to Pirna, the first stopping-place in a longer wedding trip which took them, by way of Paris, to England. There they were cordially received by the Bunsens, and the young wife found the eminent statesman and patron of her husband so kind and friendly that her fear of appearing embarrassed before him proved entirely unfounded.93 She described vividly everything noteworthy that occurred to her, and depicted with a bold and ready pen the impression made on her by men and things. She saw her Richard received everywhere with the same respect and cordiality; the light of his fame enveloped and delighted her, but on their journey home a charming attention fell to her lot also, for at Cologne her father’s great mass, which she never yet heard, was performed in the most admirable manner as a mark of respect to her.
On the seventeenth of September they returned to Berlin, and “Richard” writes Elizabeth, “was forced to laugh at the childish delight which I showed in the beautiful big house, our own house, (in Behren Street) where I am to be mistress.”
They were soon installed, and the young couple, who were freed from all material anxiety by the comfortable property of the wife and the salary of the husband, could now return the hospitality which had been offered them on all sides. In spite of her strict piety the wife showed herself as much inclined as was her husband to social intercourse with agreeable guests. A few weeks after their return the young couple entertained a number of friends, and who these were we see from the memoranda before us. On the third of November, 1846, there met at their house Gerhard, v. Olfers, Homeyer, Max Müller, the Grimm brothers, Parthey, Carl Ritter, Ehrenberg, Lachmann, L. Ranke and E. Curtius. On the fifteenth of December there were assembled there A. v. Humboldt (who also visited them on other occasions, and for whom, Frau Elizabeth writes, she felt a genuine affection) v. Olfers, Boeckh, Pertz, Cornelius, v. Reumont, the Grimm brothers, Homeyers, Strack, the Partheys, Schelling and Bethmann.
Such a company of illustrious men could at that time be brought together nowhere but in Berlin, and if we consult the diary of Frau Lepsius and Lepsius’ later note-books, and appeal to our own memory, we shall und that the assemblage of noted colleagues and countrymen was constantly increased by a number of eminent strangers. Amongst them were scholars, travelers, statesmen, artists, and even the ambassadors of foreign powers, who were unwilling to leave Berlin without having visited the house of Lepsius. The most faithful friend of the family, beside the Partheys and Pinders, was the valued traveling companion of the young husband, Abeken, who had renounced his career as a divine, and was constantly rising to higher and higher positions in the Foreign Office.
How kindly Frederick William IV. was disposed to Lepsius may be inferred from the fact that soon after the return of the latter from his wedding trip the King sent him fifteen hundred thalers towards the establishment of the new household. Frau Elizabeth writes: “It is altogether a peculiar feeling; to have in hand such a large sum that seems as if it had fallen from heaven. I was quite troubled about our great good fortune in material things, and I reminded Richard of the ring of Polycrates. But as I read the day after in a letter from C. P. to Richard: ‘Whoever has behind him such a fruitful and undesecrated youth as you have, has a right to make claims upon life, which will not fail to reward you abundantly.’ Nevertheless one is astonished, and such a distribution of fortune seems almost unjust, if one considers what an immeasurable sum and what great wealth such a gift would be to poor people, and how to Richard it was only a pleasant proof of the King’s good-will, which he calmly put in the fund for setting our house in order. Five hundred thalers he reserved for current expenses, and soon it had all vanished as it had come.”
In his own house Lepsius stood at the helm with a steady hand, but his wife ever strove to make his voyage through life pleasant and happy.
Her struggle for greater calmness and a more equable nature is touching, as is the loving humility with which she recognizes his superiority; and often does a phrase, an interjection, in the midst of matter-of-fact records, give expression to her true and tender love. She says: “It is grand in Richard, that he can take everything so naturally. It comes from his perfect honesty; if I could only educate myself up to him.” When her first little daughter was able to stand alone she wrote: “Richard and Anna, these names embrace my whole happiness, the fragrant blooming shower of blessings which Our Father in Heaven pours upon me from the abundant horn of plenty of His grace and love.”
The diaries are replete with such expressions. Especially neat and pointed are the little sketches of eminent men drawn by the young wife. Whoever was personally acquainted with Master Peter Cornelius, (he was a friend of my mother’s, and indeed once made a portrait of me as a boy), will admit that it would not be possible to depict his external appearance more neatly and pointedly than in the following words from the diary of Frau Lepsius. She writes: “A little, thick-set man, with a black peruke, piercing black eyes, wide, kindly mouth, and with thought upon his wrinkled brow.”
On the twenty-fifth of July, 1847, a daughter was granted to the young couple. She received the name of Isis Anna. Minister Jonas, the liberal-minded pastor of the household, found nothing wrong in the choice of the name of the heathen divinity Isis, but strange to say, Bunsen took serious exception to it, and gave expression to his disapproval in a letter. The happy father answered in the following letter, in which we see pleasantly manifested the joyous zest in life by which he was at that time animated.
“Our little Isis gives us infinite delight; she thrives splendidly. Her mamma has carried her point by giving her the name of Anna. I foresaw that I should furnish a subject for witticisms, in the name of Isis, to those people in Berlin who honor us with their attention. It is necessary to throw them a few crumbs of that sort from time to time, so that they may not devise something worse. I was as little able to find any serious scandal in it as was the excellent Jonas who administered the baptism. Scarcely any one keeps to the Calendar for the sake of the Calendar itself, and I should much prefer Friedhelm and Maxhelene, the children’s names recently given by Ranke, to the Fides, Spes and Charitas, or Titus, Ptolemeus, Sosthenes, Lot, Habakkuk, Methuselah, etc., of the Calendar. Yet Ranke comes very near to offending against the only limitation which I should admit; that of not choosing ludicrous names. Take Erica, Berenice, (that is Veronica,) or Emin, which is the name of young Wildenbruch, the elder brother of the talented poet Ernest von Wildenbruch; no one has anything against such names as these and innumerable others, though they too are as little in the Calendar, and have as little Christian precedent, as a hundred thousand ἁπαξ λεγόμευα from the birth of Christ to our time, in all Christian countries. Besides, Isis, to every one who knows the Egyptian goddess, is a very honorable name, which can only recall the author of all good, a faithful spouse and sister, the model and recognized prototype of all queens. What the Romans made of her need trouble us as little as their opinion of the image of Jehovah in the Jewish temple, and can as little cast suspicion upon her as can the Christianity of the Königsberg impostors upon the name of Christian. If, in another year, I have a boy to baptize I shall not be obliged to call him Apis, as Osiris is already received in the Christian Calendar, under a much more beautiful form as Onophrius.94 But I will take care not to impose upon him the equally Christian name of the Typhon, “Set.” I should like to see any one who would not as utterly fail in any theory for the giving of Christian names, as did, not long since, the law forbidding the Jews to bear Christian names. But, on the other hand, I consider it very wise to give the clergy a certain freedom to exclude unsuitable, scandalous names of every kind, according to their own honest judgment.”
Little Anna was followed by a second girl, Elizabeth,95 and the latter by four boys, to the delight of the grandfather in Naumburg. For although he had been blessed with six sons and three daughters, strangely enough, he had had bestowed upon him no other “Lepsius” grandchildren that those who sprung from the marriage of his son Richard.
After the christening of Anna the family spent some delightful weeks in lovely Ilsenburg. The winter was passed in cheerful sociability and quiet enjoyment of their first-born, till in February, 1848, all other interests were entirely overshadowed by the news of the revolution at Paris. Lepsius had already foreseen when in Paris the downfall of the citizen king Louis Philippe, and though he hoped that the next movement for freedom in France would be of benefit to the political development of Germany and Prussia, yet he feared that in those countries also violent uprisings of the people would be unavoidable.
Each day was filled with increasing anxiety, the danger approached more closely, and yet,—a notable sight—there was no break in the fulfillment of the husband’s duties, and everything held its accustomed course in the household, as well as in the social life of the capital. Apprehension was aroused for Vienna, on account of the dreadful Metternich administration; all ears were on the watch for every rumor. The Emperor of Russia was said to have been poisoned, Metternich to have been seized with an apoplectic fit in consequence of the news from Paris, and the Pope to have taken flight, and abandoned Rome. In spite of the tumult of the people on the streets during every evening of this remarkably beautiful month of March, anxiety for Berlin was dissipated, as in well informed circles they believed it certain that the King was inclined to make great concessions. At last political interests overcame all others, and the grave academical instructor Lepsius, in his private lectures conversed with his pupils on the events of the day, instead of discussing Egyptology. Then on the eighteenth of March the Berlin revolution broke out, in the midst of the concessions of the King, and the rejoicing of the populace. We are in possession of interesting information on the course of this revolution, from the husband as well as from the wife. In those days politics had such power over every true man that even Lepsius took part in them incidentally. When Abeken brought him a paper much needed just at that time, a good concise proclamation for the Prince of Prussia, whom Lepsius especially esteemed, he immediately carried it to the press which was working for him, and had the foreman print, post, and distribute it. He understood perfectly that the revolution indicated a great step forward in the political life of his Fatherland, and his wife says that the Kreuzzeitung people, in an underhand way, placed them in a false position. The Bismarck family had lived in the same house with the Lepsiuses, and once when popular songs of liberty and “Not yet, not yet, is Poland lost,” had been sung during a social evening at their rooms, Frau Elizabeth writes: “Thank God that the Bismarcks have left, or he would have got us into the Kreuzzeitung as Republicans.” How times and men change! These latter, fortunately, sometimes to better and greater.
In September, 1848, Lepsius went to Frankfort, and from his letters to his wife we know with what warm interest he there followed the parliamentary transactions in St. Paul’s Church. He had learned many things from the statesman Bunsen, and we have seen (page 122) how keenly he followed, from time to time, the course of ecclesiastical politics in Prussia. On the whole his political opinions agreed with those of his patron in London. He wished to be not only a scholar and father, but a citizen also, and in 1848, he held it right “that every one should at least follow some banner, and a bad one rather than none at all.”
In the beginning of the year 1849, the political situation threatened to make it intolerable for his father to remain in Naumburg, under the authority of the town commissioners of that place (he had resigned his public office in 1847). Therefore Richard wrote to him: “If you should actually resolve to leave Naumburg, here in Berlin you would certainly find much the greatest satisfaction for your higher intellectual pursuits and interests, which in themselves rank far above all political interests. Libraries, art collections, learned societies of every kind would be open to you, and in the more restricted circle of our own household, our relations and most intimate friends, you would once more find, as of old, peace, happiness and love, which have grown to be the greatest necessity of your life.”
In spite of the slight value which he allotted in these sentences to political interests, he yet followed the political development of his Fatherland to the last with warm sympathy. In 1849 he attributed the King’s change to a policy independent of Austria to Bunsen’s influence, and as events continued to shape themselves in a more and more gloomy fashion, he constantly insisted upon the necessity for a stronger exhibition of Prussian power, as due to the hegemony of Germany.
He owed great gratitude to Frederick William IV. and acknowledged very thankfully the favor which this monarch had manifested to him personally, and the appreciation which he had always shown for his works and efforts. But in 1850, he already spoke with deep anxiety of Prussian politics. The Waldeck Process filled him with indignation, and in 1850, Frau Elizabeth, who was the echo of her husband’s opinions, writes in the journal: “Our proud Prussia, the only refuge of German hopes, once more subject to the commands of Russia and Austria!... I have never seen Richard so depressed on account of politics as he is now. I have seen tears in W. Grimm’s eyes over Prussia’s,—Germany’s,—disgrace.... The Prince of Prussia must be beside himself at the shameful turn of affairs.... He will now be looked upon by all parties as the sole salvation of Prussia.” After the humiliation at Olmütz, and the brave stand of the Hessians for their constitution, she writes: “Jacob Grimm said lately, ‘I am proud to be a Hessian.’ Alas for us, poor creatures, that we must say ‘Let every Prussian be ashamed!’ In the worst days of the revolution people were not so desperate and hopeless, so utterly overwhelmed as now.... The king approves of everything, and is pleased and cheerful!” Nevertheless she was warmly attached to Frederick William IV. and says of him: “What a character! So noble, so conscientious, so kind, with such a comprehensive mind,—and yet he is not a great man.” Later, after Frederick William IV. had left Berlin and removed to Potsdam, Lepsius wrote to his father: “Here the departure of the king has the effect of a death upon us. The recollection of him is very painful. On the other hand, new life springs up with the regency of the prince. Without precipitation, and with due calmness, many changes will soon be made, first in the leading men, and afterwards in the general tendencies.” Lepsius gave lively expression to his delight at the dawn of the so-called “new era.”
With what enthusiasm did he afterwards follow the upraising of his Fatherland under King William I. Our noble Emperor was ever a gracious master to him, and Lepsius was always among the chosen few invited to the evening tea-drinkings in the imperial palace. To our colleague Dümichen the Emperor spoke of Egyptology as “a science which our Lepsius has called to life in Germany.” To the author of this biography also the same great emperor, in the presence of their royal highnesses, the Grand-Duke and the Grand-Duchess of Baden, expressed himself with a warmth bordering on friendship regarding the great master of his science.
The following occurrence, related by Frau Lepsius, is characteristic of Frederick William IV. and his relation to Humboldt. A friend had been invited to Potsdam with Lepsius and some others, and while there ingenuously begged the king to speak a good word for him to the Duke of Brunswick, who was also present. The applicant wished to be appointed Musical Director at Brunswick. The monarch answered: “I cannot do anything for you in this matter; you must apply to Humboldt.”
All men of intellectual eminence who came to Berlin always visited the house of Lepsius. The excellent missionary, Krapf, was once a guest there, and was invited to court with Lepsius. At table, the king asked the missionary, philologist and geographer, “How long do you propose to remain in Africa?” and the latter answered: “Until I am dead. All my family are buried there, and where they are is my home.”
Besides his colleagues from the university and native and foreign scholars, deputies to the Chamber, of all shades of opinion, also frequented Lepsius’ house. It not only gave Frau Elizabeth the greatest pleasure to listen to the conversation of these men, which often took the form of lively debates, but it was also of real advantage to her. Three years after her marriage she writes: “These distinguished persons, with their different ways of thinking, strengthen the tolerance which lies in Richard’s character, and teach me to accept and find pleasure in each one as he is.”
On the ninth of November, 1851, was solemnized the baptism of the third child and first son.96 The godparents were the grandfather Lepsius, Bunsen, represented by Abeken, Jacob Grimm, the great geographer Charles Ritter, Ehrenberg, and several other ladies and gentlemen.
Lepsius had invited Bunsen to become a sponsor in the following words:
“As you have more or less stood godfather to all my intellectual productions, I naturally have a lively wish that one of my real children might enter into this beautiful and reverential relation with you. Your friendly sympathy, and the fatherly love which you have always bestowed upon me, far beyond my capacity for any fitting return, permit me to hope that you will willingly fulfil this desire also. But for the child your name will be a dower whose value will increase with every year, and I already rejoice in spirit over the time when I can finally lead him to a full understanding of its significance. My wife insists that he shall be called by my name; but besides that he shall be named Charles, after my father, after you, and after Charles Ritter. Between these two we may perhaps insert a third, about which we are still hesitating, but it shall be neither a Pacomius, an Onophrius nor a Nilus, but an honest German name, possibly Jacob, after your fellow-godfather, Jacob Grimm, etc.”
At the christening it turned out that George and not Jacob had been chosen as the third name. This was after the first known ancestor of the Lepsius family, George Leps.97 The christening feast was a merry one, and the godmother has given a brief account of the toasts which were drunk. That delivered by Jacob Grimm to the health of the godfathers is so characteristic of him that to everyone acquainted with this magnificent scholar and man it must seem as delightful as to the godmother it must have been agitating. “I like,” so he began, “to come to the christening of a child: it is always more agreeable than a wedding or a funeral feast, where one usually sees nothing of the principal persons.” He then found fault with the christenings of the present day, the numerous godfathers, wherein the young Charles George Richard was not lacking, and said that “formerly it was much more solemn than now. Then there were only two godparents, the child was entirely stripped—there was more to be seen—and it was first plunged under water in the font, and then covered with a little shirt. More account was made of the godparents. After baptism the child had to go to them on every holiday, and received a gift from them. The church regarded baptism as a regeneration, and therefore it was considered of much greater importance; on this account the child was baptized immediately.” Then he said that usually the godparents did not long survive the child’s baptism (general contradiction), “his godfather had died half a year after his christening; however the boy could learn his name out of the books. The boy had three names, and that was particularly stupid.” (This word was strongly emphasized, and Frau Lepsius’ temper waxed hot). “He certainly only needed one, for when he was fooling around on the street with other boys and his mother wanted to call to him out of the window, she would not cry: ‘Charles-George-Richard come here,’ but ‘Richard, come here!’ He had waited and listened, to see if the minister would not pronounce ‘Jacob’ too, but in vain. What was there though in that name to take exception to? It was indeed a Jewish name, but still Jacob had been a good man, and he could tell of many excellent people who had been called Jacob. The name pleased him very well, and it grieved him that the child had not been called by it.”
To these latter words Frau Lepsius adds the remark: “It grieved me too very much at that moment, and still more afterwards.”
Here we will break off the description of this toast. It had touched the honest man very nearly that he had to share with so many others the honor of being godfather to the first-born son of his beloved Lepsius, and he would have liked to see the little one grow up with his own good name, as he had been led to expect. It was never his way to conceal his feelings; but nothing was farther from the childlike nature of this man, who in science was a giant, than any intention of giving pain.
His image still lives most vividly in my soul. For many years my mother, and I with her, inhabited the same house with the Grimms, in Lenné street, and I know how right Frau Lepsius was, when she said in her diary that there was in all the world nothing more benevolent and kind-hearted than William Grimm’s wife: that every one must feel to her as towards a beloved mother. The kindness and cheerful friendliness with which she added to the happiness of all of us brothers and sisters,—who among us has forgotten them? When Jacob met me on the way to school he always stroked my hair, and said: “Hurry, Flaxen-head.” It was Jacob Grimm who afterwards introduced me to Lepsius: Frau Grimm I saw for the last time when I was ill in bed, and she brought me a delicious cooling drink of fruit juice. Every memory of her is connected with something kind and lovely.
If we except Abeken, the most beloved of all the learned friends of the Lepsius family were the Grimms and Gerhard, whose wife was Frau Elizabeth’s intimate friend. This cordial feeling also extended to the children of William Grimm, and especially to Hermann, whose first poetic essays they watched with affection, but with impartial criticism.
So passed the weeks and months. The winter was given to work and social pleasures in the city; in the summer the wife and children went into the country. Longer journeys, such as the trip to upper Italy, were usually undertaken in the autumn. The family were very comfortable at Park-Birkenwäldchen near Berlin. In 1852 this was completely in the country, but it has long since been absorbed by the metropolis of Berlin. The husband often went thither to see his family, friends accompanied him, and in the repose of this rustic life Frau Elizabeth prepared the index for the letters from Egypt and Ethiopia. They were dedicated to A. v. Humboldt, and he received them with gratitude and emotion, although, to Lepsius’ regret, the friendship between them had been troubled, in consequence of an affair which concerns people who are still living, and therefore cannot be spoken of here.
In the summer of 1852, the first numbers of the great work on monuments were completed. But they had not yet been sent out, although Lepsius for several months had been insisting on their distribution. Finally he went once more to Sans Souci to urge the expediting of the matter upon Niebuhr, and found him walking with Gerlach upon a terrace. Just then the King stepped out on an upper terrace, and when he became aware of the Egyptologist called down to him “Lepsius, Lepsius.”
The monarch then shook him by the hand, and a conversation ensued which, on account of its characteristic turn, we will give just as it was recorded immediately afterwards.
King: “I have not seen you for along time. You have grown quite stout.”
Lepsius makes some reply, and then speaks of the delay in distributing the completed numbers of the great work.
King (to Niebuhr): “Tell me exactly how it stands?”
Niebuhr: “It is just as Lepsius represents it. Your Majesty has commanded the distribution, but the order has not been carried out.”
King: “Why, what delays it?”
Niebuhr: “I have already written three times to the Minister about it.”
King: “What Minister?”
Niebuhr: “Raumer.”
King: “Oh, then I understand it! If he has anything to do, it is always a year before it is finished. But don’t repeat that to him. Complain once more, Niebuhr!”
“Richard has also heard from Humboldt that the object of Niebuhr’s mysterious mission this spring (1852), was to invite Bunsen to resign,98 which he, naturally, politely deprecated. And who was it they wished to put in his place? Bismarck Schönhausen, that smart, self-conceited young fellow! This is grand!”
Later Frau Elizabeth learned to appreciate fully this “smart young fellow.”
That autumn Lepsius went alone to England and Scotland. In London he worked successfully for the introduction of his standard alphabet. He went by way of Leyden, and again immersed himself in the treasures of the museum there, and enjoyed the hospitality of the excellent Leemans. It was at Warmond, on the estate of the mother of the distinguished Egyptologist and Director of the Museum that the idea of making a similar delightful summer house for his own family first occurred to him.
In September Frau Elizabeth journeyed to meet him at Strasburg, where she was hospitably received by the family of Kreis, her husband’s student friend. She then returned home with her husband by way of Stuttgart, Munich and Nüremberg.
The old life began anew after their return. In addition to the accustomed guests came also General von Radowitz and Count Raczynski, both of whom Frau Lepsius characterizes sharply and aptly. She concludes with the following parallel, after she has mentioned how astonishing the wit and knowledge of Radowitz appear to her: “Raczynski does not lead the conversation, he rather watches it, and lets himself be talked to; on this account he likes the society of clever people, while Radowitz prefers an astonished and attentive audience, as he is always striving to make an impression.”
But such distinguished visitors were the exception: their large and inspiring circle of acquaintances was almost exclusively composed of the leaders of the Berlin literati. When there was no company in the evening, and Lepsius was not attending any of the societies of which we shall have to speak, he played chess, and liked to have his wife play on the piano at the same time. Often too there were “musical evenings” in which both husband and wife took part, together with guests, like Hermann Grimm and others, who were not members. In the winter of 1852-53, a numerous company assembled nearly every week at the Lepsius house. On the seventh of April we hear of their giving a large ball. “The Old Guard comes to the front,” writes Frau Elizabeth. “Even I resolved to dance again after an interval of eight years. At first it seemed strange to me to be whirling round, but by degrees I took pleasure in it again, especially in dancing with Richard, who was really a very delightful host. It is so charming in him,—the way in which he does everything that he has to do with his whole heart and without any reserve, whether it be grave or gay.”
The pleasures of this winter were soon brought to an end, for the mistress of the house lost her dearest friend, and in April died the excellent father of the master of the house. The affliction of Lepsius was great.
“Of all the family his father was nearest to him,” says Frau Elizabeth. “He always felt the greatest delight and the most genuine sympathy in everything that concerned Richard, in all his labors, his successes, his honors; with him Richard could talk freely of all his intellectual interests, for he understood all abstruse questions, and had, besides, the strongest paternal feeling; delighted in our children, etc.... Richard thinks now with every book that when he has written it, he can no longer give his father pleasure by sending it to him.”
A quiet season followed, and in their domestic retirement during the ensuing months they made some experiments at table-tipping, according to the current fashion at that time. They were very successful, and the enthusiasm of the mistress of the house and her interest in the supernatural were strongly excited; Lepsius himself treated the subject more coolly. “Richard, Abeken and Edward saw that we lifted up our hands by degrees, and yet the table moved; but, because it did not do so again, Richard thinks we had deceived ourselves.”
When at last the formal mourning was laid aside, and life again imposed its demands upon the Lepsiuses, the remembrance of the festival of 1852-53, formed the foundation for many charming performances, whose theatre was to be the new house which the married pair were about to build.
In October, 1853, the family had received notice to quit their dwelling in Behren Street, on account of the sale of the property, and they had therefore resolved to build a home of their own. With the same enthusiasm with which she threw herself into everything, Frau Elizabeth became interested in the carrying out of this idea, and, scale in hand, drew plan after plan, until she at last completed a design which met with the approval of her husband and his friends the architects, especially Erbkam. In fact it provided for all the family needs; but the choice of a building site was difficult. Lepsius at first fixed his eye upon the great Seeger lumber yard, which was at that time on the drill ground, now the Royal Square. It was then just about to be divided up, but the lots there were so dear, and the owner felt so confident of the purchase of the whole plot by the Treasury, that Lepsius was forced to look about for another situation. Long weeks passed in this search, and, among other strangers, the Lepsiuses received Oscar von Redwitz, before breaking up housekeeping for the summer to go with some intimate friends on a journey to Lübeck. The diary says of him: “He is the poet of the sentimental-religious Catholic Amaranth, which is so much read, (though not by us), and admired. He is a lively young Viennese, naïve, but not at all sentimental, so that he is better than his work.” The future undoubtedly proved that this talented poet was capable of things far more charming than what were at that time his most celebrated works.
The wife and children passed the rest of the summer in beautiful Friedrichroda, Elgersburg and Ilmenau in Thüringia, while the husband went to Schlieffenberg in Mecklenburg, whither he had been invited by Count Schlieffen, who had traveled through Egypt intelligently and with open eyes and who had brought home with him a Nubian from the neighborhood of the Cataract. As we know, Lepsius made use of this African, named ‘Ali’, who was an intelligent man and had entire command of his own language, to supply many deficiencies in the Nubian grammar, at which he still continued to work.
In January, 1854, the Berlin Academy of Sciences had resolved to have type cast for printing Lepsius’ standard alphabet, and before the beginning of February, he traveled once more to London in order to assure the acceptance of it on the other side of the Channel. The well-known missionary Kölle had already declared that he should make use of it. While Lepsius was working there with tact and success to introduce his alphabet, his wife became the mother of a boy, who, after the father’s return, received the name of Bernard at a merry and delightful christening feast. This was the Christian name of Frau Lepsius’ father, the celebrated composer, B. Klein. Among the many god-parents of the child were A. v. Humboldt, the Counts von Schlieffen and von Usedom, Peters, etc. Frau Lepsius was especially pleased with the presence of Humboldt after the estrangement which had taken place between him and Lepsius, but the obliging manner in which he said to her: “I thank you especially for having had the kindness to give the child my name,” could not inspire her with any warmth of feeling. E. Curtius’ daughter, Dorothea, was baptized at the same time with little Bernard. She afterwards became the wife of Richard, the eldest son of the Lepsiuses. Jacob Grimm toasted the two children, and this time in a very poetical and delightful manner. In the course of the toast he compared the boy with hail, which descends roughly and impetuously, and the maiden with snow, which murmurs softly and gently down.
The spring was passed in searching for a building site and in pleasant social intercourse. On the twenty-fifth of May, 1854, they met Paul Heyse for the first time at Schott’s, and Frau Elizabeth wrote in her diary: “It is a long time since I have seen Richard so fascinated with anyone as he was with this young, animated, candid, handsome, excellent, enthusiastic, most lovable poet.”
Very painful to Lepsius was the downfall of his old patron and friend Bunsen, which occurred at this time. He had been offered the position of Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs at Berlin, but in the beginning of ’54, while in London, he declared that in case of necessity Prussia would side with England. This set the King quite beside himself and General von Gröben was sent to London to reprimand Bunsen. The attempts at mediation of his son Ernest, whom he had sent to Berlin, were vain, and, in spite of the Prince of Prussia’s eager intercession for him, the Camarilla, and especially Gerlach and Manteuffel, had such strong influence over the King that he forsook his friend Bunsen, and permitted him to be dismissed.
But the anxieties of house-building were soon to place all others in the background, for a suitable plot was finally found in Bendler Street, (which at that time was sparsely built up,) and was bought on favorable conditions. The space at their disposal was large enough to permit of laying out an extensive garden, beside the roomy house.
At the laying of the corner stone, on the eighteenth of October, 1854, Lepsius made an admirable speech, from which we shall give some extracts later on. This was of course the occasion of a festal celebration, and friend Abeken composed the following sonnet for it:
“Within the ground all life doth first have birth,
Richly the tree unfolds its leafy pride,
Yet in the earth’s dark night its germ must hide,
And downward still the root strikes into earth.
And that this house may reach its highest worth,
The master now, with wisdom for his guide,
In the firm soil lays the foundations wide,
That he may bind it firmly with the earth.
Yet is there one firm ground where build we must,
On which our house’s peace we gladly found,
That still its sacred hearth with joy be filled;
This is fixed faith in God and happy trust,
With which forever love and hope are bound,
And thus a temple with the house we build.”
Lepsius had intentionally caused the corner stone to be laid where the living room of the mistress of the house was afterwards to be raised, and in his dedicatory speech he explained his motives for this in beautiful words. The house when finished had a fine and stately appearance, with its Gothic arches over doors and windows, its battlements on tower and roof, its handsome entrance, its covered piazza on the ground floor, and open balcony on the upper story, and its inscriptions in carved stone.
When it was ready for habitation, Abeken, the former divine, added the following second sonnet to the first:
That here the temple with the house should blend
On the foundation stone we wrote, and lo!
Sank it far underfoot, that even so
The darkling earth its strength to us might lend.
Yet must from Heaven the mighty power descend
That upward bids the earthly germ to grow,
And Life and Love must still from Heaven flow,
The sacred fire on the hearth to tend.
Therefore we lift our hands and hearts to Heaven,
And humbly here its blessing we await,
Praying for peace and safety as is due,
That Love and Light and Spirit may be given
Our handiwork henceforth to consecrate,
That this the home may be a temple true!
On the twelfth of July, 1856, Lepsius with his own hand wrote the following maxims in a new diary of his wife’s.
God’s peace from Heaven
To this house be given.
Unless God’s grace we gain
Our building is in vain.
Within this little book be you
To these, our house’s mottoes, true.
The second motto was cut in stone, in Gothic letters and surrounded by arabesques, over the broad projecting window of the wife’s room, on the side of the building towards the street; the first was over the front door. The palms over the entrance gate were intended to call to memory the Palm Sunday on which Lepsius and his wife had been betrothed. The wish expressed in the first motto was fulfilled, for the house in Bendler Street was truly a temple of peace, under the visible favor of God. Until the growing city of Berlin laid claim to the broad extent of the beautiful garden and Lepsius felt himself forced to sell it, their house was the home of true love, intimate family life, steadfast reverence for God—in the man no less than in the wife,—and earnest, unwearied labor, as well as cheerful song and music, and a happy hospitality.
The father of Lepsius died before the house was completed, but he was able to invite his mother to come and live with him “at Berlin, in the country.” However, the beautiful outlook “towards the canal and Schöneberg” was soon built up. The house was constructed in the English Gothic style, which he had learned to like in Great Britain, and which few understood as well as he (see page 131). To his delight, its pleasing appearance, with the slightly-pointed arches over windows and doors, and the balcony, with its Gothic parapet of sandstone, proved so attractive that, as he wrote to his mother: “our neighbor has also built in the Gothic style, and, indeed, two houses at once.” “I am to assist him with money,” he continued, “for the third, on the corner, and the man on the other corner will also build a Gothic house. That makes a whole Gothic quarter.”
But how differently things turned out! The stately building which was to have been a home for remote descendants has vanished from the earth, and only a few traces remain of the Bendler Street Gothic. During the first years after they moved into the new house they improved every opportunity which offered to exhibit the beauty of the chosen style of architecture. When for example it was necessary, on account of any festivity, to “illuminate,” they lit up the whole front, and especially the large balcony, with little lamps which followed the lines of the arches.
The fine garden gave special pleasure to Lepsius. After he had had tea at his writing table he always took a walk there, in winter as well as in summer, and whether the weather was good or bad. He felt a “special interest in it, and knew it all by heart.” The trees which soon overshadowed it had been planted on various happy occasions by dear guests and friends of the household, in memory of the delightful hours which they had passed under the roof of Lepsius, and as a visible symbol and token of the friendship which burgeoned and blossomed anew with each year. Alexander von Humboldt, Bunsen, the Grimms, Ehrenberg, E. Curtius and many others had planted their trees, and on each was a little tablet which bore the name of him who had set it in the earth. Foreign friends too, who could not come to Berlin and attend to the planting themselves, sent small trees to be set out. For example, the Director of the museum at Leyden, already mentioned several times, (see pages 123 and 245) sent a variety of Betula which had been named after him Betula Lemansiana, by a nursery gardener at Warmond. As the trees which he first sent did not arrive he despatched others, and these throve and long reminded the Lepsius family of their Dutch friend. The garden was a living and shady temple of friendship, and what beautiful festivals were celebrated there!
Plays and spectacular performances were often given in the fine spacious apartments of this house on the birthday of the head of the family, which occurred shortly before Christmas. They were distinguished by the same thoughtful intelligence which had given rise to the tree-planting and laid the corner stone under the living-room of the mistress of the house. The ideas were usually furnished by Frau Elizabeth. Thus a fable was once represented, interspersed with tableaux vivants, which the children and their little friends undertook to produce. The subject was the standard alphabet (see page 104) of their father, which was personified as Miss Alphabeta Standarda, and represented in the different stages of its development. The dialogue was both sprightly and well written, in the best style of fable, and seasoned with many merry and satirical allusions. At one time there were tableaux vivants after antique personages and the pictures of Flaxman, and then again the trees from the garden made their appearance. Before this, the treasure-house of Rhampsinitus had been represented according to Platen. Similar performances, always original, thoughtful, and excellently executed in detail, delighted the guests, the children who usually had to take part in them, and especially the host himself. When a ball was given, too, they never failed to have particularly pretty and original cotillion figures, for which the poet and faithful friend of the family, Abeken, composed the verses.
On July the fourteenth, 1857, the third boy was born, and at his baptism on the second of August, he received the name of Reinhold. He was named after the brother who had never been forgotten, and who had expired in Rome, when twenty-nine years old, in the arms of the godfather.
In September of the same year the Lepsiuses had the great pleasure of welcoming Bunsen for the first time in their own house. He had been invited by Frederick William IV. to take part in the assembly of the “Evangelical Alliance” which met at Berlin. The King had indeed dropped him as a statesman, but the letter of invitation which he sent to Heidelberg, where the former ambassador then lived, was as cordial and urgent as if the monarch had preserved his old friendship for him whom he had “deserted.” Bunsen must come, wrote the King, firstly on account of the business itself, secondly for the sake of his own (Bunsen’s) renown, and thirdly to please the King. The latter wrote with great enthusiasm of the “Alliance.” Finally, he added most cordially that Bunsen must not refuse to let an old friend be his host and care for his journey there and back and his entertainment in the palace. On Bunsen’s arrival the King embraced him before the whole court, but only sent for him once afterwards to converse with him. The Camarilla hated the man of independent thought, and the King had already accustomed himself to submit to it.
But on the other hand, Lepsius’ delight at receiving his revered patron and fatherly friend in his own home, and showing him his house, was unbounded, and as great as it was heartfelt. “On Sunday,” (September thirteenth, ’57), writes Frau Elizabeth, “Bunsen was as lovely and splendid as ever. At table he proposed our healths, with a little speech, in which he first expressed his delight at being once more in Berlin, where he had believed he could never come again, and whither he had now been summoned in so honorable a manner that he could return with pleasure. But to find us so agreeably and excellently settled was one of the brightest spots of his sojourn here. In the most sincere and heartfelt manner he expressed his happiness in our family fortunes, and wished that God would still continue to bless us, and that; ‘Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine, thy children like olive-plants round about thy table.’ He reminded us, too, that his friendship with Lepsius had now lasted for more than twenty years, that he loved him like a son; indeed the dear man even included me (Frau Elizabeth) in the circle of his affections; ‘I love you like my own children.’
“How warmly and deeply were we touched by this speech, of which I have here repeated only an imperfect fragment! If it were possible, I should be fonder than ever of Bunsen. Where else, in a man of such distinction, can one find such warmth and cordiality of feeling, such sincere and faithful friendship?”
Every leisure hour was spent by Bunsen in the Lepsius’ house, which at this time was the scene of a great celebration. This was arranged in honor of the beloved and revered guest, and some of the most distinguished members of the Alliance were invited to be present at it. It is not necessary to say how pleasant it must have been to the scholarly statesman to find assembled here Ehrenberg and Gerhard, J. Grimm, whom he had not previously known, and with whom he conversed at length, Pertz, Peters, Pinder, Geffken, Schelling, Stüler, Olfers, Abeken, the former chaplain of his embassy, General Superintendent Hoffman, Dr. Barth, the divine from Würtemberg, and many other leading men in science and in the evangelical church. Lepsius was especially delighted just at that time by once more meeting Lobstein, who had first invited him in Bunsen’s name to take up the study of Egyptology, and who had since become French ambassador to Sweden.
The members of the Alliance had assembled from all parts of the world. They met in Berlin, held sessions, and listened to many orators, but the great results which had been anticipated from this congress failed to manifest themselves, or were dissipated in smoke; indeed, shortly before its close the stamp of absurdity was set upon it by Krummacher of Westphalia, who was a strictly orthodox pastor and the cousin of the Berlin minister. At the last meeting but one this zealot openly, and in a spirit of denunciation, expressed his regret that the famous French preacher, Merle d’Aubigné, had, on the steps of the railway station, embraced and kissed a man whose rationalism and Romanism must be a terror to the assembly. The man thus proscribed was no less a person than Bunsen. Unfortunately this absurd attack was not disregarded, but called forth a most unpleasant controversy.
After these days of excitement life went on in its accustomed course for the Lepsius household. The hours of leisure were agreeably spent in the favorite diversions of the husband, boccia in the garden, and chess in the house. New guests were added to the old. Among them were Wichern the founder of the “reformatory for vagrant children” at Hamburg, whose efforts filled Frau Elizabeth with enthusiasm, von Putlitz the poet, and the charming Erdmann from Halle, who seasoned many a meal for them with his delightful humor. Humboldt, too, came occasionally, and told them much of the mournful condition of the King. The former was once conversing on serious scientific subjects, and with the entire concurrence of the monarch, but when Potsdam was spoken of, although he was staying there at that time, the unhappy sovereign could not remember where the place was. At this time, (1852), Lepsius presented his Book of Kings, which was then completed, to the Prince of Prussia, (our Emperor.) The latter showed himself full of interest in it, and after this audience the author said he had been especially struck by the quiet, simple, benevolent nature of the Prince, in contrast to the intellectually active, restless character of the King.
Mommsen had been summoned to Berlin in 1857, and enjoyed meeting the family of Lepsius, but with regard to scientific, and especially chronological, questions, there was many a dispute between these two great scholars.
Lepsius worked much in the garden for the sake of his health, and whatever this plot of ground yielded, in the way of vegetables, fruit, eggs and milk, (they kept chickens and a cow of their own), was named Hathor-cabbage, Hathor-apples, etc. Hermann Grimm had given this name to the special products of his friend’s place, and thus recalled the great goddess who at Dendera was styled the “dispenser of all the goods of life,” and to whom, as the feminine principle in nature, pertained all the gifts which furnish sustenance and pleasure to man.
In 1858 the brothers Schlagintweit also returned from their successful journey through Asia. They came to Berlin, and wished to sell their collections there, but many things were unfavorable to this project, and, altogether, they met with no good fortune in the Prussian capital. Frau Lepsius relates that they had succeeded in bringing a white ass from the Himalayas to Berlin, in good health and lively. When he arrived his transport had already cost two thousand thalers. It was necessary to take him from the railway station to the zoological garden; but in going through Potsdam Street he became refractory, and would not follow his leader any farther. They put a rope around his neck, to pull him forwards by force, and the consequence was that the white ass from the Himalayas choked, and met with an unforeseen death at Berlin in Potsdam Street.
During the latter part of the summer of 1858 the family again stayed at Ilsenburg in the Hartz, and in December of the same year Frau Elizabeth presented her husband with the fourth and last boy. He received the name of Richard Ernest John, and amongst the godfathers was the faithful college comrade of the head of the family, A. Kreiss,99 at that time a minister at Strasburg, as well as E. Curtius, “our splendid, ideal friend.” After the christening Frau Elizabeth wrote: “May his name John ever remind me that it is my great and sacred task to rear him to be a true John; one who loves his Lord and follows in his footsteps.” This John has now became a divine, after having produced several promising first works as a philosopher and student of æsthetics.
In April, 1859, Lepsius traveled to Munich, for the centennial anniversary of the Academy, and there made the acquaintance of the excellent Thiersch, J. v. Liebig, Riehl, E. Geibel and other scholars and artists. He spent much time with his old friend, the celebrated architect, v. Klenze, and he also visited Kaulbach in his studio. In the summer of 1859 Lepsius refreshed himself by an excursion to Rügen with his friend Wiese, and late in the autumn he took a trip with his wife and the oldest little girl to Saxon Switzerland and Dresden, where they also made the acquaintance of Schnorr von Karolsfeld. “I looked up,” wrote Frau Elizabeth, “with a sort of devotion, to the old and thin but fine and intellectually vivid face of this man, whose compositions express such deep and fervent Christian feeling.” We also learn here that the famous little castle of Souchay at Loschwitz on the Elbe is an enlarged copy of the Lepsius house, which had especially pleased the owner of the castle and his architect Arnold, in Berlin, whither they had gone to investigate the different styles of house-building.
Lepsius and his wife were deeply distressed by the death of Alexander v. Humboldt, on May sixth, 1859, but in the following months they encountered other losses by death which were still harder to bear. Soon after their return home Jonas, the faithful, large-hearted pastor of the household, died, and his departure filled the family with grief. Among those who knew him, and his truly admirable, profound and infinitely lovable character, his memory must long be cherished for the candor and courage with which, by words and actions, he defended the freedom of religious conviction during the darkest days of church life in Prussia. But yet another and more painful loss was ordained for the family, for on the twenty-eighth of November, 1860, died Bunsen, the man to whom Lepsius was most deeply indebted, and to whom he had clung with the love of a son. Also on the third of January, 1861, Frederick William IV. died, and the reverential words respecting him with which the wife filled many pages of her diary, are to be considered as an echo of the feelings with which the husband regarded this king, whose weaknesses he could not overlook but whose great qualities he was glad to exalt in order to give them grateful praise.
Among the old friends of the family were the Pinders and Partheys, Erbkam, the Grimms, Trendelenburgs, Brandis, Olshausens, v. Sybel, Beselers, Geffken, Duncker, v. Tiele, who was afterwards Assistant Secretary of State, George v. Bunsen, the Wilmowskis, Count Usedom, and the witty Strauss, who had traveled through Palestine, Wichern, Meyer von Rinteln, the amiable Mrs. Curtis, with whom we ourselves were well acquainted, the publisher Hertz, Count Schlieffen, Weidenbach, the Homeyers, the Balans and Salpius, the Wieses, the two married couples of Peters and Drakes, the traveler Robinson, Weiss, and so on. To these was added Droysen, who had received an appointment at Berlin in 1859. But the highest place among them all was held by “Uncle Abeken.” There is some ludicrous association with this able man, on account of the passages regarding him which appear in Busch’s interesting book on “Count Bismarck and His People.” But Frau Elizabeth’s diary shows us that he had a deep and faithful nature, that his quick intelligence apprehended and appreciated the poetical aspect of every incident in life, that he was a good adviser and ready in that capacity to render every service, and also an indefatigable worker. Where duty demanded it he knew how to keep silence as few men do, though he was of a communicative disposition, and had made himself so at home in every department of science that Lepsius counted him one of the most learned men of his time. If he was questioned about political affairs, such as the restoration of the constitution of 1831 in Hesse, the preparation of which had devolved upon him, his only answer was: “I have not read the papers to-day.” He had been no less faithful to the Bunsens than to the Lepsiuses, and his little failings will be willingly overlooked by any one who knows with what steadfast courage he stayed by the ambassador’s wife at Rome during the worst cholera season, and what sacrifices he was ready to make for his friends in case of need. One whom Prince Bismarck so trusted could be no insignificant man. That in him which provoked a smile was chiefly his low stature, his manner, which was sometimes immoderately vivacious, and that sentimentality which even to Frau Bunsen was not always agreeable. Nevertheless this distinguished lady esteemed him very highly, though she occasionally begged him to write her less about his feelings and more about facts. But at least this sentimentality had nothing artificial about it. It sprang from an ardent spirit, which was perhaps only too tender and impressible.—As long as he taught at Göttingen, the favorite guest of the Lepsiuses was E. Curtius, and his recall to Berlin afforded the greatest happiness to that household. Max Müller too, when he came from Oxford, was received with open arms, and the attachment which Lepsius felt to him, may be discerned from the journal of his wife, as well as from his letters to Bunsen. Amongst their younger friends George v. Bunsen had best known how to win the hearts of the family.
Frau Elizabeth superintended the details of the children’s education with the greatest care and affection, and in so doing often fatigued herself to the point of exhaustion. The father directed the plan according to which he desired the training of the boys to be conducted, but it was only in questions of moment that he interposed and gave his decision. Two ladies who were sisters of Hofmeyer the family physician, and who had at one time conducted the principal school for young ladies in Berlin, told Frau Lepsius at Easter, 1862, of a twelve year old orphan, of English descent and good family, who was alone in the world and entirely unprovided for. Frau Lepsius immediately declared her willingness to adopt her, and receive her as a seventh child among her own six. Her husband quickly consented, and they never regretted this kind act, for, to their delight, Ellen grew up to be a lovely young girl. She was always treated in every respect like one of the daughters of the house, and, like them, she long since married.
After the accession of King William, Lepsius continued to observe the course of politics attentively, and never neglected any of the duties of a citizen. In 1862 he was chosen as an elector of the first electoral class for his district, and by the conservatives, although he in no wise approved of their efforts. His views coincided with those of the party which at that time was called “Old Liberal.” His friend, Meyer von Rinteln, stood well at court, and was full of court anecdotes. He once told how the Elector of Hesse had got in a passion, and hurt himself so seriously by giving his valet a thrashing, that he had been obliged to keep his bed. Thereupon Herman Grimm improvised the following riddle.
“Had my whole been truly my second, he certainly would not have been
Obliged to seek my first in bed, as we have recently seen.”100
Queen Augusta, Meyer reported, had correctly guessed “Kurfürst.”
Meyer was also a very talented poet, and he once read his tragedy of “German Youth” at Lepsius’ home, in the presence of General v. Willisen, who had had to oversee the Prussian execution at Hesse. The tendency of the play was to show that only under the Prussian imperial rule could Germany obtain tranquility, peace and new power. Frau Lepsius had long before confided the same thought to her diary, and Willisen agreed with it warmly.
The wife was as fond of traveling as the husband, but during the first half of the summer he was kept at home by his duties as professor, and she by her interest in their own beautiful garden, and in the education of the children. By midsummer Berlin became unendurable to them both, and they were accustomed to leave home usually in July with the children, who then had their holidays. In the autumn of 1863 they took a longer journey, to Cologne and the Swiss Rhine, with their elder daughter Anna and Uncle Abeken. Shortly before the master of the house commenced his lectures they returned to Berlin, where their delightful social life began anew. Frau Elizabeth suffered from many physical ailments, especially “tic douloureux,” and had also assumed an almost oppressive number of domestic, pedagogic, social and benevolent duties. When she felt greatly in need of refreshment she retreated for a few days to Sacrow, a pretty and charmingly situated little village on the Havel near Potsdam, and on returning home she would resume with renewed strength the labors which awaited her.
After the death of Jonas, the family pastor was first Snethlage, who was then growing old, and afterwards the vigorous and manly Court Chaplain Kögel. In spite of his tendency to greater strictness, this latter entirely filled the place to Frau Lepsius of the deceased friend whom she so deeply lamented. After one of his sermons (1865) she wrote in the diary: “To be able to preach like Kögel! I should think that the highest earthly happiness. What a blessing for us!”
On the twenty-eighth of February, 1866, Lepsius started on his second journey to Egypt, the details of which are given on page 201. He was alone except for the faithful draughtsman Weidenbach. While he was on the way, Uncle Abeken became engaged to, and subsequently married, Fraulein Helene von Olfers, a daughter of the Director of the museum. The fear lest the old friend of the house should change proved unfounded, for as a married man he still preserved his old friendship for the Lepsiuses.
The master of the house returned home sooner than he had been expected. He had given up the journey to upper Egypt for several reasons, chief among which was the great inundation of the Nile. He was met at Berlin by the clang of arms. A civil war appeared inevitable, and Bismarck was as little of a favorite in Bendler street as in other constitutional circles of the country, though the sagacity of Lepsius and the information derived from Abeken, who always regarded his chief with fervent admiration, had caused the Lepsiuses to repose great confidence in him. At court, too, he had many more bitter opponents and enemies than friends, and when, shortly before the war, Bismarck injured his foot, a gentleman who held a situation near the Queen uttered the pointed bon-mots, “His foot hurts him because he has gone too far,” and “The cloven hoof is showing.”
But never did the feeling of a nation towards a great man undergo such a sudden, universal and complete revolution as that towards Bismarck during the short months of the war of 1866. At that time Frau Lepsius, with the ardent enthusiasm peculiar to herself and with the assistance of her daughters, made herself most useful in the Hospital Association and still more in the Elizabeth Hospital. The diary records the preliminaries of peace with anxious interest, and contains the following anecdote, perhaps from the mouth of Abeken: “At the negotiations for peace Benedetti began to speak cautiously of slight enlargements of the French boundaries, as Prussia was now so well rounded out. Then Bismarck cried: ‘Give me that in writing! To-morrow I must present a demand for a credit of sixty millions for war expenses to the Chamber; with this paper in my hand I can ask for double the sum.’”
Before the war many an angry word had been uttered against Bismarck in Bendler Street, but when a party of literati had assembled there on the twenty-second of July, 1866, they soon began to talk of politics, and each one gave expression to the admiration with which Bismarck’s greatness inspired him. Even Frau Lepsius praised the man whom she had previously judged none too mildly. (See page 245.) They all agreed that it was now possible for the first time to understand this great statesman’s aims and mode of action, and that as an envoy to the Diet he must undoubtedly have already grasped the idea which had now been carried into execution in such a wonderful manner. But Wichern thought he should have allowed his great intentions to be perceived a little more plainly, so that he might have been better understood and not so much hated. Lepsius then rose, and responded to this opinion of the clever master of the “reformatory,” that it was the great characteristic of Bismarck as a statesman that he knew how to keep silence for years, and to pursue his aims quietly. A few days before this the great Chancelor, on the occasion of the celebration of victory at Kroll, had proposed his beautiful toast to “The Children of Berlin,” who were a little rash in word, but had head and heart in the right place.
The wave of enthusiasm rolled high at that time. Every Prussian heart beat full and quick for its King. Lepsius had always greatly extolled his direct and honest nature, and his clear intelligence, which could never be confused. He was delighted therefore at the Monarch’s saying to him, “I myself proposed you,” when he received the red order of the eagle of the second class in 1867, on the annual celebration of the founding of that order.
The Court Chaplain Snethlage, who had been a faithful friend of the family, resigned his office in July, 1867, and the diary contains the following touching anecdote: “On a certain day one of the men of his parish comes to Snethlage, assures him of his fidelity and reverence, and then says to him, ‘But now I have a request to make of you: Preach no more; it will not do any longer!’ Thereupon the Court Chaplain held his peace for a short time, and then said, ‘You are right, it will no longer do, and I will give up preaching.’”
In September of the same year Lepsius went to Paris and London with his daughters, and in the autumn of 1869 he went to Egypt for the last time, and chiefly on account of the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal.
When the war between Germany and France broke out, in 1870, the oldest son, Richard, who was just approaching his examination previous to matriculation, begged his parents to be allowed to take the field, and both, with ardent patriotism, accorded him permission. But he was rejected, as not yet sufficiently strong, and therefore, after passing the examination, he visited the arena of war but once, under the command of the army chaplain at whose disposal he had placed himself. His mother meanwhile with restless zeal and the practical ability characteristic of her, was working for the wounded. To put herself in a prominent position was repugnant to her, her only object was to be of real service to the hospital, and this she accomplished with the aid of her daughters and others upon whom she was able to call. Many people brought their donations to her and a large part of the linen and clothing for the Berlin hospital, especially that for the chief depot, was got together by her, and sewed and made ready under her supervision. In doing this she was able to furnish remunerative work for so many poor women that she wrote in the diary: “That is the only good thing about a war, that one can employ so many needy women.” She forgot that it is war which plunges so many women into poverty.
Lepsius was always ready to give and to advise, and delighted in all that his wife and daughters accomplished. The news from the seat of war was awaited with feverish excitement, and the successes of the victorious troops were celebrated with enthusiasm. The inmates of the Lepsius house received news at first hand from their many friends in high places. Amongst these was now Dr. Stephan, the head of the post-office department. The husband and wife also had a great liking for the minister Frommel; a divine whose sermons Lepsius, who was no regular churchgoer, liked because he “did not preach dogmatically but from and of real life.” These are Lepsius’ own words, and he esteemed Frommel not only as a divine, but as a clever, well-informed and agreeable companion.
During the following years life flowed on more quietly. One after the other the boys left school, and made substantial progress in their professions. The girls became mistresses of families and mothers, the garden ceased to be the scene of the merry games of childhood, the big house, deserted by many of its younger inhabitants, became too large for those who remained; but the old social life did not languish, and the father, with undiminished energy, was still busied in his work rooms. If a large number of friends was assembled in the Lepsius salons among them was usually the Minister of the American Republic. This was at first the grey haired historian Bancroft, afterwards the noble and accomplished poet, Bayard Taylor, who successfully translated Faust into English, and lastly Andrew White, the erudite and liberal-minded promoter of science in the new world.
When Lepsius did not prefer to play chess,—often four-handed chess, or, still better, with three players and a dummy,—he devoted many evenings, as of old, to the “Herrenkränzchen,” or social club of learned friends, in which he bore his part with pleasure, both giving and receiving.
Lepsius belonged to the old or little “Griechheit” during the first years of his marriage and before he built his own house. Its members were: Lepsius, E. Curtius, Gerhard, Abeken, Brandis, Wiese, and other intimate friends. They read Greek classics, and so kept up their familiarity with them and with the world of ancient Hellas, but this was not the sole object of the “Griechheit,” which was rather intended to enable friends of similar tastes and education to pass pleasant and inspiring evenings together, where they might be happy, unconstrained, and free from every sort of pedantry. After the reading and the discussion which followed it, two chosen friends, the diplomat v. Schlözer and the zoologist Peters, were admitted as so-called “commensals,” and they all went to supper. The wife of the member at whose house the society met presided at table, and often the friends remained till a late hour over the merry meal, amidst the clinking of glasses, and pleasant conversation.
With Abeken’s late marriage in 1866, the little “Griechheit,” so dear to all its members, came to an end, though its resurrection was celebrated some years afterwards. But in its new form the more critical and sharper spirit of the present learned society of Berlin prevailed, instead of the inoffensive cheerful tone, and the ideal humanistic thought of its predecessor. Members of the various Faculties, Mommsen, the philosopher Zeller, the mathematician Kronecker, H. Grimm, Wattenbach, the lawyer Bruns, the archæologist Schöne, v. Sybel, and Waitz took part in it, and among them, as representatives of the older “Griechheit” were E. Curtius and Lepsius. The English ambassador, Lord Russel, the Greek ambassador, Rangabé, and George v. Bunsen were also members.
The Wednesday or Literary Club had been founded by Bethmann-Hollweg and Dorner, who was also a friend of the Lepsiuses. The Berlin literati lived at wide distances apart, and this club was begun with the intention of enabling them to meet, and thus giving an opportunity to those who were conducting researches in the various domains of science to enrich each other intellectually, through conversation, and mutual communication of knowledge.
Each member was bound in turn to deliver a discourse upon some subject within his special department of science. Another member had to provide the entertainment, and thus the society met first at one house and then at another. Of the old members many are now dead; those who survive will recollect with satisfaction the delightful evenings in which Lepsius participated with such pleasure.
To this society belonged Bethmann-Hollweg (the president), Dorner, Braun the botanist, E. Curtius, Duncker the historian, Beseler and Bruns the lawyers, Müllenhof the student of German law, language and history, Twesten the grey-haired and vigorous theologian, Friedrichs the archæologist, and also, for several years, Wichern, and Bancroft the historian and American ambassador. Of the younger members we may name the astronomer Förster and the geologist and geographer v. Richthofen, who had returned from China, bringing with him important scientific results. After Hermann had made himself at home as president of the Supreme Church Council in Berlin, Dorner immediately inducted him into the “Wednesday Club.” The architect Adler also found admittance to this select circle, which was no less attractive to Lepsius than the “Griechheit,” which met on Friday.
He scarcely went once a year to the Monday Club, although he was a member of this very old society, to which Nicolai had once belonged, It was composed of officials of high rank, and a few scholars. When there was any matter regarding which Lepsius wished to have a personal interview with one of the former, he was glad to go thither to find him and engage his attention.
The Archæological and Geographical Societies he visited occasionally from scientific interest.
If we did not have Lepsius’ own assurance that nothing so refreshed him as the exhilarating intercourse with superior men, it would be hard to understand how, during the latter lustrums of his laborious life, he could conduct such numerous and profound researches to their conclusion, when we consider that he was quite frequently bidden to the evening tea-drinkings in the imperial palace, that even when chief librarian he was never to be counted among the negligent members of the Griechheit or of the Wednesday Club, and that in addition to this he had official and social duties. But his mind, cheered and invigorated, soon retrieved by the active labors of the morning those evening hours which had been spent at the “Clubs.”
One after another the children had all flown from the parental nest. A portion of the beautiful garden had to be sold, when Hildebrand Street was made to connect Thiergarten Street with the grand canal. The latter we used to know as a modest sheep pond, upon which the green duck-weed floated like mould, and across whose sandy shores a few isolated trees cast their shadow. Lepsius yielded to the demands of the growing city of Berlin, and the vigorous old man, ever ready for new enterprises, decided to sell the dear old house. In consequence of the great rise in its value it had become too expensive a dwelling for its few inmates, especially as Lepsius had just at that time encountered heavy pecuniary losses. But neither he nor his wife wished to leave the dear old home, and therefore they caused it to be moved, after they had found a suitable lot of ground in Kleist Street on the borders of Charlottenburg, in the extreme western part of Berlin. There it was once more reared, and anyone who once knew the old house, and now seeks and finds the new, will feel, as all of us of that generation must, that he is under the power of a magic spell; for there before him stands the old Lepsius homestead, just as it was in Bendler Street. The interior too has undergone no change, and it is not only that the new house resembles the old, but, in a certain sense, it is the same, for Lepsius did not sell the materials of which his first dwelling-place had been constructed, and after the new owner had torn down the scholar’s home in Bendler Street, in order to erect a large apartment house on the site, Lepsius had it carried to Kleist Street, stone by stone, door by door, and window by window, and thus actually succeeded in living in the old house on the new site. Unluckily, the good fortune which had so long remained faithful to him did not follow him to the new home. He there saw beloved members of his family fall a prey to severe illness, and when he had enjoyed the new dwelling for a short time he was himself attacked by the malignant disease which deprived us of our revered Master, and his children of their dear father.
But, on the other hand, the old house had fully and completely fulfilled the destiny to which its builder had consecrated it in a beautiful speech at the laying of the corner-stone, August fifth, 1854. He then said, speaking of his children and his wife: “This house is not meant chiefly for us, but for our children. But for them we should never have thought of building a house. To them it will be the home of their parents, where their youth will develop, therefore it shall give them as large a portion of the fresh air of heaven and of nature’s green, as it is possible to obtain in a large city. They will people every corner with their childish phantasies, and throughout life their recollections will cling to every tree and shrub.”
Thus it happened; and the wife too, in the old house, which then was new, took the very place which he awarded her in the same speech; “But besides the children,” he had said, “it is to the woman, to the mistress of the house, that the house belongs. There indeed the man may often command or rebuke, but there the woman rules. The husband will live there, but the wife will work there, will govern and provide. Her heart, her eye and her mouth are the true homes of domestic peace, that beautiful jewel of a happy home. As was said of old, she is the ‘house honor;’101 that is, upon her rests the honor of the house, and to her is due the honor of the house. The proverb says ‘Every wise woman buildeth her house.’ That has been a true saying in this case, for many times has the whole plan passed through the sieve of her wisdom, and each time it has come out finer. Therefore it is just that we should lay the foundation stone exactly here, under the future room of the housewife, as the corner-stone of the house’s honor and the house’s peace.”
The children and friends were attracted to the new home in Kleist Street as they had been to the old, and it gave Lepsius special gratification to build a studio, as an annex to the family dwelling, for his son Reinhold, who had meanwhile developed into a very promising portrait painter. In the evening of his days Lepsius saw his two eldest sons lead home as brides the daughters of two of his friends.
Grandchild after grandchild grew up beside the pair who were now waxing old. The wife had many things to attend to and to watch over, now here and now there; during the last lustrum, too, she had to care for her husband, whose vigorous body had been spared by serious illness until the slight apoplectic attack, already mentioned, impaired the use of his hand. In November, 1883, when we last visited our revered teacher and dear friend, we found him and his wife animated and cheerful in spite of the many terrible blows of destiny which they had encountered. His letters, which, after the apoplectic attack, had been written with a trembling hand, had long since exhibited almost the same firm strokes of the pen as in earlier days, and the writings which date from his latter years show that his mind had retained its old elasticity and depth. But soon after our farewell visit a disorder of the stomach began to undermine his vigorous health, and at the same time his mind was greatly disturbed by the severe illness of his beloved wife.
At Easter, 1884, he felt a premonition of his approaching end and faced it with that serenity of mind which had always distinguished him. At that time, when, without being really ill, he began to feel weak, he often spoke of his impending death. At Whitsuntide he was forced to take to his bed, and he now steadfastly regarded his approaching departure, and quietly prepared for it. He caused his children to be summoned, and clearly and thoughtfully talked over with them everything in his and their material affairs which still required to be set in order. He made a new will, as it had become necessary to change that already in existence on account of the illness of the faithful companion of his life, which was such as to preclude any hope of recovery. After that he was a little better again. The physicians believed that the ulcer of the stomach might heal, on account of the unusual vigor and soundness of the rest of the system: but he did not share their hopes, although he allowed his children to depart.
But soon afterwards the physicians became convinced that the ulcer had developed into an incurable cancer of the stomach. Nevertheless he would not cease work, and his last efforts were devoted to his science.
A polemic article against a Heidelberg colleague had already been sent to press, and had been put in type, in order that it might appear in the next number of the Journal of Egyptian Language and Archaeology. But before this occurred he felt the precursors of death, and recalled the controversial paper and had the type distributed, because he would not close his scientific career “with a discord.”
Then, while in bed, he himself corrected the last pages of his “Linear Measures of the Ancients,” and with the same careful, indeed painful, accuracy which had distinguished his work in the days of health. He also directed to what persons this book should be sent. Like a true German scholar, Lepsius died in the midst of his labors. During the last three days he for the first time occasionally lost his clearness of thought, in consequence of bodily exhaustion, as for the five previous weeks he had been able to take very little nourishment. His end was painless, and his failing eyes looked round upon his children, to whom it was granted to stand beside his deathbed. At the end he tried to speak to his eldest son, but the brothers and sisters could only distinguish the name “Richard.”
Lepsius drew his last breath on the tenth of July, at nine o’clock in the morning. With entire interest and consciousness he, together with all his children, had eight days before received the holy sacrament from the faithful pastor of the family, the chief Court Chaplain, Kögel. The words spoken beside the coffin of the deceased by that excellent divine were a model of what a funeral discourse should be, and proved that it had been given to Kögel to recognize fully those great qualities of mind and heart which had ennobled the departed.