The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 679 pages of information about The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06.

The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 679 pages of information about The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06.

A few memorials of the late cathedral of happy memory are still preserved in the church of St. Stephen.  These consist of stained glass pictures of great beauty, a few indifferent paintings, including a Lucas Cranach, a wooden Christ crucified, and a heathen altar of some unknown metal.  The latter resembles a long square coffer, and is upheld by caryatides, which in a bowed position hold their hands above their heads in support, and are making the most hideous grimaces.  But far more hideous is the adjacent large wooden crucifix of which I have just spoken.  This head of Christ, with its real hair and thorns and blood-stained countenance, represents, in the most masterly manner, the death of a man—­but not of a divinely-born Savior.  Nothing but physical suffering is portrayed in this image—­not the sublime poetry of pain.  Such a work would be more appropriately placed in a hall of anatomy than in a house of the Lord.

The sacristan’s wife—­an artistic expert—­who led me about, showed me a special rarity.  This was a many-cornered, well-planed blackboard covered with white numerals, which hung like a lamp in the middle of the building.  Oh, how brilliantly does the spirit of invention manifest itself in the Protestant Church!  For who would think it!  The numbers on this board are those of the Psalms for the day, which are generally chalked on a common black tablet, and have a very sobering effect on an esthetic mind, but which, in the form above described, even ornament the church and fully make up for the want of pictures by Raphael.  Such progress delights me infinitely, since I, as a Protestant and a Lutheran, am ever deeply chagrined when Catholic opponents ridicule the empty, God-forsaken appearance of Protestant churches.

* * * * *

The churchyard at Goslar did not appeal to me very strongly, but a certain very pretty blonde-ringleted head which peeped smilingly from a parterre window did.  After dinner I again sought out this fascinating window, but, instead of a maiden, I beheld a glass containing white bellflowers.  I clambered up, stole the flowers, put them quietly in my cap, and descended, unheeding the gaping mouths, petrified noses, and goggle eyes, with which the people in the street, and especially the old women, regarded this qualified theft.  As I, an hour later, passed by the same house, the beauty stood by the window, and, as she saw the flowers in my cap, she blushed like a ruby and started back.  This time I had seen the beautiful face to better advantage; it was a sweet, transparent incarnation of summer-evening breeze, moonshine, nightingale notes, and rose perfume.  Later, in the twilight hour, she was standing at the door.  I came—­I drew near—­she slowly retreated into the dark entry.  I followed, and, seizing her hand, said, “I am a lover of beautiful flowers and of kisses, and when they are not given to me I steal them.”  Here I quickly snatched a kiss, and, as she was about to flee, whispered

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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.