She is secretly frightened, but accepts it,
puts it in her room, and considers what she shall do.
puts it in her room, and considers what she shall do.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
6733 (#109) ###########################################
6733
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
(1785-1863) (1786-1859)
BY BENJAMIN W. WELLS
RIMM, JACOB LUDWIG CARL (1785-1863), and WILHELM CARL
(1786-1859), whose names are inseparably connected in the
history of German antiquities, philology, and literature, were
the oldest sons of a petty official then stationed at Hanau in Hesse-
Cassel. Their father died in 1796; but though poor, they were able
to study for the law at the University of Marburg, where Professor
Savigny gave them their first inspiration and directed their minds
to early German literature and institutions. After their graduation,
JACOB GRIMM
WILHELM GRIMM
Jacob occupied for a time subordinate civil and diplomatic positions,
and after 1816 both were connected with the Library at Cassel; which
they exchanged in 1828 for the University Library at Göttingen,
where Jacob also lectured, though without popular success, until they
were ejected from office for a manly protest (1837) against the broken.
pledges of the King of Hanover. "With no desire of applause, or
fear of blame when he had acted as he must," - words that show his
whole character, Jacob withdrew with his brother to Cassel, and
thence in 1840 to Berlin, where they had been appointed professors
and members of the Academy. Here they passed a life of tireless
investigation, interrupted only by Jacob's brief and not very happy
share in the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848.
Here they
## p. 6734 (#110) ###########################################
6734
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
died, and here they were buried, as they had lived, together. The
brothers had passed their whole lives in common labor, of which the
elder thus spoke in a memorial oration:—
"In the slow-gliding school years, one bed and one study held us. There
we sat working at the same table, and afterward in our student years two
beds and two tables stood in the same room; in later life, still two tables in
the same room; and at last, to the very end, two rooms beside one another,
always under one roof, in undisturbed and untroubled community of our
money, and books except for a few that each must have immediately at hand,
and which were therefore bought in duplicate; and so also our last beds will
be laid, it seems, close by one another. Let one consider, then, whether in
speaking of him I can avoid speaking of myself. » ((Minor Writings,' i. 166. )
The work may be treated as a unit, though Jacob's was the
most dominant spirit. He had an “iron industry," a clear vision, an
unfailing cheerfulness in labor. His style has a peculiar rugged ear-
nestness. It is not unpolished, but picturesque and full of a woodland
savor; while Wilhelm had a frailer constitution and a gentler nature,
that showed itself in the graceful naïveté of those legends and tales
to which he gave literary form.
The genius of their common studies was a noble patriotism. One
could say of both what Jacob said of himself, that nearly all their
labors were "directed to the investigation of early German language,
laws, and poetry"; labors which might seem useless to some, but
were to them "inseparably connected with the Fatherland, and cal-
culated to foster the love of it. " Again, he says, "I strove to pene-
trate into the wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble
language, watching their pure customs," recognizing their “ancient
freedom and their rational and hearty faith. "
These labors took the form of studies in early law (Rechtsalter-
thümer or Legal Antiquities: 1828), mythology (Deutsche Mytholo-
gie': 1835), legends (Sagen' or Legends: 1816; revised 1868), essays
on old German poetry (Altdeutscher Meistergesang': 1811), and
numerous editions of old German, Danish, Norse, and English texts.
Most important to the scientific world, however, were the 'Deutsche
Grammatik (1819, 1822-1840) and the still unfinished Dictionary,
perhaps the most vast undertaking of modern philologists. But mon-
umental as these works are, they belong only indirectly to literature.
nor is there much of general interest in the eight volumes of Jacob
Grimm's 'Minor Writings' (1864-1890). On the other hand, all the
world knows the brothers for their Household Tales' (1812-1815),
and often for these alone. They were meant for a contribution to
folk-lore, as may be seen from the volume of notes that accompany
them, of which the extracts that follow contain two specimens. But
in a single generation they became one of the most popular books of
## p. 6735 (#111) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6735
the world; they were translated into every civilized tongue, and may
be found to-day tattered and in a million nurseries, but never
outworn in the hearts of Nature's children. Artists like Walter Crane
have illustrated them, critics like Andrew Lang have introduced
them to English readers, noteworthy German scholars and critics-
Scherer, Curtius, Berndt-have bestowed on them the tribute of
learning. But perhaps no one has spoken better of them than Wil-
helm Grimm in his preface, a part of which is translated below; and
none has paid a nobler tribute to the fraternal love of their authors
than Jacob Grimm in the first volume of his 'Minor Writings. '
Banj 2. Walle
A WORD TO THE READER
From the Preface to the Household Tales'
WⓇ
E SOMETIMES find, when a whole cornfield has been beaten
down by a storm, that a little place has sheltered itself
by the low hedges or bushes, and a few ears remain
upright. Then, if the sun shines kindly again, they grow alone
and unnoticed. No early sickle cuts them for the great grana-
ries; but late in summer, when they are ripe and full, come poor
hands that glean them and carry them home, laid ear to ear,
bound carefully, and more highly treasured than whole sheaves;
and they are food all winter long, — perhaps also the only seed
for the future.
-
So it seemed to us, when we saw how nothing was left of so
much that had bloomed in old times; how even the memory of
it was almost lost, except among the people in songs, a few
books, legends, and these innocent Household Tales. The fire-
side, the hearth, the attic stairs, ancient holidays, mountain paths
and forests in their silence, but above all an untroubled fantasy,
have been the hedges that have guarded them and transmitted
them from one age to another.
It was high time to seize these tales, for their guardians grow
ever rarer. To be sure, those who know them usually know
## p. 6736 (#112) ###########################################
6736
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
many; for it is men who are dead to them, not they to men.
That which has given such manifold and repeated joy and
emotion and instruction bears in it its own excuse for being,
and has surely come from that eternal spring that bedews all
life; and though it were only a single drop that has caught on
a little crumpled leaf, yet it sparkles in the first blush of dawn.
Hence it is, that all these fancies are pervaded with that
purity by which children seem to us so wonderful and blessed.
They have the same blue-white, immaculate, bright eyes.
And so by our collection we thought to serve not only the study
of poetry and mythology, but also to let the poetry itself that
palpitates in it touch and delight whomsoever it can delight, so
that it may serve also as a book of education. For this we
seek not such purity as is obtained by an anxious exclusion of
all that bears on certain conditions and relations, such as occur
daily and cannot possibly be hidden, which also produces the
deception that what is possible in a book can be practiced in real
life. We seek purity in the truth of a straightforward narra-
tion.
Nothing defends us better than Nature herself,
who has let these plants grow in just this color and form. He
whose special needs they may not suit has no right to ask that
they should be differently cut and colored. Or again: rain and
dew fall to benefit all that grows; if any one does not dare to
put his plants under the rain and dew because they are too
delicate and might be hurt, if he prefers to give them lukewarm
water in the house, yet he must not demand tha there shall be
no rain and dew. All that is natural may be helpful, and it is at
this that we ought to aim.
We have been collecting these stories from oral tradition for
about thirteen years. If one is accustomed to heed such things,
one has more chances than one would suppose.
. But it
was a piece of special good fortune that we made the acquaint-
ance of a peasant woman of Niederzwehrn, a village near Cassel,
who told us most of the tales in the second volume, and the most
beautiful of these. Frau Viehmännin was still active, and not
much over fifty years old. Her features were firm, sensible, and
agreeable, and she cast clear keen glances from her great eyes.
She remembered the old stories exactly, and said herself that
this gift was not granted to all, and that many a one could keep
nothing in its proper connection. She told her stories deliber-
ately, confidently, with much life and self-satisfaction: first, quite
## p. 6737 (#113) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6737
naturally; then, if you wished, slowly, so that with a little prac-
tice you could take them down. A good deal has been preserved.
verbally in this way, and will be unmistakable in its truth to
nature. One who believes in the easy alteration of tradition, in
negligence in guarding it, and hence as a rule in the impossi-
bility of its long continuance, should have heard how exact she
always was in her story, and how eager for its accuracy. In
repeating she never changed anything in the substance, and cor-
rected an oversight as soon as she observed it, while she was
speaking.
As for the way in which we have collected, our first care
was for faithfulness and truth. So we have added nothing of
our own, have embellished no circumstance or trait in the story,
but have rendered its contents just as we received it. That the
style and development of detail are largely ours is a matter of
course; but we have tried to preserve every peculiarity that we
noticed, so as to leave in our collection, in this regard also, the
endless variety of nature.
In this sense there is, so far as we know, no collection of
legends in Germany. Either a few, preserved by chance, have
been printed, or they are looked at as raw material from which
to form longer stories. Against such treatment we declare our-
selves absolutely. The practiced hand in such reconstructions is
like that unhappily gifted hand that turned all it touched, even
meat and drink, to gold, and cannot for all its wealth still our
hunger or quench our thirst. For when mythology with all its
pictures is to be conjured out of mere imagination, how bare,
how empty, how formless does all seem, in spite of the best and
strongest words! However, this is said only of such so-called
reconstructions as pretend to beautify and poetize the legends,
not toward a free appropriation of them for modern and individ-
ual purposes; for who would seek to set limits to poetry?
We commit these tales to gracious hands, and think the
while of the kindly power that lies in them, and wish that our
book may be forever hidden from those who grudge these crumbs
of poetry to the poor and simple.
CASSEL, July 3d, 1819.
XII-422
## p. 6738 (#114) ###########################################
6738
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
LITTLE BRIAR-ROSE
From Household Tales >
L
ONG ago there was a king and a queen. They said every day,
<< Oh, if we only had a child! " and still they never got one.
Then it happened when once the queen was bathing, that a
frog crept ashore out of the water, and said to her, "Your wish
shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes you shall bring a daugh-
ter into the world. "
What the frog said, happened, and the queen had a little girl
that was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for
joy, and made a great feast. He invited not only his relatives,
friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, that they
might be gracious and kind to the child. Now, there were thir-
teen of them in his kingdom; but because he had only twelve
gold plates for them to eat from, one of them had to stay at
home. The feast was splendidly celebrated, and when it was over
the wise women gave the child their wonderful gifts.
One gave
her virtue, another beauty, another wealth, and so with everything
that people want in the world. But when eleven had spoken,
suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself,
because she had not been asked; and without greeting or looking
at any one, she cried out, "In her fifteenth year the king's
daughter shall wound herself on a spindle, and fall down dead. "
And without saying another word, she turned around and left
the hall. All were frightened. When the twelfth came up, who
had her wish still to give, since she could not remove the sen-
tence but only soften it, she said: "Yet it shall not be a real
death, but only a hundred years' deep sleep, into which the king's
daughter shall fall. ”
The king, who wanted to save his dear child from harm, sent
out an order that all the spindles in the kingdom should be
burned. But in the girl the gifts of the wise women were all
fulfilled; for she was so beautiful, good, kind, and sensible, that
nobody who saw her could help loving her. It happened that just
on the day when she was fifteen years old the king and queen
were not at home, and the little girl was left quite alone in the
castle. Then she went wherever she pleased, looked in the
rooms and chambers, and at last she got to an old tower. She
went up the narrow winding stairs, and came to a little door.
## p. 6739 (#115) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6739
In the keyhole was a rusty key, and when she turned it the
door sprang open, and there in a little room sat an old woman
with a spindle, and spun busily her flax. "Good-day, Aunty,"
said the king's daughter: "what are you doing there? "
"I am
spinning," said the old woman, and nodded. "What sort of a
thing is that that jumps about so gayly? " said the girl. She took
the spindle and wanted to spin too. But she had hardly touched
the spindle before the spell was fulfilled, and she pricked her
finger with it.
At the instant she felt the prick she fell down on the bed
that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep spread
over all the castle. The king and queen, who had just come
home and entered the hall, began to go to sleep, and all the
courtiers with them. The horses went to sleep in the stalls, the
dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall,
yes, the fire that was flickering on the hearth grew still and went
to sleep. And the roast meat stopped sputtering, and the cook,
who was going to take the cook-boy by the hair because he had
forgotten something, let him go and slept. And the wind was
still, and no leaf stirred in the trees by the castle.
But all around the castle a hedge of briars grew, that got
higher every year and at last surrounded the whole castle and
grew up over it, so that nothing more could be seen of it, not
even the flag on the roof. But the story went about in the
country of the beautiful sleeping Briar-Rose (for so the king's
daughter was called); so that from time to time kings' sons came
and tried to get through the hedge into the castle.
But they
could not; for the briars, as though they had hands, clung fast
together, and the young men, stuck fast in them, could not get
out again, and died a wretched death. After long, long years,
there came again a king's son to that country, and heard how
an old man told about the briar hedge; that there was a castle
behind it, in which a wonderfully beautiful king's daughter called
Briar-Rose had been sleeping for a hundred years, and that the
king and the queen and all the court were sleeping with her.
He knew too from his grandfather that many kings' sons had
already come and tried to get through the briar hedge, but had all
been caught in it and died a sad death. Then the young man
said, "I am not afraid. I will go and see the beautiful Briar-
Rose. " The good old man might warn him as much as he
pleased: he did not listen to his words.
## p. 6740 (#116) ###########################################
6740
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
But now the hundred years were just passed, and the day was
come when Briar-Rose was to wake gain. So when the king's
son went up to the briars, they were just great beautiful flowers
that opened of their own accord and let him through unhurt;
and behind him they closed together as a hedge again. In the
yard he saw the horses and the mottled hounds lying and sleep-
ing; on the roof perched the doves, their heads stuck under their
wings; and when he came into the house the flies were sleeping
on the wall, in the kitchen the cook still held up his hand as
though to grab the boy, and the maid was sitting before the black
hen that was to be plucked. Then he went further, and in the
hall he saw all the courtiers lying and sleeping, and upon their
throne lay the king and the queen. Then he went further, and
all was so still that you could hear yourself breathe; and at last
he came to the tower and opened the door of the little room
where Briar-Rose was sleeping. There she lay, and she was so
beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her; and he bent
down and gave her a kiss. But just as he touched her with the
kiss, Briar-Rose opened her eyes, awoke, and looked at him very
kindly. Then they went down-stairs together; and the king
awoke, and the queen, and all the courtiers, and made great eyes
at one another. And the horses in the yard got up and shook
themselves, the hounds sprang about and wagged their tails, the
doves on the roof pulled out their heads from under their wings,
looked around and flew into the field, the flies on the wall went
on crawling, the fire in the kitchen started up and blazed and
cooked the dinner, the roast began to sputter again, and the cook
gave the boy such a box on the ear that he screamed, and the
maid finished plucking the hen. Then the wedding of the king's
son with Briar-Rose was splendidly celebrated, and they lived
happy till their lives' end.
NOTE BY THE GRIMMS. - From Hesse. The maid who sleeps in the
castle, surrounded by a hedge until the right prince releases her, be-
fore whom the flowers part, is the sleeping Brunhild, according to the
old Norse saga, whom a wall of flame surrounds which Sigurd alone
can penetrate to wake her. The spindle on which she pricks herself,
and from which she falls asleep, is the slumber thorn with which
Odin pricks Brunhiid. In the Pentameron it is a flax-root. In Per-
rault, La Belle au Bois Dormant. ' Similar is the sleep of "Schnee-
witchen. " The Italian and French stories both have the conclusion
that is wanting in the German, but occurs in our fragment 'Of the
## p. 6741 (#117) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6741
Wicked Stepmother. ' It is noteworthy that in the important devia-
tions of Perrault from Basile (who alone preserves the pretty trait
that the nursling sucks the bit of flax from the finger of the sleeping
mother), both agree so far as to the names of the children that the
twins in the Pentameron are called Sun and Moon; in Perrault, Day
and Dawn. These names recall the compounds of Day, Sun, and
Moon, in the genealogy of the 'Edda. '
THE THREE SPINNERS
From the Household Tales'
T"
HERE was a lazy girl who would not spin; and her mother
might say what she would, she could not make her do it.
At last anger and impatience overcame the mother so that
she struck the girl, and at that she began to cry aloud. Now,
the queen was just driving by, and when she heard the crying.
she had the carriage stop, went into the house, and asked the
mother why she beat her daughter so that one could hear the
crying out on the street? Then the woman was ashamed to con-
fess the laziness of her daughter, and said, "I cannot keep her
from spinning. She wants to spin all the time, and I am poor
and can't get the flax. " Then the queen answered, "There is
nothing I like to hear so much as spinning, and I am never
happier than when the wheels hum. Let me take your daughter
to the castle. I have flax enough. There she shall spin as much
as she will. "
The mother was well pleased at it, and the queen took the
girl with her. When they came to the castle she took her up to
three rooms, which lay from top to bottom full of the finest
flax. "Now spin me this flax," said she; "and if you finish it
you shall have my eldest son for a husband. Though you are
poor, I don't mind that: your cheerful diligence is dowry enough. "
The girl was secretly frightened; for she could not have spun
the flax if she had lived three hundred years, and had sat at it
every day from morning till evening. When she was alone she
began to cry, and sat so three days without lifting a hand. On
the third day the queen came, and when she saw that nothing
was spun yet she was surprised; but the girl excused herself by
saying that she had not been able to begin on account of her
great sorrow at leaving her mother's house. The queen was
## p. 6742 (#118) ###########################################
6742
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
satisfied with that, but she said as she went away, "To-morrow
you must begin to work. "
When the girl was alone again she did not know what to
think or to do; and in her trouble she went up to the window,
and there she saw three women coming along. The first had a
broad paddle-foot, the second had such a big under-lip that it
hung down over her chin, and the third had a broad thumb.
They stopped before the window, looked up, and asked the girl
what was the matter. She told them her trouble. Then they
offered her their help and said, "If you will invite us to your
wedding, not be ashamed of us, and call us your cousins, and
seat us at your table too, then we will spin your flax up, and
that quickly. " "Gladly," said she: "come in and set to work im-
mediately. " So she let the three queer women in, and cleared
a little space in the first room, where they could sit down and
begin their spinning. One of them drew the thread and trod the
wheel, the second wet the thread, the third twisted it and struck
with her finger on the table; and as often as she struck, a skein
of yarn fell to the floor, and it was of the finest. She hid the
three spinners from the queen, and showed her as often as she
came the pile of spun yarn, so that the queen could not praise
her enough. When the first room was empty, they began on the
second, and then on the third, and that was soon cleared up too.
Now the three women took their leave, and said to the girl, "Do
not forget what you promised us. It will be your good fortune. "
When the girl showed the queen the empty rooms and the
great heap of yarn, she prepared for the wedding; and the bride-
groom was delighted to get such a clever and industrious wife,
and praised her very much. "I have three cousins," said the
girl; "and since they have been very kind to me, I should not
like to forget them in my happiness. Permit me to invite them
to the wedding and to have them sit with me at the table. " The
queen and the bridegroom said, "Why should not we permit it? "
Now when the feast began, the three women came in queer
dress, and the bride said, "Welcome, dear cousins. " "Oh! " said
the bridegroom: "how did you get such ill-favored friends? "
Then he went to the one with the broad paddle-foot and asked,
"Where did you get such a broad foot? " "From the treadle,"
she answered, "from the treadle. " Then the bridegroom went to
the second and said, "Where did you get that hanging lip? "
"From wetting yarn," she answered, "from wetting yarn. "
## p. 6743 (#119) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6743
he asked the third, "Where did you get the broad thumb? "
"From twisting thread," she answered, "from twisting thread. "
Then the king's son was frightened and said, "Then my fair
bride shall never, never touch a spinning-wheel again. "
so she was rid of the horrid spinning.
And
NOTE BY THE GRIMMS. - From a tale from the duchy of Corvei; but
that there are three women, each with a peculiar fault due to spin-
ning, is taken from a Hessian story. In the former they are two
very old women, who have grown so broad by sitting that they can.
hardly get into the room; from wetting the thread they had thick
lips; and from pulling and drawing it, ugly fingers and broad thumbs.
The Hessian story begins differently, too; namely, that a king liked
nothing better than spinning, and so, at his farewell before a jour-
ney, left his daughters a great chest of flax that was to be spun on
his return. To relieve them, the queen invited the three deformed
women and put them before the king's eyes on his return. Prätorius
in his 'Glückstopf' (pp. 404-406) tells the story thus: A mother can-
not ake her daughter spin, and so often beats her. A man who
happens to see it, asks what it means. The mother answers, "I can-
not keep her from spinning. She spins more flax than I can buy. "
The man answers, "Then give her to me for wife. I shall be satis-
fied with her cheerful diligence, though she brings no dowry. " The
mother is delighted, and the bridegroom brings the bride immediately
a great provision of flax.
She is secretly frightened, but accepts it,
puts it in her room, and considers what she shall do. Then three
women come to the window, one so broad from sitting that she can-
not get in at the door, the second with an immense nose, the third
with a broad thumb. They offer their services and promise to spin
the task, if the bride on her wedding day will not be ashamed of
them, will proclaim them her cousins and set them at her table. She
consents; they spin up the flax, and the lover praises his betrothed.
When now the wedding day comes, the three horrid women present
themselves. The bride does them honor, and calls them cousins.
The bridegroom is surprised, and asks how she comes by such ill-
favored friends. "Oh! " said the bride, "it's by spinning that they
have become so deformed. One has such a broad back from sitting,
the second has licked her mouth quite off,- therefore her nose stands
out so, and the third has twisted thread so much with her thumb. "
Then the bridegroom was troubled, and said to the bride she should
never spin another thread as long as she lived, that she might not
become such a monstrosity.
A third tale from the Oberlansitz,' by Th. Pescheck, is in Büsch-
ing's Weekly News. It agrees in general with Prätorius. One of the
## p. 6744 (#120) ###########################################
6744
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
three old women has sore eyes because the impurities of the flax have
got into them, the second has a mouth from ear to ear on account of
wetting thread, the third is fat and clumsy by much sitting at the
spinning-wheel. A part of the story is in Norwegian in Asbjörnsen,
and in Swedish in Cavallius. Mademoiselle L'Heretier's 'Ricdin-
Ricdon' agrees in the introduction, and the sette colenelle of the Pen-
tameron is also connected with this tale.
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
From the Preface to the Deutsche Grammatik'
T HAS cost me no long hesitation to prune back to the stock
the first shoots of my granaries. A second growth, firmer
and finer, has quickly followed; perhaps one may hope for
flowers and ripening fruit. With joy I give to the public this
work, now become more worthy of its attention, that I have care-
fully tended and brought to this end amid cares and privations,
in which labor was sometimes a drudgery, and sometimes, and
by God's goodness oftener, my comfort.
The fruitfulness of the field is of such a nature that it never
fails; and no leaf from the sources can be re-examined that does
not arouse by a more distant prospect or make one repent of
past errors. If now a rich booty should win me less praise than
a many-sided, careful, economical administration of a smaller
treasure, the blame may fall on me, that I have not known how
to draw from all the principles I have discovered the uses of
which they were capable, and even that important observations.
sometimes stand in obscure places. Not all my assertions will
stand; but by the discoveries of their weakness other paths will
be opened, through which will break at last the truth: the only
goal of honest labor, and the only thing that lasts when men
have ceased to care for the names of like aspirants. What was
hardest for us may be child's-play to posterity, hardly worth
speaking of. Then truth will yield herself to new solutions of
which we had yet no hint, and will struggle with obstacles where
we thought all made plain.
## p. 6745 (#121) ###########################################
6745
GEORGE GROTE
(1794-1871)
T IS a coincidence so striking as almost to put the English
university system itself on the defensive, that neither Grote
nor Gibbon owed anything to academic training. Gibbon
indeed spent fourteen months at Oxford: -"the most idle and unprof-
itable of my whole life. " George Grote, the son of a London banker,
ended his school days at sixteen, when he left the Charterhouse. He
had been grounded in Latin by a devoted mother at five years, how-
ever, and he took with him to the bank little or no mathematics, and
an enthusiastic love for metaphysics, clas-
sical literature, and history, which proved
to be lifelong. From 1810 to 1820, under his
father's roof, he devoted his early mornings
and evenings to study. His most important
older friends were the political economists
James Mill, Ricardo, and Bentham; but they
did not divert him from his historical inter-
ests. Even during his long engagement, he
guided by letter the education and reading
of his future wife, with a constant view to
his own far-reaching plans for study and
creative work.
GEORGE GROTE
With Grote's marriage to the brilliant and
devoted Harriet Lewin, in 1820, began a
happier epoch. He had now his own home and a moderate income.
Mrs. Grote drew him somewhat into society, travel, and a widened
circle of friendship on the Continent as well as in London. These
digressions only aided what would else have been too bookish and
secluded a development. Mrs. Grote, however, was mistaken in her
recollection that she herself first, in the autumn of 1823, suggested
the subject of his chief life work: at least a year previous, the plan
for the great History of Greece' had been formed. In 1830 his
father's death left Mr. Grote abundant wealth; nevertheless, the dec-
ade 1831-1841, which was spent in active political work as the leader
in Parliament of the group known as philosophic radicals, did indeed
reduce his systematic and untiring studies to mere desultory read-
ing, and seemingly endangered his literary career. Yet even this
## p. 6746 (#122) ###########################################
6746
GEORGE GROTE
experience, as he himself declares, was of indispensable use to him
in comprehending the fiercer democratic politics of ancient Athens.
Returning early in 1842 from a brief stay in Italy, and severing
altogether his relations with the bank the next year, he now first, in
his fiftieth year, devoted his whole strength to his appointed task.
His powerful review of Mitford's 'Greece' in 1843 prepared the way
for the enthusiastic welcome accorded in 1845 to the first two volumes
of his 'History of Greece. ' The twelfth and closing volume did not
appear until 1856.
Some adequate outlines of his life and character are essential to
any fair appreciation of Mr. Grote's chief work. Indefatigable as
a student, a fearless lover of truth, widely familiar with men and
affairs, a wise philanthropist and a far-sighted reformer, Mr. Grote's
noble personality gives weight to his every sentence, as an athlete's
whole frame and training goes into each blow he strikes. It seems a
trifling criticism upon such a man, to say he was not a literary artist.
This is true, indeed, as to his choice of idiom and phrase. He has
not that "curious felicity" which makes us linger lovingly over the
very words in which a Plato, a Montaigne, a Burke casts his thought.
Even in the delineation of a great scene, like the defeat at Syracuse
or the downfall of Athens, he is rarely picturesque. He does not
appeal indeed to the youthful imagination, but to the mature judg-
ment. We can well imagine that this calm, even-toned, judicious
voice made itself heard effectively in the debates of the English Com-
mons.
Of course no one man can ever write an ideal history of that
unique, creative, many-sided Hellenic race; but the work of Mr. Grote
is still, a half-century after its creation, indispensable as an account
of political institutions among the Greeks. Even here the thousands
of newly discovered inscriptions, the fortunate reappearance of Aris-
totle's treatise on the Athenian Constitution, and the ceaseless march
of special investigation, make desirable some fresh annotation upon
almost every page. The familiarity with Greek lands and folk which
gives a charm to Professor Curtius's work is missing from Mr. Grote's.
Still more do we miss any warm enthusiasm for Hellenic art, which
was so indispensable an element in their life. Even their literature
is to him less a beautiful organism quivering with life than a source
for more or less accurate information. In this and in many other
respects he is curiously like the Athenian student of history and of
truth, Thucydides, who could write, in the day of Phidias and Sopho-
cles, as if he had never heard of a myth or a statue. It is true
also that Grote is always an English liberal, finding in every page
of history fresh reason for hope and trust in modern democracy.
This indeed we do not regard as adverse criticism at all. If a man
## p. 6747 (#123) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6747
be not actually blinded to truth by narrow prejudices, the more
cordially his own convictions color his writings the greater will be
their value and vitality. Posterity will bring more and more human
experience to the interpretation of the remote past. They may yet
understand Periclean Athens, out of their own similar life, infinitely
better than our century could do. Like Chapman's or Pope's Homer,
Grote's Greece may yet have a value of its own, quite apart from the
question of its truthfulness to Hellenic antiquity, as a monument of
Victorian England. To us however it is still the largest, truest,
most adequate general picture yet drawn of Hellas from the days of
Homer to the time of Alexander.
Hardly less intense was Mr. Grote's interest in the Greek philoso-
phy. The chapters on Socrates and on the Sophists are perhaps the
ablest and the most original in the history. Moreover, as soon as
that great work was completed, he began the series of treatises on
the philosophic schools which was an indispensable portion of his
task. The three volumes on 'Plato and his Companions,' however,
did not appear until 1865; and of the great projected work on Aris-
totle, only a small segment took shape before death overtook the
noble, generous old scholar. His wife long survived him, and her
'Personal Life of George Grote,' despite numerous minor lapses of
memory, is one of the most valuable books in its class.
The important article on Mr. Grote in the 'Dictionary of National
Biography,' by Professor Robertson, is based in part on intimate per-
sonal acquaintance. Mr. Grote's minor works are all mentioned there.
Least known of all to the general public is a small volume of poems.
These were printed privately by his widow in 1872, and were chiefly
written during his courtship, which was unduly prolonged and embit-
tered by parental opposition. We intentionally reserve for a final
detail this especially appealing human experience of the statesman,
metaphysician, and historian.
THE DEATH, CHARACTER, AND WORK OF ALEXANDER THE
GREAT
From A History of Greece'
THE
HE intense sorrow felt by Alexander for the death of Hephæs-
tion-not merely an attached friend, but of the same age
and exuberant vigor as himself-laid his mind open to
gloomy forebodings from numerous omens, as well as to jealous.
mistrust even of his oldest officers. Antipater especially, no
longer protected against the calumnies of Olympias by the sup-
port of Hephæstion, fell more and more into discredit; whilst his
## p. 6748 (#124) ###########################################
6748
GEORGE GROTE
son Kassander, who had recently come into Asia with a Mace-
donian reinforcement, underwent from Alexander during irasci-
ble moments much insulting violence. In spite of the dissuasive
warning of the Chaldean priests, Alexander had been persuaded
to distrust their sincerity and had entered Babylon, though not
without hesitation and uneasiness. However, when after having
entered the town he went out of it again safely on his expedition
for the survey of the lower Euphrates, he conceived himself to
have exposed them as deceitful alarmists, and returned to the
city with increased confidence for the obsequies of his deceased
friend.
The sacrifices connected with these obsequies were
on the
most prodigious scale. Victims enough were offered to furnish a
feast for the army, who also received ample distributions of wine.
Alexander presided in person at the feast, and abandoned himself
to conviviality like the rest. Already full of wine, he was per-
suaded by his friend Medius to sup with him, and to pass the
whole night in yet further drinking, with the boisterous indul-
gence called by the Greeks Kômus or Revelry. Having slept off
his intoxication during the next day, he in the evening again
supped with Medius, and spent the second night in the like
unmeasured indulgence. It appears that he already had the seeds
of a fever upon him, which was so fatally aggravated by this
intemperance that he was too ill to return to his palace. He
took the bath, and slept in the house of Medius; on the next
morning he was unable to rise. After having been carried out
on a couch to celebrate sacrifice (which was his daily habit), he
was obliged to lie in bed all day. Nevertheless he summoned
the generals to his presence, prescribing all the details of the
impending expedition, and ordering that the land force should
begin its march on the fourth day following, while the fleet, with
himself aboard, would sail on the fifth day. In the evening he
was carried on a couch across the Euphrates into a garden on
the other side, where he bathed and rested for the night. The
fever still continued, so that in the morning, after bathing and
being carried out to perform the sacrifices, he remained on his
couch all day, talking and playing at dice with Medius; in the
evening he bathed, sacrificed again, and ate a light supper, but
endured a bad night with increased fever. The next two days
passed in the same manner, the fever becoming worse and worse;
nevertheless Alexander still summoned Nearchus to his bedside,
## p. 6749 (#125) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6749
discussed with him many points about his maritime projects, and
repeated his order that the fleet should be ready by the third
day. On the ensuing morning the fever was violent; Alexander
reposed all day in a bathing-house in the garden, yet still calling
in the generals to direct the filling up of vacancies among the
officers, and ordering that the armament should be ready to move.
Throughout the two next days his malady became hourly more
aggravated. On the second of the two, Alexander could with
difficulty support the being lifted out of bed to perform the sac-
rifice; even then, however, he continued to give orders to the
generals about the expedition. On the morrow, though desper-
ately ill, he still made the effort requisite for performing the
sacrifice; he was then carried across from the garden-house to
the palace, giving orders that the generals and officers should
remain in permanent attendance in and near the hall. He caused
some of them to be called to his bedside; but though he knew
them perfectly, he had by this time become incapable of utter-
ance. One of his last words spoken is said to have been, on
being asked to whom he bequeathed his kingdom, "To the
strongest;" one of his last acts was to take the signet ring from
his finger, and hand it to Perdikkas.
For two nights and a day he continued in this state, without
either amendment or repose. Meanwhile the news of his mal-
ady had spread through the army, filling them with grief and
consternation. Many of the soldiers, eager to see him once more,
forced their way into the palace and were admitted unarmed.
They passed along by the bedside, with all the demonstrations of
affliction and sympathy; Alexander knew them, and made show
of friendly recognition as well as he could, but was unable to
say a word.
Several of the generals slept in the temple of
Serapis, hoping to be informed by the god in a dream whether
they ought to bring Alexander into it as a suppliant to expe-
rience the divine healing power. The god informed them in
their dream that Alexander ought not to be brought into the tem-
ple; that it would be better for him to be left where he was. In
the afternoon he expired,- June, 323 B. C. ,—after a life of thirty-
two years and eight months, and a reign of twelve years and
eight months.
The death of Alexander, thus suddenly cut off by a fever
in the plenitude of health, vigor, and aspirations, was an event
impressive as well as important in the highest possible degree, to
## p. 6750 (#126) ###########################################
6750
GEORGE GROTE
his contemporaries far and near. When the first report of it was
brought to Athens, the orator Demadês exclaimed, "It cannot be
true: if Alexander were dead, the whole habitable world would
have smelt of his carcass. " This coarse but emphatic comparison.
illustrates the immediate, powerful, and wide-reaching impression
produced by the sudden extinction of the great conqueror. It
was felt by each of the many remote envoys who had so re-
cently come to propitiate this far-shooting Apollo, by every man
among the nations who had sent these envoys, throughout
Europe, Asia, and Africa, as then known,- to affect either his
actual condition or his probable future. The first growth and
development of Macedonia, during the twenty-two years preced-
ing the battle of Chæroneia, from an embarrassed secondary State
into the first of all known powers, had excited the astonishment
of contemporaries and admiration for Philip's organizing genius.
But the achievements of Alexander during his twelve years of
reign, throwing Philip into the shade, had been on a scale so
much grander and vaster, and so completely without serious re-
verse or even interruption, as to transcend the measure not only
of human expectation, but almost of human belief. The Great
King (as the King of Persia was called by excellence) was and
had long been the type of worldly power and felicity, even down
to the time when Alexander crossed the Hellespont. Within four
years and three months from this event, by one stupendous
defeat after another, Darius had lost all his western empire, and
had become a fugitive eastward of the Caspian Gates, escaping
captivity at the hands of Alexander only to perish by those of
the satrap Bessus. All antecedent historical parallels - the ruin
and captivity of the Lydian Croesus, the expulsion and mean life
of the Syracusan Dionysius, both of them impressive examples
of the mutability of human condition-sank into trifles compared
with the overthrow of this towering Persian Colossus. The orator
Æschinês expressed the genuine sentiment of a Grecian specta-
tor when he exclaimed (in a speech delivered at Athens shortly
before the death of Darius):-"What is there among the list
of strange and unexpected events that has not occurred in our
time? Our lives have transcended the limits of humanity; we
are born to serve as a theme for incredible tales to posterity.
Is not the Persian King, who dug through Athos and bridged
the Hellespont, who demanded earth and water from the Greeks,
who dared to proclaim himself in public epistles master of all
―
## p. 6751 (#127) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6751
mankind from the rising to the setting sun,-is not he now
struggling to the last, not for dominion over others but for the
safety of his own person? "
Such were the sentiments excited by Alexander's career,
even in the middle of 330 B. C. , more than seven years before his
death. During the following seven years his additional achieve-
ments had carried astonishment yet farther. He had mastered,
in defiance of fatigue, hardship, and combat, not merely all the
eastern half of the Persian empire, but unknown Indian regions
beyond its easternmost limits. Besides Macedonia, Greece, and
Thrace, he possessed all that immense treasure and military force
which had once rendered the Great King so formidable. By no
contemporary man had any such power ever been known or con-
ceived. With the turn of imagination then prevalent, many were
doubtless disposed to take him for a god on earth, as Grecian
spectators had once supposed with regard to Xerxês when they
beheld the innumerable Persian host crossing the Hellespont.
Exalted to this prodigious grandeur, Alexander was at the
time of his death little more than thirty-two years old—the age
at which a citizen of Athens was growing into important com-
mands; ten years less than the age for a consul at Rome; two
years younger than the age at which Timour first acquired the
crown and began his foreign conquests. His extraordinary bodily
powers were unabated; he had acquired a large stock of military
experience; and what was still more important, his appetite for
further conquest was as voracious, and his readiness to purchase
it at the largest cost of toil or danger as complete, as it had
been when he first crossed the Hellespont. Great as his past
career had been, his future achievements, with such increased
means and experience, were likely to be yet greater. His ambi-
tion would have been satisfied with nothing less than the con-
quest of the whole habitable world as then known; and if his
life had been prolonged, he would probably have accomplished it.
Nowhere (so far as our knowledge reaches) did there reside any
military power capable of making head against him; nor were
his soldiers, when he commanded them, daunted or baffled by
any extremity of cold, heat, or fatigue. The patriotic feelings of
Livy disposed him to maintain that Alexander, had he invaded
Italy and assailed Romans or Samnites, would have failed and
perished like his relative Alexander of Epirus. But this conclus-
ion cannot be accepted. If we grant the courage and discipline
of the Roman infantry to have been equal to the best infantry
## p. 6752 (#128) ###########################################
6752
GEORGE GROTE
of Alexander's army, the same cannot be said of the Roman
cavalry as compared with the Macedonian Companions. Still less
is it likely that a Roman consul, annually changed, would have
been found a match for Alexander in military genius and com-
binations; nor, even if personally equal, would he have pos-
sessed the same variety of troops and arms, - each effective in
its separate way and all conspiring to one common purpose,
nor the same unbounded influence over their minds in stimulat-
ing them to full effort. I do not think that even the Romans
could have successfully resisted Alexander the Great; though it
is certain that he never throughout all his long marches encoun-
tered such enemies as they, nor even such as Samnites and
Lucanians-combining courage, patriotism, discipline, with effect-
ive arms both for defense and for close combat.
Among all the qualities which go to constitute the highest
military excellence either as a general or as a soldier, none was
wanting in the character of Alexander. Together with his own
chivalrous courage,—sometimes indeed both excessive and un-
seasonable, so as to form the only military defect which can be
fairly imputed to him,- we trace in all his operations the most
careful dispositions taken beforehand, vigilant precaution in
guarding against possible reverse, and abundant resource in
adapting himself to new contingencies. Amidst constant success,
these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. His
achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific
military organization on a large scale, and of its overwhelming
effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any
other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all
that constitutes effective force, as an individual warrior, and
as organizer and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind
impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Arês, but also the intelligent,
methodized, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in
Athênê. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against
enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind,
known and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him.
In his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we
perceive that not only those who stand on their defense, but also
those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are
alike pursued and slaughtered.
a sol-
Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as
dier and a general, some authors give him credit for grand and
beneficent views on the subject of imperial government, and for
## p. 6753 (#129) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6753
I
intentions highly favorable to the improvement of mankind.
see no ground for adopting this opinion. As far as we can vent-
ure to anticipate what would have been Alexander's future, we
see nothing in prospect except years of ever-repeated aggression
and conquest, not to be concluded until he had traversed and
subjugated all the inhabited globe. The acquisition of universal
dominion conceived not metaphorically but literally, and con-
ceived with greater facility in consequence of the imperfect geo-
graphical knowledge of the time-was the master passion of his
soul. At the moment of his death he was commencing fresh
aggression in the south against the Arabians, to an indefinite
extent; while his vast projects against the western tribes in
Africa and Europe, as far as the Pillars of Hêraklês, were con-
signed in the orders and memoranda confidentially communicated
to Kraterus. Italy, Gaul, and Spain would have been successively
attacked and conquered; the enterprises proposed to him when
in Baktria by the Chorasmian prince Pharasmanês, but postponed
then until a more convenient season, would have been next taken
up, and he would have marched from the Danube northward,
round the Euxine and Palus Mæotis, against the Scythians and
the tribes of Caucasus. There remained moreover the Asiatic
regions east of the Hyphasis, which his soldiers had refused to
enter upon, but which he certainly would have invaded at a
future opportunity, were it only to efface the poignant humilia-
tion of having been compelled to relinquish his proclaimed pur-
pose. Though this sounds like romance and hyperbole, it was
nothing more than the real insatiate aspiration of Alexander, who
looked upon every new acquisition mainly as a capital for acquir
ing more: "You are a man like all of us, Alexander" (said the
naked Indian to him), "except that you abandon your home like
a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions;
enduring hardship yourself and inflicting hardship upon others. "
Now, how an empire thus boundless and heterogeneous, such as
no prince has ever yet realized, could have been administered.
with any superior advantages to subjects, it would be difficult to
show. The mere task of acquiring and maintaining, of keeping
satraps and tribute gatherers in authority as well as in subordi-
nation, of suppressing resistances ever liable to recur in regions.
distant by months of march, would occupy the whole life of a
world-conqueror, without leaving any leisure for the improve-
ments suited to peace and stability, if we give him credit for
such purposes in theory.
XII-423
## p. 6754 (#130) ###########################################
6754
GEORGE GROTE
But even this last is more than can be granted. Alexander's
acts indicate that he desired nothing better than to take up the
traditions of the Persian empire: a tribute-levying and army-
levying system, under Macedonians in large proportion as his
instruments, yet partly also under the very same Persians who
had administered before, provided they submitted to him. It has
indeed been extolled among his merits that he was thus willing to
reappoint Persian grandees (putting their armed force, however,
under the command of a Macedonian officer), and to continue
native princes in their dominions, if they did willing homage
to him as tributary subordinates. But all this had been done
before him by the Persian kings, whose system it was to leave
the conquered princes undisturbed, subject only to the payment
of tribute, and to the obligation of furnishing a military contin-
gent when required. In like manner Alexander's Asiatic empire
would thus have been composed of an aggregate of satrapies
and dependent principalities, furnishing money and soldiers; in
other respects left to the discretion of local rule, with occasional
extreme inflictions of punishment, but no systematic examination
or control. Upon this, the condition of Asiatic empire in all
ages, Alexander would have grafted one special improvement:
the military organization of the empire, feeble under the Achæ-
menid princes, would have been greatly strengthened by his
genius and by the able officers formed in his school, both for
foreign aggression and for home control.
In respect of intelligence and combining genius, Alexander
was Hellenic to the full; in respect of disposition and purpose,
no one could be less Hellenic. The acts attesting his Oriental
violence of impulse, unmeasured self-will, and exaction of rever-
ence above the limits of humanity, have been already recounted.
To describe him as a son of Hellas, imbued with the political
maxims of Aristotle and bent on the systematic diffusion of
Hellenic culture for the improvement of mankind, is in my
judgment an estimate of his character contrary to the evidence.
Alexander is indeed said to have invited suggestions from Aris-
totle as to the best mode of colonizing; but his temper altered
so much after a few years of Asiatic conquest, that he came not
only to lose all deference for Aristotle's advice, but even to hate
him bitterly. Moreover, though the philosopher's full sugges-
tions have not been preserved, yet we are told generally that he
recommended Alexander to behave to the Greeks as a leader or
president, or limited chief, and to the Barbarians (non-Hellenes) as
## p. 6755 (#131) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6755
a master; a distinction substantially coinciding with that pointed
out by Burke in his speeches at the beginning of the American
war, between the principles of government proper to be followed
by England in the American colonies and in British India. No
Greek thinker believed the Asiatics to be capable of that free
civil polity upon which the march of every Grecian community
was based. Aristotle did not wish to degrade the Asiatics below
the level to which they had been accustomed, but rather to pre-
serve the Greeks from being degraded to the same level. Now,
Alexander recognized no such distinction as that drawn by his
preceptor. He treated Greeks and Asiatics alike, not by ele-
vating the latter but by degrading the former. Though he
employed all indiscriminately as instruments, yet he presently
found the free speech of Greeks, and even of Macedonians, so dis-
tasteful and offensive that his preferences turned more and more
in favor of the servile Asiatic sentiment and customs. Instead
of Hellenizing Asia, he was tending to Asiatize Macedonia and
Hellas. His temper and character, as modified by a few years of
conquest, rendered him quite unfit to follow the course recom-
mended by Aristotle towards the Greeks; quite as unfit as any
of the Persian kings, or as the French Emperor Napoleon, to
endure that partial frustration, compromise, and smart from free
criticism, which is inseparable from the position of a limited.
chief. Among a multitude of subjects more diverse-colored than
even the army of Xerxês, it is quite possible that he might have
turned his power towards the improvement of the rudest por-
tions. We are told (though the fact is difficult to credit, from
his want of time) that he abolished various barbarisms of the
Hyrkanians, Arachosians, and Sogdians. But Macedonians as
well as Greeks would have been pure losers by being absorbed
into an immense Asiatic aggregate.
This process of Hellenizing Asia,— in so far as Asia was ever
Hellenized, which has often been ascribed to Alexander, was
in reality the work of the Diadochi who came after him; though
his conquests doubtless opened the door and established the mili-
tary ascendency which rendered such a work practicable.
6733
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
(1785-1863) (1786-1859)
BY BENJAMIN W. WELLS
RIMM, JACOB LUDWIG CARL (1785-1863), and WILHELM CARL
(1786-1859), whose names are inseparably connected in the
history of German antiquities, philology, and literature, were
the oldest sons of a petty official then stationed at Hanau in Hesse-
Cassel. Their father died in 1796; but though poor, they were able
to study for the law at the University of Marburg, where Professor
Savigny gave them their first inspiration and directed their minds
to early German literature and institutions. After their graduation,
JACOB GRIMM
WILHELM GRIMM
Jacob occupied for a time subordinate civil and diplomatic positions,
and after 1816 both were connected with the Library at Cassel; which
they exchanged in 1828 for the University Library at Göttingen,
where Jacob also lectured, though without popular success, until they
were ejected from office for a manly protest (1837) against the broken.
pledges of the King of Hanover. "With no desire of applause, or
fear of blame when he had acted as he must," - words that show his
whole character, Jacob withdrew with his brother to Cassel, and
thence in 1840 to Berlin, where they had been appointed professors
and members of the Academy. Here they passed a life of tireless
investigation, interrupted only by Jacob's brief and not very happy
share in the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848.
Here they
## p. 6734 (#110) ###########################################
6734
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
died, and here they were buried, as they had lived, together. The
brothers had passed their whole lives in common labor, of which the
elder thus spoke in a memorial oration:—
"In the slow-gliding school years, one bed and one study held us. There
we sat working at the same table, and afterward in our student years two
beds and two tables stood in the same room; in later life, still two tables in
the same room; and at last, to the very end, two rooms beside one another,
always under one roof, in undisturbed and untroubled community of our
money, and books except for a few that each must have immediately at hand,
and which were therefore bought in duplicate; and so also our last beds will
be laid, it seems, close by one another. Let one consider, then, whether in
speaking of him I can avoid speaking of myself. » ((Minor Writings,' i. 166. )
The work may be treated as a unit, though Jacob's was the
most dominant spirit. He had an “iron industry," a clear vision, an
unfailing cheerfulness in labor. His style has a peculiar rugged ear-
nestness. It is not unpolished, but picturesque and full of a woodland
savor; while Wilhelm had a frailer constitution and a gentler nature,
that showed itself in the graceful naïveté of those legends and tales
to which he gave literary form.
The genius of their common studies was a noble patriotism. One
could say of both what Jacob said of himself, that nearly all their
labors were "directed to the investigation of early German language,
laws, and poetry"; labors which might seem useless to some, but
were to them "inseparably connected with the Fatherland, and cal-
culated to foster the love of it. " Again, he says, "I strove to pene-
trate into the wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble
language, watching their pure customs," recognizing their “ancient
freedom and their rational and hearty faith. "
These labors took the form of studies in early law (Rechtsalter-
thümer or Legal Antiquities: 1828), mythology (Deutsche Mytholo-
gie': 1835), legends (Sagen' or Legends: 1816; revised 1868), essays
on old German poetry (Altdeutscher Meistergesang': 1811), and
numerous editions of old German, Danish, Norse, and English texts.
Most important to the scientific world, however, were the 'Deutsche
Grammatik (1819, 1822-1840) and the still unfinished Dictionary,
perhaps the most vast undertaking of modern philologists. But mon-
umental as these works are, they belong only indirectly to literature.
nor is there much of general interest in the eight volumes of Jacob
Grimm's 'Minor Writings' (1864-1890). On the other hand, all the
world knows the brothers for their Household Tales' (1812-1815),
and often for these alone. They were meant for a contribution to
folk-lore, as may be seen from the volume of notes that accompany
them, of which the extracts that follow contain two specimens. But
in a single generation they became one of the most popular books of
## p. 6735 (#111) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6735
the world; they were translated into every civilized tongue, and may
be found to-day tattered and in a million nurseries, but never
outworn in the hearts of Nature's children. Artists like Walter Crane
have illustrated them, critics like Andrew Lang have introduced
them to English readers, noteworthy German scholars and critics-
Scherer, Curtius, Berndt-have bestowed on them the tribute of
learning. But perhaps no one has spoken better of them than Wil-
helm Grimm in his preface, a part of which is translated below; and
none has paid a nobler tribute to the fraternal love of their authors
than Jacob Grimm in the first volume of his 'Minor Writings. '
Banj 2. Walle
A WORD TO THE READER
From the Preface to the Household Tales'
WⓇ
E SOMETIMES find, when a whole cornfield has been beaten
down by a storm, that a little place has sheltered itself
by the low hedges or bushes, and a few ears remain
upright. Then, if the sun shines kindly again, they grow alone
and unnoticed. No early sickle cuts them for the great grana-
ries; but late in summer, when they are ripe and full, come poor
hands that glean them and carry them home, laid ear to ear,
bound carefully, and more highly treasured than whole sheaves;
and they are food all winter long, — perhaps also the only seed
for the future.
-
So it seemed to us, when we saw how nothing was left of so
much that had bloomed in old times; how even the memory of
it was almost lost, except among the people in songs, a few
books, legends, and these innocent Household Tales. The fire-
side, the hearth, the attic stairs, ancient holidays, mountain paths
and forests in their silence, but above all an untroubled fantasy,
have been the hedges that have guarded them and transmitted
them from one age to another.
It was high time to seize these tales, for their guardians grow
ever rarer. To be sure, those who know them usually know
## p. 6736 (#112) ###########################################
6736
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
many; for it is men who are dead to them, not they to men.
That which has given such manifold and repeated joy and
emotion and instruction bears in it its own excuse for being,
and has surely come from that eternal spring that bedews all
life; and though it were only a single drop that has caught on
a little crumpled leaf, yet it sparkles in the first blush of dawn.
Hence it is, that all these fancies are pervaded with that
purity by which children seem to us so wonderful and blessed.
They have the same blue-white, immaculate, bright eyes.
And so by our collection we thought to serve not only the study
of poetry and mythology, but also to let the poetry itself that
palpitates in it touch and delight whomsoever it can delight, so
that it may serve also as a book of education. For this we
seek not such purity as is obtained by an anxious exclusion of
all that bears on certain conditions and relations, such as occur
daily and cannot possibly be hidden, which also produces the
deception that what is possible in a book can be practiced in real
life. We seek purity in the truth of a straightforward narra-
tion.
Nothing defends us better than Nature herself,
who has let these plants grow in just this color and form. He
whose special needs they may not suit has no right to ask that
they should be differently cut and colored. Or again: rain and
dew fall to benefit all that grows; if any one does not dare to
put his plants under the rain and dew because they are too
delicate and might be hurt, if he prefers to give them lukewarm
water in the house, yet he must not demand tha there shall be
no rain and dew. All that is natural may be helpful, and it is at
this that we ought to aim.
We have been collecting these stories from oral tradition for
about thirteen years. If one is accustomed to heed such things,
one has more chances than one would suppose.
. But it
was a piece of special good fortune that we made the acquaint-
ance of a peasant woman of Niederzwehrn, a village near Cassel,
who told us most of the tales in the second volume, and the most
beautiful of these. Frau Viehmännin was still active, and not
much over fifty years old. Her features were firm, sensible, and
agreeable, and she cast clear keen glances from her great eyes.
She remembered the old stories exactly, and said herself that
this gift was not granted to all, and that many a one could keep
nothing in its proper connection. She told her stories deliber-
ately, confidently, with much life and self-satisfaction: first, quite
## p. 6737 (#113) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6737
naturally; then, if you wished, slowly, so that with a little prac-
tice you could take them down. A good deal has been preserved.
verbally in this way, and will be unmistakable in its truth to
nature. One who believes in the easy alteration of tradition, in
negligence in guarding it, and hence as a rule in the impossi-
bility of its long continuance, should have heard how exact she
always was in her story, and how eager for its accuracy. In
repeating she never changed anything in the substance, and cor-
rected an oversight as soon as she observed it, while she was
speaking.
As for the way in which we have collected, our first care
was for faithfulness and truth. So we have added nothing of
our own, have embellished no circumstance or trait in the story,
but have rendered its contents just as we received it. That the
style and development of detail are largely ours is a matter of
course; but we have tried to preserve every peculiarity that we
noticed, so as to leave in our collection, in this regard also, the
endless variety of nature.
In this sense there is, so far as we know, no collection of
legends in Germany. Either a few, preserved by chance, have
been printed, or they are looked at as raw material from which
to form longer stories. Against such treatment we declare our-
selves absolutely. The practiced hand in such reconstructions is
like that unhappily gifted hand that turned all it touched, even
meat and drink, to gold, and cannot for all its wealth still our
hunger or quench our thirst. For when mythology with all its
pictures is to be conjured out of mere imagination, how bare,
how empty, how formless does all seem, in spite of the best and
strongest words! However, this is said only of such so-called
reconstructions as pretend to beautify and poetize the legends,
not toward a free appropriation of them for modern and individ-
ual purposes; for who would seek to set limits to poetry?
We commit these tales to gracious hands, and think the
while of the kindly power that lies in them, and wish that our
book may be forever hidden from those who grudge these crumbs
of poetry to the poor and simple.
CASSEL, July 3d, 1819.
XII-422
## p. 6738 (#114) ###########################################
6738
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
LITTLE BRIAR-ROSE
From Household Tales >
L
ONG ago there was a king and a queen. They said every day,
<< Oh, if we only had a child! " and still they never got one.
Then it happened when once the queen was bathing, that a
frog crept ashore out of the water, and said to her, "Your wish
shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes you shall bring a daugh-
ter into the world. "
What the frog said, happened, and the queen had a little girl
that was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for
joy, and made a great feast. He invited not only his relatives,
friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, that they
might be gracious and kind to the child. Now, there were thir-
teen of them in his kingdom; but because he had only twelve
gold plates for them to eat from, one of them had to stay at
home. The feast was splendidly celebrated, and when it was over
the wise women gave the child their wonderful gifts.
One gave
her virtue, another beauty, another wealth, and so with everything
that people want in the world. But when eleven had spoken,
suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself,
because she had not been asked; and without greeting or looking
at any one, she cried out, "In her fifteenth year the king's
daughter shall wound herself on a spindle, and fall down dead. "
And without saying another word, she turned around and left
the hall. All were frightened. When the twelfth came up, who
had her wish still to give, since she could not remove the sen-
tence but only soften it, she said: "Yet it shall not be a real
death, but only a hundred years' deep sleep, into which the king's
daughter shall fall. ”
The king, who wanted to save his dear child from harm, sent
out an order that all the spindles in the kingdom should be
burned. But in the girl the gifts of the wise women were all
fulfilled; for she was so beautiful, good, kind, and sensible, that
nobody who saw her could help loving her. It happened that just
on the day when she was fifteen years old the king and queen
were not at home, and the little girl was left quite alone in the
castle. Then she went wherever she pleased, looked in the
rooms and chambers, and at last she got to an old tower. She
went up the narrow winding stairs, and came to a little door.
## p. 6739 (#115) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6739
In the keyhole was a rusty key, and when she turned it the
door sprang open, and there in a little room sat an old woman
with a spindle, and spun busily her flax. "Good-day, Aunty,"
said the king's daughter: "what are you doing there? "
"I am
spinning," said the old woman, and nodded. "What sort of a
thing is that that jumps about so gayly? " said the girl. She took
the spindle and wanted to spin too. But she had hardly touched
the spindle before the spell was fulfilled, and she pricked her
finger with it.
At the instant she felt the prick she fell down on the bed
that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep spread
over all the castle. The king and queen, who had just come
home and entered the hall, began to go to sleep, and all the
courtiers with them. The horses went to sleep in the stalls, the
dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall,
yes, the fire that was flickering on the hearth grew still and went
to sleep. And the roast meat stopped sputtering, and the cook,
who was going to take the cook-boy by the hair because he had
forgotten something, let him go and slept. And the wind was
still, and no leaf stirred in the trees by the castle.
But all around the castle a hedge of briars grew, that got
higher every year and at last surrounded the whole castle and
grew up over it, so that nothing more could be seen of it, not
even the flag on the roof. But the story went about in the
country of the beautiful sleeping Briar-Rose (for so the king's
daughter was called); so that from time to time kings' sons came
and tried to get through the hedge into the castle.
But they
could not; for the briars, as though they had hands, clung fast
together, and the young men, stuck fast in them, could not get
out again, and died a wretched death. After long, long years,
there came again a king's son to that country, and heard how
an old man told about the briar hedge; that there was a castle
behind it, in which a wonderfully beautiful king's daughter called
Briar-Rose had been sleeping for a hundred years, and that the
king and the queen and all the court were sleeping with her.
He knew too from his grandfather that many kings' sons had
already come and tried to get through the briar hedge, but had all
been caught in it and died a sad death. Then the young man
said, "I am not afraid. I will go and see the beautiful Briar-
Rose. " The good old man might warn him as much as he
pleased: he did not listen to his words.
## p. 6740 (#116) ###########################################
6740
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
But now the hundred years were just passed, and the day was
come when Briar-Rose was to wake gain. So when the king's
son went up to the briars, they were just great beautiful flowers
that opened of their own accord and let him through unhurt;
and behind him they closed together as a hedge again. In the
yard he saw the horses and the mottled hounds lying and sleep-
ing; on the roof perched the doves, their heads stuck under their
wings; and when he came into the house the flies were sleeping
on the wall, in the kitchen the cook still held up his hand as
though to grab the boy, and the maid was sitting before the black
hen that was to be plucked. Then he went further, and in the
hall he saw all the courtiers lying and sleeping, and upon their
throne lay the king and the queen. Then he went further, and
all was so still that you could hear yourself breathe; and at last
he came to the tower and opened the door of the little room
where Briar-Rose was sleeping. There she lay, and she was so
beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her; and he bent
down and gave her a kiss. But just as he touched her with the
kiss, Briar-Rose opened her eyes, awoke, and looked at him very
kindly. Then they went down-stairs together; and the king
awoke, and the queen, and all the courtiers, and made great eyes
at one another. And the horses in the yard got up and shook
themselves, the hounds sprang about and wagged their tails, the
doves on the roof pulled out their heads from under their wings,
looked around and flew into the field, the flies on the wall went
on crawling, the fire in the kitchen started up and blazed and
cooked the dinner, the roast began to sputter again, and the cook
gave the boy such a box on the ear that he screamed, and the
maid finished plucking the hen. Then the wedding of the king's
son with Briar-Rose was splendidly celebrated, and they lived
happy till their lives' end.
NOTE BY THE GRIMMS. - From Hesse. The maid who sleeps in the
castle, surrounded by a hedge until the right prince releases her, be-
fore whom the flowers part, is the sleeping Brunhild, according to the
old Norse saga, whom a wall of flame surrounds which Sigurd alone
can penetrate to wake her. The spindle on which she pricks herself,
and from which she falls asleep, is the slumber thorn with which
Odin pricks Brunhiid. In the Pentameron it is a flax-root. In Per-
rault, La Belle au Bois Dormant. ' Similar is the sleep of "Schnee-
witchen. " The Italian and French stories both have the conclusion
that is wanting in the German, but occurs in our fragment 'Of the
## p. 6741 (#117) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6741
Wicked Stepmother. ' It is noteworthy that in the important devia-
tions of Perrault from Basile (who alone preserves the pretty trait
that the nursling sucks the bit of flax from the finger of the sleeping
mother), both agree so far as to the names of the children that the
twins in the Pentameron are called Sun and Moon; in Perrault, Day
and Dawn. These names recall the compounds of Day, Sun, and
Moon, in the genealogy of the 'Edda. '
THE THREE SPINNERS
From the Household Tales'
T"
HERE was a lazy girl who would not spin; and her mother
might say what she would, she could not make her do it.
At last anger and impatience overcame the mother so that
she struck the girl, and at that she began to cry aloud. Now,
the queen was just driving by, and when she heard the crying.
she had the carriage stop, went into the house, and asked the
mother why she beat her daughter so that one could hear the
crying out on the street? Then the woman was ashamed to con-
fess the laziness of her daughter, and said, "I cannot keep her
from spinning. She wants to spin all the time, and I am poor
and can't get the flax. " Then the queen answered, "There is
nothing I like to hear so much as spinning, and I am never
happier than when the wheels hum. Let me take your daughter
to the castle. I have flax enough. There she shall spin as much
as she will. "
The mother was well pleased at it, and the queen took the
girl with her. When they came to the castle she took her up to
three rooms, which lay from top to bottom full of the finest
flax. "Now spin me this flax," said she; "and if you finish it
you shall have my eldest son for a husband. Though you are
poor, I don't mind that: your cheerful diligence is dowry enough. "
The girl was secretly frightened; for she could not have spun
the flax if she had lived three hundred years, and had sat at it
every day from morning till evening. When she was alone she
began to cry, and sat so three days without lifting a hand. On
the third day the queen came, and when she saw that nothing
was spun yet she was surprised; but the girl excused herself by
saying that she had not been able to begin on account of her
great sorrow at leaving her mother's house. The queen was
## p. 6742 (#118) ###########################################
6742
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
satisfied with that, but she said as she went away, "To-morrow
you must begin to work. "
When the girl was alone again she did not know what to
think or to do; and in her trouble she went up to the window,
and there she saw three women coming along. The first had a
broad paddle-foot, the second had such a big under-lip that it
hung down over her chin, and the third had a broad thumb.
They stopped before the window, looked up, and asked the girl
what was the matter. She told them her trouble. Then they
offered her their help and said, "If you will invite us to your
wedding, not be ashamed of us, and call us your cousins, and
seat us at your table too, then we will spin your flax up, and
that quickly. " "Gladly," said she: "come in and set to work im-
mediately. " So she let the three queer women in, and cleared
a little space in the first room, where they could sit down and
begin their spinning. One of them drew the thread and trod the
wheel, the second wet the thread, the third twisted it and struck
with her finger on the table; and as often as she struck, a skein
of yarn fell to the floor, and it was of the finest. She hid the
three spinners from the queen, and showed her as often as she
came the pile of spun yarn, so that the queen could not praise
her enough. When the first room was empty, they began on the
second, and then on the third, and that was soon cleared up too.
Now the three women took their leave, and said to the girl, "Do
not forget what you promised us. It will be your good fortune. "
When the girl showed the queen the empty rooms and the
great heap of yarn, she prepared for the wedding; and the bride-
groom was delighted to get such a clever and industrious wife,
and praised her very much. "I have three cousins," said the
girl; "and since they have been very kind to me, I should not
like to forget them in my happiness. Permit me to invite them
to the wedding and to have them sit with me at the table. " The
queen and the bridegroom said, "Why should not we permit it? "
Now when the feast began, the three women came in queer
dress, and the bride said, "Welcome, dear cousins. " "Oh! " said
the bridegroom: "how did you get such ill-favored friends? "
Then he went to the one with the broad paddle-foot and asked,
"Where did you get such a broad foot? " "From the treadle,"
she answered, "from the treadle. " Then the bridegroom went to
the second and said, "Where did you get that hanging lip? "
"From wetting yarn," she answered, "from wetting yarn. "
## p. 6743 (#119) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6743
he asked the third, "Where did you get the broad thumb? "
"From twisting thread," she answered, "from twisting thread. "
Then the king's son was frightened and said, "Then my fair
bride shall never, never touch a spinning-wheel again. "
so she was rid of the horrid spinning.
And
NOTE BY THE GRIMMS. - From a tale from the duchy of Corvei; but
that there are three women, each with a peculiar fault due to spin-
ning, is taken from a Hessian story. In the former they are two
very old women, who have grown so broad by sitting that they can.
hardly get into the room; from wetting the thread they had thick
lips; and from pulling and drawing it, ugly fingers and broad thumbs.
The Hessian story begins differently, too; namely, that a king liked
nothing better than spinning, and so, at his farewell before a jour-
ney, left his daughters a great chest of flax that was to be spun on
his return. To relieve them, the queen invited the three deformed
women and put them before the king's eyes on his return. Prätorius
in his 'Glückstopf' (pp. 404-406) tells the story thus: A mother can-
not ake her daughter spin, and so often beats her. A man who
happens to see it, asks what it means. The mother answers, "I can-
not keep her from spinning. She spins more flax than I can buy. "
The man answers, "Then give her to me for wife. I shall be satis-
fied with her cheerful diligence, though she brings no dowry. " The
mother is delighted, and the bridegroom brings the bride immediately
a great provision of flax.
She is secretly frightened, but accepts it,
puts it in her room, and considers what she shall do. Then three
women come to the window, one so broad from sitting that she can-
not get in at the door, the second with an immense nose, the third
with a broad thumb. They offer their services and promise to spin
the task, if the bride on her wedding day will not be ashamed of
them, will proclaim them her cousins and set them at her table. She
consents; they spin up the flax, and the lover praises his betrothed.
When now the wedding day comes, the three horrid women present
themselves. The bride does them honor, and calls them cousins.
The bridegroom is surprised, and asks how she comes by such ill-
favored friends. "Oh! " said the bride, "it's by spinning that they
have become so deformed. One has such a broad back from sitting,
the second has licked her mouth quite off,- therefore her nose stands
out so, and the third has twisted thread so much with her thumb. "
Then the bridegroom was troubled, and said to the bride she should
never spin another thread as long as she lived, that she might not
become such a monstrosity.
A third tale from the Oberlansitz,' by Th. Pescheck, is in Büsch-
ing's Weekly News. It agrees in general with Prätorius. One of the
## p. 6744 (#120) ###########################################
6744
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
three old women has sore eyes because the impurities of the flax have
got into them, the second has a mouth from ear to ear on account of
wetting thread, the third is fat and clumsy by much sitting at the
spinning-wheel. A part of the story is in Norwegian in Asbjörnsen,
and in Swedish in Cavallius. Mademoiselle L'Heretier's 'Ricdin-
Ricdon' agrees in the introduction, and the sette colenelle of the Pen-
tameron is also connected with this tale.
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
From the Preface to the Deutsche Grammatik'
T HAS cost me no long hesitation to prune back to the stock
the first shoots of my granaries. A second growth, firmer
and finer, has quickly followed; perhaps one may hope for
flowers and ripening fruit. With joy I give to the public this
work, now become more worthy of its attention, that I have care-
fully tended and brought to this end amid cares and privations,
in which labor was sometimes a drudgery, and sometimes, and
by God's goodness oftener, my comfort.
The fruitfulness of the field is of such a nature that it never
fails; and no leaf from the sources can be re-examined that does
not arouse by a more distant prospect or make one repent of
past errors. If now a rich booty should win me less praise than
a many-sided, careful, economical administration of a smaller
treasure, the blame may fall on me, that I have not known how
to draw from all the principles I have discovered the uses of
which they were capable, and even that important observations.
sometimes stand in obscure places. Not all my assertions will
stand; but by the discoveries of their weakness other paths will
be opened, through which will break at last the truth: the only
goal of honest labor, and the only thing that lasts when men
have ceased to care for the names of like aspirants. What was
hardest for us may be child's-play to posterity, hardly worth
speaking of. Then truth will yield herself to new solutions of
which we had yet no hint, and will struggle with obstacles where
we thought all made plain.
## p. 6745 (#121) ###########################################
6745
GEORGE GROTE
(1794-1871)
T IS a coincidence so striking as almost to put the English
university system itself on the defensive, that neither Grote
nor Gibbon owed anything to academic training. Gibbon
indeed spent fourteen months at Oxford: -"the most idle and unprof-
itable of my whole life. " George Grote, the son of a London banker,
ended his school days at sixteen, when he left the Charterhouse. He
had been grounded in Latin by a devoted mother at five years, how-
ever, and he took with him to the bank little or no mathematics, and
an enthusiastic love for metaphysics, clas-
sical literature, and history, which proved
to be lifelong. From 1810 to 1820, under his
father's roof, he devoted his early mornings
and evenings to study. His most important
older friends were the political economists
James Mill, Ricardo, and Bentham; but they
did not divert him from his historical inter-
ests. Even during his long engagement, he
guided by letter the education and reading
of his future wife, with a constant view to
his own far-reaching plans for study and
creative work.
GEORGE GROTE
With Grote's marriage to the brilliant and
devoted Harriet Lewin, in 1820, began a
happier epoch. He had now his own home and a moderate income.
Mrs. Grote drew him somewhat into society, travel, and a widened
circle of friendship on the Continent as well as in London. These
digressions only aided what would else have been too bookish and
secluded a development. Mrs. Grote, however, was mistaken in her
recollection that she herself first, in the autumn of 1823, suggested
the subject of his chief life work: at least a year previous, the plan
for the great History of Greece' had been formed. In 1830 his
father's death left Mr. Grote abundant wealth; nevertheless, the dec-
ade 1831-1841, which was spent in active political work as the leader
in Parliament of the group known as philosophic radicals, did indeed
reduce his systematic and untiring studies to mere desultory read-
ing, and seemingly endangered his literary career. Yet even this
## p. 6746 (#122) ###########################################
6746
GEORGE GROTE
experience, as he himself declares, was of indispensable use to him
in comprehending the fiercer democratic politics of ancient Athens.
Returning early in 1842 from a brief stay in Italy, and severing
altogether his relations with the bank the next year, he now first, in
his fiftieth year, devoted his whole strength to his appointed task.
His powerful review of Mitford's 'Greece' in 1843 prepared the way
for the enthusiastic welcome accorded in 1845 to the first two volumes
of his 'History of Greece. ' The twelfth and closing volume did not
appear until 1856.
Some adequate outlines of his life and character are essential to
any fair appreciation of Mr. Grote's chief work. Indefatigable as
a student, a fearless lover of truth, widely familiar with men and
affairs, a wise philanthropist and a far-sighted reformer, Mr. Grote's
noble personality gives weight to his every sentence, as an athlete's
whole frame and training goes into each blow he strikes. It seems a
trifling criticism upon such a man, to say he was not a literary artist.
This is true, indeed, as to his choice of idiom and phrase. He has
not that "curious felicity" which makes us linger lovingly over the
very words in which a Plato, a Montaigne, a Burke casts his thought.
Even in the delineation of a great scene, like the defeat at Syracuse
or the downfall of Athens, he is rarely picturesque. He does not
appeal indeed to the youthful imagination, but to the mature judg-
ment. We can well imagine that this calm, even-toned, judicious
voice made itself heard effectively in the debates of the English Com-
mons.
Of course no one man can ever write an ideal history of that
unique, creative, many-sided Hellenic race; but the work of Mr. Grote
is still, a half-century after its creation, indispensable as an account
of political institutions among the Greeks. Even here the thousands
of newly discovered inscriptions, the fortunate reappearance of Aris-
totle's treatise on the Athenian Constitution, and the ceaseless march
of special investigation, make desirable some fresh annotation upon
almost every page. The familiarity with Greek lands and folk which
gives a charm to Professor Curtius's work is missing from Mr. Grote's.
Still more do we miss any warm enthusiasm for Hellenic art, which
was so indispensable an element in their life. Even their literature
is to him less a beautiful organism quivering with life than a source
for more or less accurate information. In this and in many other
respects he is curiously like the Athenian student of history and of
truth, Thucydides, who could write, in the day of Phidias and Sopho-
cles, as if he had never heard of a myth or a statue. It is true
also that Grote is always an English liberal, finding in every page
of history fresh reason for hope and trust in modern democracy.
This indeed we do not regard as adverse criticism at all. If a man
## p. 6747 (#123) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6747
be not actually blinded to truth by narrow prejudices, the more
cordially his own convictions color his writings the greater will be
their value and vitality. Posterity will bring more and more human
experience to the interpretation of the remote past. They may yet
understand Periclean Athens, out of their own similar life, infinitely
better than our century could do. Like Chapman's or Pope's Homer,
Grote's Greece may yet have a value of its own, quite apart from the
question of its truthfulness to Hellenic antiquity, as a monument of
Victorian England. To us however it is still the largest, truest,
most adequate general picture yet drawn of Hellas from the days of
Homer to the time of Alexander.
Hardly less intense was Mr. Grote's interest in the Greek philoso-
phy. The chapters on Socrates and on the Sophists are perhaps the
ablest and the most original in the history. Moreover, as soon as
that great work was completed, he began the series of treatises on
the philosophic schools which was an indispensable portion of his
task. The three volumes on 'Plato and his Companions,' however,
did not appear until 1865; and of the great projected work on Aris-
totle, only a small segment took shape before death overtook the
noble, generous old scholar. His wife long survived him, and her
'Personal Life of George Grote,' despite numerous minor lapses of
memory, is one of the most valuable books in its class.
The important article on Mr. Grote in the 'Dictionary of National
Biography,' by Professor Robertson, is based in part on intimate per-
sonal acquaintance. Mr. Grote's minor works are all mentioned there.
Least known of all to the general public is a small volume of poems.
These were printed privately by his widow in 1872, and were chiefly
written during his courtship, which was unduly prolonged and embit-
tered by parental opposition. We intentionally reserve for a final
detail this especially appealing human experience of the statesman,
metaphysician, and historian.
THE DEATH, CHARACTER, AND WORK OF ALEXANDER THE
GREAT
From A History of Greece'
THE
HE intense sorrow felt by Alexander for the death of Hephæs-
tion-not merely an attached friend, but of the same age
and exuberant vigor as himself-laid his mind open to
gloomy forebodings from numerous omens, as well as to jealous.
mistrust even of his oldest officers. Antipater especially, no
longer protected against the calumnies of Olympias by the sup-
port of Hephæstion, fell more and more into discredit; whilst his
## p. 6748 (#124) ###########################################
6748
GEORGE GROTE
son Kassander, who had recently come into Asia with a Mace-
donian reinforcement, underwent from Alexander during irasci-
ble moments much insulting violence. In spite of the dissuasive
warning of the Chaldean priests, Alexander had been persuaded
to distrust their sincerity and had entered Babylon, though not
without hesitation and uneasiness. However, when after having
entered the town he went out of it again safely on his expedition
for the survey of the lower Euphrates, he conceived himself to
have exposed them as deceitful alarmists, and returned to the
city with increased confidence for the obsequies of his deceased
friend.
The sacrifices connected with these obsequies were
on the
most prodigious scale. Victims enough were offered to furnish a
feast for the army, who also received ample distributions of wine.
Alexander presided in person at the feast, and abandoned himself
to conviviality like the rest. Already full of wine, he was per-
suaded by his friend Medius to sup with him, and to pass the
whole night in yet further drinking, with the boisterous indul-
gence called by the Greeks Kômus or Revelry. Having slept off
his intoxication during the next day, he in the evening again
supped with Medius, and spent the second night in the like
unmeasured indulgence. It appears that he already had the seeds
of a fever upon him, which was so fatally aggravated by this
intemperance that he was too ill to return to his palace. He
took the bath, and slept in the house of Medius; on the next
morning he was unable to rise. After having been carried out
on a couch to celebrate sacrifice (which was his daily habit), he
was obliged to lie in bed all day. Nevertheless he summoned
the generals to his presence, prescribing all the details of the
impending expedition, and ordering that the land force should
begin its march on the fourth day following, while the fleet, with
himself aboard, would sail on the fifth day. In the evening he
was carried on a couch across the Euphrates into a garden on
the other side, where he bathed and rested for the night. The
fever still continued, so that in the morning, after bathing and
being carried out to perform the sacrifices, he remained on his
couch all day, talking and playing at dice with Medius; in the
evening he bathed, sacrificed again, and ate a light supper, but
endured a bad night with increased fever. The next two days
passed in the same manner, the fever becoming worse and worse;
nevertheless Alexander still summoned Nearchus to his bedside,
## p. 6749 (#125) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6749
discussed with him many points about his maritime projects, and
repeated his order that the fleet should be ready by the third
day. On the ensuing morning the fever was violent; Alexander
reposed all day in a bathing-house in the garden, yet still calling
in the generals to direct the filling up of vacancies among the
officers, and ordering that the armament should be ready to move.
Throughout the two next days his malady became hourly more
aggravated. On the second of the two, Alexander could with
difficulty support the being lifted out of bed to perform the sac-
rifice; even then, however, he continued to give orders to the
generals about the expedition. On the morrow, though desper-
ately ill, he still made the effort requisite for performing the
sacrifice; he was then carried across from the garden-house to
the palace, giving orders that the generals and officers should
remain in permanent attendance in and near the hall. He caused
some of them to be called to his bedside; but though he knew
them perfectly, he had by this time become incapable of utter-
ance. One of his last words spoken is said to have been, on
being asked to whom he bequeathed his kingdom, "To the
strongest;" one of his last acts was to take the signet ring from
his finger, and hand it to Perdikkas.
For two nights and a day he continued in this state, without
either amendment or repose. Meanwhile the news of his mal-
ady had spread through the army, filling them with grief and
consternation. Many of the soldiers, eager to see him once more,
forced their way into the palace and were admitted unarmed.
They passed along by the bedside, with all the demonstrations of
affliction and sympathy; Alexander knew them, and made show
of friendly recognition as well as he could, but was unable to
say a word.
Several of the generals slept in the temple of
Serapis, hoping to be informed by the god in a dream whether
they ought to bring Alexander into it as a suppliant to expe-
rience the divine healing power. The god informed them in
their dream that Alexander ought not to be brought into the tem-
ple; that it would be better for him to be left where he was. In
the afternoon he expired,- June, 323 B. C. ,—after a life of thirty-
two years and eight months, and a reign of twelve years and
eight months.
The death of Alexander, thus suddenly cut off by a fever
in the plenitude of health, vigor, and aspirations, was an event
impressive as well as important in the highest possible degree, to
## p. 6750 (#126) ###########################################
6750
GEORGE GROTE
his contemporaries far and near. When the first report of it was
brought to Athens, the orator Demadês exclaimed, "It cannot be
true: if Alexander were dead, the whole habitable world would
have smelt of his carcass. " This coarse but emphatic comparison.
illustrates the immediate, powerful, and wide-reaching impression
produced by the sudden extinction of the great conqueror. It
was felt by each of the many remote envoys who had so re-
cently come to propitiate this far-shooting Apollo, by every man
among the nations who had sent these envoys, throughout
Europe, Asia, and Africa, as then known,- to affect either his
actual condition or his probable future. The first growth and
development of Macedonia, during the twenty-two years preced-
ing the battle of Chæroneia, from an embarrassed secondary State
into the first of all known powers, had excited the astonishment
of contemporaries and admiration for Philip's organizing genius.
But the achievements of Alexander during his twelve years of
reign, throwing Philip into the shade, had been on a scale so
much grander and vaster, and so completely without serious re-
verse or even interruption, as to transcend the measure not only
of human expectation, but almost of human belief. The Great
King (as the King of Persia was called by excellence) was and
had long been the type of worldly power and felicity, even down
to the time when Alexander crossed the Hellespont. Within four
years and three months from this event, by one stupendous
defeat after another, Darius had lost all his western empire, and
had become a fugitive eastward of the Caspian Gates, escaping
captivity at the hands of Alexander only to perish by those of
the satrap Bessus. All antecedent historical parallels - the ruin
and captivity of the Lydian Croesus, the expulsion and mean life
of the Syracusan Dionysius, both of them impressive examples
of the mutability of human condition-sank into trifles compared
with the overthrow of this towering Persian Colossus. The orator
Æschinês expressed the genuine sentiment of a Grecian specta-
tor when he exclaimed (in a speech delivered at Athens shortly
before the death of Darius):-"What is there among the list
of strange and unexpected events that has not occurred in our
time? Our lives have transcended the limits of humanity; we
are born to serve as a theme for incredible tales to posterity.
Is not the Persian King, who dug through Athos and bridged
the Hellespont, who demanded earth and water from the Greeks,
who dared to proclaim himself in public epistles master of all
―
## p. 6751 (#127) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6751
mankind from the rising to the setting sun,-is not he now
struggling to the last, not for dominion over others but for the
safety of his own person? "
Such were the sentiments excited by Alexander's career,
even in the middle of 330 B. C. , more than seven years before his
death. During the following seven years his additional achieve-
ments had carried astonishment yet farther. He had mastered,
in defiance of fatigue, hardship, and combat, not merely all the
eastern half of the Persian empire, but unknown Indian regions
beyond its easternmost limits. Besides Macedonia, Greece, and
Thrace, he possessed all that immense treasure and military force
which had once rendered the Great King so formidable. By no
contemporary man had any such power ever been known or con-
ceived. With the turn of imagination then prevalent, many were
doubtless disposed to take him for a god on earth, as Grecian
spectators had once supposed with regard to Xerxês when they
beheld the innumerable Persian host crossing the Hellespont.
Exalted to this prodigious grandeur, Alexander was at the
time of his death little more than thirty-two years old—the age
at which a citizen of Athens was growing into important com-
mands; ten years less than the age for a consul at Rome; two
years younger than the age at which Timour first acquired the
crown and began his foreign conquests. His extraordinary bodily
powers were unabated; he had acquired a large stock of military
experience; and what was still more important, his appetite for
further conquest was as voracious, and his readiness to purchase
it at the largest cost of toil or danger as complete, as it had
been when he first crossed the Hellespont. Great as his past
career had been, his future achievements, with such increased
means and experience, were likely to be yet greater. His ambi-
tion would have been satisfied with nothing less than the con-
quest of the whole habitable world as then known; and if his
life had been prolonged, he would probably have accomplished it.
Nowhere (so far as our knowledge reaches) did there reside any
military power capable of making head against him; nor were
his soldiers, when he commanded them, daunted or baffled by
any extremity of cold, heat, or fatigue. The patriotic feelings of
Livy disposed him to maintain that Alexander, had he invaded
Italy and assailed Romans or Samnites, would have failed and
perished like his relative Alexander of Epirus. But this conclus-
ion cannot be accepted. If we grant the courage and discipline
of the Roman infantry to have been equal to the best infantry
## p. 6752 (#128) ###########################################
6752
GEORGE GROTE
of Alexander's army, the same cannot be said of the Roman
cavalry as compared with the Macedonian Companions. Still less
is it likely that a Roman consul, annually changed, would have
been found a match for Alexander in military genius and com-
binations; nor, even if personally equal, would he have pos-
sessed the same variety of troops and arms, - each effective in
its separate way and all conspiring to one common purpose,
nor the same unbounded influence over their minds in stimulat-
ing them to full effort. I do not think that even the Romans
could have successfully resisted Alexander the Great; though it
is certain that he never throughout all his long marches encoun-
tered such enemies as they, nor even such as Samnites and
Lucanians-combining courage, patriotism, discipline, with effect-
ive arms both for defense and for close combat.
Among all the qualities which go to constitute the highest
military excellence either as a general or as a soldier, none was
wanting in the character of Alexander. Together with his own
chivalrous courage,—sometimes indeed both excessive and un-
seasonable, so as to form the only military defect which can be
fairly imputed to him,- we trace in all his operations the most
careful dispositions taken beforehand, vigilant precaution in
guarding against possible reverse, and abundant resource in
adapting himself to new contingencies. Amidst constant success,
these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. His
achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific
military organization on a large scale, and of its overwhelming
effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any
other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all
that constitutes effective force, as an individual warrior, and
as organizer and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind
impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Arês, but also the intelligent,
methodized, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in
Athênê. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against
enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind,
known and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him.
In his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we
perceive that not only those who stand on their defense, but also
those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are
alike pursued and slaughtered.
a sol-
Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as
dier and a general, some authors give him credit for grand and
beneficent views on the subject of imperial government, and for
## p. 6753 (#129) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6753
I
intentions highly favorable to the improvement of mankind.
see no ground for adopting this opinion. As far as we can vent-
ure to anticipate what would have been Alexander's future, we
see nothing in prospect except years of ever-repeated aggression
and conquest, not to be concluded until he had traversed and
subjugated all the inhabited globe. The acquisition of universal
dominion conceived not metaphorically but literally, and con-
ceived with greater facility in consequence of the imperfect geo-
graphical knowledge of the time-was the master passion of his
soul. At the moment of his death he was commencing fresh
aggression in the south against the Arabians, to an indefinite
extent; while his vast projects against the western tribes in
Africa and Europe, as far as the Pillars of Hêraklês, were con-
signed in the orders and memoranda confidentially communicated
to Kraterus. Italy, Gaul, and Spain would have been successively
attacked and conquered; the enterprises proposed to him when
in Baktria by the Chorasmian prince Pharasmanês, but postponed
then until a more convenient season, would have been next taken
up, and he would have marched from the Danube northward,
round the Euxine and Palus Mæotis, against the Scythians and
the tribes of Caucasus. There remained moreover the Asiatic
regions east of the Hyphasis, which his soldiers had refused to
enter upon, but which he certainly would have invaded at a
future opportunity, were it only to efface the poignant humilia-
tion of having been compelled to relinquish his proclaimed pur-
pose. Though this sounds like romance and hyperbole, it was
nothing more than the real insatiate aspiration of Alexander, who
looked upon every new acquisition mainly as a capital for acquir
ing more: "You are a man like all of us, Alexander" (said the
naked Indian to him), "except that you abandon your home like
a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions;
enduring hardship yourself and inflicting hardship upon others. "
Now, how an empire thus boundless and heterogeneous, such as
no prince has ever yet realized, could have been administered.
with any superior advantages to subjects, it would be difficult to
show. The mere task of acquiring and maintaining, of keeping
satraps and tribute gatherers in authority as well as in subordi-
nation, of suppressing resistances ever liable to recur in regions.
distant by months of march, would occupy the whole life of a
world-conqueror, without leaving any leisure for the improve-
ments suited to peace and stability, if we give him credit for
such purposes in theory.
XII-423
## p. 6754 (#130) ###########################################
6754
GEORGE GROTE
But even this last is more than can be granted. Alexander's
acts indicate that he desired nothing better than to take up the
traditions of the Persian empire: a tribute-levying and army-
levying system, under Macedonians in large proportion as his
instruments, yet partly also under the very same Persians who
had administered before, provided they submitted to him. It has
indeed been extolled among his merits that he was thus willing to
reappoint Persian grandees (putting their armed force, however,
under the command of a Macedonian officer), and to continue
native princes in their dominions, if they did willing homage
to him as tributary subordinates. But all this had been done
before him by the Persian kings, whose system it was to leave
the conquered princes undisturbed, subject only to the payment
of tribute, and to the obligation of furnishing a military contin-
gent when required. In like manner Alexander's Asiatic empire
would thus have been composed of an aggregate of satrapies
and dependent principalities, furnishing money and soldiers; in
other respects left to the discretion of local rule, with occasional
extreme inflictions of punishment, but no systematic examination
or control. Upon this, the condition of Asiatic empire in all
ages, Alexander would have grafted one special improvement:
the military organization of the empire, feeble under the Achæ-
menid princes, would have been greatly strengthened by his
genius and by the able officers formed in his school, both for
foreign aggression and for home control.
In respect of intelligence and combining genius, Alexander
was Hellenic to the full; in respect of disposition and purpose,
no one could be less Hellenic. The acts attesting his Oriental
violence of impulse, unmeasured self-will, and exaction of rever-
ence above the limits of humanity, have been already recounted.
To describe him as a son of Hellas, imbued with the political
maxims of Aristotle and bent on the systematic diffusion of
Hellenic culture for the improvement of mankind, is in my
judgment an estimate of his character contrary to the evidence.
Alexander is indeed said to have invited suggestions from Aris-
totle as to the best mode of colonizing; but his temper altered
so much after a few years of Asiatic conquest, that he came not
only to lose all deference for Aristotle's advice, but even to hate
him bitterly. Moreover, though the philosopher's full sugges-
tions have not been preserved, yet we are told generally that he
recommended Alexander to behave to the Greeks as a leader or
president, or limited chief, and to the Barbarians (non-Hellenes) as
## p. 6755 (#131) ###########################################
GEORGE GROTE
6755
a master; a distinction substantially coinciding with that pointed
out by Burke in his speeches at the beginning of the American
war, between the principles of government proper to be followed
by England in the American colonies and in British India. No
Greek thinker believed the Asiatics to be capable of that free
civil polity upon which the march of every Grecian community
was based. Aristotle did not wish to degrade the Asiatics below
the level to which they had been accustomed, but rather to pre-
serve the Greeks from being degraded to the same level. Now,
Alexander recognized no such distinction as that drawn by his
preceptor. He treated Greeks and Asiatics alike, not by ele-
vating the latter but by degrading the former. Though he
employed all indiscriminately as instruments, yet he presently
found the free speech of Greeks, and even of Macedonians, so dis-
tasteful and offensive that his preferences turned more and more
in favor of the servile Asiatic sentiment and customs. Instead
of Hellenizing Asia, he was tending to Asiatize Macedonia and
Hellas. His temper and character, as modified by a few years of
conquest, rendered him quite unfit to follow the course recom-
mended by Aristotle towards the Greeks; quite as unfit as any
of the Persian kings, or as the French Emperor Napoleon, to
endure that partial frustration, compromise, and smart from free
criticism, which is inseparable from the position of a limited.
chief. Among a multitude of subjects more diverse-colored than
even the army of Xerxês, it is quite possible that he might have
turned his power towards the improvement of the rudest por-
tions. We are told (though the fact is difficult to credit, from
his want of time) that he abolished various barbarisms of the
Hyrkanians, Arachosians, and Sogdians. But Macedonians as
well as Greeks would have been pure losers by being absorbed
into an immense Asiatic aggregate.
This process of Hellenizing Asia,— in so far as Asia was ever
Hellenized, which has often been ascribed to Alexander, was
in reality the work of the Diadochi who came after him; though
his conquests doubtless opened the door and established the mili-
tary ascendency which rendered such a work practicable.
