No More Learning

It seems strange, at
first sight, that the two extremes should have the same signs, and
yet this must needs be so; for at an age when the man has as
yet no real ideas, all the difference that exists between him
who has genius and him who has it not is, that the latter gives
admittance only to false ideas, while the former, finding no oth-
ers, gives admittance to none. In so far then as one is capable
of nothing, and nothing is befitting the other, both appear to be
stupid. The only sign that can distinguish them depends on
chance, which may offer to the last some idea within his com-
prehension; whereas the first is always and everywhere the same.
During his infancy the younger Cato seemed an imbecile in the
family. He was taciturn and obstinate, and this was all the judg
ment that was formed of him. It was only in the antechamber
of Sylla that his uncle learned to know him. If he had not
gone into that antechamber, perhaps he would have passed for a
dolt till the age of reason. If Cæsar had not lived, perhaps men
would always have treated as a visionary that very Cato who
penetrated his baleful genius, and foresaw all his projects from
afar. Oh, how liable to be deceived are they who are so precipi-
tate in their judgments of children! They are often the more
childish. I myself have seen a man somewhat advanced in age,
who honored me with his friendship, who was regarded by his
family and his friends as lacking in intelligence; but this was
a superior mind maturing in silence. All at once he has shown
himself a philosopher, and I doubt not that posterity will assign
him a distinguished and honorable place among the best reason.
ers and the most profound metaphysicians of his age.
Respect childhood, and do not hastily judge of it either for
good or for evil. Allow a long time for the exceptions to be
manifested, proved, and confirmed, before adopting special meth-
ods for them. Allow Nature to act in her place, for fear of
thwarting her operations. You know, you say, the value of time,


## p. 12445 (#503) ##########################################

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
12445
and do not wish to waste it. You do not see that to make a bad
use of time is much more wasteful than to do nothing with it;
and that a poorly taught child is further from wisdom than one
who has not been taught at all. You are alarmed at seeing him.
consume his early years in doing nothing! Really! Is it noth-
ing to be happy? Is it nothing to jump, play, and run, all day
long? In no other part of his life will he be so busy. Plato,
in his 'Republic,' which is deemed so austere, brings up children
only in festivals, games, songs, and pastimes. It might be said
that he has done all when he has really taught them how to
enjoy themselves; and Seneca, speaking of the ancient Roman
youth, says they were always on their feet, and were
taught anything which they could learn while seated. Were they
of less value for this when they reached the age of manhood?
Be not at all frightened, therefore, at this so-called idleness.
What would you think of a man who, in order to turn his whole
life to profitable account, would never take time to sleep? You
will say that he is a man out of his senses: that he does not
make use of his time but deprives himself of it; and that to fly
from sleep is to run toward death. Reflect, therefore, that this is
the same thing, and that childhood is the slumber of reason.
never
The apparent facility with which children learn is the cause
of their ruin. We do not see that this very facility is the proof
that they are learning nothing. Their smooth and polished brain
reflects like a mirror the objects that are presented to it; but
nothing remains, nothing penetrates it. The child retains words,
but ideas are reflected. Those who hear these words understand
them, but the child who utters them does not.
Although memory and reasoning are two essentially different
faculties, yet the first is not truly developed save in conjunction
with the second. Before the age of reason a child does not re-
ceive ideas, but images; and there is this difference between
them: images are but the faithful pictures of sensible objects,
while ideas are notions of objects determined by their rela-
tions. An image may exist alone in the mind which forms the
representation of it; but every idea supposes others.
When we
imagine, we do no more than see; but when we conceive, we com-
pare. Our sensations are purely passive, whereas all our percep-
tions or ideas spring from an active principle which judges.
I say then, that children, not being capable of judgment, have
no real memory. They retain sounds, forms, sensations, but rarely


## p. 12446 (#504) ##########################################

12446
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
ideas; and still more rarely their combinations. The objection
that they learn some elements of geometry is thought to be a
proof that I am wrong; but directly to the contrary, it is a proof
in my favor. It is shown that, far from knowing how to rea-
son for themselves, they cannot even retain the reasonings of
others; for if you follow these little geometricians in their recita-
tions, you will at once see that they have retained only the exact
expressions of the figure and the terms of the demonstration.
If you interpose the least unforeseen objection to the argument,
or if you reverse the figure they are following, they are at once
disconcerted. All their knowledge is in sensation, and nothing
has penetrated the understanding. Their memory itself is hardly
more perfect than their other faculties; since they must almost
always learn over again, when grown, the things which they
learned by rote in childhood.
I am very far from thinking, however, that children are in-
capable of any kind of reasoning. On the contrary, I see that
they reason very well on whatever they know, and on whatever
is related to their present and obvious interests. But it is with
respect to their knowledge that we are deceived. We give them
credit for knowledge which they do not have, and make them
reason on matters which they cannot comprehend. We are de-
ceived, moreover, in trying to make them attentive to considera-
tions which in no wise affect them;-as that of their prospective
interest, of their happiness when grown to be men, or of the
esteem in which they will be held when they have become great,
talk which, addressed to creatures deprived of all foresight,
has absolutely no significance for them. Now, all the premature
studies of these unfortunates relate to objects entirely foreign to
their minds; and we may judge of the attention which they can
give them.
The pedagogues who make such a great display of the subjects
which they teach their disciples, are paid to speak of this matter
in different terms; but we see by their own course of action that
they think exactly as I do. For what do they really teach their
pupils? Words, words, nothing but words. Among the different
sciences which they boast of teaching, they are very careful not
to choose those which are really useful to them, because they are
the sciences of things, and they would never succeed in teaching
them; but they prefer the sciences which we seem to know when
we have learned their terminology,- such as heraldry, geography,


## p. 12447 (#505) ##########################################

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
12447
chronology, the languages, etc. , all of them studies so remote
from man, and especially from the child, that it would be a mar-
vel if a single item of all this could be useful to him once in the
course of his life.
―――――
It will seem surprising to some that I include the study of
languages among the inutilities of education; but it will be recol-
lected that I am speaking here only of primary studies; and that,
whatever may be thought of it, I do not believe that up to the
age of twelve or fifteen years, any child, prodigies excepted, has
ever really learned two languages.
I grant that if the study of languages were but the study of
words, that is, of the forms or sounds which express them,-
it might be suitable for children; but languages, by the changing
symbols, also modify the ideas which they represent. Languages
have their several and peculiar effects in the formation of the
intellectual faculties; the thoughts are tinged by their respect-
ive idioms. The only thing common to languages is the reason.
The spirit of each language has its peculiar form; and this dif-
ference is doubtless partly the cause and partly the effect of
national characteristics. This conjecture seems to be confirmed
by the fact that among all the nations of the earth, language
follows the vicissitudes of manners, and is preserved pure or is
corrupted just as they are.
Use has given one of these different forms of thought to
the child; and it is the only one which he preserves to the age
of reason. In order to have two of these forms, he must needs
know how to compare ideas; and how can he compare them
when he is hardly in a condition to conceive them? Each thing
may have for him a thousand different symbols; but each idea
can have but one form. Nevertheless, we are told that he learns
to speak several. This I deny. I have seen such little prodi-
gies, who thought they were speaking five or six languages. I
have heard them speak German in terms of Latin, French, and
Italian, respectively. In fact, they used five or six vocabularies,
but they spoke nothing but German. In a word, give children
as many synonyms as you please, and you will change the words
they utter, but not the language: they will never know but one.
It is to conceal their inaptitude in this respect that they
are drilled by preference on dead languages, since there are no
longer judges of those who may be called to testify. The famil-
iar use of these languages having for a long time been lost, we
-


## p. 12448 (#506) ##########################################

12448
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
are content to imitate the remains of them which we find written
in books; and this is what we call speaking them. If such is
the Greek and Latin of the teachers, we may imagine what the
Greek and Latin of the children is! Scarcely have they learned
by heart the rudiments of these languages, of which they under-
stand absolutely nothing, when they are taught, first to turn a
French discourse into Latin words; and then when they are
more advanced, to tack together in prose, sentences from Cicero,
and in verse, scraps from Virgil. Then they think that they are
speaking Latin: and who is there to contradict them?
Translation of William H. Payne.
ON THE USES OF TRAVEL
From 'Émile. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co. , and reprinted by
permission of the Translator
TH
HE abuse of books kills science. Thinking they know what
they have read, men think that they can dispense with
learning it. Too much reading serves only to make pre-
sumptuous ignoramuses. Of all the centuries of literature, there
is not one in which there has been so much reading as in this,
and not one in which men have been less wise; of all the coun-
tries of Europe, there is not one where so many histories and
travels have been printed as in France, and not one where less
is known of the genius and customs of other countries. So many
books make us neglect the book of the world; or if we still read
in it, each one confines himself to his leaf.
A Parisian fancies he knows men, while he knows only
Frenchmen. In his city, always full of strangers, he regards
each foreigner as an extraordinary phenomenon, which has no
fellow in the rest of the universe. We must have had a near
view of the citizens of that great city, we must have lived with
them, in order to believe that with so much spirit they can also
be so stupid. The queer thing about it is that each of them has
read, perhaps ten times, the description of the country one of
whose inhabitants has filled him with so much wonder.
It is too much to have to wade through at the same time the
prejudices of authors and our own in order to arrive at the truth.
I have spent my life in reading books of travel, and I have never


## p. 12449 (#507) ##########################################

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
12449
found two of them which gave me the same idea of the same
people. On comparing the little which I was able to observe
with what I had read, I have ended by abandoning travelers,
and by regretting the time which I had spent in order to instruct
myself in their reading; thoroughly convinced that in respect of
observations of all sorts we must not read but see. This would
be true if all travelers were sincere; if they related only what
they have seen or what they believe, and if they disguised the
truth only by the false colors which it takes in their eyes. What
must it be when, in addition, we have to discern the truth
through their falsehoods and their bad faith?
Let us, then, abandon to those made to be contented with
them the expedient of books commended to us. Like the art of
Raymond Lully, they are useful for teaching us to prate about
what we do not know. They are useful for preparing Platos of
fifteen for philosophizing in clubs, and for instructing a company
on the customs of Egypt and India, on the faith of Paul Lucas
or of Tavernier.
I hold it for an incontestable maxim, that whoever has seen
but one people, instead of knowing men, knows only those with
whom he has lived. Here then is still another way of stating
the same question of travels. Is it sufficient for a well-educated
man to know only his own countrymen, or is it important for
him to know men in general? There no longer remains dispute
or doubt on this point. Observe how the solution of a difficult
question sometimes depends on the manner of stating it.
But in order to study men, must we make the tour of the
whole earth? Must we go to Japan to observe Europeans? In
order to know the species, must we know all the individuals?
No: there are men who resemble one another so closely that it
is not worth the trouble to study them separately. He who has
seen ten Frenchmen has seen them all. Although we cannot say
the same of the English and of some other peoples, it is never-
theless certain that each nation has its peculiar and specific
character, which is inferred by induction, not from the observa-
tion of a single one of its members, but of several. He who has
compared ten peoples knows mankind, just as he who has seen
ten Frenchmen knows the French.
For purposes of instruction it is not sufficient to stroll
through countries, but we must know how to travel. In order to
observe, we must have eyes, and must turn them toward the
XXI-779


## p. 12450 (#508) ##########################################

12450
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
object which we wish to examine. There are many people whom
travel instructs still less than books, because they are ignorant of
the art of thinking; whereas in reading, their mind is at least
guided by the author, while in their travels they do not know
how to see anything for themselves. Others are not instructed
because they do not wish to be instructed. Their object is so
different that this hardly affects them. It is very doubtful whether
we can see with exactness what we are not anxious to observe.
Of all the people in the world, the Frenchman is he who travels
the most; but, full of his own ways, he slights indiscriminately
everything which does not resemble them. There are Frenchmen
in every corner of the world. There is no country where we
can find more people who have traveled than we find in France.
But notwithstanding all this, of all the people of Europe, the one
that sees the most of them knows the least. The English also
travel, but in a different way; and it seems that these two nations
must be different in everything. The English nobility travel,
the French nobility do not travel; the French people travel, the
English people do not travel. This difference seems to me hon-
orable to the latter. The French have almost always some per-
sonal interest in their travels; but the English do not go to seek
their fortune abroad, unless it is through commerce, and with full
pockets. When they travel it is to spend their money abroad,
and not to live there on the fruits of their industry; they are too
proud to go prowling about away from home. This also causes
them to learn more from foreigners than the French do, who have
a totally different object in view. The English, however, have
their national prejudices also, and even more of them than any
one else; but these prejudices are due less to ignorance than to
passion. The Englishman has the prejudices of pride, and the
Frenchman those of vanity.
There is a great difference between traveling to see the country
and traveling to see the people. The first object is always that
of the curious, while the other is only incidental for them. It
ought to be the very opposite for one who wishes to philosophize.
The child observes things, and waits until he can observe men.
The man ought to begin by observing his fellows; and then he
can observe things if he has the time.
It is bad reasoning to conclude that travels are useless because
we travel in the wrong way. But admitting the utility of travels,
does it follow that they are best for everybody? Far from it;


## p. 12451 (#509) ##########################################

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
12451
on the contrary, they are good for only a very few people: they
are good only for men who have sufficient self-control to listen
to the lessons of error without allowing themselves to go astray,
and to see the example of vice without permitting themselves to
be drawn into it. Travel develops the natural bent of character,
and finally makes a man good or bad. Whoever returns from a
tour of the world is, on his return, what he will be for the rest
of his life. Of those who return, more are bad than good, because
more of those who start out are inclined to evil rather than
good. Badly educated and badly trained young men contract
during their travels all the vices of the peoples whom they visit,
but not one of the virtues with which these vices are mingled;
but those who are happily born, those whose good nature has
been well cultivated, and who travel with the real purpose of
becoming instructed, all return better and wiser than when they
started out. It is thus that my Émile shall travel.
Whatever is done through reason ought to have its rules:
travels, considered as a part of education, ought to have theirs.
To travel for the sake of traveling is to be a wanderer, a vaga-
bond; to travel for the sake of instruction is still too vague an
object; for instruction which has no determined end amounts to
nothing.
Translation of William H. Payne.
IN THE ISLE OF ST. PETER
From the Fifth of the 'Rêveries>
I
FOUND my existence so charming, and led a life so agreeable
to my humor, that I resolved here to end my days. My only
source of disquiet was whether I should be allowed to carry
my project out. In the midst of the presentiments that disturbed
me, I would fain have had them make a perpetual prison of my
refuge, to confine me in it for all the rest of my life. I longed
for them to cut off all chance and all hope of leaving it; to for-
bid my holding any communication with the mainland, so that
knowing nothing of what was going on in the world, I might
have forgotten the world's existence, and people might have for-
gotten mine too. They suffered me to pass only two months in
the island, but I could have passed two years, two centuries, and
all eternity, without a moment's weariness; though I had not,


## p. 12452 (#510) ##########################################

12452
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
with my companion, any other society than that of the steward,
his wife, and their servants. They were in truth honest souls
and nothing more, but that was just what I wanted.
Carried thither in a violent hurry, alone and without a thing, I
afterwards sent for my housekeeper, my books, and my scanty
possessions, of which I had the delight of unpacking nothing,-
leaving my boxes and chests just as they had come, and dwelling
in the house where I counted on ending my days exactly as if
it were
an inn whence I must set forth on the morrow.
All
things went so well, just as they were, that to think of ordering
them better were to spoil them. One of my greatest joys was
to leave my books fastened up in their boxes, and to be without
even a case for writing. When any luckless letter forced me to
take up a pen for an answer, I grumblingly borrowed the stew-
ard's inkstand, and hurried to give it back to him with all the
haste I could, in the vain hope that I should never have need
of the loan any more. Instead of meddling with those weary
quires and reams and piles of old books, I filled my chamber with
flowers and grasses; for I was then in my first fervor for botany.
Having given up employment that would be a task to me, I
needed one that would be an amusement, nor cause me more
pains than a sluggard might choose to take.
I undertook to make the 'Flora Petrinsularis'; and to describe
every single plant on the island, in detail enough to occupy me
for the rest of my days. In consequence of this fine scheme,
every morning after breakfast, which we all took in company, I
used to go with a magnifying-glass in my hand, and my 'Sys-
tema Naturæ' under my arm, to visit some district of the island.
I had divided it for that purpose into small squares, meaning to
go through them one after another in each season of the year.
At the end of two or three hours I used to return laden with an
ample harvest,- a provision for amusing myself after dinner in-
doors, in case of rain. I spent the rest of the morning in going
with the steward, his wife, and Theresa, to see the laborers and
the harvesting, and I generally set to work along with them:
many a time when people from Berne came to see me, they
found me perched on a high tree, with a bag fastened round my
waist; I kept filling it with fruit, and then let it down to the
ground with a rope. The exercise I had taken in the morning,
and the good-humor that always comes from exercise, made the
repose of dinner vastly pleasant to me. But if dinner was kept


## p. 12453 (#511) ##########################################

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
12453
up too long, and fine weather invited me forth, I could not
wait; but was speedily off to throw myself all alone into a boat,
which, when the water was smooth enough, I used to pull out
to the middle of the lake. There, stretched at full length in the
boat's bottom, with my eyes turned up to the sky, I let myself
float slowly hither and thither as the water listed, sometimes for
hours together; plunged in a thousand confused delicious mus-
ings, which, though they had no fixed nor constant object, were
not the less on that account a hundred times dearer to me than
all that I had found sweetest in what they call the pleasures of
life. Often warned by the going down of the sun that it was
time to return, I found myself so far from the island that I was
forced to row with all my might to get in before it was pitch
dark. At other times, instead of losing myself in the midst of
the waters, I had a fancy to coast along the green shores of the
island, where the clear waters and cool shadows tempted me to
bathe.
But one of my most frequent expeditions was from the larger
island to the less: there I disembarked and spent my afternoon,
-sometimes in mimic rambles among wild elders, persicaries,
willows, and shrubs of every species; sometimes settling myself
on the top of a sandy knoll, covered with turf, wild thyme,
flowers, even sainfoin and trefoil that had most likely been sown
there in old days, making excellent quarters for rabbits. They
might multiply in peace without either fearing anything or
harming anything. I spoke of this to the steward. He at once
had male and female rabbits brought from Neuchâtel, and we
went in high state-his wife, one of his sisters, Theresa, and I—
to settle them in the little islet. The foundation of our colony
was a feast-day. The pilot of the Argonauts was not prouder
than I, as I bore my company and the rabbits in triumph from
our island to the smaller one.
When the lake was too rough for me to sail, I spent my
afternoon in going up and down the island, gathering plants to
right and left; seating myself now in smiling lonely nooks to
dream at my ease, now on little terraces and knolls, to follow
with my eyes the superb and ravishing prospect of the lake and
its shores, crowned on one side by the neighboring hills, and
on the other melting into rich and fertile plains up to the feet
of the pale-blue mountains on their far-off edge.


## p. 12454 (#512) ##########################################

12454
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
As evening drew on, I used to come down from the high
ground, and sit on the beach at the water's brink in some hid-
den sheltering-place. There the murmur of the waves and their
agitation charmed all my senses, and drove every other move-
ment away from my soul: they plunged it into delicious dream-
ings, in which I was often surprised by night. The flux and
reflux of the water, its ceaseless stir, swelling and falling at
intervals, striking on ear and sight, made up for the internal
movements which my musings extinguished; they were enough
to give me delight in mere existence, without taking any trouble
of thinking. From time to time arose some passing thought of
the instability of the things of this world, of which the face of
the waters offered an image: but such light impressions were
swiftly effaced in the uniformity of the ceaseless motion, which
rocked me as in a cradle; it held me with such fascination that
even when called at the hour and by the signal appointed, I
could not tear myself away without summoning all my force.
After supper, when the evening was fine, we used to go all
together for a saunter on the terrace, to breathe the freshness
of the air from the lake. We sat down in the arbor,-laughing,
chatting, or singing some old song,- and then we went home to
bed, well pleased with the day, and only craving another that
should be exactly like it on the morrow.
All is a continual flux upon the earth. Nothing in it keeps
a form constant and determinate; our affections-fastening on
external things- necessarily change and pass just as they do.
Ever in front of us or behind us, they recall the past that is
gone, or anticipate a future that in many a case is destined never
to be. There is nothing solid to which the heart can fix itself.
Here we have little more than a pleasure that comes and passes
away; as for the happiness that endures, I cannot tell if it be
so much as known among men. There is hardly in the midst
of our liveliest delights a single instant when the heart could
tell us with real truth, "I would this instant might last forever.
"
And how can we give the name of happiness to a fleeting state
that all the time leaves the heart unquiet and void,- that makes
us regret something gone, or still long for something to come?
But if there is a state in which the soul finds a situation
solid enough to comport with perfect repose, and with the ex-
pansion of its whole faculty, without need of calling back the
•


## p. 12455 (#513) ##########################################

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
12455
past or pressing on towards the future; where time is nothing
for it, and the present has no ending; with no mark for its own
duration, and without a trace of succession; without a single
other sense of privation or delight, of pleasure or pain, of desire
or apprehension, than this single sense of existence,- so long
as such a state endures, he who finds himself in it may talk of
bliss, not with a poor, relative, and imperfect happiness such as
people find in the pleasures of life, but with a happiness full,
perfect, and sufficing, that leaves in the soul no conscious unfilled
void. Such a state was many a day mine in my solitary musings
in the isle of St. Peter, either lying in my boat as it floated on
the water, or seated on the banks of the broad lake, or in other
places than the little isle,- on the brink of some broad stream,
or a rivulet murmuring over a gravel bed.
What is it that one enjoys in a situation like this? Nothing
outside of one's self, nothing except one's self and one's own
existence.
But most men, tossed as they are by unceas-
ing passion, have little knowledge of such a state: they taste it
imperfectly for a few moments, and then retain no more than an
obscure confused idea of it, that is too weak to let them feel its
charm. It would not even be good, in the present constitution
of things, that in their eagerness for these gentle ecstasies, they
should fall into a disgust for the active life in which their duty
is prescribed to them by needs that are ever on the increase.
But a wretch cut off from human society, who can do nothing
here below that is useful and good either for himself or for other
people, may in such a state find for all lost human felicities many
recompenses, of which neither fortune nor men can ever rob
·
·
him.
'Tis true that these recompenses cannot be felt by all souls,
nor in all situations. The heart must be in peace, nor any pas-
sion come to trouble its calm. There must be in the surrounding
objects neither absolute repose nor excess of agitation; but a uni-
form and moderated movement, without shock, without interval.
With no movement, life is only a lethargy. If the movement be
unequal or too strong, it awakes us; by recalling us to the objects
around, it destroys the charm of our musing, and plucks us from
within ourselves, instantly to throw us back under the yoke of
fortune and man, in a moment to restore us to all the conscious-
ness of misery. Absolute stillness inclines one to gloom. It
offers an image of death: then the help of a cheerful imagination


## p. 12456 (#514) ##########################################

12456
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
is necessary, and presents itself naturally enough to those whom
Heaven has endowed with such a gift. The movement which
does not come from without then stirs within us. The repose is
less complete, it is true; but it is also more agreeable when light
and gentle ideas, without agitating the depths of the soul, only
softly skim the surface. This sort of musing we may taste when-
ever there is tranquillity about us; and I have thought that in
the Bastile, and even in a dungeon where no object struck my
sight, I could have dreamed away many a thrice pleasurable day.
But it must be said that all this came better and more hap-
pily in a fruitful and lonely island, where nothing presented itself
to me save smiling pictures, where nothing recalled saddening
memories, where the fellowship of the few dwellers there was
gentle and obliging, without being exciting enough to busy me
incessantly; where, in short, I was free to surrender myself all
day long to the promptings of my taste or to the most luxurious
indolence.
As I came out from a long and most sweet
musing fit, seeing myself surrounded by verdure and flowers and
birds, and letting my eyes wander far over romantic shores that
fringed a wide expanse of water bright as crystal, I fitted all
these attractive objects into my dreams; and when at last I slowly
recovered myself, and recognized what was about me, I could not
mark the point that cut off dream from reality, so equally did all
things unite to endear to me the lonely retired life I led in this
happy spot! Why can that life not come back to me again?
Why can I not go finish my days in the beloved island, never to
quit it, never again to see in it one dweller from the mainland,
to bring back to me the memory of all the woes of every sort
that they have delighted in heaping on my head for all these
long years? . . Freed from the earthly passions engendered
by the tumult of social life, my soul would many a time lift
itself above this atmosphere, and commune beforehand with the
heavenly intelligences, into whose number it trusts to be ere long
taken.
•


## p. 12457 (#515) ##########################################

12457
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
(1788-1866)
ÜCKERT was not only a great poet and fervid patriot, but a
man of wide learning and solid scholarly attainments. His
knowledge of languages was phenomenal, and his boast that
for him "every language written by men possessed life" was not a
gross exaggeration. His contributions to Oriental studies were volu-
minous and valuable, but they have inevitably been rendered obsolete
or obsolescent by the restless advance of German scholarship; it is
only in the inspired translations from Oriental literatures that we have
results of permanent value. The ultimate
analysis of Rückert's manifold life labors
reveals as the essential and indestructible
part, his poetry. The parallel with Uhland
is obvious. Both were scholars and pio-
neers in their chosen fields; both were act-
ive in the liberal movement in Germany;
both were poets of the first rank, and
have erected poetic monuments of enduring
worth. Uhland was more racy of the Ger-
man soil, and his ballads and lyrics have
the touch of the autochthonous folk-song;
his scholarship was Germanistic. Rückert's
studies were in Oriental fields, and in the
Orient he found much of his poetic mate-
rial; he was more exotic than Uhland, and yet he has left behind a
mass of true German poetry which has endeared him to the hearts
of German children. The still retiracy of wood and garden, nursery
and home, he has sung most movingly. The larger ambitions for a
united fatherland he has expressed most powerfully. That this poetic
productivity, which continued unimpaired to the end of his long life,
should have been but the lounging garment of the German professor
when his talar was laid aside, is a remarkable evidence of the depth
and strength and versatile beauty of Rückert's mind.
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
Friedrich Rückert was born at Schweinfurt on May 16th, 1788. It
was obvious at an early age that the study of philology and asthet-
ics was his vocation, and to these he devoted himself at the Univer-
sity of Würzburg. He became a private teacher, an official tutor, and
"



## p. 12458 (#516) ##########################################

12458
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
eventually a university professor. His life was that of the typical
German scholar; but he retained the freshness of the poet's heart,
and the expression quoted above-"Every language possesses life for
me».
- is characteristic: he infused vitality into all he taught.
-
All poets were patriots in the stirring first years of the nineteenth
century. Rückert's part in the national uprising is represented by
his vigorous 'Geharnischte Sonette' (Sonnets in Armor), and the mar-
tial songs entitled 'Spott- und Ehrenlieder' (Songs of Praise and
Derision). These were published in 'Deutsche Gedichte' (German
Poems) in 1814, under the pseudonym of Freimund Reimar. After
the declaration of peace, Rückert assumed the editorship of Cotta's
Morgenblatt in Stuttgart, and there formed the friendship of Uhland.
In the autumn of 1817 he went to Italy; but Rome did not throw
its powerful enchantment about him as it had around Goethe and
Platen. Rückert stayed but one year. On his return he stopped in
Vienna, where he received invaluable instruction in Persian from the
celebrated Orientalist, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Thenceforth
the study of the Oriental languages and literatures became his chief
occupation and life task. In 1826 he accepted the Oriental chair at
Erlangen; and in 1841, shortly after the accession of Frederick Wil-
liam IV. , he was called to the University of Berlin. The Frankish
poet was never quite at home in the Prussian capital; but he held
his position till 1848, when he retired definitely to the happy life of
a gardener and scholar at Neuses, near Coburg. In this charming
retreat he had established his poet's-home shortly after his marriage
with Luise Fischer in 1821; there he spent almost without interrup-
tion the last eighteen years of his life, and there he died on January
31st, 1866.
The most important poetic yield of Rückert's Oriental studies was
the book of Oriental lyrics called 'Oestliche Rosen' (Roses of the
East), much admired by Goethe. His translations from the Indian,
Hebrew, Persian, Arabian, and Chinese are permanent enrichments of
the literature of Germany; the writings of Sa'di, Firdausī, and Kāli-
dāsa he has transformed into German classics: and in this sense he
is the greatest and worthiest successor of Herder and Goethe in their
strivings toward the ideal of a universal literature.
Rückert's resources seemed inexhaustible. Ripe wisdom, broad
knowledge, deep sympathy, strong imagination, and absolute mastery
of language and form, were all his. It was not unnatural that his
virtuosity should mislead his Muse into mediocrity at times, but he
says of himself:·
"Had I not written the verse you care nothing about,
The verses that really delight you had ne'er been thought out. "


## p. 12459 (#517) ##########################################

FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
12459
Several historical plays remain to show that the drama was not
his field. The lyric, the gnomic, the didactic, were his proper ele-
ment. The glowing, joyous love-songs to his fiancée, which he pub-
lished in the year of his marriage under the title of 'Liebesfrühling'
(Springtime of Love), display his lyric quality in its highest degree.
His pure and strong fancy enabled him to give poetic value to the
commonplace and unimportant. The popular 'Haus und Jahreslieder ›
(Songs of the House and Year) show how Rückert was able to bring
the most insignificant and unpromising subjects into poetic relations
with fair and lofty thoughts. The singable quality of his verse was
publicly praised by Goethe, and composers have borne frequent wit-
ness to their appreciation of it by setting the songs to music. Most
famous perhaps is the simple, compact, tender, and untranslatable
'Du bist die Ruh' of Schubert (Thou art Rest). Goethe on his
death-bed repeated Rückert's solemn lines, 'At Midnight. '
But the stores of wisdom and learning which filled the poet's
mind received artistic expression in the finest didactic poem of
German literature, 'Die Weisheit des Brahmanen' (The Brahman's
Wisdom). It contains a wealth of wisdom, wrought into finely fash-
ioned forms. With an artist's eye he could fathom the profound and
gaze at the sublime, and he was able to proclaim his vision with
the awing solemnity of an ancient prophet. With this poem Rückert
established himself permanently in the German heart, into which
he had first entered singing his lays of love and of war. He died
before his lifelong dream of a united Germany had been realized.
He had symbolized this dream in 'Barbarossa,' but had lost hope,
for the ravens of discord and distrust continued still to circle round
the mountain. It was only five years after Rückert's death that a
German emperor was crowned at Versailles.
THE HOUR-GLASS OF ASHES
HEN Torismund, for love of Rosalind,
Consumed to ashes in the flames he fanned,
She did not strew his ashes on the wind,
But gathered it all up with faithful hand;
WHE
And now he serves the child's inventive mind,
Within her hour-glass placed instead of sand:
Glad that through her, he still no peace doth find
In death, who found none in the living's land.
Translation of C. T. Brooks.


## p. 12460 (#518) ##########################################

12460
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
D
AMARYLLIS
O NOT bid me welcome, dearest;
Do not say to me, "Good-by! »
When I come, thy kisses, dearest;
When I go, then breathe a sigh.
Not when coming thou dost see me,
Do I come to thee, my dear:
Ever when I'm parted from thee
Stays my heart behind me here.
Nor when going thou dost see me,
Do I leave the sacred spot:
Dearest, I remain there in the
Chamber, though thou know'st it not.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
SAD SPRING
From the series of sonnets entitled In Memory of Agnes'
"S
WEET Spring is here," I heard men say and sing;
Then went I forth to seek where he might be:
I found the buds on every bush and tree,
But nowhere could I find my darling, Spring.
Birds sang, the bees they hummed, but everything
They sang or hummed was sad as sad could be;
Rills gushed, but all their waves were tears to me;
Suns laughed,—no joy to me their looks could bring.
Nor of my darling could I find a trace,
Till with my pilgrim staff I took my way
To a well-known but long-neglected place,
And there I found him, Spring: near where she lay,
He sate, a beauteous boy, with tearful face,
Like one who weeps above a mother's clay.
Translation of C. T. Brooks.


## p. 12461 (#519) ##########################################

FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
12461
THE SUN AND THE BROOK
HE Sun he spoke
THE
To the Meadow-Brook,
And said, "I sorely blame you;
Through every nook.
The wild-flower folk
You hunt, as naught could shame you.
What. but the light
Makes them so bright,-
The light from me they borrow?
Yet me you slight,
To get a sight
At them, and I must sorrow!
Ah! pity take
On me, and make
Your smooth breast stiller, clearer;
And as I wake
In the blue sky-lake,
Be thou, O Brook, my mirror! "
The Brook flowed on,
And said anon:
"Good Sun, it should not grieve you,
That as I run
I gaze upon
The motley flowers, and leave you.
You are so great
In your heavenly state,
And they so unpretending,
On you they wait,
And only get
The graces of your lending.
But when the sea
Receiveth me,
From them I must me sever:
I then shall be.
A glass to thee,
Reflecting thee forever. »
Translation of J. S. Dwight.


## p. 12462 (#520) ##########################################

12462
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
THE DYING FLOWER
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PASSENGER AND A FADING VIOLET
PASSENGER
D'
ROOP not, poor flower! - there's hope for thee:
The spring again will breathe and burn,
And glory robe the kingly tree,
Whose life is in the sun's return;
And once again its buds will chime
Their peal of joy from viewless bells,
Though all the long dark winter-time
They mourned within their dreary cells.
FLOWER
Alas! no kingly tree am I,
No marvel of a thousand years:
I cannot dream a winter by,
And wake with song when spring appears.
At best my life is kin to death;
My little all of being flows
From summer's kiss, from summer's breath,
And sleeps in summer's grave of snows.
PASSENGER
Yet grieve not! Summer may depart,
And beauty seek a brighter home;
But thou, thou bearest in thy heart
The germ of many a life to come.
Mayest lightly reck of autumn storms:
Whate'er thine individual doom,
Thine essence, blent with other forms,
Will still shine out in radiant bloom!
FLOWER
Yes! moons will wane, and bluer skies
Breathe blessing forth for flower and tree;
I know that while the unit dies,
The myriad live immortally:
But shall my soul survive in them?
Shall I be all I was before?
Vain dream! I wither, soul and stem;
I die, and know my place no more!


## p. 12463 (#521) ##########################################

FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
12463
The sun may lavish life on them;
His light, in summer morns and eves,
May color every dewy gem
That sparkles on their tender leaves:
But this will not avail the dead;
The glory of his wondrous face
Who now rains lustre on my head,
Can only mock my burial-place!
And woe to me, fond foolish one,
To tempt an all-consuming ray!
To think a flower could love the sun,
Nor feel her soul dissolve away!
Oh, could I be what once I was,
How should I shun his fatal beam!
Wrapt in myself, my life should pass
But as a still, dark, painless dream!
But vainly in my bitterness
I speak the language of despair:
In life, in death, I still must bless
The sun, the light, the cradling air!
Mine early love to them I gave;
And now that yon bright orb on high
Illumines but a wider grave,
For them I breathe my final sigh!
How often soared my soul aloft
In balmy bliss too deep to speak,
When Zephyr came and kissed with soft,
Sweet incense breath my blushing cheek!
When beauteous bees and butterflies
Flew round me in the summer beam,
Or when some virgin's glorious eyes
Bent o'er me like a dazzling dream!
Ah, yes! I know myself a birth
Of that All-wise, All-mighty Love,
Which made the flower to bloom on earth,
And sun and stars to burn above;
And if like them I fade and fail,
If I but share the common doom,
Let no lament of mine bewail
My dark descent to Hades's gloom!
Farewell, thou Lamp of this green globe!
Thy light is on my dying face;


## p. 12464 (#522) ##########################################

12464
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
Thy glory tints my faded robe,
And clasps me in a death embrace!
Farewell, thou balsam-dropping spring!
Farewell, ye skies that beam and weep!
Unhoping and unmurmuring,
I bow my head and sink to sleep!
Translation of James Clarence Mangan.
I
NATURE MORE THAN SCIENCE
HAVE a thousand thousand lays,
Compact of myriad myriad words,
And so can sing a million ways,
Can play at pleasure on the chords
Of tunèd harp or heart;
Yet is there one sweet song
For which in vain I pine and long;
I cannot reach that song, with all my minstrel art.
A shepherd sits within a dell,
O'er-canopied from rain and heat;
A shallow but pellucid well
Doth bubble at his feet.
His pipe is but a leaf,
Yet there, above that stream,
He plays and plays, as in a dream,
One air that steals away the senses like a thief.
A simple air it seems, in truth,
And who begins will end it soon;
Yet when that hidden shepherd-youth
So pours it in the ear of Noon,
Tears flow from those anear.
All songs of yours and mine
Condensed in one were less divine
Than that sweet air to sing, that sweet, sweet air to hear!
'Twas yesternoon he played it last;
The hummings of a hundred bees
Were in mine ears, yet as I passed
I heard him through the myrtle-trees.
Stretched all along he lay,
'Mid foliage half decayed;
His lambs were feeding while he played,
And sleepily wore on the stilly summer day.
Translation of James Clarence Mangan.


## p. 12465 (#523) ##########################################

FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
12465
GREEDINESS PUNISHED
T WAS the cloister Grabow, in the land of Usédom;
IT
For years had God's free goodness to fill its larder come:
They might have been contented!
Along the shore came swimming, to give the monks good cheer
Who dwelt within the cloister, two fishes every year:
They might have been contented!
Two sturgeons-two great fat ones and then this law was set,
That one of them should yearly be taken in a net:
They might have been contented!
The other swam away then until next year came round,
Then with a new companion he punctually was found:
They might have been contented!
So then again they caught one, and served him in the dish,
And regularly caught they, year in, year out, a fish:
They might have been contented!
One year, the time appointed two such great fishes brought,
The question was a hard one, which of them should be caught:
They might have been contented!
They caught them both together, but every greedy wight
Just spoiled his stomach by it; it served the gluttons right:
They might have been contented!
This was the least of sorrows: hear how the cup ran o'er!
Henceforward to the cloister no fish came swimming more:
They might have been contented!
So long had God supplied them of his free grace alone,
That now it is denied them, the fault is all their own:
They might have been contented!
XXI-780
Translation of C. T. Brooks.


## p. 12466 (#524) ##########################################

12466
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
THE PATRIOT'S LAMENT
-
forgest, smith ? »
chains! "-
"We're forging chains; ay,
WHAT
"Alas! to chains yourselves degraded are! "
"What plowest, farmer ? "—"Fields their fruit must bear. ”.
"Yes, seed for foes: the burr for thee remains! "
"What aim'st at, sportsman ? "
"Yonder stag, so fat. ".
"To hunt you down, like stag and roe, they'll try. " -
"What snarest, fisher? " "Yonder fish so shy. ».
"Who's there to save you from your fatal net? ”
-――――
"What art thou rocking, sleepless mother? ” — “Boys. ” —
"Yes: let them grow, and wound their country's fame,
Slaves to her foes, with parricidal arm! ”-
"What art thou writing, poet? " "Words of flame:
I mark my own, record my country's harm,
Whom thought of freedom never more employs. "
-
I blame them not, who with the foreign steel
Tear out our vitals, pierce our inmost heart;
For they are foes created for our smart,
And when they slay us, why they do it, feel.
But in these paths, ye seek what recompense?
For you what brilliant toys of fame are here,
Ye mongrel foes, who lift the sword and spear
Against your country, not for her defense?
Ye Franks, Bavarians, and ye Swabians, say—
Ye aliens, sold to bear the slavish name
What wages for your servitude they pay.
Your eagle may perchance redeem your fame;
More sure his robber train, ye birds of prey,
To coming ages shall prolong your shame!
Translation of C. C. Felton.
-


## p. 12467 (#525) ##########################################

FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
12467
BARBAROSSA
HE ancient Barbarossa
By magic spell is bound,-
Old Frederic the kaiser,
In castle underground.
THE
The kaiser hath not perished,-
He sleeps an iron sleep;
For in the castle hidden,
He's sunk in slumber deep.
With him the chiefest treasures
Of empire hath he ta'en,
Wherewith in fitting season
He shall appear again.
The kaiser he is sitting
Upon an ivory throne;
Of marble is the table
His head he resteth on.
His beard it is not flaxen:
Like living fire it shines,
And groweth through the table
Whereon his chin reclines.