No More Learning

« Dun'no',” said the Deputy Commissioner, reflectively. “We've
got locusts with us. There's sporadic cholera all along the north
– at least, we're calling it sporadic for decency's sake.
spring crops are short in five districts, and nobody seems to
SO
a
>
The


## p. 8653 (#265) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8653
C
(
»
It
»
<< but
know where the winter rains are. It's nearly March now. I
don't want to scare anybody, but it seems to me that Nature's
going to audit her accounts with a big red pencil this summer. ”
"Just when I wanted to take leave, too,” said a voice across
the room.
“There won't be much leave this year; but there ought to be
a a great deal of promotion. I've come in to persuade the govern-
ment to put my pet canal on the list of famine-relief works.
It's an ill wind that blows no good. I shall get that canal
finished at last. ”
"Is it the old programme, then,” said Holden, - famine,
fever, and cholera ? »
"Oh no! Only local scarcity and an unusual prevalence of
seasonal sickness. You'll find it all in the reports if you live
till next year. You're a lucky chap. You haven't got a wife to
.
put out of harm's way. The hill stations ought to be full of
women this year. ”
"I think you're inclined to exaggerate the talk in the bazars,”
said a young civilian in the secretariat. «Now I have observed — »
"I daresay you have,” said the Deputy Commissioner,
you've a great deal more to observe, my son. In the mean
time I wish to observe to you — ” And he drew him aside to
discuss the construction of the canal that was so dear to his
heart.
Holden went to his bungalow, and began to understand that
he was not alone in the world; and also that he was afraid for
the sake of another, which is the most soul-satisfying fear known
to man.
Two months later, as the Deputy had foretold, Nature began
to audit her accounts with a red pencil. On the heels of the
spring reapings came a cry for bread, and the Government,
which had decreed that no man should die of want, sent wheat.
Then came the cholera from all four quarters of the compass.
It struck a pilgrim gathering of half a million at a sacred shrine.
Many died at the feet of their god; the others broke, and ran
over the face of the land, carrying the pestilence with them. It
smote a walled city, and killed two hundred a day. The people
crowded the trains, hanging on to the foot-boards and squatting
on the roofs of the carriages; and the cholera followed them, for
at each station they dragged out the dead and the dying on the
platforms reeking of lime-wash and carbolic acid. They died by


## p. 8654 (#266) ###########################################

8654
RUDYARD KIPLING
(
»
2
(C
>
the roadside, and the horses of the Englishmen shied at the
corpses in the grass. The rains did not come, and the earth
turned to iron lest man should escape by hiding in her. The
English sent their wives away to the Hills, and went about their
work; coming forward as they were bidden to fill the gaps in
the fighting line. Holden, sick with fear of losing his chiefest
treasure on earth, had done his best to persuade Ameera to go
away with her mother to the Himalayas.
“Why should I go ? ” said she one evening on the roof.
« There is sickness, and the people are dying, and all the
white mem-log have gone. ”
"All of them ? »
"All— unless perhaps there remain some old scald-head who
vexes her husband's heart by running risk of death. ”
“Nay: who stays is my sister, and thou must not abuse her,
for I will be a scald-head too. I am glad all the bold white
mem-log are gone. "
“Do I speak to a woman or a babe? Go to the Hills, and I
will see to it that thou goest like a queen's daughter. Think,
child.
In a red-lacquered bullock-cart, veiled and curtained, with
brass peacocks upon the pole and red-cloth hangings. I will send
two orderlies for guard, and — »
« Peace! Thou art the babe in speaking thus. What use are
those toys to me? He would have patted the bullocks and played
with the housings. For his sake, perhaps — thou hast made me
very English - I might have gone. Now I will not.
Let the
mem-log run. ”
« Their husbands are sending them, beloved. ”
« Very good talk. Since when hast thou been my husband
to tell me what to do? I have but borne thee a son.
Thou art
only all the desire of my soul to me. How shall I depart when
I know that if evil befall thee by the breadth of so much
my littlest finger-nail — is not that small ? - I should be aware
of it though I were in Paradise. And here, this summer thou
mayst die — ai, janee, die! - and in dying they might call to tend
thee a white woman, and she would rob me in the last of thy
love. "
“But love is not born in a moment, or on a death-bed. ”
« What dost thou know of love, stone-heart ? She would take
thy thanks at least; and by God and the Prophet, and Beebee
Miriam the mother of thy Prophet, that I will never endure.
i
(
as


## p. 8655 (#267) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8655
My lord and my love, let there be no more foolish talk of going
away. Where thou art, I am. It is enough. ” She put an arm
round his neck and a hand on his mouth,
There are not many happinesses so complete as those that are
snatched under the shadow of the sword. They sat together and
laughed, calling each other openly by every pet name that could
move the wrath of the gods. The city below them was locked
up in its own torments. Sulphur-fires blazed in the streets; the
conches in the Hindu temples screamed and bellowed, for the
gods were inattentive in those days. There was a service in the
great Mohammedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the min-
arets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing in the houses
of the dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost a
child and was calling for its return. In the gray dawn they saw
the dead borne out through the city gates, each litter with its
own little knot of mourners. Wherefore they kissed each other
and shivered.
It was a red and heavy audit; for the land was very sick,
and needed a little breathing-space ere the torrent of cheap life
should flood it anew. The children of immature fathers and
undeveloped mothers made no resistance. They were cowed and
sat still; waiting till the sword should be sheathed in November,
if it were so willed.
There were gaps among the English, but
the gaps were filled. The work of superintending famine relief,
cholera sheds, medicine distribution, and what little sanitation was
possible, went forward because it was so ordered.
Holden had been told to hold himself in readiness to move
to replace the next man who should fall. There were twelve
hours in each day when he could not see Ameera; and she
might die in three. He was considering what his pain would be
if he could not see her for three months, or if she died out of
his sight. He was absolutely certain that her death would be
demanded: so certain that when he looked up from the tele-
gram and saw Pir Khan breathless in the doorway, he laughed
aloud. "And-? ) said he.
“When there is a cry in the night and the spirit flutters into
the throat, who has a charm that will restore ? Come swiftly,
heaven-born. It is the Black Cholera. ”
Holden galloped to his home. The sky was heavy with
clouds, for the long-deferred rains were at hand, and the heat
臺
​1
1
»


## p. 8656 (#268) ###########################################

8656
RUDYARD KIPLING
51
(c
B
was stifling. Ameera's mother met him in the court-yard, whim-
pering, «She is dying. She is nursing herself into death.
«
She
is all but dead. What shall I do, sahib?
Ameera was lying in the room in which Tota had been born.
She made no sign when Holden entered; because the human soul
is a very lonely thing, and when it is getting ready to go away,
hides itself in a misty borderland where the living may not
follow. The Black Cholera does its work quietly and without
explanation. Ameera was being thrust out of life as though the
Angel of Death had himself put his hand upon her. The quick
breathing seemed to show that she was either afraid or in pain,
but neither eyes nor mouth gave any answer to Holden's kisses.
There was nothing to be said or done. Holden could only wait
and suffer. The first drops of the rain began to fall on the roof,
and he could hear shouts of joy in the parched city.
The soul came back a little, and the lips moved. Holden
bent down to listen. Keep nothing of mine," said Ameera.
« Take no hair from my head. She would make thee burn it
later on. That flame I should feel. Lower! Stoop lower!
Remember only that I was thine and bore thee a son. Though
thou wed a white woman to-morrow, the pleasure of taking in
thy arms thy first son is taken from thee forever. Remember
me when thy son is born — the one that shall carry thy name
before all men. His misfortunes be on my head.
I bear wit-
-I bear witness » the lips were forming the words on his
«that there is no God but — thee, beloved. ”
Then she died. Holden sat still, and thought of any kind was
taken from him till he heard Ameera's mother lift the curtain.
“Is she dead, sahib ? ”
“She is dead. ”
«Then I will mourn, and afterwards take an inventory of the
furniture in this house; for that will be mine. The sahib does
not mean to resume it? It is so little, so very little, sahib,
I am an old woman. I would like to lie softly. ”
“For the mercy of God, be silent awhile! Go out and mourn
where I cannot hear. ”
Sahib, she will be buried in four hours. ”
“I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken away. That
matter is in thy hands. Look to it that the bed — on which
on which — she lies — »
ness
A1
>
ear
>>
and
(
-
!


## p. 8657 (#269) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8657
1
“Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. I have long de.
sired »
« – That the bed is left here untouched for my disposal.
All else in the house is thine. Hire a cart, take everything, go
hence; and before sunrise let there be nothing in this house but
that which I have ordered thee to respect. ”
“I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the days of
mourning, and the rains have just broken. Whither shall I go ? »
“What is that to me? My order is that there is a going.
The house-gear is worth a thousand rupees, and my orderly shall
bring thee a hundred rupees to-night. ”
« That is very little. Think of the cart-hire. »
"It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with speed.
woman, get hence, and leave me to my dead! ”
The mother shuffled down the staircase; and in her anxiety to
take stock of the house-fittings forgot to mourn. Holden stayed
by Ameera's side, and the rain roared on the roof. He could
not think connectedly by reason of the noise, though he made
many attempts to do so. Then four sheeted ghosts glided drip-
ping into the room and stared at him through their veils. They
were the washers of the dead. Holden left the room, and went
out to his horse. He had come in a dead, stifling calm, through
ankle-deep dust. He found the court-yard a rain-lashed pond
alive with frogs; a torrent of yellow water ran under the gate,
and a roaring wind drove the bolts of the rain like buckshot
against the mud walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his little hut
by the gate, and the horse was stamping uneasily in the water.
I have been told the sahib's order,” said he. “It is well.
This house is now desolate. I go also, for my monkey face
would be a reminder of that which has been. Concerning the
bed, I will bring that to thy house yonder in the morning. But
remember, sahib, it will be to thee as a knife turned in a green
wound. I go upon a pilgrimage, and I will take no money.
I
have grown fat in the protection of the Presence, whose sorrow
is my sorrow. For the last time I hold his stirrup. "
He touched Holden's foot with both hands, and the horse
sprang out into the road, where the creaking bamboos were
whipping the sky and all the frogs were chuckling. Holden could
not see for the rain in his face. He put his hands before his
eyes and muttered, “Oh, you brute! You utter brute ! »
&
1
XV-542


## p. 8658 (#270) ###########################################

8658
RUDYARD KIPLING
1
was
The news of his trouble was already in his bungalow. He
read the knowledge in his butler's eyes when Ahmed Khan
brought in food, and for the first and last time in his life laid a
hand upon his master's shoulder, saying, "Eat, sahib, eat. Meat
is good against sorrow. I also have known. Moreover, the
shadows come and go, sahib. The shadows come and go. These
be curried eggs. ”
Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The heavens sent down
eight inches of rain in that night and scoured the earth clean.
The waters tore down walls, broke roads, and washed open the
shallow graves in the Mohammedan burying-ground. Ail next
day it rained, and Holden sat still in his house considering his
sorrow. On the morning of the third day he received a tele-
gram which said only — "Ricketts, Myndonie. Dying. Holden
relieve. Immediate. ” Then he thought that before he departed
he would look at the house wherein he had been master and
lord. There a break in the weather. The rank earth
steamed with vapor, and Holden was vermilion from head to heel
with the prickly-heat born of sultry moisture.
He found that the rains had torn down the mud pillars of the
gateway, and the heavy wooden gate that had guarded his life
hung drunkenly from one hinge. There was grass three inches
high in the court-yard; Pir Khan's lodge was empty and the
sodden thatch sagged between the beams. A gray squirrel was
in possession of the veranda, as if the house had been untenanted
for thirty years instead of three days. Ameera's mother had re-
moved everything except some mildewed matting. The tick-tick
of the little scorpions as they hurried across the floor was the
only sound in the house. Ameera's room and that other one
where Tota had lived were heavy with mildew; and the narrow
staircase leading to the roof was streaked and stained with rain-
borne mud. Holden saw all these things, and came out again;
to meet in the road Durga Dass, his landlord, - portly, affable,
clothed in white muslin, and driving a C-spring buggy.
He was
overlooking his property, to see how the roofs withstood the
stress of the first rains.
"I have heard,” said he, you will not take this place any
more, sahib ? »
"What are you going to do with it? "
“Perhaps I shall let it again. ”
11
1
대
​(


## p. 8659 (#271) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8659
!
« Then I will keep it on while I am away. ”
Durga Dass was silent for some time. “ You shall not take
it on, sahib,” he said. « When I was
a young man I also
But to-day I am a member of the Municipality. Ho! ho! No.
When the birds have gone, what need to keep the nest ? I will
have it pulled down: the timber will sell for something always.
It shall be pulled down, and the Municipality shall make a road
across, as they desire, from the burning-ghat to the city wall.
So that no man may say where this house stood. ”
185
«FUZZY WUZZY »
(SOUDAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE)
W*v
TE've fought with many men acrost the seas,
An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:
The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.
We never got a ha’porth’s change of 'im:
'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses,
'E cut our sentries up at Suakim,
An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces.
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome
in the Sowdan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-
class fightin' man;
We gives you your certifikit, an' if you want
it signed
We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you when-
ever you're inclined.
We took our chanst among the Kyber 'ills,
The Boers knocked us silly at a mile;
The Burman guv us Irrewaddy chills,
An'a Zulu impi dished us up in style:
But all we ever got from such as they
Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller;
We 'eld our bloomin' own, the papers say,
But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oller.
Then 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missis
and the kid;
Our orders was to break you, an' of course we.
went an' did.


## p. 8660 (#272) ###########################################

8660
RUDYARD KIPLING
We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't
'ardly fair;
But for all the odds agin you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you
bruk the square.
'E 'asn't got no papers of 'is own,
’E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards,
So we must certify the skill 'e's shown
In usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords:
When 'e's 'oppin' in an' out among the bush
With 'is coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear,
A 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush
Will last a 'ealthy Tommy for a year.
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' your friends
which is no more;
If we 'adn't lost some messmates we would
'elp you to deplore:
But give an' take's the gospel, an' we'll call
the bargain fair,-
For if you 'ave lost more than us, you cruin-
pled up the square!
'E rushes at the smoke when we let drive,
An', before we know, 'e's 'ackin' at our 'ead;
'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive,
An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.
’E's a daisy, 'e's a ducky, 'e's a lamb! .
’E's a injia-rubber idiot on the spree;
’E's the on’y thing that doesn't care a damn
For a Regiment o’ British Infantree!
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your
'ome
in the Sowdan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-
class fightin' man;
An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your
'ayrick 'ead of 'air
You big black boundin' beggar — for you bruk
a British square!
1


## p. 8661 (#273) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8661
DANNY DEEVER
“WAT
HAT are the bugles blowin' for ? ) said Files-on-Parade.
« To turn you out, to turn you out,” the Color-Sergeant said.
«What makes you look so white, so white ? ” said Files-on-
Parade.
“I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch, the Color-Sergeant
said.
For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can 'ear the Dead March
play,
The regiment's in 'ollow square – they're hangin' him to-day:
They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,
An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
1:140920_11
«What makes the rear-rank breathe so 'ard ? ” said Files-on-Parade.
“It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold,” the Color-Sergeant said.
“What makes that front-rank man fall down ? ” says Files-on-Parade.
"A touch of sun, a touch of sun,” the Color-Sergeant said.
They are hangin' Danny Deever, they are marchin' of 'im round.
They ’ave 'alted Danny Deever by 'is coffin on the ground;
An' 'e'll swing in 'arf a minute for a sneakin' shootin' hound
Oh, they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
« 'Is cot was right-'and cot to mine," said Files-on-Parade.
“ 'E's sleepin' out an' far to-night,” the Color-Sergeant said.
"I've drunk 'is beer a score o' times,” said Files-on-Parade.
« 'E's drinkin' bitter beer alone,” the Color-Sergeant said.
They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must mark ’im to 'is place,
For 'e shot a comrade sleepin'— you must look 'im in the face;
Nine 'undred of 'is county an' the regiment's disgrace,
While they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
»
11
al
(
11
4
“What's that so black agin the sun ? » said Files-on-Parade.
"It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life,” the Color-Sergeant said.
"What's that that whimpers over’ead ? ” said Files-on-Parade.
“It's Danny's soul that's passin' now,” the Color-Sergeant said.
For they're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear the quick-
step play;
The regiment's in column, an' they're marchin' us away;
Ho! the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want their beer
to-day,
After hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.


## p. 8662 (#274) ###########################################

8662
RUDYARD KIPLING
MANDALAY
B
Y THE old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', an' I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, an' the temple-bells they
say, -
«Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay! ”
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay ?
Oh, the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay
'Er petticut was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen;
An' I seed her fust a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on a 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o' mud-
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd -
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay - (etc. )
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo! »
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' her cheek agin my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay — (etc. )
1
1
But that's all shove be'ind me — long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year sodger tells:
« If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else. ”
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells!
On the road to Mandalay — (etc. )
I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Though I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin'-- but wot do they understand ?


## p. 8663 (#275) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8663
1
Beefy face an' grubby 'and -
Law! wot do they understand ?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land !
On the road to Mandalay — (etc. )
1
1
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a
thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be -
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea —
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
Oh, the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
i
THE GALLEY-SLAVE
0"
H, GALLANT was our galley, from her carven steering-wheel
To her figure-head of silver and her beak of hammered steel;
The leg-bar chafed the ankle, and we gasped for cooler air,
But no galley on the water with our galley could compare !
Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in
gold,
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold;
The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,
As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.
ile
13
It was merry in the galley, for we reveled now and then
If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!
As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's
bliss,
And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lovers' kiss.
Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark;
They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark -
We heaved them to the fishes; but so fast the galley sped,
We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn, our dead.
Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we —
The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea!


## p. 8664 (#276) ###########################################

8664
RUDYARD KIPLING
By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and
sheered,
Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared ?
Was it storm ? Our fathers faced it, and a wilder never blew;
Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle
through.
Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death?
Nay, our very babes would mock you, had they time for idle breath.
But to-day I leave the galley, and another takes my place;
There's my name upon the deck-beam — let it stand a little space.
I am free — to watch my messmates beating out to open main,
Free of all that Life can offer — save to handle sweep again.
$
i
By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel,
By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal;
By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the brine,
I am paid in full for service — would that service still were mine!
Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth,
Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North.
When the niggers break the hatches, and the decks are gay with
gore,
And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore,
1
套
​She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare:
When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there.
Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by,
To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves
and die.
Ի
Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away —
Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day,
When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath,
And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their
teeth.
It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more
Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.
But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service, then ?
God be thanked — whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with
Men!


## p. 8665 (#277) ###########################################

8665
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
(1777-1811)
BY CHARLES HARVEY GENUNG
18*
.
EINRICH VON Kleist is a tragic figure; an unhappy man born
in an unhappy time. Endowed with supreme poetic powers
which in a more fortunate age might have made him chief
among the poets of Germany, he stood beneath the overmastering
shadow of Shakespeare; he was hampered by the dominating genius
of Goethe and Schiller; he was embittered by the neglect of his
contemporaries, and finally was crushed by the ignominy of national
disaster and disgrace. Born of a noble family, Kleist fell heir to all
the inconveniences of rank; he was poor,
but precluded by birth from any except a
military or an official career. At strife with
himself, richly gifted for one calling but
obliged to adopt another, he consumed the
energy of his younger years in an endeavor
to attain a clear intellectual vision.
It was
the same struggle that took Alfieri's youth-
ful strength, and caused Byron to bid fare-
well to his native land. But when at last
Kleist had almost worked out his spiritual
problem and had discovered the true sources
of his strength, his country's liberties were
crushed at Jena. “More deeply than most
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
of his contemporaries,” says Kuno Francke,
«did Kleist feel the agony of an age which saw the creation of cen-
turies sink into dust. » And national dishonor followed close upon
military defeat. Although the distant mutterings were already audible
of the storm which was to sweep the French from German soil, Kleist
was destined never to see the glorious outcome of that struggle.
Hopeless but resigned, he fell by his own hand before the national
uprising had taken shape. In less than two years after his death,
the ultimate triumph of Germany had become assured by the victory
at Leipsic. It was on the anniversary of Kleist's birthday that the
battle was won.
He would have been thirty-six years old.
The story of Kleist's life may be briefly told. He was born on
October 18th, 1777, at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. An orphan at eleven,



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8666
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
3
he was educated by a clergyman in Berlin, and at the age of sixteen
entered the guards and served in the Rhine campaign. When he
left the army he took up the study of law, and obtained a position in
the civil service which he lost after the battle of Jena. It was then
that his genius was developed, and the next five years were those of
his greatest productivity; but meanwhile an ignominious peace de-
stroyed all his hopes for Germany. The despair of the poet without
an audience, and of the patriot without a country, brought him to
his last act. With Henriette Vogel, the high-strung wife of a Berlin
merchant, he went to Potsdam; and in accordance with their romantic
agreement, on November 21st, 1811, he shot first her and then him-
self. A simple stone marks the spot where the greatest of Prussian
poets lies buried.
The works which Kleist has left behind are of the highest import-
ance in German literature. His dramas hold the stage to-day beside
those of Goethe, of Schiller, and of Lessing. The characters he has
created have become indispensable members of that immortal com-
pany which peoples the imagination of the German race. Potentially
he was the greatest dramatist that Germany has produced. Although
he grew up among the extravagances of the Romantic school, Kleist
was a realist. He had indeed sought in the realms of fancy, relief
from the oppressive reality, and so it is that upon his most real-
istic pictures there falls a ray of weird light from dreamland; but
as in all great works of art, realistic treatment is combined with ideal
thought, so in Kleist. Each figure; each event, embodied itself before
him in its actual material form; and what he saw he was able to
draw with a firm and sure hand. His characters move with heavy
tread; they are robust living creatures: but they pursue high aims,
are moved by noble impulses, and are significant of lofty thoughts
that can find expression only in symbols. If they are sometimes
lightly clad in romantic garb, these garments are but transparent
robes from the Erlking's chest, which only heighten the convincing
reality of the figures they enwrap.
Kleist's power of plastic present.
ation was not surpassed by either Goethe or Schiller. He painted
«the thing as he saw it, for the God of things as they are. "
Fate was the dominant note in Kleist's philosophy. The strands
of his destiny were woven by the Norns, and no effort of the will
could break the rope by which they had bound him. In all his
works this inevitable succession of events reappears.
as a force from without but as a power from within, placed there at
birth, relentless, from which there is no ultimate escape; even the
struggle against it is only a part of the predestined plan, foredoomed
to defeat. So Kleist struggled; so his characters struggle, but with
.
this difference: these win a spiritual triumph, none ends as he ended.
1
1
F
03
211
It is fate not


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HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8667
IH
ME
The poet saw the way, but the Prussian nobleman could not follow.
The characters in his dramas are involved without fault of their own
in their tragic situations. In Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (Kitty
of Heilbronn) it is love, represented as an irresistible possession of
the soul, that takes the form of fate. Not cruelty nor insult can
shake Käthchen in her childlike devotion. So in the wonderland of
Penthesilea,' in which the whole genius of Kleist is revealed, the
heroine is relentlessly impelled to kill the man she loves, for the
queen of the Amazons may not know love; then, by no act of vio-
lence but by a supreme effort of the will, she joins her lover in death.
In the Prince of Homburg' fate takes the form of military discipline
and obedience. The prince secures his spiritual triumph by recogniz-
ing at last the justice of the death sentence, and by urging its exe-
cution. It was the failure of this play to obtain a hearing that put
the last bitter drop into the poet's cup of sorrow.
This and the
Hermannsschlacht' (Hermann's Battle) were not published until after
Kleist's death, and they are his greatest works. The Battle of Her-
mann' is the embodiment of exuberant joy at the thought that now
all other considerations may be laid aside, and that pitiless ven-
geance may at last be exacted. Kleist firmly believed in the ultimate
overthrow of French domination, and he symbolized his belief in the
splendid figure of the old Teutonic hero who threw off the Roman
yoke. This is the most joyous note that Kleist ever struck. In all
else the tragedy of his own life threw its shadow upon his work.
Nothing in his external circumstances served to assist him in the
attainment of his true ambition. Only one of his plays ever received
so much as a respectful hearing during his lifetime; and for fifty
years he lay in a forgotten grave.
One comedy appears in the brief list of Kleist's works: Der
Zerbrochene Krug' (The Broken Jug). It is the most compact and
effective one-act comedy in German literature. This vivid picture of
a village judge sitting in judgment upon a crime which he has him-
self committed has been likened to a Dutch genre piece; its popu-
larity is undiminished to-day. In prose narration also Kleist showed
himself a supreme master; and his masterpiece is Michael Kohlhaas,'
a tale of popular rebellion in the sixteenth century. It moves before
the reader with the stern vividness of actual event. Kohlhaas's keen
sense of justice, at first a virtue and guaranty of good citizenship,
makes him at last a rebel and a scourge. It is a story of the most
substantial realism; but this ordinary horse-dealer is at heart an
idealist, carrying within him the picture of an impossible world in
which absolute justice reigns. His acts are the inevitable outgrowth
of this ideal. The tale is told with thrilling simplicity, objectivity,
and strength; there are no superfluous trappings of historical romance;
the characters triumph by their own force.
1


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8668
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
Slowly Kleist has won the place which he is destined to occupy in
German literature, and to which the aged Wieland long ago assigned
him,- beside Goethe whom he revered and Schiller from whom he
revolted. As in the case of Byron, the imagination cannot refrain
from the futile inquiry: What might he not have achieved, had he
lived past the crisis ? With the dawn of a happier time, Kleist's
genius might, so far at least as the drama is concerned, have made
good his audacious boast that he would one day tear the laurels from
Goethe's brow.
1
C
Chart Gunung
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS
the
A
distin-
a
書
​Translated by Francis Lloyd and William Newton
BOUT the middle of the sixteenth century there lived on
banks of the Havel a horse-dealer named Michael Kohl-
haas. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and was
guished as at once the most right-feeling and most terrible man
of his time. Up to his thirtieth year, he might have been selected
as the model of a perfect citizen. In the village in which he
dwelt, and which still bears his name, he possessed a farm, from
the produce of which, together with his business, he derived
tranquil subsistence; he had several children, whom he brought
up in the fear of God and the love of diligence and truth; and
there was not one among his neighbors who was not witness
either to his generosity or to his unswerving sense of justice. In
a word, had he not carried to excess one virtue, posterity wou
have blessed his memory. Unluckily, however, his love of just-
ice made him a robber and a murderer.
One day he started from home with a drove of young horses,
all in high condition, with which he hoped to do great things
at the fair he was about to visit; he rode on, thinking what use
he would make of his gains, both in future investments and in
little additions to the pleasures of the moment, and was lost in
thought as he came to that part of the road which runs parallel
with the Elbe: when just beneath a noble Saxon castle, his horse
shied at a turnpike which in his previous journeys he had never
encountered. He pulled up amid the pouring rain, and called
1
9
uld
11
13


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HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8669
(
the pikeman, who soon presented his sulky visage at the win-
dow; the horse-dealer desired him to open.
“Where on earth has this rained from ? ” he asked, as the
man made his appearance after a leisurely delay.
“It is a royal patent,” the man replied as he opened the gate,
" lately granted to my Lord Wenzel von Tronka. ”
Indeed,” said Kohlhaas: “is Wenzel the name ? ) and with
that he gazed at the castle, whose glistening towers commanded
the plain.
« What! is the old lord dead ? ” he asked.
"Dead of apoplexy,” the pikeman answered, as he threw wide
the gate.
臺
​套
​11
1
19
“Well, well, it's a bad job,” Kohlhaas replied: "he was a fine
old fellow a man that loved to see business, and lent a help-
ing hand where it was needed. I remember he had a stone
causeway built outside the village, because a mare of mine slipped
there once and broke her leg. – Well, what's to pay ? ” he in-
quired, as he extracted the pence the old man demanded, from
beneath his storm-tossed mantle. “Ay, old man,” he added, as
he caught an exhortation to haste, 'mid curses against the weather,
"if the wood that gate is made of were still growing in the
forest, it would be better for both you and me. ” And therewith
he handed him the money, and essayed to proceed on his jour-
ney. He had but just passed the gate, when a loud cry of
" Hold hard there, you horse-dealer!