Read Ebook: Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern — Volume 12 by Mabie Hamilton Wright Editor Runkle Lucia Isabella Gilbert Editor Warner Charles Dudley Editor Warner George H Editor

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In 1841 he went to Augsburg, connected himself with the Allgemeine Zeitung, and traveled as newspaper correspondent in France, Holland, Belgium, and England. 'Das Wanderbuch' , and 'Jusqu' ? la Mer--Erinnerungen aus Holland' , were the fruits of these journeys. He had in contemplation a voyage to the Orient, and preparatory to this he settled for a short time in Vienna; but the journey was not undertaken, for just at this time he was appointed librarian of the Royal Library of Stuttgart, and reader to the king, with the title of Court Councilor. Here in 1844 he married the celebrated singer Jenny Lutzer. He returned to Vienna, where in 1850 his drama 'Das Haus der Barneveldt' was produced with such brilliant success that he was thereupon appointed stage manager of the National Theatre at Munich. To this for six years he devoted his best efforts, presenting in the most admirable manner the finest of the German classics. The merit of his work was recognized by the king, who ennobled him in 1857. He was pre-eminently a theatrical manager, and served successively at Weimar and at Vienna, where he was appointed director of the Court Opera House in 1867, and of the Burg Theatre in 1870. He brought the classic plays of other lands upon the stage, and his revivals of Shakespeare's historical plays and the 'Winter's Tale,' and of Moli?re's 'L'Avare' , were brilliant events in the theatrical annals of Vienna. He was made Imperial Councilor by the Emperor, and raised in 1876 to the rank of baron. In 1875 he took the position of general director of both court theatres of Vienna. He died at Vienna, May 15th, 1881.

The novels 'Licht und Schatten der Liebe' ; 'Heptameron,' 1841; and 'Novellenbuch,' 1855, were not wholly successful; but in contrast to these, 'Unter der Erde' ; 'Sieben Friedliche Erz?hlungen' , and 'Die Amazone' , are admirable.

Regarded purely as literature, Dingelstedt's best productions are his early poems, although his commentaries upon Shakespeare and Goethe are wholly praiseworthy. He was successful chiefly as a political poet, but his muse sings also the joys of domestic life. 'Hauslieder' , and his poems upon Chamisso and Uhland, are among the most beautiful personal poems in German literature.

A MAN OF BUSINESS

From 'The Amazon': copyrighted by G.P. Putnam's Sons

Herr Krafft was about to reply, but was prevented by the hasty appearance of Herr Heyboldt, the first procurist, who entered the apartment; not an antiquated comedy figure in shoe-buckles, coarse woolen socks, velvet pantaloons, and a long-tailed coat, his vest full of tobacco, and a goose-quill back of his comically flexible ear; no, but a fine-looking man, dressed in the latest style and in black, with a medal in his button-hole, and having an earnest, expressive countenance. He was house-holder, member of the City Council, and militia captain; the gold medal and colored ribbon on his left breast told of his having saved, at the risk of his own life, a Leander who had been carried away by the current in the swimming-baths.

A cashier came rushing in without knocking. "Herr Principal," he stammered in his panic, "we have not another blank, and the people are pouring in upon us more and more violently. Wild shouts call for you." "To your place, sir," thundered Krafft at him. "I shall come when I think it time. In no case," he added more quietly, "before the military arrive. We need an interference, for the sake of the market." The messenger disappeared; but pale, bewildered countenances were to be seen in the doorways of the comptoir; the house called for its master: the trembling daughter sent again and again for her father.

"Let us bring the play to a close," said Herr Krafft, after brief deliberation; he stepped into the middle office, flung open a window, and raising his harsh voice to its loudest tones, cried to the throng below, "You are looking for me, folks. Here I am. What do you want of me?" "Shares, subscriptions," was the noisy answer.--"You claim without any right or any manners. This is my house, a peaceable citizen's house. You are breaking in as though it were a dungeon, an arsenal, a tax-office,--as though we were in the midst of a revolution. Are you not ashamed of yourselves?" A confused murmur rang through the astonished ranks. "If you wish to do business with me," continued the merchant, "you must first learn manners and discipline. Have I invited your visit? Do I need your money, or do you need my shares? Send up some deputies to convey your requests. I shall have nothing to do with a turbulent mob." So saying, he closed the window with such violence that the panes cracked, and the fragments fell down on the heads of the assailants.

"The Principal knows how to talk to the people," said Heyboldt with pride to Roland, the mute witness of this strange scene. "He speaks their own language. He replies to a broken door with a broken window."

"Heaven bless you, Herr Krafft!" stammered out the court cooper, and the grain-broker essayed to shed a tear of gratitude; the confidential clerk Herr Lange, the third of the group, caught at the hand of the patron to kiss it, with emotion. Krafft drew it back angrily. "No self-abasement, Herr Lange," he said. "We are men of the people; let us behave as such. God bless you, gentlemen. You know my purpose. Make it known to the good people waiting outside, and see that I am rid of my billeting. Let the subscriptions be conducted quietly and in good order. Adieu, children!" The deputation withdrew. A few minutes afterwards there was heard a thundering hurrah:--"Hurrah for Herr Krafft! Three cheers for Father Krafft!" He showed himself at the window, nodded quickly and soberly, and motioned to them to disperse.

While the tumult was subsiding, Krafft and Roland retired into the private counting-room. "You have," the latter said, "spoken nobly, acted nobly."--"I have made a bargain, nothing more, nothing less; moreover, not a bad one."--"How so?"--"In three months I shall buy at 70, perhaps still lower, what I am now to give up to them at 90."--"You know that beforehand?"--"With mathematical certainty. The public expects an El Dorado in the Southwestern Railway, as it does in every new enterprise. The undertaking is a good one, it is true, or I should not have ventured upon it. But one must be able to wait until the fruit is ripe. The small holders cannot do that; they sow today, and tomorrow they wish to reap. At the first payment their heart and their purse are all right. At the second or third, both are gone. Upon the least rise they will throw the paper, for which they were ready to break each other's necks, upon the market, and so depreciate their property. But if some fortuitous circumstance should cause a pressure upon the money market, then they drop all that they have, in a perfect panic, for any price. I shall watch this moment, and buy. In a year or so, when the road is finished and its communications complete, the shares that were subscribed for at 90, and which I shall have bought at 60 to 70, will touch 100, or higher."

"That is to say," said Roland, thoughtfully, "you will gain at the expense of those people whose confidence you have aroused, then satisfied with objects of artificial value, and finally drained for yourself." "Business is business," replied the familiar harsh voice. "Unless I become a counterfeiter or a forger I can do nothing more than to convert other persons' money into my own; of course, in an honest way."--"And you do this, without fearing lest one day some one mightier and luckier than you should do the same to you?"--"I must be prepared for that; I am prepared."--"Also for the storm,--not one of your own creating, but one sent by the wrath of God, that shall scatter all this paper splendor of our times, and reduce this appalling social inequality of ours to a universal zero?" "Let us quietly abide this Last Day," laughed the banker, taking the artist by the arm.

THE WATCHMAN

The last faint twinkle now goes out Up in the poet's attic; And the roisterers, in merry rout, Speed home with steps erratic.

Soft from the house-roofs showers the snow, The vane creaks on the steeple, The lanterns wag and glimmer low In the storm by the hurrying people.

The houses all stand black and still, The churches and taverns deserted, And a body may now wend at his will, With his own fancies diverted.

Not a squinting eye now looks this way, Not a slanderous mouth is dissembling, And a heart that has slept the livelong day May now love and hope with trembling.

Dear Night! thou foe to each base end, While the good still a blessing prove thee, They say that thou art no man's friend,-- Sweet Night! how I therefore love thee!

DIOGENES LAERTIUS

Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to the third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers of the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.

LIFE OF SOCRATES

From the 'Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers'

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phaenarete a midwife , and an Athenian, of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid Euripides in composing his dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks thus:--

"This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians': And Socrates has furnished him the sticks."

And again:--

"Euripides, Socratically patched."

Callias also, in his 'Captives,' says:--

Aristophanes, in the 'Clouds,' again, remarks:--

"And this is he who for Euripides Composed the talkative wise tragedies."

He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but also of Damon, as Alexander states in his 'Successions.' After the former's condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the natural philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave, and carried stones. Some say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his; they are clothed figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his 'Silli' declares:--

"From them proceeded the stone-polisher, Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks, Who taught the art of subtle argument, The nose-in-air, mocker of orators, Half Attic, the adept in irony."

For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants, as Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing. Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse Argument seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his pupil AEschines, to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who conversed about life, and the first of the philosophers who came to his end by being condemned to death. We are also told that he lent out money. At least, investing it, he would collect what was due, and then after spending it invest again. But Demetrius the Byzantine says it was Crito who, struck by the charm of his character, took him out of the workshop and educated him.

Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men, it is said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the agora, and used to say he was seeking

"Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil."

And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he conversed too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out, and was usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked, and bore it patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said, "If an ass had kicked me, would I bring an action against him?"

Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except when he had to serve in the army. At other times, remaining in Athens, he disputed in argumentative fashion with those who conversed with him, not so as to deprive them of their belief, but to strive for the ascertainment of truth. They say Euripides gave him the work of Heraclitus, and asked him, "What do you think of it?" And he said, "What I understood is fine; I suppose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a Delian diver!" He attended also to physical training, and was in excellent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to Amphipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the battle of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed, when all the other Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly, turning about calmly, and on the lookout to defend himself if attacked. He also joined the expedition to Potidaea--by sea, for the war prevented a march by land; and it was there he was said once to have remained standing in one position all night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in valor, but gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to have been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young he visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he went to Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his 'Commentaries' says he went to the Isthmus.

He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the democracy, as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and his associates when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a wealthy man, to them to be put to death. He was also the only one who opposed the condemnation of the ten generals. When he could have escaped from prison, too, he would not. The friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in prison he composed those beautiful discourses.

He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells us in the seventh book of her 'Commentaries,' Alcibiades offered him a great estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If I needed sandals, and you offered me a hide from which to make them for myself, I should be laughed at if I took it." Often, too, beholding the multitude of things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I do not need!" He used constantly to repeat aloud these iambic verses:--

"But silver plate and garb of purple dye To actors are of use,--but not in life."

He disdained the tyrants,--Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Crannon, Eurylochus of Melissa,--not accepting gifts from them nor visiting them. He was so regular in his way of living that he was frequently the only one not ill when Athens was attacked by the plague.

Aristotle says he wedded two wives, the first Xanthippe, who bore him Lamprocles, and the second Myrto, daughter of Aristides the Just, whom he received without dowry and by whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Some however say he married Myrto first; and some again that he had them both at once, as the Athenians on account of scarcity of men passed a law to increase the population, permitting any one to marry one Athenian woman and have children by another; so Socrates did this.

He was a man also able to disdain those who mocked him. He prided himself on his simple manner of living, and never exacted any pay. He used to say he who ate with best appetite had least need of delicacies, and he who drank with best appetite had least need to seek a draught not at hand; and that he who had fewest needs was nearest the gods. This indeed we may learn from the comic poets, who in their very ridicule covertly praise him. Thus Aristophanes says:--

Ameipsias also, bringing him upon the stage in the philosopher's cloak, says:--

"O Socrates, best among few men, most foolish of many, thou also Art come unto us; thou'rt a patient soul; but where didst get that doublet? That wretched thing in mockery was presented by the cobblers! Yet though so hungry, he never however has stooped to flatter a mortal."

This disdain and arrogance in Socrates has also been exposed by Aristophanes, who says:--

"Along the streets you haughtily strut; your eyes roll hither and thither: Barefooted, enduring discomforts, you go with countenance solemn among us."

And yet sometimes, suiting himself to the occasion, he dressed finely; as when for instance in Plato's 'Symposium' he goes to Agathon's.

He was a man able both to urge others to action, and to dissuade them. Thus, when he conversed with Theaetetus on Knowledge, he sent him away inspired, as Plato says. Again, when Euthyphron had indicted his own father for manslaughter, by conversing with him on piety Socrates turned him from his purpose. Lysis also by his exhortations he rendered a most moral man. He was moreover skillful in fitting his arguments to the circumstances. He changed the feeling of his son Lamprocles when he was enraged with his mother, as Xenophon somewhere relates. Plato's brother Glaucon, who wished to be active in politics, he dissuaded because of his inexperience, as Xenophon states; but Charmides on the other hand, who was well fitted, he urged on. He roused the spirit of Iphicrates the general also, pointing out to him the cocks of Midias the barber fighting those of Callias. He said it was strange that every man could tell easily how many sheep he had, but could not call by name the friends whom he had acquired, so negligent were men in that regard. Once seeing Euclid devoting great pains to captious arguments, he said, "O Euclid, you will be able to manage sophists--but men, never!" For he thought hair-splitting on such matters useless, as Plato also says in his 'Euthydemus.'

When Glaucon offered him some slaves, so that he might make a profit on them, he did not take them.

He praised leisure as the best of possessions, as Xenophon also says in his 'Symposium.' He used to say, too, that there was but one good--knowledge; and one evil--ignorance. Wealth and birth, he said, had no value, but were on the contrary wholly an evil. So when some one told him Antisthenes's mother was a Thracian, "Did you think," quoth he, "so fine a man must be the child of two Athenians?" When Phaedo had been captured in war and shamefully enslaved, Socrates bade Crito ransom him, and made him a philosopher.

He also learned, when already an old man, to play the lyre, saying there was no absurdity in learning what one did not know. He used to dance frequently, too, thinking this exercise helpful to health. This Xenophon tells us in the 'Symposium.'

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