Chapter XIV: Part 14

He was at length so far carried away by the delirious whirl into which he had been caught as to engage in a piece of wanton folly that threw him back upon his career by some years, just as he was about to plant his foot securely upon the path leading to the summits of his profession. Beguiled by his striking talent for caricature, he designed and executed a series of sketches, satirising in an exquisitely witty and humorous style various situations and characters and well-known relations of Posen society. The inscriptions appended to the caricatures were not less skilfully done than were the caricatures themselves. No rank of society was spared, and hardly any person of consequence in the town. One of his friends, who afterwards became his brother-in-law, distributed the leaves at a masked ball in the disguise of an Italian hawker of pictures, cleverly contriving to place each individual sketch in the hands of the person to whom it would most likely be most welcome. Hence for several minutes universal glee at the excellent jest! But when they came to compare notes, _i.e._, the presents they had received, the merriment gave way to hot indignation. The author of the outrage was very speedily guessed at, since there was only one person in Posen with proved ability enough to wield the pencil so as to produce such striking likenesses--unfortunate Hoffmann! That very same night it is said that a man of high rank, General von Zastrow, deeply incensed at several of the pieces in which he himself played a ridiculous _rôle_, sent off an express courier to Berlin with a report of the whole affair. The consequence of the thoughtless trick was that Hoffmann's patent as councillor to the government at Posen, which lay all ready for signing, was exchanged for one appointing him to the town of Plock (on the R. Vistula). Thither he went early in 1802, accompanied by his wife, whose maiden name was "Rorer, or rather Trzczynska, a Poless by birth, daughter of the former town-councillor T. of Posen, twenty-two years old, of medium stature and good figure, with dark-brown hair and dark blue eyes," as he himself describes her. He had taken the step of marriage in face of the earnest dissuasion of his uncle Otto, in the last months of his residence in Posen. But previous to this, late in the autumn of 1801, he had paid another visit to Königsberg, meeting on his return journey his friend Hippel; and together they saw Elbing and Dantzic. To this latter visit we owe the story of _Der Artushof_ ("Arthur's Hall"), published in 1817. Hippel, be it remarked, was disagreeably struck by the change in his friend: Hoffmann gave himself up to an unhealthy degree, to wild and extravagant gaiety, and disclosed a liking for what was low and lewd.

In Plock Hoffmann spent two years. This was a quiet, stagnant place, where, according to his own account, he "was buried alive," and "walked in a morass covered with low thorny shrubs which lacerated his feet;" he "thought of Yorick and the imprisoned starling;" and he should have given way to despair had not the bitter experiences which he was made to drain to the lees been sweetened by the affection of his dear good wife, who gave him strength for the present and encouraged him to hope for the future. Owing to the external circumstances in the midst of which he was fixed, he again turned his attention seriously to music and painting, and also to authorship. He wrote short essays, composed masses, vespers, and sonatas, and translated Italian canzonets, &c. _ Scherz, List, und Rache_, a _Singspiel_ of Goethe's, he had already set to music in Posen. During these two years he led a more strictly domestic life, and spent more of his time out of the hours of official duty in his own house, than he ever did afterwards. Here also, as almost everywhere throughout his life he was zealous and industrious in discharging the duties of his position. At length, just as he was beginning to settle down and feel contented with his lot in Plock, his friends in Berlin succeeded in securing his removal (1804) to a better and more congenial sphere of activity in Warsaw. After once more visiting Königsberg in February, 1804, and then spending several days with Hippel on his estate at Leistenau (province Marienwerder, East Prussia), he eventually proceeded to his new post in Poland in the spring of that same year.

One illustrative and very characteristic anecdote of this period deserves mention. In a letter to Hippel, dated "Plock, 3rd October, 1803," Hoffmann writes, "My uncle in Berlin will never do much more to recommend me, for he has become 'a grave man,' as Mercutio says in Shakespeare;7 he died on the night of 24-25th September of inflammation of the lungs." But in his diary of October 1 he writes, in allusion to the same sad event, "My tears did not flow, nor did fear and grief draw from me any loud lamentations; but the image of the man whom I loved and honoured is constantly before my eyes; it never leaves me. The whole day through my mind has been in a tumult; my nerves are so excited that the least little noise makes me start." Thus he could jest in the midst of pain; and it is a type of the man's character.

Warsaw, in notable contrast to other places in the Polish provinces, possessed many things calculated to excite and engage the attention of an active mind, of a mind so eager for knowledge and so keenly alive to all that was especially interesting and extraordinary as was Hoffmann's. The new scene of his labours cannot be better described than in the words of Hitzig and of Hoffmann himself. The former says the city had

"Streets of magnificent breadth, consisting of palaces in the finest Italian style and of wooden huts which threaten every moment to tumble together about the ears of their indwellers; in these edifices Asiatic sumptuousness most closely mingled with Greenland filth; a populace incessantly on the stir, forming, as in a procession of maskers, the most startling contrasts--long-bearded Jews, and monks clad in the garb of every order, closely veiled nuns of the strictest rules and unapproachable reserve, and troops of young Polesses dressed in the gayest-coloured silk mantles conversing to each other across the spacious squares, venerable old Polish gentlemen with moustaches, caftan, _pass_ (girdle), sabre, and yellow or red boots, the coming generation in the most matchless of Parisian fashions, Turks and Greeks, Russians, Italians, and Frenchmen in a constantly varying crowd; besides this an almost inconceivably tolerant police, who never interfered to prevent any popular enjoyment, so that the streets and squares were always swarming with 'punch-and-judy' shows, dancing- bears, camels, and apes, whilst the occupants of the most elegant equipage equally with the common porter stopped to stare at them open- mouthed; further, a theatre conducted in the national language, a thoroughly good French troupe, an Italian opera, German comedians, who were at least ready to undertake almost anything, 'routs' of a quite original but extremely attractive kind, and resorts of pilgrims in the immediate vicinity of the town--was there not something for an eye like Hoffmann's to see and for a hand like Hoffmann's to sketch?"8

Thus far Hitzig. Hoffmann writes on May 14, 1804:--

"Yesterday ... I resolved to enjoy myself; I threw away my deeds and sat down to the piano to compose a sonata, but soon found myself in the situation of Hogarth's _Musicien enragé_ (Wrathful Musician). Immediately underneath my window there arose certain differences between three women selling meal, two wheelbarrow-men, and one sailor; each of the parties pleaded its cause with a good deal of violent demonstration before the tribunal of the hunchback, who stands with a stall under the door-way below. Whilst this was going on the bells of the parish church, of the Bennonites, and of the Dominican church (all close to me) began to clang; in the churchyard of the last named (right opposite to me) the hopeful catechumens were hammering away on two old kettle-drums, with which all the dogs of the neighbourhood, spurred by the strong powers of instinct, joined with a chorus of barkings and howlings--at that moment too Wambach and his musical band of Janissaries trotted gaily past to the merry strains of their own music--meeting them out of [another] street came a herd of swine. A tremendous friction in the middle of the street--seven swine were ridden over! Terrific squealing!--Oh!--oh! a _tutti_ invented for the torture of the damned! Here I threw aside my pen and paper, pulled on my top-boots, and ran away out of the wild mad tumult through the Cracow suburb--through the 'new world'--down the hill. A sacred Grove received me in its shade; I was in Lazienki.9 Ay, truly, the pleasant palace swims upon the mirror-like lake like a virgin swan. Zephyrs come wafted through the blossoming trees loaded with voluptuous delight. How pleasant to stroll through the thickly foliaged walks! That is the place for an amiable Epicurean to live in. What! why this man with the white nose galloping10 along here through the dark-leaved trees must be the 'Commendatore' in _Don Juan_. Ah! John Sobieski! _Pink fecit-- male fecit_. Oh! what a state of things! He is riding over writhing prostrate slaves, who are stretching up their withered arms to the rearing horse--an ugly sight! What! is it possible? Great Sobieski--as a Roman with _wonçi_11 has girt a Polish sabre about his waist, and it is made--of wood--ridiculous!... You ask me, my dear friend, how I like Warsaw. A motley world! too noisy--too wild--too harum-scarum-- everything topsy-turvey! Where can I find time to write, to sketch, to compose music? The king ought to give up Lasienki to me; _there_ one could live nicely, if you like!"12

The first few months of his residence in this "new world," as it appeared to immigrants from the "old land" of Prussia, Hoffmann spent in familiarising himself with the novelty and strangeness of the place, in wondering at and admiring the motley scenes which daily met his view; and doubtless his acute perceptive faculties gleaned a valuable harvest of notes for use on future occasions, both for his pencil and his pen. About the end of June he formed the acquaintance of J. E. Hitzig, who came down to Warsaw with the rank of _assessor_ in the administrative college in which Hoffmann held that of councillor. The crust of formal courtesy and commonplaces was broken through by Hitzig's pithy answer, to a question asking his opinion about some newly-arrived colleague, that he was "a man in buckram." The borrowed words of Falstaff banished Hoffmann's reserve, and caused his sombre face to light up with joy and his tongue to pour out a brilliant gush of talk. This new-made friend, who had previously (1800, 1801) lived in Warsaw, where he began his career, introduced Hoffmann into a pleasant and intellectual set of men, amongst whom was Zacharias Werner, author of _Söhne des Thales_, _Das Kreuz an der Ostsee_,13 &c. Hitzig had spent the interval from 1801 in Berlin, where he had kept fully abreast of the newest productions in literature and art, whilst Hoffmann had been living, partly a rude and riotous life, and partly a solitary and monkish one, at Posen and Plock. Hence the one had plenty to communicate and the other great eagerness to listen, especially as the little he had begun to hear roused anew his slumbering better feelings, and whetted with a keen edge his native desire for self-improvement through art and literature.

In the following year, 1805, one of the Prussian administrative officials, an enthusiast in music, conceived the idea of establishing a club or society for the purpose of amusement and mutual instruction in his favourite art, and for the purpose also of training singers of both sexes. Hoffmann's interest was enlisted in the scheme; and things proceeded at an energetic rate, the first concert being successful beyond expectation. With this encouragement the society was induced to go to work on a larger and more pretentious scale. The Miniszeki Palace, injured by fire, was bought for the seat of the new academy; and then Hoffmann threw himself into the plans of the society with all his soul, working indefatigably in preparing architectural designs, and later in decorating the halls and corridors. During all the mild days of the spring of 1806 he was never to be met with at home. If not in the government office, he was invariably to be found perched up on a high scaffolding in the new musical Ressource, painter's jacket on and surrounded by a crowd of colour-pots, amongst which was sure to be a bottle of Hungarian or Italian wine; there he painted and thence he conversed with his friends below. If, on occasion, parties requiring the services of Councillor Hoffmann came to look for him at the new Ressource, whither they had been directed from his own house, they were greatly surprised to see him drop nimbly to the floor from before an elaborate wall-painting of ancient Egyptian gods, mixed up with caricature figures and animal-like fragments of modems (his friends with tails, wings, etc.), hastily wash his hands, trot along in front of them to his place of business, and in a brief space of time turn out some complicated legal instrument with which it would defy the sharpest critic to find anything amiss.

So absorbed was he in this work, and in that of directing at the evening performances and composing music for them, that he hardly knew anything of the dark thunder-cloud of war that was gathering in the West until the news of the fateful battle of Jena came; but upon these music enthusiasts in Warsaw even this intelligence made no perceptible impression. Their concerts and practisings and meetings went on uninterruptedly just as before, until one fine day the advanced guard of the Russian army rode into the streets of the former Polish capital. Soon after the Russian general had taken up his quarters in Praga, close to Warsaw, there appeared on the other side of the town the pioneers of the great army of Napoleon. The Prussians and Russians withdrew from the town. Milhaud arrived with the main body of Murat's forces; in Napoleon's name the Prussian Government was dissolved, and its officials were superseded by native Poles. Hence Hoffmann was left without employment. He and his colleagues divided the contents of the treasury between them to prevent its falling into the hands of the French; this secured them from want for the present. Careless about the future, and revelling in the luxury of untrammelled freedom, Hoffmann was now perfectly happy. The excitement was like rich wine to his brilliant fancy; he never had enough of it. He spent all the livelong day in running about seeing and hearing the many remarkable things to be both seen and heard. And the little, restless, energetic man was like quicksilver; he was everywhere. He specially loved to frequent the theatres, where, before the curtain rose, conversations might be heard carried on in ten or a dozen living tongues at once. Pushing his way through the motley throng, he penetrated to every part of the house, busy gathering all sorts of rich observations, and storing up a most varied assortment of experiences; and nothing escaped his falcon eye or remained unnoticed by his keen perception. Many and exquisite were the humorous anecdotes he picked up, the gestures he copied, the tricks and eccentricities he caught, the extraordinary characters he understood and fathomed at a glance; and these experiences he afterwards retailed to his friends, to their unbounded delight.

But amid all the tumult of the French occupation of the city, the evenings at the Musical Ressource still went on the same as ever. Hoffmann indeed, in order to escape the burdens of billeting as well as from motives of economy, took up his residence in one of the attics of the Ressource, where, though somewhat straitened for accommodation (for he had his wife, a niece aged about twelve, and a little baby daughter with him), he was as happy and contented as he well could be. He had the rich library of the Ressource at command, and his own piano stood in one of its rooms; and "that was all he wanted to make him forget the French and the future." Early in 1807, he took advantage of a favourable opportunity and sent his wife and the two children to her friends in Posen; Hitzig also, and his family, and most other friends, left Warsaw in March of that year: thus Hoffmann was left almost alone. Soon afterwards he was attacked by a grave nervous disorder, but successfully nursed through it by the one or two friends who still remained in the city. On recovering, he wished to go to Vienna, with the view of beginning an artistic career, and was only prevented from carrying out his design by want of money to defray the expenses of the journey. He was in great distress, and even began to despond, until finally in the summer he contrived to get to Posen, and thence to Berlin, where he arrived some time in July.

In Berlin, however, his prospects did not improve. He failed to find employment for his talents: nobody could be got to purchase his sketches or sit to him for a portrait; an attempt to interest Iffland, the actor and dramatist, in him failed; and no publisher could be found for his musical productions. Everything he was willing to do came to nothing. Then came other misfortunes. His ready-money, consisting of six _Louis d'or_, was stolen from him; news reached him of the death of his dearly-loved daughter Cecily when two years old, and of the illness of his wife. He was on the point of despair, when it suddenly occurred to him to advertise for the post of musical director in a theatre. This had the desired effect of eventually securing him the post he wished, in the theatre at Bamberg which was conducted under the auspices of Count von Soden; but the engagement was not to commence until October, 1808. The intervening months were months of hard struggle for Hoffmann; he says he was almost in the extremities of want, and should have lacked the bare necessaries of life had he not succeeded in disposing of some minor productions in music and painting for a couple of _Louis d'or_ received in advance. In the summer of 1808, he at last fetched his wife from Posen, and then repaired to Bamberg (1st September).

To these years in Warsaw and Berlin belong three operas and other minor musical pieces (including music for Werner's tragedy _Das Kreuz an der Ostsee_), several productions of his pencil and brush, but no literary works. Here at the end of what may be termed the first act in E. T. W. Hoffmann's chequered life we may pause a moment And the pause we may turn to account by quoting a description of his personal appearance and some peculiarities of habit.

"Hoffmann was very short of stature, of yellowish complexion; and he had dark, almost black hair, growing down low upon his forehead, gray eyes which had nothing remarkable about them when they were at rest, but which assumed an uncommonly humorous and cunning expression when he blinked them, as he often did. His nose was thin and of the Roman type, and his mouth tightly closed.

"Notwithstanding his agility, his body seemed to be capable of endurance, for in contrast with his size his breast was high and his shoulders broad.

"During the earlier part of his life his dress was sufficiently elegant, without falling into foppery. The only thing he set great and special store by was his whiskers, which he carefully cut so as to form a point against the corners of his mouth....

"What particularly struck the eye in his exterior was his extraordinary vivacity of movement, which rose to the highest pitch when he began to narrate anything. His manners at receiving and parting from people-- repeated quick short bendings of the neck without moving the head--had a good deal that appeared to partake of the nature of caricature, and might very readily have been taken for irony had not the impression made by his singular gestures on such occasions been softened by his cordial warmth of manner.

"He spoke with incredible quickness and in a somewhat hoarse voice, so that he was always very difficult to understand, especially during the last years of his life, when he had lost some of his front teeth. When relating he always spoke in quite short sentences; but when the conversation turned upon art matters and he got enthusiastic--against which, however, he seemed to guard himself--he employed long and finely rounded periods. If he were reading any of his own compositions aloud-- whether literary or official--he hurried over the unimportant parts at such a rate that his listeners had hard work to follow him; but those places which are called 'strong touches' in a picture he emphasised with almost comic pathos; he screwed up his mouth as he read, and looked round to see if his listeners caught the points, so that he often upset both his own and their equilibrium. Owing to this habit he was conscious that he did not read well, and was always uncommonly pleased if anybody else would relieve him of the task; this, however, was a ticklish thing to do, especially in the case of MSS. copy, for every word read falsely or every hesitating glance upon a word to make sure what it was went like a knife to his heart, and this effect he could not conceal. As a singer he was a fine powerful tenor."14

To Bamberg Hoffmann went with high hopes of being able to realise the dreams of his life; but his fond expectations were doomed to the bitterest disappointment. His post he barely retained two months. The theatre circumstances were on an exact par with those described in _ Wilhelm Meister_ (_videatur_ the name Melina, &c.). Hoffmann's style of directing gave offence to the Bamberg public on the very first evening; Count von Soden had placed the management of the theatre in the hands of a certain Cuno, whose affairs were so embarrassed that he never, or only seldom, paid his officials, and finally became insolvent in February, 1809. The disappointed director, embittered against the public by his failure to recommend himself to them, supported himself and his wife by composing the incidental music for the various pieces given at the theatre, at a small monthly salary (of which he received but little), and by giving music lessons in many of the best families of the town. But the war approaching that district of Germany caused many of these families to leave the place; and Hoffmann began to be in embarrassed circumstances. Then he wrote an extremely droll letter to Rochlitz, the editor of the _Musicalische Zeitung_ at Leipsic, was taken on as a contributor, and continued to work for this magazine all the time he was in Bamberg--producing mostly reviews and criticisms of musical works, and writing fugitive pieces of musical interest. He also composed several pieces of music of various descriptions independently of those which he wrote for the theatre. Nor was his brush idle, for he received several commissions for large family pictures. Thus things went on until the summer of 1809, when a brighter cloud dawned upon him for a time. One fine summer evening he made the acquaintance of Kunz, a bookseller, publisher, and wine-dealer, at the pleasure-resort of Bug (close to Bamberg) in a characteristic manner. Kunz, an honest, jovial, good-natured giant, not lacking humour and gifted with a remarkable talent for mimicry and imitation, became little Hoffmann's fast friend--nay, his only real friend--during the whole of the time the latter remained in Bamberg. They were almost inseparable, associated in all amusements and diversions: they spent many long winter evenings together in pouring out their hearts and experiences to each other in mutual confidences, and many long summer evenings at the "Rose," where according to German custom a throng of visitors gathered to spend the hours between closing business and going to bed. In July, 1810, Holbein, Hoffmann's Glogau friend, came to undertake the management of the Bamberg theatre. This, of course, could not fail to be of advantage to Hoffmann, who, though he did not resume his post of musical director, yet received a permanent engagement to act in a multitude of departments: he was musical composer, architect, scene-painter, part comptroller of the financial arrangements, and director of the repertoire, &c. Under Holbein's management the theatre rose to a flourishing level; classic operas and good plays15 were introduced with success, to which the versatile talents of Hoffmann largely contributed. In the evenings the choice spirits of Bamberg, mostly of theatrical and artistic connection, used to assemble in the "Rose," where Hoffmann was the soul of the party, his genius, wit, irony, and drollery being inexhaustible. Whilst sending out flashes of sarcastic wit or gleams of exquisite humour, he would clench a droll or clever description by quickly embodying his thoughts and words in impromptu sketches, which were handed round to the company. Music and singing, often by the actors and actresses, also added to the entertainment of the evening. Mine host of the "Rose" saw his company increased by some scores of visitors when it was known that the inimitable sharp-eyed little music-director was going to be present; and he used to send across (Hoffmann lived the other side of the street only) during the day to inquire if he intended being there in the evening. But on the whole, Hoffmann was more generally feared than loved, or even respected, by the main body of the townsfolk. His vanity was openly displayed; he must lead the conversation, and everybody else must fall in with his humour and his whim, or they might expect some marked rudeness from his bitter tongue; and the fellow had a confoundedly sharp tongue, and no less sharp a pen and pencil. The most wonderful things were said about him in the town, and to those not intimate with him or who did not know him personally, he was a man to be gazed at from a distance; it was hardly safe to seek his acquaintance, although his talk was said to be something extraordinary, and his gestures and grimaces irresistibly diverting, yet he could also launch stinging barbs and on occasion utter insulting sarcasms. In fact the outside public were wont to regard him as invested with a nimbus of wonder, or even as a sort of dæmonic being. Though these evenings were beyond all conception gay and festive, Hoffmann seldom drank to excess. Of course he drank a good deal: he had acquired the habit, as remarked, at Posen, but he was not a common drinker, who drinks for the drink's sake. It was the exhilaration it gave to his spirits and the fire it gave to his mind and brilliant parts that he found attractive in the habit.16 Excursions were also made into the country, particularly to Bug; and here, as at Warsaw, the restless "quicksilver" man was everywhere.

In March, 1811, he was fortunate to be introduced to Von Weber the musician, whose regard for his musical talents continued undiminished until his death; and in the same month Hoffmann paid a visit to Jean Paul at Bayreuth, and had from him a fairly cordial reception. Towards the end of the year came the intelligence that his uncle Otto Dörffer of Königsberg had died, leaving him heir to his property. But the sum Hoffmann received barely sufficed, if indeed it did suffice, to pay his debts. These had been accumulated first by Hoffmann's own want of prudence--when he had money in his purse he spent it merrily without a thought about the morrow--and secondly, by the frequent illness of his wife, the simple, homely, unassuming, good-natured creature with whom he always lived on happy terms in spite of his own unpardonable vagaries. Curiously enough, he used to labour under the odd delusion that she was gifted with keen critical taste and was an intellectual woman, though this was far from being the truth, according to the express evidence of his bosom-friend Kunz.

Amongst Hoffmann's pupils was a young girl of sixteen, Julia M----; this was his favourite pupil. For her he came to conceive an overmastering passion; but whether it was more of the imagination or of the heart it would appear difficult to decide with absolute certainty. He did not know himself; "he preferred to remain a riddle to himself, a riddle which he always dreaded to have solved;" and he demanded from his friend Kunz that he should look upon him as a "sacred inexplicable hieroglyph." The girl, who was pretty and amiable, of good understanding, and of child-like deportment towards her music-master, never for a single moment dreamt of such a thing as his passion for her, and so of course she never consciously encouraged it in any way. She did not even show any signs of possessing a dreamy or poetic temperament, or seem to be inclined to sentimentality, so that Hoffmann's extraordinary infatuation can only be explained as a "fixed insanity." At any rate, it powerfully affected his mind, and left an indelible trace upon him almost down to his dying day. The day on which her betrothal to a stupid, weak-minded man, a man in all respects unworthy of her, was celebrated at the pleasure-resort of Pommersfelden (four hours from Bamberg), was one which shook Hoffmann's storm-tossed soul to its profoundest depths. He had hated himself for his weakness, and yet could not or would not manfully resolve to break through it. Now he was compelled to do so, and in a way that was galling to the utmost degree. Her marriage turned out an unhappy one; and eight years later, that is two years before his death, hearing she was in great trouble, he sent many kind messages to her through a mutual friend. These relations are detailed with striking truth and fidelity in the _ Nachricht von den neusten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza_, published in the _Fantasiestücke in Callot's Manier_ (1814-15). Perhaps, if we sufficiently compare the descriptions which he gives of various heroines in his tales (all of which were written after this time),17 and bear in mind the common characteristic running through them all, namely, that he puts them before us more as individual pictures than as developments of character, giving us purely objective sketches of them after the manner of a painter--if we compare these descriptions with what we know of Hoffmann's mind and character, his restless, brilliant imagination, and the taint of sensuousness that helped to mar its purity, his keen eye for beauty in form and colour, his strong talent for seeing the things with which he came in contact through an unmistakable veil of either love or hatred, we may perhaps hazard the opinion, without risk of going far wrong, that it was his imagination-- the imagination that made up such a large part of the man--that was principally concerned in this remarkable passion; if his heart was also touched, as it would undoubtedly appear to have been, the road to it must no less undoubtedly have been found through his imagination.

Early in 1812 Hoffmann was invited to a banquet at the monastery of the Capuchins; and the visit made an extraordinary impression upon him. All during dinner he could not keep his eyes off a gray-haired old monk with a fine antique head, genuine Italian face, strong-marked features, and long snow-white beard. On being introduced to Father Cyrillus he asked him innumerable questions about the secrets of monastic life, especially about those things of which "we profane have only dim guesses, no clear conceptions." They got into a poetic and exalted frame of mind, and rose just as it was getting dusk to inspect the chapel and crypt, and other objects of interest. In the crypt Hoffmann was powerfully agitated: he reverently doffed his hat, his wine-heated face became terribly pale, and he visibly showed that he was held in the thraldom of supernatural awe. When Father Cyrillus went on to point out the spot where his own mortal remains should rest, and to indulge in certain pious exhortations to them (Hoffmann and Kunz) to shed a tear upon his grave if they should come there again in after years, Hoffmann lost control of himself; he stood like a marble pillar, his face and eyes set, his hair standing on end, unable to utter a word.18 Then making a gesture upwards he hurried out of the crypt with hasty uncertain steps. The impressions made upon him by this visit, and the observations he gathered, he employed in the _Elixiere des Teufels_ and _Kater Murr_ (pt. II.), the meeting between _ Kapellmeister_ Kreisler and Father Hilarius, as well as the description of the monastery and its situation in the latter, being invested with a fine poetic flavour.

The scene in the crypt points to another side of Hoffmann's character, or rather personality, which hitherto has not been alluded to. In fact, it does not seem, as far as can be gathered from the biographical sources, that it began to be strongly developed until the Bamberg period. We have seen how that early in life he conceived a decided antipathy to the prosaic and the commonplace, and his career up to this point furnishes abundant evidence that he hated with a genuine hatred to keep in the ruts of custom and conventionality, as if bound to do so because such was prescribed by custom and conventionality. His sentiments he never concealed, and his actions harmonised, almost without exception, strictly with his sentiments; for one of his most striking and instructive characteristics was the remarkable fearlessness which he displayed no less in his actual conduct than in his habits of thought. Affectation was far from him; thorough genuineness was stamped upon all he did, showing unmistakably that it came direct from the man himself. In fact it might be said, with special significance, that his inner and his outer life--the in other cases invisible life of the soul and the visible life in action--were perfectly correlated, if not one and indivisibly the same. Being then thus honest with himself,19 and detesting as he did all that was commonplace and wearying, fiat and stale and dull, it is no wonder that he should tend to fall into the opposite extreme, and should delight in the unusual, the singular, the extraordinary. Further, when we remember his fine imaginative powers, his inimitable humour, his vanity, his poetic cast of mind, his bitterness against the public for not appreciating his musical talents, and his consequent fits of fierce defiance and satiric gloom, there is still less cause for wonder when we find this propensity for seeking the uncommon and the marvellous deepening and developing in time into an unconquerable penchant for what was grotesque and eccentric, for what was fantastic, unnatural, ghostly, and horrible. He loved to occupy his fancy most with the extremes of human action, and to dive down into the most secret and unexplored recesses of human nature to bring back thence some wild startling trait that scarce any other imagination save his own would have discovered. If he ever studied human nature at all, it was along the border-lands of rationality; those misty shadowy states, such as insanity, monomania, and hypochondriacal somnambulism, where the soul hardly knows itself and loses touch of reality and almost of self- consciousness. These and the like mysterious states of being exercised a strange fascination upon his spirit. He was constantly pursued by the idea that some secret and dreadful calamity would happen to him, and his mind was often haunted by images of awful form and by "doubles" of himself and others. He even believed he saw visions with his own bodily eyes, and no expostulations of his friends could drive this belief out of his head. Not only when he was engaged in writing, but even in the midst of an ordinary conversation, at supper, or whilst drinking a social glass of wine or rum, he would suddenly exclaim, "See there-- there--that ugly little pigmy--see what capers he cuts. Pray don't incommode yourself, my little man. You are at liberty to listen to us as much as you please. Will you not approach nearer? You are welcome." (Here, and occasionally, he would accompany his words with violent muscular contortions of the face.) "Pray what will you take? Oh! don't go, my good little fellow." All this, or similar disconnected phrases, he used to utter with his eyes fixed and riveted upon the place where he affirmed he saw the vision; and if his word was doubted or he was laughed at as a stupid foolish man, he would knit his brows and with great earnestness reiterate his assertions and appeal to his wife to support him, saying, "I often see them, don't I, Mischa" (Misza, Mischa, short form for the Polish name Michaelina)?

This side of Hoffmann's individuality is not only one of the most characteristic of him, it is necessary to grasp it in order to understand his written works. These remarks will also serve to make more intelligible the sensation aroused in Hoffmann the evening he was at the Capuchin monastery. It is in the _Elixiere des Teufels_ that these noteworthy traits find in most respects their fullest expression.

To return to the historical narrative. The story _Meister Martin_ and the unfinished _Der Feind_ owe their origin to a visit which Hoffmann paid to Erlangen and Nuremberg in March, 1812. In the same year he also devoted some attention to sport, and learned to use a sportsman's rifle; but his imagination was always swifter than his rifle-charge. A _ sitting_ sparrow he did at length contrive to hit, but a flying one, or a hare, or even a deer, he never could succeed in knocking over, that is to say the real animals. Clods of earth and tufts of grass which his imagination conjured into game he could sometimes hit, but no living animal would ever be likely to approach near him, for his quick restless movements and mercurial gestures were a standing impediment to any game ever coming within shot of him unless actually driven close past his "stand," and then his excitement either made him fire too soon or else miss. Nevertheless, he enjoyed these sporting excursions, in his own eccentric fashion, immensely.20

During the summer Hoffmann took up his residence for four weeks in the picturesque ruins of the castle of Altenburg, in the immediate neighbourhood of Bamberg, where, whilst living a hermit's life in company with his spouse, he painted one of the towers with frescoes illustrative of incidents in the life of Count Adalbert von Babenberg, whose residence the castle had formerly been. But he also occupied himself with literary schemes; it was in this retreat that he wrote certain sketches designed to form parts of a work which long occupied his mind, but which never came to anything, namely, the _Lichte Stunden eines wahnsinnigen Musikers_ (Rational Intervals of a Crack-brained Musician). In this he purposed to develop his opinions on the theory of music and the principles of harmony. The fragments were afterwards revised and appeared as the _Kreisleriana_ in the _Fantasiestücke_.

In the next month, July, his star of adversity was again to be in the ascendant. Holbein severed his connection with the theatre, and Hoffmann lost his fixed income. Things grew darker and darker for him, until he was almost reduced to actual want; at any rate he came to be in very embarrassed circumstances. Singular to say, however, under all this cloud of adversity he maintained a shining face and a light heart behind it. This was peculiar to him; Rochlitz says "he belonged to the large class of men who can bear ill fortune better than good fortune." During this time of distress, which was a repetition of his dark days in Berlin in 1807-8, he displayed a remarkable activity in his usual pursuits. His criticism of _Don Juan_, and exposition of the problem of Mozart's great opera, for which Hoffmann cherished a profound and almost extravagant admiration, owes its origin to this period.21 An anecdote in relation to this will also illustrate his true passionate admiration of art. Kunz lost a child, for which he grieved sadly; two days afterwards Hoffmann advised him to go with him to see _Don Juan_ at night, declaring it would assuage his grief and soothe and comfort his heart. Of course Kunz looked upon the idea as preposterous. Nevertheless Hoffmann would not be denied; he exerted all his arts of persuasion to induce his friend to go. At last Kunz did go; on the way to the theatre Hoffmann discoursed of the opera in such a sensible, acute, and touching way, and so poetically and with especial reference to his friend's loss, and afterwards in the theatre he expressed his sympathy in such kind and delicate lines, whilst tears of genuine feeling stood in his eyes, that his friend was obliged to admit, "This music of the spheres, which I had heard at least a dozen times before, exerted a greater power over me than all the dictates of reason or the consolations of friends."

In February, 1813, the struggling ex-director received an altogether unexpected letter from Joseph Seconda, offering him the post of music- director to his opera company at Dresden; and on April 21, 1813, Hoffmann's residence in Bamberg, which may be regarded as the turning- point in his life, came to an end. Four days later he arrived at his destination without encountering any very serious adventure on the road, although it swarmed most of the way with scouting Bashkirs, Cossacks, Prussian hussars, and Russian dragoons, and was thickly lined with heavy guns and munition-waggons,--massing for the battle of Lützen (May 2). On arriving at Dresden Hoffmann found quite unexpectedly his friend Hippel, and with him spent several right happy days. Then he was summoned by Seconda to join him at Leipsic, for Seconda seems to have spent his time between this town and Dresden. But the journey was postponed until May 20th, owing to the proximity of the contending forces and the consequent unsettled state of the country. In the intervals several sharp skirmishes between the Russians and French took place in and close around Dresden. As might be expected, Hoffmann could not check his irrepressible desire to be in the thick of the excitement; on May 9th he was standing close beside one of the town gates when a ball struck against a wall near him and in the rebound hit him on the shin; he quietly stooped down and picked up the flattened "coin," and preserved it as a memento, "being quite satisfied with that one memento, unselfishly not asking for any more," as he wrote. Even during these troubled restless days he worked at the _Fantasiestücke_. On the way to Leipsic happened a startling occurrence, which probably served as the prototype for the catastrophe at the end of _Das Majorat_ (The Entail). The coach was upset and a newly married Countess was taken up dead; Hoffmann's own wife also received a severe wound on the head. Seconda's troupe only remained in Leipsic a few weeks longer; permission was given him to play in the Court theatre at Dresden; hence on 24th June we find Hoffmann on his way back to Dresden, and deriving in his characteristic fashion much amusement from a waggon heavily laden with theatrical appurtenances, living and non-living, something in the style of the carriage scene in _Die Fermate_.

The return, however, was a return into the very hottest scene of the struggle between the Allies and Napoleon. On August 26th and 27th the fight raged furiously around the walls of Dresden; the quarter in which Hoffmann was living was shelled; the people in the house "bivouaced" under the stone stairs, trembling with fear and anxiety. Hoffmann, however, could not bear to hide away, so he slipped out by a back door and went to join one of his theatrical friends. Looking out of his window they watched the damage done by the shells, and saw one burst in the market-place below, crushing a soldier's head, tearing open the body of a passing citizen, and seriously wounding three other people not far away. Keller the actor, in his start of apprehension, let his glass fall out of his hand; "I," says Hoffmann, "drank mine empty and cried, 'What is life? Not able to bear a little bit of hot iron? Poor weak human nature! God give me calmness and courage in the midst of danger! We can get over it all better so.'" Then he returned to the anxious party under the steps, taking them wine and rum--the latter was Hoffmann's favourite drink. His presence brought the unfailing good spirits and humour which hardly ever deserted him, even under the darkest cloud of adversity. On the 29th he visited the battle-field and saw its cruel sights and its horrors. But other horrors were in store for the inhabitants of the city; for the next few weeks Dresden was besieged, and her citizens suffered from famine and pestilence and all the other usual terrible concomitants of a siege.

Hoffmann's literary activity through all these weeks of turmoil was something astonishing. Whilst the thunders of cannon were making "the ground to tremble and the windows to shake," and the shells were bursting around him and the sharp crack and dull ping of bullets were incessantly striking upon his ear, this extraordinary man sat unconcerned amidst it all, absorbed in literary or musical composition, either writing his _Goldener Topf_ (or _Der Dichter und der Componist_ or _Der Magnetiseur_) or working out his opera _Undine_, which was begun in Bamberg in 1812. Even when suffering from the dysentery which raged in the place, his intellectual activity went on without being impaired. In a letter to Kunz of date Sept 8th of this year he writes, "I am, as you will observe, unwearied in cultivating the fine arts, and if to-morrow or the day after I am not blown into the air by a Prussian or Russian or Austrian shell, you will find me fat and well-favoured from art enjoyments of every sort."

It was through Kunz's intervention that the Introduction prefixed to the _Fantasiestücke_ was obtained from Jean Paul, and that against Hoffmann's own wish, for all introductions except those which stand as _ prolegomena_ before a scientific work he hated--when a well-known writer prefixed an introduction before the work of an unknown as a sort of attestation, it seemed to him like "an incendiary letter which the young author takes into his hand in order to go and beg for applause with it." Another short passage from one of his letters to Kunz of this same summer may here be quoted as illustrating a trait in his character:--

"So far about business; and now the earnest request that you will keep in mind and constantly before your eyes who and what I am, and let our business even be inspired with that spirit of cheerfulness and good- humour which always marked our intercourse with each other, and even in money matters prevented the dead, stiff, frosty mercantile style from coming to the surface. I am sure it was quite foreign to both of us, and could only excite in us such fear as we feel when set upon by an angry 'wauwau,' at which afterwards we can only laugh to each other."

This unwillingness, nay almost repugnance to look at things from their serious side, was quite characteristic of him. "But these are _odiosa_" was a frequent phrase in his mouth.

On 9th December Seconda and his opera company once more repaired to Leipsic, and Hoffmann of course along with them. There on New Year's Day he was struck down by a severe attack of inflammation in the chest, aggravated by gout, in consequence of a violent cold caught in the theatre; the case was so severe and grave that his life was at times in danger. "Podagrists are generally visited by an especial humour-- brilliant fancies; this comforts me; I experience the truth of it, since often when I feel the sharpest pangs I write _con amore_," he states in a letter to Kunz (24th March). And during his illness one of his friends "found him in one of the meanest rooms in one of the meanest inns, sitting on a wretched bed, but ill protected against the cold, and with his feet drawn up by gout." A board was lying in front of him, and he appeared to be busy doing something upon it. "God bless me!" exclaimed his friend, "whatever are you doing?" "Making caricatures," replied Hoffmann laughing--"caricatures of the cursed Frenchman; I am inventing them, drawing them, and colouring them." He also wrote about this time the _Vision auf dem Schlachtfelde bei Dresden_ and other pieces, and finished his _Undine_; further, whilst in this distressing condition, he began the _Elixiere des Teufels_, the first volume of which was completed in less than a month. This work he intended to be an illustration, or illustrative exposition of his own notions, of "a man who even at his birth was an object of contention between the powers divine and demoniacal, and his tortuous wonderful life was intended to exhibit in a clear and distinct light those secret and mysterious combinations between the human spirit and all those Higher Principles which are concealed in all Nature, and only flash out now and again--and these flashes we call chance." That he succeeded in his purpose cannot be maintained. His own individuality was too strong for him: he failed to handle his subject from a sufficiently independent standpoint. He was not the artist creating a work that was quite outside himself; he was rather the silk-worm spinning his entangling threads round about himself. The book can scarcely be read without shuddering; the dark maze of humane motion and human weakness-- a mingling of poetry, sentimentality, rollicking humour, wild remorse, stern gloom, blind delusion, dark insanity, over all which is thrown a veil steeped in the fantastic and the horrible--all this detracts from the artistic merits of the work, but invests it with a corresponding proportion of interest as a revealer of some of the deepest secrets and hidden phases of the human soul, if one only has the courage to wade through it. The dreamy mystifications and the wild insanity and mystic passion of Brother Medardus are not unrelieved by scenes and characters which bear the stamp of bright poetic beauty and rich comic humour (_e.g._, the character of the Abbess of the Cistercian convent, the _ jäger_, the description of the monastery, the scenes with Mr. Ewson and Belcampo _alias_ Schönfeld).

For some reason which cannot be quite made out for certain, either in consequence of his continued illness or because of a quarrel with Seconda, Hoffmann found himself once more adrift in the world without an anchor to hold fast by in February, 1814. In striking contrast with his treatment by the Bamberg public, his talents as director whilst with Seconda's company were fully and adequately appreciated, both by the artistes and the orchestra, as well as by the general public. This may have been due to two causes; first, the actors and actresses were not embarrassed by his directing from the pianoforte instead of with the violin as those in Bamberg were, and in the second place his criticisms and essays on musical subjects in Rochlitz's _Musicalische Zeitung_ had gained him a certain reputation as an authority in musical matters. After having refused the offer of a post as music-director in his native city of Königsberg in February (1814), he was agreeably surprised by Hippel's promise to secure his return into official life. Accordingly towards the end of September in that same year he set out for Berlin.

Here ends what may be termed the second act of this very unsettled, eventful life. That this wandering aside from the career he first started upon--viz., that of law and public life to tread the thorny precarious path of art was fraught with greater consequences than can be estimated upon the unfortunate man's character, will be evident from what has been already stated. These dark years were those mainly instrumental in stifling the good germs that had once been in him, and yet more did they result in encouraging and bringing out prominently all his less praiseworthy qualities. As his works and his life are so intimately interwoven, and as his works were nearly all written subsequent to this disastrous period, it seemed desirable to dwell somewhat upon the events and circumstances of the earlier part of his life. With the view of showing that Hoffmann himself fully understood the nature and tendency of his existence in Bamberg, the following passages are quoted from a letter written to Dr. Speyer in that town in July, 1813:--