  Pp. 45-49. Cf. Lib. II. §§ 1, 5, 11, et passim. Hitherto my notes have been a careful selection of the few grains of characteristic fact which I could find among Dietrich’s lengthy professional reflections; but the chapter on which this scene is founded is remarkable enough to be given whole, and as I have a long-standing friendship for the good old monk, who is full of honest naÏvetÉ and deep-hearted sympathy, and have no wish to disgust all my readers with him, I shall give it for the most part untranslated. In the meantime those who may be shocked at certain expressions in this poem, borrowed from the Romish devotional school, may verify my language at the Romish booksellers, who find just now a rapidly increasing sale for such ware. And is it not after all a hopeful sign for the age that even the most questionable literary tastes must nowadays ally themselves with religion—that the hotbed imaginations which used to batten on Rousseau and Byron have now risen at least as high as the Vies des Saints and St. FranÇois de Sales’ Philothea? The truth is, that in such a time as this, in the dawn of an age of faith, whose future magnificence we may surely prognosticate from the slowness and complexity of its self-developing process, spiritual ‘Werterism,’ among other strange prolusions, must have its place. The emotions and the imaginations will assert their just right to be fed—by foul means if not by fair; and even self-torture will have charms after the utter dryness and life-in-death of mere ecclesiastical pedantry. It is good, mournful though it be, that a few, even by gorging themselves with poison, should indicate the rise of a spiritual hunger—if we do but take their fate as a warning to provide wholesome food before the new craving has extended itself to the many. It is good that religion should have its Werterism, in order that hereafter Werterism may have its religion. But to my quotations—wherein the reader will judge how difficult it has been for me to satisfy at once the delicacy of the English mind and that historic truth which the highest art demands. ‘Erat inter eos honorabile connubium, et thorus immaculatus, non in ardore libidmis, sed in conjugalis sanctimoniÆ castitate. For the holy maiden, as soon as she was married, began to macerate her flesh with many watchings, rising every night to pray; her husband sometimes sleeping, sometimes conniving at her, often begging her, in compassion to her delicacy, not to afflict herself indiscreetly, often supporting her with his hand when she prayed.’ (‘And,’ says another of her biographers, ‘being taught by her to pray with her.’) ‘Great truly, was the devotion of this young girl, who, rising from the bed of her carnal husband, sought Christ, whom she loved as the true husband of her soul. ‘Nor certainly was there less faith in the husband who did not oppose such and so great a wife, but rather favoured her, and tempered her fervour with over-kind prudence. Affected, therefore, by the sweetness of this modest love, and mutual society, they could not bear to be separated for any length of time or distance. The lady, therefore, frequently followed her husband through rough roads, and no small distances, and severe wind and weather, led rather by emotions of sincerity than of carnality: for the chaste presence of a modest husband offered no obstacle to that devout spouse in the way of praying, watching, or otherwise doing good.’ Then follows the story of her nurse waking Lewis instead of her, and Lewis’s easy good-nature about this, as about every other event of life. ‘And so, after these unwearied watchings, it often happened that, praying for an excessive length of time, she fell asleep on a mat beside her husband’s bed, and being reproved for it by her maidens, answered: “Though I cannot always pray, yet I can do violence to my own flesh by tearing myself in the meantime from my couch.”’ ‘Fugiebat oblectamenta carnalia, et ideÒ stratum molliorem, et viri contubernium secretissimum, quantum licuit, declinavit. Quem quamvis prÆcordialis amoris affectu deligeret, querulabatur tamen dolens, quod virginalis decorem floris non meruit conservare. Castigabat etiam plagis multis, et lacerabat diris verberibus carnem puella innocens et pudica. ‘In principio quidem diebus quadragesimÆ, sextisque feriis aliis occultas solebat accipere disciplinas, lÆtam coram hominibus se ostentrans. Post verÒ convalescens et proficiens in gratia, deserto dilecti thoro surgens, fecit se in secreto cubiculo per ancillarum manus graviter sÆpissime verberari, ad lectumque mariti reversa hilarem se exhibuit et jocundam. ‘Vere felices conjuges, in quorum consortio tanta munditia, in colloquio pudicitia reperta est. In quibus amor Christi concupiscentiam extinxit, devotio refrenavit petulantiam, fervor spiritÛs excussit somnolentiam, oratio tutavit conscientiam, charitas benefaciendi facultatem tribuit et lÆtitiam!’ P. 58. ‘In every scruple.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 9, how Lewis ‘consented that Elizabeth his wife should make a vow of obedience and continence at the will of the said Conrad, salv jure matrimonii.’ P. 59. ‘The open street.’ Cf. Lib. II. § 11. ‘On the Rogation days, when certain persons doing contrary to the decrees of the saints are decorated with precious and luxurious garments, the Princess, dressed in serge and barefooted, used to follow most devoutly the Procession of the Cross and the relics of the Saints, and place herself always at sermon among the poorest women; knowing (says Dietrich) that seeds cast into the valleys spring up into the richest crop of corn.’ P. 60. ‘The poor of Christ.’ Cf. Lib. II. §§ 6, 11, et passim. Elizabeth’s labours among the poor are too well known throughout one half at least of Christendom, where she is, par excellence, the patron of the poor, to need quotations. P. 61. ‘I’ll be thy pupil.’ Cf. Lib. II § 4. ‘She used also, by words and examples, to oblige the worldly ladies who came to her to give up the vanity of the world, at least in some one particular.’ P. 62. ‘Conrad enters.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 9, where this story of the disobeyed message and the punishment inflicted by Conrad for it is told word for word. P. 66. ‘Peaceably come by.’ Cf. Lib. II. § 6. P. 67. ‘Bond-slaves.’ Cf. Note 11. P. 69. ‘Elizabeth passes.’ Cf. Lib. II. § 5. ‘This most Christian mother, impletis purgationis suÆ diebus, used to dress herself in serge, and, taking in her arms her new-born child, used to go forth secretly, barefooted, by the difficult descent from the castle, by a rough and rocky road to a remote church, carrying her infant in her own arms, after the example of the Virgin Mother, and offering him upon the altar to the Lord with a taper’ (and with gold, says another biographer). P. 71. ‘Give us bread.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 6. ‘A.D. 1225, while the Landgrave was gone to Italy to the Emperor, a severe famine arose throughout all Almaine; and lasting for nearly two years, destroyed many with hunger. Then Elizabeth, moved with compassion for the miserable, collected all the corn from her granaries, and distributed it as alms for the poor. She also built a hospital at the foot of the Wartburg, wherein she placed all those who could not wait for the general distribution. . . . She sold her own ornaments to feed the members of Christ. . . . Cuidam misero lac desideranti, ad mulgendum se prÆbuit!’—See p. 153. P 80. ‘Ladies’ tenderness.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 8. ‘When the courtiers and stewards complained on his return of the Lady Elizabeth’s too great extravagance in almsgiving, “Let her alone,” quoth he, “to do good, and to give whatever she will for God’s sake, only keep Wartburg and Neuenberg in my hands.”’ P. 87. ‘A crusader’s cross.’ Cf. Lib. IV. § 1. ‘In the year 1227 there was a general “Passagium” to the Holy Land, in which Frederick the Emperor also crossed the seas’ (or rather did not cross the seas, says Heinrich Stero, in his annals, but having got as far as Sicily, came back again—miserably disappointing and breaking up the expedition, whereof the greater part died at the various ports—and was excommunicated for so doing); ‘and Lewis, landgrave of the Thuringians, took the cross likewise in the name of Jesus Christ, and . . . did not immediately fix the badge which he had received to his garment, as the matter is, lest his wife, who loved him with the most tender affection, seeing this, should be anxious and disturbed, . . . but she found it while turning over his purse, and fainted, struck down with a wonderful consternation.’ P. 90. ‘I must be gone.’ Cf. Lib. IV. § 2. A chapter in which Dietrich rises into a truly noble and pathetic strain. ‘Coming to Schmalcald,’ he says, ‘Lewis found his dearest friends, whom he had ordered to meet him there, not wishing to depart without taking leave of them.’ Then follows Dietrich’s only poetic attempt, which Basnage calls a ‘carmen ineptum, foolish ballad,’ and most unfairly, as all readers should say, if I had any hope of doing justice in a translation to this genial fragment of an old dramatic ballad, and its simple objectivity, as of a writer so impressed (like all true Teutonic poets in those earnest days) with the pathos and greatness of his subject that he never tries to ‘improve’ it by reflections and preaching at his readers, but thinks it enough just to tell his story, sure that it will speak for itself to all hearts:— Quibus valefaciens cum moerore Surely there is a heart of flesh in the old monk which, when warmed by a really healthy subject, can toss aside Scripture parodies and professional Stoic sentiment, and describe with such life and pathos, like any eye-witness, a scene which occurred, in fact, two years before his birth. ‘And thus this Prince of Peace, ‘he continues, ‘mounting his horse with many knights, etc. . . . about the end of the month of June, set forth in the name of the Lord, praising him in heart and voice, and weeping and singing were heard side by side. And close by followed, with saddest heart, that most faithful lady after her sweetest prince, her most loving spouse, never, alas! to behold him more. And when she was going to return, the force of love and the agony of separation forced her on with him one day’s journey: and yet that did not suffice. She went on, still unable to bear the parting, another full day’s journey. . . . At last they part, at the exhortations of Rudolph the Cupbearer. What groans, think you, what sobs, what struggles, and yearnings of the heart must there have been? Yet they part, and go on their way. . . . The lord went forth exulting, as a giant to run his course; the lady returned lamenting, as a widow, and tears were on her cheeks. Then putting off the garments of joy, she took the dress of widowhood. The mistress of nations, sitting alone, she turned herself utterly to God—to her former good works, adding better ones.’ Their children were ‘Hermann, who became Landgraf; a daughter who married the Duke of Brabant; another, who, remaining in virginity, became a nun of Aldenburg, of which place she is Lady Abbess until this day.’ |
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