Delphi collected works o.., p.98
Delphi Collected Works of E. T. A. Hoffmann (Illustrated), page 98
“That part of your story,” said Ottmar, “keeping in view the circumstance that the readers or listeners are to be children, I think the most successful. The interpolation of the story of the Hard Nut, although the ‘cement’ of the whole lies there, I consider to be a fault, because the story is — in appearance at all events — complicated and confused by it, and it rather stretches and broadens the threads. You have declared that we are incompetent critics, and so reduced us to silence; but I cannot help telling you that, if you bring this tale before the public, many very rational people — particularly those who never have been children themselves (which is the case with many) — will shrug their shoulders and shake their heads, and say the whole affair is a pack of stupid nonsense; or, at all events, that some attack of fever must have suggested your ideas, because nobody in his sound and sober senses could have written such a piece of chaotic monstrosity.”
“Very good,” said Lothair, “to such a head-shaker I should make a profound reverence, lay my hand on my heart, and assure him that it is little service to an author if all sorts of fancies dawn upon him in a confused dream, unless he can discuss them with himself by the light of sound reason and judgment, and work out the threads of them firmly and soberly. Moreover, I would say that no description of work demands a clear and quiet mind more absolutely than just this; for, although it must have the effect of flashing out in all directions with the most arbitrary disregard of all rules, it must contain a firm kernel within it.”
“Nobody can gainsay you in this,” said Cyprian. “Still, it must always be a risky undertaking to bring the utterly fanciful into the domain of everyday life, and clap mad, enchanted caps on to the heads of grave and sober folks — judges, students, and Masters of the Rolls — so that they go gliding about like ghosts in broad daylight up and down the most frequented streets of the most familiar towns, and one does not know what to think of his most respectable neighbours. It is true that this brings with it a certain tone of irony, which acts as a spur to the lazy spirit, or rather entices it, unobservedly, with a plausible face, into this unaccustomed province.”
“But the said tone of irony,” said Theodore, “is capable of becoming a most dangerous pitfall; for the pleasantness of the plot and execution — which we have a right to demand in all tales of the kind — may very easily trip over it and go tumbling to the bottom.”
“But I do not believe it is possible to lay down definite canons for the construction of stories of this kind,” said Lothair. “Tieck, the profound and glorious master — the creator of the most delightful works of the ‘tale’ class — has only placed a very few scattered, instructive hints on the subject in the mouths of the characters in his ‘Phantasus.’ According to them, the conditions are, a quietly progressive tone of the narrative; a certain guilelessness in the relation, which, like gently fantasising music, enters the soul without noise or din. There should be no bitter after-taste left behind by it, but only a sense of enjoyment, echoing on. But is this sufficient to define the only admissible tone for this species of literature? However, I don’t wish to think any more about my ‘Nutcracker.’ I feel that it is pervaded by what I may call ‘overflowing spirits’ to too great an extent; and I have thought too much of grown-up people and their ways and doings; for the rest, I have had to promise the little critics in my sister’s nursery to get another story ready for them by next Christmas, and I undertake to keep it in a quieter tone. For to-day, I think we ought to be thankful that I have summoned you up out of the dreadful mine-shaft at Falun to the light of day, and restored you to the good humour and good spirits which become Serapion Brethren — particularly at the moment of parting, for I hear the clock striking twelve.”
“May Serapion continue to protect and aid us,” cried Theodore, rising and elevating his glass, “and enable us to describe what we have seen with the eye of the spirit, in graphic and apposite words.”
The Brethren drank the toast, and parted.
SECTION THIRD.
“THERE CAN BE no question,” said Lothair, when the Serapion Brethren were next assembled, “that our Cyprian — just as was the case on the St. Serapion’s Day when our Brotherhood was founded — has something strange occupying his mind and thoughts. He is pale and disturbed; listens to our conversation with only half an ear; and seems, though present in the body, to be far away in spirit.”
“Then,” said Ottmar, “the best thing he can do is to out with the story of the madman whose name-day he is probably celebrating.”
“And discharge the contents of his brain in eccentric sparks just as he pleases,” added Theodore; “for I know that he will then become humanly-minded again, and come back to our circle, which he will have to content himself with as best he may.”
“You are doing me an injustice,” said Cyprian; “for instead of my being preoccupied with anything relating to insanity, I bring you a piece of news which ought to delight you all. Our friend Sylvester has come back here to-day from his long stay in the country.”
The friends welcomed this announcement with shouts; for they were all much attached to the quiet but brilliant and kindly Sylvester, whose inward poesy shone forth in the mildest and most beauteous radiance.
“No more worthy Serapion Brother than our Sylvester could possibly exist,” said Theodore. “He is quiet and thoughtful: it is true it costs some trouble to kindle him up to the point of clear utterance; but probably there never was any one more susceptive of the work of other people. Though he is a man of few words himself, one reads in his face, in the clearest traits, the impression which the words of others produce upon him; and when his kindliness and talent stream forth in his looks and whole being, I feel myself more kind and more clever in his presence — more free and more happy.”
“The truth is,” said Ottmar, “that Sylvester is a very remarkable man just on that account. The poets of the present day seem all to go storming, of set purpose, up above the level of that unpretending modesty which ought to be considered the most marked and essential quality of the true poet-nature; and even the better-minded among them have need to be careful that, in the mere maintenance of their rights, they should abstain from drawing that sword which the great majority of them never lay out of their hands. But Sylvester goes about weaponless, like a guileless child. We have often accused him of indolence, and told him that, considering the wealth of his intellect, he writes too little. But must people go on writing continually? When Sylvester sits down and fixes some inner image into words, there is sure to be some irresistible impulse constraining him to do so. He never writes anything that he has not most vividly felt, and seen; and therefore he must come amongst us as a perfect Serapion Brother.”
“I have a dislike to all odd numbers,” said Lothair, “except the mystic and pleasant number seven; and I think that five Serapion Brethren would never answer, but that six, on the other hand, would sit very comfortably about this round table. Sylvester has arrived to-day; and very shortly that restless, wandering spirit, Vincent, will be casting anchor here too. We all know him; and we are aware that, except for the kindness of heart which he possesses in common with Sylvester, he is the most absolute contrast to him, in all respects, that it would be possible to find. Sylvester is quiet and meditative; whilst Vincent boils over with wit and high spirits. He has an inexhaustible faculty of clothing everything in bizarre imagery — the most everyday matters, as well as the most extraordinary; as, moreover, he says everything in a clear, almost piercing voice, and with the drollest pathos, his talk is often like a set of magic-lantern slides, carrying the attention along in constant, unresting alternation and change, without allowing it to pause and contemplate anything quietly.”
“You have drawn a most striking portrait of Vincent,” said Theodore; “but there is one of his characteristics which we must not lose sight of, that, with all his brilliant qualities, and constant firework-volleys of humour, he is, heart and soul, devoted to mysticism of every kind, and introduces it into his pursuits in rich measure. You know he has taken up medicine as a profession?”
“Yes,” said Ottmar; “and, by the way, he is the most eager champion of Mesmerism to be found, and I must say that I have heard from his lips the most acute and profound observations possible on that somewhat obscure subject.”
“Ho ho!” said Lothair, laughing, “have you gone to be schooled by all the magnetisers since the days of Mesmer, that you can be so very certain as to ‘the most acute and profound things possible’ that can be said about Mesmerism? No doubt, if dreams and reveries have to be brought within the confines of any given system, Vincent, by reason of his clear-sightedness, is the very man to do it better than thousands of others. And he treats everything with a jovial good-temper which is always very delightful. Some time since he happened, in the course of his peregrinations, to be with me in a certain place, and it chanced that I had an unendurable nervous headache. Nothing would do it the slightest good. Vincent came in, and I told him what was the matter. ‘What!’ he cried, in that clear-toned voice of his, ‘you have a headache? — a mere trifle! I can conjure headaches away in ten minutes’ time; send them wherever you choose — into the arm-chair, or the ink-bottle, or out of the window!’ And he began making his mesmeric passes. They did not do me the slightest good, but I could not help laughing most heartily; and Vincent, delighted, cried, ‘See how I’ve conquered your headache in a moment!’ Unfortunately I was compelled to answer that the headache was just as bad as ever. But Vincent said I was only feeling a sort of after-echo of the former pain. After-echo or not, it lasted for several days. I take this opportunity of declaring to my respected Serapion Brethren that I have not the slightest belief in the curative effects of Mesmerism; the most careful and ingenious researches on this subject seem to me to be much like the theorisings of the Royal Society of England on the question proposed to them by the King: why a vessel of water with a ten-pound fish in it should not weigh more than a similar vessel containing water alone? Several of the philosophers had solved the problem successfully, and were about to lay the results of their wisdom before the King, when one, a little more practical than the others, suggested that the experiment should be tried. When this was done, the fish weighed down the balance, as it could not but do. The basis of all the ingenious reasoning did not exist.”
“Ah ha!” said Lothair, “incredulous, prosaic Schismatic! how was it, since you don’t believe in Mesmerism, — how was it — but I must tell you, Cyprian and Theodore, this little story at full length, so that the shame of the contemptuous unbelief which Lothair has just avowed may return upon his head. You have probably heard that Lothair had an illness some time ago, the principal seat of which was in his nervous system. It came upon him in an indescribable manner; destroyed all his fine spirits and good temper, and spoilt all his enjoyment of life. I went one day to see him, all compassion and sympathy. I found him sitting in an arm-chair, with a cap drawn over his ears; pale, worn-out by a sleepless night, with his eyes closed. In front of him (whom Heaven has not endowed with the most gigantic dimensions in the world), sat a personage almost as diminutive as himself, breathing upon him, drawing the tips of his fingers along his spine, laying his hand on his epigastrium, and asking him, in a soft, whispering voice:
“‘How do you feel now, Lothair?’
“And Lothair opened his eyes, smiled pathetically, and sighed out:
“‘Better, doctor; much better.’
“In short, Lothair, who has no faith in the curative effects of Mesmerism; who says Mesmerism is all nonsense; who laughs the whole thing to scorn, and considers it all mere charlatanry and deception — Lothair was having himself mesmerized!”
Cyprian and Theodore laughed heartily over this rather grotesque picture.
“Pray don’t talk of such things,” said Lothair. “Man, by virtue of his wonderful organization, is, alas! such a feeble creature the physical element in him has such an injurious influence on the psychical that every illness, every abnormal condition, awakens an alarm and anxiety in him which, being a temporary insanity, causes him to do the most extraordinary things. Plenty of clever and rational men, when they have thought their doctors’ prescriptions were not working as they expected them to do, have had recourse to old women’s nostrums, or ‘sympathetic media,’ and I don’t know what all. That I, at the time in question, when my nerves were all out of order, inclined to Mesmerism, is a proof of my weakness, but not of anything else.”
“I,” said Cyprian, “must beg you to allow me rather to believe that the doubts respecting Mesmerism which you have expressed to-night are only the results of some passing mental mood of the moment. What is Mesmerism, considered as to its curative effects, but the concentrated, increased, potentiated power of man’s psychical element, empowered, by being thus concentrated and augmented, thoroughly to control the physical element; to know it, see it, and understand it through and through; to detect the minutest abnormal condition in it, and, by the very knowledge and perception of any such abnormal condition, to remove it? It is not possible that you can deny this power of our psychical element, or close your ears to the marvellous chords which come toning into us, and pass toning out from us — mysterious ‘music of the spheres,’ — the grand, unchangeable principle of Nature herself.”
“You are talking in your usual strain,” answered Lothair, “revelling in your mystic dreams as you always do. I admit at once that Mesmerism, stretching, as it undoubtedly does, into the domain of the ghostly, must always exercise a powerful attraction on poetic temperaments. I myself cannot deny that this mysterious subject has always penetrated to the very depths of my soul. But listen while I make my confession of faith in a few words. Who can penetrate, with foolhardy presumption, into the deepest mysteries of Nature? Who can understand, or even conjecture, with any sort of clearness, the nature of the mysterious bond which unites soul and body, and, in consequence, is the fundamental condition of our existence? Yet it is exactly upon the cognizance of this mystery that Mesmerism is wholly based; and so long as this cognizance is an impossibility, both the theory and the practice of Mesmerism (which are grounded upon isolated experiments, often illusory), are like the gropings of the born-blind. It is certain that there occur states of exaltation in which the spirit, ruling over the body and controlling its activity, acts with much power, and, in so acting, produces phenomena of the most extraordinary description. Dim presciences and fore-anticipations assume distinct shape and form; and we see and understand, with the fullest powers of comprehension, things as yet slumbering deep and motionless in our souls. Dreams (which are undoubtedly the most wonderful phenomena belonging to the human organism, and, as I consider, appear in their most potentiated form in what is called, in general terms, ‘somnambulism’) belong to this province. But it is also certain that such conditions presuppose the existence of some abnormality in the relation between the psychical and the physical principles. The most distinct and vivid dreams come to us always when some diseased or morbid feeling is affecting the body. The spirit takes advantage of the inactive condition of its co-regent; taken possession of the throne, and turns that co-regent into a servile vassal. So that Mesmerism, also, is a result of some diseased or morbid condition of the body. It may also happen that Nature may frequently establish a psychical dualism, during which the mutual inter-play of the two principles produces highly remarkable phenomena. But I consider that it is Nature only which should produce this dualism, and that every attempt to produce it artificially, without Queen Nature’s command, at one’s own will and pleasure, is dangerous and rash, if not wicked. I go even further. I cannot deny that it is possible to produce this potentiated condition of the psychical element — of course all experience would be against me if I did. The psychical principle belonging to a given person can, in the process of mesmeric manipulation, become embodied, and can stream out from the mesmerizer in the form of some ‘fluid’ (or whatever one may choose to term it), and seize upon and govern the psychical principle of another — the person mesmerized — producing a state which is at variance with all the ordinary conditions of human life, and the usual rules of existence, and which, even in its celebrated ‘ecstatic forms,’ comprehends in itself all the awesomeness of the mysterious spirit realm. All this, I say, I can by no means deny; but I must always look upon this process as the blind exercise of an evil power, whose effects and results, in spite of all theory, cannot be predicted or relied upon. Mesmerism is somewhere defined as a dangerous weapon in the hands of a child; and with that definition I thoroughly agree. If human beings are to set to work to operate at will upon each other’s spiritual elements, the doctrine of the Barbarini school of spiritualists, who work purely by faith and will, without any manipulations, seems to me to be much the purest and most innocuous. The fixing of the firm will is a discreet and sober question put to Nature whether the dualism of spirit is to be established or not in any particular case; and it is she alone who decides it and answers it. Similarly, people’s magnetising themselves, at the ‘Bacquet’ (as it was called) without any intervention of a mesmerizer, may be considered less dangerous, inasmuch as no influence of a foreign possibly hostile or hurtful spiritual principle can then be exercised. But think of the hosts of people who now practise this most mysterious of all sciences if it is to be called a science light-mindedly, or in complete self-deception, where they do not do it altogether for parade or notoriety! Bartels, in his ‘Physiology and Physics of Mesmerism,’ quotes the saying of a foreign physician, in which he expresses his surprise that the German doctors treat, and experiment upon, mesmeric subjects, just as if they were pieces of lifeless apparatus. Unfortunately this is perfectly true, and therefore I prefer to disbelieve in the curative effects of mesmerism, at all events, than to entertain the idea that the uncanny exercise and influence of another person’s spiritual principle might some day destroy my own life beyond the possibility of remedy.”
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