Christian Gellerts Last Christmas | Page 2

youngsters go their way! Do your words follow after? Whither are
they going? What are now their thoughts? What manner of life will be
theirs? My heart yearns after them, but cannot be with them: oh, how
happy were those messengers of the Spirit, who cried aloud to youth or
manhood the words of the Spirit, that they must leave their former

ways, and thenceforth change to other beings! Pardon me, O God! that
I would fain be like them; I am weak and vile, and yet, methinks, there
must be words as yet unheard, unknown--oh! where are they, those
words which at once lay hold upon the soul?"
With such heavy thoughts went Gellert away from his college-gate to
Rosenthal. There was but one small pathway cleared, but the passers
cheerfully made way for him, and walked in the snow that they might
leave him the pathway unimpeded; but he felt sad, and "as if each tree
had somewhat to cast at him." Like all men really pure, and cleaving to
the good with all their might, Gellert was not only far from contenting
himself with work already done: he also, in his anxiety to be doing,
almost forgot that he had ever done anything, and thus he was, in the
best sense of the word, modest; he began with each fresh day his course
of action afresh, as if he now for the first time had anything to
accomplish. And yet he might have been happy, in the reflection how
brightly beamed his teaching for ever, though his own life was often
clouded. For as the sun which glows on summer days still lives as
concentrated warmth in wine, and somewhere on some winter night
warms up a human heart, so is the sunshine in that man's life whose
vocation it is to impart to others the conceptions of his own mind. Nay,
there is here far more; for the refreshing draught here offered is not
diminished, though thousands drink thereof.
Twilight had set in when Gellert returned home to his dwelling, which
had for its sign a "Schwarz Brett" or "black board." His old servant,
Sauer by name, took off his overcoat; and his amanuensis, Gödike,
asked whether the Professor had any commands; being answered in the
negative, Gödike retired, and Sauer lighted the lamp upon the
study-table. "Some letters have arrived," said he, as he pointed to
several upon the table: Gellert inclined his head, and Sauer retired also.
Outside, however, he stood awhile with Gödike, and both spoke
sorrowfully of the fact that the Professor was evidently again suffering
severely. "There is a melancholy," said Gödike, "and it is the most
usual, in which the inward depression easily changes to displeasure
against every one, and the household of the melancholic suffers thereby
intolerably; for the displeasure turns against them,--no one does

anything properly, nothing is in its place. How very different is
Gellert's melancholy! Not a soul suffers from it but himself, against
himself alone his gloomy thoughts turn, and towards every other
creature he is always kind, amiable, and obliging: he bites his lips; but
when he speaks to any one, he is wholly good, forbearing, and
self-forgetful."
Whilst they were talking together, Gellert was sitting in his room, and
had lighted a pipe to dispel the agitation which he would experience in
opening his letters; and while smoking, he could read them much more
comfortably. He reproached himself for smoking, which was said to be
injurious to his health, but he could not quite give up the "horrible
practice," as he called it.
He first examined the addresses and seals of the letters which had
arrived, then quietly opened and read them. A fitful smile passed over
his features; there were letters from well-known friends, full of love
and admiration, but from strangers also, who, in all kinds of
heart-distress, took counsel of him. He read the letters full of friendly
applause, first hastily, that he might have the right of reading them
again, and that he might not know all at once; and when he had read a
friend's letter for the second time, he sprang from his seat and cried,
"Thank God! thank God! that I am so fortunate as to have such
friends!" To his inwardly diffident nature these helps were a real
requirement; they served to cheer him, and only those who did not
know him called his joy at the reception of praise--conceit; it was, on
the contrary, the truest modesty. How often did he sit there, and all that
he had taught and written, all that he had ever been to men in word and
deed, faded, vanished, and died away, and he appeared to himself but a
useless servant of the world. His friends he answered immediately; and