The Saints Tragedy | Page 6

Saints. The
world was so bad that, to be Saints at all, they were compelled to go out
of the world. It was necessary, moreover, in depicting the poor man's
patroness, to show the material on which she worked; and those who
know the poor, know also that we can no more judge truly of their
characters in the presence of their benefactors, than we can tell by
seeing clay in the potter's hands what it was in its native pit. These
scenes have, therefore, been laid principally in Elizabeth's absence, in
order to preserve their only use and meaning.

So rough and common a life-picture of the Middle Age will, I am afraid,
whether faithful or not, be far from acceptable to those who take their
notions of that period principally from such exquisite dreams as the
fictions of Fouque, and of certain moderns whose graceful minds, like
some enchanted well,
In whose calm depths the pure and beautiful Alone are mirrored,
are, on account of their very sweetness and simplicity, singularly
unfitted to convey any true likeness of the coarse and stormy Middle
Age. I have been already accused, by others than Romanists, of
profaning this whole subject--i.e. of telling the whole truth, pleasant or
not, about it. But really, time enough has been lost in ignorant abuse of
that period, and time enough also, lately, in blind adoration of it. When
shall we learn to see it as it was?-- the dawning manhood of
Europe--rich with all the tenderness, the simplicity, the enthusiasm of
youth--but also darkened, alas! with its full share of youth's
precipitance and extravagance, fierce passions and blind self-will--its
virtues and its vices colossal, and, for that very reason, always haunted
by the twin-imp of the colossal--the caricatured.
Lastly, the many miraculous stories which the biographer of Elizabeth
relates of her, I had no right, for the sake of truth, to interweave in the
plot, while it was necessary to indicate at least their existence. I have,
therefore, put such of them as seemed least absurd into the mouth of
Conrad, to whom, in fact, they owe their original publication, and have
done so, as I hope, not without a just ethical purpose.
Such was my idea: of the inconsistencies and short-comings of this its
realisation, no one can ever be so painfully sensible as I am already
myself. If, however, this book shall cause one Englishman honestly to
ask himself, 'I, as a Protestant, have been accustomed to assert the
purity and dignity of the offices of husband, wife, and parent. Have I
ever examined the grounds of my own assertion? Do I believe them to
be as callings from God, spiritual, sacramental, divine, eternal? Or am I
at heart regarding and using them, like the Papist, merely as heaven's
indulgences to the infirmities of fallen man?'--then will my book have
done its work.

If, again, it shall deter one young man from the example of those
miserable dilettanti, who in books and sermons are whimpering meagre
second-hand praises of celibacy--depreciating as carnal and degrading
those family ties to which they owe their own existence, and in the
enjoyment of which they themselves all the while unblushingly
indulge--insulting thus their own wives and mothers-- nibbling
ignorantly at the very root of that household purity which constitutes
the distinctive superiority of Protestant over Popish nations--again my
book will have done its work.
If, lastly, it shall awaken one pious Protestant to recognise, in some, at
least, of the Saints of the Middle Age, beings not only of the same
passions, but of the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, as
themselves, Protestants, not the less deep and true, because utterly
unconscious and practical--mighty witnesses against the two antichrists
of their age--the tyranny of feudal caste, and the phantoms which
Popery substitutes for the living Christ--then also will my little book
indeed have done its work. C. K.
1848.

CHARACTERS

Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Hungary, Lewis, Landgrave of
Thuringia, betrothed to her in childhood. Henry, brother of Lewis.
Walter of Varila, } Rudolf the Cupbearer, } Leutolf of Erlstetten, }
Hartwig of Erba, } Vassals of Lewis. Count Hugo, } Count of Saym,
etc. } Conrad of Marpurg, a Monk, the Pope's Commissioner for the
suppression of heresy. Gerard, his Chaplain. Bishop of Bamberg, uncle
of Elizabeth, etc. etc. Sophia, Dowager Landgravine. Agnes, her
daughter, sister of Lewis. Isentrudis, Elizabeth's nurse. Guta, her
favourite maiden. Etc. etc. etc
The Scene lies principally in Eisenach, and the Wartburg; changing
afterwards to Bamberg, and finally to Marpurg.

PROEM

(EPIMETHEUS)
I
Wake again, Teutonic Father-ages, Speak again, beloved primaeval
creeds; Flash ancestral spirit from your pages, Wake the greedy age to
noble deeds.
II
Tell us, how of old our saintly mothers Schooled themselves