The house at “Tegel” is built in the most rigid style, relieved on the outside by niches filled with good pieces of statuary. Within every room is painfully neat—the formality with which the furniture is placed shows evidence that the owner had no wife and no children. It is an attempt at an Italian villa, but seems too cold and formal for such a climate as Berlin. There is certainly taste displayed and cultivation evinced in the selection of many things. The library is filled with books, principally works of Humboldt and Voltaire. On the tables are large portfolios containing maps and cartoons. The desk with the pen and inkstand remain just as he left them. Indeed, there is only a suggestion here and there, that the niece is living and owning the place—it seems as if she were a ghost and her life a myth—so still and so orderly are the rooms, and so undisturbed hang the red apples by the house. Indeed, the house seems as silent as the stately avenue of oaks that leads to the grave. Humboldt left a handsome fortune to this niece, for he lived and died a bachelor.
He owned many valuable pieces of statuary. The original of Thorwaldsen’s Venus was purchased by Humboldt with much pride, it is said, and placed in his collection with other rare pieces found at various places in his travels. Among other curious possessions a mutilated old fountain from Pompeii stands in the hall. The floors are tiles, as one generally finds in Germany, and the saloon which contains the finest statuary suggests Goethe’s lines in “Mignon:”
“Und Marmor Bilder stehen und sehen mich an.”
What is there in the make up of literary men which prompts them almost invariably to isolate themselves in some far removed country place? The explanation which is generally given by themselves is, that their time being so precious they can not be interrupted; their ideas will not grow and flourish in the midst of the talkative world. Emerson tells of the literary man who declared “the solitary river was not solitary enough; the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house the first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal himself.” ’Tis worse, and tragic Emerson goes on to remark that no man is fit for society who has fine traits. “At a distance he is admired, but bring him hand to hand, he is a cripple.” He affects to be a good companion; but is he entitled to marry? But happily for our love of Emerson, in the same essay he observes, “A man must be clothed with society or we shall feel a certain bareness and poverty.” “For behavior, men learn it as they take diseases, one of another.” “But people are to be taken in small doses.” “Solitude is impracticable and society fatal.” Whoever talked more to the point than this wise philosopher? Carlyle talked more wisely, because his spiritual sky was less nebulous, perhaps—but who shall judge of this? All men who have written have subjected themselves to criticism, and criticism is desirable, provided it originates with good and honest intentions. Madame d’Staël wanted to hear it, not to read it! and if more authors and literary people would live as Goethe, as Macaulay, as Madame d’Staël, as the recent German novelist, Berthold Auerbach, in the midst of their friends or foes as they may chance to be, hearing the arguments for and against them, would they not have fewer words and paragraphs to regret at the end of their career? Goethe wanted to hear all that could be said of him, that he might the more cleverly understand what he was, what he was writing for, and where his lessons were to be honored.