"I should have known you very well, if you had come to me," said he, "the last time you were here."
I saw these two highly-gifted and amiable brothers almost daily; the circles into which I was invited seemed also to be theirs, and it was my desire and pleasure that they should listen to my little stories, that they should participate in them, they whose names will be always spoken as long as the German _Volks M rchen_ are read.
The fact of my not being known to Jacob Grimm on my first visit to Berlin, had so disconcerted me, that when any one asked me whether I had been well received in this city, I shook my head doubtfully and said, "but Grimm did not know me."
I was told that Tieck was ill--could see no one; I therefore only sent in my card. Some days afterwards I met at a friend's house, where Rauch's birth-day was being celebrated, Tieck, the sculptor, who told me that his brother had lately waited two hours for me at dinner. I went to him and discovered that he had sent me an invitation, which, however, had been taken to a wrong inn. A fresh invitation was given, and I passed some delightfully cheerful hours with Raumer the historian, and with the widow and daughter of Steffens. There is a music in Tieck's voice, a spirituality in his intelligent eyes, which age cannot lessen, but, on the contrary, must increase. The Elves, perhaps the most beautiful story which has been conceived in our time, would alone be sufficient, had Tieck written nothing else, to make his name immortal. As the author of _M rchen_, I bow myself before him, the elder and The master, and who was the first German poet, who many years before pressed me to his breast, as if it were to consecrate me, to walk in the same path with himself.
The old friends had all to be visited; but the number of new ones grew with each day. One invitation followed another. It required considerable physical power to support so much good-will. I remained in Berlin about three weeks, and the time seemed to pass more rapidly with each succeeding day. I was, as it were, overcome by kindness. I, at length, had no other prospect for repose than to seat myself in a railway-carriage, and fly away out of the country.
And yet amid these social festivities, with all the amiable zeal and interest that then was felt for me, I had one disengaged evening; one evening on which I suddenly felt solitude in its most oppressive form; Christmas-eve, that very evening of all others on which I would most willingly witness something festal, willingly stand beside a Christmas-tree, gladdening myself with the joy of children, and seeing the parents joyfully become children again. Every one of the many families in which I in truth felt that I was received as a relation, had fancied, as I afterwards discovered, that I must be invited out; but I sat quite alone in my room at the inn, and thought on home. I seated myself at the open window, and gazed up to the starry heavens, which was the Christmas-tree that was lighted for me.