Читать книгу The Rocklitz - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 3
ОглавлениеPREFACE
THOSE who would care to find what learned men have made of the story of Magdalena Sibylla von Neitschütz can satisfy themselves by turning to Geheime Geschichten (Vol. III) by Bülau, but her contemporaries and my friends, Sir William Colt, George Stepney, Thomas Burnet of Kennet and the great Baron Gottfried Leibnitz, have assured me of very different circumstances from those Bülau records; I think, though they are very guarded in their expressions, that my friends had some compassion and even admiration for this brief luminary; they are not at all averse to her story being told again; they (and especially the relative of the Bishop of Salisbury) were exasperated by Bülau's omission of the account of her two brothers and, how, they ask, could he have confused Françoise de Rosny with Ursula Margaretha von Neitschütz, who died when her daughter was an infant?
These gentlemen have helped me search the galleries of Europe and the portfolios of collectors for a portrait of Magdalena Sibylla; they were very anxious that it should be realized how very beautiful she was; Sir William Colt can remember a portrait of her that she gave him for the King of England, which he sent through the Earl of Portland...We found nothing.
They were vexed...can the dust lie so thickly on what was so burningly radiant?
Those who knew her are surprised that she should be so soon forgotten, but I reminded them that it was all gone like a flash of wildfire...and that others as notable as Magdalena Sibylla have met the complete defeature of Time. Sir William, however, assures me that the Italian piece of which Johann Georg IV was enamoured is extremely like the lady. This one-time ornament of the cabinet of the Elector of Saxony (of the Wettin line) is now in the Borghese Gallery, Rome; it is named "Leda" (foolishly, I think) and given to the chronicler of the ways of genius, Giorgio Vasari...to look at this picture, I am told, is to look at the face of Magdalena Sibylla von Neitschütz...this I can and like to believe.
The shadow of the Koenigsberg falls heavily across these pages; this terrible prison is not one with the awful fortress of Koenigstein (some miles from Dresden), but a gloomy and sinister building that was destroyed soon after the internecine struggle on the plains of Leipsic. Sir William Colt and George Stepney, who used to pass it daily (or see it daily), have care fully described it to me; the château at Arnsdorf and the cottage on the Bächnitz road have both disappeared; vineyards grow over the sites; but the Marienkirche remains, and that is not without its memories of this tale; I have seen also the MS. of a Rondo alla Turca, by Delphicus de Haverbeck and much ad mired the delicate, neat scoring.
In the "Grüne Gewölb" in Dresden can still be seen many of the treasures with which Fräulein von Neitschütz adorned her apartments and her person, among them the golden egg with which she bought such tragic wares; I believe that Baron Leibnitz was thinking of this story when he wrote:
Nothing is lost, according to my Philosophy; and not only do all simple substances such as souls, preserve themselves, but, what is more, all actions remain in Nature, however transitory they may appear to our eyes, and all the foregoing enter into all the subsequent ones.
The tale proves, at least, an apt illustration to the dictum, for here we see one action breed another, and a deed of dishonour increase in its consequences till it has poisoned and blasted the young, the brave, the lovely, like the late sharp snow and frost of April, 1693, blighted the fruit trees and vineyards on the banks of the Elbe, along the Bächnitz road, and near Château Arnsdorf.
THE AUTHOR.
*
"What win I if I gain the Thing I seek?
A Dream, a Breath, a froth of Fleeting Joy?
Who buys a minute's Mirth to wail a Week?
Or sells Eternity to gain a Toy?
For one sweet Grape who will the Vine Destroy?
Or, what Fond Beggar, but to touch the Crown,
Would with the Sceptre straight be Strucken Down?"
(The Rape of Lucrece, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.)
*
"And yet," says he, "I dare engage these creatures have their titles and Distinctions of Honour...They make a Figure in Dress and Equipage, they Love, they Fight, they Dispute, they Cheat, they Betray!"
(A Voyage to Brobdingnag, JONATHAN SWIFT.)
