es and sayings
collected by his friends, the most interesting now of all the Books
proceeding from him, we have many beautiful unconscious displays of the
man, and what sort of nature he had. His behavior at the death-bed of
his little Daughter, so still, so great and loving, is among the most
affecting things. He is resigned that his little Magdalene should die,
yet longs inexpressibly that she might live;--follows, in awe-struck
thought, the flight of her little soul through those unknown realms.
Awe-struck; most heartfelt, we can see; and sincere,--for after all
dogmatic creeds and articles, he feels what nothing it is that we know,
or can know: His little Magdalene shall be with God, as God wills; for
Luther too that is all; _Islam_ is all.

Once, he looks out from his solitary Patmos, the Castle of Coburg, in
the middle of the night: The great vault of Immensity, long flights of
clouds sailing through it,--dumb, gaunt, huge:--who supports all that?
"None ever saw the pillars of it; yet it is supported." God supports it.
We must know that God is great, that God is good; and trust, where
we cannot see.--Returning home from Leipzig once, he is struck by the
beauty of the harvest-fields: How it stands, that golden yellow corn,
on its fair taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving
there,--the meek Earth, at God's kind bidding, has produced it once
again; the bread of man!--In the garden at Wittenberg one evening at
sunset, a little bird has perched for the night: That little bird, says
Luther, above it are the stars and deep Heaven of worlds; yet it has
folded its little wings; gone trustfully to rest there as in its home:
the Maker of it has given it too a home!--Neither are mirthful turns
wanting: there is a great free human heart in this man. The common
speech of him has a rugged nobleness, idiomatic, expressive, genuine;
gleams here and there with beautiful poetic tints. One feels him to be
a great brother man. His love of Music, indeed, is not this, as it were,
the summary of all these affections in him? Many a wild unutterability
he spoke forth from him in the tones of his flute. The Devils fled from
his flute, he says. Death-defiance on the one hand, and such love of
music on the other; I could call these the two opposite poles of a great
soul; between these two all great things had room.

Luther's face is to me expressive of him; in Kranach's best portraits
I find the true Luther. A rude plebeian fa