The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1866-05-03
From the Argosy)
The Story Of Ernst Christian SchOeffer.


propose relating the story of Ems
Christian Schoeffer In order to do thi
circumstantialy l will begin by stating
that he was the only child of Dorothea ant
Wolfgang Schoeffer, of Ulm, and was borr
in an upper chamber of house ON the Ora
ben, Just thirty-one years since. To say
that Wolfgang Schoeffer rented house or
the Graben is equivalent to saying at once
that he lived in poor way for excepting
perpaps, some foul, tottering, water rotteo
tenements down by the river SIDE in the
boatmen's quarter, there are few meaneI
dwellings in Ulm than those huddled
against the walls aud along the verge Of
what was once the moat surrounding that
ancient Suabian city. ~
Wolfgang Schoeffer belonged to some
what better class than the majority of his
neighbors. He was poor, but was not alb
jectly poor; and he had seen better days.
He came from an old stock of Susbian citi-
zens, and his family claimed to be descend
ed from two no less famous personages than
Martin Schoefer, the painter and Peter
Schaeffer, the partner of Gutenberg Of
Mantz. He was a second hand bookseller
by trade, end had begun life with some
show of prosperity. He inherited his ia
theirs business and stock and his wife a
pretty Bavarian with whom he had fallen
in love while travelling to and fro among
the great fairs of Augsburg, Munich, Bam-
berg and acknowledgements reported to have
had not only beauty but money. So when
he brought home his bride and opened a
shop in the market place, his fellow-citizens
looked upon him as rising man, and APP
proved of him accordingly. Their appro-
baton, however, was not destined to be of
long continuance. Wolfgang Schooeffer had
started too ambitiously, and at the end of
five years became bankrupt. He left his
shop in the market place for one of the ru-
nous little tenements on the Graben and
there, when the brief sunshine Of their ca
reer was all passed, aud the bitterness of
poverty was yet new to them both, Doro-
thea Schoeffer died in giving birth to the
only child of their marriage. ---r-~
From that day the bookseller was a
changed man. He had borne bis reverses
with tolerable courage, but this last blow
told heavily. He seemed to grow old at
once he avoided his former acquaintance
and friends; he ceased to frequent any place
of public worship he became daily more
bent, more gray, more gloomy, more sordid
in his clothing, and more solitary in his
ways. fg+ a f8| sa4f
Put out to nurse to the wife of poor
neighbor for the first year or two of his little
life, the child was brought home to his ia
theirs house almost as soon as he had begun
to prattle; and there under the care Of a
certain Frau Martha, who was very deaf,
very pious, half lodger and half servant,
spent all his motherless boyhood.
1t would be impossible to conceive more
dismal home for a young child than book
seller Schoetfer's house on the Graben -
The floors were never scrubbed, the stairs
were never swept, the windows were never
cleaned or opened from years end to years
end, and it was filled with musty books
from top to bottom. The walls were lined,
the floors were numbered, the air was stale
with them. The house contained little else /;
nothing for comfort, nothing for grace
not even flower in a pot or poor bird in
a cage Books, books, everywhere books
yellow, dusty, wormeaten, and unfragrant,
like bones in charnel house. AS for the
garden, it was very wilderness of nettles
and briars.
The painter, like the poet, is born not
made; and Ernst Christian Schoeffer was
born painter. He was endowed from his
cradle with the gift of seeing-that precious
gift that no mere training can do more than
develop, and without which all the acade-
mics that ever were incorporated can achieve
nothing towards the production of an ar
fist. The skilled hand comes with time,
from feeble beginnings and after many fail
ures; but the seeing eye is Gods own gift,
and comes direct from Heaven.
1t showed itself, the artist instinct gen
orally does show itself, in all kinds of blum
dering first attempts. The boy tried his
superintendent upon every material that
fell in his way. He scrawled upon his
slate and his copybooks he dabbled in
clay; he daubed a little in course pigments
begged from neighboriug house. painter );
he carved rude statuettes in common fire.
wood. These occupations kept him quiet
in holiday hours, and his father when at
home, desired no more ao
At length the time came when Ernst
Christians seven years of government
schooling were on the point of expiring
He was now fourteen, and Of an age to be
apprenticed to a trade. His father intended
him for his own business but the boy had
made up his mind te be painter, and,
foreseeing the struggle to come, had also
made up his mind to be first in the field
There was fierce opposition to be encoun-
tered and there were innumerable difficult
ties to be overcome; therefore, he argued
the sooner the opposition was combated and
the difficulties were faced, the better. 1t
was characteristic of Ernst Christian Schoef-
fer's peculiar temperament that he should
have so measured himself against these OBJ
oko olo aIali oh TORI eli
that he should have the moral gallantry to
face his father at once upon this matter so
vital to his own happiness, and yet that his
heart should beat and his breath come short
as he went up to that fathers chamber on
the evening of the very day when his school
term had expired
1t was about six o'clock on a bleak No
vember night The stairs creaked under
his feet as he went feeling his way in the
darkness, and rehearsing the words in which
he meant to begin. On the landing he
paused, and guided by a thread of light up
On the threshold, tapped at his fathers door.
No reply came. He listened-he heard a
sound as of something being closed and
ocked-he tapped again-he thought he
vas answered--he went in. 1sas8 EDS
His father, standing by the table with a
ramed oil painting lying before him and a
ley in his hand, turned upon the boy in a
udden paroxysm of anger. g,
.fWhat do you want ~ he said, furiously.
How dare you come in without knocking?'
81 knocked, mein Water, but-Gott
that beautiful pictured!
It was beautiful picture. 1t represented
fair delicate featured girl down-lookins
yes and pale golden hair woven into q
rofusion of soft braids, and smile as pas
We, as sweet, as sad as that of the Madonf
Ell Velo The painter of this gracious head
ad done his work lovingly and lingeringly
hough too cold in color and too hard il
feet, the portrait was as highly finished
miniature, and as patient in detail as
had come from the easel of Memling o
1loris. 1t measured about twelve inche
quare, and was enclosed in clumsy franz
f plain black wood, the front of which wa
glazed, worked upon hinges like it'll