544 LEOPOLD VON RANKE. 



von Ranke beginning a history of the world in his eighty-fifth year, 

 and continuing the same with unabated mental vigor until past the age 

 of ninety ; but that phenomenon has a physical basis laid by genera- 

 tions of long-lived, earnest, intellectual men. Nothing is so wonderful 

 in the life of Ranke as his persistent, indomitable activity, or what the 

 Germans call " rastlose Thiitigkeit"; and yet this tireless energy was 

 but an intensified, highly specialized form of that systematic, almost 

 religious devotion to work and duty which has characterized German 

 pastors since the days of the Reformation. Superadded to this habit 

 of methodic toil, characteristic indeed of all German scholars and of 

 most professional men, was the equally methodic habit of rest and rec- 

 reation, in which matters the Germans surpass their Anglo-American 

 kinsmen. 



In early years Ranke was fond of horseback riding and of athletics. 

 With his brother Heinrich at Frankfurt, he was a follower of Father 

 Jahn, from whom our modern gymnastics and first gymnasia came. 

 Through all his later years Ranke was devoted to long and pleasant 

 walks in the open air and sunshine. Thus he cultivated perpetual 

 health, and maintained that serenity of mind and heart which illumi- 

 nates all his works. To these same physical facts of open-air exercise 

 and regularity of life are due in great measure the vigorous longevity 

 of America's oldest historian, Mr. George Bancroft, who at the age of 

 eighty-seven is quietly preparing to continue in outline his History 

 of the United States through the present century. To the same sim- 

 ple German regimen of work and recreation we may perhaps ascribe 

 other kindred phenomena ; for example, Schlosser writing world his- 

 tory in Heidelberg at the age of eighty-five, and Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt completing his " Cosmos " at the age of ninety. Good habits 

 and a good constitution were the foundation of Ranke's longevity. 

 His brothers also were long-lived. The youngest, a Professor of 

 Theology in the University of Marburg, is still living. 



If heredity had its influence upon Leopold von Ranke, history and 

 education finished the product. He was born in a revolutionary epoch, 

 in a time of war and political commotion. The little town of Wiehe, 

 iu the so-called Golden Aue of Saxon Thuringia, was his birthplace, 

 and the 21st of December, 1795, was his birthday. That very year 

 the armies of the French Republic began their successful inroads upon 

 Germany, and that year Prussia, by secret treaty, gave up to France 

 the left bank of the Rhine. It was the beginning of the end of the 

 old German Empire and of the political reconstruction of feudal Europe 

 by Napoleon Bonaparte. Ranke when a boy saw the march of French 



