initial commit of ebook 5436HEADmain

2 files changed, 8930 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/5436-8.txt b/old/5436-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb979de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/5436-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8930 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hyperion, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
+(#7 in our series by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Hyperion
+
+Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5436]
+[This file was first posted on July 18, 2002]
+[Most recently updated March 29, 2004]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HYPERION ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net).
+
+
+
+Hyperion
+
+By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
+
+1882
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HERO.
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CHRIST OF ANDERNACH.
+
+CHAPTER III. HOMUNCULUS.
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER.
+
+CHAPTER V. JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE.
+
+CHAPTER VI. HEIDELBERG AND THE BARON.
+
+CHAPTER VII. LIVES OF SCHOLARS.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. LITERARY FAME.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+CHAPTER I. SPRING.
+
+CHAPTER II. A COLLOQUY.
+
+CHAPTER III. OWL-TOWERS.
+
+CHAPTER IV. A BEER-SCANDAL.
+
+CHAPTER V. THE WHITE LADY'S SLIPPER AND THE PASSION-FLOWER.
+
+CHAPTER VI. GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND.
+
+CHAPTER VII. MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. OLD HUMBUG.
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE FALLING STAR.
+
+CHAPTER X. THE PARTING.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME.
+
+CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING.
+
+CHAPTER III. INTERLACHEN.
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.
+
+CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.
+
+CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS.
+
+CHAPTER VII. TAKE CARE!
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.
+
+CHAPTER IX. A TALK ON THE STAIRS.
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+CHAPTER I. A MISERERE.
+
+CHAPTER II. CURFEW BELLS.
+
+CHAPTER III. SHADOWS ON THE WALL.
+
+CHAPTER IV. MUSICAL SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.
+
+CHAPTER V. SAINT GILGEN.
+
+CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG.
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE STORY OF BROTHER BERNARDUS.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FOOT-PRINTS OF ANGELS.
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE LAST PANG.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
+
+Who ne'er the mournful, midnight hours
+
+Weeping upon his bed has sate,
+
+He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HERO.
+
+
+
+In John Lyly's Endymion, Sir Topas is made to say; "Dost thou
+know what a Poet is? Why, fool, a Poet is as much as one should
+say,--a Poet!" And thou, reader, dost thou know what a hero is? Why,
+a hero is as much as one should say,--a hero! Some romance-writers,
+however, say much more than this. Nay, the old Lombard, Matteo Maria
+Bojardo, set all the church-bells in Scandiano ringing, merely
+because he had found a name for one of his heroes. Here, also, shall
+church-bells be rung, but more solemnly.
+
+The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The
+brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us,
+and the world seems but a dim reflection,--itself a broader shadow.
+We look forward into the coming, lonely night. The soul withdraws
+into itself. Then stars arise, and the night is holy.
+
+Paul Flemming had experienced this, though still young. The
+friend of his youth was dead. The bough had broken "under the burden
+of the unripe fruit." And when, after a season, he looked up again
+from the blindness of his sorrow, all things seemed unreal. Like the
+man, whose sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld men, as
+trees, walking. His household gods were broken. He had no home. His
+sympathies cried aloud from his desolate soul, and there came no
+answer from the busy, turbulent world around him. He did not
+willingly give way to grief. He struggled to be cheerful,--to be
+strong. But he could no longer look into the familiar faces of his
+friends. He could no longer live alone, where he had lived with her.
+He went abroad, that the sea might be between him and the grave.
+Alas! betweenhim and his sorrow there could be no sea, but that of
+time.
+
+He had already passed many months in lonely wandering, and was
+now pursuing his way along the Rhine, to the south of Germany. He
+had journeyed the same way before, in brighter days and a brighter
+season of the year, in the May of life and in the month of May. He
+knew the beauteous river all by heart;--every rock and ruin, every
+echo, every legend. The ancient castles, grim and hoar, that had
+taken root as it were on the cliffs,--they were all his; for his
+thoughts dwelt in them, and the wind told him tales.
+
+He had passed a sleepless night at Rolandseck, and had risen
+before daybreak. He opened the window of the balcony to hear the
+rushing of the Rhine. It was a damp December morning; and clouds
+were passing over the sky,--thin, vapory clouds, whose snow-white
+skirts were "often spotted with golden tears, which men call stars."
+The day dawned slowly; and, in the mingling of daylightand
+starlight, the island and cloister of Nonnenwerth made together but
+one broad, dark shadow on the silver breast of the river. Beyond,
+rose the summits of the Siebengebirg. Solemn and dark, like a monk,
+stood the Drachenfels, in his hood of mist, and rearward extended
+the Curtain of Mountains, back to the Wolkenburg,--the Castle of the
+Clouds.
+
+But Flemming thought not of the scene before him. Sorrow
+unspeakable was upon his spirit in that lonely hour; and, hiding his
+face in his hands, he exclaimed aloud;
+
+"Spirit of the past! look not so mournfully at me with thy great,
+tearful eyes! Touch me not with thy cold hand! Breathe not upon me
+with the icy breath of the grave! Chant no more that dirge of
+sorrow, through the long and silent watches of the night!"
+
+Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, "Treuenfels!" and he
+remembered how others had suffered, and his heart grew still.
+
+Slowly the landscape brightened. Down therushing stream came a
+boat, with its white wings spread, and darted like a swallow through
+the narrow pass of God's-Help. The boatmen were singing, but not the
+song of Roland the Brave, which was heard of old by the weeping
+Hildegund, as she sat within the walls of that cloister, which now
+looked forth in the pale morning from amid the leafless linden
+trees. The dim traditions of those gray old times rose in the
+traveller's memory; for the ruined tower of Rolandseck was still
+looking down upon the Kloster Nonnenwerth, as if the sound of the
+funeral bell had changed the faithful Paladin to stone, and he were
+watching still to see the form of his beloved one come forth, not
+from her cloister, but from her grave. Thus the brazen clasps of the
+book of legends were opened, and, on the page illuminated by the
+misty rays of the rising sun, he read again the tales of Liba, and
+the mournful bride of Argenfels, and Siegfried, the mighty slayer of
+the dragon. Meanwhile the mists had risen from the Rhine, and the
+whole air was filled with golden vapor, through which hebeheld the
+sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of blood. Even thus shone the sun
+within him, amid the wintry vapors, uprising from the valley of the
+shadow of death, through which flowed the stream of his
+life,--sighing, sighing!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CHRIST OF ANDERNACH.
+
+
+
+Paul Flemming resumed his solitary journey. The morning was still
+misty, but not cold. Across the Rhine the sun came wading through
+the reddish vapors; and soft and silver-white outspread the broad
+river, without a ripple upon its surface, or visible motion of the
+ever-moving current. A little vessel, with one loose sail, was
+riding at anchor, keel to keel with another, that lay right under
+it, its own apparition,--and all was silent, and calm, and
+beautiful.
+
+The road was for the most part solitary; for there are few
+travellers upon the Rhine in winter. Peasant women were at work in
+the vineyards; climbing up the slippery hill-sides, like beasts of
+burden, with large baskets of manureupon their backs. And once
+during the morning, a band of apprentices, with knapsacks, passed
+by, singing, "The Rhine! The Rhine! a blessing on the Rhine!"
+
+O, the pride of the German heart in this noble river! And right
+it is; for, of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none
+so beautiful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course,
+from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of
+Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. By heavens! If I were
+a German I would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes,
+that hang about its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards,
+in a triumphal march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken.
+
+But I will not attempt to describe the Rhine; it would make this
+chapter much too long. And to do it well, one should write like a
+god; and his style flow onward royally with breaks and dashes, like
+the waters of that royal river, and antique, quaint, and Gothic
+times, be reflected in it. Alas! this evening my style flows not at
+all. Flow, then, into this smoke-colored goblet, thou blood of the
+Rhine! out of thy prison-house,--out of thy long-necked, tapering
+flask, in shape not unlike a church-spire among thy native hills;
+and, from the crystal belfry, loud ring the merry tinkling bells,
+while I drink a health to my hero, in whose heart is sadness, and in
+whose ears the bells of Andernach are ringing noon.
+
+He is threading his way alone through a narrow alley, and now up
+a flight of stone steps, and along the city wall, towards that old
+round tower, built by the Archbishop Frederick of Cologne in the
+twelfth century. It has a romantic interest in his eyes; for he has
+still in his mind and heart that beautiful sketch of Carové, in
+which is described a day on the tower of Andernach. He finds the old
+keeper and his wife still there; and the old keeper closes the door
+behind him slowly, as of old, lest he should jam too hard the poor
+souls in Purgatory, whose fate it is to suffer in the cracks of
+doors and hinges. But alas! alas! the daughter, the maiden with
+long, dark eyelashes! she is asleep in her little grave, under the
+linden trees of Feldkirche, with rosemary in her folded hands!
+
+Flemming returned to the hotel disappointed. As he passed along
+the narrow streets, he was dreaming of many things; but mostly of
+the keeper's daughter, asleep in the churchyard of Feldkirche.
+Suddenly, on turning the corner of an ancient, gloomy church, his
+attention was arrested by a little chapel in an angle of the wall.
+It was only a small thatched roof, like a bird's nest; under which
+stood a rude wooden image of the Saviour on the Cross. A real crown
+of thorns was upon his head, which was bowed downward, as if in the
+death agony; and drops of blood were falling down his cheeks, and
+from his hands and feet and side. The face was haggard and ghastly
+beyond all expression; and wore a look of unutterable bodily
+anguish. The rude sculptor had given it this, but his art could go
+no farther. The sublimity of death in a dying Saviour, the expiring
+God-likeness of Jesus of Nazareth was not there. The artist had
+caught no heavenly inspiration from his theme. All was coarse,
+harsh, and revolting to a sensitive mind; and Flemming turned away
+with a shudder, as he saw this fearful image gazing at him, with its
+fixed and half-shut eyes.
+
+He soon reached the hotel, but that face of agony still haunted
+him. He could not refrain from speaking of it to a very old woman,
+who sat knitting by the window of the dining-room, in a high-backed,
+old-fashioned arm-chair. I believe she was the innkeeper's
+grandmother. At all events she was old enough to be so. She took off
+her owl-eyed spectacles, and, as she wiped the glasses with her
+handkerchief, said;
+
+"Thou dear Heaven! Is it possible! Did you never hear of the
+Christ of Andernach?"
+
+Flemming answered in the negative.
+
+"Thou dear Heaven!" continued the old woman. "It is a very
+wonderful story; and a true one, as every good Christian in
+Andernach will tell you. And it all happened before the deathof my
+blessed man, four years ago, let me see,--yes, four years ago, come
+Christmas."
+
+Here the old woman stopped speaking, but went on with her
+knitting. Other thoughts seemed to occupy her mind. She was
+thinking, no doubt, of her blessed man, as German widows call their
+dead husbands. But Flemming having expressed an ardent wish to hear
+the wonderful story, she told it, in nearly the following words.
+
+"There was once a poor old woman in Andernach whose name was Frau
+Martha, and she lived all alone in a house by herself, and loved all
+the Saints and the blessed Virgin, and was as good as an angel, and
+sold pies down by the Rheinkrahn. But her house was very old, and
+the roof-tiles were broken, and she was too poor to get new ones,
+and the rain kept coming in, and no Christian soul in Andernach
+would help her. But the Frau Martha was a good woman, and never did
+anybody any harm, but went to mass every morning, and sold pies by
+the Rheinkrahn. Now one dark, windy night, when all the good
+Christians in Andernachwere abed and asleep in the feathers, Frau
+Martha, who slept under the roof, heard a great noise over her head,
+and in her chamber, drip! drip! drip! as if the rain were dropping
+down through the broken tiles. Dear soul! and sure enough it was.
+And then there was a pounding and hammering overhead, as if somebody
+were at work on the roof; and she thought it was Pelz-Nickel tearing
+the tiles off, because she had not been to confession often enough.
+So she began to pray; and the faster she said her Pater-noster and
+her Ave-Maria, the faster Pelz-Nickel pounded and pulled; and drip!
+drip! drip! it went all round her in the dark chamber, till the poor
+woman was frightened out of her wits, and ran to the window to call
+for help. Then in a moment all was still,--death-still. But she saw
+a light streaming through the mist and rain, and a great shadow on
+the house opposite. And then somebody came down from the top of her
+house by a ladder, and had a lantern in his hand; and he took the
+ladder on his shoulder and went down thestreet. But she could not
+see clearly, because the window was streaked with rain. And in the
+morning the old broken tiles were found scattered about the street,
+and there were new ones on the roof, and the old house has never
+leaked to this blessed day.
+
+"As soon as mass was over Frau Martha told the priest what had
+happened, and he said it was not Pelz-Nickel, but, without doubt,
+St. Castor or St. Florian. Then she went to the market and told Frau
+Bridget all about it; and Frau Bridget said, that, two nights
+before, Hans Claus, the cooper, had heard a great pounding in his
+shop, and in the morning found new hoops on all his old hogsheads;
+and that a man with a lantern and a ladder had been seen riding out
+of town at midnight on a donkey, and that the same night the old
+windmill, at Kloster St. Thomas, had been mended up, and the old
+gate of the churchyard at Feldkirche made as good as new, though
+nobody knew how the man got across the river. Then Frau Martha went
+down to the Rheinkrahn and told all thesestories over again; and the
+old ferryman of Fahr said he could tell something about it; for, the
+very night that the churchyard-gate was mended, he was lying awake
+in his bed, because he could not sleep, and he heard a loud knocking
+at the door, and somebody calling to him to get up and set him over
+the river. And when he got up, he saw a man down by the river with a
+lantern and a ladder; but as he was going down to him, the man blew
+out the light, and it was so dark he could not see who he was; and
+his boat was old and leaky, and he was afraid to set him over in the
+dark; but the man said he must be in Andernach that night; and so he
+set him over. And after they had crossed the river, he watched the
+man, till he came to an image of the Holy Virgin, and saw him put
+the ladder against the wall, and go up and light his lamp, and then
+walk along the street. And in the morning he found his old boat all
+caulked, and tight, and painted red, and he could not for his
+blessed life tell who did it, unless it werethe man with the
+lantern. Dear soul! how strange it was!
+
+"And so it went on for some time; and, whenever the man with the
+lantern had been seen walking through the street at night, so sure
+as the morning came, some work had been done for the sake of some
+good soul; and everybody knew he did it; and yet nobody could find
+out who he was, nor where he lived;--for, whenever they came near
+him, he blew out his light, and turned down another street, and, if
+they followed him, he suddenly disappeared, nobody could tell how.
+And some said it was Rübezahl; and some, Pelz-Nickel; and some, St.
+Anthony-on-the-Health.
+
+"Now one stormy night a poor, sinful creature was wandering about
+the streets, with her babe in her arms, and she was hungry, and
+cold, and no soul in Andernach would take her in. And when she came
+to the church, where the great crucifix stands, she saw no light in
+the little chapel at the corner; but she sat down on a stone at the
+foot of the cross and began to pray, and prayed, till she fell
+asleep, with her poor little babe on her bosom. But she did not
+sleep long; for a bright light shone full in her face; and, when she
+opened her eyes, she saw a pale man, with a lantern, standing right
+before her. He was almost naked; and there was blood upon his hands
+and body, and great tears in his beautiful eyes, and his face was
+like the face of the Saviour on the cross. Not a single word did he
+say to the poor woman; but looked at her compassionately, and gave
+her a loaf of bread, and took the little babe in his arms, and
+kissed it. Then the mother looked up to the great crucifix, but
+there was no image there; and she shrieked and fell down as if she
+were dead. And there she was found with her child; and a few days
+after they both died, and were buried together in one grave. And
+nobody would have believed her story, if a woman, who lived at the
+corner, had not gone to the window, when she heard the scream, and
+seen the figure hang the lantern up in its place, and then set the
+ladder against the wall, and go up and nailitself to the cross.
+Since that night it has never moved again. Ach! Herr Je!"
+
+Such was the legend of the Christ of Andernach, as the old woman
+in spectacles told it to Flemming. It made a painful impression on
+his sick and morbid soul; and he felt now for the first time in full
+force, how great is the power of popular superstition.
+
+The post-chaise was now at the door, and Flemming was soon on the
+road to Coblentz, a city which stands upon the Rhine, at the mouth
+of the Mosel, opposite Ehrenbreitstein. It is by no means a long
+drive from Andernach to Coblentz; and the only incident which
+occurred to enliven the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced
+man on horseback, trotting slowly towards Andernach. As they met,
+the mad little postilion gave him a friendly cut with his whip, and
+broke out into an exclamation, which showed he was from Münster;
+
+"Jesmariosp! my friend! How is the Man in the Custom-House?"
+
+Now to any candid mind this would seem a fair question enough;
+but not so thought the red-faced man on horseback; for he waxed
+exceedingly angry, and replied, as the chaise whirled by;
+
+"The devil take you, and your Westphalian ham, and
+pumpernickel!"
+
+Flemming called to his servant, and the servant to the postilion,
+for an explanation of this short dialogue; and the explanation was,
+that on the belfry of the Kaufhaus in Coblentz, is a huge head, with
+a brazen helmet and a beard; and whenever the clock strikes, at each
+stroke of the hammer, this giant's head opens its great jaws and
+smites its teeth together, as if, like the brazen head of Friar
+Bacon, it would say; "Time was; Time is; Time is past." This figure
+is known through all the country round about, as "The Man in the
+Custom-House"; and, when a friend in the country meets a friend from
+Coblentz, instead of saying, "How are all the good people in
+Coblentz?"--he says, "How is the Man in the Custom-House?" Thus the
+giant has a great partto play in the town; and thus ended the first
+day of Flemming's Rhine-journey; and the only good deed he had done
+was to give an alms to a poor beggar woman, who lifted up her
+trembling hands and exclaimed;
+
+"Thou blessed babe!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. HOMUNCULUS.
+
+
+
+After all, a journey up the Rhine, in the mists and solitude of
+December, is not so unpleasant as the reader may perhaps imagine.
+You have the whole road and river to yourself. Nobody is on the
+wing; hardly a single traveller. The ruins are the same; and the
+river, and the outlines of the hills; and there are few living
+figures in the landscape to wake you from your musings, distract
+your thoughts, and cover you with dust.
+
+Thus, likewise, thought our traveller, as he continued his
+journey on the morrow. The day is overcast, and the clouds threaten
+rain or snow. Why does he stop at the little village of Capellen?
+Because, right above him on the high cliff, the glorious ruin of
+Stolzenfels is looking at him with itshollow eyes, and beckoning to
+him with its gigantic finger, as if to say; "Come up hither, and I
+will tell thee an old tale." Therefore he alights, and goes up the
+narrow village lane, and up the stone steps, and up the steep
+pathway, and throws himself into the arms of that ancient ruin, and
+holds his breath, to hear the quick footsteps of the falling snow,
+like the footsteps of angels descending upon earth. And that ancient
+ruin speaks to him with its hollow voice, and says;
+
+"Beware of dreams! Beware of the illusions of fancy! Beware of
+the solemn deceivings of thy vast desires! Beneath me flows the
+Rhine, and, like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of the
+Past. I see myself therein, and I know that I am old. Thou, too,
+shalt be old. Be wise in season. Like the stream of thy life, runs
+the stream beneath us. Down from the distant Alps,--out into the
+wide world, it bursts away, like a youth from the house of his
+fathers. Broad-breasted and strong, and with earnest endeavours,
+like manhood, it makes itself a way through these difficultmountain
+passes. And at length, in its old age, its stops, and its steps are
+weary and slow, and it sinks into the sand, and, through its grave,
+passes into the great ocean, which is its eternity. Thus shall it be
+with thee.
+
+"In ancient times there dwelt within these halls a follower of
+Jesus of Jerusalem,--an Archbishop in the church of Christ. He gave
+himself up to dreams; to the illusions of fancy; to the vast desires
+of the human soul. He sought after the impossible. He sought after
+the Elixir of Life,--the Philosopher's Stone. The wealth, that
+should have fed the poor, was melted in his crucibles. Within these
+walls the Eagle of the clouds sucked the blood of the Red Lion, and
+received the spiritual Love of the Green Dragon, but alas! was
+childless. In solitude and utter silence did the disciple of the
+Hermetic Philosophy toil from day to day, from night to night. From
+the place where thou standest, he gazed at evening upon hills, and
+vales, and waters spread beneath him; and saw how the setting sun
+had changed them allto gold, by an alchymy more cunning than his
+own. He saw the world beneath his feet; and said in his heart, that
+he alone was wise. Alas! he read more willingly in the book of
+Paracelsus, than in the book of Nature; and, believing that `where
+reason hath experience, faith hath no mind,' would fain have made
+unto himself a child, not as Nature teaches us, but as the
+Philosopher taught,--a poor homunculus, in a glass bottle. And he
+died poor and childless!"
+
+Whether it were worth while to climb the Stolzenfels to hear such
+a homily as this, some persons may perhaps doubt. But Paul Flemming
+doubted not. He laid the lesson to heart; and it would have saved
+him many an hour of sorrow, if he had learned that lesson better,
+and remembered it longer.
+
+In ancient times, there stood in the citadel of Athens three
+statues of Minerva. The first was of olive wood, and, according to
+popular tradition, had fallen from heaven. The second was of bronze,
+commemorating the victory of Marathon; and the third of gold and
+ivory,--a great miracle of art, in the age of Pericles. And thus in
+the citadel of Time stands Man himself. In childhood, shaped of soft
+and delicate wood, just fallen from heaven; in manhood, a statue of
+bronze, commemorating struggle and victory; and lastly, in the
+maturity of age, perfectly shaped in gold and ivory,--a miracle of
+art!
+
+Flemming had already lived through the oliveage. He was passing
+into the age of bronze, into his early manhood; and in his hands the
+flowers of Paradise were changing to the sword and shield.
+
+And this reminds me, that I have not yet described my hero. I
+will do it now, as he stands looking down on the glorious
+landscape;--but in few words. Both in person and character he
+resembled Harold, the Fair-Hair of Norway, who is described, in the
+old Icelandic Death-Song of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as "the young
+chief so proud of his flowing locks; he who spent his mornings among
+the young maidens; he who loved toconverse with the handsome
+widows." This was an amiable weakness; and it sometimes led him into
+mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of his mind. His thoughts
+were twin-born; the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in
+the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul
+each image floated double, "swan and shadow."
+
+These traits of character, a good heart and a poetic imagination,
+made his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death
+cut down the sweet, blue flower, that bloomed beside him, and
+wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and
+would fain have been bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet, blue
+flower. Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life became
+earnest. It would have been well if he could have forgotten the
+past; that he might not so mournfully have lived in it, but might
+have enjoyed and improved the present. But this his heart refused to
+do; and ever, as he floated upon the great sea of life, he looked
+down through thetransparent waters, checkered with sunshine and
+shade, into the vast chambers of the mighty deep, in which his
+happier days had sunk, and wherein they were lying still visible,
+like golden sands, and precious stones, and pearls; and, half in
+despair, half in hope, he grasped downward after them again, and
+drew back his hand, filled only with seaweed, and dripping with
+briny tears!--And between him and those golden sands, a radiant
+image floated, like the spirit in Dante's Paradise, singing
+"Ave-Maria!" and while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing
+away.
+
+The truth is, that in all things he acted more from impulse than
+from fixed principle; as is the case with most young men. Indeed,
+his principles hardly had time to take root; for he pulled them all
+up, every now and then, as children do the flowers they have
+planted,--to see if they are growing. Yet there was much in him
+which was good; for underneath the flowers and green-sward of
+poetry, and the good principles which would have taken root, had he
+given them time, therelay a strong and healthy soil of common
+sense,--freshened by living springs of feeling, and enriched by many
+faded hopes, that had fallen upon it like dead leaves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+
+"Allez Fuchs! allez lustig!" cried the impatient postilion to his
+horses, in accents, which, like the wild echo of the Lurley Felsen,
+came first from one side of the river, and then from the
+other,--that is to say, in words alternately French and German. The
+truth is, he was tired of waiting; and when Flemming had at length
+resumed his seat in the post-chaise, the poor horses had to make up
+the time lost in dreams on the mountain. This is far oftener the
+case, than most people imagine. One half of the world has to sweat
+and groan, that the other half may dream. It would have been a
+difficult task for the traveller or his postilion to persuade the
+horses, that these dreams were all for their good.
+
+The next stopping-place was the little tavern of the Star, an
+out-of-the-way corner in the town of Salzig. It stands on the banks
+of the Rhine; and, directly in front of it, sheer from the water's
+edge, rise the mountains of Liebenstein and Sternenfels, each with
+its ruined castle. These are the Brothers of the old tradition,
+still gazing at each other face to face; and beneath them in the
+valley stands a cloister,--meek emblem of that orphan child, they
+both so passionately loved.
+
+In a small, flat-bottomed boat did the landlady's daughter row
+Flemming "over the Rhine-stream, rapid and roaring wide." She was a
+beautiful girl of sixteen; with black hair, and dark, lovely eyes,
+and a face that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this
+particular! Some of them speak not. They are books in which not a
+line is written, save perhaps a date. Others are great family
+bibles, with all the Old and New Testament written in them. Others
+are Mother Goose and nursery tales;--others bad tragedies or
+pickle-herring farces; and others, like that of the landlady's
+daughter at the Star, sweet love-anthologies, and songs of the
+affections. It was on that account, that Flemming said to her, as
+they glided out into the swift stream;
+
+"My dear child! do you know the story of the Liebenstein?"
+
+"The story of the Liebenstein," she answered, "I got by heart,
+when I was a little child."
+
+And here her large, dark, passionate eyes looked into Flemming's,
+and he doubted not, that she had learned the story far too soon, and
+far too well. That story he longed to hear, as if it were unknown to
+him; for he knew that the girl, who had got it by heart when a
+child, would tell it as it should be told. So he begged her to
+repeat the story, which she was but too glad to do; for she loved
+and believed it, as if it had all been written in the Bible. But
+before she began, she rested a moment on her oars, and taking the
+crucifix, which hung suspended from her neck, kissed it, and then
+let it sink down into her bosom, as if it were an anchor she was
+letting down into her heart. Meanwhile her moist, dark eyes were
+turned to heaven. Perhaps her soul was walking with the souls of
+Cunizza, and Rahab, and Mary Magdalen. Or perhaps she was thinking
+of that Nun, of whom St. Gregory says, in his Dialogues, that,
+having greedily eaten a lettuce in a garden, without making the sign
+of the cross, she found herself soon after possessed with a
+devil.
+
+The probability, however, is, that she was looking up to the
+ruined castles only, and not to heaven, for she soon began her
+story, and told Flemming how, a great, great many years ago, an old
+man lived in the Liebenstein with his two sons; and how both the
+young men loved the Lady Geraldine, an orphan, under their father's
+care; and how the elder brother went away in despair, and the
+younger was betrothed to the Lady Geraldine; and how they were as
+happy as Aschenputtel and the Prince. And then the holy Saint
+Bernard came and carried away all the young men to the war, just as
+Napoleon did afterwards; and the young lord went to the Holy Land,
+and the Lady Geraldine sat in her tower and wept, and waited for her
+lover's return, while the old father built the Sternenfels for them
+to live in when they were married. And when it was finished, the old
+man died; and the elder brother came back and lived in the
+Liebenstein, and took care of the gentle Lady. Ere long there came
+news from the Holy Land, that the war was over; and the heart of the
+gentle Lady beat with joy, till she heard that her faithless lover
+was coming back with a Greek wife,--the wicked man! and then she
+went into a convent and became a holy nun. So the young lord of
+Sternenfels came home, and lived in his castle in great splendor
+with the Greek woman, who was a wicked woman, and did what she ought
+not to do. But the elder brother was angry for the wrong done the
+gentle Lady, and challenged the lord of Sternenfels to single
+combat. And, while they were fighting with their great swords in the
+valley of Bornhofen behind the castle, the convent bells began to
+ring, and the Lady Geraldine came forth with a train of nuns
+alldressed in white, and made the brothers friends again, and told
+them she was the bride of Heaven, and happier in her convent than
+she could have been in the Liebenstein or the Sternenfels. And when
+the brothers returned, they found that the false Greek wife had gone
+away with another knight. So they lived together in peace, and were
+never married. And when they died--"
+
+"Lisbeth! Lisbeth!" cried a sharp voice from the shore, "Lisbeth!
+Where are you taking the gentleman?"
+
+This recalled the poor girl to her senses; and she saw how fast
+they were floating down stream. For in telling the story she had
+forgotten every thing else, and the swift current had swept them
+down to the tall walnut trees of Kamp. They landed in front of the
+Capucin Monastery. Lisbeth led the way through the little village,
+and turning to the right pointed up the romantic, lonely valley
+which leads to the Liebenstein, and even offered to go up. But
+Flemming patted her cheek and shook his head. He went up the valley
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE.
+
+
+
+The man in the play, who wished for `some forty pounds of lovely
+beef, placed in a Mediterranean sea of brewis,' might have seen his
+ample desires almost realized at the table d'hôte of the Rheinischen
+Hof, in Mayence, where Flemming dined that day. At the head of the
+table sat a gentleman, with a smooth, broad forehead, and large,
+intelligent eyes. He was from Baireuth in Franconia; and talked
+about poetry and Jean Paul, to a pale, romantic-looking lady on his
+right. There was music all dinner-time, at the other end of the
+hall; a harp and a horn and a voice; so that a great part of the fat
+gentleman's conversation with the pale lady was lost to Flemming,
+who sat opposite to her, and could look right into her large,
+melancholy eyes. But what heheard, so much interested him,--indeed,
+the very name of the beloved Jean Paul would have been enough for
+this,--that he ventured to join in the conversation, and asked the
+German if he had known the poet personally.
+
+"Yes; I knew him well," replied the stranger. "I am a native of
+Baireuth, where he passed the best years of his life. In my mind the
+man and the author are closely united. I never read a page of his
+writings without hearing his voice, and seeing his form before me.
+There he sits, with his majestic, mountainous forehead, his mild
+blue eyes, and finely cut nose and mouth; his massive frame clad
+loosely and carelessly in an old green frock, from the pockets of
+which the corners of books project, and perhaps the end of a loaf of
+bread, and the nose of a bottle;--a straw hat, lined with green,
+lying near him; a huge walking-stick in his hand, and at his feet a
+white poodle, with pink eyes and a string round his neck. You would
+sooner have taken him for a master-carpenter than for a poet. Is he
+a favorite author of yours?"
+
+Flemming answered in the affirmative.
+
+"But a foreigner must find it exceedingly difficult to understand
+him," said the gentleman. "It is by no means an easy task for us
+Germans."
+
+"I have always observed," replied Flemming, "that the true
+understanding and appreciation of a poet depend more upon
+individual, than upon national character. If there be a sympathy
+between the minds of writer and reader, the bounds and barriers of a
+foreign tongue are soon overleaped. If you once understand an
+author's character, the comprehension of his writings becomes
+easy."
+
+"Very true," replied the German, "and the character of Richter is
+too marked to be easily misunderstood. Its prominent traits are
+tenderness and manliness,--qualities, which are seldom found united
+in so high a degree as in him. Over all he sees, over all he writes,
+are spread the sunbeams of a cheerful spirit,--the light of
+inexhaustible human love. Every sound of human joy and of human
+sorrow finds a deep-resoundingecho in his bosom. In every man, he
+loves his humanity only, not his superiority. The avowed object of
+all his literary labors was to raise up again the down-sunken faith
+in God, virtue, and immortality; and, in an egotistical,
+revolutionary age, to warm again our human sympathies, which have
+now grown cold. And not less boundless is his love for nature,--for
+this outward, beautiful world. He embraces it all in his arms."
+
+"Yes," answered Flemming, almost taking the words out of the
+stranger's mouth, "for in his mind all things become idealized. He
+seems to describe himself when he describes the hero of his Titan,
+as a child, rocking in a high wind upon the branches of a
+full-blossomed apple-tree, and, as its summit, blown abroad by the
+wind, now sunk him in deep green, and now tossed him aloft in deep
+blue and glancing sunshine,--in his imagination stood that tree
+gigantic;--it grew alone in the universe, as if it were the tree of
+eternal life; its roots struck down into the abyss; the white and
+red clouds hung as blossoms upon it; the moon asfruit; the little
+stars sparkled like dew, and Albano reposed in its measureless
+summit; and a storm swayed the summit out of Day into Night, and out
+of Night into Day."
+
+"Yet the spirit of love," interrupted the Franconian, "was not
+weakness, but strength. It was united in him with great manliness.
+The sword of his spirit had been forged and beaten by poverty. Its
+temper had been tried by a thirty years' war. It was not broken, not
+even blunted; but rather strengthened and sharpened by the blows it
+gave and received. And, possessing this noble spirit of humanity,
+endurance, and self-denial, he made literature his profession; as if
+he had been divinely commissioned to write. He seems to have cared
+for nothing else, to have thought of nothing else, than living
+quietly and making books. He says, that he felt it his duty, not to
+enjoy, nor to acquire, but to write; and boasted, that he had made
+as many books as he had lived years."
+
+"And what do you Germans consider the prominent characteristics
+of his genius?"
+
+"Most undoubtedly his wild imagination and his playfulness. He
+throws over all things a strange and magic coloring. You are
+startled at the boldness and beauty of his figures and
+illustrations, which are scattered everywhere with a reckless
+prodigality;--multitudinous, like the blossoms of early summer,--and
+as fragrant and beautiful. With a thousand extravagances are mingled
+ten thousand beauties of thought and expression, which kindle the
+reader's imagination, and lead it onward in a bold flight, through
+the glow of sunrise and sunset, and the dewy coldness and starlight
+of summer nights. He is difficult to understand,--intricate,--
+strange,--drawing his illustrations from every by-corner of science,
+art, and nature,--a comet, among the bright stars of German
+literature. When you read his works, it is as if you were climbing a
+high mountain, in merry company, to see the sun rise. At times you
+are enveloped in mist,--the morning wind sweeps by you with a
+shout,--you hear the far-off muttering thunders. Wide beneath you
+spreads the landscape,--field, meadow, town, and winding river. The
+ringing of distant church-bells, or the sound of solemn village
+clock, reaches you;--then arises the sweet and manifold fragrance of
+flowers,--the birds begin to sing,--the vapors roll away,--up comes
+the glorious sun,--you revel like the lark in the sunshine and
+bright blue heaven, and all is a delirious dream of soul and
+sense,--when suddenly a friend at your elbow laughs aloud, and
+offers you a piece of Bologna sausage. As in real life, so in his
+writings,--the serious and the comic, the sublime and the grotesque,
+the pathetic and the ludicrous are mingled together. At times he is
+sententious, energetic, simple; then again, obscure and diffuse. His
+thoughts are like mummies embalmed in spices, and wrapped about with
+curious envelopements; but within these the thoughts themselves are
+kings. At times glad, beautiful images, airy forms, move by you,
+graceful, harmonious;--at times the glaring, wild-looking fancies,
+chained together by hyphens, brackets, and dashes, brave and base,
+high and low, all in their motley dresses, go sweeping down the
+dusty page, like the galley-slaves, that sweep the streets of Rome,
+where you may chance to see the nobleman and the peasant manacled
+together."
+
+Flemming smiled at the German's warmth, to which the presence of
+the lady, and the Laubenheimer wine, seemed each to have contributed
+something, and then said;
+
+"Better an outlaw, than not free!--These are his own words. And
+thus he changes at his will. Like the God Thor, of the old Northern
+mythology, he now holds forth the seven bright stars in the bright
+heaven above us, and now hides himself in clouds, and pounds away
+with his great hammer."
+
+"And yet this is not affectation in him," rejoined the German.
+"It is his nature, it is Jean Paul. And the figures and ornaments of
+his style, wild, fantastic, and oft-times startling, like those in
+Gothic cathedrals, are not merely what they seem, but massive
+coignes and buttresses, which support the fabric. Remove them, and
+the roofand walls fall in. And through these gurgoyles, these wild
+faces, carved upon spouts and gutters, flow out, like gathered rain,
+the bright, abundant thoughts, that have fallen from heaven.
+
+"And all he does, is done with a kind of serious playfulness. He
+is a sea-monster, disporting himself on the broad ocean; his very
+sport is earnest; there is something majestic and serious about it.
+In every thing there is strength, a rough good-nature, all sunshine
+overhead, and underneath the heavy moaning of the sea. Well may he
+be called `Jean Paul, the Only-One.'"
+
+With such discourse the hour of dinner passed; and after dinner
+Flemming went to the Cathedral. They were singing vespers. A beadle,
+dressed in blue, with a cocked hat, and a crimson sash and collar,
+was strutting, like a turkey, along the aisles. This important
+gentleman conducted Flemming through the church, and showed him the
+choir, with its heavy-sculptured stalls of oak, and the beautiful
+figures in brown stone, over the bishops' tombs. He then led him, by
+a side-door, into theold and ruined cloisters of St. Willigis.
+Through the low gothic arches the sunshine streamed upon the
+pavement of tombstones, whose images and inscriptions are mostly
+effaced by the footsteps of many generations. There stands the tomb
+of Frauenlob, the Minnesinger. His face is sculptured on an
+entablature in the wall; a fine, strongly-marked, and serious
+countenance. Below it is a bas-relief, representing the poet's
+funeral. He is carried to his grave by ladies, whose praise he sang,
+and thereby won the name of Frauenlob.
+
+"This then," said Flemming, "is the grave, not of Praise-God
+Bare-bones, but of Praise-the-Ladies Meissen, who wrote songs
+`somewhat of lust, and somewhat of love.' But where sleeps the dust
+of his rival and foe, sweet Master Bartholomew Rainbow?"
+
+He meant this for an aside; but the turkey-cock picked it up and
+answered;
+
+"I do not know. He did not belong to this parish."
+
+It was already night, when Flemming crossedthe Roman bridge over
+the Nahe, and entered the town of Bingen. He stopped at the White
+Horse; and, before going to bed, looked out into the dim starlight
+from his window towards the Rhine, and his heart leaped up to behold
+the bold outline of the neighbouring hills crested with Gothic
+ruins;--which in the morning proved to be only a high, slated roof
+with fantastic chimneys.
+
+The morning was bright and frosty; and the river tinged with gay
+colors from the rising sun. A soft, thin vapor floated in the air.
+In the sunbeams flashed the hoar-frost, like silver stars; and
+through a long avenue of trees, whose dripping branches bent and
+scattered pearls before him, Paul Flemming journeyed on in
+triumph.
+
+I will not prolong this journey, for I am weary and way-worn, and
+would fain be at Heidelberg with my readers, and my hero. It was
+already night when he reached the Manheim gate, and drove down the
+long Hauptstrasse so slowly, that it seemed to him endless. The
+shops werelighted on each side of the street, and he saw faces at
+the windows here and there, and figures passing in the lamp-light,
+visible for a moment and then swallowed up in the darkness. The
+thoughts that filled his mind were strange; as are always the
+thoughts of a traveller, who enters for the first time a strange
+city. This little world had been going on for centuries before he
+came; and would go on for centuries after he was gone. Of all the
+thousands who inhabited it he knew nothing; and what knew they, or
+thought, of the stranger, who, in that close post-chaise, weary with
+travel, and chilled by the evening wind, was slowly rumbling over
+the paved street! Truly, this world can go on without us, if we
+would but think so. If it had been a hearse instead of a
+post-chaise, it would have been all the same to the people of
+Heidelberg,--though by no means the same to Paul Flemming.
+
+But at the farther end of the city, near the Castle and the
+Carls-Thor, one warm heart was waiting to receive him; and this was
+the German heart of his friend, the Baron of Hohenfels, with whom he
+was to pass the winter in Heidelberg. No sooner had the carriage
+stopped at the irongrated gate, and the postilion blown his horn, to
+announce the arrival of a traveller, than the Baron was seen among
+the servants at the door; and, a few moments afterwards, the two
+long-absent friends were in each other's arms, and Flemming received
+a kiss upon each cheek, and another on the mouth, as the pledge and
+seal of the German's friendship. They held each other long by the
+hand, and looked into each other's faces, and saw themselves in each
+other's eyes, both literally and figuratively; literally, inasmuch
+as the images were there; and figuratively, inasmuch as each was
+imagining what the other thought of him, after the lapse of some
+years. In friendly hopes and questionings and answers, the evening
+glided away at the supper-table, where many more things were
+discussed than the roasted hare, and the Johannisberger; and they
+sat late into the night, conversing of the thoughts and feelings and
+delights, which fill the hearts of young men, who have already
+enjoyed and suffered, and hoped and been disappointed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. HEIDELBERG AND THE BARON.
+
+
+
+High and hoar on the forehead of the Jettenbühl stands the Castle
+of Heidelberg. Behind it rise the oak-crested hills of the Geissberg
+and the Kaiserstuhl; and in front, from the broad terrace of
+masonry, you can almost throw a stone upon the roofs of the city, so
+close do they lie beneath. Above this terrace rises the broad front
+of the chapel of Saint Udalrich. On the left, stands the slender
+octagon tower of the horologe, and, on the right, a huge round
+tower, battered and shattered by the mace of war, shores up with its
+broad shoulders the beautiful palace and garden-terrace of
+Elisabeth, wife of the Pfalzgraf Frederick. In the rear are older
+palaces and towers, forming a vast, irregular quadrangle;--Rodolph's
+ancientcastle, with its Gothic gloriette and fantastic gables; the
+Giant's Tower, guarding the drawbridge over the moat; the Rent
+Tower, with the linden-trees growing on its summit, and the
+magnificent Rittersaal of Otho-Henry, Count Palatine of the Rhine
+and grand seneschal of the Holy Roman Empire. From the gardens
+behind the castle, you pass under the archway of the Giant's Tower
+into the great court-yard. The diverse architecture of different
+ages strikes the eye; and curious sculptures. In niches on the wall
+of Saint Udalrich's chapel stand rows of knights in armour, all
+broken and dismembered; and on the front of Otho's Rittersaal, the
+heroes of Jewish history and classic fable. You enter the open and
+desolate chambers of the ruin; and on every side are medallions and
+family arms; the Globe of the Empire and the Golden Fleece, or the
+Eagle of the Cæsars, resting on the escutcheons of Bavaria and the
+Palatinate. Over the windows and door-ways and chimney-pieces, are
+sculptures and mouldings of exquisite workmanship; and the eyeis
+bewildered by the profusion of caryatides, and arabesques, and
+rosettes, and fan-like flutings, and garlands of fruits and flowers
+and acorns, and bullocks'-heads with draperies of foliage, and
+muzzles of lions, holding rings in their teeth. The cunning hand of
+Art was busy for six centuries, in raising and adorning these walls;
+the mailed hands of Time and War have defaced and overthrown them in
+less than two. Next to the Alhambra of Granada, the Castle of
+Heidelberg is the most magnificent ruin of the Middle Ages.
+
+In the valley below flows the rushing stream of the Neckar. Close
+from its margin, on the opposite side, rises the Mountain of All
+Saints, crowned with the ruins of a convent; and up the valley
+stretches the mountain-curtain of the Odenwald. So close and many
+are the hills, which eastward shut the valley in, that the river
+seems a lake. But westward it opens, upon the broad plain of the
+Rhine, like the mouth of a trumpet; and like the blast of a trumpet
+is at times the wintry wind through this narrow mountain pass. The
+blue Alsatian hills rise beyond; and, on a platform or strip of level
+land, between the Neckar and the mountains, right under the castle,
+stands the city of Heidelberg; as the old song says, "a pleasant
+city, when it has done raining."
+
+Something of this did Paul Flemming behold, when he rose the next
+morning and looked from his window. It was a warm, vapory morning,
+and a struggle was going on between the mist and the rising sun. The
+sun had taken the hill-tops, but the mist still kept possession of
+the valley and the town. The steeple of the great church rose
+through a dense mass of snow-white clouds; and eastward, on the
+hills, the dim vapors were rolling across the windows of the ruined
+castle, like the fiery smoke of a great conflagration. It seemed to
+him an image of the rising of the sun of Truth on a benighted world;
+its light streamed through the ruins of centuries; and, down in the
+valley of Time, the cross on the Christian church caught its rays,
+though the priests were singing in mist and darkness below.
+
+In the warm breakfast-parlour he found the Baron, waiting for
+him. He was lying upon a sofa, in morning gown and purple-velvet
+slippers, both with flowers upon them. He had a guitar in his hand,
+and a pipe in his mouth, at the same time smoking, playing, and
+humming his favorite song from Goethe;
+
+"The water rushed, the water swelled,
+
+A fisher sat thereby."
+
+Flemming could hardly refrain from laughing at the sight of his
+friend; and told him it reminded him of a street-musician he once
+saw in Aix-la-Chapelle, who was playing upon six instruments at
+once; having a helmet with bells on his head, a Pan's-reed in his
+cravat, a fiddle in his hand, a triangle on his knee, cymbals on his
+heels, and on his back a bass-drum, which he played with his elbows.
+To tell the truth, the Baron of Hohenfels was rather a miscellaneous
+youth, rather a universal genius. He pursued all things with
+eagerness, but for a short time only; music, poetry, painting,
+pleasure, even the study of the Pandects. Hisfeelings were keenly
+alive to the enjoyment of life. His great defect was, that he was
+too much in love with human nature. But by the power of imagination,
+in him, the bearded goat was changed to a bright Capricornus:--no
+longer an animal on earth, but a constellation in heaven. An easy
+and indolent disposition made him gentle and childlike in his
+manners; and, in short, the beauty of his character, like that of
+the precious opal, was owing to a defect in its organization. His
+person was tall and slightly built; his hair light; and his eyes
+blue, and as beautiful as those of a girl. In the tones of his
+voice, there was something indescribably gentle and winning; and he
+spoke the German language, with the soft, musical accent of his
+native province of Curland. In his manners, if he had not `Antinous'
+easy sway,' he had at least an easy sway of his own. Such, in few
+words, was the bosom friend of Flemming.
+
+"And what do you think of Heidelberg and the old castle up
+there?" said he, as they seated themselves at the
+breakfast-table.
+
+"Last night the town seemed very long to me," replied Flemming; "and
+as to the castle, I have as yet had but a glimpse of it through the
+mist. They tell me there is nothing finer in its way, excepting the
+Alhambra of Granada; and no doubt I shall find it so. Only I wish
+the stone were gray and not red. But, red or gray, I foresee that I
+shall waste many a long hour in its desolate halls. Pray, does
+anybody live up there now-a-days?"
+
+"Nobody," answered the Baron, "but the man, who shows the
+Heidelberg Ton, and Monsieur Charles de Grainberg, a Frenchman, who
+has been there sketching ever since the year eighteen-hundred and
+ten. He has, moreover, written a super-magnificent description of
+the ruin, in which he says, that during the day only birds of prey
+disturb it with their piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls,
+and other fallow deer. These are his own words. You must buy his
+book and his sketches."
+
+"Yes, the quotation and the tone of your voice will certainly
+persuade me so to do."
+
+"Take his or none, my friend, for you will find no others. And
+seriously, his sketches are very good. There is one on the wall
+there, which is beautiful, save and except that straddle-bug figure
+among the bushes in the corner."
+
+"But is there no ghost, no haunted chamber in the old castle?"
+asked Flemming, after casting a hasty glance at the picture.
+
+"Oh, certainly," replied the Baron; "there are two. There is the
+ghost of the Virgin Mary in Ruprecht's Tower, and the Devil in the
+Dungeon."
+
+"Ha! that is grand!" exclaimed Flemming, with evident delight.
+"Tell me the whole story, quickly! I am as curious as a child."
+
+"It is a tale of the times of Louis the Debonnaire," said the
+Baron, with a smile; "a mouldy tradition of a credulous age. His
+brother Frederick lived here in the castle with him, and had a
+flirtation with Leonore von Luzelstein, a lady of the court, whom he
+afterwards despised, and was consequently most cordially hated by
+her. Frompolitical motives he was equally hateful to certain petty
+German tyrants, who, in order to effect his ruin, accused him of
+heresy. But his brother Louis would not deliver him up to their
+fury, and they resolved to effect by stratagem, what they could not
+by intrigue. Accordingly, Leonore von Luzelstein, disguised as the
+Virgin Mary, and the father confessor of the Elector, in the costume
+of Satan, made their appearance in the Elector's bed-chamber at
+midnight, and frightened him so horribly, that he consented to
+deliver up his brother into the hands of two Black Knights, who
+pretended to be ambassadors from the Vehm-Gericht. They proceeded
+together to Frederick's chamber; where luckily old Gemmingen, a
+brave soldier, kept guard behind the arras. The monk went foremost
+in his Satanic garb; but, no sooner had he set foot in the prince's
+bed-chamber, than the brave Gemmingen drew his sword, and said
+quaintly, `Die, wretch!' and so he died. The rest took to their
+heels, and were heard of no more. And now the souls of Leonore and
+the monk haunt the scene of their midnight crime. You will find the
+story in Grainberg's book, worked up with a kind of red-morocco and
+burnt-cork sublimity, and great melo-dramatic clanking of chains,
+and hooting of owls, and other fallow deer!"
+
+"After breakfast," said Flemming, "we will go up to the castle. I
+must get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this modern Till
+Eulenspiegel. See what a glorious morning we have! It is truly a
+wondrous winter! what summer sunshine; what soft Venetian fogs! How
+the wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray-beard trees!
+Such weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace! But we have
+an old saying in English, that winter never rots in the sky. So he
+will come down at last in his old-fashioned, mealy coat. We shall
+have snow in spring; and the blossoms will be all snow-flakes. And
+afterwards a summer, which will be no summer, but, as Jean Paul
+says, only a winter painted green. Is it not so?"
+
+"Unless I am much deceived in the climate of Heidelberg," replied
+the Baron, "we shall not have to wait long for snow. We have sudden
+changes here, and I should not marvel much if it snowed before
+night."
+
+"The greater reason for making good use of the morning sunshine,
+then. Let us hasten to the castle, after which my heart yearns."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. LIVES OF SCHOLARS.
+
+
+
+The forebodings of the Baron proved true. In the afternoon the
+weather changed. The western wind began to blow, and its breath drew
+a cloud-veil over the face of heaven, as a breath does over the
+human face in a mirror. Soon the snow began to fall. Athwart the
+distant landscape it swept like a white mist. The storm-wind came
+from the Alsatian hills, and struck the dense clouds aslant through
+the air. And ever faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent from those
+mountainous clouds. The setting sun glared wildly from the summit of
+the hills, and sank like a burning ship at sea, wrecked in the
+tempest. Thus the evening set in; and winter stood at the gate
+wagging his white and shaggy beard, like an old harper, chanting an
+old rhyme:--"How cold it is! how cold it is!"
+
+"I like such a storm as this," said Flemming, who stood at the
+window, looking out into the tempest and the gathering darkness.
+"The silent falling of snow is to me one of the most solemn things
+in nature. The fall of autumnal leaves does not so much affect me.
+But the driving storm is grand. It startles me; it awakens me. It is
+wild and woful, like my own soul. I cannot help thinking of the sea;
+how the waves run and toss their arms about,--and the wind plays on
+those great harps, made by the shrouds and masts of ships. Winter is
+here in earnest! Whew! How the old churl whistles and threshes the
+snow! Sleet and rain are falling too. Already the trees are bearded
+with icicles; and the two broad branches of yonder pine look like
+the white mustache of some old German Baron."
+
+"And to-morrow it will look more wintry still," said his friend.
+"We shall wake up and find that the frost-spirit has been at work
+all night building Gothic Cathedrals on our windows, just as the
+devil built the Cathedral of Cologne. Sodraw the curtains, and come
+sit here by the warm fire."
+
+"And now," said Flemming, having done as his friend desired,
+"tell me something of Heidelberg and its University. I suppose we
+shall lead about as solitary and studious a life here as we did of
+yore in little Göttingen, with nothing to amuse us, save our own
+day-dreams."
+
+"Pretty much so," replied the Baron; "which cannot fail to please
+you, since you are in pursuit of tranquillity. As to the University,
+it is, as you know, one of the oldest in Germany. It was founded in
+the fourteenth century by the Count Palatine Ruprecht, and had in
+the first year more than five hundred students, all busily
+committing to memory, after the old scholastic wise, the rules of
+grammar versified by Alexander de Villa Dei, and the extracts made
+by Peter the Spaniard from Michel Psellus's Synopsis of Aristotle's
+Organon, and the Categories, with Porphory's Commentaries. Truly, I
+do not much wonder, that Eregina Scotus should have been put to
+death byhis scholars with their penknives. They must have been
+pushed to the very verge of despair."
+
+"What a strange picture a University presents to the imagination.
+The lives of scholars in their cloistered stillness;--literary men
+of retired habits, and Professors who study sixteen hours a day, and
+never see the world but on a Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some
+wise purpose, placed in their hearts this love of literary labor and
+seclusion. Otherwise, who would feed the undying lamp of thought?
+But for such men as these, a blast of wind through the chinks and
+crannies of this old world, or the flapping of a conqueror's banner,
+would blow it out forever. The light of the soul is easily
+extinguished. And whenever I reflect upon these things I become
+aware of the great importance, in a nation's history, of the
+individual fame of scholars and literary men. I fear, that it is far
+greater than the world is willing to acknowledge; or, perhaps I
+should say, than the world has thought of acknowledging. Blot out
+from England's history the names of Chaucer, Shakspere, Spenser, and
+Milton only, and how much of her glory would you blot out with them!
+Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michel
+Angelo, and Raphael, and how much would still be wanting to the
+completeness of her glory! How would the history of Spain look if
+the leaves were torn out, on which are written the names of
+Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon! What would be the fame of
+Portugal, without her Camoens; of France, without her Racine, and
+Rabelais, and Voltaire; or Germany, without her Martin Luther, her
+Goethe, and Schiller!--Nay, what were the nations of old, without
+their philosophers, poets, and historians! Tell me, do not these men
+in all ages and in all places, emblazon with bright colors the
+armorial bearings of their country? Yes, and far more than this; for
+in all ages and all places they give humanity assurance of its
+greatness; and say; Call not this time or people wholly barbarous;
+for thus much, even then and there, could the human mind achieve!
+But the boisterous world has hardlythought of acknowledging all
+this. Therein it has shown itself somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence
+the great reproach, the general scorn, the loud derision, with
+which, to take a familiar example, the monks of the Middle Ages are
+regarded! That they slept their lives away is most untrue. For in an
+age when books were few,--so few, so precious, that they were often
+chained to their oaken shelves with iron chains, like galley-slaves
+to their benches, these men, with their laborious hands, copied upon
+parchment all the lore and wisdom of the past, and transmitted it to
+us. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that, but for these monks,
+not one line of the classics would have reached our day. Surely,
+then, we can pardon something to those superstitious ages, perhaps
+even the mysticism of the scholastic philosophy, since, after all,
+we can find no harm in it, only the mistaking of the possible for
+the real, and the high aspirings of the human mind after a
+long-sought and unknown somewhat. I think the name of Martin Luther,
+the monk of Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monkhoodfrom
+the reproach of laziness! If this will not, perhaps the vast folios
+of Thomas Aquinas will;--or the countless manuscripts, still
+treasured in old libraries, whose yellow and wrinkled pages remind
+one of the hands that wrote them, and the faces that once bent over
+them."
+
+"An eloquent homily," said the Baron laughing, "a most touching
+appeal in behalf of suffering humanity! For my part, I am no friend
+of this entire seclusion from the world. It has a very injurious
+effect on the mind of a scholar. The Chinese proverb is true; a
+single conversation across the table with a wise man, is better than
+ten years' mere study of books. I have known some of these literary
+men, who thus shut themselves up from the world. Their minds never
+come in contact with those of their fellow-men. They read little.
+They think much. They are mere dreamers. They know not what is new
+nor what is old. They often strike upon trains of thought, which
+stand written in good authors some century or so back, and are even
+current in the mouths of men aroundthem. But they know it not; and
+imagine they are bringing forward something very original, when they
+publish their thoughts."
+
+"It reminds me," replied Flemming, "of what Dr. Johnson said of
+Goldsmith, when he proposed to travel abroad in order to bring home
+improvements;--`He will bring home a wheelbarrow, and call that an
+improvement.' It is unfortunately the same with some of these
+scholars."
+
+"And the worst of it is," said the Baron, "that, in solitude,
+some fixed idea will often take root in the mind, and grow till it
+overshadow all one's thoughts. To this must all opinions come; no
+thought can enter there, which shall not be wedded to the fixed
+idea. There it remains, and grows. It is like the watchman's wife,
+in the tower of Waiblingen, who grew to such a size, that she could
+not get down the narrow stair-case; and, when her husband died, his
+successor was forced to marry the fat widow in the tower."
+
+"I remember an old English comedy," said Flemming laughing, "in
+which a scholar is described, as a creature, that can strike fire in
+the morning at his tinder-box,--put on a pair of lined
+slippers,--sit ruminating till dinner, and then go to his meat when
+the bell rings;--one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a
+license to spit;--or, if you will have him defined by negatives, he
+is one that cannot make a good leg;--one that cannot eat a mess of
+broth cleanly. What think you of that?"
+
+"That it is just as people are always represented in English
+comedy," said the Baron. "The portrait is
+over-charged,--caricatured."
+
+"And yet," continued Flemming, "no longer ago than yesterday, in
+the Preface of a work by Dr. Rosenkranz, Professor of Philosophy in
+the University of Halle, I read this passage."
+
+He opened a book and read.
+
+"Here in Halle, where we have no public garden and no Tivoli, no
+London Exchange, no Paris Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor Vienna
+Theatres, no Strassburg Minster, nor Salzburg Alps,--no Grecian
+ruins nor fantastic Catholicism, in fine, nothing, which after one's
+daily task is finished, can divert and refresh him, without his
+knowing or caring how,--I consider the sight of a proof-sheet quite
+as delightful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna. I fill my pipe very
+quietly, take out my ink-stand and pens, seat myself in the corner
+of my sofa, read, correct, and now for the first time really set
+about thinking what I have written. To see this origin of a book,
+this metamorphosis of manuscript into print, is a delight to which I
+give myself up entirely. Look you, this melancholy pleasure, which
+would have furnished the departed Voss with worthy matter for more
+than one blessed Idyl--(the more so, as on such occasions, I am
+generally arrayed in a morning gown, though I am sorry to say, not a
+calamanco one, with great flowers;) this melancholy pleasure was
+already grown here in Halle to a sweet, pedantic habit. Since I
+began my hermit's life here, I have been printing; and so long as I
+remain here, I shall keep on printing. In all probability, I shall
+die with a proof-sheet in my hand."
+
+"This," said Flemming, closing the book, "is no caricature by a
+writer of comedy, but a portrait by a man's own hand. We can see by
+it how easily, under certain circumstances, one may glide into
+habits of seclusion, and in a kind of undress, slipshod hardihood,
+with a pipe and a proof-sheet, defy the world. Into this state
+scholars have too often fallen; thus giving some ground for the
+prevalent opinion, that scholarship and rusticity are inseparable.
+To me, I confess, it is painful to see the scholar and the world
+assume so often a hostile attitude, and set each other at defiance.
+Surely, it is a characteristic trait of a great and liberal mind,
+that it recognises humanity in all its forms and conditions. I am a
+student;--and always, when I sit alone at night, I recognise the
+divinity of the student, as she reveals herself to me in the smoke
+of the midnight lamp. But, because solitude and books are not
+unpleasant to me,--nay, wished-for,--sought after,--shall I say to
+my brother, Thou fool! Shall I take the world by the beard and say,
+Thou art old, and mad!--Shall I look society in the face and say,
+Thou art heartless!--Heartless! Beware of that word! Life, says very
+wisely the good Jean Paul, Life in every shape, should be precious
+to us, for the same reason that the Turks carefully collect every
+scrap of paper that comes in their way, because the name of God may
+be written upon it. Nothing is more true than this, yet nothing more
+neglected!"
+
+"If it be painful to see this misunderstanding between scholars
+and the world," said the Baron, "I think it is still more painful to
+see the private sufferings of authors by profession. How many have
+languished in poverty, how many died broken-hearted, how many gone
+mad with over-excitement and disappointed hopes! How instructive and
+painfully interesting are their lives! with so many weaknesses,--so
+much to pardon,--so much to pity,--so much to admire! I think he was
+not so far out of the way, who said, that, next to the Newgate
+Calendar, the Biography of Authors is the most sickening chapter in
+the history of man."
+
+"It is indeed enough to make one's heart ache!" interrupted
+Flemming. "Only think of Johnson and Savage, rambling about the
+streets of London at midnight, without a place to sleep in; Otway
+starved to death; Cowley mad, and howling like a dog, through the
+aisles of Chichester Cathedral, at the sound of church music; and
+Goldsmith, strutting up Fleet Street in his peach-blossom coat, to
+knock a bookseller over the pate with one of his own volumes; and
+then, in his poverty, about to marry his landlady in Green Arbour
+Court."
+
+"A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, indeed, do these
+poor devil authors have of it," replied the Baron; "and then at last
+must get them to the work-house, or creep away into some hospital to
+die."
+
+"After all," said Flemming with a sigh, "poverty is not a
+vice."
+
+"But something worse," interrupted the Baron; "as Dufresny said,
+when he married his laundress, because he could not pay her bill.
+Hewas the author, as you know, of the opera of Lot; at whose
+representation the great pun was made;--I say the great pun, as we
+say the great ton of Heidelberg. As one of the performers was
+singing the line, `L'amour a vaincu Loth,' (vingt culottes,) a voice
+from the pit cried out, `Qu'il en donne une à l'auteur!'"
+
+Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest; and then, after a
+short pause, continued;
+
+"And yet, if you look closely at the causes of these calamities
+of authors, you will find, that many of them spring from false and
+exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic character; and from
+disdain of common sense, upon which all character, worth having, is
+founded. This comes from keeping aloof from the world, apart from
+our fellow-men; disdainful of society, as frivolous. By too much
+sitting still the body becomes unhealthy; and soon the mind. This is
+nature's law. She will never see her children wronged. If the mind,
+which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample upon
+its slave, the slave is never generousenough to forgive the injury;
+but will rise and smite its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch mind
+been dethroned."
+
+"After all," said the Baron, "we must pardon much to men of
+genius. A delicate organization renders them keenly susceptible to
+pain and pleasure. And then they idealize every thing; and, in the
+moonlight of fancy, even the deformity of vice seems beautiful."
+
+"And this you think should be forgiven?"
+
+"At all events it is forgiven. The world loves a spice of
+wickedness. Talk as you will about principle, impulse is more
+attractive, even when it goes too far. The passions of youth, like
+unhooded hawks, fly high, with musical bells upon their jesses; and
+we forget the cruelty of the sport in the dauntless bearing of the
+gallant bird."
+
+"And thus doth the world and society corrupt the scholar!"
+exclaimed Flemming.
+
+Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of Prince Metternich.
+He then very slowly filled his pipe, and began to smoke. Flemming
+was lost in a day-dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. LITERARY FAME.
+
+
+
+Time has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is continually
+recording illustrious names. But, as often as a new name is written
+there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated
+characters, never to be effaced. These are the high nobility of
+Nature,--Lords of the Public Domain of Thought. Posterity shall
+never question their titles. But those, whose fame lives only in the
+indiscreet opinion of unwise men, must soon be as well forgotten, as
+if they had never been. To this great oblivion must most men come.
+It is better, therefore, that they should soon make up their minds
+to this; well knowing, that, as their bodies must ere long be
+resolved into dust again, and their graves tell no tales of them; so
+musttheir names likewise be utterly forgotten, and their most
+cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions have no longer an
+individual being among men; but be resolved and incorporated into
+the universe of thought. If, then, the imagination can trace the
+noble dust of heroes, till we find it stopping a beer-barrel, and
+know that
+
+"Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
+
+May stop a hole to keep the wind away;"
+
+not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it
+finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used
+to stop men's mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws
+of opinion. Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise
+proverbs, which are now resolved into the common mass of thought;
+their authors forgotten, and having no more an individual being
+among men.
+
+It is better, therefore, that men should soon make up their minds
+to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some
+higher motive, in what they do, than the approbation of men, which is
+Fame; namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly
+at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving
+their fame to take care of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in
+our imperfection; impossible perhaps to achieve it wholly. Yet the
+resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve much,--at times
+even this victory over himself; being persuaded, that fame comes
+only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is
+destiny.
+
+It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in
+advance of their age; which is true. There is something equally
+true, yet not so common; namely, that, of these men of genius, the
+best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, but of
+every age. As the German prose-poet says, every possible future is
+behind them. We cannot suppose, that a period of time will ever
+come, when the world, or any considerable portion of it shall have
+come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to comprehend
+them.
+
+And oh! how majestically they walk in history; some like the sun,
+with all his travelling glories round him; others wrapped in gloom,
+yet glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent darkness
+of the past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps.
+Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision
+of an earthly Paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights
+before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven
+listed colors, as from the trail of pencils!
+
+And yet, on earth, these men were not happy,--not all happy, in
+the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in
+pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of
+dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow
+and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the
+shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their
+great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much;--and
+then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid
+themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death,--and the
+world talks of them, while they sleep!
+
+It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but
+sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them
+with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of
+disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of
+the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun's eclipse we can
+behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life
+eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity,
+burning solemnly and forever!
+
+This was Flemming's reverie. It was broken by the voice of the
+Baron, suddenly exclaiming;
+
+"An angel is flying over the house!--Here; in this goblet,
+fragrant as the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the wild flowers in
+the Angel's Meadow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams."
+
+"This is all sunshine," said Flemming, as he drank. "The wine of
+the Prince, and the Prince of wines. By the way, did you ever read
+that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany? an ode
+which seems to have been poured out of the author's soul, as from a
+golden pitcher,
+
+`Filled with the wine
+
+Of the vine
+
+Benign,
+
+That flames so red in Sansavine.'
+
+He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines."
+
+"Prince Metternich," said the Baron, "is greater than any king in
+Italy; and I wonder, that this precious wine has never inspired a
+German poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine. Many little songs we
+have on this theme, but none very extraordinary. The best are Max
+Schenkendorf's Song of the Rhine, and the Song of Rhine Wine, by
+Claudius, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. We will
+drink for him a blessing on the Rhine."
+
+And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each other, with
+a musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage-time from the
+villages on the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder, that the
+Germanpoet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of
+Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy
+schoolmaster Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from
+Germany to Mr. John Raven, of John's College; `Tell Mr. Maden I will
+drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a
+vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I
+will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of
+Rhenish wine.' Nor, in fine, do I wonder at the German Emperor of
+whom he speaks in another letter to the same John Raven, and says,
+`The Emperor drank the best that I ever saw; he had his head in the
+glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a
+good quart at once of Rhenish wine.' These were scholars and
+gentlemen.
+
+"But to resume our old theme of scholars and their whereabout,"
+said the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught no doubt from the
+golden sunshine, imprisoned, like the student Anselmus, in the glass
+bottle; "where should the scholar live? In solitudeor in society? In
+the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of
+nature beat, or in the dark, gray city, where he can hear and feel
+the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in
+the dark, gray city. Oh, they do greatly err, who think, that the
+stars are all the poetry which cities have; and therefore that the
+poet's only dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green
+roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature,
+when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and
+harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest,
+vast and shadowy, with all the sights and sounds of rural life. But
+after all, what are these but the decorations and painted scenery in
+the great theatre of human life? What are they but the coarse
+materials of the poet's song? Glorious indeed is the world of God
+around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies
+the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land. The river of
+life, that flows through streets tumultuous, bearingalong so many
+gallant hearts, so many wrecks of humanity;--the many homes and
+households, each a little world in itself, revolving round its
+fireside, as a central sun; all forms of human joy and suffering,
+brought into that narrow compass;--and to be in this and be a part
+of this; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing, with his
+fellow-men;--such, such should be the poet's life. If he would
+describe the world, he should live in the world. The mind of the
+scholar, also, if you would have it large and liberal, should come
+in contact with other minds. It is better that his armour should be
+somewhat bruised even by rude encounters, than hang forever rusting
+on the wall. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because
+apparently shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely
+the decorations of street scenery. A ruined character is as
+picturesque as a ruined castle. There are dark abysses and yawning
+gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by
+bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged
+the Savine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and
+England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human
+thought; not green grass, and flowers, and moonshine. Besides, the
+mere external forms of Nature we make our own, and carry with us
+into the city, by the power of memory."
+
+"I fear, however," interrupted Flemming, "that in cities the soul
+of man grows proud. He needs at times to be sent forth, like the
+Assyrian monarch, into green fields, `a wonderous wretch and
+weedless,' to eat green herbs, and be wakened and chastised by the
+rain-shower and winter's bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there
+is danger of the soul's becoming wed to pleasure, and forgetful of
+its high vocation. There have been souls dedicated to heaven from
+childhood and guarded by good angels as sweet seclusions for holy
+thoughts, and prayers, and all good purposes; wherein pious wishes
+dwelt like nuns, and every image was a saint; and yet in life's
+vicissitudes, by the treachery of occasion, by the thronging
+passionsof great cities, have become soiled and sinful. They
+resemble those convents on the river Rhine, which have been changed
+to taverns; from whose chambers the pious inmates have long
+departed, and in whose cloisters the footsteps of travellers have
+effaced the images of buried saints, and whose walls are written
+over with ribaldry and the names of strangers, and resound no more
+with holy hymns, but with revelry and loud voices."
+
+"Both town and country have their dangers," said the Baron; "and
+therefore, wherever the scholar lives, he must never forget his high
+vocation. Other artists give themselves up wholly to the study of
+their art. It becomes with them almost religion. For the most part,
+and in their youth, at least, they dwell in lands, where the whole
+atmosphere of the soul is beauty; laden with it as the air may be
+with vapor, till their very nature is saturated with the genius of
+their art. Such, for example, is the artist's life in Italy."
+
+"I agree with you," exclaimed Flemming; "and such should be the
+Poet's everywhere; forhe has his Rome, his Florence, his whole
+glowing Italy within the four walls of his library. He has in his
+books the ruins of an antique world,--and the glories of a modern
+one,--his Apollo and Transfiguration. He must neither forget nor
+undervalue his vocation; but thank God that he is a poet; and
+everywhere be true to himself, and to `the vision and the faculty
+divine' he feels within him."
+
+"But, at any rate, a city life is most eventful," continued the
+Baron. "The men who make, or take, the lives of poets and scholars,
+always complain that these lives are barren of incidents. Hardly a
+literary biography begins without some such apology, unwisely made.
+I confess, however, that it is not made without some show of truth;
+if, by incidents, we mean only those startling events, which
+suddenly turn aside the stream of Time, and change the world's
+history in an hour. There is certainly a uniformity, pleasing or
+unpleasing, in literary life, which for the most part makes to-day
+seem twin-born with yesterday. But if, byincidents, you mean events
+in the history of the human mind, (and why not?) noiseless events,
+that do not scar the forehead of the world as battles do, yet change
+it not the less, then surely the lives of literary men are most
+eventful. The complaint and the apology are both foolish. I do not
+see why a successful book is not as great an event as a successful
+campaign; only different in kind, and not easily compared."
+
+"Indeed," interrupted Flemming, "in no sense is the complaint
+strictly true, though at times apparently so. Events enough there
+are, were they all set down. A life, that is worth writing at all,
+is worth writing minutely. Besides, all literary men have not lived
+in silence and solitude;--not all in stillness, not all in shadow.
+For many have lived in troubled times, in the rude and adverse
+fortunes of the state and age, and could say with Wallenstein,
+
+`Our life was but a battle and a march;
+
+And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless,
+
+We stormed across the war convulsed earth.'
+
+Of such examples history has recorded many; Dante, Cervantes,
+Byron, and others; men of iron; men who have dared to breast the
+strong breath of public opinion, and, like spectre-ships, come
+sailing right against the wind. Others have been puffed out by the
+first adverse wind that blew; disgraced and sorrowful, because they
+could not please others. Truly `the tears live in an onion, that
+should water such a sorrow.' Had they been men, they would have made
+these disappointments their best friends, and learned from them the
+needful lesson of self-reliance."
+
+"To confess the truth," added the Baron, "the lives of literary
+men, with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and
+calamities, present a melancholy picture of man's strength and
+weakness. On that very account the scholar can make them profitable
+for encouragement,--consolation,--warning."
+
+"And after all," continued Flemming, "perhaps the greatest
+lesson, which the lives of literary men teach us, is told in a
+single word; Wait!--Every man must patiently bide his time. He must
+wait. More particularly in lands, like my native land, where the
+pulse of life beats with such feverish and impatient throbs, is the
+lesson needful. Our national character wants the dignity of repose.
+We seem to live in the midst of a battle,--there is such a
+din,--such a hurrying to and fro. In the streets of a crowded city
+it is difficult to walk slowly. You feel the rushing of the crowd,
+and rush with it onward. In the press of our life it is difficult to
+be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all professions seem to
+drag their anchors, and are swept out into the main. The voices of
+the Present say, Come! But the voices of the Past say, Wait! With
+calm and solemn footsteps the rising tide bears against the rushing
+torrent up stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less
+calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainly, does a great mind
+bear up against public opinion, and push back its hurrying stream.
+Therefore should every man wait;--should bide his time. Not in
+listless idleness,--not in uselesspastime,--not in querulous
+dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours, always
+willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when the
+occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never
+comes, what matters it? What matters it to the world whether I, or
+you, or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a book, sobeit
+the deed and book were well done! It is the part of an indiscreet
+and troublesome ambition, to care too much about fame,--about what
+the world says of us. To be always looking into the faces of others
+for approval;--to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and
+say; to be always shouting to hear the echo of our own voices! If
+you look about you, you will see men, who are wearing life away in
+feverish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them
+will be the funeral bell, that tolls them to their early graves!
+Unhappy men, and unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to
+accomplish well their task, but to clutch the `trick and fantasy of
+fame'; and they go to their graveswith purposes unaccomplished and
+wishes unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world in their
+example, had they known how to wait! Believe me, the talent of
+success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing
+well whatever you do,--without a thought of fame. If it come at all,
+it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
+And, moreover, there will be no misgivings,--no disappointment,--no
+hasty, feverish, exhausting excitement."
+
+Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I make no record of the
+winter. Paul Flemming buried himself in books; in old, dusty books.
+He studied diligently the ancient poetic lore of Germany, from
+Frankish Legends of Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, down
+through Nibelungen Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and Songs of the
+Minnesingers and Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and Reinecke
+Foxes, and Death-Dancesand Lamentations of Damned Souls, into the
+bright, sunny land of harvests, where, amid the golden grain and the
+blue corn-flowers, walk the modern bards, and sing.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+"Something the heart must have to cherish,
+
+Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn;
+
+Something with passion clasp, or perish,
+
+And in itself to ashes burn."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. SPRING.
+
+
+
+It was a sweet carol, which the Rhodian children sang of old in
+Spring, bearing in their hands, from door to door, a swallow, as
+herald of the season;
+
+"The Swallow is come!
+
+The Swallow is come!
+
+O fair are the seasons, and light
+
+Are the days that she brings,
+
+With her dusky wings,
+
+And her bosom snowy white."
+
+A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hungarian boys, on the
+islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in Spring;
+
+"Stork! Stork! poor Stork!
+
+Why is thy foot so bloody?
+
+A Turkish boy hath torn it;
+
+Hungarian boy will heal it,
+
+With fiddle, fife, and drum."
+
+But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of
+ours, where Spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy
+cloud-sails, and the misty pennon of the East-wind nailed to the
+mast! Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there
+are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the
+balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring
+sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun
+themselves; and think it is summer. They die in their conceit; and
+so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the
+eastern sea; and again,
+
+"The driving hail
+
+Upon the window beats with icy flail."
+
+The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple
+flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood
+follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed
+in the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden
+rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they
+hide themselves in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery
+cloaks? At the fireside of the great, hospitable sun, to-morrow, not
+before;--they must sit in wet garments until then.
+
+In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the South it is
+intoxicating, and sets a poet beside himself. The birds begin to
+sing;--they utter a few rapturous notes, and then wait for an answer
+in the silent woods. Those green-coated musicians, the frogs, make
+holiday in the neighbouring marshes. They, too, belong to the
+orchestra of Nature; whose vast theatre is again opened, though the
+doors have been so long bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung
+with snow and frost, like cobwebs. This is the prelude, which
+announces the rising of the broad green curtain. Already the grass
+shoots forth. The waters leap with thrilling pulse through the veins
+of the earth; the sap through the veins of the plants and trees; and
+the blood through the veins of man. What a thrill of delight in
+spring-time! What a joy in being and moving! Men are at work in
+gardens; and in the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The
+leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry
+hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes; and ere long our next-door
+neighbours will be completely hidden from us by the dense green
+foliage. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let
+loose in the fields and gardens. They hold butter-cups under each
+others' chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls
+adorn themselves with chains and curls of dandelions; pull out the
+yellow leaves to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the down
+from the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers want them at
+home.
+
+And at night so cloudless and so still! Not a voice of living
+thing,--not a whisper of leaf or waving bough,--not a breath of
+wind,--not a sound upon the earth nor in the air! And overhead bends
+the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars,
+like the inverted bellof some blue flower, sprinkled with golden
+dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heavens are overcast, it is
+no wild storm of wind and rain; but clouds that melt and fall in
+showers. One does not wish to sleep; but lies awake to hear the
+pleasant sound of the dropping rain.
+
+It was thus the Spring began in Heidelberg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. A COLLOQUY.
+
+
+
+"And what think you of Tiedge's Urania," said the Baron smiling,
+as Paul Flemming closed the book, and laid it upon the table.
+
+"I think," said Flemming, "that it is very much like Jean Paul's
+grandfather,--in the highest degree poor and pious."
+
+"Bravo!" exclaimed the Baron. "That is the best criticism I have
+heard upon the book. For my part, I dislike the thing as much as
+Goethe did. It was once very popular, and lay about in every parlour
+and bed-room. This annoyed the old gentleman exceedingly; and I do
+not wonder at it. He complains, that at one time nothing was sung or
+said but this Urania. He believed in Immortality; but wished to
+cherish his belief inquietness. He once told a friend of his, that
+he had, however, learned one thing from all this talk about Tiedge
+and his Urania; which was, that the saints, as well as the nobility,
+constitute an aristocracy. He said he found stupid women, who were
+proud because they believed in Immortality with Tiedge, and had to
+submit himself to not a few mysterious catechizings and tea-table
+lectures on this point; and that he cut them short by saying, that
+he had no objection whatever to enter into another state of
+existence hereafter, but prayed only that he might be spared the
+honor of meeting any of those there, who had believed in it here;
+for, if he did, the saints would flock around him on all sides,
+exclaiming, Were we not in the right? Did we not tell you so? Has it
+not all turned out just as we said? And, with such a conceited
+clatter in his ears, he thought that, before the end of six months,
+he might die of ennui in Heaven itself."
+
+"How shocked the good old ladies must have been," said
+Flemming.
+
+"No doubt, their nerves suffered a little; but the young ladies
+loved him all the better for being witty and wicked; and thought if
+they could only marry him, how they would reform him."
+
+"Bettina Brentano, for instance."
+
+"O no! That happened long afterwards. Goethe was then a
+silver-haired old man of sixty. She had never seen him, and knew him
+only by his writings; a romantic girl of seventeen."
+
+"And yet much in love with the Sexagenarian. And surely a more
+wild, fantastic, and, excuse me, German passion never sprang up in
+woman's breast. She was a flower, that worshipped the sun."
+
+"She afterwards married Achim von Arnim, and is now a widow. And
+not the least singular part of the affair, is, that, having grown
+older, and I hope colder, she should herself publish the letters
+which passed between her and Goethe."
+
+"Particularly the letter in which she describes her first visit
+to Weimar, and her interview with the hitherto invisible divinity of
+her dreams. The old gentleman took her upon his knees, and she fell
+asleep with her head upon his shoulder. It reminds me of Titania and
+Nick Bottom, begging your pardon, always, for comparing your
+All-sided-One to Nick Bottom. Oberon must have touched her eyes with
+the juice of Love-in-idleness. However, this book of Goethe's
+Correspondence with a Child is a very singular and valuable
+revelation of the feelings, which he excited in female hearts. You
+say she afterwards married Achim von Arnim?"
+
+"Yes; and he and her brother, Clemens Brentano, published that
+wondrous book, the Boy's Wonder-Horn."
+
+"The Boy's Wonder-Horn!" said Flemming, after a short pause, for
+the name seemed to have thrown him into a reverie;--"I know the book
+almost by heart. Of all your German books it is the one which
+produces upon my imagination the most wild and magic influence. I
+have a passion for ballads!"
+
+"And who has not?" said the Baron with asmile. "They are the
+gypsy-children of song, born under green hedgerows, in the leafy
+lanes and by-paths of literature,--in the genial summer-time."
+
+"Why do you say summer-time and not summer?" inquired Flemming.
+"The expression reminds me of your old Minnesingers;--of Heinrich
+von Ofterdingen, and Walter von der Vogelweide, and Count Kraft von
+Toggenburg, and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von
+Hohenfels. They were always singing of the gentle summer-time. They
+seem to have lived poetry, as well as sung it; like the birds who
+make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees."
+
+"Is that from Shakspere?"
+
+"No; from Lope de Vega."
+
+"You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity, and the Aubades
+and Watch-Songs of the old Minnesingers. What do you think of the
+shoe-maker poets that came after them,--with their guilds and
+singing-schools? It makes me laugh to think how the great German
+Helicon, shrunk toa rivulet, goes bubbling and gurgling over the
+pebbly names of Zwinger, Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin, Hellfire, Old
+Stoll, Young Stoll, Strong Bopp, Dang Brotscheim, Batt Spiegel,
+Peter Pfort, and Martin Gumpel. And then the Corporation of the
+Twelve Wise Masters, with their stumpfereime and klingende-reime,
+and their Hans Tindeisen's rosemary-weise; and Joseph Schmierer's
+flowery-paradise-weise, and Frauenlob's yellow-weise, and
+blue-weise, and frog-weise, and looking-glass-weise!"
+
+"O, I entreat you," exclaimed Flemming, laughing, "do not call
+those men poets! You transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see
+Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shaving the burgomaster."
+
+"By the way," interrupted the Baron, "did you ever read
+Hoffmann's beautiful story of Master Martin, the Cooper of
+Nuremberg? I will read it to you this very night. It is the most
+delightful picture of that age, which you can conceive. But look!
+the sun has already set behindthe Alsatian hills. Let us go up to
+the castle and look for the ghost in Prince Ruprecht's tower. O,
+what a glorious sunset!"
+
+Flemming looked at the evening sky, and a shade of sadness stole
+over his countenance. He told not to his friend the sorrow, with
+which his heart was heavy; but kept it for himself alone. He knew
+that the time, which comes to all men,--the time to suffer and be
+silent,--had come to him likewise; and he spake no word. O well has
+it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not
+speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. OWL-TOWERS.
+
+
+
+"There sits the old Frau Himmelhahn, perched up in her
+owl-tower," said the Baron to Flemming, as they passed along the
+Hauptstrasse. "She looks down through her round-eyed spectacles from
+her nest up there, and watches every one that goes by. I wonder what
+mischief she is hatching now? Do you know she has nearly ruined your
+character in town? She says you have a rakish look, because you
+carry a cane, and your hair curls. Your gloves, also, are a shade
+too light for a strictly virtuous man."
+
+"It is very kind in her to take such good care of my character,
+particularly as I am a stranger in town. She is doubtless learned in
+the Clothes-Philosophy."
+
+"And ignorant of every thing else. She asked a friend of mine the
+other day, whether Christ was a Catholic or a Protestant."
+
+"That is really too absurd!"
+
+"Not too absurd to be true. And, ignorant as she is, she
+contrives to do a good deal of mischief in the course of the year.
+Why, the ladies already call you Wilhelm Meister."
+
+"They are at liberty to call me what they please. But you, who
+know me better, know that I am something more than they would imply
+by the name."
+
+"She says, moreover, that the American ladies sit with their feet
+out of the window, and have no pocket-handkerchiefs."
+
+"Excellent!"
+
+They crossed the market-place and went up beneath the grand
+terrace into the court-yard of the castle.
+
+"Let us go up and sit under the great linden-trees, that grow on
+the summit of the Rent Tower," said Flemming. "From that point as
+from awatch-tower we can look down into the garden, and see the
+crowd below us."
+
+"And amuse ourselves, as old Frau Himmelhahn does, at her window
+in the Hauptstrasse," added the Baron.
+
+The keeper's daughter unlocked for them the door of the tower,
+and, climbing the steep stair-case, they seated themselves on a
+wooden bench under the linden-trees.
+
+"How beautifully these trees overgrow the old tower! And see what
+a solid mass of masonry lies in the great fosse down there, toppled
+from its base by the explosion of a mine! It is like a rusty helmet
+cleft in twain, but still crested with towering plumes!"
+
+"And what a motley crowd in the garden! Philisters and Sons of
+the Muses! And there goes the venerable Thibaut, taking his evening
+stroll. Do you see him there, with his silver hair flowing over his
+shoulders, and that friendly face, which has for so many years pored
+over the Pandects. I assure you, he inspires me with awe. And yet he
+is a merry old man, and loves his joke, particularly at the expense
+of Moses and other ancient lawgivers."
+
+Here their attention was diverted by a wild-looking person, who
+passed with long strides under the archway in the fosse, right
+beneath them, and disappeared among the bushes. He was
+ill-dressed,--his hair flying in the wind,--his movements hurried
+and nervous, and the expression of his broad countenance wild,
+strange, and earnest.
+
+"Who can that be!" asked Flemming. "He strides away indignantly,
+like one of Ossian's ghosts?"
+
+"A great philosopher, whose name I have forgotten. Truly a
+strange owl!"
+
+"He looks like a lion with a hat on."
+
+"He is a mystic, who reads Schubert's History of the Soul, and
+lives, for the most part, in the clouds of the Middle Ages. To him
+the spirit-world is still open. He believes in the transmigration of
+souls; and I dare say is now followingthe spirit of some departed
+friend, who has taken the form of yonder pigeon."
+
+"What a strange hallucination! He lives, I suppose, in the land
+of cloud-shadows. And, as St. Thomas Aquinas was said to be lifted
+up from the ground by the fervor of his prayers, so, no doubt, is he
+by the fervor of his visions."
+
+"He certainly appears to neglect all sublunary things; and, to
+judge from certain appearances, since you seem fond of holy
+similitudes, one would say, that, like St. Serapion the Sindonite,
+he had but one shirt. Yet what cares he? he lives in that poetic
+dream-land of his thoughts, and clothes his dream-children in
+poetry."
+
+"He is a poet, then, as well as a philosopher?"
+
+"Yes; but a poet who never writes a line. There is nothing in
+nature to which his imagination does not give a poetic hue. But the
+power to make others see these objects in the same poetic light, is
+wanting. Still he is a man of fine powers and feelings; for, next to
+being a greatpoet, is the power of understanding one,--of finding
+one's-self in him, as we Germans say."
+
+Three figures, dressed in black, now came from one of the green
+alleys, and stopped on the brink of a little fountain, that was
+playing among the gay flowers in the garden. The eldest of the three
+was a lady in that season of life, when the early autumn gives to
+the summer leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. Though the
+mother of many children, she was still beautiful;--resembling those
+trees, which blossom in October, when the leaves are changing, and
+whose fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. At her side was a
+girl of some sixteen years, who seemed to lean upon her arm for
+support. Her figure was slight; her countenance beautiful, though
+deadly white; and her meek eyes like the flower of the night-shade,
+pale and blue, but sending forth golden rays. They were attended by
+a tall youth of foreign aspect, who seemed a young Antinous, with a
+mustache and a nose à la Kosciusko. In other respects a perfect hero
+of romance.
+
+"Unless mine eyes deceive me," said the Baron, "there is the Frau
+von Ilmenau, with her pale daughter Emma, and that eternal Polish
+Count. He is always hovering about them, playing the unhappy exile,
+merely to excite that poor girl's sympathies; and as wretched as
+genius and wantonness can make him."
+
+"Why, he is already married, you know," replied Flemming. "And
+his wife is young and beautiful."
+
+"That does not prevent him from being in love with some one else.
+That question was decided in the Courts of Love in the Middle Ages.
+Accordingly he has sent his fair wife to Warsaw. But how pale the
+poor child looks."
+
+"She has just recovered from severe illness. In the winter, you
+know, it was thought she would not live from hour to hour."
+
+"And she has hardly recovered from that disease, before she seems
+threatened with a worse one; namely, a hopeless passion. However,
+people do not die of love now-a-days."
+
+"Seldom, perhaps," said Flemming. "And yet it is folly to pretend
+that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such
+wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon
+without emotion. There are names I can never hear spoken without
+almost starting!"
+
+"But whom have we here?"
+
+"That is the French poet Quinet, with his sweet German wife; one
+of the most interesting women I ever knew. He is the author of a
+very wild Mystery, or dramatic prose-poem, in which the Ocean,
+Mont-Blanc, and the Cathedral of Strassburg have parts to play; and
+the saints on the stained windows of the minster speak, and the
+statues and dead kings enact the Dance of Death. It is entitled
+Ahasuerus, or the Wandering Jew."
+
+"Or, as the Danes would translate it, the Shoemaker of Jerusalem.
+That would be a still more fantastic title for his fantastic book.
+You know I am no great admirer of the modern French school of
+writers. The tales of Paul de Kock, who is, I believe, the most
+popular of all, seem to me like obscene stories told at
+dinner-tables, after the ladies have retired. It has been well said
+of him, that he is not only populaire but populacier; and equally
+well said of George Sand and Victor Hugo, that their works stand
+like fortifications, well built and well supplied with warlike
+munitions; but ineffectual against the Grand Army of God, which
+marches onward, as if nothing had happened. In surveying a national
+literature, the point you must start from, is national character.
+That lets you into many a secret; as, for example, Paul de Kock's
+popularity. The most prominent trait in the French character, is
+love of amusement, and excitement; and--"
+
+"I should say, rather, the fear of ennui," interrupted Flemming.
+"One of their own writers has said with a great deal of truth, that
+the gentry of France rush into Paris to escape from ennui, as, in
+the noble days of chivalry, the defenceless inhabitants of the
+champaign fled into the castles, at theapproach of some plundering
+knight, or lawless Baron; forsaking the inspired twilight of their
+native groves, for the luxurious shades of the royal gardens. What
+do you think of that?"
+
+The Baron replied with a smile;
+
+"There is only one Paris; and out of Paris there is no salvation
+for decent people."
+
+Thus conversing of many things, sat the two friends under the
+linden-trees on the Rent Tower, till gradually the crowd disappeared
+from the garden, and the objects around them grew indistinct, in the
+fading twilight. Between them and the amber-colored western sky, the
+dense foliage of the trees looked heavy and hard, as if cast in
+bronze; and already the evening stars hung like silver lamps in the
+towering branches of that Tree of Life, brought more than two
+centuries ago from its primeval Paradise in America, to beautify the
+gardens of the Palatinate.
+
+"I take a mournful pleasure in gazing at that tree," said
+Flemming, as they rose to depart. "It stands there so straight and
+tall, with iron bandsaround its noble trunk and limbs, in silent
+majesty, or whispering only in its native tongue, and freighting the
+homeward wind with sighs! It reminds me of some captive monarch of a
+savage tribe, brought over the vast ocean for a show, and chained in
+the public market-place of the city, disdainfully silent, or
+breathing only in melancholy accents a prayer for his native forest,
+a longing to be free."
+
+"Magnificent!" cried the Baron. "I always experience something of
+the same feeling when I walk through a conservatory. The luxuriant
+plants of the tropics,--those illustrious exotics, with their
+gorgeous, flamingo-colored blossoms, and great, flapping leaves,
+like elephant's ears,--have a singular working upon my imagination;
+and remind me of a menagerie and wild-beasts kept in cages. But your
+illustration is finer;--indeed, a grand figure. Put it down for an
+epic poem."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. A BEER-SCANDAL.
+
+
+
+On their way homeward, Flemming and the Baron passed through a
+narrow lane, in which was a well-known Studenten-Kneipe. At the door
+stood a young man, whom the Baron at once recognised as his friend
+Von Kleist. He was a student; and universally acknowledged, among
+his young acquaintance, as a "devilish handsome fellow";
+notwithstanding a tremendous scar on his cheek, and a cream-colored
+mustache, as soft as the silk of Indian corn. In short he was a
+renowner, and a duellist.
+
+"What are you doing here, Von Kleist?"
+
+"Ah, my dear Baron! Is it you? Come in; come in. You shall see
+some sport. A Fox-Commerce is on foot, and a regular
+Beer-Scandal."
+
+"Shall we go in, Flemming?"
+
+"Certainly. I should like to see how these things are managed in
+Heidelberg. You are a Baron, and I am a stranger. It is of no
+consequence what you and I do, as the king's fool Angeli said to the
+poet Bautru, urging him to put on his hat at the royal
+dinner-table."
+
+William Lilly, the Astrologer, says, in his Autobiography, that,
+when he was committed to the guard-room in White Hall, he thought
+himself in hell; for "some were sleeping, others swearing, others
+smoking tobacco; and in the chimney of the room there were two
+bushels of broken tobacco-pipes, and almost half a load of ashes."
+What he would have thought if he had peeped into this Heidelberg
+Studenten-Kneipe, I know not. He certainly would not have thought
+himself in heaven; unless it were a Scandinavian heaven. The windows
+were open; and yet so dense was the atmosphere with the smoke of
+tobacco, and the fumes of beer, that the tallow candles burnt but
+dimly. A crowd of students were sitting at three long tables, in the
+large hall; a medley of fellows, known at German Universities under
+the cant names of Old-Ones, Mossy-Heads, Princes of Twilight, and
+Pomatum-Stallions. They were smoking, drinking, singing, screaming,
+and discussing the great Laws of the Broad-Stone and the Gutter.
+They had a great deal to say, likewise, about Besens, and Zobels,
+and Poussades; and, if they had been charged for the noise they
+made, as travellers used to be, in the old Dutch taverns, they would
+have had a longer bill to pay for that, than for their beer.
+
+In a large arm-chair, upon the middle table, sat one of those
+distinguished individuals, known among German students as a Senior,
+or Leader of a Landsmannschaft. He was booted and spurred, and wore
+a very small crimson cap, and a very tight blue jacket, and very
+long hair, and a very dirty shirt. He was President of the night;
+and, as Flemming entered the hall with the Baron and his friend,
+striking upon the table with a mighty broadsword, he cried in a loud
+voice;
+
+"Silentium!"
+
+At the same moment a door at the end of the hall was thrown open,
+and a procession of newcomers, or Nasty-Foxes, as they are called in
+the college dialect, entered two by two, looking wild, and green,
+and foolish. As they came forward, they were obliged to pass under a
+pair of naked swords, held cross-wise by two Old-Ones, who, with
+pieces of burnt cork, made an enormous pair of mustaches, on the
+smooth, rosy cheeks of each, as he passed beneath this arch of
+triumph. While the procession was entering the hall, the President
+lifted up his voice again, and began to sing the well-known
+Fox-song, in the chorus of which all present joined lustily.
+
+What comes there from the hill?
+
+What comes there from the hill?
+
+What comes there from the leathery hill?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery hill!
+
+What comes there from the hill?
+
+It is a postilion!
+
+It is a postilion!
+
+It is a leathery postilion!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Postilion!
+
+It is a postilion!
+
+What brings the postilion?
+
+What brings the postilion?
+
+What brings the leathery postilion?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Postilion!
+
+What brings the postilion?
+
+He bringeth us a Fox!
+
+He bringeth us a Fox!
+
+He bringeth us a leathery Fox!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery Fox!
+
+He bringeth us a Fox!
+
+Your servant, Masters mine!
+
+Your servant, Masters mine!
+
+Your servant, much-honored Masters mine!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Much-honored Masters mine!
+
+Your servant, Masters mine!
+
+How does the Herr Papa?
+
+How does the Herr Papa?
+
+How does the leathery Herr Papa?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Herr Papa!
+
+How does the Herr Papa?
+
+He reads in Cicero!
+
+He reads in Cicero!
+
+He reads in leathery Cicero!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Cicero!
+
+He reads in Cicero!
+
+How does the Frau Mama?
+
+How does the Frau Mama?
+
+How does the leathery Frau Mama?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Frau Mama!
+
+How does the Frau Mama?
+
+She makes the Papa tea!
+
+She makes the Papa tea!
+
+She makes the Papa leathery tea!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery tea!
+
+She makes the Papa tea!
+
+How does the Mamsell Sœur?
+
+How does the Mamsell Sœur?
+
+How does the leathery Mamsell Sœur?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Mamsell Sœur!
+
+How does the Mamsell Sœur?
+
+She knits the Papa stockings!
+
+She knits the Papa stockings!
+
+She knits the Papa leathery stockings!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery stockings!
+
+She knits the Papa stockings!
+
+How does the Herr Rector?
+
+How does the Herr Rector?
+
+How does the leathery Herr Rector?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Herr Rector!
+
+How does the Herr Rector?
+
+He calls the scholar, Boy!
+
+He calls the scholar, Boy!
+
+He calls the scholar, leathery Boy!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery Boy!
+
+He calls the scholar, Boy!
+
+And smokes the Fox tobacco?
+
+And smokes the Fox tobacco?
+
+And smokes the leathery Fox tobacco?
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Fox tobacco!
+
+And smokes the Fox tobacco?
+
+A little, Masters mine!
+
+A little, Masters mine!
+
+A little, much-honored Masters mine!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Much-honored Masters mine!
+
+A little, Masters mine!
+
+Then let him fill a pipe!
+
+Then let him fill a pipe!
+
+Then let him fill a leathery pipe!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery pipe!
+
+Then let him fill a pipe!
+
+O Lord! It makes me sick!
+
+O Lord! It makes him sick!
+
+O Lord! It makes me leathery sick!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery sick!
+
+O Lord! It makes me sick!
+
+Then let him throw it off!
+
+Then let him throw it off!
+
+Then let him throw it leathery off!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery off!
+
+Then let him throw it off!
+
+Now I again am well!
+
+Now he again is well!
+
+Now I again am leathery well!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Leathery well!
+
+Now I again am well!
+
+So grows the Fox a Bursch!
+
+So grows the Fox a Bursch!
+
+So grows the leathery Fox a Bursch!
+
+Ha! Ha!
+
+Fox a Bursch!
+
+So grows the Fox a Bursch!
+
+At length the song was finished. Meanwhile large tufts and strips
+of paper had been twisted into the hair of the Branders, as those
+are called who have been already one semestre at the University, and
+then at a given signal were set on fire, and the Branders rode round
+the table on sticks, amid roars of laughter. When this ceremony was
+completed, the President rose from his chair, and in a solemn voice
+pronounced a long discourse, in which old college jokes were mingled
+with much parental advice to young men on entering life, and the
+whole was profusely garnished with select passages from the Old
+Testament. Then they all seated themselves at the table and the
+heavy beer-drinking set in, as among the Gods and Heroes of the old
+Northern mythology.
+
+"Brander! Brander!" screamed a youth, whose face was hot and
+flushed with supper and with beer; "Brander, I say? Thou art a
+Doctor! No,--a Pope;--thou art a Pope, by--"
+
+These words were addressed to a pale, quiet-looking person, who
+sat opposite, and was busy in making a wretched, shaved poodle sit
+on his hind legs in a chair, by his master's side, and hold a short
+clay pipe in his mouth,--a performance to which the poodle seemed no
+wise inclined.
+
+"Thou art challenged!" replied the pale Student, turning from his
+dog, who dropped the pipe from his mouth and leaped under the
+table.
+
+Seconds were chosen on the spot; and the arms ordered; namely,
+six mighty goblets, or Bassgläser, filled to the brim with foaming
+beer. Three were placed before each duellist.
+
+"Take your weapons!" cried one of the seconds, and each of the
+combatants seized a goblet in his hand.
+
+"Strike!"
+
+And the glasses rang, with a salutation like the crossing of
+swords.
+
+"Set to!"
+
+Each set the goblet to his lips.
+
+"Out!"
+
+And each poured the contents down his throat, as if he were
+pouring them through a tunnel into a beer-barrel. The other two
+glasses followed in quick succession, hardly a long breath drawn
+between. The pale Student was victorious. He was first to drain the
+third goblet. He held it for a moment inverted, to let the last
+drops fall out, and then placing it quietly on the table, looked his
+antagonist in the face, and said;
+
+"Hit!"
+
+Then, with the greatest coolness, he looked under the table and
+whistled for his dog. His antagonist stopped midway in his third
+glass. Every vein in his forehead seemed bursting; his eyes were
+wild and bloodshot, his hand gradually loosened its hold upon the
+table, and he sank and rolled together like a sheet of lead. He was
+drunk.
+
+At this moment a majestic figure came stalking down the table,
+ghost-like, through the dim, smoky atmosphere. His coat was off, his
+neck bare, his hair wild, his eyes wide open, and looking right
+before him, as if he saw some beckoning hand in the air, that others
+could not see. His left hand was upon his hip, and in his right he
+held a drawn sword extended, and pointing downward. Regardless of
+every one, erect, and with a martial stride he marched directly
+along the centre of the table, crushing glasses and overthrowing
+bottles at everystep. The students shrunk back at his approach; till
+at length one more drunk, or more courageous, than the rest, dashed
+a glass full of beer into his face. A general tumult ensued, and the
+student with the sword leaped to the floor. It was Von Kleist. He
+was renowning it. In the midst of the uproar could be distinguished
+the offensive words;
+
+"Arrogant! Absurd! Impertinent! Dummer Junge!"
+
+Von Kleist went home that night with no less than six duels on
+his hands. He fought them all out in as many days; and came off with
+only a gash through his upper lip and another through his right
+eyelid from a dexterous Suabian Schlaeger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE WHITE LADY'S SLIPPER AND THE PASSION-FLOWER.
+
+
+
+That night Emma of Ilmenau went to her chamber with a heavy
+heart, and her dusky eyes were troubled with tears. She was one of
+those gentle beings, who seem created only to love and to be loved.
+A shade of melancholy softened her character. She shunned the glare
+of daylight and of society, and wished to be alone. Like the evening
+primrose, her heart opened only after sunset; but bloomed through
+the dark night with sweet fragrance. Her mother, on the contrary,
+flaunted in the garish light of society. There was no sympathy
+between them. Their souls never approached, never understood each
+other, and words were often spoken which wounded deeply. And
+therefore Emma of Ilmenau went to her chamber that night with tears
+in her eyes.
+
+She was followed by her French chamber-maid, Madeleine, a native
+of Strassburg, who had grown old in the family. In her youth, she
+had been poor,--and virtuous because she had never been tempted;
+and, now that she had grown old, and seen no immediate reward for
+her virtue, as is usual with weak minds, she despaired of
+Providence, and regretted she had never been tempted. Whilst this
+unfortunate personage was lighting the wax tapers on the toilet, and
+drawing the bed-curtains, and tattling about the room, Emma threw
+herself into an arm-chair, and, crossing her hands in her lap, and
+letting her head fall upon her bosom, seemed lost in a dream.
+
+"Why have these gentle feelings been given me!" said she in her
+heart. "Why have I been born with all these warm affections,--these
+ardent longings after what is good, if they lead only to sorrow and
+disappointment? I would love some one;--love him once and
+forever;--devote myselfto him alone,--live for him,--die for him,--
+exist alone in him! But alas! in all this wide world there is none
+to love me, as I would be loved,--none whom I may love, as I am
+capable of loving. How empty, how desolate, seems the world about
+me! Why has Heaven given me these affections, only to fall and
+fade!"
+
+Alas! poor child! thou too must learn like others, that the
+sublime mystery of Providence goes on in silence, and gives no
+explanation of itself,--no answer to our impatient questionings!
+
+"Bless me, child, what ails you?" exclaimed Madeleine, perceiving
+that Emma paid no attention to her idle gossip. "When I was of your
+age--"
+
+"Do not talk to me now, good Madeleine. Leave me, I wish to be
+alone?"
+
+"Well, here is something," continued the maid, taking a billet
+from her bosom, "which I hope will enliven you. When I was of your
+age--"
+
+"Hush! hush!" said Emma, taking the billetfrom the hard hand of
+Madeleine. "Once more I beg you, leave me! I wish to be alone!"
+
+Madeleine took the lamp and retired slowly, wishing her young
+mistress many good nights and rosy dreams. Emma broke the seal of
+the note. As she read, her face became deadly pale, and then, as
+quick as thought, a crimson blush gleamed on her cheek, and her
+hands trembled. Tenderness, pity, love, offended pride, the weakness
+and dignity of woman, were all mingled in her look, changing and
+passing over her fine countenance like cloud-shadows. She sunk back
+in her chair, covering her face with her hands, as if she would hide
+it from herself and Heaven.
+
+"He loves me!" said she to herself; "loves me; and is married to
+another, whom he loves not! and dares to tell me this! O, never,--
+never,--never! And yet he is so friendless and alone in this
+unsympathizing world,--and an exile, and homeless! I can but pity
+him;--yet I hate him, and will see him no more!"
+
+This short reverie of love and hate was brokenby the sound of a
+clear, mellow voice, which, in the universal stillness of the hour,
+seemed almost like the voice of a spirit. It was a voice, without
+the accompaniment of any instrument, singing those sweet lines of
+Goethe;
+
+"Under the tree-tops is quiet now!
+
+In all the woodlands hearest thou
+
+Not a sound!
+
+The little birds are asleep in the trees,
+
+Wait! wait! and soon like these,
+
+Sleepest thou!"
+
+Emma knew the voice and started. She rushed to the window to
+close it. It was a beautiful night, and the stars were shining
+peacefully over the mountain of All-Saints. The sound of the Neckar
+was soft and low, and nightingales were singing among the brown
+shadows of the woods. The large red moon shone, like a ruby, in the
+horizon's ample ring; and golden threads of light seemed braided
+together with the rippling current of the river. Tall and spectral
+stood the white statues on the bridge. The outline of thehills, the
+castle, the arches of the bridge, and the spires and roofs of the
+town were as strongly marked as if cut out of pasteboard. Amid this
+fairy scene, a little boat was floating silently down the stream.
+Emma closed the window hastily, and drew the curtains close.
+
+"I hate him; and yet I will pray for him," said she, as she laid
+her weary head upon that pillow, from which, but a few months
+before, she thought she should never raise it again. "O, that I had
+died then! I dare not love him, but I will pray for him!"
+
+Sweet child! If the face of the deceiver comes so often between
+thee and Heaven, I tremble for thy fate! The plant that sprang from
+Helen's tears destroyed serpents;--would that from thine might
+spring up heart's-ease;--some plant, at least, to destroy the
+serpents in thy bosom. Believe me, upon the margin of celestial
+streams alone, those simples grow, which cure the heartache!
+
+And this the silent stars beheld, looking downfrom heaven, and
+told it not again. This, likewise, the Frau Himmelhahn beheld,
+looking from her chamber-window, and was not so discreet as the
+silent stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND.
+
+
+
+"There are many things, which, having no corporeal evidence, can
+be perceived and comprehended only by the discursive energies of
+reason. Hence the ambiguous nature of matter can be comprehended
+only by adulterated opinion. Matter is the principle of all bodies,
+and is stamped with the impression of forms. Fire, air, and water
+derive their origin and principle from the scalene triangle. But the
+earth was created from right-angled triangles, of which two of the
+sides are equal. The sphere and the pyramid contain in themselves
+the figure of fire; but the octaedron was destined to be the figure
+of air, and the icosaedron of water. The right-angled isosceles
+triangle produces from itself a square, andthe square generates from
+itself the cube, which is the figure peculiar to earth. But the
+figure of a beautiful and perfect sphere was imparted to the most
+beautiful and perfect world, that it might be indigent of nothing,
+but contain all things, embracing and comprehending them in itself,
+and thus might be excellent and admirable, similar to and in concord
+with itself, ever moving musically and melodiously. If I use a novel
+language, excuse me. As Apuleius says, pardon must be granted to
+novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate the obscurity of
+things."
+
+These words came from the lips of the lion-like philosopher, who
+has been noticed before in these pages. He was sitting with
+Flemming, smoking a long pipe. As the Baron said, he was indeed a
+strange owl; for the owl is a grave bird; a monk, who chants
+midnight mass in the great temple of Nature;--an anchorite,--a
+pillar saint,--the very Simeon Stylites of his neighbourhood. Such,
+likewise, was the philosophical Professor. Solitary, but with a
+mighty current, flowed the river of his life, like the Nile, without
+a tributary stream, and making fertile only a single strip in the
+vast desert. His temperament had been in youth a joyous one; and
+now, amid all his sorrows and privations, for he had many, he looked
+upon the world as a glad, bright, glorious world. On the many joys
+of life he gazed still with the eyes of childhood, from the far-gone
+Past upward, trusting, hoping;--and upon its sorrows with the eyes
+of age, from the distant Future, downward, triumphant, not
+despairing. He loved solitude, and silence, and candle-light, and
+the deep midnight. "For," said he, "if the morning hours are the
+wings of the day, I only fold them about me to sleep more sweetly;
+knowing that, at its other extremity, the day, like the fowls of the
+air, has an epicurean morsel,--a parson's nose; and on this oily
+midnight my spirit revels and is glad."
+
+Such was the Professor, who had been talking in a
+half-intelligible strain for two hours or more. The Baron had fallen
+fast asleep in his chair; but Flemming sat listening with excited
+imagination, and the Professor continued in the following words,
+which, to the best of his listener's memory, seemed gleaned here and
+there from Fichte's Destiny of Man, and Shubert's History of the
+Soul.
+
+"Life is one, and universal; its forms many and individual.
+Throughout this beautiful and wonderful creation there is
+never-ceasing motion, without rest by night or day, ever weaving to
+and fro. Swifter than a weaver's shuttle it flies from Birth to
+Death, from Death to Birth; from the beginning seeks the end, and
+finds it not, for the seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new
+out-going and endeavour after the end. As the ice upon the mountain,
+when the warm breath of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, and
+divides into drops, each of which reflects an image of the sun; so
+life, in the smile of God's love, divides itself into separate
+forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image of God's love. Of
+all these forms the highest and most perfect inits god-likeness is
+the human soul. The vast cathedral of Nature is full of holy
+scriptures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning; but all is
+solitary and silent there; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, no lip
+adoring, praying. Into this vast cathedral comes the human soul,
+seeking its Creator; and the universal silence is changed to sound,
+and the sound is harmonious, and has a meaning, and is comprehended
+and felt. It was an ancient saying of the Persians, that the waters
+rush from the mountains and hurry forth into all the lands to find
+the Lord of the Earth; and the flame of the Fire, when it awakes,
+gazes no more upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek the
+Lord of Heaven; and here and there the Earth has built the great
+watch-towers of the mountains, and they lift their heads far up into
+the sky, and gaze ever upward and around, to see if the Judge of the
+World comes not! Thus in Nature herself, without man, there lies a
+waiting, and hoping, a looking and yearning, after an unknown
+somewhat. Yes; when, above there, where the mountain lifts its head
+over all others, that it may be alone with the clouds and storms of
+heaven, the lonely eagle looks forth into the gray dawn, to see if
+the day comes not! when, by the mountain torrent, the brooding raven
+listens to hear if the chamois is returning from his nightly pasture
+in the valley; and when the soon uprising sun calls out the spicy
+odors of the thousand flowers, the Alpine flowers, with heaven's
+deep blue and the blush of sunset on their leaves;--then there
+awakes in Nature, and the soul of man can see and comprehend it, an
+expectation and a longing for a future revelation of God's majesty.
+It awakens, also, when in the fulness of life, field and forest rest
+at noon, and through the stillness is heard only the song of the
+grasshopper and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the singing
+lark, up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the later
+hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, to walk forth in
+the fields of heaven. But in the soul of man alone is this longing
+changed to certainty and fulfilled. For lo! thelight of the sun and
+the stars shines through the air, and is nowhere visible and seen;
+the planets hasten with more than the speed of the storm through
+infinite space, and their footsteps are not heard, but where the
+sunlight strikes the firm surface of the planets, where the
+stormwind smites the wall of the mountain cliff, there is the one
+seen and the other heard. Thus is the glory of God made visible, and
+may be seen, where in the soul of man it meets its likeness
+changeless and firm-standing. Thus, then, stands Man;--a mountain on
+the boundary between two worlds;--its foot in one, its summit
+far-rising into the other. From this summit the manifold landscape
+of life is visible, the way of the Past and Perishable, which we
+have left behind us; and, as we evermore ascend, bright glimpses of
+the daybreak of Eternity beyond us!"
+
+Flemming would fain have interrupted this discourse at times, to
+answer and inquire, but the Professor went on, warming and glowing
+more andmore. At length, there was a short pause, and Flemming
+said;
+
+"All these indefinite longings,--these yearnings after an unknown
+somewhat, I have felt and still feel within me; but not yet their
+fulfilment."
+
+"That is because you have not faith;" answered the Professor.
+"The Present is an age of doubt and disbelief, and darkness; out of
+which shall arise a clear and bright Hereafter. In the second part
+of Goethe's Faust, there is a grand and striking scene, where in the
+classical Walpurgis Night, on the Pharsalian Plains, the mocking
+Mephistopheles sits down between the solemn antique Sphinxes, and
+boldly questions them, and reads their riddles. The red light of
+innumerable watch-fires glares all round about, and shines upon the
+terrible face of the arch-scoffer; while on either side, severe,
+majestic, solemnly serene, we behold the gigantic forms of the
+children of Chimæra, half buried in the earth, their mild eyes
+gazing fixedly, as if they heard through the midnight, the
+swift-rushing wings of the Stymphalides, striving to outstrip the
+speed of Alcides' arrows! Angry griffins are near them; and not far
+are Sirens, singing their wondrous songs from the rocking branches
+of the willow trees! Even thus does a scoffing and unbelieving
+Present sit down, between an unknown Future and a too believing
+Past, and question and challenge the gigantic forms of faith, half
+buried in the sands of Time, and gazing forward steadfastly into the
+night, whilst sounds of anger and voices of delight alternate vex
+and soothe the ear of man!--But the time will come, when the soul of
+man shall return again childlike and trustful to its faith in God;
+and look God in the face and die; for it is an old saying, full of
+deep, mysterious meaning, that he must die, who hath looked upon a
+God. And this is the fate of the soul, that it should die
+continually. No sooner here on earth does it awake to its peculiar
+being, than it struggles to behold and comprehend the Spirit of
+Life. In the first dim twilight of its existence, it beholds this
+spirit, is pervaded by its energies,--is quick and creative likethe
+spirit itself, and yet slumbers away into death after having seen
+it. But the image it has seen, remains, in the eternal procreation,
+as a homogeneal existence, is again renewed, and the seeming death,
+from moment to moment, becomes the source of kind after kind of
+existences in ever-ascending series. The soul aspires ever onward to
+love and to behold. It sees the image more perfect in the
+brightening twilight of the dawn, in the ever higher-rising sun. It
+sleeps again, dying in the clearer vision; but the image seen
+remains as a permanent kind; and the slumberer awakes anew and ever
+higher after its own image, till at length, in the full blaze of
+noonday, a being comes forth, which, like the eagle, can behold the
+sun and die not. Then both live on, even when this bodily element,
+the mist and vapor through which the young eagle gazed, dissolves
+and falls to earth."
+
+"I am not sure that I understand you," said Flemming; "but if I
+do, you mean to say, that, as the body continually changes and takes
+unto itselfnew properties, and is not the same to-day as yesterday,
+so likewise the soul lays aside its idiosyncrasies, and is changed
+by acquiring new powers, and thus may be said to die. And hence,
+properly speaking, the soul lives always in the Present, and has,
+and can have, no Future; for the Future becomes the Present, and the
+soul that then lives in me is a higher and more perfect soul; and so
+onward forevermore."
+
+"I mean what I say," continued the Professor; "and can find no
+more appropriate language to express my meaning than that which I
+have used. But as I said before, pardon must be granted to the
+novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate the obscurity of
+things. And I think you will see clearly from what I have said, that
+this earthly life, when seen hereafter from heaven, will seem like
+an hour passed long ago, and dimly remembered;--that long,
+laborious, full of joys and sorrows as it is, it will then have
+dwindled down to a mere point, hardly visible to the far-reaching
+ken of the disembodied spirit. But the spirit itself soars onward.
+And thus death is neither an end nor a beginning. It is a transition
+not from one existence to another, but from one state of existence
+to another. No link is broken in the chain of being; any more than
+in passing from infancy to manhood, from manhood to old age. There
+are seasons of reverie and deep abstraction, which seem to me
+analogous to death. The soul gradually loses its consciousness of
+what is passing around it; and takes no longer cognizance of objects
+which are near. It seems for the moment to have dissolved its
+connexion with the body. It has passed as it were into another state
+of being. It lives in another world. It has flown over lands and
+seas; and holds communion with those it loves, in distant regions of
+the earth, and the more distant heaven. It sees familiar faces, and
+hears beloved voices, which to the bodily senses are no longer
+visible and audible. And this likewise is death; save that when we
+die, the soul returns no more to the dwelling it has left."
+
+"You seem to take it for granted," interrupted Flemming, "that, in
+our reveries, the soul really goes out of the body into distant
+places, instead of summoning up their semblance within itself by the
+power of memory and imagination!"
+
+"Something I must take for granted," replied the Professor. "We
+will not discuss that point now. I speak not without forethought.
+Just observe what a glorious thing human life is, when seen in this
+light; and how glorious man's destiny. I am; thou art; he is! seems
+but a school-boy's conjugation. But therein lies a great mystery.
+These words are significant of much. We behold all round about us
+one vast union, in which no man can labor for himself without
+laboring at the same time for all others; a glimpse of truth, which
+by the universal harmony of things becomes an inward benediction,
+and lifts the soul mightily upward. Still more so, when a man
+regards himself as a necessary member of this union. The feeling of
+our dignity and our power grows strong, when we say to ourselves; My
+being is not objectless and in vain; I am a necessary link in the
+great chain, which, from the full development of consciousness in
+the first man, reaches forward into eternity. All the great, and
+wise, and good among mankind, all the benefactors of the human race,
+whose names I read in the world's history, and the still greater
+number of those, whose good deeds have outlived their names,--all
+those have labored for me. I have entered into their harvest. I walk
+the green earth, which they inhabited. I tread in their footsteps,
+from which blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime task, which
+they once undertook, the task of making our common brotherhood wiser
+and happier. I can build forward, where they were forced to leave
+off; and bring nearer to perfection the great edifice which they
+left uncompleted. And at length I, too, must leave it, and go hence.
+O, this is the sublimest thought of all! I can never finish the
+noble task; therefore, so sure as this task is my destiny, I can
+never cease to work, and consequently never cease to be. What men
+call death cannot break off this task, which is never-ending;
+consequently no periodis set to my being, and I am eternal. I lift
+my head boldly to the threatening mountain peaks, and to the roaring
+cataract, and to the storm-clouds swimming in the fire-sea overhead
+and say; I am eternal, and defy your power! Break, break over me!
+and thou Earth, and thou Heaven, mingle in the wild tumult! and ye
+Elements foam and rage, and destroy this atom of dust,--this body,
+which I call mine! My will alone, with its fixed purpose, shall
+hover brave and triumphant over the ruins of the universe; for I
+have comprehended my destiny; and it is more durable than ye! It is
+eternal; and I, who recognise it, I likewise am eternal! Tell me, my
+friend, have you no faith in this?"
+
+"I have;" answered Flemming, and there was another pause. He then
+said;
+
+"I have listened to you patiently and without interruption. Now
+listen to me. You complain of the skepticism of the age. This is one
+form in which the philosophic spirit of the age presents itself. Let
+me tell you, that another form, whichit assumes, is that of poetic
+reverie. Plato of old had dreams like these; and the Mystics of the
+Middle Ages; and still their disciples walk in the cloud-land and
+dream-land of this poetic philosophy. Pleasant and cool upon their
+souls lie the shadows of the trees under which Plato taught. From
+their whispering leaves comes wafted across the noise of populous
+centuries a solemn and mysterious sound, which to them is the voice
+of the Soul of the World. All nature has become spiritualized and
+transfigured; and, wrapt in beautiful, vague dreams of the real and
+the ideal, they live in this green world, like the little child in
+the German tale, who sits by the margin of a woodland lake, and
+hears the blue heaven and the branches overhead dispute with their
+reflection in the water, which is the reality and which the image. I
+willingly confess, that such day-dreams as these appeal strongly to
+my imagination. Visitants and attendants are they of those lofty
+souls, which, soaring ever higher and higher, build themselves nests
+under the very eaves of the stars, forgetful that theycannot live on
+air, but must descend to earth for food. Yet I recognise them as
+day-dreams only; as shadows, not substantial things. What I mainly
+dislike in the New Philosophy, is the cool impertinence with which
+an old idea, folded in a new garment, looks you in the face and
+pretends not to know you, though you have been familiar friends from
+childhood. I remember an English author who, in speaking of your
+German Philosophies, says very wisely; `Often a proposition of
+inscrutable and dread aspect, when resolutely grappled with, and
+torn from its shady den, and its bristling entrenchments of uncouth
+terminology,--and dragged forth into the open light of day, to be
+seen by the natural eye and tried by merely human understanding,
+proves to be a very harmless truth, familiar to us from old,
+sometimes so familiar as to be a truism. Too frequently the anxious
+novice is reminded of Dryden in the Battle of the Books; there is a
+helmet of rusty iron, dark, grim, gigantic; and within it, at the
+farthest corner, is a head no bigger than a walnut.'--Can you
+believe, thatthese words ever came from the lips of Carlyle! He has
+himself taken up the uncouth terminology of late; and many pure,
+simple minds are much offended at it. They seem to take it as a
+personal insult. They are angry; and deny the just meed of praise.
+It is, however, hardly worth while to lose our presence of mind. Let
+us rather profit as we may, even from this spectacle, and recognise
+the monarch in his masquerade. For, hooded and wrapped about with
+that strange and antique garb, there walks a kingly, a most royal
+soul, even as the Emperor Charles walked amid solemn cloisters under
+a monk's cowl;--a monarch still in soul. Such things are not new in
+the history of the world. Ever and anon they sweep over the earth,
+and blow themselves out soon, and then there is quiet for a season,
+and the atmosphere of Truth seems more serene. Why would you preach
+to the wind? Why reason with thunder-showers? Better sit quiet, and
+see them pass over like a pageant, cloudy, superb, and vast."
+
+The Professor smiled self-complacently, but said not a word.
+Flemming continued;
+
+"I will add no more than this;--there are many speculations in
+Literature, Philosophy, and Religion, which, though pleasant to walk
+in, and lying under the shadow of great names, yet lead to no
+important result. They resemble rather those roads in the western
+forests of my native land, which, though broad and pleasant at
+first, and lying beneath the shadow of great branches, finally
+dwindle to a squirrel track, and run up a tree!"
+
+The Professor hardly knew whether he should laugh or be offended
+at this sally; and, laying his hand upon Flemming's arm, he said
+seriously;
+
+"Believe me, my young friend, the time will come, when you will
+think more wisely on these things. And with you, I trust, that time
+will soon come; since it moves more speedily with some than with
+others. For what is Time? The shadow on the dial,--the striking of
+the clock,--the running of the sand,--day and night,--summerand
+winter,--months, years, centuries! These are but arbitrary and
+outward signs,--the measure of Time, not Time itself! Time is the
+Life of the Soul. If not this, then tell me what it is?"
+
+The high and animated tone of voice in which the Professor
+uttered these words aroused the Baron from his sleep; and, not
+distinctly comprehending what was said, but thinking the Professor
+asked what time it was, he innocently exclaimed;
+
+"I should think it must be near midnight!"
+
+This somewhat disconcerted the Professor, who took his leave soon
+afterward. When he was gone the Baron said;
+
+"Excuse me for treating your guest so cavalierly. His
+transcendentalism annoyed me not a little; and I took refuge in
+sleep. One would think, to judge by the language of this sect, that
+they alone saw any beauty in Nature; and, when I hear one of them
+discourse, I am instantly reminded of Goethe's Baccalaureus, when he
+exclaims; `The world was not before I created it; Ibrought the sun
+up out of the sea; with me began the changeful course of the moon;
+the day decked itself on my account; the earth grew green and
+blossomed to meet me; at my nod in that first night, the pomp of all
+the stars developed itself; who but I set you free from all the
+bonds of Philisterlike, contracting thoughts? I, however,
+emancipated as my mind assures me I am, gladly pursue my inward
+light, advance boldly in a transport peculiarly my own, the bright
+before me, and the dark behind!'--Do you not see a resemblance? O,
+they might be modest enough to confess, that one straggling ray of
+light may, by some accident, reach the blind eyes of even us poor,
+benighted heathens?"
+
+"Alas! how little veneration we have!" said Flemming. "I could
+not help closing the discussion with a jest. An ill-timed levity
+often takes me by surprise. On all such occasions I think of a scene
+at the University, where, in the midst of a grave discussion on the
+possibility of Absolute Motion, a scholar said he had seen a rock
+splitopen, from which sprang a toad, who could not be supposed to
+have any knowledge of the external world, and consequently his
+motion must have been absolute. The learned Professor, who presided
+on that occasion, was hardly more startled and astonished, than was
+our learned Professor, five minutes ago. But come; wind up your
+watch, and let us go to bed."
+
+"By the way," said the Baron, "did you mind what a curious head
+he has. There are two crowns upon it."
+
+"That is a sign," replied Flemming, "that he will eat his bread
+in two kingdoms."
+
+"I think the poor man would be very thankful," said the Baron
+with a smile, "if he were always sure of eating it in one. He is
+what the Transcendentalists call a god-intoxicated man; and I advise
+him, as Sauteul advised Bossuet, to go to Patmos and write a new
+Apocalypse."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS.
+
+
+
+A few days after this the Baron received letters from his sister,
+telling him, that her physicians had prescribed a few weeks at the
+Baths of Ems, and urging him to meet her there before the
+fashionable season.
+
+"Come," said he to Flemming; "make this short journey with me. We
+will pass a few pleasant days at Ems, and visit the other
+watering-places of Nassau. It will drive away the melancholy
+day-dreams that haunt you. Perhaps some future bride is even now
+waiting for you, with dim presentiments and undefined longings, at
+the Serpent's Bath."
+
+"Or some widow of Ems, with a cork-leg!" said Flemming, smiling;
+and then added, in a toneof voice half jest, half earnest,
+"Certainly; let us go in pursuit of her;--
+
+`Whoe'er she be,
+
+That not impossible she,
+
+That shall command my heart and me.
+
+Where'er she lie,
+
+Hidden from mortal eye,
+
+In shady leaves of destiny.'"
+
+They started in the afternoon for Frankfort, pursuing their way
+slowly along the lovely Bergstrasse, famed throughout Germany for
+its beauty. They passed the ruined house where Martin Luther lay
+concealed after the Diet of Worms, and through the village of
+Handschuhsheimer, as old as the days of King Pepin the Short,--a
+hamlet, lying under the hills, half-buried in blossoms and green
+leaves. Close on the right rose the mountains of the mysterious
+Odenwald; and on the left lay the Neckar, like a steel bow in the
+meadow. Farther westward, a thin, smoky vapor betrayed the course of
+the Rhine; beyond which, like a troubled sea, ran the blue,
+billowy Alsatian hills. Song of birds, and sound of evening bells,
+and fragrance of sweet blossoms filled the air; and silent and slow
+sank the broad red sun, half-hidden amid folding clouds.
+
+"We shall not pass the night at Weinheim," said the Baron to the
+postilion, who had dismounted to walk up the hill, leading to the
+town. "You may drive to the mill in the Valley of Birkenau."
+
+The postilion seized one of his fat horses by the tail, and swung
+himself up to his seat again. They rattled through the paved streets
+of Weinheim, and took no heed of the host of the Golden Eagle, who
+stood so invitingly at the door of his own inn; and the ruins of
+Burg Windeck, above there, on its mountain throne, frowned at them
+for hurrying by, without staying to do him homage.
+
+"The old ruin looks well from the valley," said the Baron; "but
+let us beware of climbing that steep hill. Most travellers are like
+children; they must needs touch whatever they behold. They climb up
+to every old broken tooth of acastle, which they find on their
+way;--get a toilsome ascent and hot sunshine for their pains, and
+come down wearied and disappointed. I trust we are wiser."
+
+They crossed the bridge, and turned up the stream, passing under
+an arch of stone, which serves as a gateway to this enchanted Valley
+of Birkenau. A cool and lovely valley! shut in by high
+hills;--shaded by alder-trees and tall poplars, under which rushes
+the Wechsnitz, a noisy mountain brook, that ever and anon puts its
+broad shoulder to the wheel of a mill, and shows that it can labor
+as well as laugh. At one of these mills they stopped for the
+night.
+
+A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the romantic German
+landscape, as in the romantic German tale. It is not only a mill,
+but likewise an ale-house and rural inn; so that the associations it
+suggests are not of labor only, but also of pleasure. It stands in
+the narrow defile, with its picturesque, thatched roof; thither
+throng thepeasants, of a holiday; and there are rustic dances under
+the trees.
+
+In the twilight of the fast-approaching summer night, the Baron
+and Flemming walked forth along the borders of the stream. As they
+heard it, rushing and gushing among the stones and tangled roots,
+and the great wheel turning in the current, with its never-ceasing
+plash! plash! it brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song
+of Goethe, the Youth and the Mill-brook. It was for the moment a
+nymph, which sang to them in the voice of the waters.
+
+"I am persuaded," said Flemming, "that, in order fully to
+understand and fell the popular poetry of Germany, one must be
+familiar with the German landscape. Many sweet little poems are the
+outbreaks of momentary feelings;--words, to which the song of birds,
+the rustling of leaves, and the gurgle of cool waters form the
+appropriate music. Or perhaps I should say they are words, which man
+has composed to the music of nature. Can you not, even now, hear
+this brooklet tellingyou how it is on its way to the mill, where at
+day-break the miller's daughter opens her window, and comes down to
+bathe her face in its stream, and her bosom is so full and white,
+that it kindles the glow of love in the cool waters!"
+
+"A most delightful ballad, truly," said the Baron. "But like many
+others of our little songs, it requires a poet to fell and
+understand it. Sing them in the valley and woodland shadows, and
+under the leafy roofs of garden walks, and at night, and alone, as
+they were written. Sing them not in the loud world,--for the loud
+world laughs such things to scorn. It is Mueller who says, in that
+little song, where the maiden bids the moon good evening;
+
+`This song was made to be sung at night,
+
+And he who reads it in broad daylight,
+
+Will never read the mystery right;
+
+And yet it is childlike easy!'
+
+He has written a great many pretty songs, in which the momentary,
+indefinite longings and impulses of the soul of man find an
+expression. Hecalls them the songs of a Wandering Horn-player. There
+is one among them much to our present purpose. He expresses in it,
+the feeling of unrest and desire of motion, which the sight and
+sound of running waters often produce in us. It is entitled,
+`Whither?' and is worth repeating to you.
+
+`I heard a brooklet gushing
+
+From its rocky fountain near,
+
+Down into the valley rushing,
+
+So fresh and wondrous clear.
+
+`I know not what came o'er me,
+
+Nor who the counsel gave;
+
+But I must hasten downward,
+
+All with my pilgrim-stave.
+
+`Downward, and ever farther,
+
+And ever the brook beside;
+
+And ever fresher murmured,
+
+And ever clearer the tide.
+
+`Is this the way I was going?
+
+Whither, O brooklet, say!
+
+Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,
+
+Murmured my senses away.
+
+`What do I say of a murmur?
+
+That can no murmur be;
+
+'T is the water-nymphs, that are singing
+
+Their roundelays under me.
+
+`Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur,
+
+And wander merrily near;
+
+The wheels of a mill are going
+
+In every brooklet clear.'"
+
+"There you have the poetic reverie," said Flemming, "and the dull
+prose commentary and explanation in matter of fact. The song is
+pretty; and was probably suggested by some such scene as this, which
+we are now beholding. Doubtless all your old national traditions
+sprang up in the popular mind as this song in the poet's."
+
+"Your opinion is certainly correct," answered the Baron; "and yet
+all this play of poetic fancy does not prevent me from feeling the
+chill night air, and the pangs of hunger. Let us go back to the
+mill, and see what our landlady has for supper. Did you observe what
+a loud, sharp voice she has?"
+
+"People always have, who live in mills, and near
+water-falls."
+
+On the following morning they emerged unwillingly from the green,
+dark valley, and journeyed along the level highway to Frankfort,
+where in the evening they heard the glorious Don Giovanni of Mozart.
+Of all operas this was Flemming's favorite. What rapturous flights
+of sound! what thrilling, pathetic chimes! what wild, joyous revelry
+of passion! what a delirium of sense!--what an expression of agony
+and woe! all the feelings of suffering and rejoicing humanity
+sympathized with and finding a voice in those tones. Flemming and
+the Baron listened with ever-increasing delight.
+
+"How wonderful this is!" exclaimed Flemming, transported by his
+feelings. "How the chorus swells and dies, like the wind of summer!
+How those passages of mysterious import seem to wave to and fro,
+like the swaying branches of trees; from which anon some solitary
+sweetvoice darts off like a bird, and floats away and revels in the
+bright, warm sunshine! And then mark! how, amid the chorus of a
+hundred voices and a hundred instruments,--of flutes, and drums, and
+trumpets,--this universal shout and whirl-wind of the vexed air, you
+can so clearly distinguish the melancholy vibration of a single
+string, touched by the finger,--a mournful, sobbing sound! Ah, this
+is indeed human life! where in the rushing, noisy crowd, and amid
+sounds of gladness, and a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly
+audible to the ear of thought, are the pulsations of some melancholy
+string of the heart, touched by an invisible hand."
+
+Then came, in the midst of these excited feelings, the ballet;
+drawing its magic net about the soul. And soon, from the tangled yet
+harmonious mazes of the dance, came forth a sylph-like form, her
+scarf floating behind her, as if she were fanning the air with
+gauze-like wings. Noiseless as a feather or a snow-flake falls, did
+her feet touch the earth. She seemed to floatin the air, and the
+floor to bend and wave under her, as a branch, when a bird alights
+upon it, and takes wing again. Loud and rapturous applause followed
+each wonderful step, each voluptuous movement; and, with a flushed
+cheek and burning eye, and bosom panting to be free, stood the
+gracefully majestic figure for a moment still, and then the winged
+feet of the swift dancing-girls glanced round her, and she was lost
+again in the throng.
+
+"How truly exquisite this is!" exclaimed the Baron, after joining
+loudly in the applause. "What a noble figure! What grace! what
+attitudes! How much soul in every motion! how much expression in
+every gesture! I assure you, it produces upon me the same effect as
+a beautiful poem. It is a poem. Every step is a word; and the whole
+together a poem!"
+
+The Baron and Flemming were delighted with the scene; and at the
+same time exceedingly amused with the countenance of an old prude in
+the next box, who seemed to look upon the wholemagic show, with such
+feelings as Michal, Saul's daughter, experienced, when she looked
+from her window and saw King David dancing and leaping with his
+scanty garments.
+
+"After all," said Flemming, "the old French priest was not so far
+out of the way, when he said, in his coarse dialect, that the dance
+is the Devil's procession; and paint and ornaments, the whetting of
+the devil's sword; and the ring that is made in dancing, the devil's
+grindstone, whereon he sharpens his sword; and finally, that a
+ballet is the pomp and mass of the Devil, and whosoever entereth
+therein, entereth into his pomp and mass; for the woman who singeth
+is the prioress of the Devil, and they that answer are clerks, and
+they that look on are parishioners, and the cymbals and flutes are
+the bells, and the musicians that play are the ministers, of the
+Devil."
+
+"No doubt this good lady near us, thinks so likewise," answered
+the Baron laughing; "but she likes it, for all that."
+
+When the play was over the Baron begged Flemming to sit still,
+till the crowd had gone.
+
+"I have a strange fancy," said he, "whenever I come to the
+theatre, to see the end of all things. When the crowd is gone, and
+the curtain raised again to air the house, and the lamps are all
+out, save here and there one behind the scenes, the contrast with
+what has gone before is most impressive. Every thing wears a
+dream-like aspect. The empty boxes and stalls,--the silence,--the
+smoky twilight, and the magic scene dismantled, produce in me a
+strange, mysterious feeling. It is like a dim reflection of a
+theatre in water, or in a dusty mirror; and reminds me of some of
+Hoffmann's wild Tales. It is a practical moral lesson,--a
+commentary on the play, and makes the show complete."
+
+It was truly as he said; only tenfold more desolate, solemn, and
+impressive; and produced upon the mind the effect we experience,
+when slumber is suddenly broken, and dreams and realities mingle,
+and we know not yet whether we sleep or wake. As they at length
+passed out through the dimly-lighted passage, they heard a
+vulgar-looking fellow, with a sensual face and shaggy whiskers, say
+to some persons who were standing near him, and seemed to be
+hangers-on of the play-house;
+
+"I shall run her six nights at Munich, and then take her on to
+Vienna."
+
+Flemming thought he was speaking of some favorite horse. He was
+speaking of his beautiful wife, the ballet-dancer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. OLD HUMBUG.
+
+
+
+What most interested our travellers in the ancient city of
+Frankfort, was neither the opera nor the Ariadne of Dannecker, but
+the house in which Goethe was born, and the scenes he frequented in
+his childhood, and remembered in his old age. Such for example are
+the walks around the city, outside the moat; the bridge over the
+Maine, with the golden cock on the cross, which the poet beheld and
+marvelled at when a boy; the cloister of the Barefooted Friars,
+through which he stole with mysterious awe to sit by the
+oilcloth-covered table of old Rector Albrecht; and the garden in
+which his grandfather walked up and down among fruit-trees and
+rose-bushes, in long morning gown, black velvet cap, and the antique
+leather gloves, which he annually received as Mayor on
+Pipers-Doomsday, representing a kind of middle personage between
+Alcinous and Laertes. Thus, O Genius! are thy foot-prints hallowed;
+and the star shines forever over the place of thy nativity.
+
+"Your English critics may rail as they list," said the Baron,
+while he and Flemming were returning from a stroll in the leafy
+gardens, outside the moat; "but, after all, Goethe was a magnificent
+old fellow. Only think of his life; his youth of passion,
+alternately aspiring and desponding, stormy, impetuous,
+headlong;--his romantic manhood, in which passion assumes the form
+of strength; assiduous, careful, toiling, without haste, without
+rest; and his sublime old age,--the age of serene and classic
+repose, where he stands like Atlas, as Claudian has painted him in
+the Battle of the Giants, holding the world aloft upon his head, the
+ocean-streams hard frozen in his hoary locks."
+
+"A good illustration of what the world calls his
+indifferentism."
+
+"And do you know I rather like this indifferentism? Did you never
+have the misfortune to live in a community, where a difficulty in
+the parish seemed to announce the end of the world? or to know one
+of the benefactors of the human race, in the very `storm and
+pressure period' of his indiscreet enthusiasm? If you have, I think
+you will see something beautiful in the calm and dignified attitude
+which the old philosopher assumes."
+
+"It is a pity, that his admirers had not a little of this
+philosophic coolness. It amuses me to read the various epithets,
+which they apply to him; The Dear, dear Man! The Life-enjoying Man!
+The All-sided One! The Representative of Poetry upon earth! The
+Many-sided Master-Mind of Germany! His enemies rush into the other
+extreme, and hurl at him the fierce names of Old Humbug! and Old
+Heathen! which hit like pistol-bullets."
+
+"I confess, he was no saint."
+
+"No; his philosophy is the old ethnic philosophy. You will find
+it all in a convenient andconcentrated, portable form in Horace's
+beautiful Ode to Thaliarcus. What I most object to in the old
+gentleman is his sensuality."
+
+"O nonsense. Nothing can be purer than the Iphigenia; it is as
+cold and passionless as a marble statue."
+
+"Very true; but you cannot say the same of some of the Roman
+Elegies and of that monstrous book the Elective Affinities."
+
+"Ah, my friend, Goethe is an artist; and looks upon all things as
+objects of art merely. Why should he not be allowed to copy in words
+what painters and sculptors copy in colors and in marble?"
+
+"The artist shows his character in the choice of his subject.
+Goethe never sculptured an Apollo, nor painted a Madonna. He gives
+us only sinful Magdalens and rampant Fauns. He does not so much
+idealize as realize."
+
+"He only copies nature."
+
+"So did the artists, who made the bronzelamps of Pompeii. Would
+you hang one of those in your hall? To say that a man is an artist
+and copies nature is not enough. There are two great schools of art;
+the imitative and the imaginative. The latter is the most noble, and
+most enduring; and Goethe belonged rather to the former. Have you
+read Menzel's attack upon him?"
+
+"It is truly ferocious. The Suabian hews into him lustily. I hope
+you do not side with him."
+
+"By no means. He goes too far. He blames the poet for not being a
+politician. He might as well blame him for not being a missionary to
+the Sandwich Islands."
+
+"And what do you think of Eckermann?"
+
+"I think he is a toady; a kind of German Boswell. Goethe knew he
+was drawing his portrait, and attitudinized accordingly. He works
+very hard to make a Saint Peter out of an old Jupiter, as the
+Catholics did at Rome."
+
+"Well; call him Old Humbug, or Old Heathen, or what you please; I
+maintain, that, with all his errors and short-comings, he was a
+glorious specimen of a man."
+
+"He certainly was. Did it ever occur to you that he was in some
+points like Ben Franklin? a kind of rhymed Ben Franklin? The
+practical tendency of his mind was the same; his love of science was
+the same; his benignant, philosophic spirit was the same; and a vast
+number of his little poetic maxims and sooth-sayings seem nothing
+more than the worldly wisdom of Poor Richard, versified."
+
+"What most offends me is, that now every German jackass must have
+a kick at the dead lion."
+
+"And every one who passes through Weimar must throw a book upon
+his grave, as travellers did of old a stone upon the grave of
+Manfredi, at Benevento. But, of all that has been said or sung, what
+most pleases me is Heine's Apologetic, if I may so call it; in which
+he says, that the minor poets, who flourished under the
+imperialreign of Goethe `resemble a young forest, where the trees
+first show their own magnitude after the oak of a hundred years,
+whose branches had towered above and overshadowed them, has fallen.
+There was not wanting an opposition, that strove against Goethe,
+this majestic tree. Men of the most warring opinions united
+themselves for the contest. The adherents of the old faith, the
+orthodox, were vexed, that, in the trunk of the vast tree, no niche
+with its holy image was to be found; nay, that even the naked Dryads
+of paganism were permitted to play their witchery there; and gladly,
+with consecrated axe, would they have imitated the holy Boniface,
+and levelled the enchanted oak to the ground. The followers of the
+new faith, the apostles of liberalism, were vexed on the other hand,
+that the tree could not serve as the Tree of Liberty, or, at any
+rate, as a barricade. In fact the tree was too high; no one could
+plant the red cap upon its summit, or dance the Carmagnole beneath
+its branches. The multitude, however, venerated this tree for the
+veryreason, that it reared itself with such independent grandeur,
+and so graciously filled the world with its odor, while its
+branches, streaming magnificently toward heaven, made it appear, as
+if the stars were only the golden fruit of its wondrous limbs.'
+Don't you think that beautiful?"
+
+"Yes, very beautiful. And I am glad to see, that you can find
+something to admire in my favorite author, notwithstanding his
+frailties; or, to use an old German saying, that you can drive the
+hens out of the garden without trampling down the beds."
+
+"Here is the old gentleman himself!" exclaimed Flemming.
+
+"Where!" cried the Baron, as if for the moment he expected to see
+the living figure of the poet walking before them.
+
+"Here at the window,--that full-length cast. Excellent, is it
+not! He is dressed, as usual, in his long yellow nankeen surtout,
+with a white cravat crossed in front. What a magnificent head! and
+what a posture! He stands like a tower ofstrength. And, by Heavens!
+he was nearly eighty years old, when that was made."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"You can see by the date on the pedestal."
+
+
+"You are right. And yet how erect he stands, with his square
+shoulders braced back, and his hands behind him. He looks as if he
+were standing before the fire. I feel tempted to put a live coal
+into his hand, it lies so invitingly half-open. Gleim's description
+of him, soon after he went to Weimar, is very different from this.
+Do you recollect it?"
+
+"No, I do not."
+
+"It is a story, which good old father Gleim used to tell with
+great delight. He was one evening reading the Göttingen
+Musen-Almanach in a select society at Weimar, when a young man came
+in, dressed in a short, green shooting-jacket, booted and spurred,
+and having a pair of brilliant, black, Italian eyes. He in turn
+offered to read; but finding probably the poetry of the
+Musen-Almanach of that year rather too insipid for him, he soon began
+to improvise the wildest and most fantastic poems imaginable, and in
+all possible forms and measures, all the while pretending to read
+from the book. `That is either Goethe or the Devil,' said good old
+father Gleim to Wieland, who sat near him. To which the `Great I of
+Osmannstadt' replied; `It is both, for he has the Devil in him
+to-night; and at such times he is like a wanton colt, that flings
+out before and behind, and you will do well not to go too near him!'
+"
+
+"Very good!"
+
+"And now that noble figure is but mould. Only a few months ago,
+those majestic eyes looked for the last time on the light of a
+pleasant spring morning. Calm, like a god, the old man sat; and with
+a smile seemed to bid farewell to the light of day, on which he had
+gazed for more than eighty years. Books were near him, and the pen
+which had just dropped, as it were from his dying fingers. `Open the
+shutters, and let in more light!' were the last words that came from
+those lips. Slowly stretching forth his hand, he seemed to write
+inthe air; and, as it sank down again and was motionless, the spirit
+of the old man departed."
+
+"And yet the world goes on. It is strange how soon, when a great
+man dies, his place is filled; and so completely, that he seems no
+longer wanted. But let us step in here. I wish to buy that cast; and
+send it home to a friend."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE FALLING STAR.
+
+
+
+After lingering a day or two in Frankfort, the two friends struck
+across through Hochheim to the Rhine, and then up among the hills of
+the Rheingau to Schlangenbad, where they tarried only to bathe, and
+to dine; and then pursued their way to Langenschwalbach. The town
+lies in a valley, with gently-sloping hills around it, and long
+avenues of poplars leading forth into the fields. One interminable
+street cuts the town in twain, and there are old houses with curious
+faces carved upon their fronts, and dates of the olden time.
+
+Our travellers soon sallied forth from their hotel, impatient to
+drink the strength-giving watersof the fountains. They continued
+their walk far up the valley under the poplars. The new grain was
+waving in the fields; the birds singing in the trees and in the air;
+and every thing seemed glad, save a poor old man, who came tottering
+out of the woods, with a heavy bundle of sticks on his
+shoulders.
+
+Returning upon their steps, they passed down the valley and
+through the long street to the tumble-down old Lutheran church. A
+flight of stone steps leads from the street to the green terrace or
+platform on which the church stands, and which, in ancient times,
+was the churchyard, or as the Germans more devoutly say, God's-acre;
+where generations are scattered like seeds, and that which is sown
+in corruption shall be raised hereafter in incorruption. On the
+steps stood an old man,--a very old man,--holding a little girl by
+the hand. He took off his greasy cap as they passed, and wished them
+good day. His teeth were gone; he could hardly articulate a
+syllable. The Baron asked him how old the church was. Hegave no
+answer; but when the question was repeated, came close up to them,
+and taking off his cap again, turned his ear attentively, and
+said;
+
+
+"I am hard of hearing."
+
+"Poor old man," said Flemming; "He is as much a ruin as the
+church we are entering. It will not be long before he, too, shall be
+sown as seed in this God's-acre!"
+
+The little girl ran into a house close at hand, and brought out
+the great key. The church door swung open, and, descending a few
+steps, they passed through a low-roofed passage into the church. All
+was in ruin. The gravestones in the pavement were started from their
+places; the vaults beneath yawned; the roof above was falling
+piecemeal; there were rents in the old tower; and mysterious
+passages, and side doors with crazy flights of wooden steps, leading
+down into the churchyard. Amid all this ruin, one thing only stood
+erect; it was a statue of a knight in armour, standing in a niche
+under the pulpit.
+
+"Who is this?" said Flemming to the old sexton; "who is this,
+that stands here so solemnly in marble, and seems to be keeping
+guard over the dead men below?"
+
+"I do not know," replied the old man; "but I have heard my
+grandfather say it was the statue of a great warrior!"
+
+"There is history for you!" exclaimed the Baron. "There is fame!
+To have a statue of marble, and yet have your name forgotten by the
+sexton of your parish, who can remember only, that he once heard his
+grandfather say, that you were a great warrior!"
+
+Flemming made no reply, for he was thinking of the days, when
+from that old pulpit, some bold reformer thundered down the first
+tidings of a new doctrine, and the roof echoed with the grand old
+hymns of Martin Luther.
+
+When he communicated his thoughts to the Baron, the only answer
+he received was;
+
+"After all, what is the use of so much preaching? Do you think
+the fishes, that heard the sermon of St. Anthony, were any better
+than thosewho did not? I commend to your favorable notice the
+fish-sermon of this saint, as recorded by Abraham à Santa Clara. You
+will find it in your favorite Wonder-Horn."
+
+Thus passed the day at Langenschwalbach; and the evening at the
+Allée-Saal was quite solitary; for as yet no company had arrived to
+fill its chambers, or sit under the trees before the door. The next
+morning even Flemming and the Baron were gone; for the German's
+heart was beating with strong desire to embrace his sister; and the
+heart of his friend cared little whither he went, sobeit he were not
+too much alone.
+
+After a few hours' drive, they were looking down from the summit
+of a hill right upon the house-tops of Ems. There it lay, deep sunk
+in the hollow beneath them, as if some inhabitant of Sirius, like
+him spoken of in Voltaire's tale of Micromegas, held it in the
+hollow of his hand. High and peaked rise the hills, that throw their
+shadows into this romantic valley, and at their base winds the river
+Lahn. Our travellersdrove through the one long street, composed
+entirely of hotels and lodging-houses. Sick people looked out of the
+windows, as they passed. Others were walking leisurely up and down,
+beneath the few decapitated trees, which represent a public
+promenade; and a boy, with a blue frock and crimson cap, was driving
+three donkeys down the street. In short, they were in a fashionable
+watering-place; as yet sprinkled only by a few pattering drops of
+the summer rain of strangers, which generally follows the first hot
+days.
+
+On alighting at the London Hotel, the Baron found--not his
+sister, but only a letter from her, saying she had changed her mind
+and gone to the Baths of Franconia. This was a disappointment, which
+the Baron pocketed with the letter, and said not a word more about
+either. It was his way; his life-philosophy in small things and
+great. In the evening, they went to an æsthetic tea, at the house of
+the Frau Kranich, the wife of a rich banker of Frankfort.
+
+"I must tell you about this Frau Kranich," said the Baron to
+Flemming, on the way. "She is a woman of talent and beauty, and just
+in the prime of life. But, unfortunately, very ambitious. Her mania
+is, to make a figure in the fashionable world; and to this end she
+married a rich banker of Frankfort, old enough to be her father, not
+to say her grandfather, hoping, doubtless, that he would soon die;
+for, if ever a woman wished to be a widow, she is that woman. But
+the old fellow is tough and won't die. Moreover, he is deaf, and
+crabbed, and penurious, and half the time bed-ridden. The wife is a
+model of virtue, notwithstanding her weakness. She nurses the old
+gentleman as if he were a child. And, to crown all, he hates
+society, and will not hear of his wife's receiving or going into
+company."
+
+"How, then, can she give soirées?" asked Flemming.
+
+"I was just going to tell you," continued the Baron. "The gay
+lady has no taste for long evenings with the old gentleman in the
+back chamber;--for being thus chained like a criminal
+under Mezentius, face to face with a dead body. So she puts him to
+bed first, and--"
+
+"Gives him opium."
+
+"Yes, I dare say; and then gives herself a soirée, without his
+knowing any thing about it. This course of deception is truly
+hateful in itself, and must be particularly so to her, for she is
+not a low, or an immoral woman; but one of those who, not having
+strength enough to complete the sacrifice they have had strength
+enough to commence, are betrayed into a life of duplicity and
+falsehood."
+
+They had now reached the house, and were ushered into a room
+gaily lighted and filled with guests. The hostess came forward to
+receive them, dressed in white, and sailing down the room like a
+swan. When the customary salutations had passed and Flemming had
+been duly presented, the Baron said, not without a certain degree of
+malice;
+
+"And, my dear Frau Kranich, how is your good husband to
+night?"
+
+This question was about as discreet as a cannon-ball. But the
+lady replied in the simplicity of her heart, and not in the least
+disconcerted;
+
+"The same as ever, my dear Baron. It is astonishing how he holds
+out. But let us not talk of these things now. I must introduce your
+friend to his countryman, the Grand Duke of Mississippi; alike
+remarkable for his wealth, his modesty, and the extreme simplicity
+of his manners. He drives only six horses. Besides, he is known as a
+man of learning and piety;--has his private chapel, and private
+clergyman, who always preaches against the vanity of worldly riches.
+He has also a private secretary, whose sole duty is to smoke to him,
+that he may enjoy the aroma of Spanish cigars, without the trouble
+of smoking."
+
+"Decidedly a man of genius!"
+
+Here Flemming was introduced to his illustrious countryman; a
+person who seemed to consist chiefly of linen, such a display did he
+make of collar, bosom, and wristbands.
+
+"Pray, Mr. Flemming, what do you think of that Rembrandt?" said
+he, pointing to a picture onthe wall. "Exquisite picture! The
+grandeur of sentiment and splendor of chiaroscuro are of the first
+order. Just observe the liquidity of the water, and the silveryness
+of the clouds! Great power! There is a bravura of handling in that
+picture, Sir, which requires the eye of the connoisseur to
+appreciate."
+
+"Yes, a most undoubted--copy!"
+
+And here their conversation ended; for at that moment the little
+Moldavian Prince Jerkin made his way through the crowd, with his
+snuff-box as usual in his hand, and hurried up to Flemming whom he
+had known in Heidelberg. He was eager to let every one know that he
+spoke English, and in his haste began by making a mistake.
+
+"Good bye! Good bye! Mr. Flemming!" said he, instead of good
+evening. "I am ravished to see you in Ems. Nice place;--all that
+there is of most nice. I drink my water and am good! Do you not
+think the Frau Kranich has a very beautiful leather?"
+
+He meant skin. Flemming laughed outright; but it was not perceived
+by the Prince, because at that moment he was pushed aside, in the
+rush of a gallopade, and Flemming beheld his face no more. At the
+same moment the Baron introduced a friend of his, who also spoke
+English and said;
+
+"You will sup with me to-night. I have some Rhine-wine, which
+will be a seduction to you."
+
+Soon after, the Baron stood with an impassioned, romantic lady
+leaning on his arm, examining a copy of Raphael's Fornarina.
+
+"Ach! I wish I had been the Fornarina," sighed the impassioned,
+romantic lady.
+
+"Then, my dear Madam," replied the Baron, "I wish I had been
+Raphael."
+
+And so likewise said to himself a very tall man with fiery red
+hair, and fancy whiskers, who was waltzing round and round in one
+spot, and in a most extraordinary waistcoat; thus representing a
+fiery, floating-light, to warn men of the hidden rocks, on which the
+breath of vanity drives them shipwreck. At length, his partner,
+tired of spinning, sank upon a sofa, like a child's top, when it
+reels and falls.
+
+"You do not like the waltz?" said an elderly French gentleman,
+remarking the expression of Flemming's countenance.
+
+"O yes; among the figurantes of the Opera. But I confess, it
+sometimes makes me shudder to see a young rake clasp his arms round
+the waist of a pure and innocent girl. What would you say, were you
+to see him sitting on a sofa with his arms round your wife?"
+
+"Mere prejudice of education," replied the French gentleman. "I
+know that situation. I have read all about it in the Bibliothèque de
+Romans Choisis!"
+
+And merrily went the dance; and bright eyes and flushed cheeks
+were not wanting among the dancers;
+
+"And they waxed red, and waxed warm,
+
+And rested, panting, arm in arm,"
+
+and the Strauss-walzes sounded pleasantly in the ears of
+Flemming, who, though he never danced, yet, like Henry of
+Ofterdingen, in the Romance of Novalis, thought to music. The
+wheeling waltz set the wheels of his fancy going. And thus the
+moments glided on, and the footsteps of Time were not heard amid the
+sound of music and voices.
+
+But suddenly this scene of gayety was interrupted. The door
+opened wide; and the short figure of a gray-haired old man presented
+itself, with a flushed countenance and wild eyes. He was but
+half-dressed, and in his hand held a silver candlestick without a
+light. A sheet was wound round his head, like a turban; and he
+tottered forward with a vacant, bewildered look, exclaiming;
+
+"I am Mahomet, the king of the Jews!"
+
+At the same moment he fell in a swoon; and was borne out of the
+room by the servants. Flemming looked at the lady of the festival,
+and she was deadly pale. For a moment all was confusion; and the
+dance and the music stopped. Theimpression produced on the company
+was at once ludicrous and awful. They tried in vain to rally. The
+whole society was like a dead body, from which the spirit has
+departed. Ere long the guests had all dispersed, and left the lady
+of the mansion to her mournful, expiring lamps, and still more
+mournful reflections.
+
+"Truly," said Flemming, to the Baron, as they wended their way
+homeward, "this seems not like reality; but like one of the sharp
+contrasts we find in novels. Who shall say, after this, that there
+is not more romance in real life, than we find written in
+books!"
+
+"Not more romance," said the Baron, "but a different
+romance."
+
+A still more tragic scene had been that evening enacted in
+Heidelberg. Just as the sun set, two female figures walked along the
+romantic woodland path-way, leading to the Angel's Meadow, a little
+green opening on the brow of one of the high hills, which see
+themselves in the Neckar and hear the solemn bells of
+Kloster-Neuburg. The evening shadows were falling broad and long;
+and the cuckoo began to sing.
+
+"Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" said the eldest of the two figures, repeating
+an old German popular rhyme,
+
+`Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
+
+Tell me true,
+
+Tell me fair and fine,
+
+How long must I unmarried pine!'"
+
+It was the voice of an evil spirit, that spoke in the person of
+Madeleine; and the pale and shrinking figure, that walked by her
+side, and listened to those words, was Emma of Ilmenau. A young man
+joined them, where the path turns into the thick woodlands; and they
+disappeared among the shadowy branches. It was the Polish Count.
+
+The forget-me-nots looked up to heaven with their meek blue eyes,
+from their home in the Angel's Meadow. Calmly stood the mountain of
+All-Saints, in its majestic, holy stillness;--the river flowed so
+far below, that the murmur of itswaters was not heard;--there was
+not a sigh of the evening wind among the leaves,--not a sound upon
+the earth nor in the air;--and yet that night there fell a star from
+heaven!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE PARTING.
+
+
+
+It was now that season of the year, which an old English writer
+calls the amiable month of June, and at that hour of the day, when,
+face to face, the rising moon beholds the setting sun. As yet the
+stars were few in heaven. But, after the heat of the day, the
+coolness and the twilight descended like a benediction upon the
+earth, by all those gentle sounds attended, which are the meek
+companions of the night.
+
+Flemming and the Baron had passed the afternoon at the Castle.
+They had rambled once more together, and for the last time, over the
+magnificent ruin. On the morrow they were to part, perhaps forever.
+The Baron was going to Berlin, to join his sister; and Flemming,
+drivenforward by the restless spirit within him, longed once more
+for a change of scene, and was going to the Tyrol and Switzerland.
+Alas! he never said to the passing hour; "Stay, for thou art fair!"
+but reached forward into the dark future, with unsatisfied longings
+and aimless desires, that were never still.
+
+As the day was closing, they sat down on the terrace of
+Elisabeth's Garden. The sun had set beyond the blue Alsatian hills;
+and on the valley of the Rhine fell the purple mist, like the mantle
+of the departing prophet from his fiery chariot. Over the castle
+walls, and the trees of the garden, rose the large moon; and between
+the contending daylight and moonlight there were as yet no shadows.
+But at length the shadows came; transparent and faint outlines, that
+deepened into form. In the valley below only the river gleamed, like
+steel; and here and there the lamps were lighted in the town.
+Solemnly stood the leafy lindentrees in the garden near them, their
+trunks in darkness and their summits bronzed with moonlight; and in
+his niche in the great round tower, overhung with ivy, like a
+majestic phantom, stood the gray statue of Louis, with his venerable
+beard, and shirt of mail, and flowing mantle; and the mild, majestic
+countenance looked forth into the silent night, as the countenance
+of a seer, who reads the stars. At intervals the wind of the summer
+night passed through the ruined castle and the trees, and they sent
+forth a sound as if nature were sighing in her dreams; and for a
+moment overhead the broad leaves gently clashed together, like
+brazen cymbals, with a tinkling sound; and then all was still, save
+the sweet, passionate song of nightingales, that nowhere upon earth
+sing more sweetly than in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle.
+
+The hour, the scene, and the near-approaching separation of the
+two young friends, had filled their hearts with a pleasant, though
+at the same time not painless excitement. They had been conversing
+about the magnificent old ruin, and the ages in which it had been
+built, and the vicissitudesof time and war, that had battered down
+its walls, and left it "tenantless, save to the crannying wind."
+
+"How sorrowful and sublime is the face of that statue yonder,"
+said Flemming. "It reminds me of the old Danish hero Beowulf; for
+careful, sorrowing, he seeth in his son's bower the wine-hall
+deserted, the resort of the wind, noiseless; the knight sleepeth;
+the warrior lieth in darkness; there is no noise of the harp, no joy
+in the dwellings, as there was before."
+
+"Even as you say," replied the Baron; "but it often astonishes
+me, that, coming from that fresh green world of yours beyond the
+sea, you should feel so much interest in these old things; nay, at
+times, seem so to have drunk in their spirit, as really to live in
+the times of old. For my part, I do not see what charm there is in
+the pale and wrinkled countenance of the Past, so to entice the soul
+of a young man. It seems to me like falling in love with one's
+grandmother. Give me the Present;--warm, glowing, palpitating with
+life. She is my mistress; and the Future stands waiting like my wife
+that is to be, for whom, to tell the truth, I care very little just
+now. Indeed, my friend, I wish you would take more heed of this
+philosophy of mine; and not waste the golden hours of youth in vain
+regrets for the past, and indefinite, dim longings for the future.
+Youth comes but once in a lifetime."
+
+"Therefore," said Flemming; "let us so enjoy it as to be still
+young when we are old. For my part, I grow happier as I grow older.
+When I compare my sensations and enjoyments now, with what they were
+ten years ago, the comparison is vastly in favor of the present.
+Much of the fever and fretfulness of life is over. The world and I
+look each other more calmly in the face. My mind is more
+self-possessed. It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the
+heat and drenched by the rain of life."
+
+"Now you speak like an old philosopher," answered the Baron,
+laughing. "But you deceive yourself. I never knew a more restless,
+feverishspirit than yours. Do not think you have gained the mastery
+yet. You are only riding at anchor here in an eddy of the stream;
+you will soon be swept away again in the mighty current and whirl of
+accident. Do not trust this momentary calm. I know you better than
+you know yourself. There is something Faust-like in you; you would
+fain grasp the highest and the deepest; and `reel from desire to
+enjoyment, and in enjoyment languish for desire.' When a momentary
+change of feeling comes over you, you think the change permanent,
+and thus live in constant self-deception."
+
+"I confess," said Flemming, "there may be some truth in what you
+say. There are times when my soul is restless; and a voice sounds
+within me, like the trump of the archangel, and thoughts that were
+buried, long ago, come out of their graves. At such times my
+favorite occupations and pursuits no longer charm me. The quiet face
+of Nature seems to mock me."
+
+"There certainly are seasons," replied the Baron, "when Nature
+seems not to sympathizewith her beloved children. She sits there so
+eternally calm and self-possessed, so very motherly and serene, and
+cares so little whether the heart of her child breaks or not, that
+at times I almost lose my patience. About that, too, she cares so
+little, that, out of sheer obstinacy, I become good-humored again,
+and then she smiles."
+
+"I think we must confess, however," continued Flemming, "that all
+this springs from our own imperfection, not from hers. How beautiful
+is this green world, which we inhabit! See yonder, how the moonlight
+mingles with the mist! What a glorious night is this! Truly every
+man has a Paradise around him until he sins, and the angel of an
+accusing conscience drives him from his Eden. And even then there
+are holy hours, when this angel sleeps, and man comes back, and,
+with the innocent eyes of a child, looks into his lost Paradise
+again,--into the broad gates and rural solitudes of Nature. I feel
+this often. We have much to enjoy in the quiet and retirement of
+ourown thoughts. Boisterous mirth and loud laughter are not my mood.
+I love that tranquillity of soul, in which we feel the blessing of
+existence, and which in itself is a prayer and a thanksgiving. I
+find, however, that, as I grow older, I love the country less, and
+the city more."
+
+"Yes," interrupted the Baron; "and presently you will love the
+city less and the country more. Say at once, that you have an
+undefined longing for both; and prefer town or country, according to
+the mood you are in. I think a man must be of a very quiet and happy
+nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well
+contented with his own insignificant person, very self-complacent,
+to be continually occupied with himself and his own thoughts. To say
+the least, a city life makes one more tolerant and liberal in his
+judgment of others. One is not eternally wrapped up in
+self-contemplation; which, after all, is only a more holy kind of
+vanity."
+
+In conversation like this, the hours glided away; till at length,
+from the Giant's Tower, the Castleclock struck twelve, with a sound
+that seemed to come from the Middle Ages. Like watchmen from their
+belfries the city clocks answered it, one by one. Then distant and
+muffled sounds were heard. Inarticulate words seemed to blot the
+foggy air, as if written on wet paper. These were the bells of
+Handschuhsheimer, and of other villages on the broad plain of the
+Rhine, and among the hills of the Odenwald; mysterious sounds, that
+seemed not of this world.
+
+Beneath them, in the shadow of the hills, lay the valley, like a
+fathomless, black gulf; and above were the cloistered stars, that,
+nun-like, walk the holy aisles of heaven. The city was asleep in the
+valley below; all asleep and silent, save the clocks, that had just
+struck twelve, and the veering, golden weathercocks, that were
+swimming in the moonshine, like golden fishes, in a glass vase. And
+again the wind of the summer night passed through the old Castle,
+and the trees, and the nightingales recorded under the dark, shadowy
+leaves, and the heart of Flemming was full.
+
+When he had retired to his chamber, a feeling of utter loneliness
+came over him. The night before one begins a journey is always a
+dismal night; for, as Byron says,
+
+"In leaving even the most unpleasant people
+
+And places, one keeps looking at the steeple!"
+
+And how much more so when the place and people are pleasant; as
+was the case with those, that Flemming was now leaving. No wonder he
+was sad and sleepless. Thoughts came and went, and bright and gloomy
+fancies, and dreams and visions, and sweet faces looked under his
+closed eyelids, and vanished away, and came again, and again
+departed. He heard the clock strike from hour to hour, and said,
+"Another hour is gone." At length the birds began to sing; and ever
+and anon the cock crew. He arose, and looked forth into the gray
+dawn; and before him lay the city he was so soon to leave, all white
+and ghastly, like a city that had arisen from its grave.
+
+"All things must change," said he to the Baron, as he embraced
+him, and held him by the hand. "Friends must be torn asunder, and
+swept along in the current of events, to see each other seldom, and
+perchance no more. For ever and ever in the eddies of time and
+accident we whirl away. Besides which, some of us have a perpetual
+motion in our wooden heads, as Wodenblock had in his wooden leg; and
+like him we travel on, without rest or sleep, and have hardly time
+to take a friend by the hand in passing; and at length are seen
+hurrying through some distant land, worn to a skeleton, and all
+unknown."
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+"Take away the lights, too;
+
+The moon lends me too much to find my fears;
+
+And those devotions I am now to pay,
+
+Are written in my heart, not in thy book;
+
+And I shall read them there without a taper."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME.
+
+
+
+They were right,--those old German Minnesingers,--to sing the
+pleasant summer-time! What a time it is! How June stands illuminated
+in the Calendar! The windows are all wide open; only the Venetian
+blinds closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in
+through a crevice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the
+trees; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to,
+with a sudden sound. The trees are heavy with leaves; and the
+gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The whole atmosphere is
+laden with perfume and sunshine. The birds sing. The cock struts
+about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow
+butter-cups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and the red
+blossoms of the clover like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long,
+pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft;
+and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white village
+gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds the
+river,--careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in
+no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work,--the hot and
+angry bee. All things else are at play; he never plays, and is vexed
+that any one should.
+
+People drive out from town to breathe, and to be happy. Most of
+them have flowers in their hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and
+still oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how pleasant
+to you is the change from the sultry streets to the open fields,
+fragrant with clover-blossoms! how pleasant the fresh, breezy
+country air, dashed with brine from the meadows! howpleasant, above
+all, the flowers, the manifold, beautiful flowers!
+
+It is no longer day. Through the trees rises the red moon, and
+the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night, the
+coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy
+them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks,
+the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of
+grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they
+are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The
+tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is
+still, save the continuous wind of the summer night. Sometimes I
+know not if it be the wind or the sound of the neighbouring sea. The
+village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.
+
+How different is it in the city! It is late, and the crowd is
+gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of
+the cool, dewy night, as if you folded her garments about you. The
+whole starry heaven is spread out overhead. Beneath lies the public
+walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent
+darkness the spirit plunges and floats away, with some beloved
+spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and
+down the long street. People go by, with grotesque shadows, now
+foreshortened and now lengthening away into the darkness and
+vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems
+to pass him on the sidewalk. The iron gates of the park shut with a
+jangling clang. There are footsteps, and loud voices;--a tumult,--a
+drunken brawl,--an alarm of fire;--then silence again. And now at
+length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated
+moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The
+moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the
+opening of streets,--angular, like blocks of white marble.
+
+Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Reader! with the odor of
+flowers about thee, and the song of birds, shalt thou pass onward
+into the enchanted land, as through the Ivory Gate of dreams! And as
+a prelude and majestic march, one sweet human voice, I know not
+whose, but coming from the bosom of the Alps, sings this sublime
+ode, which the Alpine echoes repeat afar.
+
+"Come, golden Evening! In the west
+
+Enthrone the storm-dispelling sun,
+
+And let the triple rainbow rest
+
+O'er all the mountain tops;--'t is done;
+
+The tempest ceases; bold and bright,
+
+The rainbow shoots from hill to hill;
+
+Down sinks the sun; on presses night;
+
+Mont Blanc is lovely still!
+
+"There take thy stand, my spirit;--spread
+
+The world of shadows at thy feet;
+
+And mark how calmly overhead,
+
+The stars, like saints in glory, meet.
+
+While, hid in solitude sublime,
+
+Methinks I muse on Nature's tomb,
+
+And hear the passing foot of Time
+
+Step through the silent gloom.
+
+"All in a moment, crash on crash,
+
+From precipice to precipice,
+
+An avalanche's ruins dash
+
+Down to the nethermost abyss,
+
+Invisible; the ear alone
+
+Pursues the uproar till it dies;
+
+Echo to Echo, groan for groan,
+
+From deep to deep, replies.
+
+"Silence again the darkness seals,
+
+Darkness that may be felt;--but soon
+
+The silver-clouded east reveals
+
+The midnight spectre of the moon;
+
+In half-eclipse she lifts her horn,
+
+Yet, o'er the host of heaven supreme,
+
+Brings the faint semblance of a morn,
+
+With her awakening beam.
+
+"Ah! at her touch, these Alpine heights
+
+Unreal mockeries appear;
+
+With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights,
+
+Emerging as she climbs the sphere;
+
+A crowd of apparitions pale!
+
+I hold my breath in chill suspense,
+
+They seem so exquisitely frail,
+
+Lest they should vanish hence.
+
+"I breathe again, I freely breathe;
+
+Thee, Leman's Lake, once more I trace,
+
+Like Dian's crescent far beneath,
+
+As beautiful as Dian's face:
+
+Pride of the land that gave me birth!
+
+All that thy waves reflect I love,
+
+Where heaven itself, brought down to earth,
+
+Looks fairer than above.
+
+"Safe on thy banks again I stray;
+
+The trance of poesy is o'er,
+
+And I am here at dawn of day,
+
+Gazing on mountains as before,
+
+Where all the strange mutations wrought,
+
+Were magic feats of my own mind;
+
+For, in that fairy land of thought,
+
+Whate'er I seek, I find."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING.
+
+
+
+Tell me, my soul, why art thou restless? Why dost thou look
+forward to the future with such strong desire? The present is
+thine,--and the past;--and the future shall be! O that thou didst
+look forward to the great hereafter with half the longing wherewith
+thou longest for an earthly future,--which a few days at most will
+bring thee! to the meeting of the dead, as to the meeting of the
+absent! Thou glorious spirit-land! O, that I could behold thee as
+thou art,--the region of life, and light, and love, and the
+dwelling-place of those beloved ones, whose being has flowed onward
+like a silver-clear stream into the solemn-sounding main, into the
+ocean of Eternity.
+
+Such were the thoughts that passed through thesoul of Flemming,
+as he lay in utter solitude and silence on the rounded summit of one
+of the mountains of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with tears in his
+eyes, and ardent longing in his heart, up into the blue-swimming
+heaven overhead, and at the glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around
+him. Highest and whitest of all, stood the peak of the Jungfrau,
+which seemed near him, though it rose afar off from the bosom of the
+Lauterbrunner Thal. There it stood, holy and high and pure, the
+bride of heaven, all veiled and clothed in white, and lifted the
+thoughts of the beholder heavenward. O, he little thought then, as
+he gazed at it with longing and delight, how soon a form was to
+arise in his own soul, as holy, and high, and pure as this, and like
+this point heavenward.
+
+Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit, reposing his weary
+limbs on the short, brown grass, which more resembled moss than
+grass. He had sent his guide forward, that he might be alone. His
+soul within him was wild with a fierce and painful delight. The
+mountain air excited him; the mountain solitudes enticed, yet
+maddened him. Every peak, every sharp, jagged iceberg, seemed to
+pierce him. The silence was awful and sublime. It was like that in
+the soul of a dying man, when he hears no more the sounds of earth.
+He seemed to be laying aside his earthly garments. The heavens were
+near unto him; but between him and heaven every evil deed he had
+done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy
+breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers, dare to look
+Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the
+solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and looks
+not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the
+countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In
+the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at
+us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love!
+
+But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley of the Saint
+Gothard Pass, through Amsteg, where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing
+down the Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead. The road is
+steep, and runs on zigzag terraces. The sides of the mountains are
+barren cliffs; and from their cloud-capped summits, unheard amid the
+roar of the great torrent below, come streams of snowwhite foam,
+leaping from rock to rock, like the mountain chamois. As you
+advance, the scene grows wilder and more desolate. There is not a
+tree in sight,--not a human habitation. Clouds, black as midnight,
+lower upon you from the ravines overhead; and the mountain torrent
+beneath is but a sheet of foam, and sends up an incessant roar. A
+sudden turn in the road brings you in sight of a lofty bridge,
+stepping from cliff to cliff with a single stride. A fearful
+cataract howls beneath it, like an evil spirit, and fills the air
+with mist; and the mountain wind claps its hands and shrieks through
+the narrow pass, Ha! ha!--This is the Devil's Bridge. It leads the
+traveller across the fearful chasm, and through a mountain gallery
+into the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.
+
+Even the sunny morning, which followed thisgloomy day, had not
+chased the desolate impression from the soul of Flemming. His
+excitement increased as he lost himself more and more among the
+mountains; and now, as he lay all alone on the summit of the sunny
+hill, with only glaciers and snowy peaks about him, his soul, as I
+have said, was wild with a fierce and painful delight.
+
+A human voice broke his reverie. He looked, and beheld at a short
+distance from him, the athletic form of a mountain herdsman, who was
+approaching the spot where he lay. He was a young man, clothed in a
+rustic garb, and holding a long staff in his hand. When Flemming
+rose, he stood still, and gazed at him, as if he loved the face of
+man, even in a stranger, and longed to hear a human voice, though it
+might speak in an unknown tongue. He answered Flemming's salutation
+in a rude mountain dialect, and in reply to his questions said;
+
+"I, with two others, have charge of two hundred head of cattle on
+these mountains. Throughthe two summer months we remain here night
+and day; for which we receive each a Napoleon."
+
+Flemming gave him half his summer wages. He was glad to do a good
+deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his
+due, like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the
+traveller alone. And the traveller went his way down the mountain,
+as one distraught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower,
+which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as
+if to say; "O take me with you! leave me not here
+companionless!"
+
+Ere long he reached the magnificent glacier of the Rhone; a
+frozen cataract, more than two thousand feet in height, and many
+miles broad at its base. It fills the whole valley between two
+mountains, running back to their summits. At the base it is arched,
+like a dome; and above, jagged and rough, and resembles a mass of
+gigantic crystals, of a pale emerald tint, mingled with white. A
+snowy crust covers its surface; but at every rent and crevice the
+pale green ice shines clear in thesun. Its shape is that of a glove,
+lying with the palm downwards, and the fingers crooked and close
+together. It is a gauntlet of ice, which, centuries ago, Winter, the
+King of these mountains, threw down in defiance to the Sun; and year
+by year the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on the
+point of his glittering spear. A feeling of wonder and delight came
+over the soul of Flemming when he beheld it, and he shouted and
+cried aloud;
+
+"How wonderful! how glorious!"
+
+After lingering a few hours in the cold, desolate valley, he
+climbed in the afternoon the steep Mayen-Wand, on the Grimsel,
+passed the Lake of the Dead, with its ink-black waters; and through
+the melting snow, and over slippery stepping-stones in the beds of
+numberless shallow brooks, descended to the Grimsel Hospital, where
+he passed the night, and thought it the most lone and desolate spot,
+that man ever slept in.
+
+On the morrow, he rose with the day; and the rising sun found him
+already standing on the rusticbridge, which hangs over the verge of
+the Falls of the Aar at Handeck, where the river pitches down a
+precipice into a narrow and fearful abyss, shut in by perpendicular
+cliffs. At right angles with it comes the beautiful Aerlenbach; and
+halfway down the double cascade mingles into one. Thus he pursued
+his way down the Hasli Thal into the Bernese Oberland, restless,
+impatient, he knew not why, stopping seldom, and never long, and
+then rushing forward again, like the rushing river whose steps he
+followed, and in whose ice-cold waters ever and anon he bathed his
+wrists, to cool the fever in his blood; for the noonday sun was
+hot.
+
+His heart dilated in the dilating valley, that grew broader and
+greener at every step. The sight of human faces and human dwellings
+soothed him; and through the fields of summer grain, in the broad
+meadows of Imgrund, he walked with a heart that ached no more, but
+trembled only, as our eyelids when we have done weeping. As he
+climbed the opposite hill, which hems in this romanticvalley, and,
+like a heavy yoke, chafes the neck of the Aar, he believed the
+ancient tradition, which says, that once the valley was a lake. From
+the summit of the hill he looked southward upon a beautiful
+landscape of gardens, and fields of grain, and woodlands, and
+meadows, and the ancient castle of Resti, looking down upon
+Meyringen. And now all around him were the singing of birds, and
+grateful shadows of the leafy trees; and sheeted waterfalls dropping
+from the woodland cliffs, seen only, but unheard, the fluted columns
+breaking into mist, and fretted with frequent spires and ornaments
+of foam, and not unlike the towers of a Gothic church inverted.
+There, in one white sheet of foam, the Riechenbach pours down into
+its deep beaker, into which the sun never shines. Face to face it
+beholds the Alpbach falling from the opposite hill, "like a downward
+smoke." When Flemming saw the innumerable runnels, sliding down the
+mountain-side, and leaping, all life and gladness, he would fain
+have clasped them in his arms and been their playmate, and revelled
+withthem in their freedom and delight. Yet he was weary with the
+day's journey, and entered the village of Meyringen, embowered in
+cherry-trees, which were then laden with fruit, more like a way-worn
+traveller than an enthusiastic poet. As he went up the tavern steps
+he said in his heart, with the Italian Aretino; "He who has not been
+at a tavern, knows not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O
+miraculous tavern! holy, because no carking cares are there, nor
+weariness, nor pain; and miraculous, because of the spits, which of
+themselves turn round and round! Of a truth all courtesy and good
+manners come from taverns, so full of bows, and Signor, sì! and
+Signor, nò!"
+
+But even in the tavern he could not rest long. The same evening
+at sunset he was floating on the lake of Brienz, in an open boat,
+close under the cascade of the Giessbach, hearing the peasants sing
+the Ranz des Vaches. He slept that night at the other extremity of
+the lake, in a large house, which, like Saint Peter's at Joppa,
+stood by the water's side. The next day he wasted inwriting letters,
+musing in this green nest, and paddling about the lake again; and in
+the evening went across the beautiful meadows to Interlachen, where
+many things happened to him, and detained him long.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. INTERLACHEN.
+
+
+
+Interlachen! How peacefully, by the margin of the swift-rushing
+Aar, thou liest, on the broad lap of those romantic meadows, all
+overshadowed by the wide arms of giant trees! Only the round towers
+of thine ancient cloister rise above their summits; the round towers
+themselves, but a child's playthings under the great church-towers
+of the mountains. Close beside thee are lakes, which the flowing
+band of the river ties together. Before thee opens the magnificent
+valley of Lauterbrunn, where the cloud-hooded Monk and pale Virgin
+stand like Saint Francis and his Bride of Snow; and all around thee
+are fields, and orchards, and hamlets green, from which the
+church-bells answer each other at evening! The eveningsun was
+setting when I first beheld thee! The sun of life will set ere I
+forget thee! Surely it was a scene like this, that inspired the soul
+of the Swiss poet, in his Song of the Bell!
+
+"Bell! thou soundest merrily,
+
+When the bridal party
+
+To the church doth hie!
+
+Bell! thou soundest solemnly,
+
+When, on Sabbath morning,
+
+Fields deserted lie!
+
+"Bell! thou soundest merrily;
+
+Tellest thou at evening,
+
+Bed-time draweth nigh!
+
+Bell! thou soundest mournfully;
+
+Tellest thou the bitter
+
+Parting hath gone by!
+
+"Say! how canst thou mourn?
+
+How canst thou rejoice?
+
+Art but metal dull!
+
+And yet all our sorrowings,
+
+And all our rejoicings,
+
+Thou dost feel them all!
+
+"God hath wonders many,
+
+Which we cannot fathom,
+
+Placed within thy form!
+
+When the heart is sinking,
+
+Thou alone canst raise it,
+
+Trembling in the storm!"
+
+Paul Flemming alighted at one of the principal hotels. The
+landlord came out to meet him. He had great eyes and a green coat;
+and reminded Flemming of the innkeeper mentioned in the Golden Ass,
+who had been changed by magic into a frog, and croaked to his
+customers from the lees of a wine-cask. His house, he said, was
+full; and so was every house in Interlachen; but, if the gentleman
+would walk into the parlour, he would procure a chamber for him, in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+On the sofa sat a gentleman, reading; a stout gentleman of
+perhaps forty-five, round, ruddy, and with a head, which, being a
+little bald on the top, looked not unlike a crow's nest, with one
+egg in it. A good-humored face turned from the book as Flemming
+entered; and a good-humored voice exclaimed;
+
+"Ha! ha! Mr. Flemming! Is it you, or your apparition! I told you
+we should meet again! though you were for taking an eternal farewell
+of your fellow-traveller."
+
+Saying these words, the stout gentleman rose and shook Flemming
+heartily by the hand. And Flemming returned the shake as heartily,
+recognising in this ruddy personage, a former travelling companion,
+Mr. Berkley, whom he had left, a week or two previous, toiling up
+the Righi. Mr. Berkley was an Englishman of fortune; a good-humored,
+humane old bachelor; remarkable alike for his common sense and his
+eccentricity. That is to say, the basis of his character was good,
+sound common sense, trodden down and smoothed by education; but this
+level groundwork his strange and whimsical fancy used as a
+dancing-floor, whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. His ruling
+passion was cold-bathing; and he usually ate his breakfast sitting
+in a tub of cold water, and reading a newspaper. He kissed every
+child he met; and to every old man, said in passing, "God bless
+you!" with such an expression of voice and countenance, that no one
+could doubt his sincerity. He reminded one of Roger Bontemps, or the
+Little Man in Gray; though with a difference.
+
+"The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Berkley,"
+said Flemming, "was at Goldau, just as you were going up the Righi.
+I hope you were gratified with a fine sunrise on the mountain
+top."
+
+"No, Sir, I was not!" replied Mr. Berkley. "It is all a humbug! a
+confounded humbug! They made such a noise about their sunrise, that
+I determined I would not see it. So I lay snug in bed; and only
+peeped through the window curtain. That was enough. Just above the
+house, on the top of the hill, stood some fifty half-dressed,
+romantic individuals, shivering in the wet grass; and, a short
+distance from them, a miserable wretch, blowing a long, wooden horn.
+That's your sunrise on the Righi, is it? said I; and went to sleep
+again. The best thing I saw at the Culm, was the advertisement on
+the bed-room doors, saying, that, if the ladies would wear the quilts
+and blankets for shawls, when they went out to see the sunrise, they
+must pay for the washing. Take my word for it, the Righi is a great
+humbug!"
+
+"Where have you been since?"
+
+"At Zurich and Schaffhausen. If you go to Zurich, beware how you
+stop at the Raven. They will cheat you. They cheated me; but I had
+my revenge, for, when we reached Schaffhausen, I wrote in the
+Traveller's Book;
+
+Beware of the Raven of Zurich!
+
+'T is a bird of omen ill;
+
+With a noisy and an unclean nest,
+
+And a very, very long bill.
+
+If you go to the Golden Falken you will find it there. I am the
+author of those lines!"
+
+"Bitter as Juvenal!" exclaimed Flemming.
+
+"Not in the least bitter," said Mr. Berkley. "It is all true. Go
+to the Raven and see. But this Interlachen! this Interlachen! It is
+the loveliest spot on the face of the earth," he continued,
+stretching out both arms, as if to embrace the objectof his
+affection. "There,--only look out there!"
+
+Here he pointed to the window. Flemming looked, and beheld a
+scene of transcendent beauty. The plain was covered already by the
+brown shade of the summer twilight. From the cottage roofs in
+Unterseen rose here and there a thin column of smoke over the tops
+of the trees and mingled with the evening shadows. The Valley of
+Lauterbrunnen was filled with a blue haze. Far above, in the clear,
+cloudless heaven, the white forehead of the Jungfrau blushed at the
+last kiss of the departing sun. It was a glorious Transfiguration of
+Nature! And when the village bells began to ring, and a single voice
+at a great distance was heard yodling forth a ballad, it rather
+broke than increased the enchantment of a scene, where silence was
+more musical than sound.
+
+For a long time they gazed at the gloaming landscape, and spake
+not. At length people came into the parlour, and laid aside their
+shawls and hats, and exchanged a word or two with Berkley to Flemming
+they were all unknown. To him it was all Mr. Brown and Mrs. Johnson,
+and nothing more. The conversation turned upon the various
+excursions of the day. Some had been at the Staubbach, others at the
+Grindelwald; others at the Lake of Thun; and nobody before had ever
+experienced half the rapture, which they had experienced that day.
+And thus they sat in the twilight, as people love to do, at the
+close of a summer day. As yet the lamps had not been lighted; and
+one could not distinguish faces; but voices only, and forms, like
+shadows.
+
+Presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered the room and
+sat down by the window. She rather listened to the conversation,
+than joined in it; but the few words she said were spoken in a voice
+so musical and full of soul, that it moved the soul of Flemming,
+like a whisper from heaven.
+
+O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of
+the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his
+forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis
+countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God
+revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice;
+and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible,
+not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal
+fountain, invisible to man!
+
+Flemming would fain have sat and listened for hours to the sound
+of that unknown voice. He felt sure, in his secret heart, that the
+being from whom it came was beautiful. His imagination filled up the
+faint outline, which the eye beheld in the fading twilight, and the
+figure stood already in his mind, like Raphael's beautiful Madonna
+in the Dresden gallery. He was never more mistaken in his life. The
+voice belonged to a beautiful being, it is true; but her beauty was
+different from that of any Madonna which Raphael ever painted; as he
+would have seen, had he waited till the lamps were lighted. But in
+the midst of his reverie and saint-painting, the landlord came in,
+andtold him he had found a chamber, which he begged him to go and
+look at.
+
+Flemming took his leave and departed. Berkley went with him, to
+see, he said, what kind of a nest his young friend was to sleep
+in.
+
+"The chamber is not what I could wish," said the landlord, as he
+led them across the street. "It is in the old cloister. But
+to-morrow or next day, you can no doubt have a room at the
+house."
+
+The name of the cloister struck Flemming's imagination
+pleasantly. He was owl enough to like ruins and old chambers, where
+nuns or friars had slept. And he said to Berkley;
+
+"So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister. It already
+makes me think of a bird's-nest I once saw on an old tower of
+Heidelberg castle, built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly
+served as a spout. But pray tell me, who was that young lady, with
+the soft voice?"
+
+"What young lady with the soft voice?"
+
+"The young lady in black, who sat by the window."
+
+"O, she is the daughter of an English officer, who died not long
+ago at Naples. She is passing the summer here with her mother, for
+her health."
+
+"What is her name?"
+
+"Ashburton."
+
+"Is she beautiful?"
+
+"Not in the least; but very intellectual. A woman of genius, I
+should say."
+
+And now they had reached the walls of the cloister, and passed
+under an arched gateway, and close beneath the round towers, which
+Flemming had already seen, rising with their cone-shaped roofs above
+the trees, like tall tapers, with extinguishers upon them.
+
+"It is not so bad, as it looks," said the landlord, knocking at a
+small door, in the main building. "The Bailiff lives in one part of
+it."
+
+A servant girl, with a candle in her hand, opened the door, and
+conducted Flemming and Berkley to the chamber which had been
+engaged. It was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted with
+pine, and unpainted. Three lofty and narrowwindows, with leaden
+lattices and small panes, looked southward towards the valley of
+Lauterbrunnen and the mountains. In one corner was a large square
+bed, with a tester and checked curtains. In another, a huge stove of
+painted tiles, reaching almost to the ceiling. An old sofa, a few
+high-backed antique chairs, and a table, completed the furniture of
+the room.
+
+Thus Flemming took possession of his monkish cell and dormitory.
+He ordered tea, and began to feel at home. Berkley passed the
+evening with him. On going away he said;
+
+"Good night! I leave you to the care of the Virgin and all the
+Saints. If the ghost of any old monk comes back after his
+prayer-book, my compliments to him. If I were a younger man, you
+certainly should see a ghost. Good night!"
+
+When he had departed, Flemming opened the lattice of one of the
+windows. The moon had risen, and silvered the dark outline of the
+nearest hills; while, afar off, the snowy summits of the Jungfrau
+and the Silver-Horn shone like a white cloud in the sky. Close
+beneath the windows was a flower-garden; and the breath of the
+summer night came to him with dewy fragrance. There was a grateful
+seclusion about the place. He blessed the happy accident, which gave
+him such a lodging, and fell asleep that night thinking of the nuns,
+who once had slept in the same quiet cells; but neither wimpled nun
+nor cowled monk appeared to him in his dreams; not even the face of
+Mary Ashburton; nor did he hear her voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.
+
+
+
+Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that when King Edward
+beheld the Countess of Salisbury at her castle gate, he thought he
+had never seen before so noble nor so fair a lady; he was stricken
+therewith to the heart with a sparkle of fine love, that endured
+long after; he thought no lady in the world so worthy to be beloved,
+as she. And so likewise thought Paul Flemming, when he beheld the
+English lady in the fair light of a summer morning. I will not
+disguise the truth. She is my heroine; and I mean to describe her
+with great truth and beauty, so that all shall be in love with her,
+and I most of all.
+
+Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer. Like the fair maiden
+Amoret, she was sitting inthe lap of womanhood. They did her wrong,
+who said she was not beautiful; and yet
+
+"she was not fair,
+
+Nor beautiful;--those words express her not.
+
+But O, her looks had something excellent,
+
+That wants a name!"
+
+Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It was such a calm,
+quiet face, with the light of the rising soul shining so peacefully
+through it. At times it wore an expression of seriousness,--of
+sorrow even; and then seemed to make the very air bright with what
+the Italian poets so beautifully call the lampeggiar dell' angelico
+riso,--the lightning of the angelic smile.
+
+And O, those eyes,--those deep, unutterable eyes, with
+"down-falling eyelids, full of dreams and slumber," and within them
+a cold, living light, as in mountain lakes at evening, or in the
+river of Paradise, forever gliding,
+
+"with a brown, brown current
+
+Under the shade perpetual, that never
+
+Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon."
+
+I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are
+beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent
+light;--are luminous, but not sparkling. Such eyes the Greek poets
+give to the Immortals. But I forget myself.
+
+The lady's figure was striking. Every step, every attitude was
+graceful, and yet lofty, as if inspired by the soul within. Angels
+in the old poetic philosophy have such forms; it was the soul itself
+imprinted on the air. And what a soul was hers! A temple dedicated
+to Heaven, and, like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted only from above.
+And earthly passions in the form of gods were no longer there, but
+the sweet and thoughtful faces of Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and
+the Saints. Thus there was not one discordant thing in her; but a
+perfect harmony of figure, and face, and soul, in a word of the
+whole being. And he who had a soul to comprehend hers, must of
+necessity love her, and, having once loved her, could love no other
+woman forevermore.
+
+No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heartdrawn towards her,
+as, in her morning walk, she passed him, sitting alone under the
+great walnut trees near the cloister, and thinking of Heaven, but
+not of her. She, too, was alone. Her cheek was no longer pale; but
+glowing and bright, with the inspiration of the summer air. Flemming
+gazed after her till she disappeared, even as a vision of his
+dreams, he knew not whither. He was not yet in love, but very near
+it; for he thanked God, that he had made such beautiful beings to
+walk the earth.
+
+Last night he had heard a voice to which his soul responded; and
+he might have gone on his way, and taken no farther heed. But he
+would have heard that voice afterwards, whenever at evening he
+thought of this evening at Interlachen. To-day he had seen more
+clearly the vision, and his restless soul calm. The place seemed
+pleasant to him; and he could not go. He did not ask himself whence
+came this calm. He felt it; and was happy in the feeling; and
+blessed thelandscape and the summer morning, as if they possessed
+the wonder-working power.
+
+"A pleasant morning dream to you;" said a friendly voice; and at
+the same moment some one laid his hand upon Flemming's shoulder. It
+was Berkley. He had approached unseen and unheard.
+
+"I see by the smile on your countenance," he continued, "that it
+is no day-incubus."
+
+"You are right," replied Flemming. "It was a pleasant dream,
+which you have put to flight."
+
+"And I am glad to see, that you have also put to flight the
+gloomy thoughts which used to haunt you. I like to see people
+cheerful and happy. What is the use of giving way to sadness in this
+beautiful world?"
+
+"Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed,
+I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and
+sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes
+suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In
+the lives of the saddestof us, there are bright days like this, when
+we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it.
+Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our
+hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal,
+cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows,
+which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when
+he is only sad."
+
+"And who says we don't?" interrupted Berkley. "Come, come! Let us
+go to breakfast. The morning air has given me a rude appetite. I
+long to say grace over a fresh egg; and eat salt with my worst
+enemies; namely, the Cockneys at the hotel. After breakfast you must
+give yourself up wholly to me. I shall take you to the
+Grindelwald!"
+
+"To-day, then, you do not breakfast like Diogenes, but consent to
+leave your tub."
+
+"Yes, for the pleasure of your company. I shall also blow out the
+light in my lantern, having found you."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+The breakfast passed without any unusual occurrence. Flemming
+watched the entrance of every guest; but she came not,--the guest he
+most desired to see.
+
+"And now for the Grindelwald!" said Berkley.
+
+"Why such haste? We have the whole day before us. There is time
+enough."
+
+"Not a moment to loso, I assure you. The carriage is at the
+door."
+
+They drove up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and turned eastward
+among the mountains of the Grindelwald. There they passed the day;
+half-frozen by the icy breath of the Great Glacier, upon whose
+surface stand pyramids and blocks of ice, like the tombstones of a
+cemetery. It was a weary day to Flemming. He wished himself at
+Interlachen; and was glad when, towards evening, he saw once more
+the cone-roofed towers of the cloister rising above the walnut
+trees.
+
+That evening is written in red letters in his history. It gave
+him another revelation of thebeauty and excellence of the female
+character and intellect; not wholly new to him, yet now renewed and
+fortified. It was from the lips of Mary Ashburton, that the
+revelation came. Her form arose, like a tremulous evening star, in
+the firmament of his soul. He conversed with her; and with her
+alone; and knew not when to go. All others were to him as if they
+were not there. He saw their forms, but saw them as the forms of
+inanimate things. At length her mother came; and Flemming beheld in
+her but another Mary Ashburton, with beauty more mature;--the same
+forehead and eyes, the same majestic figure; and, as yet, no trace
+of age. He gazed upon her with a feeling of delight, not unmingled
+with holy awe. She was to him the rich and glowing Evening, from
+whose bosom the tremulous star was born.
+
+Berkley took no active part in the conversation, but did what was
+much more to the purpose, that it is to say, arranged a drive for
+the next day with the Ashburtons, and of course invited Flemming,
+who went home that night with a halo round hishead; and wondering
+much at a dandy, who stood at the door of the hotel, and said to his
+companion, as Flemming passed;
+
+"What do you call this place? I have been here two hours already,
+and find it devilish dull!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.
+
+
+
+When Flemming awoke the next morning he saw the sky dark and
+lowering. From the mountain tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy
+folds waved to and fro in the valley below. Over all the landscape,
+the soft, summer rain was falling. No admiring eyes would look up
+that day at the Staubbach.
+
+A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop to many diversions.
+The coachman may drive to the tavern and then back to the stable;
+but no farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-house door,
+and welcome; and the boatman whistle and curse the clouds, at his
+own sweet will; but no foot stirs abroad for all that; no traveller
+moves, if he has time to stay. The rainy daygives him time for
+reflection. He has leisure now to take cognizance of his
+impressions, and make up his account with the mountains. He
+remembers, too, that he has friends at home; and writes up the
+Journal, neglected for a week or more; and letters neglected longer;
+or finishes the rough pencil-sketch, begun yesterday in the open
+air. On the whole he is not sorry it rains; though disappointed.
+
+Flemming was both sorry and disappointed; but he did not on that
+account fail to go over to the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He
+found them sitting in the parlour. The mother was reading, and the
+daughter retouching a sketch of the Lake of Thun. After the usual
+salutations, Flemming seated himself near the daughter, and
+said;
+
+"We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I presume; only this
+Giessbach from the clouds."
+
+"Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be content to stay in-doors;
+and listen to the soundof the eves-dropping rain. It gives me time
+to finish some of these rough sketches."
+
+"It is a pleasant pastime," said Flemming; "and I perceive you
+are very skilful. I am delighted to see, that you can draw a
+straight line. I never before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all
+the towers did not resemble the leaning Tower of Pisa. I always
+tremble for the little men under them."
+
+"How absurd!" exclaimed Mary Ashburton, with a smile that passed
+through the misty air of Flemming's thoughts, like a sunbeam; "For
+one, I succeed much better in straight lines than in any others.
+Here I have been trying a half-hour to make this water-wheel round;
+and round it never will be."
+
+"Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncommonly picturesque,
+and may pass for a new invention."
+
+The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming to gaze at her
+beautiful face; often repeating to himself those lines in Marlow's
+Faust;
+
+"O thou art fairer than the evening air,
+
+Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!"
+
+He certainly would have betrayed himself to the maternal eye of
+Mrs. Ashburton, had she not been wholly absorbed in the follies of a
+fashionable novel. Ere long the fair sketcher had paused for a
+moment; and Flemming had taken her sketch-book in his hands and was
+looking it through from the beginning with ever-increasing delight,
+half of which he dared not express, though he favored her with some
+comments and bursts of admiration.
+
+"This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten and the
+battle-field! How quietly the land-scape sleeps there by the lake,
+after the battle! Did you ever read the ballad of Veit Weber, the
+shoe-maker, on this subject? He says, the routed Burgundians jumped
+into the lake, and the Swiss Leaguers shot them down like wild ducks
+among the reeds. He fought in the battle and wrote the ballad
+afterwards;--
+
+'He had himself laid hand on sword,
+
+He who this rhyme did write;
+
+Till evening mowed he with the sword,
+
+And sang the song at night.'"
+
+"You must give me the whole ballad," said Miss Ashburton; "it
+will serve to illustrate the sketch."
+
+"And the sketch to illustrate the ballad. And now we suddenly
+slide down the Alps into Italy, and are even in Rome, if I mistake
+not. This is surely a head of Homer?"
+
+"Yes," replied the lady, with a little enthusiasm. "Do you not
+remember the marble bust at Rome? When I first beheld that bust, it
+absolutely inspired me with awe. It is not the face of a man, but of
+a god!"
+
+"And you have done it no injustice in your copy," said Flemming,
+catching a new enthusiasm from hers. "With what a classic grace the
+fillet, passing round the majestic forehead, confines his flowing
+locks, which mingle with his beard! The countenance, too, is calm,
+majestic, godlike! Even the fixed and sightless eyeballs do not mar
+the imageof the seer! Such were the sightless eyes of the blind old
+man of Chios. They seem to look with mournful solemnity into the
+mysterious future; and the marble lips to repeat that prophetic
+passage in the Hymn to Apollo; 'Let me also hope to be remembered in
+ages to come. And when any one, born of the tribes of men, comes
+hither, a weary traveller, and inquires, who is the sweetest of the
+Singing Men, that resort to your feasts, and whom you most delight
+to hear, do you make answer for me. It is the Blind Man, who dwells
+in Chios; his songs excel all that can ever be sung!' But do you
+really believe, that this is a portrait of Homer?"
+
+"Certainly not! It is only an artist's dream. It was thus, that
+Homer appeared to him in his visions of the antique world. Every
+one, you know, forms an image in his fancy of persons and things he
+has never seen; and the artist reproduces them in marble or on
+canvass."
+
+"And what is the image in your fancy? Is it like this?"
+
+"No; not entirely. I have drawn my impressions from another
+source. Whenever I think of Homer, which is not often, he walks
+before me, solemn and serene, as in the vision of the great Italian;
+in countenance neither sorrowful nor glad, followed by other bards,
+and holding in his right hand a sword!"
+
+"That is a finer conception, than even this," said Flemming. "And
+I perceive from your words, as well as from this book, that you have
+a true feeling for art, and understand what it is. You have had
+bright glimpses into the enchanted land."
+
+"I trust," replied the lady modestly, "that I am not wholly
+without this feeling. Certainly I have as strong and passionate a
+love of Art as of Nature."
+
+"But does it not often offend you to hear people speaking of Art
+and Nature as opposite and discordant things? Surely nothing can be
+more false. Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.
+Indeed, Art signifies no more than this. Art is Power. That is the
+original meaning of the word. It is the creative power by which the
+soul of man makes itself known, through some external manifestation
+or outward sign. As we can always hear the voice of God, walking in
+the garden, in the cool of the day, or under the star-light, where,
+to quote one of this poet's verses, 'high prospects and the brows of
+all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows';--so,
+under the twilight and the starlight of past ages, do we hear the
+voice of man, walking amid the works of his hands, and city walls
+and towers and the spires of churches, thrust up themselves for
+shows."
+
+The lady smiled at his warmth; and he continued;
+
+"This, however, is but a similitude; and Art and Nature are more
+nearly allied than by similitudes only. Art is the revelation of
+man; and not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature,
+speaking through man. Art preëxists in Nature, and Nature is
+reproduced in Art. As vaporsfrom the ocean, floating landward and
+dissolved in rain, are carried back in rivers to the ocean, so
+thoughts and the semblances of things that fall upon the soul of man
+in showers, flow out again in living streams of Art, and lose
+themselves in the great ocean, which is Nature. Art and Nature are
+not, then, discordant, but ever harmoniously working in each
+other."
+
+Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming spake with such evident
+interest in the subject, that Miss Ashburton did not fail to
+manifest some interest in what he said; and, encouraged by this, he
+proceeded;
+
+"Thus in this wondrous world wherein we live, which is the World
+of Nature, man has made unto himself another world hardly less
+wondrous, which is the World of Art. And it lies infolded and
+compassed about by the other,
+
+'And the clear region where 't was born,
+
+Round in itself incloses.'
+
+Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the
+skill of the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere
+amateur. What we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him
+who created them. For they were created by the natural movements of
+his own great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but
+shadows of himself;--shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. He
+feels and recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and
+produced these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and
+things inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague images and shapes of
+beauty floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet
+indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,--this
+Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed
+it,--the artist shares in common with us all. The lovers of art are
+many. But the Active Intellect, the creative power,--the power to
+put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and
+render perfect, is his alone. He shares the gift with few. He knows
+not even whence nor how this is. He knows only that it is; that God
+has given him the power, which has been denied to others."
+
+"I should have known you were just from Germany," said the lady,
+with a smile, "even if you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast
+for the Germans. For my part I cannot endure their harsh
+language."
+
+"You would like it better, if you knew it better," answered
+Flemming. "It is not harsh to me; but homelike, hearty, and full of
+feeling, like the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter's
+night, when the wind blows, and the fire crackles, and hisses, and
+snaps. I do indeed love the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty,
+and the Fräuleins so tender and true!"
+
+"I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women with
+knittingwork."
+
+"O, those are English prejudices," exclaimed Flemming. "Nothing
+can be more--"
+
+"And their very literature presents itself to my imagination
+under the same forms."
+
+"I see you have read only English criticisms; and have an idea,
+that all German books smell, as it were, 'of groceries, of brown
+papers, filled withgreasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings
+in frowzy back-parlours; and this shuts you out from a glorious
+world of poetry, romance, and dreams!"
+
+Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued to turn over the
+leaves of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and
+witticism. At length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil.
+People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so
+when a little in love.
+
+"Here is a pencil-sketch," said he, with an entreating look,
+"which I would fain examine with the rest."
+
+"You may do so, if you wish; but you will find it the poorest
+sketch in the book. I was trying one day to draw the picture of an
+artist's life in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination; and
+this is the result. Perhaps it may awaken some pleasant recollection
+in your mind."
+
+Flemming waited no longer; but read with the eyes of a lover, not
+of a critic, the following description, which inspired him with a
+new enthusiasm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.
+
+"I often reflect with delight upon the young artist's life in
+Rome. A stranger from the cold and gloomy North, he has crossed the
+Alps, and with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the Eternal
+City. He dwells perhaps upon the Pincian Hill; and hardly a house
+there, which is not inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The
+very room he lives in has been their abode from time out of mind.
+Their names are written all over the walls; perhaps some further
+record of them left in a rough sketch upon the window-shutter, with
+an inscription and a date. These things consecrate the place, in his
+imagination. Even these names, though unknown to him, are not
+without associations in his mind.
+
+"In that warm latitude he rises with the day. The night-vapors
+are already rolling away over the Campagna sea-ward. As he looks
+from his window, above and beyond their white folds he recognises
+the tremulous blue sea at Ostia. Over Soracte rises the sun,--over
+his own beloved mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof
+old. Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its
+long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies
+still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two
+hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks.
+Presently the bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to
+their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of those churches over
+the high altar, hangs a painting by some great master's hand, whose
+beauty comes between him and heaven, so that he cannot pray, but
+wonder only.
+
+"Among these works of art he passes the day; but oftenest in St.
+Peter's and the Vatican. Up the vast marble stair-case,--through the
+Corridor Chiaramonti,--through vestibules, galleries, chambers,--he
+passes, as in a dream. All are filled with busts and statues; or
+painted in daring frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty! what
+glorious creations of the human mind! and in that last chamber of
+all, standing alone upon his pedestal, the Apollo found at
+Actium,--in such a majestic attitude,--with such a noble
+countenance, life-like, god-like!
+
+"Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of the painters; but goes
+no further than the second. For in the middle of that chamber a
+large painting stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished, though
+more than three hundred years ago the great artist completed it, and
+then laid his pencil away forever, leaving this last benediction to
+the world. It is the Transfiguration of Christ by Raphael. A child
+looks not at the stars with greater wonder, than the artist at this
+painting. He knows how many studious years are in that picture. He
+knows the difficult path that leads to perfection, having himself
+taken some of the first steps.--Thus he recalls the hour, when that
+broad canvass was first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood
+before it, and laid the first colors upon it, and beheld the figures
+one by one born into life, and 'looked upon the work of his own
+hands with a smile, that it should have succeeded so well.' He
+recalls too, the hour, when, the task accomplished, the pencil
+dropped from the master's dying hand, and his eyes closed to open on
+a more glorious transfiguration, and at length the dead Raphael lay
+in his own studio, before this wonderful painting, more glorious
+than any conqueror under the banners and armorial hatchments of his
+funeral!
+
+"Think you, that such sights and thoughts as these do not move
+the heart of a young man and an artist! And when he goes forth into
+the open air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of an
+antique world receive him. From the Palace of the Cæsars he looks
+down into the Forum, or towards the Coliseum; or westward sees the
+last sunshine strike the bronze Archangel, which stands upon the
+Tomb of Adrian. He walks amid a world of Art in ruins. The very
+street-lamps, that light him homeward, burn before some painted or
+sculptured image of the Madonna! What wonder is it, if dreams visit
+him in his sleep,--nay, if his whole life seem to him a dream! What
+wonder, if, with a feverish heart and quick hand, he strive to
+reproduce those dreams in marble or on canvass."
+
+Foolish Paul Flemming! who both admired and praised this little
+sketch, and yet was too blind to see, that it was written from the
+heart, and not from the imagination! Foolish Paul Flemming! who
+thought, that a girl of twenty could write thus, without a reason!
+Close upon this followed another pencil sketch, which he likewise
+read, with the lady's permission. It was this.
+
+"The whole period of the Middle Ages seems very strange to me. At
+times I cannot persuade myself that such things could have been, as
+history tells us; that such a strange world was a part of our
+world,--that such a strange life was a part of the life, which seems
+to us who are living it now, so passionless and commonplace. It is
+only when I stand amid ruined castles, that look at me so
+mournfully, and behold the heavy armour of old knights, hanging upon
+the wainscot of Gothic chambers; or when I walk amid the aisles of
+some dusky minster, whose walls are narrative ofhoar antiquity, and
+whose very bells have been baptized, and see the carved oaken stalls
+in the choir, where so many generations of monks have sat and sung,
+and the tombs, where now they sleep in silence, to awake no more to
+their midnight psalms;--it is only at such times, that the history
+of the Middle Ages is a reality to me, and not a passage in
+romance.
+
+"Likewise the illuminated manuscripts of those ages have
+something of this power of making the dead Past a living Present in
+my mind. What curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking
+parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with gay colors! You seem
+to come upon them unawares. Their faces have an expression of
+wonder. They seem all to be just startled from their sleep by the
+sound you made when you unloosed the brazen clasps, and opened the
+curiously-carved oaken covers, that turn on hinges, like the great
+gates of a city. To the building of that city some diligent monk
+gave the whole of a long life. With what strange denizens he peopled
+it! Adam and Eve standing under a tree, she, with the apple in her
+hand;--the patriarch Abraham, with a tree growing out of his body,
+and his descendants sitting owl-like upon its branches;--ladies with
+flowing locks of gold; knights in armour, with most fantastic,
+long-toed shoes; jousts and tournaments; and Minnesingers, and
+lovers, whose heads reach to the towers, where their ladies
+sit;--and all so angular, so simple, so childlike,--all in such
+simple attitudes, with such great eyes, and holding up such long,
+lank fingers!--These things are characteristic of the Middle Ages,
+and persuade me of the truth of history."
+
+At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss cottage, which he
+had just bought as a present for somebody's child in England; and a
+cane with a chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had just bought
+for himself. This was the first time, that Flemming had been sorry
+to see the good-natured man. His presence interrupted the delightful
+conversation he was carrying on "under four eyes," with Mary
+Ashburton. He reallythought Berkley a bore, and wondered it had
+never occurred to him before. Mrs. Ashburton, too, must needs lay
+down her book; and the conversation became general. Strange to say,
+the Swiss dinner-hour of one o'clock, did not come a moment too soon
+for Flemming. It did not even occur to him that it was early; for he
+was seated beside Mary Ashburton, and at dinner one can say so much,
+without being overheard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS.
+
+
+
+When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed the fair Angélique, he
+drew from his pocket a medical thesis, and presented it to her, as
+the first-fruits of his genius; and at the same time, invited her,
+with her father's permission, to attend the dissection of a woman,
+upon whom he was to lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same
+thing; and so often, that it had become a habit. He was continually
+drawing, from his pocket or his memory, some scrap of song or story;
+and inviting some fair Angélique, either with her father's
+permission or without, to attend the dissection of anauthor, upon
+whom he was to discourse. He soon gave proofs of this to Mary
+Ashburton.
+
+"What books have we here for afternoon reading?" said Flemming,
+taking a volume from the parlour table, when they had returned from
+the dining-room. "O, it is Uhland's Poems. Have you read any thing
+of his? He and Tieck are the best living poets of Germany. They
+dispute the palm of superiority. Let me give you a lesson in German,
+this afternoon, Miss Ashburton; so that no one may accuse you of
+'omitting the sweet benefit of time, to clothe your age with
+angel-like perfection.' I have opened at random upon the ballad of
+the Black Knight. You repeat the German after me, and I will
+translate to you. Pfingsten war, das Fest der Freude!"
+
+"I should never persuade my unwilling lips to pronounce such
+sounds. So I beg you not to perplex me with your German, but read me
+the ballad in English."
+
+"Well, then, listen. I will improvise a translation for your own
+particular benefit.
+
+"'T was Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,
+
+When woods and fields put off all sadness.
+
+Thus began the King and spake;
+
+'So from the halls
+
+Of ancient Hofburg's walls,
+
+A luxuriant Spring shall break.'
+
+"Drums and trumpets echo loudly,
+
+Wave the crimson banners proudly.
+
+From balcony the King looked on;
+
+In the play of spears,
+
+Fell all the cavaliers,
+
+Before the monarch's stalwart son.
+
+"To the barrier of the fight,
+
+Rode at last a sable Knight.
+
+'Sir Knight! your name and scutcheon, say!'
+
+'Should I speak it here,
+
+Ye would stand aghast with fear;
+
+Am a Prince of mighty sway!'
+
+"When he rode into the lists,
+
+The arch of heaven grew black with mists,
+
+And the castle 'gan to rock.
+
+At the first blow,
+
+Fell the youth from saddle-bow,
+
+Hardly rises from the shock.
+
+"Pipe and viol call the dances,
+
+Torch-light through the high halls glances;
+
+Waves a mighty shadow in.
+
+With manner bland
+
+Doth ask the maiden's hand,
+
+Doth with her the dance begin.
+
+"Danced in sable iron sark,
+
+Danced a measure weird and dark,
+
+Coldly clasped her limbs around.
+
+From breast and hair
+
+Down fall from her the fair
+
+Flowerets wilted to the ground.
+
+"To the sumptuous banquet came
+
+Every Knight and every Dame.
+
+'Twixt son and daughter all distraught,
+
+With mournful mind
+
+The ancient King reclined,
+
+Gazed at them in silent thought.
+
+"Pale the children both did look,
+
+But the guest a beaker took;
+
+'Golden wine will make you whole!"
+
+The children drank,
+
+Gave many a courteous thank;
+
+'O that draught was very cool!'
+
+"Each the father's breast embraces,
+
+Son and daughter; and their faces
+
+Colorless grow utterly.
+
+Whichever way
+
+Looks the fear-struck father gray,
+
+He beholds his children die.
+
+" 'Woe! the blessed children both,
+
+Takest thou in the joy of youth;
+
+Take me, too, the joyless father!'
+
+Spake the Grim Guest,
+
+From his hollow, cavernous breast;
+
+'Roses in the spring I gather!'"
+
+"That is indeed a striking ballad!" said Miss Ashburton, "but
+rather too grim and ghostly for this dull afternoon."
+
+"It begins joyously enough with the feast of Pentecost, and the
+crimson banners at the old castle. Then the contrast is well
+managed. The Knight in black mail, and the waving in of the mighty
+shadow in the dance, and the dropping of the faded flowers, are all
+strikingly presented to the imagination. However, it tellsits own
+story, and needs no explanation. Here is something in a different
+vein, though still melancholy. The Castle by the Sea. Shall I read
+it?"
+
+"Yes, if you like."
+
+Flemming read;
+
+"Hast thou seen that lordly castle,
+
+That Castle by the Sea?
+
+Golden and red above it
+
+The clouds float gorgeously.
+
+"And fain it would stoop downward
+
+To the mirrored wave below;
+
+And fain it would soar upward
+
+In the evening's crimson glow.
+
+" 'Well have I seen that castle,
+
+That Castle by the Sea,
+
+And the moon above it standing,
+
+And the mist rise solemnly.'
+
+"The winds and the waves of ocean,
+
+Had they a merry chime?
+
+Didst thou hear, from those lofty chambers,
+
+The harp and the minstrel's rhyme?
+
+" 'The winds and the waves of ocean,
+
+They rested quietly,
+
+But I heard on the gale a sound of wail,
+
+And tears came to my eye.'
+
+"And sawest thou on the turrets
+
+The King and his royal bride?
+
+And the wave of their crimson mantles?
+
+And the golden crown of pride?
+
+"Led they not forth in rapture
+
+A beauteous maiden there?
+
+Resplendent as the morning sun,
+
+Beaming with golden hair?
+
+" 'Well saw I the ancient parents,
+
+Without the crown of pride;
+
+They were moving slow, in weeds of woe,
+
+No maiden was by their side!'
+
+How do you like that?"
+
+"It is very graceful, and pretty. But Uhland seems to leave a
+great deal to his reader's imagination. All his readers should be
+poets themselves, or they will hardly comprehend him. I confess,
+Ihardly understand the passage where he speaks of the castle's
+stooping downward to the mirrored wave below, and then soaring
+upward into the gleaming sky. I suppose, however, he wishes to
+express the momentary illusion we experience at beholding a perfect
+reflection of an old tower in the sea, and look at it as if it were
+not a mere shadow in the water; and yet the real tower rises far
+above, and seems to float in the crimson evening clouds. Is that the
+meaning?"
+
+"I should think it was. To me it is all a beautiful cloud
+landscape, which I comprehend and feel, and yet should find some
+difficulty perhaps in explaining."
+
+"And why need one always explain? Some feelings are quite
+untranslatable. No language has yet been found for them. They gleam
+upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet, when
+we bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason,
+lose their beauty, all at once; just as glow-worms, which gleam with
+such a spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in
+where the candlesare lighted, are found to be only worms, like so
+many others."
+
+"Very true. We ought sometimes to be content with feeling. Here,
+now, is an exquisite piece, which soothes one like the fall of
+evening shadows,--like the dewy coolness of twilight after a sultry
+day. I shall not give you a bald translation of my own, because I
+have laid up in my memory another, which, though not very literal,
+equals the original in beauty. Observe how finely it commences.
+
+"Many a year is in its grave,
+
+Since I crossed this restless wave;
+
+And the evening, fair as ever,
+
+Shines on ruin, rock, and river.
+
+"Then, in this same boat, beside,
+
+Sat two comrades old and tried;
+
+One with all a father's truth,
+
+One with all the fire of youth.
+
+"One on earth in silence wrought,
+
+And his grave in silence sought;
+
+But the younger, brighter form
+
+Passed in battle and in storm!
+
+"So, whene'er I turn my eye
+
+Back upon the days gone by,
+
+Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me,--
+
+Friends, who closed their course before me.
+
+"Yet what binds us, friend to friend,
+
+But that soul with soul can blend?
+
+Soul-like were those hours of yore;
+
+Let us walk in soul once more!
+
+"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee;
+
+Take,--I give it willingly;
+
+For, invisibly to thee,
+
+Spirits twain have crossed with me!"
+
+"O, that is beautiful,--'beautiful exceedingly!' Who translated
+it?"
+
+"I do not know. I wish I could find him out. It is certainly
+admirably done; though in the measure of the original there is
+something like the rocking motion of a boat, which is not preserved
+in the translation."
+
+"And is Uhland always so soothing and spiritual?"
+
+"Yes, he generally looks into the spirit-world. I am now trying
+to find here a little poem on the Death of a Country Clergyman; in
+which he introduces a beautiful picture. But I cannot turn to it. No
+matter. He describes the spirit of the good old man, returning to
+earth on a bright summer morning, and standing amid the golden corn
+and the red and blue flowers, and mildly greeting the reapers as of
+old. The idea is beautiful, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, very beautiful!"
+
+"But there is nothing morbid in Uhland's mind. He is always fresh
+and invigorating, like a breezy morning. In this he differs entirely
+from such writers as Salis and Matthisson."
+
+"And who are they?"
+
+"Two melancholy gentlemen to whom life was only a Dismal Swamp,
+upon whose margin they walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their
+hands, sobbing and sighing, and making signals to Death, to come and
+ferry them over the lake. And now their spirits stand in the green
+fields of German song, like two weeping-willows, bending over
+agrave. To read their poems, is like wandering through a village
+churchyard on a summer evening, reading the inscription upon the
+grave-stones, and recalling sweet images of the departed; while
+above you,
+
+'Hark! in the holy grove of palms,
+
+Where the stream of life runs free,
+
+Echoes, in the angels' psalms,
+
+'Sister spirit! hail to thee!'"
+
+"How musically those lines flow! Are they Matthisson's!"
+
+"Yes; and they do indeed flow musically. I wish I had his poems
+here. I should like to read to you his Elegy on the Ruins of an
+Ancient Castle. It is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. You have been at
+Baden-Baden?
+
+"Yes; last summer."
+
+"And have not forgotten--"
+
+"The old castle? Of course not. What a magnificent ruin it
+is!"
+
+"That is the scene of Matthisson's Poem, andseems to have filled
+the melancholy bard with more than wonted inspiration."
+
+"I should like very much to see the poem, I remember that old
+ruin with so much delight."
+
+"I am sorry I have not a translation of it for you. Instead of it
+I will give you a sweet and mournful poem from Salis. It is called
+the Song of the Silent Land.
+
+"Into the Silent Land!
+
+Ah! who shall lead us thither!
+
+Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,
+
+And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
+
+Who leads us with a gentle hand,
+
+Thither, oh, thither.
+
+Into the Silent Land?
+
+"Into the Silent Land!
+
+To you, ye boundless regions
+
+Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions
+
+Of beauteous souls! Eternity's own band!
+
+Who in Life's battle firm doth stand,
+
+Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms
+
+Into the Silent Land!
+
+"O Land! O Land!
+
+For all the broken-hearted
+
+The mildest herald by our fate allotted,
+
+Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
+
+To lead us with a gentle hand
+
+Into the land of the great departed,
+
+Into the Silent Land!
+
+Is not that a beautiful poem?"
+
+Mary Ashburton made no answer. She had turned away to hide her
+tears. Flemming wondered, that Berkley could say she was not
+beautiful. Still he was rather pleased than offended at it. He felt
+at that moment how sweet a thing it would be to possess one, who
+should seem beautiful to him alone, and yet to him be more beautiful
+than all the world beside! How bright the world became to him at
+that thought! It was like one of those paintings in which all the
+light streams from the face of the Virgin. O, there is nothing
+holier in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of
+love,--the first fluttering of its silken wings; the first rising
+sound and breath of thatwind, which is so soon to sweep through the
+soul, to purify or to destroy!
+
+Old histories tell us, that the great Emperor Charlemagne stamped
+his edicts with the hilt of his sword. The greater Emperor, Death,
+stamps his with the blade; and they are signed and executed with the
+same stroke. Flemming received that night a letter from Heidelberg,
+which told him, that Emma of Ilmenau was dead. The fate of this poor
+girl affected him deeply; and he said in his heart;
+
+"Father in Heaven! Why was the lot of this weak and erring child
+so hard! What had she done, to be so tempted in her weakness, and
+perish? Why didst thou suffer her gentle affections to lead her thus
+astray?"
+
+And, through the silence of the awful midnight, the voice of an
+avalanche answered from the distant mountains, and seemed to
+say;
+
+"Peace! peace! Why dost thou question God's providence!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. TAKE CARE!
+
+
+
+Fair is the valley of Lauterbrunnen with its green meadows and
+overhanging cliffs. The ruined castle of Unspunnen stands like an
+armed warder at the gate of the enchanted land. In calm serenity the
+snowy mountains rise beyond. Fairer than the Rock of Balmarusa, you
+frowning precipice looks down upon us; and, from the topmost cliff,
+the white pennon of the Brook of Dust shimmers and waves in the
+sunny air!
+
+It was a bright, beautiful morning after nightrain. Every dewdrop
+and raindrop had a whole heaven within it; and so had the heart of
+Paul Flemming, as, with Mrs. Ashburton and her dark-eyed daughter,
+he drove up the Valley of Lauter-brunnen,--the Valley of
+Fountains-Only.
+
+"How beautiful the Jungfrau looks this morning!" exclaimed he,
+looking at Mary Ashburton.
+
+She thought he meant the mountain, and assented. But he meant her
+likewise.
+
+"And the mountains, beyond," he continued; "the Monk and the
+Silver-horn, the Wetter-horn the Schreck-horn, and the Schwarz-horn,
+all those sublime apostles of Nature, whose sermons are avalanches!
+Did you ever behold anything more grand!"
+
+"O yes. Mont Blanc is more grand, when you behold it from the
+hills opposite. It was there that I was most moved by the
+magnificence of Swiss scenery. It was a morning like this; and the
+clouds, that were hovering about on their huge, shadowy wings, made
+the scene only the more magnificent. Before me lay the whole
+panorama of the Alps; pine forests standing dark and solemn at the
+base of the mountains; and half-way up a veil of mist; above which
+rose the snowy summits, and sharp needles of rock, which seemed to
+float in the air, like a fairy world. Then the glaciersstood on
+either side, winding down through the mountain ravines; and, high
+above all, rose the white, dome-like summit of Mont Blanc. And ever
+and anon from the shroud of mist came the awful sound of an
+avalanche, and a continual roar, as of the wind through a forest of
+pines, filled the air. It was the roar of the Arve and Aveiron,
+breaking from their icy fountains. Then the mists began to pass
+away; and it seemed as if the whole firmament were rolling together.
+It recalled to my mind that sublime passage in the Apocalypse; 'I
+saw a great white throne; and him that sat thereon; before whose
+face the heavens and the earth fled away, and found no place!' O, I
+cannot believe that upon this earth there is a more magnificent
+scene."
+
+"It must be grand, indeed," replied Flemming. "And those mighty
+glaciers,--huge monsters with bristling crests, creeping down into
+the valley! for it is said they really move."
+
+"Yes; it filled me with a strange sensation of awe to think of
+this. They seemed to me like the dragons of Northern Romance, which
+come down from the mountains and devour whole villages. A little
+hamlet in Chamouni was once abandoned by its inhabitants, terrified
+at the approach of the icy dragon. But is it possible you have never
+been at Chamouni?
+
+"Never. The great marvel still remains unseen by me."
+
+"Then how can you linger here so long? Were I in your place I
+would not lose an hour."
+
+These words passed over the opening blossoms of hope in the soul
+of Flemming, like a cold wind over the flowers in spring-time. He
+bore it as best he could, and changed the subject.
+
+I do not mean to describe the Valley of Lauterbrunnen, nor the
+bright day passed there. I know that my gentle reader is blessed
+with the divine gift of a poetic fancy; and can see already how the
+mountains rise, and the torrents fall, and the sweet valley lies
+between; and how, along the dusty road, the herdsman blows his horn,
+and travellers come and go in charabans, like Punch and Judy in a
+show-box. He knows already how romantic ladies sketch romantic
+scenes; while sweet gentlemen gather sweet flowers; and how cold
+meat tastes under the shadow of trees, and how time flies when we
+are in love, and the beloved one near. One little incident I must,
+however, mention, lest his fancy should not suggest it.
+
+Flemming was still sitting with the ladies, on the green slope
+near the Staubbach, or Brook of Dust, when a young man clad in
+green, came down the valley. It was a German student, with flaxen
+ringlets hanging over his shoulders, and a guitar in his hand. His
+step was free and elastic, and his countenance wore the joyous
+expression of youth and health. He approached the company with a
+courteous salutation; and, after the manner of travelling students,
+asked charity with the confident air of one unaccustomed to refusal.
+Nor was he refused in this instance. The presence of those we love
+makes us compassionate and generous. Flemming gave him a piece of
+gold; and after a short conversation he seated himself, at alittle
+distance on the grass, and began to play and sing. Wonderful and
+many were the sweet accords and plaintive sounds that came from that
+little instrument, touched by the student's hand. Every feeling of
+the human heart seemed to find an expression there, and awaken a
+kindred feeling in the hearts of those who heard him. He sang sweet
+German songs, so full of longing, and of pleasing sadness, and hope
+and fear, and passionate desire, and soul-subduing sorrow, that the
+tears came into Mary Ashburton's eyes, though she understood not the
+words he sang. Then his countenance glowed with triumph, and he beat
+the strings like a drum, and sang;
+
+"O, how the drum beats so loud!
+
+Close beside me in the fight,
+
+My dying brother says, Good Night!
+
+And the cannon's awful breath
+
+Screams the loud halloo of Death!
+
+And the drum,
+
+And the drum,
+
+Beats so loud!"
+
+Many were the words of praise, when the young musician ended;
+and, as he rose to depart, they still entreated for one song more.
+Whereupon he played a lively prelude; and, looking full into
+Flemming's face, sang with a pleasant smile, and still in German,
+this little song.
+
+"I KNOW a maiden fair to see,
+
+Take care!
+
+She can both false and friendly be,
+
+Beware! Beware!
+
+Trust her not,
+
+She is fooling thee!
+
+"She has two eyes, so soft and brown,
+
+Take care!
+
+She gives a side-glance and looks down,
+
+Beware! Beware!
+
+Trust her not,
+
+She is fooling thee!
+
+"And she has hair of a golden hue,
+
+Take care!
+
+And what she says, it is not true,
+
+Beware! Beware!
+
+Trust her not,
+
+She is fooling thee!
+
+"She has a bosom as white as snow,
+
+Take care!
+
+She knows how much it is best to show,
+
+Beware! Beware!
+
+Trust her not,
+
+She is fooling thee!
+
+"She gives thee a garland woven fair,
+
+Take care!
+
+It is a fool's cap for thee to wear,
+
+Beware! Beware!
+
+Trust her not,
+
+She is fooling thee!"
+
+The last stanza he sung in a laughing, triumphant tone, which
+resounded above the loud clang of his guitar, like the jeering laugh
+of Till Eulenspiegel. Then slinging his guitar over his shoulder, he
+took off his green cap, and made a leg to the ladies, in the style
+of Gil Blas; waved his hand in the air, and walked quickly down the
+valley, singing "Adé! Adé! Adé!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.
+
+
+
+The power of magic in the Middle Ages created monsters, who
+followed the unhappy magician everywhere. The power of Love in all
+ages creates angels, who likewise follow the happy or unhappy lover
+everywhere, even in his dreams. By such an angel was Paul Flemming
+now haunted, both when he waked and when he slept. He walked as in a
+dream; and was hardly conscious of the presence of those around him.
+A sweet face looked at him from every page of every book he read;
+and it was the face of Mary Ashburton! a sweet voice spake to him in
+every sound he heard; and it was the voice of Mary Ashburton! Day
+and night succeeded each other, with pleasant interchange of light
+and darkness; but to him thepassing of time was only as a dream.
+When he arose in the morning, he thought only of her, and wondered
+if she were yet awake; and when he lay down at night he thought only
+of her, and how, like the Lady Christabel,
+
+"Her gentle limbs she did undress,
+
+And lay down in her loveliness."
+
+And the livelong day he was with her, either in reality or in
+day-dreams, hardly less real; for, in each delirious vision of his
+waking hours, her beauteous form passed like the form of Beatrice
+through Dante's heaven; and, as he lay in the summer afternoon, and
+heard at times the sound of the wind in the trees, and the sound of
+Sabbath bells ascending up to heaven, holy wishes and prayers
+ascended with them from his inmost soul, beseeching that he might
+not love in vain! And whenever, in silence and alone, he looked into
+the silent, lonely countenance of Night, he recalled the impassioned
+lines of Plato;--
+
+"Lookest thou at the stars? If I were heaven,
+
+With all the eyes of heaven would I look down on thee!"
+
+O how beautiful it is to love! Even thou, that sneerest at this
+page, and laughest in cold indifference or scorn if others are near
+thee, thou, too, must acknowledge its truth when thou art alone; and
+confess, that a foolish world is prone to laugh in public, at what
+in private it reverences, as one of the highest impulses of our
+nature,--namely, Love!
+
+One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our
+affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken,
+wounded tendrils for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to
+heal it; and there is none but the love of its kind,--none but the
+affection of a human heart! Thus the wounded, broken affections of
+Flemming began to lift themselves from the dust and cling around
+this new object. Days and weeks passed; and, like the Student
+Crisostomo, he ceased to love because he began to adore. And with
+this adoration mingled the prayer, that, in that hour when the world
+is still, and the voices that praise are mute, and reflection cometh
+like twilight, and themaiden, in her day-dreams, counted the number
+of her friends, some voice in the sacred silence of her thoughts
+might whisper his name! And was it indeed so? Did any voice in the
+sacred silence of her thoughts whisper his name?--We shall soon
+learn.
+
+They were sitting together one morning, on the green, flowery
+meadow, under the ruins of Burg Unspunnen. She was sketching the
+ruins. The birds were singing one and all, as if there were no
+aching hearts, no sin nor sorrow, in the world. So motionless was
+the bright air, that the shadow of the trees lay engraven on the
+grass. The distant snow-peaks sparkled in the sun, and nothing
+frowned, save the square tower of the old ruin above them.
+
+"What a pity it is," said the lady, as she stopped to rest her
+weary fingers; "what a pity it is, that there is no old tradition
+connected with this ruin."
+
+"I will make you one, if you wish," said Flemming.
+
+"Can you make old traditions?"
+
+"O yes; I made three the other day for the Rhine, and one very
+old one for the Black Forest. A lady with dishevelled hair; a robber
+with a horrible slouched hat; and a night-storm among the roaring
+pines."
+
+"Delightful! Do make one for me."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure. Where will you have the scene? Here,
+or in the Black Forest?"
+
+"In the Black Forest, by all means? Begin."
+
+"First promise not to interrupt me. If you snap the golden
+threads of thought, they will float away on the air like gossamer
+threads, and I shall never be able to recover them."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"Listen, then, to the Tradition of 'The Fountain of Oblivion.'
+"
+
+"Begin."
+
+Flemming was reclining on the flowery turf, at the lady's feet,
+looking up with dreamy eyes into her sweet face, and then into the
+leaves of the linden-trees overhead.
+
+"Gentle Lady! Dost thou remember the linden-trees of Bülach,
+those tall and stately trees, with velvet down upon their shining
+leaves and rustic benches underneath their overhanging eaves! A
+leafy dwelling, fit to be the home of elf or fairy, where first I
+told my love to thee, thou cold and stately Hermione! A little
+peasant girl stood near, and listened all the while, with eyes of
+wonder and delight, and an unconscious smile, to hear the stranger
+still speak on in accents deep yet mild,--none else was with us in
+that hour, save God and that peasant child!"
+
+"Why, it is in rhyme!"
+
+"No, no! the rhyme is only in your imagination. You promised not
+to interrupt me, and you have already snapped asunder the gossamer
+threads of as sweet a dream as was ever spun from a poet's
+brain."
+
+"It certainly did rhyme!"
+
+"This was the reverie of the Student Hieronymus, as he sat at
+midnight in his chamber, with his hands clasped together, and
+resting upon anopen volume, which he should have been reading. His
+pale face was raised, and the pupils of his eyes dilated as if the
+spirit-world were open before him, and some beauteous vision were
+standing there, and drawing the student's soul through his eyes up
+into Heaven, as the evening sun through parting summer-clouds, seems
+to draw into its bosom the vapors of the earth. O, it was a sweet
+vision! I can see it before me now!
+
+"Near the student stood an antique bronze lamp, with strange
+figures carved upon it. It was a magic lamp, which once belonged to
+the Arabian astrologer El Geber, in Spain. Its light was beautiful
+as the light of stars; and, night after night, as the lonely wight
+sat alone and read in his lofty tower, through the mist, and mirk,
+and dropping rain, it streamed out into the darkness, and was seen
+by many wakeful eyes. To the poor Student Hieronymus it was a
+wonderful Aladdin's Lamp; for in its flame a Divinity revealed
+herself unto him, and showed him treasures. Whenever he opened a
+ponderous, antiquatedtome, it seemed as if some angel opened for him
+the gates of Paradise; and already he was known in the city as
+Hieronymus the Learned.
+
+"But, alas! he could read no more. The charm was broken. Hour
+after hour he passed with his hands clasped before him, and his fair
+eyes gazing at vacancy. What could so disturb the studies of this
+melancholy wight? Lady, he was in love! Have you ever been in love?
+He had seen the face of the beautiful Hermione; and as, when we have
+thoughtlessly looked at the sun, our dazzled eyes, though closed,
+behold it still; so he beheld by day and by night the radiant image
+of her upon whom he had too rashly gazed. Alas! he was unhappy; for
+the proud Hermione disdained the love of a poor student, whose only
+wealth was a magic lamp. In marble halls, and amid the gay crowd
+that worshipped her, she had almost forgotten that such a being
+lived as the Student Hieronymus. The adoration of his heart had been
+to her only as the perfume of a wild flower, which she had
+carelessly crushedwith her foot in passing. But he had lost all; for
+he had lost the quiet of his thoughts; and his agitated soul
+reflected only broken and distorted images of things. The world
+laughed at the poor student, who, in his torn and threadbare
+cassock, dared to lift his eyes to the Lady Hermione; while he sat
+alone, in his desolate chamber, and suffered in silence. He
+remembered many things, which he would fain forget; but which, if he
+had forgotten them, he would wish again to remember. Such were the
+linden-trees of Bülach, under whose pleasant shade he had told his
+love to Hermione. This was the scene which he wished most to forget,
+yet loved most to remember; and of this he was now dreaming, with
+his hands clasped upon his book, and that kind of music in his
+thoughts, which you, Lady, mistook for rhyme.
+
+"Suddenly the cathedral clock struck twelve with a melancholy
+clang. It roused the Student Hieronymus from his dream; and rang in
+his ears, like the iron hoofs of the steeds of Time. Themagic hour
+had come, when the Divinity of the lamp most willingly revealed
+herself to her votary. The bronze figures seemed alive; a white
+cloud rose from the flame and spread itself through the chamber,
+whose four walls dilated into magnificent cloud vistas; a fragrance,
+as of wild-flowers, filled the air; and a dreamy music, like
+distant, sweetchiming bells, announced the approach of the midnight
+Divinity. Through his streaming tears the heart-broken Student
+beheld her once more descending a pass in the snowy cloud-mountains,
+as, at evening, the dewy Hesperus comes from the bosom of the mist,
+and assumes his station in the sky. At her approach, his spirit grew
+more calm; for her presence was, to his feverish heart, like a
+tropical night,--beautiful and soothing and invigorating. At length
+she stood before him revealed in all her beauty; and he comprehended
+the visible language of her sweet but silent lips; which seemed to
+say;--'What would the Student Hieronymus to-night?'--'Peace!' he
+answered, raising his clasped hands, and smiling through histears.
+'The Student Hieronymus imploreth peace!' 'Then go,' said the
+spirit, 'go to the Fountain of Oblivion in the deepest solitude of
+the Black Forest, and cast this scroll into its waters; and thou
+shalt be at peace once more. Hieronymus opened his arms to embrace
+the Divinity, for her countenance assumed the features of Hermione;
+but she vanished away; the music ceased; the gorgeous cloud-land
+sank and fell asunder; and the student was alone within the four
+bare walls of his chamber. As he bowed his head downward, his eye
+fell upon a parchment scroll, which was lying beside the lamp. Upon
+it was written only the name of Hermione!
+
+"The next morning Hieronymus put the scroll into his bosom, and
+went his way in search of the Fountain of Oblivion. A few days
+brought him to the skirts of the Black Forest. He entered, not
+without a feeling of dread, that land of shadows; and passed onward
+under melancholy pines and cedars, whose branches grew abroad and
+mingled together, and, as they swayed up and down, filled the air
+with solemn twilight and a sound of sorrow. As he advanced into the
+forest, the waving moss hung, like curtains, from the branches
+overhead, and more and more shut out the light of heaven; and he
+knew that the Fountain of Oblivion was not far off. Even then the
+sound of falling waters was mingling with the roar of the pines
+overhead; and ere long he came to a river, moving in solemn majesty
+through the forest, and falling with a dull, leaden sound into a
+motionless and stagnant lake, above which the branches of the forest
+met and mingled, forming perpetual night. This was the Fountain of
+Oblivion.
+
+"Upon its brink the student paused, and gazed into the dark
+waters with a steadfast look. They were limpid waters, dark with
+shadows only. And as he gazed, he beheld, far down in their silent
+depths, dim and ill-defined outlines, wavering to and fro, like the
+folds of a white garment in the twilight. Then more distinct and
+permanent shapes arose;--shapes familiar to his mind, yet forgotten
+and remembered again, as the fragmentsof a dream; till at length,
+far, far below him he beheld the great city of the Past, with silent
+marble streets, and moss-grown walls, and spires uprising with a
+wave-like, flickering motion. And amid the crowd that thronged those
+streets, he beheld faces once familiar and dear to him; and heard
+sorrowful, sweet voices, singing; 'O forget us not! forget us not!'
+and then the distant, mournful sound of funeral bells, that were
+tolling below, in the city of the Past. But in the gardens of that
+city, there were children playing, and among them, one who wore his
+features, as they had been in childhood. He was leading a little
+girl by the hand, and caressed her often, and adorned her with
+flowers. Then, like a dream, the scene changed, and the boy had
+grown older, and stood alone, gazing into the sky; and, as he gazed,
+his countenance changed again, and Hieronymus beheld him, as if it
+had been his own image in the clear water; and before him stood a
+beauteous maiden, whose face was like the face of Hermione, and he
+feared lest the scroll had fallen into the water, as he bent overit.
+Starting as from a dream he put his hand into his bosom and breathed
+freely again, when he found the scroll still there. He drew it
+forth, and read the blessed name of Hermione, and the city beneath
+him vanished away, and the air grew fragrant as with the breath of
+May-flowers, and a light streamed through the shadowy forest and
+gleamed upon the lake; and the Student Hieronymus pressed the dear
+name to his lips and exclaimed with streaming eyes; 'O, scorn me as
+thou wilt, still, still will I love thee; and thy name shall
+irradiate the gloom of my life, and make the waters of Oblivion
+smile!' And the name was no longer Hermione, but was changed to
+Mary; and the Student Hieronymus--is lying at your feet! O, gentle
+Lady!
+
+'I did hear you talk
+
+Far above singing; after you were gone
+
+I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched
+
+What stirred it so! Alas! I found it love."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A TALK ON THE STAIRS.
+
+
+
+No! I will not describe that scene; nor how pale the stately lady
+sat on the border of the green, sunny meadow! The hearts of some
+women tremble like leaves at every breath of love which reaches
+them, and then are still again. Others, like the ocean, are moved
+only by the breath of a storm, and not so easily lulled to rest. And
+such was the proud heart of Mary Ashburton. It had remained unmoved
+by the presence of this stranger; and the sound of his footsteps and
+his voice excited in it no emotion. He had deceived himself!
+Silently they walked homeward through the green meadow. The very
+sunshine was sad; and the rising wind, through the old ruin above
+them, sounded in his ears like a hollow laugh!
+
+Flemming went straight to his chamber. On the way, he passed the
+walnut trees under which he had first seen the face of Mary
+Ashburton. Involuntarily he closed his eyes. They were full of
+tears. O, there are places in this fair world, which we never wish
+to see again, however dear they may be to us! The towers of the old
+Franciscan convent never looked so gloomily as then, though the
+bright summer sun was shining full upon them.
+
+In his chamber he found Berkley. He was looking out of the
+window, whistling.
+
+"This evening I leave Interlachen forever," said Flemming, rather
+abruptly. Berkley stared.
+
+"Indeed! Pray what is the matter? You look as pale as a
+ghost!"
+
+"And have good reason to look pale," replied Flemming bitterly.
+"Hoffmann says, in one of his note-books, that, on the eleventh of
+March, at half past eight o'clock, precisely, he was an ass. That is
+what I was this morning at half past ten o'clock, precisely, and am
+now, and I suppose always shall be."
+
+He tried to laugh, but could not. He then related to Berkley the
+whole story, from beginning to end.
+
+"This is a miserable piece of business!" exclaimed Berkley, when
+he had finished. "Strange enough! And yet I have long ceased to
+marvel at the caprices of women. Did not Pan captivate the chaste
+Diana? Did not Titania love Nick Bottom, with his ass's head? Do you
+think that maidens' eyes are no longer touched with the juice of
+love-in-idleness! Take my word for it, she is in love with somebody
+else. There must be some reason for this. No; women never have any
+reasons, except their will. But never mind. Keep a stout heart. Care
+killed a cat. After all,--what is she? Who is she? Only a--"
+
+"Hush! hush," exclaimed Flemming, in great excitement. "Not one
+word more, I beseech you. Do not think to console me, by
+depreciating her. She is very dear to me still; a beautiful,
+high-minded, noble woman."
+
+"Yes," answered Berkley; "that is the waywith you all, you young
+men. You see a sweet face, or a something, you know not what, and
+flickering reason says, Good night; amen to common sense. The
+imagination invests the beloved object with a thousand superlative
+charms; furnishes her with all the purple and fine linen, all the
+rich apparel and furniture, of human nature. I did the same when I
+was young. I was once as desperately in love as you are now; and
+went through all the
+
+'Delicious deaths, soft exhalations
+
+Of soul; dear and divine annihilations,
+
+A thousand unknown rites
+
+Of joys, and rarified delights.'
+
+I adored and was rejected. 'You are in love with certain
+attributes,' said the lady. 'Damn your attributes, Madam,' said I;
+'I know nothing of attributes.' 'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you
+have been drinking.' So we parted. She was married afterwards to
+another, who knew something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen
+her once since, and only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I
+hate a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am she did not marry me.
+One of these days, you will be glad you have been rejected. Take my
+word for it."
+
+"All that does not prevent my lot from being a very melancholy
+one!" said Flemming sadly.
+
+"O, never mind the lot," cried Berkley laughing, "so long as you
+don't get Lot's wife. If the cucumber is bitter, throw it away, as
+the philosopher Marcus Antoninus says, in his Meditations. Forget
+her, and all will be as if you had not known her."
+
+"I shall never forget her," replied Flemming, rather solemnly.
+"Not my pride, but my affections, are wounded; and the wound is too
+deep ever to heal. I shall carry it with me always. I enter no more
+into the world, but will dwell only in the world of my own thoughts.
+All great and unusual occurrences, whether of joy or sorrow, lift us
+above this earth; and we should do well always to preserve this
+elevation. Hitherto I have not done so. But now I will no more
+descend; I will sit apart and above the world, with my mournful, yet
+holy thoughts."
+
+"Whew! You had better go into society; the whirl and delirium
+will cure you in a week. If you find a lady, who pleases you very
+much, and you wish to marry her, and she will not listen to such a
+horrid thing, I see but one remedy, which is to find another, who
+pleases you more, and who will listen to it."
+
+"No, my friend; you do not understand my character," said
+Flemming, shaking his head. "I love this woman with a deep, and
+lasting affection. I shall never cease to love her. This may be
+madness in me; but so it is. Alas and alas! Paracelsus of old wasted
+life in trying to discover its elixir, which after all turned out to
+be alcohol; and instead of being made immortal upon earth, he died
+drunk on the floor of a tavern. The like happens to many of us. We
+waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into
+love-potions, which after all do not immortalize, butonly intoxicate
+us. By Heaven! we are all of us mad."
+
+"But are you sure the case is utterly hopeless?"
+
+"Utterly! utterly!"
+
+"And yet I perceive you have not laid aside all hope. You still
+flatter yourself, that the lady's heart may change. The great secret
+of happiness consists not in enjoying, but in renouncing. But it is
+hard, very hard. Hope has as many lives as a cat or a king. I dare
+say you have heard the old Italian proverb, 'The King never dies.'
+But perhaps you have never heard, that, at the court of Naples,
+where the dead body of a monarch lies in state, his dinner is
+carried up to him as usual, and the court physician tastes it, to
+see that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear it out
+again, saying 'The King does not dine to-day.' Hope in our souls is
+King; and we also say, 'The King never dies.' Even when in reality
+he lies dead within us, in a kind of solemn mockery we offer him his
+accustomed food, but are constrainedto say, 'The King does not dine
+to-day.' It must be an evil day, indeed, when a king of Naples has
+no heart for his dinner! but you yourself are a proof, that the King
+never dies. You are feeding your King, although you say he is
+dead."
+
+"To show you, that I do not wish to cherish hope," replied
+Flemming, I shall leave Interlachen to-morrow morning. I am going to
+the Tyrol."
+
+"You are right," said Berkley; "there is nothing so good for
+sorrow as rapid motion in the open air. I shall go with you; though
+probably your conversation will not be very various; nothing but
+Edward and Kunigunde."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Go to Berlin, and you will find out. However, jesting apart, I
+will do all I can to cheer you, and make you forget the Dark Ladie,
+and this untoward accident."
+
+"Accident!" said Flemming. "This is no accident, but God's
+Providence, which brought us together, to punish me for my
+sins."
+
+"O, my friend," interrupted Berkley, "if you see the finger of
+Providence so distinctly in every act of your life, you will end by
+thinking yourself an Apostle and Envoy Extraordinary. I see nothing
+so very uncommon in what has happened to you."
+
+"What! not when our souls are so akin to each other! When we
+seemed so formed to be together,--to be one!"
+
+"I have often observed," replied Berkley coldly, "that those who
+are of kindred souls, rarely wed together; almost as rarely as those
+who are akin by blood. There seems, indeed, to be such a thing as
+spiritual incest. Therefore, mad lover, do not think to persuade
+thyself and thy scornful lady, that you have kindred souls; but
+rather the contrary; that you are much unlike; and each wanting in
+those qualities which most mark and distinguish the other. Trust me,
+thy courtship will then be more prosperous. But good morning. I must
+prepare for this sudden journey."
+
+On the following morning, Flemming and Berkleystarted on their
+way to Innsbruck, like Huon of Bordeaux and Scherasmin on their way
+to Babylon. Berkley's self-assumed duty was to console his
+companion; a duty which he performed like an old Spanish Matadora, a
+woman whose business was to attend the sick, and put her elbow into
+the stomach of the dying to shorten their agony.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+
+
+Epigraph
+
+"Mortal, they softly say,
+
+Peace to thy heart!
+
+We too, yes, mortal,
+
+Have been as thou art;
+
+Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed,
+
+Seeing in part,
+
+Tried, troubled, tempted,--
+
+Sustained,--as thou art."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A MISERERE.
+
+
+
+In the Orlando Innamorato, Malagigi, the necromancer, puts all
+the company to sleep by reading to them from a book. Some books have
+this power of themselves and need no necromancer. Fearing, gentle
+reader, that mine may be of this kind, I have provided these
+introductory chapters, from time to time, like stalls or Misereres
+in a church, with flowery canopies and poppy-heads over them, where
+thou mayest sit down and sleep.
+
+No,--the figure is not a bad one. This book does somewhat
+resemble a minster, in the Romanesque style, with pinnacles, and
+flying buttresses, and roofs,
+
+"Gargoyled with greyhounds, and with many lions
+
+Made of fine gold, with divers sundry dragons."
+
+You step into its shade and coolness out of the hot streets of
+life; a mysterious light streams through the painted glass of the
+marigold windows, staining the cusps and crumpled leaves of the
+window-shafts, and the cherubs and holy-water-stoups below. Here and
+there is an image of the Virgin Mary; and other images, "in divers
+vestures, called weepers, stand in housings made about the tomb";
+and, above all, swells the vast dome of heaven, with its
+star-mouldings, and the flaming constellations, like the mosaics in
+the dome of St. Peter's. Have you not heard funeral psalms from the
+chauntry? Have you not heard the sound of church-bells, as I
+promised; mysterious sounds from the Past and Future, as from the
+belfries outside the cathedral; even such a mournful, mellow, watery
+peal of bells, as is heard sometimes at sea, from cities afar off
+below the horizon?
+
+I know not how this Romanesque, and at times flamboyant, style of
+architecture may please thecritics. They may wish, perhaps, that I
+had omitted some of my many ornaments, my arabesques, and roses, and
+fantastic spouts, and Holy-Roods and Gallilee-steeples. But would it
+then have been Romanesque?
+
+But perhaps, gentle reader, thou art one of those, who think the
+days of Romance gone forever. Believe it not! O, believe it not!
+Thou hast at this moment in thy heart as sweet a romance as was ever
+written. Thou art not less a woman, because thou dost not sit aloft
+in a tower, with a tassel-gentle on thy wrist! Thou art not less a
+man, because thou wearest no hauberk, nor mail-sark, and goest not
+on horseback after foolish adventures! Nay, nay! Every one has a
+Romance in his own heart. All that has blessed or awed the world
+lies there; and
+
+"The oracle within him, that which lives,
+
+He must invoke and question,--not dead books,
+
+Not ordinances, not mould-rotten papers."
+
+Sooner or later some passages of every one's romance must be
+written, either in words or actions. They will proclaim the truth;
+for Truth is thought, which has assumed its appropriate garments,
+either of words or actions; while Falsehood is thought, which,
+disguised in words or actions not its own, comes before the blind
+old world, as Jacob came before the patriarch Isaac, clothed in the
+goodly raiment of his brother Esau. And the world, like the
+patriarch, is often deceived; for, though the voice is Jacob's
+voice, yet the hands are the hands of Esau, and the False takes away
+the birth-right and the blessing from the True. Hence it is, that
+the world so often lifts up its voice and weeps.
+
+That very pleasing and fanciful Chinese Romance, the Shadow in
+the Water, ends with the hero's marrying both the heroines. I hope
+my gentle reader feels curious to know the end of this Romance,
+which is a shadow upon the earth; and see whether there be any
+marriage at all in it.
+
+That is the very point I am now thinking of, as I sit here at my
+pleasant chamber window, and enjoy the balmy air of a bright summer
+morning, and watch the motions of the golden robin, that sits on its
+swinging nest on the outermost, pendulous branch of yonder elm. The
+broad meadows and the steel-blue river remind me of the meadows of
+Unterseen, and the river Aar; and beyond them rise magnificent
+snow-white clouds, piled up like Alps. Thus the shades of Washington
+and William Tell seem to walk together on these Elysian Fields; for
+it was here, that in days long gone, our great Patriot dwelt; and
+yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy Alps, that they remind me
+irresistibly of the Swiss. Noble examples of a high purpose and a
+fixed will! Do they not move, Hyperion-like on high? Were they not,
+likewise, sons of Heaven and Earth?
+
+Nothing can be more lovely than these summer mornings; nor than
+the southern window at which I sit and write, in this old mansion,
+which is like an Italian Villa. But O, this
+lassitude,--thisweariness,--when all around me is so bright! I have
+this morning a singular longing for flowers; a wish to stroll among
+the roses and carnations, and inhale their breath, as if it would
+revive me. I wish I knew the man, who called flowers "the fugitive
+poetry of Nature." From this distance, from these scholastic
+shades,--from this leafy, blossoming, and beautiful Cambridge, I
+stretch forth my hand to grasp his, as the hand of a poet!--Yes;
+this morning I would rather stroll with him among the gay flowers,
+than sit here and write. I feel so weary!
+
+Old men with their staves, says the Spanish poet, are ever
+knocking at the door of the grave. But I am not old. The Spanish
+poet might have included the young also.--No matter! Courage, and
+forward! The Romance must be finished; and finished soon.
+
+O thou poor authorling! Reach a little deeper into the human
+heart! Touch those strings,--touch those deeper strings, and more
+boldly, or the notes will die away like whispers, and no earshall
+hear them, save thine own! And, to cheer thy solitary labor,
+remember, that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers
+upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark
+waters of Oblivion. They are out of sight; but without them no
+superstructure can stand secure!
+
+And now, Reader, since the sermon is over, and we are still
+sitting here in this Miserere, let us read aloud a page from the old
+parchment manuscript on the lettern before us; let us sing it
+through these dusky aisles, like a Gregorian Chant, and startle the
+sleeping congregation!
+
+"I have read of the great river Euripus, which ebbeth and floweth
+seven times a day, and with such violence, that it carrieth ships
+upon it with full sail, directly against the wind. Seven times in an
+hour ebbeth and floweth rash opinion, in the torrent of indiscreet
+and troublesome apprehensions; carrying critic calumny and
+squint-eyed detraction mainly against the wind of wisdom and
+judgment."
+
+In secula seculorum! Amen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CURFEW BELLS.
+
+
+
+Welcome Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the
+hand of a friend! Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice
+of a friend! O, there is something sublime in calm endurance,
+something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering
+without complaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better
+than success!
+
+The emperor Isaac Angelus made a treaty with Saladin, and tried
+to purchase the Holy Sepulchre with gold. Richard Lion-heart scorned
+such alliance, and sought to recover it by battle. Thus do weak
+minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try
+to purchase happiness at the expense of principle. But the resolute
+will of a strong man scorns such means; and struggles nobly with his
+foe, to achieve great deeds. Therefore, whosoever thou art that
+sufferest, try not to dissipate thy sorrow by the breath of the
+world, nor drown its voice in thoughtless merriment. It is a
+treacherous peace that is purchased by indulgence. Rather take this
+sorrow to thy heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall
+nourish thee till thou art strong again.
+
+The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the
+morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon, we trample them
+under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and
+deepening before us. Are not, then, the sorrows of childhood as dark
+as those of age? Are not the morning shadows of life as deep and
+broad as those of its evening? Yes; but morning shadows soon fade
+away, while those of evening reach forward into the night and mingle
+with the coming darkness. Man is begotten in delight and born in
+pain; and in these are the rapture and labor of his life
+fore-shadowed from the beginning. But thelife of man upon this fair
+earth is made up for the most part of little pains and little
+pleasures. The great wonder-flowers bloom but once in a
+lifetime.
+
+A week had already elapsed since the events recorded in the last
+chapter. Paul Flemming went his way, a melancholy man, "drinking the
+sweet wormwood of his sorrow." He did not rail at Providence and
+call it fate, but suffered and was silent. It is a beautiful trait
+in the lover's character, that he thinks no evil of the object
+loved. What he suffered was no swift storm of feeling, that passes
+away with a noise, and leaves the heart clearer; but a dark phantom
+had risen up in the clear night, and, like that of Adamastor, hid
+the stars; and if it ever vanished away for a season, still the deep
+sound of the moaning main would be heard afar, through many a dark
+and lonely hour. And thus he journeyed on, wrapped in desponding
+gloom, and mainly heedless of all things around him. His mind was
+distempered. That one face was always before him; that one voice
+forever saying;
+
+"You are not the Magician."
+
+Painful, indeed, it is to be misunderstood and undervalued by
+those we love. But this, too, in our life, must we learn to bear
+without a murmur; for it is a tale often repeated.
+
+There are persons in this world to whom all local associations
+are naught. The genius of the place speaks not to them. Even on
+battle-fields, where the voice of this genius is wont to be loudest,
+they hear only the sound of their own voices; they meet there only
+their own dull and pedantic thoughts, as the old grammarian Brunetto
+Latini met on the plain of Roncesvalles a poor student riding on a
+bay mule. This was not always the case with Paul Flemming, but it
+had become so now. He felt no interest in the scenery around him. He
+hardly looked at it. Even the difficult mountain-passes, where, from
+his rocky eyrie the eagle-eyed Tyrolese peasant had watched his foe,
+and the roaring, turbid torrent underneath, which had swallowed up
+the bloody corse, that fell from the rocks like a crushed
+worm, awakened no lively emotion in his breast. All around him seemed
+dreamy and vague; all within dim, as in a sun's eclipse. As the
+moon, whether visible or invisible, has power over the tides of the
+ocean, so the face of that lady, whether present or absent, had
+power over the tides of his soul; both by day and night, both waking
+and sleeping. In every pale face and dark eye he saw a resemblance
+to her; and what the day denied him in reality, the night gave him
+in dreams.
+
+"This is a strange, fantastic world," said Berkley, after a very
+long silence, during which the two travellers had been sitting each
+in his corner of the travelling carriage, wrapped in his own
+reflections. "A very strange, fantastic world; where each one
+pursues his own golden bubble, and laughs at his neighbour for doing
+the same. I have been thinking how a moral Linnæus would classify
+our race. I think he would divide it, not as Lord Byron did, into
+two great classes, the bores and those who are bored, but into
+three, namely; Happy Men, Lucky Dogs, and Miserable Wretches. This is
+more true and philosophical, though perhaps not quite so
+comprehensive. He is the Happy Man, who, blessed with modest ease, a
+wife and children,--sits enthroned in the hearts of his family, and
+knows no other ambition, than that of making those around him happy.
+But the Lucky Dog is he, who, free from all domestic cares, saunters
+up and down his room, in morning gown and slippers; drums on the
+window of a rainy day; and, as he stirs his evening fire, snaps his
+fingers at the world, and says, 'I have no wife nor children, good
+or bad, to provide for.' I had a friend, who is now no more. He was
+taken away in the bloom of life, by a very rapid--widow. He was by
+birth and by profession a beau,--born with a quizzing-glass and a
+cane. Cock of the walk, he flapped his wings, and crowed among the
+feathered tribe. But alas! a fair, white partlet has torn his crest
+out, and he shall crow no more. You will generally find him of a
+morning, smelling round a beef-cart, with domestic felicity written
+in every line of his countenance; and sometimes meet him in a
+cross-street at noon, hurrying homeward, with a beef-steak on a
+wooden skewer, or a fresh fish, with a piece of tarred twine run
+through its gills. In the evening he rocks the cradle, and gets up
+in the night when the child cries. Like a Goth, of the Dark Ages, he
+consults his wife on all mighty matters, and looks upon her as a
+being of more than human goodness and wisdom. In short, the ladies
+all say he is a very domestic man, and makes a good husband; which,
+under the rose, is only a more polite way of saying he is
+hen-pecked. He is a Happy Man. I have another dear friend, who is a
+sexagenary bachelor. He has one of those well-oiled dispositions,
+which turn upon the hinges of the world without creaking. The
+hey-day of life is over with him; but his old age is sunny and
+chirping; and a merry heart still nestles in his tottering frame,
+like a swallow that builds in a tumble-down chimney. He is a
+professed Squire of Dames. The rustle of a silk gown is music to his
+ears, and his imagination is continuallylantern-led by some
+will-with-a-wisp in the shape of a lady's stomacher. In his devotion
+to the fair sex,--the muslin, as he calls it,--he is the gentle
+flower of chivalry. It is amusing to see how quick he strikes into
+the scent of a lady's handkerchief. When once fairly in pursuit,
+there is no such thing as throwing him out. His heart looks out at
+his eye; and his inward delight tingles down to the tail of his
+coat. He loves to bask in the sunshine of a smile; when he can
+breathe the sweet atmosphere of kid gloves and cambric
+handkerchiefs, his soul is in its element; and his supreme delight
+is to pass the morning, to use his own quaint language, 'in making
+dodging calls, and wiggling round among the ladies!' He is a lucky
+dog!"
+
+"And as a specimen of the class of Miserable Wretches, I suppose
+you will take me," said Flemming, making an effort to enter into his
+friend's humor. "Certainly I am wretched enough. You may make me the
+stuffed bear,--the specimen of this class."
+
+"By no means," replied Berkley; "you are not reduced so low. He
+only is utterly wretched, who is the slave of his own passions, or
+those of others. This, I trust, will never be your condition. Why so
+wan and pale, fond lover? Do you remember Sir John Suckling's
+Song?
+
+'Why so wan and pale, fond lover;
+
+Pr'ythee why so pale?
+
+Will, if looking well can't move her,
+
+Looking ill prevail?
+
+Pr'ythee why so pale?
+
+'Why so dull and mute, young sinner;
+
+Pr'ythee why so mute?
+
+Will, if speaking well can't win her,
+
+Saying nothing do 't?
+
+Pr'ythee why so mute?
+
+'Quit, quit, for shame! this cannot move,
+
+This cannot take her!
+
+If of herself she do not love,
+
+Nothing will make her!
+
+The devil take her!'
+
+How do you like that?"
+
+"To you I say quit, quit for shame;" replied Flemming. "Why quote
+the songs of that witty and licentious age? Have you no better
+consolation to offer me? How many, many times must I tell you, that
+I bear the lady no ill-will. I do not blame her for not loving me. I
+desire her happiness, even at the sacrifice of my own."
+
+"That is generous in you, and deserves a better fate. But you are
+so figurative in all you say, that a stranger would think you had no
+real feeling,--and only fancied yourself in love."
+
+"Expression of feeling is different with different minds. It is
+not always simple. Some minds, when excited, naturally speak in
+figures and similitudes. They do not on that account feel less
+deeply. This is obvious in our commonest modes of speech. It depends
+upon the individual."
+
+"Kyrie Eleëson!"
+
+"Well, abuse my figures of speech as much as you please. What I
+insist upon is, that you shall not abuse the lady. When did you ever
+hear me breathe a whisper against her?"
+
+"Oho! Now you speak like Launce to his dog!"
+
+Their conversation, which had begun so merrily, was here suddenly
+interrupted by a rattling peal of thunder, that announced a
+near-approaching storm. It was late in the afternoon, and the whole
+heaven black with low, trailing clouds. Still blacker the storm came
+sailing up majestically from the southwest, with almost unbroken
+volleys of distant thunder. The wind seemed to be storming a cloud
+redoubt; and marched onward with dust, and the green banners of the
+trees flapping in the air, and heavy cannonading, and occasionally
+an explosion, like the blowing up of a powder-wagon. Mingled with
+this was the sound of thunder-bells from a village not far off. They
+were all ringing dolefully to ward off the thunderbolt. At the
+entrance of the village stood a large wooden crucifix; around which
+was a crowd of priests and peasants, kneeling in the wet grass, by
+the roadside, with their hands and eyes lifted toheaven, and praying
+for rain. Their prayer was soon answered.
+
+The travellers drove on with the driving wind and rain. They had
+come from Landeck, and hoped to reach Innsbruck before midnight.
+Night closed in, and Flemming fell asleep with the loud storm
+overhead, and at his feet the roaring Inn, a mountain torrent
+leaping onward as wild and restless, as when it first sprang from
+its cradle in the solitudes of Engaddin; meet emblem of himself,
+thus rushing through the night. His slumber was long, but broken;
+and at length he awoke in terror; for he heard a voice pronounce in
+his ear distinctly these words;
+
+"They have brought the dead body."
+
+They were driving by a churchyard at the entrance of a town; and
+among the tombs a dim lamp was burning before an image of the
+Virgin. It had a most unearthly appearance. Flemming almost feared
+to see the congregation of the dead go into the church and sing
+their midnight mass. He spoke to Berkley; but received no answer; he
+was in a deep sleep.
+
+"Then it was only a dream," said he to himself; "yet how distinct
+the voice was! O, if we had spiritual organs, to see and hear things
+now invisible and inaudible to us, we should behold the whole air
+filled with the departing souls of that vast multitude which every
+moment dies,--should behold them streaming up like thin vapors
+heaven-ward, and hear the startling blast of the archangel's trump
+sounding incessant through the universe and proclaiming the awful
+judgment day. Truly the soul departs not alone on its last journey,
+but spirits of its kind attend it, when not ministering angels; and
+they go in families to the unknown land! Neither in life nor in
+death are we alone."
+
+He slept again at intervals; and at length, though long after
+midnight, reached Innsbruck between sleeping and waking; his mind
+filled with dim recollections of the unspeakably dismal
+night-journey;--the climbing of hills, and plunging into dark
+ravines;--the momentary rattling of the wheels over paved streets of
+towns, and the succeeding hollow rolling and tramping on the
+wetearth;--the blackness of the night;--the thunder and lightning
+and rain; the roar of waters, leaping through deep chasms by the
+road-side, and the wind through the mountain-passes, sounding loud
+and long, like the irrepressible laughter of the gods.
+
+The travellers on the morrow lingered not long in Innsbruck. They
+did not fail, however, to visit the tomb of Maximilian in the
+Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross, and gaze with some admiration
+upon the twenty-eight gigantic bronze statues of Godfrey of
+Bouillon, and King Arthur and Ernest the Iron-man, and Frederick of
+the Empty Pockets, kings and heroes, and others, which stand leaning
+on their swords between the columns of the church, as if guarding
+the tomb of the dead. These statues reminded Flemming of the bronze
+giants, which strike the hours on the belfry of San Basso, in
+Venice, and of the flail-armed monsters, that guarded the gateway of
+Angulaffer's castle in Oberon. After gazing awhile at these
+motionless sentinels, they went forth, and strolled throughthe
+public gardens, with the jagged mountains right over their heads,
+and all around them tall, melancholy pines, like Tyrolese peasants,
+with shaggy hair; and at their feet the mad torrent of the Inn,
+sweeping with turbid waves through the midst of the town. In the
+afternoon they drove on towards Salzburg through the magnificent
+mountain-passes of Waidering and Unken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. SHADOWS ON THE WALL.
+
+
+
+On the following morning Flemming awoke in a chamber of the
+Golden Ship at Salzburg, just as the clock in the Dome-church
+opposite was striking ten. The window-shutters were closed, and the
+room nearly dark. He was lying on his back, with his hands crossed
+upon his breast, and his eyes looking up at the white curtains
+overhead. He thought them the white marble canopy of a tomb, and
+himself the marble statue, lying beneath. When the clock ceased
+striking, the eight and twenty gigantic bronze statues from the
+Church of Holy Rood in Innsbruck stalked into the chamber, and
+arranged themselves along the walls, which spread into dimly-lighted
+aisles and arches. On the painted windows he saw Interlachen,
+withits Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower of the ruins. In a
+pendent, overhead, stood the German student, as Saint Vitus; and on
+a lavatory, or basin of holy-water, below, sat a cherub, with the
+form and features of Berkley. Then the organ-pipes began to blow,
+and he heard the voices of an invisible choir chanting. And anon the
+gilded gates in the bronze screen before the chancel opened, and a
+bridal procession passed through. The bride was clothed in the garb
+of the Middle Ages; and held a book in her hand, with velvet covers,
+and golden clasps. It was Mary Ashburton. She looked at him as she
+passed. Her face was pale; and there were tears in her sweet eyes.
+Then the gates closed again; and one of the oaken poppy-heads over a
+carved stall, in the shape of an owl, flapped its broad wings, and
+hooted, "Towhit! to-whoo!" Then the whole scene changed; and he
+thought himself a monk's-head on a gutterspout; and it rained
+dismally; and Berkley was standing under with an umbrella,
+laughing!
+
+In other words, Flemming was in a ragingfever, and delirious. He
+remained in this state for a week. The first thing he was conscious
+of was hearing the doctor say to Berkley;
+
+"The crisis is passed. I now consider him out of danger."
+
+He then fell into a sweet sleep; the wild fever had swept away
+like an angry, red cloud, and the refreshing summer rain began to
+fall like dew upon the parched earth. Still another week; and
+Flemming was, "sitting clothed, and in his right mind." Berkley had
+been reading to him; and still held the book in his hand, with his
+fore-finger between the leaves. It was a volume of Hoffmann's
+writings.
+
+"How very strange it is," said he, "that you can hardly open the
+biography of any German author, but you will find it begin with an
+account of his grandfather. It will tell you how the venerable old
+man walked up and down the garden among the gay flowers, wrapped in
+his morning gown, which is likewise covered with flowers, and
+perhaps wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Oryou will find him
+sitting by the chimney-corner in the great chair, smoking his
+ancestral pipe, with shaggy eyebrows and eyes like birdsnests under
+the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nuremberg nutcracker's. The
+future poet climbs upon the old man's knees. His genius is not
+recognised yet. He is thought for the most part a dull boy. His
+father is an austere man, or perhaps dead. But the mother is still
+there, a sickly, saint-like woman, with knitting-work, and an elder
+sister, who has already been in love, and wears rings on her
+fingers;--
+
+'Death's heads, and such mementos,
+
+Her grandmother and worm-eaten aunts left to her,
+
+To tell her what her beauty must arrive at.'"
+
+"But this is not the case with the life of Hoffmann, if I
+recollect right."
+
+"No, not precisely. Instead of the grandfather we have the
+grandmother, a stately dame, who has long since shaken hands with
+the vanities of life. The mother, separated from her husband, is
+sick in mind and body, and flits to and fro, like a shadow. Then
+there is an affectionate maiden aunt; and an uncle, a retired judge,
+the terror of little boys,--the Giant Despair of this Doubting
+Castle in Koenigsberg; and occasionally the benign countenance of a
+venerable grand-uncle, whom Lamotte Fouqué called a hero of the
+olden time in morning gown and slippers, looks in at the door and
+smiles. In the upper story of the same house lived a poor boy with
+his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe herself to be the
+Virgin Mary, and her son the Saviour of the world. Wild fancies,
+likewise, were to sweep through the brain of that child. He was to
+meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his friend in after years, though as
+yet they knew nothing of each other. This was Werner, who has made
+some noise in German literature as the author of many wild
+Destiny-Dramas."
+
+"Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin."
+
+"Yes. He left Koenigsberg at twenty years of age, and passed the
+next eight years of his life in the Prussian-Polish Provinces, where
+he held some petty office under government; and took to himselfmany
+bad habits and a Polish wife. After this he was Music-Director at
+various German theatres, and led a wandering, wretched life for ten
+years. He then went to Berlin as Clerk of the Exchange, and there
+remained till his death, which took place some seven or eight years
+afterward."
+
+"Did you ever see him?"
+
+"I was in Berlin during his lifetime, and saw him frequently. I
+shall never forget the first time. It was at one of the æsthetic
+Teas, given by a literary lady Unter den Linden, where the lions
+were fed with convenient food, from tea and bread and butter, up to
+oysters and Rhine-wine. During the evening my attention was arrested
+by the entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild head of
+brown hair. His eyes were bright gray; and his thin lips closely
+pressed together with an expression of not unpleasing irony. This
+strangelooking personage began to bow his way through the crowd,
+with quick, nervous, hinge-like motions, much resembling those of a
+marionette. He had a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that
+although I understood German well enough for ordinary purposes, I
+could not understand one half he said. Ere long he had seated
+himself at the piano-forte, and was improvising such wild, sweet
+fancies, that the music of one's dreams is not more sweet and wild.
+Then suddenly some painful thought seemed to pass over his mind, as
+if he imagined, that he was there to amuse the company. He rose from
+the piano-forte, and seated himself in another part of the room;
+where he began to make grimaces, and talk loud while others were
+singing. Finally he disappeared, like a hobgoblin, laughing, 'Ho!
+ho! ho!' I asked a person beside me who this strange being was.
+'That was Hoffmann,' was the answer. 'The Devil!' said I. 'Yes,'
+continued my informant; 'and if you should follow him now, you would
+see him plunge into an obscure and unfrequented wine-cellar, and
+there, amid boon companions, with wine and tobacco-smoke, and quirks
+and quibbles, and quaint, witty sayings, turn the dim night into
+glorious day.'"
+
+"What a strange being!"
+
+"I once saw him at one of his night-carouses. He was sitting in
+his glory, at the head of the table; not stupidly drunk, but warmed
+with wine, which made him madly eloquent, as the Devil's Elixir did
+the Monk Medardus. There, in the full tide of witty discourse, or,
+if silent, his gray, hawk eye flashing from beneath his matted hair,
+and taking note of all that was grotesque in the company round him,
+sat this unfortunate genius, till the day began to dawn. Then he
+found his way homeward, having, like the souls of the envious in
+Purgatory, his eyelids sewed together with iron wire;--though his
+was from champagne bottles. At such hours he wrote his wild,
+fantastic tales. To his excited fancy everything assumed a spectral
+look. The shadows of familiar things about him stalked like ghosts
+through the haunted chambers of his soul; and the old portraits on
+the walls winked at him, and seemed stepping down from their frames;
+till, aghast at the spectral throng about him, he would call his
+wife from her bed, to sit by him while he wrote."
+
+"No wonder he died in the prime of life!"
+
+"No. The only wonder is, that he could have followed this course
+of life for six years. I am astonished that it did not kill him
+sooner."
+
+"But death came at last in an appalling shape."
+
+"Yes; his forty-sixth birth day found him sitting at home in his
+arm-chair, with his friends around him. But the rare old wine,--he
+always drank the best,--touched not the sick-man's lips that night.
+His wonted humor was gone. Of all his 'jibes, his gambols, his
+songs, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on
+a roar, not one now, to mock his own grinning!--quite
+chap-fallen.'--The conversation was of death and the grave. And when
+one of his friends said, that life was not the highest good,
+Hoffmann interrupted him, exclaiming with a startling earnestness;
+'No, no! Life, life, only life! on any condition whatsoever!' Five
+months after this he had ceased to suffer, because he had ceased to
+live. He died piecemeal. His feet and hands, his legs and arms,
+gradually, and in succession, became motionless, dead. But his
+spirit was not dead, nor motionless; and, through the solitary day
+or sleepless night, lying in his bed, he dictated to an amanuensis
+his last stories. Strange stories, indeed, were they for a dying man
+to write! Yet such delight did he take in dictating them, that he
+said to his friend Hitzig, that, upon the whole, he was willing to
+give up forever the use of his hands, if he could but preserve the
+power of writing by dictation. Such was his love of life,--of what
+he called the sweet habitude of being!"
+
+"Was it not he, who in his last hours expressed such a longing to
+behold the green fields once more; and exclaimed; 'Heaven! it is
+already summer, and I have not yet seen a single green tree!'"
+
+"Yes, that was Hoffmann. Soon afterwards he died. The closing
+scene was striking. He gradually lost all sensation, though his mind
+remained vigorous. Feeling no more pain, he said to his physician;
+'It will soon be over now. I feel no more pain.' He thought himself
+well again; but the physician knew that he was dying, and said;
+'Yes, it will soon be over!' The next morning he called his wife to
+his bed-side; and begged her to fold his motionless hands together.
+Then, as he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard him say, 'We must,
+then, think of God, also!' More sorrowful words than these have
+seldom fallen from the lips of man. Shortly afterwards the flame of
+life glared up within him; he said he was well again; that in the
+evening he should go on with the story he was writing; and wished
+that the last sentence might be read over to him. Shortly after this
+they turned his face to the wall, and he died."
+
+"And thus passed to its account a human soul, after much
+self-inflicted suffering. Let us tread lightly upon the poet's
+ashes. For my part, I confess, that I have not the heart to take him
+from the general crowd of erring, sinful men, and judge him harshly.
+The little I have seen of the world, and know of the history of
+mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not
+inanger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned
+and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations
+it has passed,--the brief pulsations of joy,--the feverish
+inquie-tude of hope and fear,--the tears of regret,--the feebleness
+of purpose,--the pressure of want,--the desertion of friends,--the
+scorn of a world that has little charity,--the desolation of the
+soul's sanctuary,--and threatening voices within,--health
+gone,--happiness gone,--even hope, that stays longest with us,
+gone,--I have little heart for aught else than thankfulness, that it
+is not so with me, and would fain leave the erring soul of my
+fellow-man with Him, from whose hands it came,
+
+'even as a little child,
+
+Weeping and laughing in its childish sport.'"
+
+"You are right. And it is worth a student's while to observe
+calmly how tobacco, wine, and midnight did their work like fiends
+upon the delicate frame of Hoffmann; and no less thoroughly upon his
+delicate mind. He who drinks beer, thinks beer; and he who drinks
+wine, thinks wine;--and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight. He
+was a man of rare intellect. He was endowed with racy humor and
+sarcastic wit, and a glorious imagination. But the fire of his
+genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame, upon the
+hearth of his home. It was a glaring and irregular flame;--for the
+branches that he fed it with, were not branches from the Tree of
+Life,--but from another tree that grew in Paradise,--and they were
+wet with the unhealthy dews of night, and more unhealthy wine; and
+thus, amid smoke and ashes the fire burned fitfully, and went out
+with a glare, which leaves the beholder blind."
+
+"This fire within him was a Meleager's fire-brand; and, when it
+burned out, he died. And, as you say, marks of all this are clearly
+visible in Hoffmann's writings. Indeed, when I read his strange
+fancies, it is with me, as when in the summer night I hear the
+rising wind among the trees, and the branches bow, and beckon with
+their long fingers, and voices go gibbering and mockingthrough the
+air. A feeling of awe and mysterious dread comes over me. I wish to
+hear the sound of living voice or footstep near me,--to see a
+friendly and familiar face. In truth, if it be late at night, the
+reader as well as the writer of these unearthly fancies, would fain
+have a patient, meek-eyed wife, with her knitting-work, at his
+elbow."
+
+Berkley smiled; but Flemming continued without noticing the
+smile, though he knew what was passing in the mind of his
+friend;
+
+"The life and writings of this singular being interest me in a
+high degree. Oftentimes one may learn more from a man's errors, than
+from his virtues. Moreover, from the common sympathies of our
+nature, souls that have struggled and suffered are dear to me.
+Willingly do I recognise their brotherhood. Scars upon their
+foreheads do not so deform them, that they cease to interest. They
+are always signs of struggle; though alas! too often, likewise, of
+defeat. Seasons of unhealthy, dreamy, vague delight, are followed by
+seasons ofweariness and darkness. Where are then the bright fancies,
+that, amid the great stillness of the night, arise like stars in the
+firmament of our souls? The morning dawns, the light of common day
+shines in upon us, and the heavens are without a star! From the
+lives of such men we learn, that mere pleasant sensations are not
+happiness;--that sensual pleasures are to be drunk sparingly, and,
+as it were, from the palm of the hand; and that those who bow down
+upon their knees to drink of these bright streams that water life,
+are not chosen of God either to overthrow or to overcome!"
+
+"I think you are very lenient in your judgment. This is not the
+usual defect of critics. Like Shakspeare's samphire-gatherer, they
+have a dreadful trade! and, to make the simile complete, they ought
+to hang for it!"
+
+"Methinks it would be hard to hang a man for the sake of a
+simile. But which of Hoffmann's works is it, that you have in your
+hand?"
+
+"His Phatasy-Pieces in Callot's manner. Who was this Callot?"
+
+"He was a Lorrain painter of the seventeenth century, celebrated
+for his wild and grotesque conceptions. These sketches of Hoffmann
+are imitations of his style. They are full of humor, poetry, and
+brilliant imagination."
+
+"And which of them shall I read to you? The Ritter Glück; or the
+Musical Sufferings of John Kreisler; or that very exquisite story of
+the Golden Jar, wherein is depicted the life of Poesy, in this
+common-place world of ours?"
+
+"Read the shortest. Read Kreisler. That will amuse me. It is a
+picture of his own sufferings at the æsthetic Teas in Berlin,
+supposed to be written in pencil on the blank leaves of a
+music-book."
+
+Thereupon Berkley leaned back in his easychair, and read as
+follows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MUSICAL
+
+
+
+SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.
+
+"They are all gone! I might have known it by the whispering,
+shuffling, coughing, buzzing through all the notes of the gamut. It
+was a true swarm of bees, leaving the old hive. Gottlieb has lighted
+fresh candles for me, and placed a bottle of Burgundy on the
+piano-forte. I can play no more, I am perfectly exhausted. My
+glorious old friend here on the music-stand is to blame for that.
+Again he has borne me away through the air, as Mephistopheles did
+Faust, and so high, that I took not the slightest notice of the
+little men under me, though I dare say they made noise enough. A
+rascally, worthless, wasted evening! But now I am well and merry!
+However, while I was playing, I took out my pencil, and on
+pagesixty-three, under the last system, noted down a couple of good
+flourishes in cipher with my right hand, while the left was
+struggling away in the torrent of sweet sounds. Upon the blank page
+at the end I go on writing. I leave all ciphers and sweet tones, and
+with true delight, like a sick man restored to health, who can never
+stop relating what he has suffered, I note down here
+circumstantially the dire agonies of this evening's tea-party. And
+not for myself alone, but likewise for all those who from time to
+time may amuse and edify themselves with my copy of John Sebastian
+Bach's Variations for the Piano-forte, published by Nägeli in
+Zürich, and who find my marks at the end of the thirtieth variation,
+and, led on by the great Latin Verte, (I will write it down the
+moment I get through this doleful statement of grievances,) turn
+over the leaf and read.
+
+"They will at once see the connexion. They know, that the
+Geheimerath Rödelein's house is a charming house to visit in, and
+that he has two daughters, of whom the whole fashionable world
+proclaims with enthusiasm, that they dance like goddesses, speak
+French like angels, and play and sing and draw like the Muses. The
+Geheimerath Rödelein is a rich man. At his quarterly dinners he
+brings on the most delicious wines and richest dishes. All is
+established on a footing of the greatest elegance; and whoever at
+his tea-parties does not amuse himself heavenly, has no ton, no
+esprit, and particularly no taste for the fine arts. It is with an
+eye to these, that, with the tea, punch, wine, ice-creams, etc., a
+little music is always served up, which, like the other
+refreshments, is very quietly swallowed by the fashionable world.
+
+"The arrangements are as follows.--After every guest has had time
+enough to drink as many cups of tea as he may wish, and punch and
+ices have been handed round twice, the servants wheel out the
+card-tables for the elder and more solid part of the company, who
+had rather play cards than any musical instrument; and, to tell the
+truth, this kind of playing does not make such a useless noise as
+others, and you hear only the clink of money.
+
+"This is a hint for the younger part of the company to pounce
+upon the Misses Rödelein. A great tumult ensues; in the midst of
+which you can distinguish these words,--
+
+"'Schönes Fräulein! do not refuse us the gratification of your
+heavenly talent! O, sing something! that's a good
+dear!--impossible,--bad cold,--the last ball! have not practised
+anything,--oh, do, do, we beg of you,' etc.
+
+"Meanwhile Gottlieb has opened the piano-forte, and placed the
+well-known music-book on the stand; and from the card-table cries
+the respectable mamma,--
+
+" 'Chantez donc, mes enfans!'
+
+"That is the cue of my part. I place myself at the piano-forte,
+and the Rödeleins are led up to the instrument in triumph.
+
+"And now another difficulty arises. Neither wishes to sing
+first.
+
+"'You know, dear Nanette, how dreadful hoarse I am.'
+
+"'Why, my dear Marie, I am as hoarse as you are.'
+
+"'I sing so badly!--'
+
+"'O, my dear child; do begin!'
+
+"My suggestion, (I always make the same!) that they should both
+begin together with a duet, is loudly applauded;--the music-book is
+thumbed over, and the leaf, carefully folded down, is at length
+found, and away we go with Dolce dell' anima, etc.
+
+"To tell the truth, the talent of the Misses Rödelein is not the
+smallest. I have been an instructer here only five years, and little
+short of two years in the Rödelein family. In this short time,
+Fräulein Nanette has made such progress, that a tune, which she has
+heard at the theatre only ten times, and has played on the
+piano-forte, at farthest, ten times more, she will sing right off,
+so that you know in a moment what it is. Fräulein Marie catches it
+at the eighth time; and if she is sometimes a quarter of a note
+lower than the piano-forte, after all it is very tolerable,
+considering her pretty little doll-face, and very passable
+rosy-lips.
+
+"After the duet, a universal chorus of applause! And now
+arriettas and duettinos succeed each other, and right merrily I
+hammer away at the thousand-times-repeated accompaniment. During the
+singing, the Finanzräthin Eberstein, by coughing and humming, has
+given to understand that she also sings. Fräulein Nanette says;
+
+"'But, my dear Finanzräthin, now you must let us hear your
+exquisite voice.'
+
+"A new tumult arises. She has a bad cold in her head,--she does
+not know anything by heart! Gottlieb brings straightway two armfuls
+of music-books; and the leaves are turned over again and again.
+First she thinks she will sing Der Hölle Rache, etc., then Hebe
+sich, etc., then Ach, Ich liebte, etc. In this embarrassment, I
+propose, Ein Veilchen auf der Wiese, etc. But she is for the heroic
+style; she wants to make a display, and finally selects the aria in
+Constantia.
+
+"O scream, squeak, mew, gurgle, groan, agonize, quiver, quaver,
+just as much as you please, Madam,--I have my foot on the fortissimo
+pedal, and thunder myself deaf! O Satan, Satan! which of thy goblins
+damned has got into this throat, pinching, and kicking, and cuffing
+the tones about so! Four strings have snapped already, and one
+hammer is lamed for life. My ears ring again,--my head hums,--my
+nerves tremble! Have all the harsh notes from the cracked trumpet of
+a strolling-player been imprisoned in this little throat! (But this
+excites me,--I must drink a glass of Burgundy.)
+
+"The applause was unbounded; and some one observed, that the
+Finanzräthin and Mozart had put me quite in a blaze. I smiled with
+downcast eyes, very stupidly. I could but acknowledge it. And now
+all talents, which hitherto had bloomed unseen, were in motion,
+wildly flitting to and fro. They were bent upon a surfeit of music;
+tuttis, finales, choruses must be performed. The Canonicus Kratzer
+sings, you know, a heavenly bass, as was observed by the gentleman
+yonder, with the head of Titus Andronicus, who modestly remarked
+also, that he himself was properly only a second-ratetenor; but,
+though he said it, who should not say it, was nevertheless member of
+several academies of music. Forthwith preparations are made for the
+first chorus in the opera of Titus. It went off gloriously. The
+Canonicus, standing close behind me, thundered out the bass over my
+head, as if he were singing with bass-drums and trumpet obbligato in
+a cathedral. He struck the notes gloriously; but in his hurry he got
+the tempo just about twice too slow. However, he was true to himself
+at least in this, that through the whole piece he dragged along just
+half a beat behind the rest. The others showed a most decided
+penchant for the ancient Greek music, which, as is well known,
+having nothing to do with harmony, ran on in unison or monotone.
+They all sang treble, with slight variations, caused by accidental
+rising and falling of the voice, say some quarter of a note.
+
+"This somewhat noisy affair produced a universal tragic state of
+feeling, namely a kind of terror, even at the card-tables, which for
+the momentcould no longer, as before, chime in melodramatic, by
+weaving into the music sundry exclamations; as, for instance;
+
+" 'O! I loved,--eight and forty,--was so happy,--I pass,--then I
+knew not,--whist,--pangs of love,--follow suit,' etc.--It has a very
+pretty effect. (I fill my glass.)
+
+"That was the highest point of the musical exhibition this
+evening. 'Now it is all over,' thought I to myself. I shut the book,
+and got up from the piano-forte. But the baron, my ancient tenor,
+came up to me, and said;
+
+" 'My dear Herr Capellmeister, they say you play the most
+exquisite voluntaries! Now do play us one; only a short one, I
+entreat you!'
+
+"I answered very drily, that to-day my fantasies had all gone a
+wool-gathering; and, while we are talking about it, a devil, in the
+shape of a dandy, with two waistcoats, had smelt out Bach's
+Variations, which were lying under my hat in the next room. He
+thinks they are merely little variations, such as Nel cor mio non
+più sento, or Ah, vous dirai-je, maman, etc., and insists upon it,
+that I shall play them. I try to excuse myself, but they all attack
+me. So then, 'Listen, and burst with ennui,' think I to myself,--and
+begin to work away.
+
+"When I had got to variation number three, several ladies
+departed, followed by the gentleman with the Titus-Andronicus head.
+The Rödeleins, as their teacher was playing, stood it out, though
+not without difficulty, to number twelve. Number fifteen made the
+man with two waistcoats take to his heels. Out of most excessive
+politeness, the Baron stayed till number thirty, and drank up all
+the punch, which Gottlieb placed on the piano-forte for me.
+
+"I should have brought all to a happy conclusion, but, alas! this
+number thirty,--the theme,--tore me irresistibly away. Suddenly the
+quarto leaves spread out to a gigantic folio, on which a thousand
+imitations and developments of the theme stood written, and I could
+not choose but play them. The notes became alive, and glimmered and
+hopped all round about me,--an electric firestreamed through the
+tips of my fingers into the keys,--the spirit, from which it gushed
+forth, spread his broad wings over my soul, the whole room was
+filled with a thick mist, in which the candles burned dim,--and
+through which peered forth now a nose, and anon a pair of eyes, and
+then suddenly vanished away again. And thus it came to pass, that I
+was left alone with my Sebastian Bach, by Gottlieb attended, as by a
+familiar spirit. (Your good health, Sir.)
+
+"Is an honest musician to be tormented with music, as I have been
+to-day, and am so often tormented? Verily, no art is so damnably
+abused, as this same glorious, holy Musica, who, in her delicate
+being, is so easily desecrated. Have you real talent,--real feeling
+for art? Then study music;--do something worthy of the art,--and
+dedicate your whole soul to the beloved saint. If without this you
+have a fancy for quavers and demi-semi-quavers, practise for
+yourself and by yourself, and torment not therewith the
+Capellmeister Kreisler and others.
+
+"Well, now I might go home, and put the finishing touch to my
+sonata for the piano-forte; but it is not yet eleven o'clock, and,
+withal, a beautiful summer night. I will lay any wager, that, at my
+next-door neighbour's, (the Oberjägermeister,) the young ladies are
+sitting at the window, screaming down into the street, for the
+twentieth time, with harsh, sharp, piercing voices, 'When thine eye
+is beaming love,'--but only the first stanza, over and over again.
+Obliquely across the way, some one is murdering the flute, and has,
+moreover, lungs like Rameau's nephew; and, in notes of 'linked
+sweetness long drawn out,' his neighbour is trying acoustic
+experiments on the French horn. The numerous dogs of the
+neighbourhood are growing unquiet, and my landlord's cat, inspired
+by that sweet duet, is making close by my window (for, of course, my
+musico-poetic laboratory is an attic,) certain tender
+confessions,--upward through the whole chromatic scale, soft
+complaining, to the neighbour's puss, with whom he has been in love
+since March last! Till this is all fairly over, II think will sit
+quietly here. Besides, there is still blank paper and Burgundy left,
+of which I forthwith take a sip.
+
+"There is, as I have heard, an ancient law, forbidding those, who
+followed any noisy handicraft, from living near literary men. Should
+not then musical composers, poor, and hard beset, and who, moreover,
+are forced to coin their inspiration into gold, to spin out the
+thread of life withal, be allowed to apply this law to themselves,
+and banish out of the neighbourhood all ballad-singers and
+bagpipers? What would a painter say, while transferring to his
+canvass a form of ideal beauty, if you should hold up before him all
+manner of wild faces and ugly masks? He might shut his eyes, and in
+this way, at least, quietly follow out the images of fancy. Cotton,
+in one's ears, is of no use; one still hears the dreadful massacre.
+And then the idea,--the bare idea, 'Now they are going to sing,--now
+the horn strikes up,'--is enough to send one's sublimest conceptions
+to the very devil."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. SAINT GILGEN.
+
+
+
+It was a bright Sunday morning when Flemming and Berkley left
+behind them the cloud-capped hills of Salzburg, and journeyed
+eastward towards the lakes. The landscape around them was one to
+attune their souls to holy musings. Field, forest, hill and vale,
+fresh air, and the perfume of clover-fields and new-mown hay, birds
+singing, and the sound of village bells, and the moving breeze among
+the branches,--no laborers in the fields, but peasants on their way
+to church, coming across the green pastures, with roses in their
+hats,--the beauty and quiet of the holy day of rest,--all, all in
+earth and air, breathed upon the soul like a benediction.
+
+They stopped to change horses at Hof, a handfulof houses on the
+brow of a breezy hill, the church and tavern standing opposite to
+each other, and nothing between them but the dusty road, and the
+churchyard, with its iron crosses, and the fluttering tinsel of the
+funeral garlands. In the churchyard and at the tavern-door, were
+groups of peasants, waiting for divine service to begin. They were
+clothed in their holiday dresses. The men wore breeches and long
+boots, and frock-coats with large metal buttons; the women, straw
+hats, and gay calico gowns, with short waists and scant folds. They
+were adorned with a profusion of great, trumpery ornaments, and
+reminded Flemming of the Indians in the frontier villages of
+America. Near the churchyard-gate was a booth, filled with flaunting
+calicos; and opposite sat an old woman behind a table, which was
+loaded with ginger-bread. She had a roulette at her elbow, where the
+peasants risked a kreutzer for a cake. On other tables, cases of
+knives, scythes, reaping-hooks, and other implements of husbandry
+were offered for sale.
+
+The travellers continued their journey, without stopping to hear
+mass. In the course of the forenoon they came suddenly in sight of
+the beautiful Lake of Saint Wolfgang, lying deep beneath them in the
+valley. On its shore, under them, sat the white village of Saint
+Gilgen, like a swan upon its reedy nest. They seemed to have taken
+it unawares, and as it were clapped their hands upon it in its
+sleep, and almost expected to see it spread its broad, snow-white
+wings, and fly away. The whole scene was one of surpassing
+beauty.
+
+They drove leisurely down the steep hill, and stopped at the
+village inn. Before the door was a magnificent, broad-armed tree,
+with benches and tables beneath its shadow. On the front of the
+house was written in large letters, "Post-Tavern by Franz
+Schoendorfer"; and over this was a large sun-dial, and a
+half-effaced painting of a bear-hunt, covering the whole side of the
+house, and mostly red. Just as they drove up, a procession of
+priests with banners, and peasants with their hats in their hands,
+passed by towards the church. They were singing a solemn psalm. At
+the same moment, a smart servant girl, with a black straw hat, set
+coquettishly on her flaxen hair, and a large silver spoon stuck in
+her girdle, came out of the tavern, and asked Flemming what he would
+please to order for breakfast.
+
+Breakfast was soon ready, and was served up at the head of the
+stairs, on an old-fashioned oaken table in the great hall, into
+which the chambers opened. Berkley ordered at the same time a tub of
+cold water, in which he seated himself, with his coat on, and a
+bed-quilt thrown round his knees. Thus he sat for an hour; ate his
+breakfast, and smoked a pipe, and laughed a good deal. He then went
+to bed and slept till dinner time. Meanwhile Flemming sat in his
+chamber and read. It was a large room in the front of the house,
+looking upon the village and the lake. The windows were latticed,
+with small panes, and the window-sills filled with fragrant
+flowers.
+
+At length the heat of the noon was over. Day, like a weary
+pilgrim, had reached the westerngate of Heaven, and Evening stooped
+down to unloose the latchets of his sandal-shoon. Flemming and
+Berkley sallied forth to ramble by the borders of the lake. Down the
+cool, green glades and alleys, beneath the illuminated leaves of the
+forest, over the rising grounds, in the glimmering fretwork of
+sunshine and leaf-shadow,--an exhilarating walk! The cool evening
+air by the lake was like a bath. They drank the freshness of the
+hour in thirsty draughts, and their breasts heaved rejoicing and
+revived, after the feverish, long confinement of the sultry summer
+day. And there, too, lay the lake, so beautiful and still! Did it
+not recall, think ye, the lake of Thun?
+
+On their return homeward they passed near the village
+churchyard.
+
+"Let us go in and see how the dead rest," said Flemming, as they
+passed beneath the belfry of the church; and they went in, and
+lingered among the tombs and the evening shadows.
+
+How peaceful is the dwelling-place of those who inhabit the green
+hamlets, and populous cities of the dead! They need no antidote for
+care,--nor armour against fate. No morning sun shines in at the
+closed windows, and awakens them, nor shall until the last great
+day. At most a straggling sunbeam creeps in through the crumbling
+wall of an old neglected tomb,--a strange visiter, that stays not
+long. And there they all sleep, the holy ones, with their arms
+crossed upon their breasts, or lying motionless by their sides,--not
+carved in marble by the hand of man, but formed in dust, by the hand
+of God. God's peace be with them. No one comes to them now, to hold
+them by the hand, and with delicate fingers smooth their hair. They
+heed no more the blandishments of earthly friendship. They need us
+not, however much we may need them. And yet they silently await our
+coming.
+
+Beautiful is that season of life, when we can say, in the
+language of Scripture, "Thou hast the dew of thy youth." But of
+these flowers Death gathers many. He places them upon his bosom, and
+his form becomes transformed into somethingless terrific than
+before. We learn to gaze and shudder not; for he carries in his arms
+the sweet blossoms of our earthly hopes. We shall see them all
+again, blooming in a happier land.
+
+Yes, Death brings us again to our friends. They are waiting for
+us, and we shall not live long. They have gone before us, and are
+like the angels in heaven. They stand upon the borders of the grave
+to welcome us, with the countenance of affection, which they wore on
+earth; yet more lovely, more radiant, more spiritual! O, he spake
+well who said, that graves are the foot-prints of angels.
+
+Death has taken thee, too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth. He
+has placed thee upon his bosom, and his stern countenance wears a
+smile. The far country, toward which we journey, seems nearer to us,
+and the way less dark; for thou hast gone before, passing so quietly
+to thy rest, that day itself dies not more calmly!
+
+It was in an hour of blessed communion with the souls of the
+departed, that the sweet poet Henry Vaughan wrote those few lines,
+whichhave made death lovely, and his own name immortal!
+
+"They are all gone into a world of light,
+
+And I alone sit lingering here!
+
+Their very memory is fair and bright,
+
+And my sad thoughts doth clear.
+
+"It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
+
+Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
+
+Or those faint beams in which the hill is dressed,
+
+After the sun's remove.
+
+"I see them walking in an air of glory,
+
+Whose light doth trample on my days,
+
+My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
+
+Mere glimmerings and decays.
+
+"O holy hope, and high humility,
+
+High as the heavens above!
+
+These are your walks, and ye have showed them me,
+
+To kindle my cold love.
+
+"Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just!
+
+Shining nowhere but in the dark!
+
+What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
+
+Could man outlook that mark!
+
+"He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know,
+
+At first sight, if the bird be flown;
+
+But what fair field or grove he sings in now,
+
+That is to him unknown.
+
+"And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams,
+
+Call to the soul, when man doth sleep,
+
+So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
+
+And into glory peep!"
+
+Such were Flemming's thoughts, as he stood among the tombs at
+evening in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. A holy calm stole over
+him. The fever of his heart was allayed. He had a moment's rest from
+pain; and went back to his chamber in peace. Whence came this holy
+calm, this long-desired tranquillity? He knew not; yet the place
+seemed consecrated. He resolved to linger there, beside the lake,
+which was a Pool of Bethesda for him; and let Berkley go on alone to
+the baths of Ischel. He would wait for him there in the solitude of
+Saint Gilgen. Long after they had parted for the night, he sat in
+his chamber, and thought of what he had suffered, and enjoyedthe
+silence within and without. Hour after hour, slipped by unheeded, as
+he sat lost in his reverie. At length, his candle sank in its
+socket, gave one flickering gleam, and expired with a sob. This
+aroused him.
+
+He went to the window, and peered out into the dark night. It was
+very late. Twice already since midnight had the great pulpit-orator
+Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the
+hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry, and still went on
+with his sermon, thundering downward to the congregation in the
+churchyard and in the village. But they heard him not. They were all
+asleep in their narrow pews, namely, in their beds and in their
+graves. Soon afterward the cock crew; and the cloudy heaven, like
+the apostle, who denied his Lord, wept bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG.
+
+
+
+The morning is lovely beyond expression. The heat of the sun is
+great; but a gentle wind cools the air. Birds never sang more loud
+and clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and on the table,
+rose, geranium, and the delicate crimson cactus, are all so
+beautiful, that we think the German poet right, when he calls the
+flowers "stars in the firmament of the earth." Out of doors all is
+quiet. Opposite the window stands the village schoolhouse. There are
+two parasite trees, with their outspread branches nailed against the
+white walls, like the wings of culprit kites. There the rods grow.
+Under them, on a bench at the door, sit school-girls; and barefoot
+urchins in breeches are spelling out their lessons. The clock
+strikestwelve, and one by one they disappear, and go into the hive,
+like bees at the sound of a brass pan. At the door of the next house
+sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade; and in front of her is an
+aqueduct pouring its cool, clear water into a rough wooden trough. A
+travelling carriage without horses, stands at the inn-door, and a
+postilion in red jacket is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue
+woollen stockings and a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still
+further a cluster of houses and the village church. They are
+repairing the belfry and the bulbous steeple. A little farther, over
+the roofs of the houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's Lake. Water so
+bright and beautiful hardly flows elsewhere. Green, and blue, and
+silver-white run into each other, with almost imperceptible change,
+like the streaks on the sides of a mackerel. And above are the
+pinnacles of the mountains; some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped,
+and others bold, and broad, and dark with pines.
+
+Such was the scene, which Paul Flemming beheldfrom his window a
+few mornings after Berkley's departure. The quiet of the place had
+soothed him. He had become more calm. His heart complained less
+loudly in the holy village silence, as we are wont to lower our
+voices when those around us speak in whispers. He began to feel at
+times an interest in the lowly things around him. The face of the
+landscape pleased him, but more than this the face of the poor woman
+who sat knitting in the shade. It was a pale, meek countenance, with
+more delicacy in its features than is usual among peasantry. It wore
+also an expression of patient suffering. As he was looking at her, a
+deformed child came out of the door and hung upon her knees. She
+caressed him affectionately. It was her child; in whom she beheld
+her own fair features distorted and hardly to be recognised, as one
+sometimes sees his face reflected from the bowl of a spoon.
+
+The child's deformity and the mother's tenderness interested the
+feelings of Flemming. The landlady told him something of the poor
+woman's history. She was the widow of a blacksmith, who had died
+soon after their marriage. But she survived to become a mother, just
+as, in oaks, immediately after fecundation, the male flower fades
+and falls, while the female continues and ripens into perfect fruit.
+Alas! her child was deformed. Yet she looked upon him with eyes of
+maternal fondness and pity, loving him still more for his deformity.
+And in her heart she said, as the Mexicans say to their new-born
+offspring, "Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure,
+and hold thy peace." Though poor, she was not entirely destitute;
+for her husband had left her, beside the deformed child, a life
+estate in a tomb in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. During the week
+she labored for other people, and on Sundays for herself, by going
+to church and reading the Bible. On one of the blank leaves she had
+recorded the day of her birth, and that of her child's, likewise her
+marriage and her husband's death. Thus she lived, poor, patient and
+resigned. Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the
+crown of thorns and the cross of Christ. Her ideas of Heaven were
+few and simple. She rejected the doctrine that it was a place of
+constant activity, and not of repose, and believed, that, when she
+at length reached it, she should work no more, but sit always in a
+clean white apron, and sing psalms.
+
+As Flemming sat meditating on these things, he paid new homage in
+his heart to the beauty and excellence of the female character. He
+thought of the absent and the dead; and said, with tears in his
+eyes;
+
+"Shall I thank God for the green Summer, and the mild air, and
+the flowers, and the stars, and all that makes this world so
+beautiful, and not for the good and beautiful beings I have known in
+it? Has not their presence been sweeter to me than flowers? Are they
+not higher and holier than the stars? Are they not more to me than
+all things else?"
+
+Thus the morning passed away in musings; andin the afternoon,
+when Flemming was preparing to go down to the lake, as his custom
+was, a carriage drew up before the door, and, to his great
+astonishment, out jumped Berkley. The first thing he did was to give
+the Postmaster, who stood near the door, a smart cut with his whip.
+The sufferer gently expostulated, saying,
+
+"Pray, Sir, don't; I am lame."
+
+Whereupon Berkley desisted, and began instead to shake the
+Postmaster's wife by the shoulders, and order his dinner in English.
+But all this was done so good-naturedly, and with such a rosy,
+laughing face, that no offence was taken.
+
+"So you have returned much sooner than you intended;" said
+Flemming, after the first friendly salutations.
+
+"Yes," replied Berkley; "I got tired of Ischel,--very tired. I
+did not find the friends there, whom I expected. Now I am going back
+to Salzburg, and then to Gastein. There I shall certainly find them.
+You must go with me."
+
+Flemming declined the invitation; and proposedto Berkley, that he
+should join him in his excursion on the lake.
+
+"You shall hear the grand echo of the Falkenstein," said he, "and
+behold the scene of the Bridal Tragedy; and then we will go on as
+far as the village of Saint Wolfgang, which you have not yet seen,
+except across the lake."
+
+"Well, this afternoon I devote to you; for to-morrow we part once
+more, and who knows when we shall meet again?"
+
+They went down to the water's side without farther delay; and,
+taking a boat with two oars, struck across an elbow of the lake
+towards a barren rock by the eastern shore, from which a small white
+monument shone in the sun.
+
+"That monument," said one of the boatmen, a stout young lad in
+leather breeches, "was built by a butcher, to the glory of Saint
+Wolfgang, who saved him from drowning. He was one day riding an ox
+to market along the opposite bank; when the animal taking fright,
+sprang into the water, and swam over to this place, with the butcher
+on his back."
+
+"And do you think he could have done this," asked Berkley; "if
+Saint Wolfgang had not helped him?"
+
+"Of course not!" answered leather-breeches; and the Englishman
+laughed.
+
+From this point they rowed along under the shore to a low
+promontory, upon which stood another monument, commemorating a more
+tragical event.
+
+"This is the place I was speaking of," said Flemming, as the
+boatmen rested on their oars. "The melancholy and singular event it
+commemorates happened more than two centuries ago. There was a
+bridal party here upon the ice one winter; and in the midst of the
+dance the ice broke, and the whole merry company were drowned
+together, except the fiddlers, who were sitting on the shore."
+
+They looked in silence at the monument, and at the blue quiet
+water, under which the bones of the dancers lay buried, hand in
+hand. The monument is of stone, painted white, with an
+over-hangingroof to shelter it from storms. In a niche in front is a
+small image of the Saviour, in a sitting posture; and an
+inscription, upon a marble tablet below, says that it was placed
+there by Longinus Walther and his wife Barbara Juliana von Hainberg;
+themselves long since peacefully crumbled to dust, side by side in
+some churchyard.
+
+"That was breaking the ice with a vengeance!" said Berkley, as
+they pushed out into the lake again; and ere long they were floating
+beneath the mighty precipice of Falkenstein; a steep wall of rock,
+crowned with a chapel and a hermitage, where in days of old lived
+the holy Saint Wolfgang. It is now haunted only by an echo, so
+distinct and loud, that one might imagine the ghost of the departed
+saint to be sitting there, and repeating the voices from below, not
+word by word, but sentence by sentence, as if he were passing them
+up to the recording angel.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" shouted Berkley; and the sound seemed to strike the
+wall of stone, like the flapping of steel plates; "Ho! ho! ho! How
+areyou to-day, Saint Wolfgang! You infernal old rascal! How is the
+Frau von Wolfgang!--God save great George the King! Damn your eyes!
+Hold your tongue! Ho! ho! ha! ha! hi!"
+
+And the words were recorded above; and a voice repeated them with
+awful distinctness in the blue depths overhead, and Flemming felt in
+his inmost soul the contrast between the holy heavens, and the
+mockery of laughter, and the idle words, which fall back from the
+sky above us and soil not its purity.
+
+In half an hour they were at the village of Saint Wolfgang,
+threading a narrow street, above which the roofs of quaint,
+picturesque old houses almost met. It led them to a Gothic church; a
+magnificent one for a village;--in front of which was a small court,
+shut in by Italian-looking houses, with balconies, and flowers at
+the windows. Here a bronze fountain of elaborate workmanship was
+playing in the shade. On its summit stood an image of the patron
+Saint of the village; and, running round the under lip of the
+water-basin below, they read this inscription in old German
+rhymes;
+
+"I am in the honor of Saint Wolfgang raised. Abbot Wolfgang Habel
+of Emensee, he hath made me for the use and delight of poor pilgrim
+wight. Neither gold nor wine hath he; at this water shall he merry
+be. In the year of the Lord fifteen hundred and fifteen, hath the
+work completed been. God be praised!"
+
+As they were deciphering the rude characters of this pious
+inscription, a village priest came down a high flight of steps from
+the parsonage near the church, and courteously saluted the
+strangers. After returning the salutation, the mad Englishman,
+without preface, asked him how many natural children were annually
+born in the parish. The question seemed to astonish the good father,
+but he answered it civilly, as he did several other questions, which
+Flemming thought rather indiscreet, to say the least.
+
+"You will excuse our curiosity," said he to the priest, by way of
+apology. "We are strangersfrom distant countries. My friend is an
+Englishman and I an American."
+
+Berkley, however, was not so easily silenced. After a few
+moments' conversation he broke out into most audacious Latin, in
+which the only words clearly intelligible were;
+
+"Plurimum reverende, in Christo religiosissime, ac clarissime
+Domine, necnon et amice observandissime! Petrus sic est locutus;
+'Nec argentum mihi, nec aurum est; sed quod habeo, hoc tibi do;
+surge et ambula.'"
+
+He seemed to be speaking of the fountain. The priest answered
+meekly,
+
+"Non intellexi, Domine!"
+
+But Berkley continued with great volubility to speak of his being
+a stranger in the land, and all men being strangers upon earth, and
+hoping to meet the good priest hereafter in the kingdom of Heaven.
+The priest seemed confounded, and abashed. Through the mist of a
+strange pronunciation he could recognise only here and there
+afamiliar word. He took out his snuff-box; and tried to quote a
+passage from Saint Paul;
+
+"Ut dixit Sanctus Paulus; qui bene facit--"
+
+Here his memory failed him, or, as the French say, he was at the
+end of his Latin, and, stretching forth his long forefinger, he
+concluded in German;
+
+"Yes;--I don't--so clearly remember--what he did say."
+
+The Englishman helped him through with a moral phrase; and then
+pulling off his hat, exclaimed very solemnly;
+
+"Vale, domine doctissime et reverendissime!"
+
+And the Dominie, as if pursued by a demon, made a sudden and
+precipitate retreat down a flight of steps into the street.
+
+"There!" said Berkley laughing, "I beat him at his own weapons.
+What do you say of my Latin?"
+
+"I say of it," replied Flemming, "what Holophernes said of Sir
+Nathaniel's; 'Priscian a little scratched; 't will serve.' I think I
+have heardbetter. But what a whim! I thought I should have laughed
+aloud."
+
+They were still sitting by the bronze fountain when the priest
+returned, accompanied by a short man, with large feet, and a long
+blue surtout, so greasy, that it reminded one of Polilla's in the
+Spanish play, which was lined with slices of pork. His countenance
+was broad and placid, but his blue eyes gleamed with a wild,
+mysterious, sorrowful expression. Flemming thought the Latin contest
+was to be renewed, with more powder and heavier guns. He was
+mistaken. The stranger saluted him in German, and said, that, having
+heard he was from America, he had come to question him about that
+distant country, for which he was on the point of embarking. There
+was nothing peculiar in his manner, nor in the questions he asked,
+nor the remarks he made. They were the usual questions and remarks
+about cities and climate, and sailing the sea. At length Flemming
+asked him the object of his journey to America. Thestranger came
+close up to him, and lowering his voice, said very solemnly;
+
+"That holy man, Frederick Baraga, missionary among the Indians at
+Lacroix, on Lake Superior, has returned to his father-land, Krain;
+and I am chosen by Heaven to go forth as Minister Extraordinary of
+Christ, to unite all nations and people in one church!"
+
+Flemming almost started at the singular earnestness, with which
+he uttered these words; and looked at him attentively, thinking to
+see the face of a madman. But the modest, unassuming look of that
+placid countenance was unchanged; only in the eyes burned a
+mysterious light, as if candles had been lighted in the brain, to
+magnify the daylight there.
+
+"It is truly a high vocation," said he in reply. "But are you
+sure, that this is no hallucination? Are you certain, that you have
+been chosen by Heaven for this great work?"
+
+"I am certain," replied the German, in a tone of great calmness
+and sincerity; "and, if Saint Peter and Saint Paul should come down
+from Heaven to assure me of it, my faith would be no stronger than
+it now is. It has been declared to me by many signs and wonders. I
+can no longer doubt, nor hesitate. I have already heard the voice of
+the Spirit, speaking to me at night; and I know that I am an
+apostle; and chosen for this work."
+
+Such was the calm enthusiasm with which he spoke, that Flemming
+could not choose but listen. He felt interested in this strange
+being. There was something awe-inspiring in the spirit that
+possessed him. After a short pause he continued;
+
+"If you wish to know who I am, I can tell you in few words. I
+think you will not find the story without interest."
+
+He then went on to relate the circumstances recorded in the
+following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE STORY OF BROTHER BERNARDUS.
+
+
+
+"I was born in the city of Stein, in the land of Krain. My pious
+mother Gertrude sang me psalms and spiritual songs in childhood; and
+often, when I awoke in the night, I saw her still sitting, patiently
+at her work by the stove, and heard her singing those hymns of
+heaven, or praying in the midnight darkness when her work was done.
+It was for me she prayed. Thus, from my earliest childhood, I
+breathed the breath of pious aspirations. Afterwards I went to
+Laybach as a student of theology; and after the usual course of
+study, was ordained a priest. I went forth to the care of souls; my
+own soul filled with the faith, that ere long all people would be
+united in one church. Yet attimes my heart was heavy, to behold how
+many nations there are who have not heard of Christ; and how those,
+who are called Christians, are divided into numberless sects, and
+how among these are many who are Christians in name only. I
+determined to devote myself to the great work of the one church
+universal; and for this purpose, to give myself wholly up to the
+study of the Evangelists and the Fathers. I retired to the
+Benedictine cloister of Saint Paul in the valley of Lavant. The
+father-confessor in the nunnery of Laak, where I then lived,
+strengthened me in this resolve. I had long walked with this angel
+of God in a human form, and his parting benediction sank deep into
+my soul. The Prince-Abbot Berthold, of blessed memory, was then head
+of the Benedictine convent. He received me kindly, and led me to the
+library; where I gazed with secret rapture on the vast folios of the
+Christian Fathers, from which, as from an arsenal, I was to draw the
+weapons of holy warfare. In the study of these, the year of my
+noviciate passed. I becamea Franciscan friar; and took the name of
+Brother Bernardus. Yet my course of life remained unchanged. I
+seldom left the cloister; but sat in my cell, and pored over those
+tomes of holy wisdom. About this time the aged confessor in Laak
+departed this life. His death was made known to me in a dream. It
+must have been after midnight, when I thought that I came into the
+church, which was brilliantly lighted up. The dead body of the
+venerable saint was brought in, attended by a great crowd. It seemed
+to me, that I must go up into the pulpit and pronounce his funeral
+oration; and, as I ascended the stairs, the words of my text came
+into my mind; 'Blessed in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
+saints.' My funeral sermon ended in a strain of exultation; and I
+awoke with 'Amen!' upon my lips. A few days afterwards, I heard that
+on that night the old man died. After this event I became restless
+and melancholy. I strove in vain to drive from me my gloomy
+thoughts. I could no longer study. I was no longer contented in the
+cloister. I even thought of leaving it.
+
+"One night I had gone to bed early, according to my custom, and had
+fallen asleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a bright and wonderful
+light, which shone all about me, and filled me with heavenly
+rapture. Shortly after I heard a voice, which pronounced distinctly
+these words, in the Sclavonian tongue; 'Remain in the cloister!' It
+was the voice of my departed mother. I was fully awake; yet saw
+nothing but the bright light, which disappeared, when the words had
+been spoken. Still it was broad daylight in my chamber. I thought I
+had slept beyond my usual hour. I looked at my watch. It was just
+one o'clock after midnight. Suddenly the daylight vanished, and it
+was dark. In the morning I arose, as if new-born, through the
+wonderful light, and the words of my mother's voice. It was no
+dream. I knew it was the will of God that I should stay; and I could
+again give myself up to quiet study. I read the whole Bible through
+once more in theoriginal text; and went on with the Fathers, in
+chronological order. Often, after the apparition of the light, I
+awoke at the same hour; and though I heard no voice and saw no
+light, yet was refreshed with heavenly consolation.
+
+"Not long after this an important event happened in the cloister.
+In the absence of the deacon of the Abbey, I was to preach the
+Thanksgiving sermon of Harvest-home. During the week the
+Prince-Abbot Berthold gave up the ghost; and my sermon became at
+once a Thanks-giving and Funeral Sermon. Perhaps it may not be
+unworthy of notice, that I was thus called to pronounce the burial
+discourse over the body of the last reigning, spiritual Prince Abbot
+in Germany. He was a man of God, and worthy of this honor.
+
+"One year after this event, I was appointed Professor of Biblical
+Hermeneutics in Klagenfurt, and left the Abbey forever. In
+Klagenfurt I remained ten years, dwelling in the same house, and
+eating at the same table, with seventeen other professors. Their
+conversation naturally suggestednew topics of study, and brought to
+my notice books, which I had never before seen. One day I heard at
+table, that Maurus Cappellari, a monk of Camaldoli, had been elected
+Pope, under the name of Gregory Sixteenth. He was spoken of as a
+very learned man, who had written many books. At this time I was a
+firm believer in the Pope's infallibility; and when I heard these
+books mentioned, there arose in me an irresistible longing to read
+them. I inquired for them; but they were nowhere to be had. At
+length I heard, that his most important work, The Triumph of the
+Holy See, and of the Church, had been translated into German and
+published in Augsburg. Ere long the precious volume was in my hands.
+I began to read it with the profoundest awe. The farther I read, the
+more my wonder grew. The subject was of the deepest interest to me.
+I could not lay the book out of my hand, till I had read it through
+with the closest attention. Now at length my eyes were opened. I saw
+before me a monk, who had been educated in an Italian cloister; who,
+indeed, had read much, and yet only what was calculated to
+strengthen him in the prejudices of his childhood; and who had
+entirely neglected those studies upon which a bishop should most
+rely, in order to work out the salvation of man. I perceived at the
+same time, that this was the strongest instrument for battering down
+the walls, which separate Christian from Christian. I saw, though as
+yet dimly, the way in which the union of Christians in the one true
+church was to be accomplished. I knew not whether to be most
+astonished at my own blindness, that, in all my previous studies, I
+had not perceived, what the reading of this single book made
+manifest to me; or at the blindness of the Pope, who had undertaken
+to justify such follies, without perceiving that at the same moment
+he was himself lying in fatal error. But since I have learned more
+thoroughly the ways of the Lord, I am now no more astonished at
+this, but pray only to Divine providence, who so mysteriously
+prepares all people to be united in one true church. I no longer
+believed in the Pope's infallibility; nay, I believed even, that, to
+the great injury of humanity, he lay in fatal error. I felt,
+moreover, that now the time had fully come, when I should publicly
+show myself, and found in America a parish and a school, and become
+the spiritual guide of men, and the schoolmaster of children.
+
+"It was then, and on that account, that I wrote in the Latin
+tongue my great work on Biblical Hermeneutics. But in Germany it
+cannot be published. The Austrian censor of the press cannot find
+time to read it, though I think, that if I have spent so many
+laborious days and sleepless nights in writing it, this man ought
+likewise to find time enough not only to read it, but to examine all
+the grounds of my reasoning, and point out to me any errors, if he
+can find any. Notwithstanding, the Spirit gave me no repose, but
+urged me ever mightily on to the perfection of my great work.
+
+"One morning I sat writing, under peculiar influences of the
+Spirit, upon the Confusion of Tongues, the Division of the People,
+and the importance ofthe study of Comparative Philology, in
+reference to their union in one church. So wrapped was I in the
+thought, that I came late into my lecture-room; and after lecture
+returned to my chamber, where I wrote till the clock struck twelve.
+At dinner, one of the Professors asked if any one had seen the star,
+about which so much was said. The Professor of Physics, said, that
+the student Johannes Schminke had come to him in the greatest haste,
+and besought him to go out and see the wonderful star; but, being
+incredulous about it, he made no haste, and, when they came into the
+street, the star had disappeared. When I heard the star spoken of,
+my soul was filled with rapture; and a voice within me seemed to
+say, 'The great time is approaching; labor unweariedly in thy work.'
+I sought out the student; and like Herod, inquired diligently what
+time the star appeared. He informed me, that, just as the clock was
+striking eight, in the morning, he went out of his house to go to
+the college, and saw on the square a crowd looking at a bright star.
+It was the veryhour, when I was writing alone in my chamber on the
+importance of Comparative Philology in bringing about the union of
+all nations. I felt, that my hour had come. Strangely moved, I
+walked up and down my chamber. The evening twilight came on. I
+lighted my lamp, and drew the green curtains before the windows, and
+sat down to read. But hardly had I taken the book into my hand, when
+the Spirit began to move me, and urge me then to make my last
+decision and resolve. I made a secret vow, that I would undertake
+the voyage to America. Suddenly my troubled thoughts were still. An
+unwonted rapture filled my heart. I sat and read till the supper
+bell rang. They were speaking at table of a red glaring meteor,
+which had just been seen in the air, southeast from Klagenfurt; and
+had suddenly disappeared with a dull, hollow sound. It was the very
+moment at which I had taken my final resolution to leave my native
+land. Every great purpose and event of my life, seemed heralded and
+attended by divine messengers; the voices of thedead; the bright
+morning star, shining in the clear sunshine; and the red meteor in
+the evening twilight.
+
+"I now began seriously to prepare for my departure. The chamber I
+occupied, had once been the library of a Franciscan convent. Only a
+thick wall separated it from the church. In this wall was a niche,
+with heavy folding-doors, which had served the Franciscans as a
+repository for prohibited books. Here also I kept my papers, and my
+great work on Biblical Hermeneutics. The inside of the doors was
+covered with horrible caricatures of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and
+other great men. I used often to look at them with the deepest
+melancholy, when I thought that these great men likewise had labored
+upon earth, and fought with Satan in the church. But they were
+persecuted, denounced, condemned to die. So perhaps will it be with
+me. I thought of this often; and armed myself against the fear of
+death. I was in constant apprehension, lest the police should search
+my chamber during my absence, and, by examining my papers, discover
+my doctrine and designs. But the Spirit said to me; 'Be of good
+cheer; I will so blind the eyes of thy enemies, that it shall not
+once occur to them to think of thy writings.'
+
+"At length, after many difficulties and temptations of the Devil,
+I am on my way to America. Yesterday I took leave of my dearest
+friend, Gregory Kuscher, in Hallstadt. He seemed filled with the
+Spirit of God, and has wonderfully strengthened me in my purpose.
+All the hosts of heaven looked on, and were glad. The old man kissed
+me at parting; and I ascended the mountain as if angels bore me up
+in their arms. Near the summit, lay a newly fallen avalanche, over
+which, as yet, no footsteps had passed. This was my last temptation.
+'Ha!' cried I aloud, 'Satan has prepared a snare for me; but I will
+conquer him with godly weapons.' I sprang over the treacherous snow,
+with greater faith than St. Peter walked the waters of the Lake of
+Galilee; and came down the valley, while the mountain peaks yetshone
+in the setting sun. God smiles upon me. I go forth, full of hopeful
+courage. On Christmas next, I shall excommunicate the Pope."
+
+Saying these words, he slowly and solemnly took his leave, like
+one conscious of the great events which await him, and withdrew with
+the other priest into the church. Flemming could not smile as
+Berkley did; for in the solitary, singular enthusiast, who had just
+left them, he saw only another melancholy victim to solitude and
+over-labor of the brain; and felt how painful a thing it is, thus to
+become unconsciously the alms-man of other men's sympathies, a kind
+of blind beggar for the charity of a good wish or a prayer.
+
+The sun was now setting. Silently they floated back to Saint
+Gilgen, amid the cool evening shadows. The village clock struck nine
+as they landed; and as Berkley was to depart early in the morning,
+he went to bed betimes. On bidding Flemming good night he said;
+
+"I shall not see you in the morning; so good bye, and God bless
+you. Remember my partingwords. Never mind trifles. In this world a
+man must either be anvil or hammer. Care killed a cat!"
+
+"I have heard you say that so often," replied Flemming, laughing,
+"that I begin to believe it is true. But I wonder if Care shaved his
+left eyebrow, after doing the deed, as the ancient Egyptians used to
+do!"
+
+"Aha! now you are sweeping cobwebs from the sky! Good night! Good
+night!"
+
+A sorrowful event happened in the neighbourhood that night. The
+widow's child died suddenly. "Woe is me!"--thus mourns the childless
+mother in one of the funeral songs of Greenland; "Woe is me, that I
+should gaze upon thy place and find it vacant! In vain for thee thy
+mother dries the sea-drenched garments!" Not in these words, but in
+thoughts like these, did the poor mother bewail the death of her
+child, thinking mostly of the vacant place, and the daily cares and
+solicitudes of maternal love. Flemming saw a light in her chamber,
+and shadows moving toand fro, as he stood by the window, gazing into
+the starry, silent sky. But he little thought of the awful domestic
+tragedy, which was even then enacted behind those thin curtains!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FOOT-PRINTS OF ANGELS.
+
+
+
+It was Sunday morning; and the church bells were all ringing
+together. From all the neighbouring villages, came the solemn,
+joyful sounds, floating through the sunny air, mellow and faint and
+low,--all mingling into one harmonious chime, like the sound of some
+distant organ in heaven. Anon they ceased; and the woods, and the
+clouds, and the whole village, and the very air itself seemed to
+pray, so silent was it everywhere.
+
+Two venerable old men,--high priests and patriarchs were they in
+the land,--went up the pulpit stairs, as Moses and Aaron went up
+Mount Hor, in the sight of all the congregation,--for the pulpit
+stairs were in front, and very high.
+
+Paul Flemming will never forget the sermon he heard that
+day,--no, not even if he should live to be as old as he who preached
+it. The text was, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It was meant to
+console the pious, poor widow, who sat right below him at the foot
+of the pulpit stairs, all in black, and her heart breaking. He said
+nothing of the terrors of death, nor of the gloom of the narrow
+house, but, looking beyond these things, as mere circumstances to
+which the imagination mainly gives importance, he told his hearers
+of the innocence of childhood upon earth, and the holiness of
+childhood in heaven, and how the beautiful Lord Jesus was once a
+little child, and now in heaven the spirits of little children
+walked with him, and gathered flowers in the fields of Paradise.
+Good old man! In behalf of humanity, I thank thee for these
+benignant words! And, still more than I, the bereaved mother thanked
+thee, and from that hour, though she wept in secret for her child,
+yet
+
+"She knew he was with Jesus,
+
+And she asked him not again."
+
+After the sermon, Paul Flemming walked forth alone into the
+churchyard. There was no one there, save a little boy, who was
+fishing with a pin hook in a grave half full of water. But a few
+moments afterward, through the arched gateway under the belfry, came
+a funeral procession. At its head walked a priest in white surplice,
+chanting. Peasants, old and young, followed him, with burning tapers
+in their hands. A young girl carried in her arms a dead child,
+wrapped in its little winding sheet. The grave was close under the
+wall, by the church door. A vase of holy water stood beside it. The
+sexton took the child from the girl's arms, and put it into a
+coffin; and, as he placed it in the grave, the girl held over it a
+cross, wreathed with roses, and the priest and peasants sang a
+funeral hymn. When this was over, the priest sprinkled the grave and
+the crowd with holy water; and then they all went into the church,
+each one stopping as he passed the grave to throw a handful of earth
+into it, and sprinkle it with holy water.
+
+A few moments afterwards, the voice of the priest was heard
+saying mass in the church, and Flemming saw the toothless old sexton
+treading the fresh earth into the grave of the little child, with
+his clouted shoes. He approached him, and asked the age of the
+deceased. The sexton leaned a moment on his spade, and shrugging his
+shoulders replied;
+
+"Only an hour or two. It was born in the night, and died this
+morning early?"
+
+"A brief existence," said Flemming. "The child seems to have been
+born only to be buried, and have its name recorded on a wooden
+tombstone."
+
+The sexton went on with his work, and made no reply. Flemming
+still lingered among the graves, gazing with wonder at the strange
+devices, by which man has rendered death horrible and the grave
+loathsome.
+
+In the Temple of Juno at Elis, Sleep and his twin-brother Death
+were represented as children reposing in the arms of Night. On
+various funeral monuments of the ancients the Genius of Death
+issculptured as a beautiful youth, leaning on an inverted torch, in
+the attitude of repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed. In
+such peaceful and attractive forms, did the imagination of ancient
+poets and sculptors represent death. And these were men in whose
+souls the religion of Nature was like the light of stars, beautiful,
+but faint and cold! Strange, that in later days, this angel of God,
+which leads us with a gentle hand, into the "Land of the great
+departed, into the silent Land," should have been transformed into a
+monstrous and terrific thing! Such is the spectral rider on the
+white horse;--such the ghastly skeleton with scythe and
+hour-glass;--the Reaper, whose name is Death!
+
+One of the most popular themes of poetry and painting in the
+Middle Ages, and continuing down even into modern times, was the
+Dance of Death. In almost all languages is it written,--the
+apparition of the grim spectre, putting a sudden stop to all
+business, and leading men away into the "remarkable retirement" of
+the grave. Itis written in an ancient Spanish Poem, and painted on a
+wooden bridge in Switzerland. The designs of Holbein are well known.
+The most striking among them is that, where, from a group of
+children sitting round a cottage hearth, Death has taken one by the
+hand, and is leading it out of the door. Quietly and unresisting
+goes the little child, and in its countenance no grief, but wonder
+only; while the other children are weeping and stretching forth
+their hands in vain towards their departing brother. A beautiful
+design it is, in all save the skeleton. An angel had been better,
+with folded wings, and torch inverted!
+
+And now the sun was growing high and warm. A little chapel, whose
+door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming to enter and enjoy the
+grateful coolness. He went in. There was no one there. The walls
+were covered with paintings and sculpture of the rudest kind, and
+with a few funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move the
+heart to devotion; but in that hour the heart of Flemming was
+weak,--weak as a child's. He bowed hisstubborn knees, and wept. And
+oh! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how
+much of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears,
+through which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall
+opposite, this singular inscription;
+
+"Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again.
+Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the
+shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart."
+
+It seemed to him, as if the unknown tenant of that grave had
+opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation,
+which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a
+moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. The stone was rolled
+away from the door of his heart; death was no longer there, but an
+angel clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more
+bleared with tears; and, looking into the bright, morning heaven, he
+said;
+
+"I will be strong!"
+
+Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painfullongings to behold
+once more the faces of their departed friends; and as they gaze upon
+them, lying there so peacefully with the semblance, that they wore
+on earth, the sweet breath of heaven touches them, and the features
+crumble and fall together, and are but dust. So did his soul then
+descend for the last time into the great tomb of the Past, with
+painful longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he had
+loved; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, and they would
+not stay, but crumbled away and perished as he gazed. They, too,
+were dust. And thus, far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the
+Past shut behind him as the Divine Poet did the gate of Paradise,
+when the angel pointed him the way up the Holy Mountain; and to him
+likewise was it forbidden to look back.
+
+In the life of every man, there are sudden transitions of
+feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician
+had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the
+air, the wind falls, and serenity succeedsthe storm. The causes
+which produce these sudden changes may have been long at work within
+us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently
+without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming; and from that
+hour forth he resolved, that he would no longer veer with every
+shifting wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's plaything in
+the hands of Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved
+henceforward not to lean on others; but to walk self-confident and
+self-possessed; no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor
+wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires; but
+to live in the Present wisely, alike forgetful of the Past, and
+careless of what the mysterious Future might bring. And from that
+moment he was calm, and strong; he was reconciled with himself! His
+thoughts turned to his distant home beyond the sea. An
+indescribable, sweet feeling rose within him.
+
+"Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps," said he; "and be a
+man among men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth
+bemine a life of action and reality! I will work in my own sphere,
+nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness.
+This alone is Life;
+
+'Life that shall send
+
+A challenge to its end,
+
+And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!'
+
+Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise resolve,
+sooner? Can such a simple result spring only from the long and
+intricate process of experience? Alas! it is not till Time, with
+reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human
+Life, to light the fires of passion with, from day to day, that Man
+begins to see, that the leaves which remain are few in number, and
+to remember, faintly at first, and then more clearly, that, upon the
+earlier pages of that book, was written a story of happy innocence,
+which he would fain read over again. Then come listless
+irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of despair; or else the
+firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain, a more
+noble history, than the child's story, with which the book
+began."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE LAST PANG.
+
+
+
+"Farewell to thee, Saint Gilgen!" said Flemming, as he turned on
+the brow of the hill, to take his last look at the lake and the
+village below, and felt that this was one of the few spots on the
+wide earth to which he could say farewell with regret. "Thy majestic
+hills have impressed themselves upon my soul, as a seal upon wax.
+The quiet beauty of thy lake shall be to me forever an image of
+peace and purity and stillness, and that inscription in thy little
+churchyard, a sentence of wisdom for my after life."
+
+Before the setting of the same sun, which then shone on that fair
+landscape, he was far on his way towards Munich. He had left far
+behind him the mountains of the Tyrol; and beheld themfor the last
+time in the soft evening twilight, their bases green with forest
+trees, and here and there, a sharp rocky spire, and a rounded summit
+capped with snow. There they lay, their backs, like the backs of
+camels; a mighty caravan, reposing at evening in its march across
+the desert.
+
+From Munich he passed through Augsburg and Ulm, on his way to
+Stuttgard. At the entrances of towns and villages, he saw large
+crucifixes; and on the fronts of many houses, coarse paintings and
+images of saints. In Gunzburg three priests in black were slowly
+passing down the street, and women fell on their knees to receive
+their blessing. There were many beggars, too, in the streets; and an
+old man who was making hay in a field by the road-side, when he saw
+the carriage approaching, threw down his rake, and came tumbling
+over the ditch, with his hat held out in both hands, uttering the
+most dismal wail. The next day, the bright yellow jackets of the
+postilions, and the two great tassels of their bugle-horns, dangling
+down their backs, like two cauliflowers, told him he was in
+Würtemberg; and, late in the evening, he stopped at a hotel in
+Stuttgard; and from his chamber-window, saw, in the bright
+moonlight, the old Gothic cathedral, with its narrow, lancet windows
+and jutting buttresses, right in front of him. Ere long he had
+forgotten all his cares and sorrows in sleep, and with them his
+hopes, and wishes, and good resolves.
+
+He was still sitting at breakfast in his chamber, the next
+morning, when the great bell of the cathedral opposite began to
+ring, and reminded him that it was Sunday. Ere long the organ
+answered from within, and from its golden lips breathed forth a
+psalm. The congregation began to assemble, and Flemming went up with
+them to the house of the Lord. In the body of the church he found
+the pews all filled or locked; they seemed to belong to families. He
+went up into the gallery, and looked over the psalm-book of a
+peasant, while the congregation sang the sublime old hymn of Martin
+Luther,
+
+"Our God, he is a tower of strength,
+
+A trusty shield and weapon."
+
+During the singing, a fat clergyman, clad in black, with a white
+surplice thrown loosely about him, came pacing along one of the
+aisles, from beneath the organ-loft and ascended the pulpit. After
+the hymn, he read a portion of Scripture, and then said;
+
+"Let us unite in silent prayer."
+
+And turning round, he knelt in the pulpit, while the congregation
+remained standing. For a while there was a breathless silence in the
+church, which to Flemming was more solemnly impressive than any
+audible prayer. The clergyman then arose, and began his sermon. His
+theme was the Reformation; and he attempted to prove how much easier
+it was to enter the kingdom of Heaven through the gateways of the
+Reformed Evangelical Dutch church, than by the aisles and
+penitential stair-cases of Saint Peter's. He then gave a history of
+the Reformation; and, when Flemming thought he was near the end, he
+heard him say, that he should divide his discourse into four heads.
+This reminded him of the sturdy old Puritan, Cotton Mather, who
+after preaching an hour, would coolly turn the hour-glass on the
+pulpit, and say; "Now, my beloved hearers, let us take another
+glass." He stole out into the silent, deserted street, and went to
+visit the veteran sculptor Dannecker. He found him in his parlour,
+sitting alone, with his psalm-book, and the reminiscences of a life
+of eighty years. As Flemming entered, he arose from the sofa, and
+tottered towards him; a venerable old man, of low stature, and
+dressed in a loose white jacket, with a face like Franklin's, his
+white hair flowing over his shoulders, and a pale, blue eye.
+
+"So you are from America," said he. "But you have a German name.
+Paul Flemming was one of our old poets. I have never been in
+America, and never shall go there. I am now too old. I have been in
+Paris and in Rome. But that was long ago. I am now eight and seventy
+years old."
+
+Here he took Flemming by the hand, and made him sit down by his
+side, on the sofa. And Flemmingfelt a mysterious awe creep over him,
+on touching the hand of the good old man, who sat so serenely amid
+the gathering shade of years, and listened to life's curfew-bell,
+telling, with eight and seventy solemn strokes, that the hour had
+come, when the fires of all earthly passion must be quenched within,
+and man must prepare to lie down and rest till the morning.
+
+"You see," he continued, in a melancholy tone, "my hands are
+cold; colder than yours. They were warmer once. I am now an old
+man."
+
+"Yet these are the hands," answered Flemming, "that sculptured
+the beauteous Ariadne and the Panther. The soul never grows
+old."
+
+"Nor does Nature," said the old man, pleased with this allusion
+to his great work, and pointing to the green trees before his
+window. "This pleasure I have left to me. My sight is still good. I
+can even distinguish objects on the side of yonder mountain. My
+hearing is also unimpaired. For all which, I thank God."
+
+Then, directing Flemming's attention to a fine engraving, which
+hung on the opposite wall of the room, he continued;
+
+"That is an engraving of Canova's Religion. I love to sit here
+and look at it, for hours together. It is beautiful. He made the
+statue for his native town, where they had no church, until he built
+them one. He placed the statue in it. This engraving he sent me as a
+present. Ah, he was a dear, good man. The name of his native town I
+have forgotten. My memory fails me. I cannot remember names."
+
+Fearful that he had disturbed the old man in his morning
+devotions, Flemming did not remain long, but took his leave with
+regret. There was something impressive in the scene he had
+witnessed;--this beautiful old age of the artist; sitting by the
+open window, in the bright summer morning,--the labor of life
+accomplished, the horizon reached, where heaven and earth
+meet,--thinking it was angel's music, when he heard the church-bells
+ring; himself too old to go. As he walked back to his chamber, he
+thought within himself, whether he likewise might not accomplish
+something, which should live after him;--might not bring something
+permanent out of this fast-fleeting life of man, and then sit down,
+like the artist, in serene old age, and fold his hands in silence.
+He wondered how a man felt when he grew so old, that he could no
+longer go to church, but must sit at home and read the bible in
+large print. His heart was full of indefinite longings, mingled with
+regrets; longings to accomplish something worthy of life; regret,
+that as yet he had accomplished nothing, but had felt and dreamed
+only. Thus the warm days in spring bring forth passion-flowers and
+forget-menots. It is only after mid-summer, when the days grow
+shorter and hotter, that fruit begins to appear. Then, the heat of
+the day brings forward the harvest, and after the harvest, the
+leaves fall, and there is a gray frost. Much meditating upon these
+things, Paul Flemming reached his hotel. At that moment a person clad
+in green came down the church-steps, and crossed the street. It was
+the German student, of Interlachen. Flemming started as if a green
+snake had suddenly crossed his path. He took refuge in his
+chamber.
+
+That night as he was sitting alone in his chamber, having made
+his preparation to depart the following morning, his attention was
+arrested by the sound of a female voice in the next room. A thin
+partition, with a door, separated it from his own. He had not before
+observed that the room was occupied. But, in the stillness of the
+night, the tones of that voice struck his ear. He listened. It was a
+lady, reading the prayers of the English Church. The tones were
+familiar; and awakened at once a thousand painfully sweet
+recollections. It was the voice of Mary Ashburton! His heart could
+not be deceived; and all its wounds began to bleed afresh, like
+those of a murdered man, when the murderer approaches. His first
+impulse was of affection only, boundless, irrepressible, delirious,
+as of old in the green valley of Interlachen. He waited for the
+voice to cease; that he might go to her, and behold her face once
+more. And then his pride rose up within him, and rebuked this
+weakness. He remembered his firm resolve; and blushed to find
+himself so feeble. And the voice ceased; and yet he did not go.
+Pride had so far gained the mastery over affection. He lay down upon
+his bed, like a child as he was. All about him was silence, and the
+silence was holy, for she was near; so near that he could almost
+hear the beating of her heart. He knew now for the first time how
+weak he was, and how strong his passion for that woman. His heart
+was like the altar of the Israelites of old; and, though drenched
+with tears, as with rain, it was kindled at once by the holy fire
+from heaven!
+
+Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted with the strong
+excitement; and, in that hour when, sleep being "nigh unto the
+soul," visions are deemed prophetic, he dreamed. O blessed visionof
+the morning, stay! thou wert so fair! He stood again on the green
+sunny meadow, beneath the ruined towers; and she was by his side,
+with her pale, speaking countenance and holy eyes; and he kissed her
+fair forehead; and she turned her face towards him beaming with
+affection and said, "I confess it now; you are the Magician!" and
+pressed him in a meek embrace, that he, "might rather feel than see
+the swelling of her heart." And then she faded away from his arms,
+and her face became transfigured, and her voice like the voice of an
+angel in heaven;--and he awoke, and was alone!
+
+It was broad daylight; and he heard the postilion, and the
+stamping of horses' hoofs on the pavement at the door. At the same
+moment his servant came in, with coffee, and told him all was ready.
+He did not dare to stay. But, throwing himself into the carriage, he
+cast one look towards the window of the Dark Ladie, and a moment
+afterwards had left her forever! He had drunk thelast drop of the
+bitter cup, and now laid the golden goblet gently down, knowing that
+he should behold it no more!
+
+No more! O how majestically mournful are those words! They sound
+like the roar of the wind through a forest of pines!
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HYPERION ***
+
+This file should be named 5436-8.txt or 5436-8.zip
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+https://gutenberg.org or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04
+
+Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/5436-8.zip b/old/5436-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..079176e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/5436-8.zip