Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels, vol. 2 of 2

By Goethe

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Title: Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels, vol. 2 of 2

Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translator: Thomas Carlyle


        
Release date: March 8, 2026 [eBook #78139]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: A.L. Burt, 1896

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78139

Credits: Chris Hapka and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILHELM MEISTER'S APPRENTICESHIP AND TRAVELS, VOL. 2 OF 2 ***
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                           WILHELM MEISTER’S
                      APPRENTICESHIP AND TRAVELS.

                 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.

                           By THOMAS CARLYLE.

                        COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES.
                               VOLUME II.








                               NEW YORK:
                         A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                       MEISTER’S APPRENTICESHIP.

                ---------------------------------------


                               BOOK VIII.


                ---------------------------------------


                               CHAPTER I.


Felix skipped into the garden; Wilhelm followed him with rapture: a
lovely morning was displaying every thing with fresh charms; our friend
enjoyed the most delightful moment. Felix was new in the free and lordly
world, nor did his father know much more than he about the objects
concerning which the little creature was repeatedly and unweariedly
inquiring. At last they joined the gardener, who had to tell them the
names and uses of a multitude of plants. Wilhelm looked on nature as
with unscaled eyes: the child’s new-fangled curiosity first made him
sensible how weak an interest he himself had taken in external things,
how small his actual knowledge was. Not till this day, the happiest of
his life, did his own cultivation seem to have commenced: he felt the
necessity of learning, being called upon to teach.

Jarno and the abbé did not show themselves again till evening, when they
brought a guest along with them. Wilhelm viewed the stranger with
amazement; he could scarce believe his eyes: it was Werner, who
likewise, for a moment, hesitated in his recognition. They embraced each
other tenderly: neither of them could conceal that he thought the other
greatly altered. Werner declared that his friend was taller, stronger,
straighter; that he had become more polished in his looks and carriage.
“Something of his old true-heartedness I miss, however,” added he.
“That, too, will soon appear again,” said Wilhelm, “when we have
recovered from our first astonishment.”

The impression Werner made upon his friend was by no means so favorable.
The honest man seemed rather to have retrograded than advanced. He was
much leaner than of old; his peaked face appeared to have grown sharper,
his nose longer; brow and crown had lost their hair; the voice, clear,
eager, shrill, the hollow breast and stooping shoulders, the sallow
cheeks, announced indubitably that a melancholic drudge was there.

Wilhelm was discreet enough to speak but sparingly of these great
changes; while the other, on the contrary, gave free course to his
friendly joy. “In truth,” cried he, “if thou hast spent thy time badly,
and, as I suppose, gained nothing, it must be owned thou art grown a
piece of manhood such as cannot fail to turn to somewhat. Do not waste
and squander me this, too, again: with such a figure thou shalt buy some
rich and beautiful heiress.”--“I see,” said Wilhelm, smiling, “thou wilt
not belie thy character. Scarcely hast thou found thy brother after long
absence, when thou lookest on him as a piece of goods, a thing to
speculate on and make profit by.”

Jarno and the abbé did not seem at all astonished at this recognition:
they allowed the two to expatiate on the past and present as they
pleased. Werner walked round and round his friend, turned him to this
side and to that, so as almost to embarrass him. “No!” cried he, “such a
thing as this I never met with, and yet I know that I am not mistaken.
Thy eyes are deeper, thy brow is broader; thy nose has grown finer, thy
mouth more lovely. Do but look at him, how he stands; how it all suits
and fits together! Well, idling is the way to grow. But for me, poor
devil,” said he, looking at himself in the glass, “if I had not all this
while been making store of money, it were over with me altogether.”

Werner had got Wilhelm’s last letter: the distant trading-house, in
common with which Lothario meant to purchase the estates, was theirs. On
that business Werner had come hither, not dreaming that he should meet
with Wilhelm on the way. The baron’s lawyer came: the papers were
produced; Werner reckoned the conditions reasonable. “If you mean well,”
said he, “as you seem to do, with this young man, you will of yourselves
take care that our part be not abridged: it shall be at my friend’s
option whether he will take the land and lay out a portion of his
fortune on it.” Jarno and the abbé protested that they did not need this
admonition. Scarcely had the business been discussed in general terms,
when Werner signified a longing for a game at ombre; to which, in
consequence, Jarno and the abbé set themselves along with him. He was
now grown so accustomed to it, that he could not pass the evening
without cards.

The two friends, after supper, being left alone, began to talk and
question one another very keenly, touching every thing they wished to
have communicated. Wilhelm spoke in high terms of his situation, of his
happiness in being received among such men. Werner shook his head, and
said, “Well, I see, we should believe nothing that we do not see with
our eyes. More than one obliging friend assured me thou wert living with
a wild young nobleman, wert supplying him with actresses, helping him to
waste his money; that, by thy means, he had quarrelled with every one of
his relations.”--“For my own sake, and the sake of these worthy
gentlemen, I should be vexed at this,” said Wilhelm, “had not my
theatrical experience made me tolerant to every sort of calumny. How can
men judge rightly of our actions, which appear but singly or in
fragments to them; of which they see the smallest portion; while good
and bad take place in secret, and for most part nothing comes to light
but an indifferent show? Are not the actors and actresses in a play set
up on boards before them; lamps are lit on every side; the whole
transaction is comprised within three hours; yet scarcely one of them
knows rightly what to make of it?”

Our friend proceeded to inquire about his family, his young comrades,
his native town. Werner told, with great haste, of changes that had
taken place, of changes that were still in progress. “The women in our
house,” said he, “are satisfied and happy: we are never short of money.
One-half of their time they spend in dressing, the other in showing
themselves when dressed. They are as domestic as a reasonable man could
wish. My boys are growing up to prudent youths. I already, as in vision,
see them sitting, writing, reckoning, running, trading, trucking: each
of them, as soon as possible, shall have a business of his own. As to
what concerns our fortune, thou wilt be contented with the state of it.
When we have got these lands in order, thou must come directly home with
me; for it now appears as if thou, too, couldst mingle with some skill
in worldly undertakings, thanks to thy new friends, who have set thee on
the proper path. I am certainly a fool: I never knew till now how well I
liked thee;--now when I cannot gape and gaze at thee enough, so well and
handsome thou lookest. That is, in truth, another form than the portrait
which was sent thy sister, which occasioned such disputes at home. Both
mother and daughter thought young master very handsome indeed, with his
slack collar, half-open breast, large ruff, sleek, pendent hair, round
hat, short waistcoat, and wide pantaloons; while I, on the other hand,
maintained that the costume was scarce two finger-breadths from that of
harlequin. But now thou lookest like a man; only the cue is wanting, in
which I beg of thee to bind thy hair; else, some time or other, they
will seize thee as a Jew, and demand toll and tribute of thee.”

Felix, in the mean time, had come into the room; and, as they did not
mind him, he had laid himself upon the sofa, and was fallen asleep.
“What urchin is this?” said Werner. Wilhelm at that moment had not the
heart to tell the truth, nor did he wish to lay a still ambiguous
narrative before a man who was by nature any thing but credulous.

The whole party now proceeded to the lands, to view them, and conclude
the bargain. Wilhelm would not part with Felix from his side: for the
boy’s sake, he rejoiced exceedingly in the intended purchase. The
longing of the child for cherries and berries, the season for which was
at hand, brought to his mind the days of his own youth, and the manifold
duties of a father, to prepare, to procure, and to maintain for his
family a constant series of enjoyments. With what interest he viewed the
nurseries and the buildings! How zealously he contemplated repairing
what had been neglected, restoring what had fallen! He no longer looked
upon the world with the eyes of a bird of passage: an edifice he did not
now consider as a grove that is hastily put together, and that withers
ere one leaves it. Every thing that he proposed commencing was to be
completed for his boy: every thing that he erected was to last for
several generations. In this sense his apprenticeship was ended: with
the feeling of a father, he had acquired all the virtues of a citizen.
He felt this, and nothing could exceed his joy. “O needless strictness
of morality!” exclaimed he, “while Nature in her own kindly manner
trains us to all that we require to be. O strange demands of civil
society! which first perplexes and misleads us, then asks of us more
than Nature herself. Woe to every sort of culture which destroys the
most effectual means of all true culture, and directs us to the end,
instead of rendering us happy on the way!”

Much as he had already seen in his life, it seemed as if the observation
of the child afforded him his first clear view of human nature. The
theatre, the world, had appeared before him, only as a multitude of
thrown dice, every one of which upon its upper surface indicates a
greater or a smaller value, and which, when reckoned up together, make a
sum. But here in the person of the boy, as we might say, a single die
was laid before him, on the many sides of which the worth and
worthlessness of man’s nature were legibly engraved.

The child’s desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger
every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the
name of every thing: supposing that there could be nothing which his
father did not know, he often teased him with his questions, and caused
him to inquire concerning objects which, but for this, he would have
passed without notice. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and
end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked
whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the
first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to
understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he
may hope ever to give account of to himself or others. The anger of the
child, when he saw injustice done to any living thing, was extremely
grateful to the father, as the symptom of a generous heart. Felix once
struck fiercely at the cook for cutting up some pigeons. The fine
impression this produced on Wilhelm was, indeed, erelong disturbed, when
he found the boy unmercifully tearing sparrows in pieces and beating
frogs to death. This trait reminded him of many men, who appear so
scrupulously just when without passion, and witnessing the proceedings
of other men.

The pleasant feeling, that the boy was producing so fine and wholesome
an influence on his being, was, in a short time, troubled for a moment,
when our friend observed, that in truth the boy was educating him more
than he the boy. The child’s conduct he was not qualified to correct:
its mind he could not guide in any path but a spontaneous one. The evil
habits which Aurelia had so violently striven against had all, as it
seemed, on her death, assumed their ancient privileges. Felix still
never shut the door behind him, he still would not eat from a plate; and
no greater pleasure could befall him than when he happened to be
overlooked, and could take his bit immediately from the dish, or let the
full glass stand, and drink out of the bottle. He delighted also very
much when he could set himself in a corner with a book, and say with a
serious air, “I must study this scholar stuff!” though he neither knew
his letters, nor would learn them.

Thus, when Wilhelm thought how little he had done for Felix, how little
he was capable of doing, there arose at times a restlessness within him,
which appeared to counterbalance all his happiness. “Are we men, then,”
said he, “so selfishly formed, that we cannot possibly take proper
charge of any one without us? Am I not acting with the boy exactly as I
did with Mignon? I drew the dear child towards me: her presence gave me
pleasure, yet I cruelly neglected her. What did I do for her education,
which she longed for with such earnestness? Nothing! I left her to
herself, and to all the accidents to which, in a society of coarse
people, she could be exposed. And now for this boy, who seemed so
interesting before he could be precious to thee, has thy heart ever bid
thee do the smallest service to him? It is time that thou shouldst cease
to waste thy own years and those of others: awake, and think what thou
shouldst do for thyself, and for this good being, whom love and nature
have so firmly bound to thee.”

This soliloquy was but an introduction to admit that he had already
thought and cared, and tried and chosen: he could delay no longer to
confess it. After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of
Mariana, he distinctly felt that he must seek a mother for the boy; and
also that he could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady
he was thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only
one to trust one’s self to in such circumstances. Her generous affection
for Lothario did not make him hesitate. By a singular destiny, they two
had been forever parted: Theresa looked upon herself as free; she had
talked of marrying, with indifference, indeed, but as of a matter
understood.

After long deliberation he determined on communicating to her every
thing he knew about himself. She was to be made acquainted with him, as
he already was with her. He accordingly began to take a survey of his
history; but it seemed to him so empty of events, and in general so
little to his credit, that he more than once was on the point of giving
up his purpose. At last, however, he resolved on asking Jarno for the
Roll of his Apprenticeship, which he had noticed lying in the tower:
Jarno said it was the very time for that, and Wilhelm consequently got
it.

It is a feeling of awe and fear which seizes on a man of noble mind when
conscious that his character is just about to be exhibited before him.
Every transition is a crisis, and a crisis presupposes sickness. With
what reluctance do we look into the glass after rising from a sick-bed!
The recovery we feel: the effects of the past disease are all we see.
Wilhelm had, however, been sufficiently prepared: events had already
spoken loudly to him, and his friends had not spared him. If he opened
the roll of parchment with some hurry, he grew calmer and calmer the
farther he read. He found his life delineated with large, sharp strokes;
neither unconnected incidents, nor narrow sentiments, perplexed his
view; the most bland and general reflections taught, without shaming
him. For the first time his own figure was presented to him, not,
indeed, as in a mirror, a second self, but as in a portrait, another
self: we do not, it is true, recognize ourselves in every feature; but
we are delighted that a thinking spirit has so understood us, that such
gifts have been employed in representing us, that an image of what we
were exists, and may endure when we ourselves are gone.

Wilhelm next employed himself in setting forth the history of his life,
for the perusal of Theresa: all the circumstances of it were recalled to
memory by what he had been reading; he almost felt ashamed that to her
great virtues he had nothing to oppose which indicated a judicious
activity. He had been minute in his written narrative: he was brief in
the letter which he sent along with it. He solicited her friendship, her
love if it were possible: he offered her his hand, and entreated for a
quick decision.

After some internal contest, whether it were proper to impart this
weighty business to his friends,--to Jarno and the abbé,--he determined
not to do so. His resolution was so firm, the business was of such
importance, that he could not have submitted it to the decision of the
wisest and best of men. He was even cautious enough to carry his letter
with his own hand to the nearest post. From his parchment-roll it
appeared with certainty enough, that in very many actions of his life,
in which he had conceived himself to be proceeding freely and in secret,
he had been observed, nay, guided; and perhaps the thought of this had
given him an unpleasant feeling: and he wished at least, in speaking to
Theresa’s heart, to speak purely from the heart,--to owe his fate to her
decision and determination only. Hence, in this solemn point; he
scrupled not to give his overseers the slip.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER II.


Scarcely was the letter gone, when Lothario returned. Every one was
gladdened at the prospect of so speedily concluding the important
business which they had in hand. Wilhelm waited with anxiety to see how
all these many threads were to be loosed, or tied anew, and how his own
future state was to be settled. Lothario gave a kindly salutation to
them all: he was quite recovered and serene; he had the air of one who
knows what he should do, and who finds no hinderance in the way of doing
it.

His cordial greeting Wilhelm could scarcely repay. “This,” he had to own
within himself, “is the friend, the lover, bridegroom, of Theresa: in
his stead thou art presuming to intrude. Dost thou think it possible for
thee to banish, to obliterate, an impression such as this?” Had the
letter not been sent away, perhaps he would not have ventured sending it
at all. But happily the die was cast: it might be, Theresa had already
taken up her resolution, and only distance shrouded with its veil a
happy termination. The winning or the losing must soon be decided. By
such considerations he endeavored to compose himself, and yet the
movements of his heart were almost feverish. He could give but little
attention to the weighty business, on which, in some degree, the fate of
his whole property depended. In passionate moments how trivial do we
reckon all that is about us, all that belongs to us!

Happily for him, Lothario treated the affair with magnanimity, and
Werner with an air of ease. The latter, in his violent desire of gain,
experienced a lively pleasure in contemplating the fine estate which was
to be his friend’s. Lothario, for his part, seemed to be revolving very
different thoughts. “I cannot take such pleasure in the acquirement of
property,” said he, “as in the justness of it.”

“And, in the name of Heaven,” cried Werner, “is not this of ours
acquired justly?”

“Not altogether,” said Lothario.

“Are we not giving hard cash for it?”

“Doubtless,” replied Lothario; “and most probably you will consider what
I am now hinting at as nothing but a whim. No property appears to me
quite just, quite free of flaw, except it contribute to the state its
due proportion.”

“What!” said Werner. “You would rather that our lands, which we have
purchased free from burden, had been taxable?”

“Yes,” replied Lothario, “in a suitable degree. It is only by this
equality with every other kind of property, that our possession of it
can be made secure. In these new times, when so many old ideas are
tottering, what is the grand reason why the peasant reckons the
possession of the noble less equitable than his own? Simply that the
noble is not burdened, and lies a burden on him.”

“But how would the interest of our capital agree with that?” said
Werner.

“Perfectly well,” returned the other; “if the state, for a regular and
fair contribution, would relieve us from the feudal hocus-pocus; would
allow us to proceed with our lands according to our pleasure: so that we
were not compelled to retain such masses of them undivided, so that we
might part them more equally among our children, whom we might thus
introduce to vigorous and free activity, instead of leaving them the
poor inheritance of these our limited and limiting privileges, to enjoy
which we must ever be invoking the ghosts of our forefathers. How much
happier were men and women in our rank of life, if they might, with
unforbidden eyes, look round them, and elevate by their selection, here
a worthy maiden, there a worthy youth, regarding nothing further than
their own ideas of happiness in marriage! The state would have more,
perhaps better citizens, and would not so often be distressed for want
of heads and hands.”

“I can assure you honestly,” said Werner, “I never in my life thought
about the state: my taxes, tolls, and tributes I have paid, because it
was the custom.”

“Still, however,” said Lothario, “I hope to make a worthy patriot of
you. As he alone is a good father who at table serves his children
first; so is he alone a good citizen who, before all other outlays,
discharges what he owes the state.”

By such general reflections their special business was accelerated
rather than retarded. It was nearly over, when Lothario said to Wilhelm,
“I must send you to a place where you are needed more than here. My
sister bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor Mignon
seems to be decaying more and more, and it is thought your presence
might allay the malady. Besides telling me in person, my sister has
despatched this note after me: so that you perceive she reckons it a
pressing case.” Lothario handed him a billet. Wilhelm, who had listened
in extreme perplexity, at once discovered in these hasty pencil-strokes
the hand of the countess, and knew not what to answer.

“Take Felix with you,” said Lothario: “the little ones will cheer each
other. You must be upon the road to-morrow morning early: my sister’s
coach, in which my people travelled hither, is still here; I will give
you horses half the way, the rest you post. A prosperous journey to you!
Make many compliments from me, when you arrive: tell my sister I shall
soon be back, and that she must prepare for guests. Our grand-uncle’s
friend, the Marchese Cipriani, is on his way to visit us: he hoped to
find the old man still in life; they meant to entertain each other with
their common love of art, and the recollection of their early intimacy.
The marchese, much younger than my uncle, owed to him the greater part
of his accomplishments. We must exert all our endeavors to fill up, in
some measure, the void which is awaiting him; and a larger party is the
readiest means.”

Lothario went with the abbé to his chamber; Jarno had ridden off before;
Wilhelm hastened to his room. There was none to whom he could unbosom
his distress, none by whose assistance he could turn aside the project,
which he viewed with so much fear. The little servant came, requesting
him to pack: they were to put the luggage on to-night, meaning to set
out by daybreak. Wilhelm knew not what to do: at length he cried, “Well,
I shall leave this house at any rate; on the road I may consider what is
to be done; at all events, I will halt in the middle of my journey; I
can send a message hither, I can write what I recoil from saying, then
let come of it what will.” In spite of this resolution, he spent a
sleepless night: a look on Felix resting so serenely was the only thing
that gave him any solace. “Oh, who knows,” cried he, “what trials are
before me! who knows how sharply by-gone errors will yet punish me, how
often good and reasonable projects for the future shall miscarry! But
this treasure, which I call my own, continue it to me, thou exorable or
inexorable Fate! Were it possible that this best part of myself were
taken from me, that this heart could be torn from my heart, then
farewell sense and understanding; farewell all care and foresight;
vanish thou tendency to perseverance! All that distinguishes us from the
beasts, pass away! And, if it is not lawful for a man to end his heavy
days by the act of his own hand, may speedy madness banish
consciousness, before death, which destroys it forever, shall bring on
his own long night.”

He seized the boy in his arms, kissed him, clasped him, and wetted him
with plenteous tears.

The child awoke: his clear eye, his friendly look, touched his father to
the inmost heart. “What a scene awaits me,” cried he, “when I shall
present thee to the beautiful, unhappy countess, when she shall press
thee to her bosom, which thy father has so deeply injured! Ought I not
to fear that she will push thee from her with a cry, when a touch of
thee renews her real or fancied pain?” The coachman did not leave him
time for further thought or hesitation, but forced him into the carriage
before day. Wilhelm wrapped his Felix well; the morning was cold but
clear: the child, for the first time in his life, saw the sun rise. His
astonishment at the first fiery glance of the luminary, at the growing
power of the light; his pleasure and his strange remarks,--rejoiced the
father, and afforded him a glimpse into the heart of the boy, before
which, as over a clear and silent sea, the sun was mounting and
hovering.

In a little town the coachman halted, unyoked his horses, and rode back.
Wilhelm took possession of a room, and asked himself seriously whether
he would stay or proceed. Thus irresolute, he ventured to take out the
little note, which hitherto he had never had the heart to look on: it
contained the following words: “Send thy young friend very soon: Mignon
for the last two days has been growing rather worse. Sad as the occasion
is, I shall be happy to get acquainted with him.”

The concluding words Wilhelm, at the first glance, had not seen. He was
terrified on reading them, and instantly determined not to go. “How?”
cried he, “Lothario, knowing what occurred between us, has not told her
who I am? She is not, with a settled mind, expecting an acquaintance,
whom she would rather not see: she expects a stranger,--and I enter! I
see her shudder and start back, I see her blush! No, it is impossible
for me to encounter such a scene!” Just then his horses were led out and
yoked: Wilhelm was determined to take off his luggage and remain. He
felt extremely agitated. Hearing the maid running up stairs to tell him,
as he thought, that all was ready, he began on the spur of the instant
to devise some pretext for continuing: his eyes were fixed, without
attention, on the letter which he still held in his hand. “In the name
of Heaven!” cried he, “what is this? It is not the hand of the countess:
it is the hand of the Amazon!”

The maid came in, requested him to walk down, and took Felix with her.
“Is it possible,” exclaimed he, “is it true? What shall I do? Remain,
and wait, and certify myself? Or hasten, hasten, and rush into an
explanation? Thou art on the way to her, and thou canst loiter? This
night thou mayest see her, and thou wilt voluntarily lock thyself in
prison? It is her hand; yes, it is hers! This hand calls thee: her coach
is yoked to lead thee to her! Now the riddle is explained: Lothario has
two sisters; my relation to the one he knows, how much I owe to the
other is unknown to him. Nor is she aware that the wounded stroller, who
stands indebted to her for his health, if not his life, has been
received with such unmerited attention in her brother’s house.”

Felix, who was swinging to and fro in the coach, cried up to him,
“Father! Come, oh come! Look at the pretty clouds, the pretty
colors!”--“Yes, I come,” cried Wilhelm, springing down-stairs; “and all
the glories of the sky, which thou, good creature, so admirest, are as
nothing to the moment which I look for.”

Sitting in the coach, he recalled all the circumstances of the matter to
his memory. “So this is the Natalia, then, Theresa’s friend! What a
discovery! what hopes, what prospects! How strange that the fear of
speaking about the one sister should have altogether concealed from me
the existence of the other!” With what joy he looked on Felix! He
anticipated for the child, as for himself, the best reception.

Evening at last came on; the sun had set; the road was not the best; the
postilion drove slowly; Felix had fallen asleep, and new cares and
doubts arose in the bosom of our friend. “What delusion, what fantasies,
are these that rule thee!” said he to himself. “An uncertain similarity
of handwriting has at once assured thee, and given thee matter for the
strangest castles in the air.” He again brought out the paper; in the
departing light he again imagined that he recognized the hand of the
countess: his eyes could no longer find in the parts what his heart had
at once shown him in the whole. “These horses, then, are running with
thee to a scene of terror! Who knows but in a few hours they may have to
bring thee back again? And if thou shouldst meet with her alone! But
perhaps her husband will be there, perhaps the baroness! How altered
will she be! Shall I not fail, and sink to the earth, at sight of her?”

Yet a faint hope that it might be his Amazon would often gleam through
these gloomy thoughts. It was now night: the carriage rolled into a
court-yard, and halted; a servant with a link stepped out of a stately
portal, and came down the broad steps to the carriage-door. “You have
been long looked for,” said he, opening it. Wilhelm dismounted, took the
sleeping Felix in his arms: the first servant called to a second, who
was standing in the door with a light, “Show the gentleman up to the
baroness.”

Quick as lightning, it went through Wilhelm’s soul, “What a happiness!
Be it by accident or of purpose, the baroness is here! I shall see her
first: apparently the countess has retired to rest. Ye good spirits,
grant that the moment of deepest perplexity may pass tolerably over!”

He entered the house: he found himself in the most earnest, and, as he
almost felt, the holiest, place that he had ever trod. A pendent,
dazzling lustre threw its light upon a broad and softly rising flight of
stairs, which lay before him, and which parted into two divisions at a
turn above. Marble statues and busts were standing upon pedestals, and
arranged in niches: some of them seemed known to him. The impressions of
our childhood abide with us, even in their minutest traces. He
recognized a Muse, which had formerly belonged to his grandfather, not
indeed by its form or worth, but by an arm which had been restored, and
some new-inserted pieces of the robe. He felt as if a fairy-tale had
turned out to be true. The child was heavy in his arms: he lingered on
the stairs, and knelt down, as if to place him more conveniently. His
real want, however, was to get a moment’s breathing-time. He could
scarcely raise himself again. The servant, who was carrying the light,
offered to take Felix; but Wilhelm could not part with him. He had now
mounted to an ante-chamber, in which, to his still greater astonishment,
he observed the well-known picture of the sick king’s son hanging on the
wall. He had scarcely time to cast a look on it: the servant hurried him
along through two rooms into a cabinet. Here, behind a light-screen,
which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady reading. “Oh that it were
she!” said he within himself at this decisive moment. He set down the
boy, who seemed to be awakening; he meant to approach the lady; but the
child sank together, drunk with sleep; the lady rose and came to him. It
was the Amazon! Unable to restrain himself, he fell upon his knee, and
cried, “It is she!” He seized her hand, and kissed it with unbounded
rapture. The child was lying on the carpet between them, sleeping
softly.

Felix was carried to the sofa: Natalia sat down beside him; she directed
Wilhelm to the chair which was standing nearest them. She proposed to
order some refreshments; these our friend declined: he was altogether
occupied convincing himself that it was she, closely examining her
features, shaded by the screen, and accurately recognizing them. She
told him of Mignon’s sickness, in general terms; that the poor child was
gradually consuming under the influence of a few deep feelings; that
with her extreme excitability, and her endeavoring to hide it, her
little heart often suffered violent and dangerous pains; that, on any
unexpected agitation of her mind, this primary organ of life would
suddenly stop, and no trace of the vital movement could be felt in the
good child’s bosom; that, when such an agonizing cramp was past, the
force of nature would again express itself in strong pulses, and now
torment the child by its excess, as she had before suffered by its
defect.

Wilhelm recollected one spasmodic scene of that description; and Natalia
referred him to the doctor, who would speak with him at large on the
affair, and explain more circumstantially why he, the friend and
benefactor of the child, had been at present sent for. “One curious
change,” Natalia added, “you will find in her: she now wears women’s
clothes, to which she had once such an aversion.”

“How did you succeed in this?” said Wilhelm.

“If it was, indeed, a thing to be desired,” said she, “we owe it all to
chance. Hear how it happened. Perhaps you are aware that I have
constantly about me a number of little girls, whose opening minds I
endeavor, as they grow in strength, to train to what is good and right.
From my mouth they learn nothing but what I myself regard as true: yet I
can not and would not hinder them from gathering, among other people,
many fragments of the common prejudices and errors which are current in
the world. If they inquire of me about them, I attempt, as far as
possible, to join these alien and intrusive notions to some just one,
and thus to render them, if not useful, at least harmless. Some time ago
my girls had heard, among the peasants’ children, many tales of angels,
of Knecht Rupert, and such shadowy characters, who, they understood,
appeared at certain times in person, to give presents to good children,
and to punish naughty ones. They had an idea that these strange
visitants were people in disguise; in this I confirmed them: and,
without entering into explanations, I determined, on the first
opportunity, to let them see a spectacle of that sort. It chanced that
the birthday of two twin-sisters, whose behavior had been always very
good, was near: I promised, that, on this occasion, the little present
they had so well deserved should be delivered to them by an angel. They
were on the stretch of curiosity regarding this phenomenon. I had chosen
Mignon for the part; and accordingly, at the appointed day, I had her
suitably equipped in a long, light, snow-white dress. She was, of
course, provided with a golden girdle round her waist, and a golden
fillet on her hair. I at first proposed to omit the wings; but the young
ladies who were decking her insisted on a pair of large golden pinions,
in preparing which they meant to show their highest art. Thus did the
strange apparition, with a lily in the one hand, and a little basket in
the other, glide in among the girls: she surprised even me. ‘There comes
the angel!’ said I. The children all shrank back: at last they cried,
‘It is Mignon!’ yet they durst not venture to approach the wondrous
figure.

“‘Here are your gifts,’ said she, putting down the basket. They gathered
around her, they viewed, they felt, they questioned her.

“‘Art thou an angel?’ asked one of them.

“‘I wish I were,’ said Mignon.

“‘Why dost thou bear a lily?’

“‘So pure and so open should my heart be: then were I happy.’

“‘What wings are these? Let us see them?’

“‘They represent far finer ones, which are not yet unfolded.’

“And thus significantly did she answer all their other childlike,
innocent inquiries. The little party having satisfied their curiosity,
and the impression of the show beginning to abate, we were for
proceeding to undress the little angel. This, however, she resisted: she
took her cithern; she seated herself here, on this high writing-table,
and sang a little song with touching grace:--


             “‘Such let me seem, till such I be:
                 Take not my snow-white dress away!
               Soon from this dusk of earth I flee
                 Up to the glittering lands of day.

               There first a little space I rest,
                 Then wake so glad, to scenes so kind:
               In earthly robes no longer drest,
                 This band, this girdle, left behind.

               And those calm, shining sons of morn,
                 They ask not who is maid or boy:
               No robes, no garments, there are worn;
                 Our body pure from sin’s alloy.

               Through little life not much I toiled,
                 Yet anguish long this heart has wrung;
               Untimely woe my blossom spoiled:
                 Make me again forever young.’


“I immediately determined upon leaving her the dress,” proceeded
Natalia, “and procuring her some others of a similar kind. These she now
wears; and in them, I think, her form has quite a different expression.”

As it was already late, Natalia let the stranger go: he parted from her
not without anxiety. “Is she married, or not?” asked he within himself.
He had been afraid, at every rustling, that the door would open, and her
husband enter. The serving-man, who showed him to his room, went off
before our friend had mustered resolution to inquire regarding this. His
unrest held him long awake: he kept comparing the figure of the Amazon
with the figure of his new acquaintance. The two would not combine: the
former he had, as it were, himself fashioned; the latter seemed as if it
would almost new-fashion _him_.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER III.


Next morning, while all was yet quiet, he went about, viewing the house.
It was the purest, finest, stateliest piece of architecture he had ever
seen. “True art,” cried he, “is like good company: it constrains us in
the most delightful way to recognize the measure by which, and up to
which, our inward nature has been shaped by culture.” The impression
which the busts and statues of his grandfather made upon him was
exceedingly agreeable. With a longing mind he hastened to the picture of
the sick king’s son, and he still felt it to be charming and affecting.
The servant opened to him various other chambers: he found a library, a
museum, a cabinet of philosophical instruments. In much of this he could
not help perceiving his extreme ignorance. Meanwhile Felix had awakened,
and come running after him. The thought of how and when he might receive
Theresa’s letter gave him pain: he dreaded seeing Mignon, and in some
degree Natalia. How unlike his present state was his state at the moment
when he sealed the letter to Theresa, and with a glad heart wholly gave
himself to that noble being!

Natalia sent for him to breakfast. He proceeded to a room where several
tidy little girls, all apparently below ten years, were occupied in
furnishing a table; while another of the same appearance brought in
various sorts of beverage.

Wilhelm cast his eye upon a picture hung above the sofa: he could not
but recognize in it the portrait of Natalia, little as the execution
satisfied him. Natalia entered, and the likeness seemed entirely to
vanish. To his comfort, it was painted with the cross of a religious
order on its breast; and he now saw another such upon Natalia’s.

“I have just been looking at the portrait here,” said he; “and it seems
surprising that a painter could have been at once so true and so false.
The picture resembles you, in general, extremely well; and yet it
neither has your features nor your character.”

“It is rather matter of surprise,” replied Natalia, “that the likeness
is so good. It is not my picture, but the picture of an aunt, whom I
resembled even in childhood, though she was then advanced in years. It
was painted when her age was just about what mine is: at the first
glance, every one imagines it is meant for me. You should have been
acquainted with that excellent lady. I owe her much. A very weak state
of health, perhaps too much employment with her own thoughts, and,
withal, a moral and religious scrupulosity, prevented her from being to
the world what, in other circumstances, she might have become. She was a
light that shone but on a few friends, and on me especially.”

“Can it be possible,” said Wilhelm, after thinking for a moment, while
so many circumstances seemed to correspond so well, “can it be possible
that the fair and noble Saint, whose meek confessions I had liberty to
study, was your aunt?”

“You read the manuscript?” inquired Natalia.

“Yes,” said Wilhelm, “with the greatest sympathy, and not without effect
upon my life. What most impressed me in this paper was, if I may term it
so, the purity of being, not only of the writer herself, but of all that
lay round her; that self-dependence of nature, that impossibility of
admitting any thing into her soul which would not harmonize with its own
noble, lovely tone.”

“You are more tolerant to this fine spirit,” said Natalia, “nay, I will
say more just, than many other men to whom the narrative has been
imparted. Every cultivated person knows how much he has to strive
against a certain coarseness, both in himself and others; how much his
culture costs him; how apt he is, after all, in certain cases, to
recollect himself alone, forgetting what he owes to others. How often
has a worthy person to reproach himself for having failed to act with
proper delicacy! And when a fair nature too delicately, too
conscientiously, cultivates, nay, if you will, overcultivates, itself,
there seems to be no toleration, no indulgence, for it in the world. Yet
such persons are, without us, what the ideal of perfection is within
us,--models, not for being imitated, but for being aimed at. We laugh at
the cleanliness of the Dutch; but would our friend Theresa be what she
is, if some such notion were not always present to her in her
housekeeping?”

“I see before me, then,” cried Wilhelm, “in Theresa’s friend, the same
Natalia whom her amiable relative was so attached to; the Natalia, who,
from her youth, was so affectionate, so sympathizing, and helpful! It
was only out of such a line that such a being could proceed. What a
prospect opens before me, while I at once survey your ancestors, and all
the circle you belong to!”

“Yes,” replied Natalia, “in a certain sense, the story of my aunt would
give you the faithfullest picture of us. Her love to me, indeed, has
made her praise the little girl too much: in speaking of a child, we
never speak of what is present, but of what we hope for.”

Wilhelm, in the mean time, was rapidly reflecting that Lothario’s
parentage and early youth were now likewise known to him. The fair
countess, too, appeared before him in her childhood, with the aunt’s
pearls about her neck: he himself had been near those pearls, when her
soft, lovely lips bent down to meet his own. These beautiful
remembrances he sought to drive away by other thoughts. He ran through
the characters to whom that manuscript had introduced him. “I am here,
then,” cried he, “in your worthy uncle’s house! It is no house, it is a
temple; and you are the priestess, nay, the Genius, of it: I shall
recollect for life my impression yesternight, when I entered, and the
old figures of my earliest days were again before me. I thought of the
compassionate marble statues in Mignon’s song: but these figures had not
to lament about me; they looked upon me with a lofty earnestness, they
brought my first years into immediate contact with the present moment.
That ancient treasure of our family, the joy of my grandfather, I find
here placed among so many other noble works of art; and myself, whom
nature made the darling of the good old man, my unworthy self I find
here also, Heavens! in what society, in what connections!”

The girls had, by degrees, gone out to mind their little occupations.
Natalia, left alone with Wilhelm, asked some further explanation of his
last remark. The discovery, that a number of her finest paintings and
statues had at one time been the property of Wilhelm’s grandfather, did
not fail to give a cheerful stimulus to their discourse. As by that
manuscript he had got acquainted with Natalia’s house; so now he found
himself too, as it were, in his inheritance. At length he asked for
Mignon. His friend desired him to have patience till the doctor, who had
been called out into the neighborhood, returned. It is easy to suppose
that the doctor was the same little, active man whom we already know,
and who was spoken of in the “Confessions of a Fair Saint.”

“Since I am now,” said Wilhelm, “in the middle of your family circle, I
presume the abbé whom that paper mentions is the strange, inexplicable
person whom, after the most singular series of events, I met with in
your brother’s house? Perhaps you can give some more accurate conception
of him?”

“Of the abbé there might much be said,” replied Natalia: “what I know
best about him, is the influence which he exerted on our education. He
was, for a time at least, convinced that education ought, in every case,
to be adapted to the inclinations: his present views of it I know not.
He maintained, that with man the first and last consideration was
activity, and that we could not act on any thing without the proper
gifts for it, without an instinct impelling us to it. ‘You admit,’ he
used to say, ‘that poets must be born such; you admit this with regard
to all professors of the fine arts; because you must admit it, because
those workings of human nature cannot very plausibly be aped. But, if we
consider well, we shall find that every capability, however slight, is
born with us; that there is no vague, general capability in men. It is
our ambiguous, desultory education that makes men uncertain: it awakens
wishes when it should be animating tendencies; instead of forwarding our
real capacities, it turns our efforts towards objects which are
frequently discordant with the mind that aims at them. I augur better of
a child, a youth, who is wandering astray on a path of his own, than of
many who are walking aright upon paths which are not theirs. If the
former, either by themselves or by the guidance of others, ever find the
right path, that is to say, the path which suits their nature, they will
never leave it; while the latter are in danger every moment of shaking
off a foreign yoke, and abandoning themselves to unrestricted license.’”

“It is strange,” said Wilhelm, “that this same extraordinary man should
likewise have taken charge of me; should, as it seems, have, in his own
fashion, if not led, at least confirmed, me in my errors, for a time.
How he will answer to the charge of having joined with others, as it
were, to make game of me, I wait patiently to see.”

“Of this whim, if it is one,” said Natalia, “I have little reason to
complain: of all the family I answered best with it. Indeed, I see not
how Lothario could have got a finer breeding: but for my sister, the
countess, some other treatment might have suited better; perhaps they
should have studied to infuse more earnestness and strength into her
nature. As to brother Friedrich, what is to become of him cannot be
conjectured: he will fall a sacrifice, I fear, to this experiment in
pedagogy.”

“You have another brother, then?” cried Wilhelm.

“Yes,” replied Natalia: “and a light, merry youth he is; and, as they
have not hindered him from roaming up and down the world, I know not
what the wild, dissipated boy will turn to. It is a great while since I
saw him. The only thing which calms my fears is, that the abbé, and the
whole society about my brother, are receiving constant notice where he
is and what he does.”

Wilhelm was about to ask Natalia her opinion more precisely on the
abbé’s paradoxes, as well as to solicit information about that
mysterious society; but the physician entering changed their
conversation. After the first compliments of welcome, he began to speak
of Mignon.

Natalia then took Felix by the hand; saying she would lead the child to
Mignon, and prepare her for the entrance of her friend.

The doctor, now alone with Wilhelm, thus proceeded: “I have wondrous
things to tell you, such as you are not anticipating. Natalia has
retired, that we might speak with greater liberty of certain matters,
which, although I first learned them by her means, her presence would
prevent us from discussing freely. The strange temper of the child seems
to consist almost exclusively of deep longing: the desire of revisiting
her native land, and the desire for you, my friend, are, I might almost
say, the only earthly things about her. Both these feelings do but grasp
towards an immeasurable distance, both objects lie before her
unattainable. The neighborhood of Milan seems to be her home: in very
early childhood she was kidnapped from her parents by a company of
rope-dancers. A more distinct account we cannot get from her, partly
because she was then too young to recollect the names of men and places,
but especially because she has made an oath to tell no living mortal her
abode and parentage. For the strolling-party, who came up with her when
she had lost her way, and to whom she so accurately described her
dwelling, with such piercing entreaties to conduct her home, but carried
her along with them the faster; and at night in their quarters, when
they thought the child was sleeping, joked about their precious capture,
declaring she would never find the way home again. On this a horrid
desperation fell upon the miserable creature; but at last the Holy
Virgin rose before her eyes, and promised that she would assist her. The
child then swore within herself a sacred oath, that she would henceforth
trust no human creature, would disclose her history to no one, but live
and die in hope of immediate aid from heaven. Even this, which I am
telling you, Natalia did not learn expressly from her, but gathered it
from detached expressions, songs, and childlike inadvertencies,
betraying what they meant to hide.”

Wilhelm called to memory many a song and word of this dear child, which
he could now explain. He earnestly requested the physician to keep from
him none of the confessions or mysterious poetry of this peculiar being.

“Prepare yourself,” said the physician, “for a strange confession; for a
story with which you, without remembering it, have much to do, and
which, as I greatly fear, has been decisive for the death and life of
this good creature.”

“Let me hear,” said Wilhelm: “my impatience is unbounded.”

“Do you recollect a secret nightly visit from a female,” said the
doctor, “after your appearance in the character of Hamlet?”

“Yes, I recollect it well,” cried Wilhelm, blushing; “but I did not look
to be reminded of it at the present moment.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“I do not! You frighten me! In the name of Heaven, not Mignon, surely?
Who was it? Tell me, pray.”

“I know it not myself.”

“Not Mignon, then?”

“No, certainly not Mignon; but Mignon was intending at the time to glide
in to you, and saw with horror, from a corner where she lay concealed, a
rival get before her.”

“A rival!” cried our friend. “Speak on: you more and more confound me.”

“Be thankful,” said the doctor, “that you can arrive at the result so
soon through means of me. Natalia and I, with but a distant interest in
the matter, had distress enough to undergo before we could thus far
discover the perplexed condition of the poor, dear creature, whom we
wished to help. By some wanton speeches of Philina and the other girls,
by a certain song which she had heard Philina sing, the child’s
attention had been roused: she longed to pass a night beside the man she
loved, without conceiving any thing to be implied in this beyond a happy
and confiding rest. A love for you, my friend, was already keen and
powerful in her little heart; in your arms, the child had found repose
from many a sorrow; she now desired this happiness in all its fulness.
If at one time she purposed requesting it as a favor, at another a
secret horror would hold her back. At last that merry night and the
excitement of abundant wine inspired her with the courage to attempt the
adventure, and glide in to you on that occasion. Accordingly she ran
before, to hide herself in your apartment, which was standing open; but
just when she had reached the top of the stairs, having heard a
rustling, she concealed herself, and saw a female in a white dress slip
into your chamber. You yourself arrived soon after, and she heard you
push the large bolt.

“Mignon’s agony was now unutterable: all the violent feelings of a
passionate jealousy mingled themselves with the unacknowledged longing
of obscure desire, and seized her half-developed nature with tremendous
force. Her heart, which hitherto had beaten violently with eagerness and
expectation, now at once began to falter and stop; it pressed her bosom
like a heap of lead: she could not draw her breath, she knew not what to
do; she heard the sound of the old man’s harp, hastened to the garret
where he was, and passed the night at his feet in horrible convulsions.”

The physician paused a moment: then, as Wilhelm still kept silence, he
proceeded, “Natalia told me, nothing in her life had so alarmed and
touched her as the state of Mignon while relating this; indeed, our
noble friend accused herself of cruelty in having, by her questions and
management, drawn this confession from her, and renewed by recollection
the violent sorrows of the poor little girl.

“‘The dear creature,’ said Natalia, ‘had scarcely come so far with her
recital, or, rather, with her answers to my questions, when she sank all
at once before me on the ground, and, with her hand on her bosom,
piteously moaned that the pain of that excruciating night was come back.
She twisted herself like a worm upon the floor; and I had to summon all
my composure, that I might remember and apply such means of remedy for
mind and body as were known to me.’”

“It is a painful predicament you put me in,” cried Wilhelm, “by
impressing me so vividly with the feeling of my manifold injustice
towards this unhappy and beloved being, at the very moment when I am
again to meet her. If she is to see me, why do you deprive me of the
courage to appear with freedom? And shall I confess it to you? Since her
mind is so affected, I perceive not how my presence can be advantageous
to her. If you, as a physician, are persuaded that this double longing
has so undermined her being as to threaten death, why should I renew her
sorrows by my presence, and perhaps accelerate her end?”

“My friend,” replied the doctor, “where we cannot cure, it is our duty
to alleviate; and how much the presence of a loved object tends to take
from the imagination its destructive power, how it changes an impetuous
longing to a peaceful looking, I could prove by the most convincing
instances. Every thing in measure and with purpose! For, in other cases,
this same presence may rekindle an affection nigh extinguished. But do
you go and see the child; behave to her with kindness, and let us wait
the consequence.”

Natalia, at this moment coming back, bade Wilhelm follow her to Mignon.
“She appears to feel quite happy with the boy,” observed Natalia, “and I
hope she will receive our friend with mildness.” Wilhelm followed, not
without reluctance: he was deeply moved by what he had been hearing; he
feared a stormy scene of passion. It was altogether the reverse that
happened on his entrance.

Mignon, dressed in long, white, women’s clothes, with her brown, copious
hair partly knotted, partly clustering out in locks, was sitting with
the boy Felix on her lap, and pressing him against her heart. She looked
like a departed spirit, he like life itself: it seemed as if Heaven and
Earth were clasping one another. She held out her hand to Wilhelm with a
smile, and said, “I thank thee for bringing back the child to me: they
had taken him away, I know not how; and since then I could not live. So
long as my heart needs any thing on earth, thy Felix shall fill up the
void.”

The quietness which Mignon had displayed on meeting with her friend
produced no little satisfaction in the party. The doctor signified that
Wilhelm should go frequently and see her; that in body as in mind, she
should be kept as equable as possible. He himself departed, promising to
return soon.

Wilhelm could now observe Natalia in her own circle: one would have
desired nothing better than to live beside her. Her presence had the
purest influence on the girls, and young ladies of various ages, who
resided with her in the house, or came to pay her visits from the
neighborhood.

“The progress of your life,” said Wilhelm once to her, “must always have
been very even: your aunt’s delineation of you in your childhood seems,
if I mistake not, still to fit. It is easy to see that you never were
entangled in your path. You have never been compelled to retrograde.”

“This I owe to my uncle and the abbé,” said Natalia, “who so well
discriminated my prevailing turn of mind. From my youth upwards, I can
recollect no livelier feeling than that I was constantly observing
people’s wants, and had an irresistible desire to make them up. The
child that had not learned to stand on its feet, the old man that could
no longer stand on his; the longing of a rich family for children, the
inability of a poor one to maintain their children; each silent wish for
some particular species of employment; the impulse towards any talent;
the natural gifts for many little necessary arts of life,--were sure to
strike me: my eyes seemed formed by nature for detecting them. I saw
such things where no one had directed my attention: I seemed born for
seeing them alone. The charms of inanimate nature, to which so many
persons are exceedingly susceptible, had no effect on me: the charms of
art, if possible, had less. My most delightful occupation was and is,
when a deficiency, a want, appeared before me anywhere, to set about
devising a supply, a remedy, a help for it.

“If I saw a poor creature in rags, the superfluous clothes I had noticed
hanging in the wardrobes of my friends immediately occurred to me; if I
saw children wasting for want of care, I was sure to recollect some lady
I had found oppressed with tedium amid riches and conveniences; if I saw
too many persons crammed into a narrow space, I thought they should be
lodged in the spacious chambers of palaces and vacant houses. This mode
of viewing things was altogether natural, without the least reflection:
so that in my childhood I often made the strangest work of it, and more
than once embarrassed people by my singular proposals. Another of my
peculiarities was this: I did not learn till late, and after many
efforts, to consider money as a means of satisfying wants; my benefits
were all distributed in kind: and my simplicity, I know, was frequently
the cause of laughter. None but the abbé seemed to understand me: he met
me everywhere; he made me acquainted with myself, with these wishes,
these tendencies, and taught me how to satisfy them suitably.”

“Do you, then,” said Wilhelm, “in the education of your little female
world, employ the method of these extraordinary men? Do you, too, leave
every mind to form itself? Do you, too, leave your girls to search and
wander, to pursue delusions, happily to reach the goal, or miserably
lose themselves in error?”

“No,” replied Natalia: “such treatment as that would altogether
contradict my notions. To my mind, he who does not help us at the
needful moment, never helps; he who does not counsel at the needful
moment, never counsels. I also reckon it essential, that we lay down and
continually impress on children certain laws, to operate as a kind of
hold in life. Nay, I could almost venture to assert, that it is better
to be wrong by rule, than to be wrong with nothing but the fitful
caprices of our disposition to impel us hither and thither; and, in my
way of viewing men, there always seems to be a void in their nature,
which cannot be filled up, except by some decisive and distinctly
settled law.”

“Your manner of proceeding, then,” said Wilhelm, “is entirely different
from the manner of our friends?”

“Yes,” replied Natalia; “and you may see the unexampled tolerance of
these men, from the fact, that they nowise disturb me in my practice,
but leave me on my own path, simply because it is my own, and even
assist me in every thing that I require of them.”

A more minute description of Natalia’s plans in managing her children we
reserve for some other opportunity.

Mignon often asked to be of their society; and this they granted her
with greater readiness, as she appeared to be again accustoming herself
to Wilhelm, to be opening her heart to him, and in general to have
become more cheerful, and contented with existence. In walking, being
easily fatigued, she liked to hang upon his arm. “Mignon,” she would
say, “now climbs and bounds no more; yet she still longs to mount the
summits of the hills, to skip from house to house, from tree to tree.
How enviable are the birds! and then so prettily and socially they build
their nests too!”

Erelong it became habitual for her to invite her friend, more than once
every day, into the garden. When Wilhelm was engaged or absent, Felix
had to take his place; and, if poor Mignon seemed at times quite
loosened from the earth, there were other moments when she would again
hold fast to father and son, and seem to dread a separation from them
more than any thing beside.

Natalia wore a thoughtful look. “We meant,” said she, “to open her
tender little heart, by sending for you hither. I know not whether we
did prudently.” She stopped, and seemed expecting Wilhelm to say
something. To him also it occurred, that, by his marriage with Theresa,
Mignon, in the present circumstances, would be fearfully offended: but,
in his uncertainty, he did not venture mentioning his project; he had no
suspicion that Natalia knew of it.

As little could he talk with freedom, when his noble friend began to
speak about her sister, to praise her good qualities, and to lament her
hapless situation. He felt exceedingly embarrassed when Natalia told him
he would shortly see the countess here. “Her husband,” said she, “has
now no object but replacing Zinzendorf in the Community, and, by insight
and activity, supporting and extending that establishment. He is coming
with his wife, to take a sort of leave: he then purposes visiting the
various spots where the Community have settled. They appear to treat him
as he wishes: and I should not wonder if, in order to be altogether like
his predecessor, he ventured, with my sister, on a voyage to America;
for, being already well-nigh convinced that a little more would make a
saint of him, the wish to superadd the dignity of martyrdom has probably
enough often flitted through his mind.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER IV.


They had often spoken of Theresa, often mentioned her in passing; and
Wilhelm almost every time was minded to confess that he had offered her
his heart and hand. A certain feeling, which he was not able to explain,
restrained him: he paused and wavered, till at length Natalia, with the
heavenly, modest, cheerful smile she often wore, said to him, “It seems,
then, I at last must break silence, and force myself into your
confidence! Why, my friend, do you keep secret from me an affair of such
importance to yourself, and so closely touching my concerns? You have
made my friend the offer of your hand: I do not mix uncalled in the
transaction; here are my credentials; here is the letter which she
writes to you, which she sends you through my hands.”

“A letter from Theresa!” cried he.

“Yes, mein Herr! Your destiny is settled: you are happy. Let me
congratulate my friend and you on your good fortune.”

Wilhelm spoke not, but gazed out before him. Natalia looked at him: she
saw that he was pale. “Your joy is strong,” continued she: “it takes the
form of terror, it deprives you of the power to speak. My participation
is not the less cordial that I show it you in words. I hope you will be
grateful, for I may say my influence on the decision of your bride has
not been small: she asked me for advice; and as it happened, by a
singular coincidence, that you were here just then. I was enabled to
destroy the few scruples she still entertained. Our messages went
swiftly to and fro: here is her determination; here is the conclusion of
the treaty! And now you shall read her other letters: you shall have a
free, clear look into the fair heart of your Theresa.”

Wilhelm opened the letter, which she handed him unsealed. It contained
these friendly words:--

“I am yours, as I am and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are and
as I know you. What in ourselves, what in our connection, wedlock
changes, we shall study to adjust by reason, cheerfulness, and mutual
good will. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination, for each
other that is leading us together, we run less risk than thousands of
others. You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and
kindly of my former friend: in return, I will press your Felix to my
heart, as if I were his mother. If you choose to share my little mansion
straightway, we are lord and master there; and in the mean while the
purchase of your land might be concluded. I could wish that no new
arrangements were made in it without me. I could wish at once to prove
that I deserve the confidence you repose in me. Adieu, dear, dear
friend! Beloved bridegroom, honored husband! Theresa clasps you to her
breast with hope and joy. My friend will tell you more, will tell you
all.”

Wilhelm, to whose mind this sheet recalled the image of Theresa with the
liveliest distinctness, had now recovered his composure. While reading,
thoughts had rapidly alternated within his soul. With terror he
discovered in his heart the most vivid traces of an inclination to
Natalia: he blamed himself, declaring every thought of that description
to be madness; he represented to himself Theresa in her whole
perfection: he again perused the letter, he grew cheerful, or, rather,
he so far regained his self-possession that he could appear cheerful.
Natalia handed him the letters which had passed between Theresa and
herself: out of Theresa’s we propose extracting one or two passages.

After delineating her bridegroom in her own peculiar way, Theresa thus
proceeded:--


    “Such is the notion I have formed of the man who now offers me
    his hand. What he thinks of himself, thou shalt see by and by in
    the papers he has sent me, where he altogether candidly draws
    his own portrait: I feel persuaded that I shall be happy with
    him.”


    “As for rank, thou knowest what my ideas have always been on
    this point. Some people look on disagreement of external
    circumstances as a fearful thing, and cannot remedy it. I wish
    not to persuade any one, I wish to act according to my own
    persuasion. I mean not to set others an example, nor do I act
    without example. It is interior disagreements only that frighten
    me: a frame that does not fit what it is meant to hold, much
    pomp and little real enjoyment, wealth and avarice, nobility and
    coarseness, youth and pedantry, poverty and ceremonies, these
    are the things which would annihilate me, however it may please
    the world to stamp and rate them.”


    “If I hope that we shall suit each other, the hope is chiefly
    founded upon this, that he resembles thee, my dear Natalia, thee
    whom I so highly prize and reverence. Yes: he has thy noble
    searching and striving for the better, whereby we of ourselves
    produce the good which we suppose we find. How often have I
    blamed thee, not in silence, for treating this or that person,
    for acting in this or that case, otherwise than I should have
    done; and yet, in general, the issue showed that thou wert
    right. ‘When we take people,’ thou wouldst say, ‘merely as they
    are, we make them worse: when we treat them as if they were what
    they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.’
    To see or to act thus, I know full well is not for me. Skill,
    order, discipline, direction, that is my affair. I always
    recollect what Jarno said: ‘Theresa trains her pupils, Natalia
    forms them.’ Nay, once he went so far as to assert that of the
    three fair qualities, faith, love, and hope, I was entirely
    destitute. ‘Instead of faith,’ said he, ‘she has penetration;
    instead of love, she has steadfastness; instead of hope, she has
    trust.’ Indeed, I will confess, that, till I knew thee, I knew
    nothing higher in the world than clearness and prudence: it was
    thy presence only that persuaded, animated, conquered me; to thy
    fair, lofty soul I willingly give place. My friend, too, I honor
    on the same principle: the description of his life is a
    perpetual seeking without finding,--not empty seeking, but
    wondrous, generous seeking; he fancies others may give him what
    can proceed from himself alone. So, love, the clearness of my
    vision has not injured me on this occasion more than others: I
    know my husband better than he knows himself, and I value him
    the more. I see him, yet I see not over him: all my skill will
    not enable me to judge of what he can accomplish. When I think
    of him, his image always blends itself with thine: I know not
    how I have deserved to belong to two such persons. But I will
    deserve it, by endeavoring to do my duty by fulfilling what is
    looked for from me.”


    “If I recollect of Lothario? Vividly and daily. In the company
    which in thought surrounds me, I cannot want him for a moment.
    Oh, what a pity for this noble character, related by an error of
    his youth to me, that nature has related him to thee! A being
    such as thou, in truth, were worthier of him than I. To thee I
    could, I would, surrender him. Let us be to him all we can, till
    he find a proper wife; and then, too, let us be, let us abide,
    together.”


“But what shall we say to our friends?” began Natalia. “Your brother
does not know of it?”--“Not a hint; your people know as little; we women
have, on this occasion, managed the affair ourselves. Lydia had put some
whims into Theresa’s head concerning Jarno and the abbé. There are
certain plans and secret combinations, with the general scheme of which
I am acquainted, and into which I never thought of penetrating farther.
With regard to these, Theresa has, through Lydia, taken up some shadow
of suspicion: so in this decisive step she would not suffer any one but
me to influence her. With my brother it had been already settled that
they should merely announce their marriages to one another, not giving
or asking counsel on the subject.”

Natalia wrote a letter to her brother: she invited Wilhelm to subjoin a
word or two, Theresa having so desired it. They were just about to seal,
when Jarno unexpectedly sent up his name. His reception was, of course,
as kind as possible: he wore a sportful, merry air; he could not long
forbear to tell his errand. “I am come,” said he, “to give you very
curious and very pleasing tidings: they concern Theresa. You have often
blamed us, fair Natalia, for troubling our heads about so many things;
but now you see how good it is to have one’s spies in every place.
Guess, and let us see your skill for once!”

The self-complacency with which he spoke these words, the roguish mien
with which he looked at Wilhelm and Natalia, persuaded both of them that
he had found their secret. Natalia answered, smiling, “We are far more
skilful than you think: before we even heard your riddle, we had put the
answer to it down in black and white.”

With these words she handed him the letter to Lothario, satisfied at
having met, in this way, the little triumph and surprise he had meant
for them. Jarno took the sheet with some astonishment, ran it quickly
over, started, let it drop from his hands, and stared at both his
friends with an expression of amazement, nay, of fright, which, on his
countenance, was rare. He spoke no word.

Wilhelm and Natalia were not a little struck: Jarno stepped up and down
the room. “What shall I say?” cried he, “or shall I say it all? But it
must come out: the perplexity is not to be avoided. So secret for
secret, surprise against surprise! Theresa is not the daughter of her
reputed mother! The hinderance is removed: I came to ask you to prepare
her for a marriage with Lothario.”

Jarno saw the shock which he had given his friends: they cast their eyes
upon the ground. “The present case,” said he, “is one of those which are
worse to bear in company. What each has to consider in it, he considers
best in solitude: I, at least, require an hour of leave.” He hastened to
the garden: Wilhelm followed him mechanically, yet without approaching
near.

At the end of an hour they were again assembled. Wilhelm opened the
conversation. “Formerly,” said he, “while I was living without plan or
object, in a state of carelessness, or, I may say, of levity,
friendship, love, affection, trust, came towards me with open arms, they
pressed themselves upon me; but now, when I am serious, destiny appears
to take another course with me. This resolution, of soliciting Theresa’s
hand, is probably the first that has proceeded altogether from myself. I
laid my plan considerately; my reason fully joined in it: by the consent
of that noble maiden, all my hopes were crowned. But now the strangest
fate puts back my outstretched hand: Theresa reaches hers to me, but
from afar, as in a dream; I cannot grasp it, and the lovely image leaves
me forever. So fare thee well, thou lovely image! and all ye images of
richest happiness that gathered round it!”

He was silent for a moment, looking out before him: Jarno was about to
speak. “Let me have another word,” cried Wilhelm, “for the lot is
drawing which is to decide the destiny of all my life. At this moment, I
am aided and confirmed by the impression which Lothario’s presence made
upon me at the first glance, and which has ever since continued with me.
That man well merits every sort of friendship and affection; and,
without sacrifices, friendship cannot be imagined. For his sake, it was
easy for me to delude a hapless girl; for his sake, it shall be possible
for me to give away the worthiest bride. Return, relate the strange
occurrence to him, and tell him what I am prepared for.”

“In emergencies like this,” said Jarno, “I hold that every thing is
done, if one do nothing rashly. Let us take no step till Lothario has
agreed to it. I will go to him: wait patiently for my return or for his
letter.”

He rode away, and left his friends in great disquiet. They had time to
reconsider these events, to think of them maturely. It now first
occurred to them, that they had taken Jarno’s statement simply by
itself, and without inquiring into any of the circumstances. Wilhelm was
not altogether free from doubts; but next day their astonishment, nay,
their bewilderment, arose still higher, when a messenger, arriving from
Theresa, brought the following letter to Natalia.

“Strange as it may seem, after all the letters I have sent, I am obliged
to send another, begging that thou wouldst despatch my bridegroom to me
instantly. He shall be my husband, what plans soever they may lay to rob
me of him. Give him the enclosed letter, only not before witnesses,
whoever they may be!”

The enclosed letter was as follows: “What opinion will you form of your
Theresa, when you see her all at once insisting passionately on a union
which calm reason alone appeared to have appointed? Let nothing hinder
you from setting out the moment you have read this letter. Come, my
dear, dear friend; now three times dearer, since they are attempting to
deprive me of you.”

“What is to be done?” cried Wilhelm, after he had read the letter.

“In no case that I remember,” said Natalia, after some reflection, “have
my heart and judgment been so dumb as in this: what to do or to advise I
know not.”

“Can it be,” cried Wilhelm vehemently, “that Lothario does not know of
it? or, if he does, that he is but like us, the sport of hidden plans?
Has Jarno, when he saw our letter, devised that fable on the spot? Would
he have told us something different, if we had not been so precipitate?
What can they mean? What intentions can they have? What plan can Theresa
mean? Yes, it must be owned, Lothario is begirt with secret influences
and combinations: I myself have found that they are active, that they
take a certain charge of the proceedings, of the destiny, of several
people, and contrive to guide them. The ulterior objects of these
mysteries I know not; but their nearest purpose, that of snatching my
Theresa from me, I perceive but too distinctly. On the one hand, this
prospect of Lothario’s happiness, which they exhibit to me, may be but a
hollow show: on the other hand, I see my dear, my honored bride inviting
me to her affection. What shall I do? What shall I forbear?”

“A little patience!” said Natalia: “a little time for thought. In these
singular perplexities I know but this, that what can never be recalled
should not be done in haste. To a fable, to an artful plan, we have
steadfastness and prudence to oppose: whether Jarno has been speaking
true or false must soon appear. If my brother has actually hopes of a
union with Theresa, it were hard to cut him off forever from that
prospect at the moment when it seems so kindly inviting him. Let us wait
at least till we discover whether he himself knows any thing of it,
whether he believes and hopes.”

These prudent counsels were confirmed by a letter from Lothario. “I do
not send Jarno,” he wrote: “a line from my hand is more to thee than the
minutest narrative in the mouth of a messenger. I am certain Theresa is
not the daughter of her reputed mother; and I cannot renounce hope of
being hers, till she, too, is persuaded, and can then decide between my
friend and me, with calm consideration. Let him not leave thee, I
entreat it! The happiness, the life, of a brother is at stake. I promise
thee, this uncertainty shall not be long.”

“You see how the matter stands,” said she to Wilhelm, with a friendly
air: “give me your word of honor that you will not leave the house!”

“I give it!” cried he, stretching out his hand: “I will not leave this
house against your will. I thank Heaven, and my better Genius, that on
this occasion I am led, and led by you.”

Natalia wrote Theresa an account of every thing, declaring that she
would not let her friend away. She sent Lothario’s letter also.

Theresa answered, “I wondered not a little that Lothario is himself
convinced: to his sister he would not feign to this extent. I am vexed,
greatly vexed. It is better that I say no more. But I will come to thee,
so soon as I have got poor Lydia settled: they are treating her cruelly.
I fear we are all betrayed, and shall be so betrayed that we shall never
reach the truth. If my friend were of my opinion, he would give thee the
slip after all, and throw himself into the arms of his Theresa, whom
none shall take away from him. But I, as I dread, shall lose him, and
not regain Lothario. From the latter they are taking Lydia by showing
him, afar off, the prospect of obtaining me. I will say no more: the
entanglement will grow still deeper. Whether, in the mean time, these
delightful positions in which we stand to each other may not be so
pushed awry, so undermined and broken down, that, when the darkness
passes off, the mischief can no longer admit of remedy, time will show.
If my friend do not break away, in a few days I myself will come and
seek him out beside thee, and hold him fast. Thou marvellest how this
passion can have gained the mastery of thy Theresa. It is no passion,
but conviction: it is a belief, that, since Lothario can never be mine,
this new friend will make me happy. Tell him so, in the name of the
little boy that sat with him underneath the oak, and thanked him for his
sympathy. Tell it him in the name of Theresa, who met his offers with a
hearty openness. My first dream of living with Lothario has wandered far
away from my soul: the dream of living with my other friend is yet
wholly present to me. Do they hold me so light as to think that it were
easy to exchange the former with the latter?”

“I depend on you,” said Natalia to Wilhelm, handing him the letter: “you
will not leave me. Consider that the comfort of my life is in your
hands. My being is so intimately bound and interwoven with my brother’s,
that he feels no sorrow which I do not feel, no joy which does not
likewise gladden me. Nay, I may truly say, through him alone I have
experienced that the heart can be affected and exalted; that in the
world there may be joy, love, and an emotion which contents the soul
beyond its utmost want.”

She stopped: Wilhelm took her hand, and cried, “Oh, continue! This is
the time for a true, mutual disclosure of our thoughts: it never was
more necessary for us to be well acquainted with each other.”

“Yes, my friend!” said she, smiling, with her quiet, soft, indescribable
dignity: “perhaps it is not out of season, if I tell you that the whole
of what so many books, of what the world, holds up to us and names love,
has always seemed to me a fable.”

“You have never loved?” cried Wilhelm.

“Never or always!” said Natalia.


                ---------------------------------------


                               CHAPTER V.


During this conversation they kept walking up and down the garden; and
Natalia gathered various flowers of singular forms, entirely unknown to
Wilhelm, who began to ask their names, and occupy himself about them.

“You know not,” said Natalia, “for whom I have been plucking these? I
intend them for my uncle, whom we are to visit. The sun is shining even
now so bright on the Hall of the Past, I must lead you in this moment;
and I never go to it without a few of the flowers which my uncle liked
particularly, in my hand. He was a peculiar man, susceptible of very
strange impressions. For certain plants and animals, for certain
neighborhoods and persons, nay, for certain sorts of minerals, he had an
especial love, which he was rarely able to explain. ‘Had I not,’ he
would often say, ‘from youth, withstood myself, and striven to form my
judgment upon wide and general principles, I had been the narrowest and
most intolerable person living. For nothing can be more intolerable than
circumscribed peculiarity, in one from whom a pure and suitable activity
might be required.’ And yet he was obliged to confess that life and
breath would, as it were, leave him, if he did not now and then indulge
himself, not from time to time allow himself a brief and passionate
enjoyment of what he could not always praise and justify. ‘It is not my
fault,’ said he, ‘if I have not brought my inclinations and my reason
into perfect harmony.’ On such occasions he would joke with me, and say,
‘Natalia may be looked upon as happy while she lives: her nature asks
nothing which the world does not wish and use.’”

So speaking, they arrived again at the house. Natalia led him through a
spacious passage to a door, before which lay two granite sphinxes. The
door itself was in the Egyptian fashion, somewhat narrower above than
below; and its brazen leaves prepared one for a serious or even a gloomy
feeling. Wilhelm was, in consequence, agreeably surprised, when his
expectation issued in a sentiment of pure, cheerful serenity, as he
entered a hall where art and life took away all recollection of death
and the grave. In the walls all round, a series of proportionable arches
had been hollowed out, and large sarcophaguses stood in them: among the
pillars in the intervals between them smaller openings might be seen,
adorned with urns and similar vessels. The remaining spaces of the walls
and vaulted roof were regularly divided; and between bright and
variegated borders, within garlands and other ornaments, a multitude of
cheerful and significant figures had been painted upon grounds of
different sizes. The body of the edifice was covered with that fine,
yellow marble, which passes into reddish: clear blue stripes of a
chemical substance, happily imitating azure stone, while they satisfied
the eye with contrast, gave unity and combination to the whole. All this
pomp and decoration showed itself in the chastest architectural forms:
and thus every one who entered felt as if exalted above himself; while
the co-operating products of art, for the first time, taught him what
man is and what he may become.

Opposite the door, on a stately sarcophagus, lay a marble figure of a
noble-looking man, reclined upon a pillow. He held a roll before him,
and seemed to look at it with still attention. It was placed so that you
could read with ease the words which stood there: _Think of living._

Natalia took away a withered bunch of flowers, and laid the fresh one
down before the figure of her uncle. For it was her uncle whom the
marble represented. Wilhelm thought he recognized the features of the
venerable gentleman whom he had seen when lying wounded in the green of
the forest. “Here he and I passed many an hour,” said Natalia, “while
the hall was getting ready. In his latter years, he had gathered several
skilful artists round him; and his chief delight was to invent or
superintend the drawings and cartoons for these pictures.”

Wilhelm could not satisfy himself with looking at the objects which
surrounded him. “What a life,” exclaimed he, “in this Hall of the Past!
One might with equal justice name it Hall of the Present and the Future.
Such all were, such all will be. There is nothing transitory but the
individual who looks at and enjoys it. Here, this figure of the mother
pressing her infant to her bosom will survive many generations of happy
mothers. Centuries hence, perhaps some father will take pleasure in
contemplating this bearded man, who has laid aside his seriousness, and
is playing with his son. Thus shame-faced will the bride sit for ages,
and, amid her silent wishes, need that she be comforted, that she be
spoken to; thus impatient will the bridegroom listen on the threshold
whether he may enter.”

The figures Wilhelm was surveying with such rapture were of almost
boundless number and variety. From the first jocund impulse of the
child, merely to employ its every limb in sport, up to the peaceful,
sequestered earnestness of the sage, you might, in fair and living
order, see delineated how man possesses no capacity or tendency without
employing and enjoying it. From the first soft, conscious feeling, when
the maiden lingers in pulling up her pitcher, and looks with
satisfaction at her image in the clear fountain, to those high
solemnities when kings and nations invoke the gods at the altar to
witness their alliances, all was depicted, all was forcible and full of
meaning.

It was a world, it was a heaven, that in this abode surrounded the
spectator; and beside the thoughts which those polished forms suggested,
beside the feelings they awoke, there still seemed something further to
be present, something by which the whole man felt himself laid hold of.
Wilhelm, too, observed this, though unable to account for it. “What is
this,” exclaimed he, “which independently of all signification, without
any sympathy that human incidents and fortunes may inspire us with, acts
on me so strongly and so gracefully? It speaks to me from the whole, it
speaks from every part; though I have not fully understood the former,
though I do not specially apply the latter to myself. What enchantment
breathes from these surfaces, these lines, these heights and breadths,
these masses and colors! What is it that makes these figures so
delightful, even when slightly viewed, and merely in the light of
decorations? Yes, I feel it: one might tarry here, might rest, might
view the whole, and be happy; and yet feel and think something
altogether different from aught that stood before his eyes.”

And certainly, if we were able to describe how happily the whole was
subdivided, how every thing determined by its place, by combination or
by contrast, by uniformity or by variety, appeared exactly as it should
have done, producing an effect as perfect as distinct, we should
transport the reader to a scene from which he would not be in haste to
stir.

Four large marble candelabras rose in the corners of the hall: four
smaller ones were in the midst of it, around a very beautifully worked
sarcophagus, which, judging from its size, might once have held a young
person of middle stature.

Natalia paused beside this monument: she laid her hand upon it as she
said, “My worthy uncle had a great attachment to this fine antique. ‘It
is not,’ he would often say, ‘the first blossoms alone that drop; such
you can keep above, in these little spaces; but fruits also, which,
hanging on their twigs, long give us the fairest hope, whilst a secret
worm is preparing their too early ripeness and their quick decay.’ I
fear,” continued she, “his words have been prophetic of that dear little
girl, who seems withdrawing gradually from our cares, and bending to
this peaceful dwelling.”

As they were about to go, Natalia stopped, and said, “There is something
still which merits your attention. Observe these half-round openings
aloft on both sides. Here the choir can stand concealed while singing:
these iron ornaments below the cornice serve for fastening on the
tapestry, which, by order of my uncle, must be hung round at every
burial. Music, particularly song, was a pleasure he could not live
without; and it was one of his peculiarities, that he wished the singer
not to be in view. ‘In this respect,’ he would say, ‘they spoil us at
the theatre: the music there is, as it were, subservient to the eye; it
accompanies movements, not emotions. In oratorios and concerts, the form
of the musician constantly disturbs us; true music is intended for the
ear alone: a fine voice is the most universal thing that can be figured;
and, while the narrow individual that uses it presents himself before
the eye, he cannot fail to trouble the effect of that pure universality.
The person whom I am to speak with, I must see; because it is a solitary
man, whose form and character give worth or worthlessness to what he
says: but, on the other hand, whoever sings to me must be invisible; his
form must not confuse me, or corrupt my judgment. Here it is but one
human organ speaking to another: it is not spirit speaking to spirit,
not a thousand-fold world to the eye, not a heaven to the man.’ On the
same principles, in respect of instrumental music, he required that the
orchestra should as much as possible be hid; because, by the mechanical
exertions, by the mean and awkward gestures of the performers, our
feelings are so much dispersed and perplexed. Accordingly, he always
used to shut his eyes while hearing music; thereby to concentrate his
whole being on the single pure enjoyment of the ear.”

They were about to leave the hall, when they heard the children running
hastily along the passage, and Felix crying, “No, I! No, I!”

Mignon rushed in at the open door: she was foremost, but out of breath,
and could not speak a word. Felix, still at some distance, shouted out,
“Mamma Theresa is come!” The children had run a race, as it seemed, to
bring the news. Mignon was lying in Natalia’s arms: her heart was
beating vehemently.

“Naughty child,” said Natalia, “art thou not forbidden to make violent
exertions? See how thy heart is beating!”

“Let it break!” said Mignon with a deep sigh: “it has beat too long.”

They had scarcely composed themselves from this surprise, this sort of
consternation, when Theresa entered. She flew to Natalia, clasped her
and Mignon in her arms. Then, turning round to Wilhelm, she looked at
him with her clear eyes, and said, “Well, my friend, how it is with you?
You have not let them cheat you?” He made a step towards her: she sprang
to him, and hung upon his neck. “O my Theresa!” cried he.

“My friend, my love, my husband! Yes, forever thine!” cried she, amid
the warmest kisses.

Felix pulled her by the gown, and cried, “Mamma Theresa, I am here too!”
Natalia stood, and looked before her: Mignon on a sudden clapped her
left hand on her heart, and, stretching out the right arm violently,
fell with a shriek at Natalia’s feet, as dead.

The fright was great: no motion of the heart or pulse was to be traced.
Wilhelm took her on his arm, and hastily carried her away: the body hung
lax over his shoulders. The presence of the doctor was of small avail:
he and the young surgeon, whom we know already, strove in vain. The dear
little creature could not be recalled to life.

Natalia beckoned to Theresa: the latter took her friend by the hand, and
led him from the room. He was dumb, not uttering a word: he durst not
meet her eyes. He sat down with her upon the sofa, where he had first
found Natalia. He thought with great rapidity along a series of fateful
incidents, or, rather, he did not think, but let his soul be worked on
by the thoughts which would not leave it. There are moments in life when
past events, like winged shuttles, dart to and fro before us, and by
their incessant movements weave a web which we ourselves, in a greater
or less degree, have spun and put upon the loom. “My friend, my love!”
said Theresa, breaking silence, as she took him by the hand, “let us
stand together firmly in this hour, as we perhaps shall often have to do
in similar hours. These are occurrences which it takes two united hearts
to suffer. Think, my friend, feel, that thou art not alone: show that
thou lovest thy Theresa by imparting thy sorrows to her!” She embraced
him, and drew him softly to her bosom: he clasped her in his arms, and
pressed her strongly towards him. “The poor child,” cried he, “used in
mournful moments to seek shelter and protection in my unstable bosom:
let the stability of thine assist me in this heavy hour.” They held each
other fast; he felt her heart beat against his breast; but in his spirit
all was desolate and void: only the figures of Mignon and Natalia
flitted like shadows across the waste of his imagination.

Natalia entered. “Give us thy blessing!” cried Theresa: “let us, in this
melancholy moment, be united before thee!” Wilhelm had hid his face upon
Theresa’s neck: he was so far relieved that he could weep. He did not
hear Natalia come; he did not see her; but, at the sound of her voice,
his tears redoubled. “What God has joined I will not part,” she
answered, smiling, “but to unite you is not in my power: nor am I
gratified to see that sorrow and sympathy seem altogether to have
banished from your hearts the recollection of my brother.” At these
words, Wilhelm started from Theresa’s arms. “Whither are you going?”
cried the ladies. “Let me see the child,” said he, “whom I have killed!
Misfortune, when we look upon it with our eyes, is smaller than when our
imagination sinks the evil down into the recesses of the soul. Let us
view the departed angel! Her serene countenance will say to us that it
is well with her.” As his friends could not restrain the agitated youth,
they followed him; but the worthy doctor with the surgeon met them, and
prevented them from coming near the dead. “Keep away from this mournful
object,” said he, “and allow me, so far as I am able, to give some
continuance to these remains. On this dear and singular being I will now
display the beautiful art, not only of embalming bodies, but of
retaining in them a look of life. As I foresaw her death, the
preparations are already made: with these helps I shall undoubtedly
succeed. Give me but a few days, and ask not to see the child again till
I have brought her to the Hall of the Past.”

The young surgeon had in his hands that well-known case of instruments.
“From whom can he have got it?” Wilhelm asked the doctor. “I know it
very well,” replied Natalia: “he has it from his father, who dressed
your wounds when we found you in the forest.”

“Then, I have not been mistaken! I recognized the band at once!” cried
Wilhelm. “Oh, get it for me! It was this that first gave me any hint of
my unknown benefactress. What weal and woe will such a thing survive!
Beside how many sorrows has this band already been, and its threads
still hold together! How many men’s last moments has it witnessed, and
its colors are not yet faded! It was near me in one of the fairest hours
of my existence, when I lay wounded on the ground, and your helpful form
appeared before me, and the child whom we are now lamenting sat with its
bloody hair, busied with the tenderest care to save my life!”

It was not long that our friends could converse about this sad
occurrence, that Theresa could inquire about the child, and the probable
cause of its unexpected death; for strangers were announced, who, on
making their appearance, proved to be well-known strangers. Lothario,
Jarno, and the abbé entered. Natalia met her brother: among the rest
there was a momentary silence. Theresa, smiling on Lothario, said, “You
scarcely expected to find me here; of course, it would not have been
advisable that we should visit one another at the present time: however,
after such an absence, take my cordial welcome.”

Lothario took her hand, and answered, “If we are to suffer and renounce,
it may as well take place in the presence of the object whom we love and
wish for. I desire no influence on your determination: my confidence in
your heart, in your understanding, and clear sense, is still so great,
that I willingly commit to your disposal my fate and that of my friend.”

The conversation turned immediately to general, nay, we may say, to
trivial, topics. The company soon separated into single pairs, for
walking. Natalia was with her brother, Theresa with the abbé: our friend
was left with Jarno in the castle.

The appearance of the guests at the moment when a heavy sorrow was
oppressing Wilhelm had, instead of dissipating his attention, irritated
him, and made him worse: he was fretful and suspicious, and unable or
uncareful to conceal it, when Jarno questioned him about his sulky
silence. “What is the use of saying more?” cried Wilhelm. “Lothario with
his helpers is come; and it were strange if those mysterious watchmen of
the tower, who are constantly so busy, did not now exert their influence
on us, to effect I know not what strange purpose. So far as I have known
these saintly gentlemen, it seems to be in every case their laudable
endeavor to separate the united and to unite the separated. What sort of
web their weaving will produce may probably to unholy eyes be forever a
riddle.”

“You are cross and bitter,” said the other: “that is as it should be.
Would you get into a proper passion, it were still better.”

“That, too, might come about,” said Wilhelm: “I fear much some of you
are in the mind to load my patience, natural and acquired, beyond what
it will bear.”

“In the mean time,” said the other, “till we see what is to be the issue
of the matter, I could like to tell you somewhat of the tower which you
appear to view with such mistrust.”

“It stands with you,” said Wilhelm, “whether you will risk your
eloquence on an attention so distracted. My mind is so engaged at
present, that I know not whether I can take a proper interest in these
very dignified adventures.”

“Your pleasing humor shall not hinder me,” said Jarno, “from explaining
this affair to you. You reckon me a clever fellow; I want to make you
reckon me an honest one: and, what is more, on this occasion I am bidden
speak.”--“I could wish,” said Wilhelm, “that you did it of yourself, and
with an honest purpose to inform me; but, as I cannot hear without
suspicion, wherefore should I hear at all?”--“If I have nothing better
to do,” said Jarno, “than tell you stories, you, too, have time to
listen to me; and to this you may perhaps feel more inclined, when I
assure you, that all you saw in the tower was but the relics of a
youthful undertaking, in regard to which the greater part of the
initiated were once in deep earnest, though all of them now view it with
a smile.”

“So, with these pompous signs and words, you do but mock?” cried
Wilhelm. “With a solemn air, you lead us to a place inspiring reverence
by its aspect; you make the strangest visions pass before us; you give
us rolls full of glorious mystic apothegms, of which, in truth, we
understand but little; you disclose to us, that hitherto we have been
pupils; you solemnly pronounce us free; and we are just as wise as we
were.”--“Have you not the parchment by you?” said the other. “It
contains a deal of sense: those general apothegms were not picked up at
random, though they seem obscure and empty to a man without experiences
to recollect while reading them. But give me the Indenture, as we call
it, if it is at hand.”--“Quite at hand,” cried Wilhelm: “such an amulet
well merits being worn upon one’s breast.”--“Well,” said Jarno, smiling,
“who knows whether the contents of it may not one day find place in your
head and heart?”

He opened the roll, and glanced over the first half of it. “This,” said
he, “regards the cultivation of our gifts for art and science, of which
let others speak: the second treats of life; here I am more at home.”

He then began to read passages, speaking between whiles, and connecting
them with his remarks and narrative. “The taste of youth for secrecy,
for ceremonies, for imposing words, is extraordinary, and frequently
bespeaks a certain depth of character. In those years we wish to feel
our whole nature seized and moved, even though it be but vaguely and
darkly. The youth who happens to have lofty aspirations and forecastings
thinks that secrets yield him much, that he must depend much on secrets,
and effect much by means of them. It was with such views that the abbé
favored a certain society of young men, partly according to his
principle of aiding every tendency of nature, partly out of habit and
inclination; for in former times he had himself been joined to an
association which appears to have accomplished many things in secret.
For this business I was least of all adapted. I was older than the rest;
from youth I had thought clearly; I wished in all things nothing more
than clearness; I felt no interest in men but to know them as they were.
With the same taste I gradually infected all the best of our associates,
and this circumstance had almost given a false direction to our plan of
culture. For we now began to look at nothing but the errors and the
narrowness of others, and to think ourselves a set of highly gifted
personages. Here the abbé came to our assistance: he taught us that we
never should inspect the conduct of men, unless we at the same time took
an interest in improving it; and that through action only could we ever
be in a condition to inspect and watch ourselves. He advised us,
however, to retain the primary forms of the society: hence there was
still a sort of law in our proceedings; the first mystic impressions
might be traced in the constitution of the whole. At length, as by a
practical similitude, it took the form of a corporate trade, whose
business was the arts. Hence came the names of apprentices, assistants,
and masters. We wished to see with our own eyes, and to form for
ourselves, a special record of our own experience in the world. Hence
those numerous confessions which in part we ourselves wrote, in part
made others write, and out of which the several _Apprenticeships_ were
afterwards compiled. The formation of his character is not the chief
concern with every man. Many merely wish to find a sort of recipe for
comfort, directions for acquiring riches, or whatever good they aim at.
All such, when they would not be instructed in their proper duties, we
were wont to mystify, to treat with juggleries, and every sort of
hocus-pocus, and at length to shove aside. We advanced none to the rank
of masters, but such as clearly felt and recognized the purpose they
were born for, and had got enough of practice to proceed along their way
with a certain cheerfulness and ease.”

“In my case, then,” cried Wilhelm, “your ceremony has been very
premature; for, since the day when you pronounced me free, what I can,
will, or shall do has been more unknown to me than ever.”--“We are not
to blame for this perplexity: perhaps good fortune will deliver us. In
the mean time, listen: ‘He in whom there is much to be developed will be
later in acquiring true perceptions of himself and of the world. There
are few who at once have Thought and the capacity of Action. Thought
expands, but lames: Action animates, but narrows.’”

“I beg of you,” cried Wilhelm, “not to read me any more of that
surprising stuff. These phrases have sufficiently confused me
before.”--“I will stick by my story, then,” said Jarno, half rolling up
the parchment, into which, however, he kept casting frequent glances. “I
myself have been of less service to the cause of our society, and of my
fellow-men, than any other member. I am but a bad school-master: I
cannot bear to look on people making awkward trials; when I see a person
wander from his path, I feel constrained to call to him, although it
were a night-walker going straight to break his neck. On this point I
had a continual struggle with the abbé, who maintains that error can
never be cured, except by erring. About you, too, we often argued. He
had taken an especial liking to you, and it is saying something to have
caught so much of his attention. For me, you must admit, that every time
we met I told you just the naked truth.”--“Certainly, you spared me very
little,” said the other; “and I think you still continue faithful to
your principles.”--“What is the use of sparing,” answered Jarno, “when a
young man of many good endowments is taking a quite false
direction?”--“Pardon me,” said Wilhelm: “you have rigorously enough
denied me any talent for the stage; I confess to you, that, though I
have entirely renounced the art, I cannot think myself entirely
incapable.”--“And with me,” said Jarno, “it is well enough decided, that
a person who can only play himself is no player. Whoever cannot change
himself, in temper and in form, into many forms, does not deserve the
name. Thus you, for example, acted Hamlet, and some other characters,
extremely well; because, in these, your form, your disposition, and the
temper of the moment, suited. For an amateur theatre, for any one who
saw no other way before him, this would, perhaps, have answered well
enough. But,” continued Jarno, looking on the roll, “‘we should guard
against a talent which we cannot hope to practise in perfection. Improve
it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit of the master
has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time and
strength devoted to such botching.’”

“Do not read!” cried Wilhelm: “I entreat you earnestly, speak on, tell,
inform me! So, the abbé aided me in Hamlet: he provided me a
Ghost?”--“Yes; for he asserted that it was the only way of curing you,
if you were curable.”--“And on this account he left the veil, and bade
me flee?”--“Yes: he hoped, that, having fairly acted Hamlet, your desire
of acting would be satiated. He maintained that you would never go upon
the stage again: I believed the contrary, and I was right. We argued on
the subject that very evening, when the play was over.”--“You saw me
act, then?”--“I did indeed.”--“And who was it that played the
Ghost?”--“That I cannot tell you: either the abbé or his twin-brother;
but I think the latter, for he is a little taller.”--“You, then, have
secrets from each other?”--“Friends may and must _have_ secrets from,
but they _are_ not secrets to, each other.”

“The very thought of that perplexity perplexes me. Let me understand the
man to whom I owe so many thanks as well as such reproaches.”

“What gives him such a value in our estimation,” answered Jarno, “what,
in some degree, secures him the dominion over all of us, is the free,
sharp eye that nature has bestowed on him, for all the powers which
dwell in man, and are susceptible of cultivation, each according to its
kind. Most men, even the most accomplished, are but limited: each prizes
certain properties in others and himself; these alone he favors, these
alone will he have cultivated. Directly the reverse is the procedure of
our abbé: for every gift he has a feeling; every gift he delights to
recognize and forward. But I must look into my roll again! ‘It is all
men that make up mankind, all powers taken together that make up the
world. These are frequently at variance; and, as they endeavor to
destroy each other, Nature holds them together, and again produces them.
From the first animal tendency to handicraft attempts, up to the highest
practising of intellectual art; from the inarticulate crowings of the
happy infant, up to the polished utterance of the orator and singer;
from the first bickerings of boys, up to the vast equipments by which
countries are conquered and retained; from the slightest kindliness, and
the most transitory love, up to the fiercest passion, and the most
earnest covenant; from the merest perception of sensible presence, up to
the faintest presentiments and hopes of the remotest spiritual
future,--all this, and much more also, lies in man, and must be
cultivated, yet not in one, but in many. Every gift is valuable, and
ought to be unfolded. When one encourages the beautiful alone, and
another encourages the useful alone, it takes them both to form a man.
The useful encourages itself; for the multitude produce it, and no one
can dispense with it: the beautiful must be encouraged; for few can set
it forth, and many need it.’”

“Hold! Hold!” cried Wilhelm: “I have read it all.”--“Yet a line or two!”
said Jarno. “Here is our worthy abbé to a hair’s-breadth: ‘One power
rules another, none can cultivate another: in each endowment, and not
elsewhere, lies the force which must complete it; this many people do
not understand, who yet attempt to teach and influence.’”--“Nor do I
understand it,” answered Wilhelm.--“You will often hear the abbé preach
on this text; and, therefore, ‘Let us merely keep a clear and steady eye
on what is in ourselves, on what endowments of our own we mean to
cultivate: let us be just to others, for we ourselves are only to be
valued in so far as we can value.’”--“For Heaven’s sake, no more of
these wise saws! I feel them to be but a sorry balsam for a wounded
heart. Tell me, rather, with your cruel settledness, what you expect of
me, how, and in what manner, you intend to sacrifice me.”--“For every
such suspicion, I assure you, you will afterwards beg our pardon. It is
your affair to try and choose: it is ours to aid you. A man is never
happy till his vague striving has itself marked out its proper
limitation. It is not to me that you must look, but to the abbé: it is
not of yourself that you must think, but of what surrounds you. Thus,
for instance, learn to understand Lothario’s superiority; how his quick
and comprehensive vision is inseparably united with activity; how he
constantly advances; how he expands his influence, and carries every one
along with him. Wherever he may be, he bears a world about with him: his
presence animates and kindles. Observe our good physician, on the other
hand. His nature seems to be directly the reverse. If the former only
works upon the general whole, and at a distance, the latter turns his
piercing eye upon the things that are beside him: he rather furnishes
the means for being active, than himself displays or stimulates
activity. His conduct is exactly like the conduct of a good domestic
manager: he is busied silently, while he provides for each in his
peculiar sphere; his knowledge is a constant gathering and expanding, a
taking in and giving out on a small scale. Perhaps Lothario in a single
day might overturn what the other had for years been employed in
building up; but perhaps Lothario also might impart to others, in a
moment, strength sufficient to restore a hundred-fold what he had
overturned.”--“It is but a sad employment,” answered Wilhelm, “to
contemplate the sublime advantages of others, at a moment when we are at
variance with ourselves. Such contemplations suit the man at ease, not
him whom passion and uncertainty are agitating.”--“Peacefully and
reasonably to contemplate is at no time hurtful,” answered Jarno: “and,
while we use ourselves to think of the advantages of others, our own
mind comes insensibly to imitate them; and every false activity, to
which our fancy was alluring us, is then willingly abandoned. Free your
mind, if you can, from all suspicion and anxiety. Here comes the abbé:
be courteous towards him, till you have learned still further what you
owe him. The rogue! There he goes between Natalia and Theresa: I could
bet he is contriving something. As in general he rather likes to act the
part of Destiny; so he does not fail to show a taste for making matches
when he finds an opportunity.”

Wilhelm, whose angry and fretful humor all the placid prudent words of
Jarno had not bettered, thought his friend exceedingly indelicate for
mentioning marriage at a moment like the present: he answered, with a
smile indeed, but a rather bitter one, “I thought the taste for making
matches had been left to those that had a taste for one another.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER VI.


The company had met again: the conversation of our friends was
necessarily interrupted. Erelong a courier was announced, as wishing to
deliver with his own hand a letter to Lothario. The man was introduced:
he had a vigorous sufficient look; his livery was rich and handsome.
Wilhelm thought he knew him, nor was he mistaken; for it was the man
whom he had sent to seek Philina and the fancied Mariana, and who never
came back. Our friend was about to address him, when Lothario, who had
read the letter, asked the courier with a serious, almost angry, tone,
“What is your master’s name?”

“Of all questions,” said the other, with a prudent air, “this is the one
which I am least prepared to answer. I hope the letter will communicate
the necessary information: verbally I have been charged with nothing.”

“Be it as it will,” replied Lothario with a smile: “since your master
puts such trust in me as to indite a letter so exceedingly facetious, he
shall be welcome to us.”--“He will not keep you long waiting for him,”
said the courier, with a bow, and withdrew.

“Do but hear the distracted, stupid message,” said Lothario. “‘As of all
guests, Good Humor is believed to be the most agreeable wherever he
appears, and as I always keep that gentleman beside me by way of
travelling companion, I feel persuaded that the visit I intend to pay
your noble lordship will not be taken ill: on the contrary, I hope the
whole of your illustrious family will witness my arrival with complete
satisfaction, and in due time also my departure; being always, _et
cœtera_, Count of Snailfoot.’”

“’Tis a new family,” said the abbé.

“A vicariat count, perhaps,” said Jarno.

“The secret is easy to unriddle,” said Natalia: “I wager it is none but
brother Friedrich, who has threatened us with a visit ever since my
uncle’s death.”

“Right, fair and skilful sister!” cried a voice from the nearest
thicket; and immediately a pleasant, cheerful youth stepped forward.
Wilhelm could scarcely restrain a cry of wonder. “What!” exclaimed he:
“does our fair-haired knave, too, meet me here?” Friedrich looked
attentively, and, recognizing Wilhelm, cried, “In truth, it would not
have astonished me so much to have beheld the famous pyramids, which
still stand fast in Egypt, or the grave of King Mausolus, which, as I am
told, does not exist, here placed before me in my uncle’s garden, as to
find you in it, my old friend, and frequent benefactor. Accept my best
and heartiest service!”

After he had kissed and complimented the whole circle, he again sprang
towards Wilhelm, crying, “Use him well, this hero, this leader of
armies, and dramatical philosopher! When we became acquainted first, I
dressed his hair indifferently, I may say execrably; yet he afterwards
saved me from a pretty load of blows. He is magnanimous as Scipio,
munificent as Alexander: at times he is in love, yet he never hates his
rivals. Far from heaping coals of fire on the heads of his enemies,--a
piece of service, I am told, which we can do for any one,--he rather,
when his friends have carried off his love, despatches good and trusty
servants after them, that they may not strike their feet against a
stone.”

In the same style he ran along with a volubility which baffled all
attempts to restrain it; and, as no one could reply to him in that vein,
he had the conversation mostly to himself. “Do not wonder,” cried he,
“that I am so profoundly versed in sacred and profane writers: you shall
hear by and by how I attained my learning.” They wished to know how
matters stood with him,--where he had been; but crowds of proverbs and
old stories choked his explanation.

Natalia whispered to Theresa, “His gayety afflicts me: I am sure at
heart he is not merry.”

As, except a few jokes which Jarno answered, Friedrich’s merriment was
met by no response from those about him, he was obliged at last to say,
“Well, there is nothing left for me, but, among so many grave faces, to
be grave myself. And as, in such a solemn scene, the burden of my sins
falls heavy on my soul, I must honestly resolve upon a general
confession; for which, however, you, my worthy gentlemen and ladies,
shall not be a jot the wiser. This honorable friend already knows a
little of my walk and conversation; he alone shall know the rest; and
this the rather, as he alone has any cause to ask about it. Are not
you,” continued he to Wilhelm, “curious about the how and where, the
when and wherefore? And how it stands with the conjugation of the Greek
verb φιλέω, φιλῶ, and the derivatives of that very amiable part of
speech?”

He then took Wilhelm by the arm, and led him off, pressing him and
skipping round him with the liveliest air of kindness.

Scarcely had they entered Wilhelm’s room, when Friedrich noticed, in the
window, a powder-knife, with the inscription, “Think of me.” “You keep
your valuables well laid up!” said he. “This is the powder-knife Philina
gave you, when I pulled your locks for you. I hope, in looking at it,
you have diligently thought of that fair damsel; I assure you, she has
not forgotten you: if I had not long ago obliterated every trace of
jealousy from my heart, I could not look on you without envy.”

“Talk no more of that creature,” answered Wilhelm. “I confess it was a
while before I could get rid of the impression which her looks and
manner made on me, but that was all.”

“Fie, Fie!” cried Friedrich. “Would any one deny his deary? You loved
her as completely as a man could wish. No day passed without your giving
her some present; and, when a German gives, you may be sure he loves. No
alternative remained for me but whisking her away from you, and in this
the little red officer at last succeeded.”

“What! you were the officer whom we discovered with her, whom she
travelled off with?”

“Yes,” said Friedrich, “whom you took for Mariana. We had sport enough
at the mistake.”

“What cruelty,” cried Wilhelm, “to leave me in such suspense!”

“And, besides, to take the courier, whom you sent to catch us, into
pay!” said Friedrich. “He is a very active fellow: we have kept him by
us ever since. And the girl herself I love as desperately as ever. She
has managed me in some peculiar style: I am almost in a mythologic case;
every day I tremble at the thought of being metamorphosed.”

“But tell me, pray,” said Wilhelm, “where have you acquired this stock
of erudition? It surprises me to hear the strange way you have assumed
of speaking always with a reference to ancient histories and fables.”

“It was by a pleasant plan,” said Friedrich, “that I got my learning.
Philina lives with me at present: we have got a lease of an old,
knightly castle from the farmer in whose ground it is; and there we
live, with the hobgoblins of the place, as merrily as possible. In one
of the rooms we found a small, but choice, library, consisting of a
Bible in folio, ‘Gottfried’s Chronicle,’ two volumes of the ‘Theatrum
Europæum,’ an ‘Acerra Philologica,’ ‘Gryphius’ Writings,’ and some other
less important works. As we now and then, when tired of romping, felt
the time hang heavy on our hands, we proposed to read some books; and,
before we were aware, the time hung heavier than ever. At last Philina
hit upon the royal plan of laying all the tomes, opened at once, upon a
large table. We sat down opposite to one another: we read to one
another,--always in detached passages, first from this book, then from
that. We had a jolly time of it. We felt now as if we were in good
society, where it is reckoned unbecoming to dwell on any subject, or
search it to the bottom: we thought ourselves in witty, gay society,
where none will let his neighbor speak. We regularly treat ourselves
with this diversion every day, and the erudition we obtain from it is
quite surprising. Already there is nothing new for us under the sun: on
every thing we see or hear, our learning offers us a hint. This method
of instruction we diversify in many ways. Frequently we read by an old,
spoiled sand-glass, which runs in a minute or two. The moment it is
down, the silent party turns it round like lightning, and commences
reading from his book; and no sooner is it down again, than the other
cuts him short, and starts the former topic. Thus we study in a truly
academic manner, with this difference, that our hours are shorter, and
our studies extremely varied.”

“This rioting is quite conceivable,” said Wilhelm, “when a pair like you
two are together; but how a pair so full of frolic stay together does
not seem so easily conceivable.”

“It is our good fortune,” answered Friedrich, “and our bad. Philina dare
not let herself be seen,--she cannot bear to see herself: she is with
child. Nothing ever was so ludicrous and shapeless in the world. A
little while before I came away, she chanced to cast an eye upon the
looking-glass in passing. ‘Faugh!’ cried she, and turned away her face:
‘the living picture of the Frau Melina! Shocking figure! One looks
entirely deplorable!’”

“I confess,” said Wilhelm, with a smile, “it must be rather farcical to
see a father and a mother, such as you and she, together.”

“’Tis a foolish business,” answered Friedrich, “that I must at last be
raised to the paternal dignity. But she asserts, and the time agrees. At
first that cursed visit which she paid you after ‘Hamlet’ gave me
qualms.”

“What visit?”

“I suppose you have not quite slept off the memory of it yet? The
pretty, flesh-and-blood spirit of that night, if you do not know it, was
Philina. The story was, in truth, a hard dower for me; but, if we cannot
be content with such things, we should not be in love. Fatherhood, at
any rate, depends entirely upon conviction: I am convinced, and so I am
a father. There, you see, I can employ my logic in the proper season
too. And, if the brat do not laugh itself to death so soon as it is
born, it may prove, if not a useful, at least a pleasant, citizen of
this world.”

Whilst our friends were talking thus of mirthful subjects, the rest of
the party had begun a serious conversation. Scarcely were Friedrich and
Wilhelm gone, when the abbé led his friends, as if by chance, into a
garden-house, and, having got them seated, thus addressed them:--

“We have in general terms asserted that Fräulein Theresa was not the
daughter of her reputed mother: it is fit that we should now explain
ourselves on this matter, in detail. I shall relate the story to you,
which I undertake to prove and to elucidate in every point.

“Frau von ---- spent the first years of her wedlock in the utmost
concord with her husband; but they had this misfortune, that the
children she brought him came into the world dead: and, on occasion of
the third, the mother was declared by the physicians to be on the verge
of death, and to be sure of death if she should ever have another. The
parties were obliged to take their resolution: they would not break the
marriage; it was too suitable to both, in a civil point of view. Frau
von ---- sought in the culture of her mind, in a certain habit of
display, in the joys of vanity, a compensation for the happiness of
motherhood, which was refused her. She cheerfully indulged her husband,
when she noticed in him an attachment to a young lady, who had sole
charge of their household, a person of beautiful exterior, and very
solid character. Frau von ---- herself, erelong, assisted in procuring
an arrangement, by which the lady yielded to the wishes of Theresa’s
father; continuing to discharge her household duties, and testifying to
the mistress of the family, if possible, a more submissive zeal to serve
her than before.

“After a while she declared herself with child; and both the father and
his wife, on this occasion, though from very different causes, fell upon
the same idea. Herr von ---- wished to have the offspring of his
mistress educated in the house as his lawful child; and Frau von ----,
angry that the indiscretion of her doctor had allowed some whisper of
her condition to go abroad, proposed by a supposititious child to
counteract this, and likewise to retain, by such compliance, the
superiority in her household, which otherwise she was like to lose.
However, she was more backward than her husband: she observed his
purpose, and contrived, without any formal question, to facilitate his
explanation. She made her own terms, obtaining almost every thing that
she required; and hence the will in which so little care was taken of
the child. The old doctor was dead: they applied to a young, active, and
discreet successor; he was well rewarded; he looked forward to the
credit of exposing and remedying the unskilfulness and premature
decision of his deceased colleague. The true mother not unwillingly
consented: they managed the deception very well; Theresa came into the
world, and was surrendered to a stepmother, while her mother fell a
victim to the plot; having died by venturing out too early, and left the
father inconsolable.

“Frau von ---- had thus attained her object; in the eyes of the world
she had a lovely child, which she paraded with excessive vanity: and she
had also been delivered from a rival whose fortune she envied, and whose
influence, at least in prospect, she beheld with apprehension. The
infant she loaded with her tenderness: and by affecting, in trustful
hours, a lively feeling for her husband’s loss, she gained a mastery of
his heart; so that in a manner he surrendered all to her, laid his own
happiness and that of his child in her hands: nor was it till a short
while prior to his death, and, in some degree, by the exertions of his
grown-up daughter, that he again assumed the rule in his own house.
This, fair Theresa, was in all probability the secret which your father,
in his last sickness, so struggled to communicate: this is what I wished
to lay circumstantially before you, at a moment when our young friend,
who by a strange concurrence has become your bridegroom, happens to be
absent. Here are the papers which will prove in the most rigorous manner
every thing that I have stated. You will also see from them how long I
have been following the trace of this discovery; though, till now, I
could never attain certainty respecting it. I did not risk imparting to
my friend the possibility of such a happiness: it would have wounded him
too deeply had this hope a second time deceived him. You will understand
poor Lydia’s suspicions: I readily confess, I nowise favored our
friend’s attachment to her, when I began again to look forward to his
union with Theresa.”

To this recital no one replied. The ladies, some days afterwards,
returned the papers, not making any further mention of them.

There were other matters in abundance to engage the party when they were
together; and the scenery around was so delightful, that our friends,
singly or in company, on horseback, in carriages, or on foot, delighted
to explore it. On one of these excursions, Jarno took an opportunity of
opening the affair to Wilhelm: he delivered him the papers; not,
however, seeming to require from him any resolution in regard to them.

“In this most singular position in which I am,” said our friend, “I need
only repeat to you what I said at first, in presence of Natalia, and
with the clear intention to fulfil it. Lothario and his friends may
require of me every sort of self-denial; I here abandon in their favor
all pretension to Theresa: do you procure me in return a formal
discharge. There requires no great reflection to decide. For some days I
have noticed that Theresa has to make an effort in retaining any show of
the vivacity with which she welcomed me at first. Her affection is gone
from me; or, rather, I have never had it.”

“Such affairs are more conveniently explained,” said Jarno, “by a
gradual process, in silence and expectation, than by many words, which
always cause a sort of fermentation and embarrassment.”

“I rather think,” said Wilhelm, “that precisely this affair admits of
the most clear and calm decision on the spot. I have often been
reproached with hesitation and uncertainty: why will you now, when I do
not hesitate, commit against myself the fault you have often blamed in
me? Do people take such trouble with our training only to let us feel
that they themselves will not be trained? Yes: grant me soon the
cheerful thought that I am out of a mistaken project, into which I
entered with the purest feelings in the world.”

Notwithstanding this request, some days elapsed without his hearing any
more of the affair, or observing any further alteration in his friends.
The conversation, on the contrary, was general, and of indifferent
matters.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER VII.


Jarno and Wilhelm were sitting one day by Natalia. “You are thoughtful,
Jarno,” said the lady: “I have seen it in your looks for some time.”

“I am so,” answered Jarno: “a weighty business is before me, which we
have for years been meditating, and must now begin to execute. You
already know the outline of it: I may speak of it before our friend; for
it will depend on himself whether he, too, shall not share in it. You
are going to get rid of me before long: I mean to take a voyage to
America.”

“To America?” said Wilhelm, smiling: “such an adventure I did not
anticipate from you, still less that you would have selected me for a
companion.”

“When you rightly understand our plan,” said Jarno, “you will give it a
more honorable name, and, perhaps, yourself be tempted to embark in it.
Listen to me. It requires but a slight acquaintance with the business of
the world to see that mighty changes are at hand, that property is
almost nowhere quite secure.”

“Of the business of the world I have no clear notion,” interrupted
Wilhelm; “and it is but of late that I ever thought about my property.
Perhaps I had done well to drive it out of my head still longer: the
care of securing it appears to give us hypochondria.”

“Hear me out,” said Jarno. “Care beseems ripe age, that youth may live,
for a time, free from care; in the conduct of poor mortals, equilibrium
cannot be restored except by contraries. As matters go, it is any thing
but prudent to have property in only one place, to commit your money to
a single spot; and yet it is difficult to guide it well in many. We
have, therefore, thought of something else. From our old tower there is
a society to issue, which must spread itself through every quarter of
the world, and to which members from every quarter of the world shall be
admissible. We shall insure a competent subsistence to each other, in
the single case of a revolution happening, which might drive any part of
us entirely from their possessions. I am now proceeding to America to
profit by the good connections which our friend established while he
staid there. The abbé means to go to Russia: if you like to join us, you
shall have the choice of continuing in Germany to help Lothario, or of
accompanying me. I conjecture you will choose the latter: to take a
distant journey is extremely serviceable to a young man.”

Wilhelm thought a moment, and replied, “The offer well deserves
consideration; for erelong the word with me must be, The farther off,
the better. You will let me know your plan, I hope, more perfectly. It
is, perhaps, my ignorance of life that makes me think so; but such a
combination seems to me to be attended with insuperable difficulties.”

“The most of which, till now, have been avoided,” answered Jarno, “by
the circumstance that we have been but few in number, honorable,
discreet, determined people, animated by a certain general feeling, out
of which alone the feeling proper for societies can spring.”--“And if
you speak me fair,” said Friedrich, who hitherto had only listened, “I,
too, will go along with you.”

Jarno shook his head.

“Well, what objections can you make?” cried Friedrich. “In a new colony,
young colonists will be required; these I bring with me: merry colonists
will also be required; of these I make you certain. Besides, I recollect
a certain damsel, who is out of place on this side of the water,--the
fair, soft-hearted Lydia. What is the poor thing to do with her sorrow
and mourning, unless she get an opportunity to throw it to the bottom of
the sea, unless some brave fellow take her by the hand? You, my
benefactor,” said he, turning towards Wilhelm, “you have a taste for
comforting forsaken persons: what withholds you now? Each of us might
take his girl under his arm, and trudge with Jarno.”

This proposal struck Wilhelm offensively. He answered with affected
calmness, “I know not whether she is unengaged; and, as in general I
seem to be unfortunate in courtship, I shall hardly think of making the
attempt.”

“Brother Friedrich,” said Natalia, “though thy own conduct is so full of
levity, it does not follow that such sentiments will answer others. Our
friend deserves a heart that shall belong to him alone, that shall not,
at his side, be moved by recollections of some previous attachment. It
was only with a character as pure and reasonable as Theresa’s that such
a venture could be risked.”

“Risk!” cried Friedrich: “in love it is all risk. In the grove or at the
altar, with a clasp of the arms or a golden ring, by the chirping of the
cricket or the sound of trumpets and kettle-drums, it is all but a risk:
chance does it all.”

“I have often noticed,” said Natalia, “that our principles are just a
supplement to our peculiar manner of existence. We delight to clothe our
errors in the garb of universal laws, to attribute them to irresistibly
appointed causes. Do but think by what a path thy dear will lead thee,
now that she has drawn thee towards her, and holds thee fast there.”

“She herself is on a very pretty path,” said Friedrich,--“on the path to
saintship. A by-path, it is true, and somewhat roundabout, but the
pleasanter and surer for that. Maria of Magdala travelled it, and who
can say how many more? But, on the whole, sister, when the point in hand
is love, thou shouldst not mingle in it. In my opinion, thou wilt never
marry, till a bride is lacking somewhere: in that case, thou wilt give
thyself, with thy habitual charity, to be the supplement of some
peculiar manner of existence, not otherwise. So let us strike a bargain
with this soul-broker, and agree about our travelling-company.”

“You come too late with your proposals,” answered Jarno: “Lydia is
disposed of.”

“And how?” cried Friedrich.

“I myself have offered her my hand,” said Jarno.

“Old gentleman,” said Friedrich, “you have done a feat to which, if we
regard it as a substantive, various adjectives might be appended;
various predicates, if we regard it as a subject.”

“I must honestly confess,” replied Natalia, “it appears a dangerous
experiment to make a helpmate of a woman, at the very moment when her
love for another man is like to drive her to despair.”

“I have ventured,” answered Jarno: “under a certain stipulation she is
to be mine. And, believe me, there is nothing in the world more precious
than a heart susceptible of love and passion. Whether it has loved,
whether it still loves, are points which I regard not. The love of which
another is the object charms me almost more than that which is directed
to myself. I see the strength, the force, of a tender soul; and my
self-love does not trouble the delightful vision.”

“Have you, then, talked with Lydia of late?” inquired Natalia.

Jarno smiled and nodded: Natalia shook her head, and said as he rose, “I
really know not what to make of you; but me you shall not mystify, I
promise you.”

She was about retiring, when the abbé entered with a letter in his hand.
“Stay, if you please,” said he to her: “I have a proposal here,
respecting which your counsel will be welcome. The marchese, your late
uncle’s friend, whom for some time we have been expecting, will be here
in a day or two. He writes to me, that German is not so familiar to him
as he had supposed; that he needs a person who possesses this and other
languages, to travel with him; that, as he wishes to connect himself
with scientific rather than political society, he cannot do without some
such interpreter. I can think of no one better suited for the post than
our young friend here. He knows the language, is acquainted with many
things beside; and, for himself, it cannot but be advantageous to travel
over Germany in such society and such circumstances. Till we have seen
our native country, we have no scale to judge of other countries by.
What say you, my friend? What say you, Natalia?”

Nobody objected to the scheme: Jarno seemed to think his transatlantic
project would not be a hinderance, as he did not mean to sail directly.
Natalia did not speak, and Friedrich uttered various saws about the uses
of travel.

This new project so provoked our friend, that he could hardly conceal
his irritation. He saw in this proposal a concerted plan for getting rid
of him as soon as possible; and, what was worse, they went so openly to
work, and seemed so utterly regardless of his feelings. The suspicions
Lydia had excited in him, all that he himself had witnessed, rose again
upon his mind: the simple manner in which every thing had been explained
by Jarno now appeared to him another piece of artifice.

He constrained himself, and answered, “At all events, the offer will
require mature deliberation.”

“A quick decision may, perhaps, be necessary,” said the abbé.

“For that I am not prepared,” answered Wilhelm. “We can wait till the
marchese comes, and then observe if we agree together. One condition
must, however, be conceded first of all,--that I take Felix with me.”

“This is a condition,” said the abbé, “which will scarcely be conceded.”

“And I do not see,” cried Wilhelm, “why I should let any man prescribe
conditions to me, or why, if I choose to view my native country, I must
go in company with an Italian.”

“Because a young man,” said the abbé, with a certain imposing
earnestness, “is always called upon to form connections.”

Wilhelm, feeling that he could not long retain his self-command, as it
was Natalia’s presence only which, in some degree, assuaged his
indignation, hastily made answer, “Give me a little while to think. I
imagine it will not be very hard to settle whether I am called upon to
form additional connections; or ordered irresistibly, by heart and head,
to free myself from such a multiplicity of bonds, which seem to threaten
me with a perpetual, miserable thraldom.”

Thus he spoke, with a deeply agitated mind. A glance at Natalia somewhat
calmed him: her form and dignity, in this impassioned moment, stamped
themselves more deeply on his mind than ever.

“Yes,” said he, so soon as he was by himself, “confess it, thou lovest
her: thou once more feelest what it means to love with thy whole soul.
Thus did I love Mariana, and deceive myself so dreadfully; I loved
Philina, and could not help despising her; Aurelia I respected, and
could not love; Theresa I reverenced, and paternal tenderness assumed
the form of an affection for her. And now, when all the feelings that
can make a mortal happy meet within my heart, now I am compelled to
flee! Ah! why should these feelings and convictions be combined with an
insuperable longing? Why, without the hope of its fulfilment, should
they utterly subvert all other happiness? Shall the sun and the world,
society or any other gift of fortune, ever henceforth yield me pleasure?
Wilt thou not forever say, Natalia is not here? And yet, alas! Natalia
will be always present to thee! If thou closest thy eyes, she will
appear to thee: if thou openest them, her form will flit before all
outward things, like the image which a dazzling object leaves behind it
in the eye. Did not the swiftly passing figure of the Amazon dwell
continually in thy imagination? And yet thou hadst but seen her, thou
didst not know her. Now when thou knowest her, when thou hast been so
long beside her, when she has shown such care about thee,--now are her
qualities impressed as deeply upon thy soul as her form was then upon
thy fancy. It is painful to be always seeking, but far more painful to
have found, and to be forced to leave. What now shall I ask for further
in the world? What now shall I look for further? Is there a country, a
city, that contains a treasure such as this? And I must travel on, and
ever find inferiority? Is life, then, like a race-course, where a man
must rapidly return when he has reached the utmost end? Does the good,
the excellent, stand before us like a firm, unmoving goal, from which,
with fleet horses, we are forced away the instant we appeared to have
attained it? Happier are they who strive for earthly wares! They find
what they are seeking in its proper climate, or they buy it in the fair.

“Come, my darling boy!” cried he to Felix, who now ran frisking towards
him: “be thou and remain thou all to me! Thou wert given me as a
compensation for thy loved mother; thou wert to replace the second
mother whom I meant for thee; and now thou hast a loss still greater to
make good. Occupy my heart, occupy my spirit, with thy beauty, thy
loveliness, thy capabilities, and thy desire to use them!”

The boy was busied with a new plaything: his father tried to put it in a
better state for him; just as he succeeded, Felix had lost all pleasure
in it. “Thou art a true son of Adam!” cried Wilhelm. “Come, my child!
Come, my brother! let us wander, playing without object, through the
world, as we best may.”

His resolution to remove, to take the boy along with him, and recreate
his mind by looking at the world, had now assumed a settled form. He
wrote to Werner for the necessary cash and letters of credit; sending
Friedrich’s courier on the message, with the strictest charges to return
immediately. Much as the conduct of his other friends had grieved him,
his relation to Natalia remained serene and clear as ever.

He confided to her his intention. She took it as a settled thing that he
would go; and, if this seeming carelessness in her chagrined him, her
kindly manner and her presence made him calm. She counselled him to
visit various towns, that he might get acquainted with certain of her
friends. The courier returned, and brought the letter which our friend
required; though Werner did not seem content with this new whim. “My
hope that thou wert growing reasonable,” so the letter ran, “is now
again deferred. Where are you all gadding? And where lingers the lady
who thou saidst was to assist us in arranging these affairs? Thy other
friends are also absent. They have thrown the whole concern upon the
shoulders of the lawyer and myself. Happy that he is as expert a jurist
as I am a financier, and that both of us are used to business. Fare thee
well! Thy aberrations shall be pardoned thee, since but for them our
situation here could not have been so favorable.”

So far as outward matters were concerned, Wilhelm might now have entered
on his journey; but there were still for his heart two hinderances that
held him fast. In the first place, they flatly refused to show him
Mignon’s body till the funeral the abbé meant to celebrate; and, for
this solemnity, the preparations were not ready. There had also been a
curious letter from the country clergyman, in consequence of which the
doctor had gone off. It related to the harper, of whose fate Wilhelm
wanted to have further information.

In these circumstances, day or night he found no rest for mind or body.
When all were asleep, he wandered up and down the house. The presence of
the pictures and statues, which he knew so well of old, alternately
attracted and repelled him. Nothing that surrounded him could he lay
hold of or let go; all things reminded him of all: the whole ring of his
existence lay before him; but it was broken into fragments, and seemed
as if it would never unite again. These works of art, which his father
had sold, appeared to him an omen that he himself was destined never to
obtain a lasting, calm possession of any thing desirable in life, or
always to be robbed of it so soon as gained, by his own or other
people’s blame. He waded so deep in these strange and dreary
meditations, that often he almost thought himself a disembodied spirit;
and, even when he felt and handled things without him, he could scarcely
keep himself from doubting whether he was really there and alive.

Nothing but the piercing grief which often seized him, but the tears he
shed at being forced, by causes frivolous as they were irresistible, to
leave the good which he had found, and found after having lost it,
restored him to the feeling of his earthly life. It was in vain to call
before his mind his happy state in other respects. “All is nothing,
then,” exclaimed he, “if the one blessing, which appears to us worth all
the rest, is wanting!”

The abbé told the company that the marchese was arrived. “You have
determined, it appears,” said he to Wilhelm, “to set out upon your
travels with your boy alone. Get acquainted with this nobleman, however:
he will be useful to you if you meet him by the way.” The marchese
entered. He was a person not yet very far advanced in years,--a fine,
handsome, pleasing, Lombard figure. In his youth, while in the army and
afterwards in public business, he had known Lothario’s uncle; they had
subsequently travelled through the greater part of Italy together: and
many of the works of art, which the marchese now again fell in with, had
been purchased in his presence, and under various happy circumstances,
which he still distinctly recollected.

The Italians have in general a deeper feeling for the high dignity of
art than any other nation. In Italy, whoever follows the employment
tries to pass at once for artist, master, and professor; by which
pretensions he acknowledges at least that it is not sufficient merely to
lay hold of some transmitted excellency, or to acquire by practice some
dexterity, but that a man who aims at art should have the power to think
of what he does, to lay down principles, and make apparent to himself
and others how and wherefore he proceeds in this way or in that.

The stranger was affected at again beholding these productions when the
owner of them was no more, and cheered to see the spirit of his friend
surviving in the gifted persons left behind him. They discussed a series
of works: they found a lively satisfaction in the harmony of their
ideas. The marchese and the abbé were the speakers; Natalia felt herself
again transported to the presence of her uncle, and could enter without
difficulty into their opinions and criticisms; Wilhelm could not
understand them, except as he translated their technology into dramatic
language. Friedrich’s facetious vein was sometimes rather difficult to
keep in check. Jarno was seldom there.

It being observed that excellent works of art were very rare in latter
times, it was remarked by the marchese, “We can hardly think or estimate
how many circumstances must combine in favor of the artist: with the
greatest genius, with the most decisive talent, the demands which he
must make upon himself are infinite, the diligence required in
cultivating his endowments is unspeakable. Now, if circumstances are not
in his favor, if he observe that the world is very easy to be satisfied,
requiring but a slight, pleasing, transitory show, it were matter of
surprise if indolence and selfishness did not keep him fixed at
mediocrity: it were strange if he did not rather think of bartering
modish wares for gold and praises than of entering on the proper path,
which could not fail in some degree to lead him to a sort of painful
martyrdom. Accordingly, the artists of our time are always offering and
never giving. They always aim at charming, and they never satisfy: every
thing is merely indicated; you can nowhere find foundation or
completion. Those for whom they labor, it is true, are little better. If
you wait a while in any gallery of pictures, and observe what works
attract the many, what are praised and what neglected, you have little
pleasure in the present, little hope in the future.”

“Yes,” replied the abbé: “and thus it is that artists and their judges
mutually form each other. The latter ask for nothing but a general,
vague enjoyment; a work of art is to delight them almost as a work of
nature; they imagine that the organs for enjoying works of art may be
cultivated altogether of themselves, like the tongue and the palate;
they try a picture or a poem as they do an article of food. They do not
understand how very different a species of culture it requires to raise
one to the true enjoyment of art. The hardest part of it, in my opinion,
is that sort of separation which a man that aims at perfect culture must
accomplish in himself. It is on this account that we observe so many
people partially cultivated, and yet every one of them attempting to
pronounce upon the general whole.”

“Your last remark is not quite clear to me,” said Jarno, who came in
just then.

“It would be difficult,” replied the abbé, “to explain it fully without
a long detail. Thus much I may say: When any man pretends to mix in
manifold activity or manifold enjoyment, he must also be enabled, as it
were, to make his organs manifold, and independent of each other.
Whoever aims at doing or enjoying all and every thing with his entire
nature, whoever tries to link together all that is without him by such a
species of enjoyment, will only lose his time in efforts that can never
be successful. How difficult, though it seems so easy, is it to
contemplate a noble disposition, a fine picture, simply in and for
itself; to watch the music for the music’s sake; to admire the actor in
the actor; to take pleasure in a building for its own peculiar harmony
and durability. Most men are wont to treat a work of art, though fixed
and done, as if it were a piece of soft clay. The hard and polished
marble is again to mould itself, the firm-walled edifice is to contract
or to expand itself, according as their inclinations, sentiments, and
whims may dictate: the picture is to be instructive, the play to make us
better,--every thing is to do all. The reason is, that most men are
themselves uninformed, they cannot give themselves and their being any
certain shape; and thus they strive to take from other things their
proper shape, that all they have to do with may be loose and wavering
like themselves. Every thing is, in the long-run, reduced by them to
what they call effect: every thing is relative, say they; and so,
indeed, it is: every thing with them grows relative, except absurdity
and platitude, which truly are absolute enough.”

“I understand you,” answered Jarno; “or, rather, I perceive how what you
have been saying follows from the principles you hold so fast by. Yet
with men, poor devils, we should not go to quest so strictly. I know
enow of them in truth, who, beside the greatest works of art and nature,
forthwith recollect their own most paltry insufficiency; who take their
conscience and their morals with them to the opera; who bethink them of
their loves and hatreds in contemplating a colonnade. The best and
greatest that can be presented to them from without, they must first, as
far as possible, diminish in their way of representing it, that they may
in any measure be enabled to combine it with their own sorry nature.”


                ---------------------------------------


                             CHAPTER VIII.


The abbé called them in the evening to attend the exequies of Mignon.
The company proceeded to the Hall of the Past: they found it
magnificently ornamented and illuminated. The walls were hung with azure
tapestry almost from ceiling to floor, so that nothing but the friezes
and socles, above and below, were visible. On the four candelabras in
the corner large wax-lights were burning: smaller lights were in the
four smaller candelabras placed by the sarcophagus in the middle. Near
this stood four boys, dressed in azure with silver: they had broad fans
of ostrich-feathers, which they waved above a figure that was resting
upon the sarcophagus. The company sat down: two invisible choruses began
in a soft, musical recitative to ask, “Whom bring ye us to the still
dwelling?” The four boys replied with lovely voices, “’Tis a tired
playmate whom we bring you: let her rest in your still dwelling, till
the songs of her heavenly sisters once more awaken her.”


                                CHORUS.

    “Firstling of youth in our circle, we welcome thee! With sadness
    welcome thee! May no boy, no maiden, follow! Let age only,
    willing and composed, approach the silent hall, and in the
    solemn company, repose this one dear child!


                                 BOYS.

    Ah, reluctantly we brought her hither! Ah, and she is to remain
    here! Let us, too, remain: let us weep, let us weep upon her
    bier!


                                CHORUS.

    Yet look at the strong wings; look at the light, clear robe. How
    glitters the golden band upon her head! Look at the beautiful,
    the noble, repose.


                                 BOYS.

    Ah! the wings do not raise her; in the frolic game, her robe
    flutters to and fro no more; when we bound her head with roses,
    her looks on us were kind and friendly.


                                CHORUS.

    Cast forward the eye of the spirit. Awake in your souls the
    imaginative power, which carries forth what is fairest, what is
    highest, life, away beyond the stars.


                                 BOYS.

    But, ah! We find her not here; in the garden she wanders not;
    the flowers of the meadow she plucks no longer. Let us weep, we
    are leaving her here! Let us weep, and remain with her!


                                CHORUS.

    Children, turn back into life! Your tears let the fresh air dry,
    which plays upon the rushing water. Flee from Night! Day and
    Pleasure and Continuance are the lot of the living.


                                 BOYS.

    Up! Turn back into life! Let the day give us labor and pleasure,
    till the evening brings us rest, and the nightly sleep refreshes
    us.


                                CHORUS.

    Children! Hasten into life! In the pure garments of beauty, may
    Love meet you with heavenly looks and with the wreath of
    immortality!”


The boys had retired: the abbé rose from his seat, and went behind the
bier. “It is the appointment,” said he, “of the man who prepared this
silent abode, that each new tenant of it shall be introduced with a
solemnity. After him, the builder of this mansion, the founder of this
establishment, we have next brought a young stranger hither; and thus
already does this little space contain two altogether different victims
of the rigorous, arbitrary, and inexorable Death-goddess. By appointed
laws we enter into life: the days are numbered which make us ripe to see
the light, but for the duration of our life there is no law. The weakest
thread will spin itself to unexpected length; and the strongest is cut
suddenly asunder by the scissors of the Fates, delighting, as it seems,
in contradictions. Of the child whom we have here committed to her final
rest, we can say but little. It is still uncertain whence she came; her
parents we know not; the years of her life we can only conjecture. Her
deep and closely shrouded soul allowed us scarce to guess at its
interior movements: there was nothing clear in her, nothing open but her
affection for the man who had snatched her from the hands of a
barbarian. This impassioned tenderness, this vivid gratitude, appeared
to be the flame which consumed the oil of her life: the skill of the
physician could not save that fair life, the most anxious friendship
could not lengthen it. But, if art could not stay the departing spirit,
it has done its utmost to preserve the body, and withdraw it from decay.
A balsamic substance has been forced through all the veins, and now
tinges, in place of blood, these cheeks too early faded. Come near, my
friends, and view this wonder of art and care!”

He raised the veil: the child was lying in her angel’s dress, as if
asleep, in the most soft and graceful posture. They approached, and
admired this show of life. Wilhelm alone continued sitting in his place;
he was not able to compose himself: what he felt he durst not think, and
every thought seemed ready to destroy his feeling.

For the sake of the marchese, the speech had been pronounced in French.
That nobleman came forward with the rest, and viewed the figure with
attention. The abbé thus proceeded. “With a holy confidence, this kind
heart, shut up to men, was continually turned to its God. Humility, nay,
an inclination to abase herself externally, seemed natural to her. She
clave with zeal to the Catholic religion, in which she had been born and
educated. Often she expressed a still wish to sleep on consecrated
ground; and, according to the usage of the Church, we have, therefore,
consecrated this marble coffin, and the little earth which is hidden in
the cushion that supports her head. With what ardor did she, in her last
moments, kiss the image of the Crucified, which stood beautifully
figured on her tender arm, with many hundred points!” So saying, he
stripped up her right sleeve; and a crucifix, with marks and letters
round it, showed itself in blue upon the white skin.

The marchese looked at this with eagerness, stooping down to view it
more intensely. “O God!” cried he, as he stood upright, and raised his
hands to heaven. “Poor child! Unhappy niece! Do I meet thee here? What a
painful joy to find thee, whom we had long lost hope of; to find this
dear frame, which we had long believed the prey of fishes in the ocean,
here preserved, though lifeless! I assist at thy funeral, splendid in
its external circumstances, still more splendid from the noble persons
who attend thee to thy place of rest. And to these,” added he, with a
faltering voice, “so soon as I can speak, I will express my thanks.”

Tears hindered him from saying more. By the pressure of a spring, the
abbé sank the body into the cavity of the marble. Four youths, dressed
as the boys had been, came out from behind the tapestry, and lifting the
heavy, beautifully ornamented lid upon the coffin, thus began their
song.


                              THE YOUTHS.

    “Well is the treasure now laid up,--the fair image of the Past!
    Here sleeps it in the marble, undecaying: in your hearts, too,
    it lives, it works. Travel, travel back into life! Take along
    with you this holy earnestness, for earnestness alone makes life
    eternity.”


The invisible chorus joined in with the last words, but no one heard the
strengthening sentiment: all were too much busied with themselves, and
the emotions which these wonderful disclosures had excited. The abbé and
Natalia conducted the marchese out: Theresa and Lothario walked by
Wilhelm. It was not till the music had altogether died away, that their
sorrows, thoughts, meditations, curiosity, again fell on them with all
their force, and made them long to be transported back into that
exalting scene.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER IX.


The marchese avoided speaking of the matter, but had long, secret
conversations with the abbé. When the company was met, he often asked
for music,--a request to which they willingly assented, as each was glad
to be delivered from the charge of talking. Thus they lived for some
time, till it was observed that he was making preparations for
departure. One day he said to Wilhelm, “I wish not to disturb the
remains of this beloved child; let her rest in the place where she loved
and suffered: but her friends must promise to visit me in her native
country, in the scene where she was born and bred; they must see the
pillars and statues, of which a dim idea remained with her. I will lead
you to the bays where she liked so well to roam, and gather pebbles.
You, at least, young friend, shall not escape the gratitude of a family
that stands so deeply indebted to you. To-morrow I set out on my
journey. The abbé is acquainted with the whole history of this matter:
he will tell it you again. He could pardon me when grief interrupted my
recital: as a third party, he will be enabled to narrate the incidents
with more connection. If, as the abbé had proposed, you like to follow
me in travelling over Germany, you shall be heartily welcome. Leave not
your boy behind: at every little inconvenience which he causes us, we
will again remember your attentive care of my poor niece.”

The same evening our party was surprised by the arrival of the countess.
Wilhelm trembled in every joint as she entered: she herself, though
forewarned, kept close by her sister, who speedily reached her a chair.
How singularly simple was her attire, how altered was her form! Wilhelm
scarcely dared to look at her: she saluted him with a kindly air; a few
general words addressed to him did not conceal her sentiments and
feelings. The marchese had retired betimes; and, as the company were not
disposed to part so early, the abbé now produced a manuscript. “The
singular narrative which was intrusted to me,” said he, “I forthwith put
on paper. The case where pen and ink should least of all be spared, is
in recording the particular circumstances of remarkable events.” They
informed the countess of the matter; and the abbé read as follows, in
the name of the marchese:--

“Many men as I have seen, I still regard my father as a very
extraordinary person. His character was noble and upright; his ideas
were enlarged, I may even say great; to himself he was severe: in all
his plans there was a rigid order, in all operations an unbroken
perseverance. In one sense, therefore, it was easy to transact and live
with him: yet, owing to the very qualities which made it so, he never
could accommodate himself to life; for he required from the state, from
his neighbors, from his children, and his servants, the observance of
all the laws which he had laid upon himself. His most moderate demands
became exorbitant by his rigor; and he never could attain to enjoyment,
for nothing ever was completed as he had forecast it. At the moment when
he was erecting a palace, laying out a garden, or acquiring a large
estate in the highest cultivation, I have seen him inwardly convinced,
with the sternest ire, that Fate had doomed him to do nothing but
abstain and suffer. In his exterior he maintained the greatest dignity:
if he jested, it was but displaying the preponderancy of his
understanding. Censure was intolerable to him: the only time I ever saw
him quite transported with rage was once when he heard that one of his
establishments was spoken of as something ludicrous. In the same spirit
he had settled the disposal of his children and his fortune. My eldest
brother was educated as a person that had large estates to look for. I
was to embrace the clerical profession: the youngest was to be a
soldier. I was of a lively temper, fiery, active, quick, apt for
corporeal exercises: the youngest rather seemed inclined to an
enthusiastic quietism,--devoted to the sciences, to music, and poetry.
It was not till after the hardest struggle, the maturest conviction of
the impossibility of his project, that our father, still reluctantly,
agreed to let us change vocations; and, although he saw us both
contented, he could never suit himself to this arrangement, but declared
that nothing good would come of it. The older he grew, the more isolated
did he feel from all society. At last he came to live almost entirely
alone. One old friend, who had served in the German armies, who had lost
his wife in the campaign, and brought a daughter of about ten years of
age along with him, remained his only visitor. This person bought a fine
little property beside us: he used to come and see my father on stated
days of the week, and at stated hours; his little daughter often came
along with him. He was never heard to contradict my father, who at
length grew perfectly habituated to him, and endured him as the only
tolerable company he had. After our father’s death, we easily observed
that this old gentleman had not been visiting for naught,--that his
compliances had been rewarded by an ample settlement. He enlarged his
estates: his daughter might expect a handsome portion. The girl grew up,
and was extremely beautiful: my elder brother often joked with me about
her, saying I should go and court her.

“Meanwhile brother Augustin, in the seclusion of his cloister, had been
spending his years in the strangest state of mind. He abandoned himself
wholly to the feeling of a holy enthusiasm, to those half-spiritual,
half-physical emotions which, as they for a time exalted him to the
third heaven, erelong sank him down to an abyss of powerlessness and
vacant misery. While my father lived, no change could be contemplated:
what, indeed, could we have asked for or proposed? After the old man’s
death, our brother visited us frequently: his situation, which at first
afflicted us, in time became much more tolerable; for his reason had at
length prevailed. But, the more confidently reason promised him complete
recovery and contentment on the pure path of nature, the more vehemently
did he require of us to free him from his vows. His thoughts, he let us
know, were turned upon Sperata, our fair neighbor.

“My elder brother had experienced too much suffering from the harshness
of our father to look on the condition of the youngest without sympathy.
He spoke with the family confessor, a worthy old man: we signified to
him the double purpose of our brother, and requested him to introduce
and expedite the business. Contrary to custom he delayed; and at last,
when Augustin pressed us, and we recommended the affair more keenly to
the clergyman, he had nothing left but to impart the strange secret to
us.

“Sperata was our sister, and that by both her parents. Our mother had
declared herself with child at a time when both she and our father were
advanced in years: a similar occurrence had shortly before been made the
subject of some merriment in our neighborhood; and our father, to avoid
such ridicule, determined to conceal this late lawful fruit of love as
carefully as people use to conceal its earlier accidental fruits. Our
mother was delivered secretly: the child was carried to the country; and
the old friend of the family, who, with the confessor, had alone been
trusted with the secret, easily engaged to give her out for his
daughter. The confessor had reserved the right of disclosing the secret
in case of extremity. The supposed father was now dead: Sperata was
living with an old lady; we were aware that a love of song and music had
already led our brother to her; and on his again requiring us to undo
his former bond, that he might engage himself by a new one, it was
necessary that we should, as soon as possible, apprise him of the danger
he stood in.

“He viewed us with a wild, contemptuous look. ‘Spare your idle tales,’
cried he, ‘for children and credulous fools: from me, from my heart,
they shall not tear Sperata; she is mine. Recall, I pray you, instantly,
your frightful spectre, which would but harass me in vain. Sperata is
not my sister: she is my wife!’ He described to us, in rapturous terms,
how this heavenly girl had drawn him out of his unnatural state of
separation from his fellow-creatures into true life; how their spirits
accorded like their voices; how he blessed his sufferings and errors,
since they had kept clear of him women, till the moment when he wholly
and forever gave himself to this most amiable being. We were shocked at
the discovery, we deplored his situation, but we knew not how to help
ourselves; for he declared, with violence, that Sperata was with a child
by him. Our confessor did whatever duty could suggest to him, but by
this means he only made the evil worse. The demands of nature and
religion, moral rights and civil laws, were vehemently attacked and
spurned at by our brother. He considered nothing holy but his relation
to Sperata, nothing dignified but the names of father and wife. ‘These
alone,’ cried he, ‘are suitable to nature: all else is caprice and
opinion. Were there not noble nations which admitted marriage with a
sister? Name not your gods! You never name them but when you wish to
befool us, to lead us from the paths of nature, and, by scandalous
constraint, to transform the noblest inclinations into crimes.
Unspeakable are the perplexities, abominable the abuses, into which you
force the victims whom you bury alive.

“‘I may speak, for I have suffered like no other,--from the highest,
sweetest feeling of enthusiasm, to the frightful deserts of utter
powerlessness, vacancy, annihilation, and despair; from the loftiest
aspirations of preternatural existence, to the most entire
unbelief,--unbelief in myself. All these horrid grounds of the cup, so
flattering at the brim, I have drained; and my whole being was poisoned
to its core. And now, when kind Nature, by her greatest gift, by love,
has healed me; now, when in the arms of a heavenly creature I again feel
that I am, that she is, that out of this living union a third shall
arise and smile in our faces,--now ye open up the flames of your hell,
of your purgatory, which can only singe a sick imagination: ye oppose
them to the vivid, true, indestructible enjoyment of pure love. Meet us
under these cypresses, which turn their solemn tops to heaven; visit us
among those espaliers where the citrons and pomegranates bloom beside
us, where the graceful myrtle stretches out its tender flowers to
us,--and then venture to disturb us with your dreary, paltry nets which
men have spun!’

“Thus for a long time he persisted in a stubborn disbelief of our story;
and when we assured him of its truth, when the confessor himself
asseverated it, he did not let it drive him from his point. ‘Ask not the
echoes of your cloisters, not your mouldering parchments, not your
narrow whims and ordinances! Ask Nature and your heart: she will teach
you what you should recoil from; she will point out to you with the
strictest finger over what she has pronounced her everlasting curse.
Look at the lilies: do not husband and wife shoot forth on the same
stalk? Does not the flower which bore them hold them both? And is not
the lily the type of innocence? Is not their sisterly union fruitful?
When Nature abhors, she speaks it aloud; the creature that shall not be,
is not produced; the creature that lives with a false life, is soon
destroyed. Unfruitfulness, painful existence, early destruction, these
are her curses, the marks of her displeasure. It is only by immediate
consequences that she punishes. Look around you; and what is prohibited,
what is accursed, will force itself upon your notice. In the silence of
the convent, in the tumult of the world, a thousand practices are
consecrated and revered, while her curse rests on them. On stagnant
idleness as on overstrained toil, on caprice and superfluity as on
constraint and want, she looks down with mournful eyes; her call is to
moderation; true are all her commandments, peaceful all her influences.
The man who has suffered as I have done, has a right to be free. Sperata
is mine: death alone shall take her from me. How I shall retain her, how
I may be happy, these are your cares. This instant I go to her, and part
from her no more.’

“He was for proceeding to the boat, and crossing over to her: we
restrained him, entreating that he would not take a step which might
produce the most tremendous consequences. He should recollect, we told
him, that he was not living in the free world of his own thoughts and
ideas, but in a constitution of affairs, the ordinances and conditions
of which had become as inflexible as laws of nature. The confessor made
us promise not to let him leave our sight, still less our house: after
this he went away, engaging to return erelong. What we had foreseen took
place: reason had made our brother strong, but his heart was weak; the
earlier impressions of religion rose on him, and dreadful doubts along
with them. He passed two fearful nights and days: the confessor came
again to his assistance, but in vain. His enfranchised understanding
acquitted him: his feelings, religion, all his usual ideas, declared him
guilty.

“One morning we found his chamber empty: on the table lay a note, in
which he signified, that, as we kept him prisoner by force, he felt
himself entitled to provide for his freedom; that he meant to go
directly to Sperata; he expected to escape with her, and was prepared
for the most terrible extremities should any separation be attempted.

“The news, of course, affrighted us exceedingly; but the confessor bade
us be at rest. Our poor brother had been narrowly enough observed: the
boatman, in place of taking him across, proceeded with him to his
cloister. Fatigued with watching for the space of four and twenty hours,
he fell asleep, as the skiff began to rock him in the moonshine; and he
did not awake till he saw himself in the hands of his spiritual
brethren: he did not recover from his amazement till he heard the doors
of the convent bolting behind him.

“Sharply touched at the fate of our brother, we reproached the confessor
for his cruelty; but he soon silenced or convinced us by the surgeon’s
reason, that our pity was destructive to the patient. He let us know
that he was not acting on his own authority, but by order of the bishop
and his chapter; that by this proceeding they intended to avoid all
public scandal, and to shroud the sad occurrence under the veil of a
secret course of discipline prescribed by the Church. Our sister they
would spare: she was not to be told that her lover was her brother. The
charge of her was given to a priest, to whom she had before disclosed
her situation. They contrived to hide her pregnancy and her delivery. As
a mother she felt altogether happy in her little one. Like most of our
women, she could neither write, nor read writing: she gave the priest
many verbal messages to carry to her lover. The latter, thinking that he
owed this pious fraud to a suckling mother, often brought pretended
tidings from our brother, whom he never saw; recommending her, in his
name, to be at peace; begging of her to be careful of herself and of her
child, and for the rest to trust in God.

“Sperata was inclined by nature to religious feelings. Her situation,
her solitude, increased this tendency: the clergyman encouraged it, in
order to prepare her by degrees for an eternal separation. Scarcely was
her child weaned, scarcely did he think her body strong enough for
suffering agony of mind, when he began to paint her fault to her in most
terrific colors, to treat the crime of being connected with a priest as
a sort of sin against nature, as a sort of incest. For he had taken up
the strange thought of making her repentance equal in intensity to what
it would have been had she known the true circumstances of her error. He
thereby produced so much anxiety and sorrow in her mind; he so exalted
the idea of the Church and of its head before her; showed her the awful
consequences, for the weal of all men’s souls, should indulgence in a
case like this be granted, and the guilty pair rewarded by a lawful
union; signifying, too, how wholesome it was to expiate such sins in
time, and thereby gain the crown of immortality,--that at last, like a
poor criminal, she willingly held out her neck to the axe, and earnestly
entreated that she might forever be divided from our brother. Having
gained so much, the clergy left her the liberty (reserving to themselves
a certain distant oversight) to live at one time in a convent, at
another in her house, according as she afterwards thought good.

“Her little girl, meanwhile, was growing: from her earliest years she
had displayed an extraordinary disposition. When still very young, she
could run and move with wonderful dexterity: she sang beautifully, and
learned to play upon the cithern almost of herself. With words, however,
she could not express herself; and the impediment seemed rather to
proceed from her mode of thought than from her organs of speech. The
feelings of the poor mother to her, in the mean time, were of the most
painful kind: the expostulations of the priest had so perplexed her
mind, that, though she was not quite deranged, her state was far from
being sane. She daily thought her crime more terrible and punishable:
the clergyman’s comparison of incest, frequently repeated, had impressed
itself so deeply, that her horror was not less than if the actual
circumstances had been known to her. The priest took no small credit for
his ingenuity, with which he had contrived to tear asunder a luckless
creature’s heart. It was miserable to behold maternal love, ready to
expand itself in joy at the existence of her child, contending with the
frightful feeling that this child should not exist. The two emotions
warred with each other in her soul: love was often weaker than aversion.

“The child had long ago been taken from her, and committed to a worthy
family residing on the seashore. In the greater freedom which the little
creature enjoyed here, she soon displayed her singular delight in
climbing. To mount the highest peaks, to run along the edges of the
ships, to imitate in all their strangest feats the rope-dancers whom she
often saw in the place, seemed a natural tendency in her.

“To practise these things with the greater ease, she liked to change
clothes with boys; and, though her foster-parents thought this highly
blamable and unbecoming, we bade them indulge her as much as possible.
Her wild walks and leapings often led her to a distance: she would lose
her way, and be long from home, but she always came back. In general, as
she returned, she used to set herself beneath the columns in the portal
of a country house in the neighborhood: her people now had ceased to
look for her; they waited for her. She would there lie resting on the
steps, then run up and down the large hall, looking at the statues;
after which, if nothing specially detained her, she used to hasten home.

“But at last our confidence was balked, and our indulgence punished. The
child went out, and did not come again: her little hat was found
swimming on the water near the spot where a torrent rushes down into the
sea. It was conjectured, that, in clambering among the rocks, her foot
had slipped: all our searching could not find the body.

“The thoughtless tattle of her housemates soon communicated the
occurrence to Sperata: she seemed calm and cheerful when she heard it;
hinting not obscurely at her satisfaction that God had pleased to take
her poor child to himself, and thus preserved it from suffering, or
causing some more dreadful misery.

“On this occasion all the fables which are told about our waters came to
be the common talk. The sea, it was said, required every year an
innocent child: yet it would endure no corpse, but sooner or later throw
it to the shore; nay, the last joint, though sunk to the lowest bottom,
must again come forth. They told the story of a mother, inconsolable
because her child had perished in the sea, who prayed to God and his
saints to grant her at least the bones for burial. The first storm threw
ashore the skull, the next the spine; and, after all was gathered, she
wrapped the bones in a cloth, and took them to the church: but, oh!
miraculous to tell! as she crossed the threshold of the temple, the
packet grew heavier and heavier; and at last, when she laid it on the
steps of the altar, the child began to cry, and issued living from the
cloth. One joint of the right-hand little finger was alone wanting:
this, too, the mother anxiously sought and found; and, in memory of the
event, it was preserved among the other relics of the church.

“On poor Sperata these recitals made a deep impression: her imagination
took a new flight, and favored the emotion of her heart. She supposed
that now the child had expiated, by its death, both its own sins and the
sins of its parents; that the curse and penalty which hitherto had
overhung them all was at length wholly removed; that nothing more was
necessary could she only find the child’s bones, that she might carry
them to Rome, where, upon the steps of the great altar in St. Peter’s,
her little girl, again covered with its fair, fresh skin, would stand up
alive before the people. With its own eyes it would once more look on
father and mother; and the pope, convinced that God and his saints
commanded it, would, amid the acclamations of the people, remit the
parents their sins, acquit them of their oaths, and join their hands in
wedlock.

“Her looks and her anxiety were henceforth constantly directed to the
sea and the beach. When at night, in the moonshine, the waves were
tossing to and fro, she thought every glittering sheet of foam was
bringing out her child; and some one about her had to run off, as if to
take it up when it should reach the shore.

“By day she walked unweariedly along the places where the pebbly beach
shelved slowly to the water: she gathered in a little basket all the
bones she could find. None durst tell her that they were the bones of
animals: the larger ones she buried, the little ones she took along with
her. In this employment she incessantly persisted. The clergyman, who,
by so unremittingly discharging what he thought his duty, had reduced
her to this condition, now stood up for her with all his might. By his
influence the people in the neighborhood were made to look upon her, not
as a distracted person, but as one entranced: they stood in reverent
attitudes as she walked by, and the children ran to kiss her hand.

“To the old woman, her attendant and faithful friend, the secret of
Sperata’s guilt was at length imparted by the priest, on her solemnly
engaging to watch over the unhappy creature, with untiring care, through
all her life. And she kept this engagement to the last, with admirable
conscientiousness and patience.

“Meanwhile we had always had an eye upon our brother. Neither the
physicians nor the clergy of his convent would allow us to be seen by
him; but, in order to convince us of his being well in some sort, we had
leave to look at him as often as we liked in the garden, the passages,
or even through a window in the roof of his apartment.

“After many terrible and singular changes, which I shall omit, he had
passed into a strange state of mental rest and bodily unrest. He never
sat but when he took his harp and played upon it, and then he usually
accompanied it with singing. At other times he kept continually in
motion; and in all things he was grown extremely guidable and pliant,
for all his passions seemed to have resolved themselves into the single
fear of death. You could persuade him to do any thing by threatening him
with dangerous sickness or with death.

“Besides this singularity of walking constantly about the cloister, a
practice which he hinted it were better to exchange for wandering over
hill and dale, he talked about an apparition which perpetually tormented
him. He declared, that, on awakening at whatever hour of the night, he
saw a beautiful boy standing at the foot of his bed, with a bare knife,
and threatening to destroy him. They shifted him to various other
chambers of the convent, but he still asserted that the boy pursued him.
His wandering to and fro became more unrestful: the people afterwards
remembered, too, that at this time they had often seen him stand at the
window, and look out upon the sea.

“Our poor sister, on the other hand, seemed gradually wasting under the
consuming influence of her single thought, of her narrow occupation. It
was at last proposed by the physician, that, among the bones she had
gathered, the fragments of a child’s skeleton should by degrees be
introduced, and so the hapless mother’s hopes kept up. The experiment
was dubious; but this at least seemed likely to be gained by it, that,
when all the parts were got together, she would cease her weary search,
and might be entertained with hopes of going to Rome.

“It was accordingly resolved on. Her attendant changed, by imperceptible
degrees, the small remains committed to her with the bones Sperata
found. An inconceivable delight arose in the poor, sick woman’s heart,
when the parts began to fit each other, and the shape of those still
wanting could be marked. She had fastened every fragment in its proper
place with threads and ribbons; filling up the vacant spaces with
embroidery and silk, as is usually done with the relics of saints.

“In this way nearly all the bones had been collected: none but a few of
the extremities were wanting. One morning, while she was asleep, the
physician having come to ask for her, the old attendant, with a view to
show him how his patient occupied herself, took away these dear remains
from the little chest where they lay in poor Sperata’s bedroom. A few
minutes afterwards they heard her spring upon the floor: she lifted up
the cloth, and found the chest empty. She threw herself upon her knees:
they came, and listened to her joyful, ardent prayer. ‘Yes,’ exclaimed
she, ‘it is true! it was no dream, it is real! Rejoice with me, my
friends! I have seen my own beautiful, good little girl again alive. She
arose, and threw the veil from off her; her splendor enlightened all the
room; her beauty was transfigured to celestial loveliness; she could not
tread the ground, although she wished it. Lightly was she borne aloft:
she had not even time to stretch her hand to me. “_There!_” cried she to
me, and pointed to the road where I am soon to go. Yes, I will follow
her,--soon follow her: my heart is light to think of it. My sorrows are
already vanished: the sight of my risen little one has given me a
foretaste of the heavenly joys.’

“From that time her soul was wholly occupied with prospects of the
brightest kind; she gave no further heed to any earthly object; she took
but little food; her spirit by degrees cast off the fetters of the body.
At last this imperceptible gradation reached its head unexpectedly: her
attendants found her pale and motionless; she opened not her eyes; she
was what we call dead.

“The report of her vision quickly spread abroad among the people; and
the reverential feeling, which she had excited in her lifetime, soon
changed, at her death, to the thought that she should be regarded as in
bliss,--nay, as in sanctity.

“When we were bearing her to be interred, a crowd of persons pressed
with boundless violence about the bier: they would touch her hand, they
would touch her garment. In this impassioned elevation, various sick
persons ceased to feel the pains by which at other times they were
tormented: they looked upon themselves as healed; they declared it; they
praised God and his new saint. The clergy were obliged to lay the body
in a neighboring chapel: the people called for opportunity to offer
their devotion. The concourse was incredible: the mountaineers, at all
times prone to lively and religious feelings, crowded forward from their
valleys; the reverence, the wonder, the adoration, daily spread, and
gathered strength. The ordinances of the bishop, which were meant to
limit, and in time abolish, this new worship, could not be put in
execution: every show of opposition raised the people into tumults;
every unbeliever they were ready to assail with personal violence. ‘Did
not Saint Borromæus,’ cried they, ‘dwell among our forefathers? Did not
his mother live to taste the joy of his canonization? Was not that great
figure on the rocks at Arona meant to represent to us, by a sensible
symbol, his spiritual greatness? Do not the descendants of his kindred
live among us to this hour? And has not God promised ever to renew his
miracles among a people that believe?’

“As the body, after several days, exhibited no marks of putrefaction,
but grew whiter, and, as it were, translucent, the general faith rose
higher and higher. Among the multitude were several cures which even the
sceptical observer was unable to account for, or ascribe entirely to
fraud. The whole country was in motion: those who did not go to see it,
heard at least no other topic talked of.

“The convent where my brother lived resounded, like the land at large,
with the noise of these wonders; and the people felt the less restraint
in speaking of them in his presence, as in general he seemed to pay no
heed to any thing, and his connection with the circumstance was known to
none of them. But on this occasion it appeared he had listened with
attention. He conducted his escape with such dexterity and cunning, that
the manner of it still remains a mystery. We learned afterwards, that he
had crossed the water with a number of travellers, and charged the
boatmen, who observed no other singularity about him, above all to have
a care lest their vessel overset. Late in the night he reached the
chapel, where his hapless loved one was resting from her woes. Only a
few devotees were kneeling in the corners of the place: her old friend
was sitting at the head of the corpse; he walked up to her, saluted her,
and asked how her mistress was. ‘You see it,’ answered she, with some
embarrassment. He looked at the corpse with a sidelong glance. After
some delay he took its hand. Frightened by its coldness, he in the
instant let it go: he looked unrestfully around him; then, turning to
the old attendant, ‘I cannot stay with her at present,’ said he: ‘I have
a long, long way to travel; but at the proper time I shall be back: tell
her so when she awakens.’

“With this he went away. It was a while before we got intelligence of
these occurrences: we searched, but all our efforts to discover him were
vain. How he worked his way across the mountains none can say. A long
time after he was gone we came upon a trace of him among the Grisons,
but we were too late: it quickly vanished. We supposed that he was gone
to Germany, but his weak footprints had been speedily obliterated by the
war.”


                ---------------------------------------


                               CHAPTER X.


The abbé ceased to read. No one had listened without tears. The countess
scarcely ever took her handkerchief from her eyes: at last she rose,
and, with Natalia, left the room. The rest were silent, till the abbé
thus began: “The question now arises, whether we shall let the good
marchese leave us without telling him our secret. For who can doubt a
moment that our harper and his brother Augustin are one? Let us consider
what is to be done, both for the sake of that unhappy man himself and of
his family. My advice is, not to hurry, but to wait till we have heard
what news the doctor, who has gone to see him, brings us back.”

All were of the same opinion; and the abbé thus proceeded: “Another
question, which perhaps may be disposed of sooner, still remains. The
marchese is affected to the bottom of his heart at the kindness which
his poor niece experienced here, particularly from our young friend. He
made me tell him again and again every circumstance connected with her,
and he shows the liveliest gratitude. ‘Her young benefactor,’ he said,
‘refused to travel with me, while he knew not the connection that
subsists between us. I am not now a stranger, of whose manner of
existence, of whose humors, he might be uncertain: I am his associate,
his relation; and, as his unwillingness to leave his boy behind was the
impediment which kept him from accompanying me, let this child now
become a fairer bond to join us still more closely. Beyond the
obligations he has already placed me under, let him be of service to me
on my present journey; let him, then, return along with me; my elder
brother will receive him as he ought. And let him not despise the
heritage of his unhappy foster-child; for, by a secret stipulation of
our father with his military friend, the fortune which he gave Sperata
has returned to us: and certainly we will not cheat our niece’s
benefactor of the recompense he has merited so well.’”

Theresa, taking Wilhelm by the hand, now said to him, “We have here
another beautiful example that disinterested well-doing yields the
highest and best return. Follow the call which so strangely comes to
you, and, while you lay a double load of gratitude on the marchese,
hasten to a fair land, which has already often drawn your heart and your
imagination towards it.”

“I leave myself entirely to the guidance of my friends and you,” said
Wilhelm: “it is vain to think, in this world, of adhering to our
individual will. What I purposed to hold fast, I must let go; and
benefits which I have not deserved descend upon me of their own accord.”

Pressing Theresa’s hand, Wilhelm took his own away. “I give you full
permission,” said he to the abbé, “to decide about me as you please.
Since I shall not need to leave my Felix, I am ready to go anywhither,
and to undertake whatever you think good.”

Thus authorized, the abbé forthwith sketched out his plan. The marchese,
he proposed, should be allowed to depart: Wilhelm was to wait for
tidings from the doctor; he might then, when they had settled what was
to be done, set off with Felix. Accordingly, under the pretence that
Wilhelm’s preparations for his journey would detain him, he advised the
stranger to employ the mean while in examining the curiosities of the
city, which he meant to visit. The marchese did in consequence depart,
and not without renewed and strong expressions of his gratitude; of
which indeed the presents left by him, including jewels, precious
stones, embroidered stuffs, afforded a sufficient proof.

Wilhelm, too, was at length in readiness for travelling; and his friends
began to be distressed that the doctor sent them no news. They feared
some mischief had befallen the poor old harper, at the very moment when
they were in hopes of radically improving his condition. They sent the
courier off; but he was scarcely gone, when the doctor in the evening
entered with a stranger, whose form and aspect were expressive, earnest,
striking, and whom no one knew. Both stood silent for a space: the
stranger at length went up to Wilhelm, and, holding out his hand, said,
“Do you no longer know your old friend?” It was the harper’s voice, but
of his form there seemed to remain no vestige. He was in the common garb
of a traveller, cleanly and genteelly equipped; his beard had vanished;
his hair was dressed with some attention to the mode; and what
particularly made him quite irrecognizable was, that in his countenance
the look of age was no longer visible. Wilhelm embraced him with the
liveliest joy: he was presented to the rest, and behaved with great
propriety, not knowing that the party had a little while before become
so well acquainted with him. “You will have patience with a man,”
continued he, with great composure, “who, grown up as he appears, is
entering on the world, after long sorrows, inexperienced as a child. To
this skilful gentleman I stand indebted for the privilege of again
appearing in the company of my fellow-men.”

They bade him welcome: the doctor motioned for a walk, to interrupt the
conversation, and lead it to indifferent topics.

In private the doctor gave the following explanation: “It was by the
strangest chance that we succeeded in the cure of this man. We had long
treated him, morally and physically, as our best consideration dictated:
in some degree the plan was efficacious; but the fear of death continued
powerful in him, and he would not lay aside his beard and cloak. For the
rest, however, he appeared to take more interest in external things than
formerly; and both his songs and his conceptions seemed to be
approaching nearer life. A strange letter from the clergyman, as you
already know, called me from you. I arrived: I found our patient
altogether changed; he had voluntarily given up his beard; he had let
his locks be cut into a customary form; he asked for common clothes; he
seemed to have all at once become another man. Though curious to
penetrate the reason of this sudden alteration, we did not risk
inquiring of himself: at last we accidentally discovered it. A glass of
laudanum was missing from the parson’s private laboratory: we thought it
right to institute a strict inquiry; every one endeavored to ward off
suspicion, and the sharpest quarrels rose among the inmates of the
house. At last this man appeared before us, and admitted that he had the
laudanum: we asked if he had swallowed any of it. ‘No,’ said he, ‘but it
is to this that I owe the recovery of my reason. It is at your choice to
take the vial from me, and to drive me back, inevitably, to my former
state. The feeling, that it was desirable to see the pains of life
terminated by death, first put me on the way of cure: before long the
thought of terminating them by voluntary death arose in me, and with
this intention I took the glass of poison. The possibility of casting
off my load of griefs forever gave me strength to bear them; and thus
have I, ever since this talisman came into my possession, forced myself
back into life by a contiguity with death. Be not anxious lest I use the
drug, but resolve, as men acquainted with the human heart, by granting
me an independence of life, to make me properly and wholesomely
dependent on it.’ After mature consideration, we determined not to
meddle further with him; and he now carries with him, in a firm little
ground-glass vial, this poison, of which he has so strangely made an
antidote.”

The doctor was informed of all that had become known in the mean time:
towards Augustin it was determined that they should observe the deepest
silence in regard to it. The abbé undertook to keep beside him, and to
lead him forward on the healthful path he had entered.

Meanwhile Wilhelm was to set about his journey over Germany with the
marchese. If it should appear that Augustin could be again excited to
affection for his native country, the circumstances were to be
communicated to his friends, and Wilhelm might conduct him thither.

Wilhelm had at last made every preparation for his journey. At first the
abbé thought it strange that Augustin rejoiced in hearing of his friend
and benefactor’s purpose to depart, but he soon discovered the
foundation of this curious movement. Augustin could not subdue his fear
of Felix; and he longed, as soon as possible, to see the boy removed.

By degrees so many people had assembled, that the castle and adjoining
buildings could scarcely accommodate them all, and the less, as such a
multitude of guests had not originally been anticipated. They
breakfasted, they dined, together: each endeavored to persuade himself
that they were living in a comfortable harmony; but each, in secret,
longed in some degree to be away. Theresa frequently rode out, attended
by Lothario, and oftener alone: she had already got acquainted with all
the landladies and landlords in the district; for she held it as a
principle of her economy, in which, perhaps, she was not far mistaken,
that it is essential to be in good acceptance with one’s neighbors, male
and female, and to maintain with them a constant interchange of
civilities. Of an intended marriage with Lothario, she appeared to have
no thought. Natalia and the countess often talked with one another; the
abbé seemed to covet the society of Augustin; Jarno had frequent
conversations with the doctor; Friedrich held by Wilhelm; Felix ran
about wherever he could meet with most amusement. It was thus, too, that
in general they paired themselves in walking when the company broke up:
when it was obliged to be together, recourse was quickly had to music,
to unite them all by giving each back to himself.

Unexpectedly the count increased the party; intending to remove his
lady, and, as it appeared, to take a solemn farewell of his worldly
friends. Jarno hastened to the coach to meet him: the count inquired
what guests they had; to which the other answered, in a fit of wild
humor that would often seize him, “We have all the nobility in
nature,--marcheses, marquises, milords, and barons: we wanted nothing
but a count.” They came up-stairs: Wilhelm was the first who met them in
the ante-chamber. “Milord,” said the count to him in French, after
looking at him for a moment, “I rejoice very much in the unexpected
pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with your lordship: I am very much
mistaken if I did not see you at my castle in the prince’s suite.” “I
had the happiness of waiting on your Excellence at that time,” answered
Wilhelm; “but you do me too much honor when you take me for an
Englishman, and that of the first quality. I am a German, and”--“And a
fine young fellow,” interrupted Jarno. The count looked at Wilhelm with
a smile, and was about to make some reply, when the rest of the party
entered, and saluted him with many a friendly welcome. They excused
themselves for being unable at the moment to show him to a proper
chamber, promising without delay to make the necessary room for him.

“Ay, ay!” said he, smiling: “we have left Chance, I see, to act as our
purveyor. Yet with prudence and arrangement, how much is possible! For
the present I entreat you not to stir a slipper from its place: the
disorder, I perceive, would otherwise be great. Every one would be
uncomfortably lodged; and this no one shall be on my account, if
possible, not even for an hour. You can testify,” said he to Jarno, “and
you, too, Meister,” turning to Wilhelm, “how many people I commodiously
stowed that time in my castle. Let me have the list of persons and
servants; let me see how they are lodged at present: I will make a plan
of dislocation, such that, with the very smallest inconvenience, every
one shall find a suitable apartment; and there shall be room enough to
hold another guest if one should accidentally arrive.”

Jarno at once offered the count his assistance, procured him all the
necessary information; taking great delight, as usual, if he could now
and then contrive to lead him astray, and leave him in awkward
difficulties. The old gentleman at last, however, gained a signal
triumph. The arrangement was completed: he caused the names to be
written on their several doors, himself attending; and it could not be
denied, that, by a very few changes and substitutions, the object had
been fully gained. Jarno, among other things, had also managed, that the
persons who at present took an interest in each other should be lodged
together.

“Will you help me,” said the count to Jarno, after every thing was
settled, “to clear up my recollections of the young man there, whom you
call Meister, and who you tell me is a German?” Jarno was silent; for he
knew very well that the count was one of those people who, in asking
questions, merely wish to show their knowledge. The count, accordingly,
continued, without waiting for an answer, “You, I recollect, presented
him to me, and warmly recommended him in the prince’s name. If his
mother was a German woman, I’ll be bound for it his father is an
Englishman, and one of rank too: who can calculate the English blood
that has been flowing these last thirty years in German veins! I will
not insist on knowing more: I know you have always family secrets of
that kind, but in such cases it is in vain to think of cheating me.” He
then proceeded to detail a great variety of things as having taken place
with Wilhelm at the castle, to the whole of which Jarno, as before, made
no reply; though the count was altogether in the wrong, confounding
Wilhelm more than once with a young Englishman of the prince’s suite.
The truth was, the good old gentleman had in former years possessed a
very excellent memory, and was still proud of being able to remember the
minutest circumstances of his youth; but, in regard to late occurrences,
he used to settle in his mind as true, and utter with the greatest
certainty, whatever fables and fantastic combinations, in the growing
weakness of his powers, imagination might present to him. For the rest,
he was become extremely mild and courteous: his presence had a very
favorable influence upon the company. He would call on them to read some
useful book together; nay, he often gave them little games, which,
without participating in them, he directed with the greatest care. If
they wondered at his condescension, he would reply, that it became a man
who differed from the world in weighty matters to conform to it the more
anxiously in matters of indifference.

In these games our friend had, more than once, an angry and unquiet
feeling to endure. Friedrich, with his usual levity, took frequent
opportunity of giving hints that Wilhelm entertained a secret passion
for Natalia. How could he have found it out? What entitled him to say
so? And would not his friends think, that, as they two were often
together, Wilhelm must have made a disclosure to him,--so thoughtless
and unlucky a disclosure?

One day, while they were merrier than common at some such joke,
Augustin, dashing up the door, rushed in with a frightful look; his
countenance was pale, his eyes were wild; he seemed about to speak, but
his tongue refused its office. The party were astounded: Lothario and
Jarno, supposing that his madness had returned, sprang up and seized
him. With a choked and faltering voice, then loudly and violently, he
spoke, and cried, “Not me! Haste! Help! Save the child! Felix is
poisoned!”

They let him go; he hastened through the door: all followed him in
consternation. They called the doctor; Augustin made for the abbé’s
chamber; they found the child, who seemed amazed and frightened, when
they called to him from a distance, “What hast thou been doing?”

“Dear papa!” cried Felix, “I did not drink from the bottle, I drank from
the glass: I was very thirsty.”

Augustin struck his hands together: “He is lost!” cried he, then pressed
through the by-standers, and hastened away.

They found a glass of almond-milk upon the table, with a bottle near it
more than half empty. The doctor came, was told what they had seen and
heard: with horror he observed the well-known laudanum-vial lying empty
on the table. He called for vinegar: he summoned all his art to his
assistance.

Natalia had the little patient taken to a room: she busied herself with
painful care about him. The abbé had run out to seek Augustin, and draw
some explanation from him. The unhappy father had been out upon the same
endeavor, but in vain: he returned, to find anxiety and fear on every
face. The doctor, in the mean time, had been examining the almond-milk
in the glass; he found it to contain a powerful mixture of opium: the
child was lying on the sofa, seeming very sick; he begged his father
“not to let them pour more stuff into him, not to let them plague him
any more.” Lothario had sent his people, and had ridden off himself,
endeavoring to find some trace of Augustin. Natalia sat beside the
child; he took refuge in her lap, and entreated earnestly for her
protection, earnestly for a little piece of sugar: the vinegar, he said,
was biting sour. The doctor granted his request; the child was in a
frightful agitation; they were obliged to let him have a moment’s rest.
The doctor said that every means had been adopted: he would continue to
do his utmost. The count came near, with an air of displeasure; his look
was earnest, even solemn; he laid his hands upon the child, turned his
eyes to heaven, and remained some moments in that attitude. Wilhelm, who
was lying inconsolable on a seat, sprang up, and, casting a despairing
look at Natalia, left the room. Shortly afterwards the count, too, left
it.

“I cannot understand,” said the doctor, having paused a little, “how it
comes that there is not the smallest trace of danger visible about the
child. At a single gulp he must have swallowed an immense dose of opium;
yet I find no movement in his pulse but what may be ascribed to our
remedies, and to the terror we have put him into.”

In a few minutes Jarno entered, with intelligence that Augustin had been
discovered in the upper story, lying in his blood: a razor had been
found beside him; to all appearance he had cut his throat. The doctor
hastened out: he met the people carrying down the body. The unhappy man
was laid upon a bed, and accurately examined: the cut had gone across
the windpipe; a copious loss of blood had been succeeded by a swoon; yet
it was easy to observe that life, that hope, was still there. The doctor
put the body in a proper posture, joined the edges of the wound, and
bandaged it. The night passed sleepless and full of care to all. Felix
would not quit Natalia; Wilhelm sat before her on a stool; he had the
boy’s feet upon his lap; the head and breast were lying upon hers. Thus
did they divide the pleasing burden and the painful anxiety, and
continue, till the day broke, in their uncomfortable, sad position.
Natalia had given her hand to Wilhelm; they did not speak a word; they
looked at the child, and then at one another. Lothario and Jarno were
sitting at the other end of the room, and carrying on a most important
conversation,--which, did not the pressure of events forbid us, we would
gladly lay before our readers. The boy slept softly: he awoke quite
cheerful early in the morning, and demanded a piece of bread and butter.

So soon as Augustin had in some degree recovered, they endeavored to
obtain some explanation from him. They learned with difficulty, and by
slow degrees, that having, by the count’s unlucky shifting, been
appointed to the same chamber with the abbé, he had found the manuscript
in which his story was recorded. Struck with horror on perusing it, he
felt that it was now impossible for him to live, on which he had
recourse, as usual, to the laudanum: this he poured into a glass of
almond-milk, and raised it to his mouth; but he shuddered when it
reached his lips: he set it down untasted, went out to walk once more
across the garden, and behold the face of nature; and, on his return, he
found the child employed in filling up the glass out of which it had
been drinking.

They entreated the unhappy creature to be calm: he seized Wilhelm by the
hand with a spasmodic grasp, and cried, “Ah! why did I not leave thee
long ago? I knew well that I should kill the boy, and he me.”--“The boy
lives!” said Wilhelm. The doctor, who had listened with attention, now
inquired of Augustin if all the drink was poisoned. “No,” replied he,
“nothing but the glass.”--“By the luckiest chance, then,” cried the
doctor, “the boy has drunk from the bottle! A benignant genius has
guided his hand, that he did not catch at death, which stood so near and
ready for him.”--“No, no!” cried Wilhelm, with a groan, and clapping
both his hands upon his eyes. “How dreadful are the words! Felix said
expressly that he drank, not from the bottle, but the glass. His health
is but a show: he will die among our hands.” Wilhelm hastened out: the
doctor went below, and taking Felix up, with much caressing, asked,
“Now, did not you, my pretty boy? You drank from the bottle, not the
glass?” The child began to cry. The doctor secretly informed Natalia how
the matter stood: she also strove in vain to get the truth from Felix,
who but cried the more,--cried till he fell asleep.

Wilhelm watched by him: the night went peacefully away. Next morning
Augustin was found lying dead in bed: he had cheated his attendants by a
seeming rest, had silently loosened the bandages, and bled to death.
Natalia went to walk with Felix: he was sportful as in his happiest
days. “You are always good to me,” said Felix, “you never scold, you
never beat, me: I will tell you the truth, I did drink from the bottle.
Mamma Aurelia used to rap me over the fingers every time I touched the
bottle: father looked so sour, I thought he would beat me.”

With winged steps Natalia hastened to the castle: Wilhelm came, still
overwhelmed with care, to meet her. “Happy father!” cried she, lifting
up the child, and throwing it into his arms: “there is thy son again! He
drank from the bottle: his naughtiness has saved him.”

They told the count the happy issue; but he listened with a smiling,
silent, modest air of knowingness, like one tolerating the error of
worthy men. Jarno, attentive to all, could not explain this lofty
self-complacency, till, after many windings, he at last discovered it to
be his lordship’s firm belief, that the child had really taken poison,
and that he himself, by prayer and the laying on of hands, had
miraculously counteracted the effects of it. After such a feat, his
lordship now determined on departing. Every thing, as usual with him,
was made ready in a moment: the fair countess, when about to go, took
Wilhelm’s hand before parting with her sister’s; she then pressed both
their hands between her own, turned quickly round, and stepped into the
carriage.

So many terrible and strange events, crowding one upon the back of
another, inducing an unusual mode of life, and putting every thing into
disorder and perplexity, had brought a sort of feverish movement into
all departments of the house. The hours of sleep and waking, of eating,
drinking, and social conversation, were inverted. Except Theresa, none
of them had kept in their accustomed course. The men endeavored, by
increased potations, to recover their good-humor; and, thus
communicating to themselves an artificial vivacity, they drove away that
natural vivacity which alone imparts to us true cheerfulness, and
strength for action.

Wilhelm, in particular, was moved and agitated by the keenest feelings.
Those unexpected, frightful incidents had thrown him out of all
condition to resist a passion which had so forcibly seized his heart.
Felix was restored to him, yet still it seemed that he had nothing:
Werner’s letters, the directions for his journey, were in readiness;
there was nothing wanting but the resolution to remove. Every thing
conspired to hasten him. He could not but conjecture that Lothario and
Theresa were awaiting his departure, that they might be wedded. Jarno
was unusually silent: you would have said that he had lost a portion of
his customary cheerfulness. Happily the doctor helped our friend, in
some degree, from this embarrassment: he declared him sick, and set
about administering medicine to him.

The company assembled always in the evening: Friedrich, the wild madcap,
who usually drank more wine than was meet, took possession of the talk,
and by a thousand frolicsome citations, fantasies, and waggish
allusions, often kept the party laughing, often, also, threw them into
awkward difficulties, by the liberty he took to think aloud.

In the sickness of his friend he seemed to have little faith. Once, when
they were all together, “Pray, doctor,” cried he, “how is it you call
the malady our friend is laboring under? Will none of the three thousand
names with which you decorate your ignorance apply to it? The disease at
least is not without examples. There is one such case,” continued he,
with an emphatic tone, “in the Egyptian or Babylonian history.”

The company looked at one another, and smiled.

“What call you the king?”--cried he, and stopped short a moment. “Well,
if you will not help me, I must help myself.” He threw the door-leaves
up, and pointed to the large picture in the ante-chamber. “What call you
the goat-beard there, with the crown on, who is standing at the foot of
the bed, making such a rueful face about his sick son? How call you the
beauty who enters, and in her modest, roguish eyes, at once brings
poison and antidote? How call you the quack of a doctor, who at this
moment catches a glimpse of the reality, and, for the first time in his
life, takes occasion to prescribe a reasonable recipe, to give a drug
which cures to the very heart, and is at once salutiferous and savory?”

In this manner he continued babbling. The company took it with as good a
face as might be, hiding their embarrassment behind a forced laugh. A
slight blush overspread Natalia’s cheeks, and betrayed the movements of
her heart. By good fortune she was walking up and down with Jarno: on
coming to the door, with a cunning motion she slipped out, walked once
or twice across the ante-chamber, and retired to her room.

The company were silent: Friedrich began to dance and sing,--


                “Wonders will ye see anon!
                 Whatsoever’s done is done,
                 Said’s whatever’s said: straightway,
                 E’er’t be day,
                 Wonders will be shown.”
                                  --_Editor’s version._


Theresa had gone out to find Natalia: Friedrich pulled the doctor
forward to the picture, pronounced a ridiculous eulogium on medicine,
and glided from the room.

Lothario had been standing all the while in the recess of a window: he
was looking, without motion, down into the garden. Wilhelm was in the
most dreadful state. Left alone with his friend, he still kept silence
for a time; he ran with a hurried glance over all his history, and at
last, with shuddering, surveyed his present situation: he started up,
and cried, “If I am to blame for what is happening, for what you and I
are suffering, punish me. In addition to my other miseries, deprive me
of your friendship, and let me wander, without comfort, forth into the
wide world, in which I should have mingled, and withdrawn myself from
notice, long ago. But if you see in me the victim of a cruel
entanglement of chance, out of which I could not thread my way, then
give me the assurance of your love, of your friendship, on a journey
which I dare not now postpone. A time will come when I may tell you what
has passed of late within me. Perhaps this is but a punishment which I
am suffering, because I did not soon enough disclose myself to you,
because I hesitated to display myself entirely as I was: you would have
assisted me, you would have helped me out in proper season. Again and
again have my eyes been opened to my conduct; but it was ever too late,
it was ever in vain! How richly do I merit Jarno’s censure! I imagined I
had seized it: how firmly did I purpose to employ it, to commence
another life! Could I, might I, have done so? It avails not for mortals
to complain of fate or of themselves. We are wretched, and appointed for
wretchedness; and what does it matter whether blame of ours, higher
influence or chance, virtue or vice, wisdom or folly, plunge us into
ruin? Farewell! I will not stay another moment in a house where I have
so fearfully violated the rights of hospitality. Your brother’s
indiscretion is unpardonable: it aggravates my suffering to the highest
pitch, it drives me to despair.”

“And what,” replied Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, “what if your
alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
alliance with Theresa? This amends that noble maiden has appointed for
you: she has vowed that these two pairs should appear together at the
altar. ‘His reason has made choice of me,’ said she; ‘his heart demands
Natalia: my reason shall assist his heart.’ We agreed to keep our eyes
upon Natalia and yourself: we told the abbé of our plan, who made us
promise not to intermeddle with this union, or attempt to forward it,
but to suffer every thing to take its course. We have done so: Nature
has performed her part; our mad brother only shook the ripe fruit from
the branch. And now, since we have come together so unusually, let us
lead no common life: let us work together in a noble manner, and for
noble purposes! It is inconceivable how much a man of true culture can
accomplish for himself and others, if, without attempting to rule, he
can be the guardian over many; can induce them to do that in season
which they are at any rate disposed enough to do; can guide them to
their objects, which in general they see with due distinctness, though
they miss the road to them. Let us make a league for this: it is no
enthusiasm, but an idea which may be fully executed, which, indeed, is
often executed, only with imperfect consciousness, by people of
benevolence and worth. Natalia is a living instance of it. No other need
attempt to rival the plan of conduct which has been prescribed by Nature
for that pure and noble soul.”

He had more to say, but Friedrich with a shout came jumping in. “What a
garland have I earned!” cried he: “how will you reward me? Myrtle,
laurel, ivy, leaves of oak, the freshest you can find, come twist them:
I have merits far beyond them all. Natalia is thine! I am the conjurer
who raised this treasure for thee.”

“He raves,” said Wilhelm: “I must go.”

“Art thou empowered to speak?” inquired Lothario, holding Wilhelm from
retiring.

“By my own authority,” said Friedrich, “and the grace of God. It was
thus I was the wooer, thus I am the messenger: I listened at the door;
she told the abbé every thing.”

“Barefaced rogue! who bade thee listen?” said Lothario.

“Who bade her bolt the door?” cried Friedrich. “I heard it all: she was
in a wondrous pucker. In the night when Felix seemed so ill, and was
lying half upon her knees, and thou wert sitting comfortless before her,
sharing the beloved load, she made a vow, that, if the child died, she
would confess her love to thee, and offer thee her hand. And now, when
the child lives, why should she change her mind? What we promise under
such conditions, we keep under any. Nothing wanting but the parson! He
will come, and marvel what strange news he brings.”

The abbé entered. “We know it all,” cried Friedrich: “be as brief as
possible; it is mere formality you come for,--they never send for you or
me on any other score.”

“He has listened,” said the baron. “Scandalous!” exclaimed the abbé.

“Now, quick!” said Friedrich. “How stands it with the ceremonies? These
we can reckon on our fingers. You must travel: the marchese’s invitation
answers to a hair’s-breadth. If we had you once beyond the Alps, it will
all be right: the people are obliged to you for undertaking any thing
surprising; you procure them an amusement which they are not called to
pay for. It is as if you gave a free ball: all ranks partake in it.”

“In such popular festivities,” replied the abbé, “you have done the
public much service in your time; but to-day, it seems, you will not let
me speak at all.”

“If it is not just as I have told it,” answered Friedrich, “let us have
it better. Come round, come round: we must see them both together.”

Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
came to meet them. All were silent.

“No loitering!” cried Friedrich. “In two days you may be ready for your
travels. Now, think you, friend,” continued he, addressing Wilhelm,
“when we first scraped acquaintance, and I asked you for the pretty
nosegay, who could have supposed you were ever to receive a flower like
this from me?”

“Do not, at the moment of my highest happiness, remind me of those
times!”

“Of which you need not be ashamed, any more than one need be ashamed of
his descent. The times were very good times: only I cannot but laugh to
look at thee; to my mind thou resemblest Saul the son of Kish, who went
out to seek his father’s asses, and found a kingdom.”

“I know not the worth of a kingdom,” answered Wilhelm; “but I know I
have attained a happiness which I have not deserved, and which I would
not change with any thing in life.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           MEISTER’S TRAVELS;


                                  OR,

                            THE RENUNCIANTS.


                                A NOVEL.


           To travel now the Apprentice does essay,
           And every step is girt with doubt and danger:
           In truth, he uses not to sing or pray;
           But, is his path perplexed, this toilsome ranger
           Does turn an earnest eye, when mist’s above him,
           To his own heart, and to the hearts that love him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                 Scarce could tell you rightly
                   Whether I’m the same or not,
                 If you task me very tightly:
                   Yes, this is my sense you’ve got,--
                 Sense that vexes, then assuages,
                   Now too light, and now too dark,
                 But in some few hundred pages
                   May again come to the mark.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Does Fortune try thee? She had cause to do’t:
      She wished thee temperate; obey, be mute!

      What, shap’st thou here at the world! ’tis shapen long ago;
      The Maker shaped it, _he_ thought it best even so:
      Thy lot is appointed, go follow its hest;
      Thy way is begun, thou must walk, and not rest;
      For sorrow and care cannot alter thy case;
      And running, not raging, will win thee the race.

      Enweri tells us, a most royal man,
      The deepest heart and highest head to scan:
      “In every place, at every time, thy surest chance
      Lies in decision, justice, tolerance.”

      My inheritance, how wide and fair!
      Time is my estate: to time I’m heir.

      Now it is day: be doing, every one;
      For the night cometh, wherein work can none.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                And so I, in Tale adjoining,
                Lift old treasures into day;
                If not gold or perfect coining,
                They are metals any way:
                Thou canst sort them, thou canst sunder,
                Thou canst melt and make them one;
                Then take that with smiling wonder,
                Stamp it like thyself, my son.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           MEISTER’S TRAVELS.


                ---------------------------------------


                               CHAPTER I.

                         THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.


Wilhelm was sitting under the shadow of a huge crag, on a shaggy,
impressive spot, where the steep mountain path turned abruptly round a
corner, down into the chasm. The sun was still high, and brightening the
tops of the pine-trees in the clefts at his feet. He was looking at
something in his note-book, when Felix, who had been clambering about,
came to him with a stone in his hand. “What is the name of this stone,
father?” said the boy.

“I know not,” answered Wilhelm.

“Can this be gold that glitters in it so?” said Felix.

“No, no,” replied Wilhelm; “and now I remember, people call it mica, or
cat-gold.”

“Cat-gold!” said the boy, smiling. “And why?”

“I suppose, because it is false, and cats are reckoned false too.”

“Well, I will note that,” said the son, and put in the stone beside the
rest with which he had already filled his pockets.

Scarcely was this over when, adown the steep path, a strange enough
appearance came in sight. Two boys, beautiful as day, in colored jackets
which you might have taken for outer shirts, came bounding down, one
after the other; and Wilhelm had opportunity of viewing them more
closely, as they faltered on observing him, and stopped for a moment.
Round the elder boy’s head waved rich, fair locks, which you looked at
first, on observing him; and then his clear blue eyes attracted your
attention, which spread itself with delight over his beautiful shape.
The younger, more like a friend than a brother, was decked with brown,
sleek hair, which hung down over his shoulders, and the reflection of
which appeared to be imaged in his eyes.

These strange, and, in this wilderness, quite unexpected, beings,
Wilhelm had not time to view more narrowly; for he heard a man’s voice
calling down round the corner of the crag, in a serious, but friendly,
tone, “Why do you stand still? Don’t stop the way.”

Wilhelm looked upwards; and, if the children had surprised him, what he
now saw filled him with astonishment. A stout, firm-set, not too tall,
young man, tucked up for walking, of brown complexion and black hair,
was stepping firmly and carefully down the rock-way, and leading an ass
behind him, which first presented its glossy, well-trimmed head, and
then the fair burden it bore. A soft, lovely woman was seated on a large
and well-pannelled saddle: in her arms, within a blue mantle which hung
over her, lay an infant, which she was pressing to her breast, and
looking at with indescribable tenderness. The man did as the children
had done,--faltered for a moment at sight of Wilhelm. The beast
slackened its step, but the descent was too precipitous: the travellers
could not halt; and Wilhelm with astonishment saw them vanish behind the
contiguous wall of rocks.

Nothing was more natural than that this singular procession should cut
short his meditations. He rose in no small curiosity, and looked from
his position towards the chasm, to see whether they would not again make
their appearance somewhere below. He was just about descending to salute
these strange travellers, when Felix came climbing up, and said,
“Father, may I not go home with these boys to their house? They want to
take me with them. Thou must go too, the man said to me. Come! They are
waiting down there.”

“I will speak with them,” answered Wilhelm.

He found them at a place where the path was more level, and he could not
but gaze in wonder at the singular figures which had so strongly
attracted his attention. Not till now had it been in his power to note
the peculiarities of the group. The young, stout man, he found, had a
joiner’s axe on his shoulder, and a long, thin iron square. The children
bore in their hands large sedge-tufts, like palms; and if, in this
point, they resembled angels, they likewise carried little baskets with
shop-wares in them, thereby resembling the little daily posts, as they
pass to and fro over the mountains. The mother also, he observed, on
looking more leisurely, wore under her blue mantle a reddish,
mild-colored, lower garment: so that “The Flight into Egypt,” which our
friend had so often seen painted, he now, with amazement, saw bodied
forth before his eyes.

The strangers exchanged salutations; and as Wilhelm, from surprise and
attention, could not speak, the young man said, “Our children have
formed a friendship in these few moments. Will you go with us to see
whether some kind relation will not spring up between the elder parties
also?”

Wilhelm bethought himself an instant, and then answered, “The aspect of
your little family procession awakens trust and good will, and, to
confess it frankly, curiosity no less, and a lively desire to be better
acquainted with you. For, at the first glance, one might ask himself the
question, Whether you are real travellers, or only spirits that take
pleasure in enlivening these uninhabitable mountains by pleasant
visions?”

“Then, come home with us to our dwelling,” said the other. “Come with
us!” cried the children, already drawing Felix along with them. “Come
with us!” said the woman, turning her soft kindliness from the suckling
to the stranger.

Without reflecting, Wilhelm answered, “I am sorry, that, for the present
moment, I cannot follow you. This night, at least, I must spend up at
the Border-house. My portmanteau, my papers,--all is lying up there,
unpacked, intrusted to no one. But, that I may prove my wish and purpose
to satisfy your friendly invitation, take my Felix with you as a pledge.
To-morrow I shall see you. How far is it?”

“We shall be home before sunset,” said the carpenter; “and from the
Border-house you are but a league and a half. Your boy increases our
household for this night, and to-morrow we expect you.”

The man and the animal set forth. Wilhelm smiled thoughtfully to see his
Felix so soon received among the angels. The boy had already seized a
sedge-tuft, and taken the basket from the younger of his companions. The
procession was again on the point of vanishing behind a ledge of rock,
when Wilhelm recollected himself, and cried, “But how shall I inquire
you out?”

“Ask for St. Joseph!” sounded from the hollow; and the whole vision had
sunk behind the blue, shady wall of cliffs. A pious hymn, uplifted on a
chorus of several voices, rose echoing from the distance; and Wilhelm
thought he could distinguish the voice of his Felix among the rest.

He ascended the path, and thus protracted the period of sunset. The
heavenly star, which he had more than once lost sight of, illuminated
him afresh as he mounted higher; and it was still day when he reached
his inn. Once more he delighted himself with the vast mountain prospect,
then withdrew to his chamber, where immediately he seized his pen, and
passed a part of the night in writing.


                         _Wilhelm to Natalia._

    Now at last I have reached the summit,--the summit of the
    mountains, which will place a stronger separation betwixt us
    than all the tract I had passed over before. To my feeling, one
    is still in the neighborhood of those he loves, so long as the
    streams run down from him towards them. To-day I can still fancy
    to myself that the twig which I cast into the forest-brook may,
    perhaps, float down to her, may in a few days land at her
    garden; and thus our spirit sends its images more easily, our
    heart its sympathies, by the same downward course. But over on
    the other side I fear there rises a wall of division against the
    imagination and the feelings. Yet this, perhaps, is but a vain
    anxiety; for over on the other side, after all, it will not be
    otherwise than it is here. What could part me from thee! From
    thee, whose own I am forever; though a strange destiny sunders
    me from thee, and unexpectedly shuts the heaven to which I stood
    so near. I had time to compose myself; and yet no time could
    have sufficed to give me that composure, had I not gained it
    from thy mouth, from thy lips, in that decisive moment. How
    could I have torn myself away, if the enduring thread had not
    been spun which is to unite us for time and eternity? Yet I must
    not speak of all this. Thy tender commands I will not break: on
    this mountain-top be it the last time that I name the word
    Separation before thee! My life is to become a restless
    wandering. Strange duties of the wanderer have I to fulfil, and
    peculiar trials to undergo. How I often smile within myself when
    I read the terms which thou prescribedst to me, which I
    prescribed to myself. Many of them have been kept, many broken;
    but, even while breaking them, this sheet is of use to me, this
    testimonial of my last confession,--of my last absolution: it
    speaks to me as an authoritative conscience, and I again turn to
    the right path. I watch myself; and my faults no longer rush
    like mountain torrents, one over the other.

    Yet I will confess to thee I many times wonder at those teachers
    and guides of men who impose on their scholars nothing but
    external, mechanical duties. They make the task light for
    themselves as well as for the world. For this very part of my
    obligations, which at first seemed the heaviest, the strangest,
    I now observe with greatest ease, with greatest satisfaction.

    I am not to stay beyond three days under one roof. I am to quit
    no inn without removing at least one league from it. These
    regulations are, in truth, calculated to make my life a life of
    travel, and to prevent the smallest thought of settlement from
    taking hold of me. Hitherto I have fulfilled this condition to
    the letter, not even using all the liberty it grants me. This is
    the first time that I have paused: here, for the first time, I
    sleep three nights in the same bed. From this spot I send thee
    much that I have heard, observed, laid up for thee; and early in
    the morning I descend on the other side,--in the first place, to
    a strange family, I might almost say, a Holy Family, of which,
    in my journal, thou wilt find further notice. For the present,
    farewell; and lay down this sheet with the feeling that it has
    but one thing to say, but one thing which it would say and
    repeat forever; yet will not say it, will not repeat it now,
    till I have once more the happiness of lying at thy feet, and
    weeping over thy hands for all that I renounce.


                                                            MORNING.

    My packing is done. The porter is girding the portmanteau on his
    dorsel. As yet, the sun is not up: vapors are streaming out of
    all the hollows, but the upper sky is clear. We step down into
    the gloomy deeps, which also will soon brighten over our heads.
    Let me send my last sigh home to thee! Let my last look towards
    thee be yet blinded with involuntary tears! I am decided and
    determined. Thou shalt hear no more complaints from me: thou
    shalt hear only what happens to the wanderer. And yet now, when
    I am on the point of ending, a thousand thoughts, wishes, hopes,
    and purposes come crowding through my soul. Happily the people
    force me away. The porter calls me; and mine host has already in
    my presence begun sorting the apartment, as if I were gone: thus
    feelingless, imprudent heirs do not hide from the departing
    testator their preparations for assuming management.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER II.

                         ST. JOSEPH THE SECOND.


Already had the wanderer, following his porter on foot, left the steep
rocks behind and above him: already were they traversing a softer
mid-range of hills, and hastening through many a well-pruned wood, over
many a friendly meadow, forward and forward; till at last they found
themselves on a declivity, and looked down into a beautifully cultivated
valley, begirt on all sides with hills. A large monastic edifice, half
in ruins, half in repair, immediately attracted their attention. “This
is St. Joseph,” said the porter. “Pity for the fine church! Do but look
how fresh and firm it still holds up its pillars through bush and tree,
though it has lain many hundred years in decay.”

“The cloister, on the contrary,” said Wilhelm, “I observe, is kept in
good state.”

“Yes,” said the other: “there is a _Schaffner_ lives here; he manages
the husbandry, collects the dues and tithes, which the people far and
wide have to pay him.”

So speaking, they had entered through the open gate into a spacious
court, surrounded with earnest-looking, well-kept buildings, and
announcing itself as the residence of some peaceful community. Among the
children playing in the area, Wilhelm noticed Felix: the other two were
the angels of last night. The friendly trefoil came running towards him
with salutations, and assurances that papa would soon be back. He, in
the mean while, they said, must go into the hall, and rest himself.

How surprised was Wilhelm when the children led him into this apartment
which they named the hall. Passing directly from the court, through a
large door, our wanderer found himself in a very cleanly, undecayed
chapel, which however, as he saw well enough, had been fitted up for the
domestic uses of daily life. On the one side stood a table, a settle,
some chairs and benches; on the other side a neatly carved dresser, with
variegated pottery, jugs, and glasses. Some chests and trunks were
standing in suitable niches: and, simple as the whole appeared, there
was not wanting an air of comfort; and daily household life looked forth
from it with an aspect of invitation. The light fell in from high
windows on the side. But what most roused the attention of the wanderer
was a series of colored figures painted on the wall, stretching under
the windows, at a considerable height, round three quarters of the
chapel, and hanging down to the wainscot, which covered the remainder of
the wall to the ground. The pictures represented the history of St.
Joseph. Here you might see him first employed with his carpentry work:
here he meets Mary; and a lily is sprouting from the ground between
them, while angels hover round observing them. Here his betrothing takes
place: next comes the salutation of the angel. Here he is sitting
disconsolate among his neglected work: he has laid by the axe, and is
thinking to put away his wife. But now appears the angel to him in a
dream, and his situation changes. With reverence he looks on the
new-born child in the stable at Bethlehem, and prays to it. Soon after
this comes a wonderfully beautiful picture. You observe a quantity of
timber lying dressed: it is just to be put together, and by chance two
of the pieces form a cross. The child has fallen asleep on the cross;
his mother sits by, and looks at him with heartfelt love; and the
foster-father pauses with his labor, that he may not awaken him. Next
follows the flight into Egypt: it called forth a smile from the gazing
traveller, for he saw here on the walls a repetition of the living
figures he had met last night.

He had not long pursued his contemplations, when the landlord entered,
whom he directly recognized as the leader of the Holy Caravan. They
saluted each other cordially: much conversation followed, yet Wilhelm’s
chief attention continued fixed on the pictures. The host observed the
feeling of his guest, and began with a smile, “No doubt you are
wondering at the strange accordance of this building with its
inhabitants, whom you last night got acquainted with. Yet it is,
perhaps, still more singular than you suppose: the building has, in
truth, formed the inhabitants. For, when the inanimate has life, it can
also produce what has life.”

“Yes, indeed!” answered Wilhelm: “I should be surprised if the spirit,
which worked so powerfully in this mountain solitude long centuries ago,
and drew round it such a mighty body of edifices, possessions, and
rights, diffusing in return the blessings of manifold culture over the
region, could not still, out of these ruins, manifest the force of its
life on some living being. But let us not linger on general reflections:
make me acquainted with your history; let me know how it can possibly
have happened, that, without affectation and presumption, the past again
represents itself in you, and what was, again is.”

Just as Wilhelm was expecting responsive information from the lips of
his host, a friendly voice in the court cried, “Joseph!” The man obeyed
it, and went out.

“So he, too, is Joseph!” said Wilhelm to himself. “This is strange
enough, and yet not so strange as that in his life he should personate
his saint.” At the same time, looking through the door, he saw the
Virgin Mother of last night speaking with her husband. They parted at
last: the woman walked towards the opposite building. “Mary,” cried he
after her, “a word more.”

“So she, too, is Mary!” said Wilhelm inwardly. “Little would make me
feel as if I were transported eighteen hundred years into the past!” He
thought of the solemn and secluded valley in which he was, of the wrecks
and silence all around; and a strange, antiquarian mood came over him.
It was time for the landlord and children to come in. The latter called
for Wilhelm to go and walk, as the landlord had still some business to
do. And now came in view the ruins of the church, with its many shafts
and columns, with its high peaks and walls; which looked as if gathering
strength in the influence of wind and weather; for strong trees from of
old had taken root in the broad backs of the walls, and now, in company
with grass, flowers, and moss in great quantities, exhibited bold
hanging gardens vegetating in the air. Soft sward-paths led you up the
banks of a lively brook; and from a little elevation our wanderer could
now overlook the edifice and its site with more interest, as its
occupants had become still more singular in his eyes, and by their
harmony with their abode had awakened his liveliest curiosity.

The promenaders returned, and found in the religious hall a table
standing covered. At the upper end was an arm-chair, in which the
mistress of the house took her seat. Beside her she had placed a high
wicker-cradle, in which lay the little infant: the father sat next this
on her left hand, Wilhelm on her right. The three children occupied the
under space of the table. An old serving-maid brought in a well-readied
meal. Eating and drinking implements alike pointed to the past. The
children afforded matter for talk, while Wilhelm could not satisfy
himself with looking at the form and the bearing of his saintly hostess.

Their repast over, the company separated. The landlord took his guest to
a shady spot in the ruin, where, from an elevated station, the pleasant
prospect down the valley lay entire before them; and, farther off, the
heights of the lower country, with their fruitful declivities and woody
backs, were seen protruding one behind the other. “It is fair,” said the
landlord, “that I satisfy your curiosity; and the rather, as I feel that
you can view the strange with seriousness when you find it resting on a
serious ground. This religious foundation, the remains of which are
lying round us, was dedicated to the Holy Family, and in old times noted
as a place of pilgrimage for many wonders done in it. The church was
consecrated to the Mother and the Son. It has lain for several centuries
in ruins. The chapel, dedicated to the holy foster-father, still
remains, as does likewise the serviceable part of the cloister. The
revenues have for many years belonged to a temporal prince, who keeps a
steward or _Schaffner_ here: this _Schaffner_ am I, son of the last
_Schaffner_, who also succeeded his father in the office.

“St. Joseph, though any regular worship of him has long ceased here, had
been so helpful to our family, that it is not to be wondered at if they
felt particularly well inclined towards him: hence came it that they had
me baptized by the name of Joseph, and thereby, I may say, in some sense
determined my whole future way of life. I grew up; and, if I used to
help my father in managing the dues, I attached myself as gladly, nay,
still more gladly, to my mother, who cheerfully distributed her bounty
according to her fortune, and for her kindness and good deeds was known
and loved over all the mountains. Erelong she would send me out, now
this way, now that; now to fetch, now to carry, now direct; and I very
speedily began to be at home in this sort of pious occupation.

“In general, our mountain life has something more humane in it than the
life of Lowlanders. The inhabitants here are nearer, and, if you will,
more remote also. Our wants are smaller, but more pressing. Each man is
placed more on his own footing: he must learn to depend on his own
hands, on his own limbs. The laborer, the post, the porter, all unite in
one person: each of us is more connected with the other, meets him
oftener, and lives with him in joint activity.

“As I was still young, and my shoulders could not bear heavy burdens, I
fell upon a thought of furnishing a little ass with panniers, which I
might drive before me up and down the steep foot-paths. In the mountains
the ass is no such despicable animal as in the plain country, where the
laborer that ploughs with horses reckons himself better than he that
turns his furrow with oxen. And I walked behind my beast with the less
hesitation, as I had before observed in the chapel, that an animal of
this same sort had been promoted to such honor as to carry God and his
Mother. This chapel was not then, however, in the state you now see it
in. It had been treated as a cart-house, nay, almost as a stable.
Firewood, stakes, implements, barrels, and ladders, every thing that
came to hand, lay huddled together in it. Lucky that the pictures were
so high, and the wainscot could stand some hardships. But even in my
childhood I used many a time to clamber over the wood, and delight
myself with looking at the pictures, which no one could properly explain
to me. However, I knew at least that the saint whose life stood depicted
on these walls was my patron; and I rejoiced in him as much as if he had
been my uncle. I waxed in stature; and it being an express condition,
that whoever meant to aspire after this post of _Schaffner_ must
practise some handicraft, our family, desiring that I might inherit so
good a benefice, determined on putting me to learn some trade, and such
a one, at the same time, as might be useful here in our upland way of
life.

“My father was a cooper, and had been accustomed to supply of himself
whatever was required in that sort; from which there arose no little
profit, both to himself and the country. But I could not prevail on
myself to follow him in this business. My inclination drew me
irresistibly to the joiner trade, the tools and materials of which I had
seen, from infancy upwards, so accurately and circumstantially painted
beside my patron saint. I signified my wish: nothing could be objected
to it,--the less, as in our frequent buildings the carpenter is often
wanted here; nay, if he have any sleight in his trade, and fondness for
it, especially in forest districts, the arts of the cabinet-maker, and
even of the carver, lie close beside his province. And what still
further confirmed me in my higher purposes was a picture, which now,
alas! is almost effaced. If once you know what it is meant to represent,
you may still be able to decipher the figures, when I take you to look
at it. St. Joseph had got no lower a commission than to make a throne
for King Herod. The royal seat was to be erected between two given
pillars. Joseph carefully measures the breadth and height, and fashions
a costly throne. But how astonished is he, how alarmed, on carrying his
finished work to the place: the throne is too high, and not broad
enough. King Herod, as we know, was a man that did not understand
jesting: the pious wright is in the greatest perplexity. The divine
Child, accustomed to follow him everywhere, and in childlike, humble
sport to carry his tools after him, observes his strait, and is
immediately at hand with advice and assistance. He requires of his
foster-father to take hold of the throne by the one side, he himself
grasps it by the other, and both begin to pull. Easily and pliantly, as
if it had been made of leather, the carved throne extends in breadth,
contracts proportionately in length, and fits itself to the place with
the nicest accuracy, to the great comfort of the re-assured master, and
the perfect satisfaction of the king.

“This throne was, in my youth, quite distinctly visible; and by the
remains of the one side you will still be able to discern that there was
no want of carving on it,--which, indeed, must have been easier for the
painter than it would have been for the carpenter, had such a thing been
required of him.

“That circumstance, however, raised no scruples in me; but I looked on
the handicraft to which I had devoted myself in so honorable a light,
that I was all impatience to be apprenticed to it,--a longing which was
the easier to fulfil, as a master of the trade lived in our
neighborhood, who worked for the whole district, and kept several
apprentices and journeymen about him. Thus I continued in the
neighborhood of my parents, and to a certain extent pursued my former
way of life also; seeing I employed my leisure hours and holidays in
doing those charitable messages which my mother still intrusted to me.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER III.

                               THE VISIT.


“So passed several years,” continued the narrator. “I very soon
comprehended the principles of my trade; and my frame, expanded by
labor, was equal to the undertaking of every thing connected with the
business. At the same time I kept managing my ancient service, which my
good mother, or rather the sick and destitute, required at my hands. I
moved with my beast through the mountains, punctually distributed my
lading, and brought back from shopkeepers and merchants what we needed
here at home.

“My master was contented with me, my parents also. Already I enjoyed the
satisfaction, in my wanderings, of seeing many a house which I had
helped to raise, or had myself decorated. For, in particular, that last
notching of the beam-ends, that carving of certain simple forms, that
branding in of pretty figures, that red painting of certain recesses, by
which a wooden house in the mountains acquires so pleasant an
aspect,--these arts were especially intrusted to me; as I always made
the best hand of such tasks, having Herod’s throne and its ornaments
constantly in my head.

“Among the help-needing persons whom my mother took peculiar charge of,
were particularly young wives near the time of their confinement, as by
degrees I could well enough remark; though, in such cases, the
commissions given me were veiled in a certain mystery. My messages, on
these occasions, never reached directly to the party concerned; but
every thing passed through the hands of a good old woman, who lived down
the dale, and was called Frau Elizabeth. My mother, herself skilful in
the art which saves life to so many at their very entrance into life,
constantly maintained a good understanding with Frau Elizabeth; and I
often heard, in all quarters, that many a one of our stout mountaineers
stood indebted for his existence to these two women. The secrecy with
which Elizabeth received me at all times, her pointed replies to my
enigmatical questions, which I myself did not understand, awoke in me a
singular reverence for her; and her house, which was extremely clean,
appeared to me to represent a sort of sanctuary.

“Meanwhile, by my acquirements and adroitness in my craft, I had gained
considerable influence in the family. As my father, in the character of
cooper, had taken charge of the cellar and its contents, I now took
charge of roof and room, and repaired many a damaged part in the old
building. In particular, I contrived to make some fallen barns and
out-houses once more serviceable for domestic use; and scarcely was this
done when I set about cleaning and clearing out my beloved chapel. In a
few days it was put in order, almost as you see it at present; and such
pieces of the wainscot as were damaged or altogether wanting, I had
endeavored, as I went along, to restore in the same fashion as the rest.
These door-leaves of the entrance, too, you might think, were old
enough; yet they are of my workmanship. I passed several years in
carving them at leisure hours, having first mortised the body of them
firmly together out of strong oaken planks. Whatever of the pictures had
not been effaced or injured at that time, has since continued
unimpaired; and I assisted our glazier in a new house he was erecting,
under the condition of his putting in colored windows here.

“If these figures and thoughts on the saint’s life had hitherto occupied
my imagination, the whole impressed itself on me with much more
liveliness, now that I could again regard the place as a sanctuary,
could linger in it, and muse at leisure on what I saw or conjectured.
There lay in me an irresistible desire to follow in the footsteps of
this saint: and, as a similar history was not to be looked for in these
times, I determined on commencing my resemblance from the lowest point
upwards; as, indeed, by the use of my beast of burden, I had already
commenced it long ago. The small creature which I had hitherto employed
would no longer content me: I chose for myself a far more stately
carrier, and got a large, stout saddle, which was equally adapted for
riding and packing. A pair of new baskets were also procured; and a net
of many-colored knots, flakes, and tufts, intermixed with jingling tags
of metal, decorated the neck of my long-eared beast, which might now
show itself beside its model on the wall. No one thought of mocking me
when I passed over the mountains in this equipment: people do not
quarrel with Benevolence for putting on a strange outside.

“Meanwhile, war, or rather its consequences, had approached our
district; for dangerous bands of vagabond deserters had more than once
collected, and here and there practised much violence and wanton
mischief. By the good order of our provincial militia, by patrolling and
prompt watchfulness, the evil was very soon remedied: but we too quickly
relapsed into our former carelessness; and, before we thought of it, new
disorders broke forth.

“For a long time all had been quiet in our neighborhood, and I had
travelled peacefully with my ass along the accustomed paths; till one
day, passing over a newly sown glade of the forest, I observed a female
form sitting, or rather lying, at the edge of the fence-ditch. She
seemed to be asleep or in a swoon. I endeavored to recall her; and, as
she opened her eyes and sat upright, she cried with eagerness, ‘Where is
he? Did you see him?’ I asked, ‘Whom?’ She replied, ‘My husband.’
Considering her extremely youthful appearance, I had not been expecting
this reply; yet I continued, so much the more kindly, to assist her, and
assure her of my sympathy. I learned that the two travellers had left
their carriage, the road being so heavy, and struck into a footpath to
make a shorter cut. Hard by they had been overtaken by armed marauders;
her husband had gone off fighting with them; she, not able to follow him
far, had sunk on this spot, and lain there she knew not how long. She
pressingly begged of me to leave her, and hasten after her husband. She
rose to her feet; and the fairest, loveliest form stood before me: yet I
could easily observe that she was in a situation in which she might soon
require the help of my mother and Frau Elizabeth. We disputed a while:
for I wished, before all, to bring her to some place of safety; she
wished, in the first place, to have tidings of her husband. She would
not leave the trace of him; and all my arguments would perhaps have been
unavailing, had not a party of our militia, which the tidings of fresh
misdeeds had again called out into service, chanced to pass that way
through the forest. These I informed of the matter: with them the
necessary arrangements were made, the place of meeting appointed, and so
the business settled for the time. With great expedition I hid my
panniers in a neighboring cave, which had often served me before as a
repository: I adjusted my saddle for easy riding, and, not without a
strange emotion, lifted the fair burden on my willing beast, which,
knowing of itself what path to choose, left me at liberty to walk by her
side.

“You can figure to yourself, without my describing it at large, in what
a strange mood I was. What I had long been seeking I had now found. I
felt as if I were dreaming, and then again as if I were awakening from a
dream. That heavenly form which I saw, as it were, hovering in the air,
and bending aside from the green branches, now seemed to me like a dream
which had risen in my soul through those figures in the chapel. Soon
those figures themselves seemed to me to have been only dreams, which
were here issuing in a fair reality. I asked her many things: she
answered me softly and kindly, as beseemed a dignified distress. She
often desired me, when we reached any open height, to stop, to look
round, to listen. She desired me with such grace, with such a deep,
wistful look from under her long black eyelashes, that I could not but
do whatever lay in my power; nay, at last I climbed to the top of a
high, solitary, branchless pine. Never had this feat of my handicraft
been more welcome to me: never had I, with greater joy, brought down
ribbons and silks from such elevations at festivals and fairs. But for
this time, alas! I came back without booty: above, as below, I could
hear or see nothing. In the end, she herself called me down, and
beckoned to me earnestly with her hand: nay, at last, as in gliding down
I quitted my hold a considerable way up, and dropped on the ground, she
gave a scream; and a sweet kindliness spread over her face as she saw me
before her unhurt.

“Why should I tell you in detail of the hundred attentions with which I
strove the whole way to be pleasing, to divert her thoughts from her
grief? Indeed, how could I? For it is the very quality of true
attention, that, at the moment, it makes a nothing all. To my feeling,
the flowers which I broke for her, the distant scenes which I showed
her, the hills, the woods, which I named to her, were so many precious
treasures which I was giving her to obtain for myself a place among her
interests, as one tries to do by presents.

“Already she had gained me for my whole life, when we reached our
destination, at that good old woman’s door; and I saw a painful
separation close at hand. Once more I ran over all her form; and, as my
eyes came on her feet, I stooped as if to adjust something in my girdle,
and kissed the daintiest shoe that I had ever seen, yet without her
noticing me. I helped her down, sprang up the steps, and called in at
the door, ‘Frau Elizabeth, here is a visitor!’ The good old woman came
down: and I looked over her shoulders towards the house, as the fair
being mounted the steps with graceful sorrow, and inward, painful
self-consciousness; till she gratefully embraced my worthy old woman,
and accompanied her into the better chamber. They shut the door; and I
was left standing outside by my ass, like a man that has delivered a
loading of precious wares, and is again as poor a carrier as before.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER IV.

                            THE LILY-STALK.


“I was still lingering in my departure, for I knew not what to do if I
were gone, when Frau Elizabeth came to the door, and desired me to send
my mother down to her, and then to go about, and, if possible, get
tidings of the husband. ‘Mary begs you very much to do this,’ said she.
‘Can I not speak with her again myself?’ replied I. ‘That will not do,’
said Elizabeth; and we parted. In a short time I reached our dwelling:
my mother was ready that same night to go over, and be helpful to the
young stranger. I hastened down the country, thinking I should get the
surest intelligence at the _Amtmann’s_. But the _Amtmann_ himself was
still in uncertainty; and, as I was known to him, he invited me to pass
the night there. It seemed interminably long; and still I had the fair
form before my eyes, as she sat gently swaying in the saddle, and
looking down to me so sorrowful and friendly. Every moment I hoped for
news. To the worthy husband I honestly wished life and safety, and yet I
liked so well to fancy her a widow! The ranging troops by little and
little collected; and, after many variable rumors, the certainty at last
came to light, that the carriage was saved, but the hapless traveller
dead of his wounds in a neighboring village. I learned also, that,
according to our first arrangement, some of the party had gone to
communicate the melancholy tidings to Frau Elizabeth: consequently I had
nothing more to do there. Yet a boundless impatience, an immeasurable
longing, drove me over wood and mountain once more to her threshold. It
was dark; the door was shut; I saw light in the room, I saw shadows
moving on the curtains; and thus I sat watching on a bench opposite the
house; still on the point of knocking, and still withheld by many
considerations.

“But why should I go on describing to you what is in itself of no
interest? In short, next morning, too, the house was shut against me.
They knew the heavy tidings, they needed me no further; they sent me to
my father, to my work; they would not answer my inquiries; they wanted
to be rid of me.

“For eight days this sort of treatment had continued, when at last Frau
Elizabeth called me in. ‘Step softly, my friend,’ said she, ‘but enter
without scruple.’ She led me into a trim apartment, where, in the
corner, through the half-opened curtains, I saw my fair one dressed, and
sitting upright in the bed. Frau Elizabeth went towards her as if to
announce me, lifted something from the bed, and brought it me,--wrapped
in the whitest swathings, the prettiest boy! Frau Elizabeth held it
straight betwixt the mother and me; and just then the lily-stalk
occurred to me, which, in the picture, springs from the ground between
Joseph and Mary, as witness of the purity of their affection. From that
moment I was certain of my cause, certain of my happiness. I could
approach her with freedom, speak with her, bear her heavenly eye, take
the boy on my arm, and imprint a warm kiss on his brow.

“‘How I thank you for the love you bear to that orphan child!’ said the
mother. Unthinkingly and briskly I cried, ‘It is no orphan any longer,
if you like!’

“Frau Elizabeth, more prudent than I, took the child from my hands, and
got me put away.

“To this hour, when I chance to be wandering over our mountains and
forests, the remembrance of that time forms my happiest entertainment. I
can still recall the slightest particulars; which, however, as is fit, I
spare you at present. Weeks passed on: Mary was recovered; I could see
her oftener; my intercourse with her was a train of services and
attentions. Her family circumstances allowed her to choose a residence
according to her pleasure. She first staid with Frau Elizabeth: then she
paid us a visit, to thank my mother and me for so many and such friendly
helps. She liked to live with us, and I flattered myself that it was
partly on my account. What I wished to tell her, however, and durst not
utter, came to words in a singular and pretty wise, when I took her into
the chapel, which I had then fitted up as a habitual apartment. I showed
her the pictures, and explained them to her one after the other, and, so
doing, unfolded the duties of a foster-father in so vivid and cordial a
manner that the tears came into her eyes, and I could not get to the end
of my picture exhibition. I thought myself certain of her affection,
though I was not proud enough to wish so soon to efface the memory of
her husband. The law imposes on widows a year of mourning; and, in
truth, such an epoch, which includes in it the change of all earthly
things, is necessary for a feeling heart, to alleviate the painful
impressions of a great loss. We see the flowers fade and the leaves
fall; but we likewise see fruits ripen, and new buds shoot forth. Life
belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for
vicissitudes.

“I now spoke with my mother on the concern which lay so near my heart.
She thereupon disclosed to me how grievous to Mary the death of her
husband had been, and how she had borne up and gathered courage again,
solely from the thought that she must live for her child. My inclination
was not unknown to the women, and already Mary had accustomed herself to
the idea of living with us. She staid a while longer in the
neighborhood: then she came up to us, and we lived for a time in the
gentlest and happiest state of betrothment. At last we wedded. That
feeling which had first drawn us together did not fade away. The duties
and joys of the father and the foster-father were united: and so our
little family, as it increased, did certainly surpass its prototype in
number of persons; but the virtues of that pattern, in respect to
faithfulness, and purity of sentiments, were sacredly maintained and
practised by us. And so also in friendly habitude we keep up the
external appearance which we, by accident, arrived at, and which fits
our internal state so well; for though all of us are good walkers, and
stout bearers of weight, the beast of burden still remains in our
company, when any business or visit takes us through these mountains and
valleys. As you met us last night, so does the whole country know us;
and we feel proud that our walk and conversation are of such a sort as
not to throw disgrace on the saintly name and figure whose imitators we
profess to be.”


                         _Wilhelm to Natalia._

    I now conclude a pleasant, half-marvellous history, which I have
    just written down for thee, from the mouth of a very worthy man.
    If I have not always given his very words; if here and there, in
    describing his sentiments, I have expressed my own,--this,
    considering the relationship of mind I feel with him, was
    natural enough. His reverence for his wife, does it not resemble
    that which I entertain for thee? And is there not, even in the
    first meeting of these lovers, something similar to ours? But
    that he is fortunate enough to walk beside his animal, as it
    bears the doubly beautiful burden; that he can enter at
    evenings, with his family possession, through the old
    cloister-gate; that he is inseparable from his own loved
    ones,--in all this, I may well secretly envy him. Yet I must not
    complain of my destiny; seeing I have promised thee that I will
    suffer and be silent, as thou also hast undertaken.

    Many a fair feature in the domestic union of these devout and
    cheerful persons I have been obliged to omit, for how could it
    be depicted in writing? Two days have passed over me agreeably,
    but the third warns me to be mindful of my farther wayfaring.

    With Felix I had a little quarrel to-day. He was almost for
    compelling me to break through one wholesome regulation, for
    which I stand engaged to thee. It has been an error, a
    misfortune, in short, an arrangement of Fate with me hitherto,
    that, before I am aware, my company increases; that I take a new
    burden on my shoulders, which thenceforth I have to bear, and
    drag along with me. So, in my present wanderings, no third party
    is to become a permanent associate with us. We are, we will and
    must continue, Two; and just now a new, and not very pleasing,
    connection, seemed about to be established.

    To the children of the house, with whom Felix has gayly passed
    these days in sporting, there had joined himself a little merry
    beggar-boy, who, submitting to be used or misused as the play
    required, had very soon got into favor with Felix. By various
    hints and expressions, I now gathered that the latter had found
    himself a playmate for the next stage of our journey. The boy is
    known in this quarter, and everywhere tolerated for his lively
    humor, and now and then obtains an alms. Me, however, he did not
    please; and I desired our host to get him sent away. This
    likewise took place; but Felix was angry at it, and we had a
    little flaw of discord.

    In the course of this affair, I discovered something which was
    pleasant to me. In the corner of the chapel, or hall, stood a
    box of stones, which Felix, who, since our wanderings through
    the mountains, has acquired an excessive fondness for minerals,
    eagerly drew forth and examined. Many pretty eye-catching things
    were among them. Our landlord said the child might choose out
    what he liked: these were the remains of a large collection
    which a friend had despatched thence a short while ago. He
    called this person Montan; and thou wilt easily suppose how glad
    I was to hear this name, under which one of our best friends is
    travelling, one to whom we owe so much. Having inquired into
    date and circumstances, I can now hope to meet him erelong on my
    pilgrimage.


                ---------------------------------------


                               CHAPTER V.


The news that Montan was in the neighborhood had made Wilhelm reflect.
He considered that it ought not to be left to chance alone whether he
should meet with so estimable a friend, therefore he inquired of his
landlord if they did not know towards what quarter this traveller had
turned his course. No one had any information on this point; and Wilhelm
had determined to pursue his pilgrimage on the former plan, when Felix
cried, “If father were not so strange, we might soon find Montan.”

“What way?” said Wilhelm.

Felix answered, “Little Fitz told us last night that he could trace out
the stranger gentleman, who had many fine stones with him, and
understood them well.”

After some talking, Wilhelm at last resolved on making the experiment;
purposing, in the course of it, to keep so much the sharper watch on the
suspicious boy. Fitz was soon found; and, hearing what was to be done,
he soon produced mallet and chisel, and a stout hammer, with a little
bag, and set forth, running merrily before the party, in his mining
accoutrements.

The way went to a side, and up the mountains. The children skipped on
together, from crag to crag, over stock and stone, over brook and bourn;
and, without having any path before him, Fitz pressed rapidly upwards,
now looking to the right hand, now to the left. As Wilhelm, and
especially the laden porter, could not follow so fast, the boys often
ran back and forward, singing and whistling. The aspect of some new
trees arrested the attention of Felix, who now, for the first time,
formed acquaintance with larches and fir-cones, and curiously surveyed
the strange gentian shrubs. And thus, in their toilsome wandering, there
lacked not from time to time a little entertainment. But all at once
they were fronted by a barricado of trees, which a storm had hurled
together in a confused mass. “This was not in my reckoning,” said Fitz.
“Wait here till I find my way again, only have a care of the cave up
there: no one goes into it or near it, without getting harm, or having
tricks played on him.”

The boy went off in an ascending direction: the porter, on the other
hand, grumbling at the excessive difficulty of the way, set down his
luggage, and searched sidewards and downwards for some beaten path.

No sooner did Felix see himself alone with his father, than his
curiosity awoke, and he glided softly toward the cave. Wilhelm, who gave
him leave, observed after some time that the child was no longer in
sight. He himself mounted to the cave, at the mouth of which he had last
seen the boy; and, on entering, he found the place empty. It was
spacious, but could be taken in at a glance. He searched for some other
outlet, and found none. The matter began to be serious. He took the
whistle which he wore at his button-hole: an answer to his call came
sounding out of the depth, so that he was uncertain whether he should
take it for an echo, when, shortly afterwards, Felix peeped out of the
ground; for the chink through which he looked was scarcely wide enough
to let through his head.

“What art thou about there?” cried his father.

“Hush!” said Felix: “art thou alone?”

“Quite alone,” answered Wilhelm.

“Then, go quick,” cried the boy, “and fetch me a couple of strong
clubs.”

Wilhelm went to the fallen timber, and, with his hanger, cut off a pair
of thick staves: Felix took them, and vanished, having first called to
his father, “Let no one into the cave!”

After some time Felix cried, “Another pair of staves, and larger ones!”
With these also his father provided him, and waited anxiously for the
solution of his riddle. At length the boy issued rapidly from the cleft,
and brought a little box with him, not larger than an octavo volume, of
rich, antique appearance: it seemed to be of gold, decorated with
enamel. “Put it up, father,” said the boy, “and let none see it.”
Wilhelm had not time to ask many questions, for they already heard the
call of the returning porter; and scarcely had they joined him, when the
little squire also began to shout and wave from above.

On their approach he cried out, “Montan is not far off: I bet we shall
soon meet him.”

“How canst thou know this,” said Wilhelm, “in so wild a forest, where no
human being leaves any trace behind him?”

“That is my knack,” said Fitz; and, like a Will-o’-wisp, he hopped off
hither and thither, in a side direction, to lead his masters the
strangest road.

Felix, in the mean while, highly satisfied in the treasure he had found,
highly delighted at possessing a secret, kept close by his father,
without, as formerly, skipping up and down beside his comrade. He nodded
to Wilhelm with sparkling eyes; glancing towards his companion, and
making significant faces, to indicate how much he was above Fitz now, in
possessing a secret entirely wanting to the other. He carried it so far
at length, that Fitz, who often stopped and looked about, must very soon
have noticed it. Wilhelm therefore said to Felix, “My son, whoever
wishes to keep a secret must hide from us that he possesses one.
Self-complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment.” Felix
restrained himself; but his former gay, free manner to his comrade he
could not now attain.

All at once little Fitz stood still. He beckoned the rest to him. “Do
you hear a beating?” said he. “It is the sound of a hammer striking on
the rock.”

“We hear it,” answered they.

“That is Montan,” said he, “or some one who will tell us of him.”

Following the sound, which was repeated from time to time, they reached
an opening in the wood, and perceived a steep, high, naked rock,
towering over all the rest, leaving even the lofty forest deep beneath
it. On the top of it they descried a man: he was too far off to be
recognized. Immediately the boys set about ascending the precipitous
path. Wilhelm followed with some difficulty, nay, danger: for the person
that climbs a rock foremost always proceeds with more safety, because he
can look out for his conveniences; he who comes after sees only whither
the other has arrived, but not how. The boys soon reached the top, and
Wilhelm heard a shout of joy. “It is Jarno,” cried Felix to his father;
and Jarno immediately came forward to a rugged spot, stretched out his
hand to his friend, and drew him up. They embraced, and welcomed each
other into the free, skyey air, with the rapture of old friends.

But scarcely had they stepped asunder, when a giddiness came over
Wilhelm, not so much on his own account, as at seeing the boys hanging
over the frightful abyss. Jarno observed it, and immediately bade all
sit down. “Nothing is more natural,” said he, “than that we should grow
giddy at a great sight, which comes unexpectedly before us, to make us
feel at once our littleness and our greatness. But there is not in the
world any truer enjoyment than at the moment when we are so made giddy
for the first time.”

“Are these, then, down there, the great mountains we climbed over?”
inquired Felix. “How little they look! And here,” continued he,
loosening a crumb of stone from the rock, “is the old cat-gold again:
this is found everywhere, I suppose?”

“It is found far and wide,” answered Jarno; “and, as thou art asking
after such things, I may bid thee notice that thou art now sitting on
the oldest mountain, on the earliest rock, of this world.”

“Was the world not made at once, then?” said Felix.

“Hardly,” answered Jarno: “good bread needs baking.”

“Down there,” said Felix, “is another sort of rock; and there again
another, and still again another,” cried he, pointing from the nearest
mountains to the more remote, and so downward to the plain.

It was a beautiful day, and Jarno let them survey the lordly prospect in
detail. Here and there stood several other peaks, similar to the one our
travellers were on. A secondary moderate range of mountains seemed as if
struggling up, but did not by far attain that height. Farther off, the
surface flattened still more; yet again some strangely protruding forms
rose to view. At last, in the remote distance, lakes were visible, and
rivers; and a fruitful country spread itself out like a sea. And, when
the eye came back, it pierced into frightful depths, sounding with
cataracts, and connected with each other in labyrinthic combination.

Felix could not satisfy himself with questions, and Jarno was kind
enough to answer all of them; in which, however, Wilhelm thought he
noticed that the teacher did not always speak quite truly and sincerely.
So, after the unstaid boys had again clambered off, Wilhelm said to his
friend, “Thou hast not spoken with the child about these matters as thou
speakest to thyself.”

“That, indeed, were a heavy requisition,” answered Jarno. “We do not
always speak, even to ourselves, as we think; and it is not fit to tell
others any thing but what they can take up. A man understands nothing
but what is commensurate with him. To fix a child’s attention on what is
present; to give him a description, a name,--is the best thing we can do
for him. He will soon enough begin to inquire after causes.”

“One cannot blame this latter tendency,” observed Wilhelm. “The
multiplicity of objects perplexes every one; and it is easier, instead
of investigating them, to ask directly, whence and whither?”

“And yet,” said Jarno, “as children look at what is present only
superficially, we cannot speak with them of origin and object otherwise
than superficially also.”

“Most men,” answered Wilhelm, “continue all their days in this
predicament, and never reach that glorious epoch in which the
comprehensible appears to us common and insipid.”

“It may well be called glorious,” answered Jarno; “for it is a middle
stage between despair and deification.”

“Let us abide by the boy,” said Wilhelm, “who is, at present, my first
care. He has, somehow, got a fondness for minerals since we began this
journey. Canst thou not impart so much to me as would put it in my power
to satisfy him, at least for a time?”

“That will not do,” said Jarno. “In every new department one must, in
the first place, begin again as a child: throw a passionate interest
over the subject; take pleasure in the shell till one has the happiness
to arrive at the kernel.”

“Tell me, then,” said Wilhelm, “how hast thou attained this knowledge?
For it is not so very long, after all, since we parted.”

“My friend,” said Jarno, “we were forced to resign ourselves, if not
forever, at least for a long season. The first thing that occurs to a
stout-hearted man, under such circumstances, is to begin a new life. New
objects will not suffice him; these serve only for diversion of thought:
he requires a new whole, and plants himself in the middle of it.”

“But why, then,” interrupted Wilhelm, “choose this strangest and
loneliest of all pursuits?”

“Even because of its loneliness,” cried Jarno. “Men I wished to avoid.
To them we can give no help, and they hinder us from helping ourselves.
Are they happy, we must let them persevere in their stolidities; are
they unhappy, we must save them without disturbing these stolidities;
and no one ever asks whether Thou art happy or unhappy.”

“It is not quite so bad with them, surely,” answered Wilhelm, smiling.

“I will not talk thee out of thy happiness,” said Jarno. “Go on thy way,
thou second Diogenes! Let not thy lamp in daylight go out! Down on that
side lies a new world before thee; but, I dare wager, things stand there
as in the old one. If thou canst not pimp, and pay debts, thou availest
nothing.”

“Yet they seem to me more entertaining than thy dead rocks,” said
Wilhelm.

“Not they!” answered Jarno, “for my rocks are at least
incomprehensible.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER VI.


The two friends had descended, not without care and labor, to reach the
children, who were now lying in a shady spot down below. With almost
greater eagerness than their picnic repast, the collected rock specimens
were unpacked by Montan and Felix. The latter had much to ask, the
former much to nominate. Felix was delighted that his new teacher could
give him names for all, and he speedily committed them to memory. At
length he produced another specimen, and asked, “What do you call this,
then?”

Montan viewed it with surprise, and said, “Where did you get it?”

Fitz answered promptly, “I found it myself: it is of this country.”

“Not of this quarter,” said Montan. Felix rejoiced to see his master
somewhat puzzled. “Thou shalt have a ducat,” said Montan, “if thou bring
me to the spot where it lies.”

“That is easy to earn,” answered Fitz, “but not immediately.”

“Then, describe the place to me accurately, that I may not fail to find
it: but the thing is impossible; for this is a cross-stone, which comes
from Santiago in Compostella, and which some stranger has lost,--if,
indeed, thou hast not stolen it from him, for its curious look.”.

“Give your ducat into my master’s hands,” said Fitz, “and I will
honestly confess where I got the stone. In the ruined church at St.
Joseph there is likewise a ruined altar. Under the top-stones, which are
all broken and heaped together, I discovered a layer of this rock, which
has been the foundation of the other, and broke off from it as much as I
could come at. If the upper stones were cleared away, one might find
much more of it there.”

“Take thy ducat,” said Montan: “thou deservest it for this discovery. It
is pretty enough. Men naturally rejoice when inanimate nature produces
any likeness of what they love and reverence. Nature then appears to us
in the form of a sibyl, who has beforehand laid down a testimony of what
had been determined from eternity, and was not to be realized till late
in time. On this rock, as on a sacred, mysterious, primeval basis, the
priests had built their altar.”

Wilhelm, who had listened for a while, and observed that many names,
many designations, were repeatedly mentioned, again signified his former
wish, that Montan would impart to him so much as was required for the
primary instruction of the boy. “Give that up,” replied Montan. “There
is nothing more frightful than a teacher who knows only what his
scholars are intended to know. He who means to teach others may, indeed,
often suppress the best of what he knows; but he must not be half
instructed.”

“But where are such perfect teachers to be had?”

“These thou wilt find very easily,” replied Montan.

“Where, then?” said Wilhelm, with some unbelief.

“Where the thing thou art wishing to learn is in practice,” said Montan.
“Our best instruction we obtain from complete conversance. Dost thou not
learn foreign languages best in the countries where they are at
home?--where only these and no other strike thy ear?”

“And so it was among the mountains,” inquired Wilhelm, “that thy
knowledge of mountains was acquired?”

“Of course.”

“Without help from men?”

“At least only from men who were miners. There, where the pygmies,
allured by the metallic veins, bore through the rock, making the
interior of the earth accessible, and in a thousand ways endeavoring to
solve the hardest problems,--there is the place where an inquiring
thinker ought to take his stand. He looks on action and effort, watches
the progress of enterprises, and rejoices in the successful and the
unsuccessful. What is useful forms but a part of the important. Fully to
possess, to command, and rule an object, we must first study it for its
own sake.”

“Is there such a place in the neighborhood?” said Wilhelm. “I should
like to take Felix thither.”

“The question I can answer in the affirmative,” replied Montan, “the
project not exactly assent to. At least, I must first tell thee, that
thou hast the power of choosing among many other branches of activity,
of knowledge, of art, for thy Felix, some of which might, perhaps, suit
him better than this sudden fancy which he has taken up at the moment,
most probably from mere imitation.”

“Explain thyself more clearly,” interrupted Wilhelm.

“Thou must know, then,” said Montan, “that we are here on the borders of
a province, which I might justly call a Pedagogic Utopia. In the
conviction that only one thing can be carried on, taught, and
communicated with full advantages, several such points of active
instruction have been, as it were, sown over a large tract of country.
At each of these places thou wilt find a little world, but so complete
within its limitation, that it may represent and model any other of
these worlds, nay, the great busy world itself.”

“I do not altogether comprehend what thou canst mean by this,”
interrupted Wilhelm.

“Thou shalt soon comprehend it,” said the other. “As down, not far from
this, among the mountains, thou wilt, in the first place, find collected
round a mass of metalliferous rocks, whatever is of use for enabling man
to appropriate these treasures of Nature, and, at the same time, to
acquire general conceptions of moulding the ruggedness of inanimate
things more dexterously to his own purposes; so down in the lowest
level, far out on the plain, where the soil spreads into large meadows
and pastures, thou wilt find establishments for managing another
important treasure which Nature has given to men.”

“And this?” inquired Wilhelm.

“Is the horse,” replied the other. “In that last quarter thou art in the
midst of every thing which can instruct one on the training, diet,
growth, and likewise employment, of this noble animal. As in these hills
all are busy digging, boring, climbing; so there nothing is more
anxiously attended to than the young brood, springing, as it were, out
of the ground: and every one is occupied foddering, grazing, driving,
leading, curbing them, mounting their backs, and in all sorts of
movements, natural and artificial, coursing with them over the plain.”

Felix, who had approached in the deepest attention, exclaimed,
interrupting him, “Oh, thither will we! That is the prettiest, the best,
of all.”

“It is far thither,” answered Jarno; “and thou wilt find something more
agreeable and suitable, perhaps, by the way. Any species of activity,”
continued he, “attracts the fondness of a child; for every thing looks
easy that is practised to perfection. All beginnings are hard, says the
proverb. This, in a certain sense, may be true: but we might say, with a
more universal application, All beginnings are easy; and it is the last
steps that are climbed most rarely and with greatest difficulty.”

Wilhelm, who had been reflecting in the mean while, now said to Montan,
“Is it actually so, as thou sayest, that these people have separated the
various sorts of activity, both in the practice and teaching of them?”

“They have done it,” said Montan, “and with reason. Whatever any man has
to effect, must emanate from him like a second self; and how could this
be possible, were not his first self entirely pervaded by it?”

“Yet has not a general culture been reckoned very advantageous?”

“It may really be so,” replied the other: “every thing in its time. Now
is the time of specialties. Happy he who understands this, and works for
himself and others in that spirit.”

“In my spirit it cannot be,” replied Wilhelm; “but tell me, if I thought
of sending Felix, for a while, into one of these circles, which wouldst
thou recommend to me?”

“It is all one,” said Jarno. “You cannot readily tell which way a
child’s capacity particularly points. For me, I should still advise the
merriest trade. Take him to those horse-subduers. Beginning as a groom
is, in truth, little easier than beginning as an ore-beater: but the
prospect is always gayer; you can hope at least to get through the world
riding.”

It is easy to conceive that Wilhelm had many other doubts to state, and
many further explanations to require: these Jarno settled in his usual
laconic way, but at last he broke out as follows: “In all things, to
serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself
to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a
trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest, in doing one thing, does
all; or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does
rightly, he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly. Take thy
Felix,” continued he, “through the province: let the directors see him;
they will soon judge him, and dispose of him to the best advantage. The
boy should be placed among his equals, otherwise he seeks them for
himself, and then, in his associates, finds only flatterers or tyrants.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER VII.


The third day being over, the friends, in conformity to the engagement
of our renunciants, had to part; and Jarno declared he would now fly so
far into the waste mountains, that no one should be able to discover
him. “There is nothing more frightful,” said he, “in a state like ours,
than to meet an old, true friend, to whom we can communicate our
thoughts without reserve. So long as one is by himself, one fancies
there is no end to the novelties and wonders he is studying: but let the
two talk a while together, right from the heart; one sees how soon all
this is exhausted. Nothing is endless but inanity. Clever people soon
explain themselves to one another, and then they have done. But now I
will dive into the chasms of the rocks, and with them begin a mute,
unfathomable conversation.”

“Have a care,” said Wilhelm, smiling, “lest Fitz come upon thy track.
This time, at least, he succeeded in finding thee.”

“How didst thou manage that?” said Montan. “After all, it was only
chance.”

“Not in the least,” answered Fitz: “I will tell you my secret for a fair
consideration. You mineralogists, wherever you go, keep striking to the
right and left; from every stone, from every rock, breaking off a piece,
as if gold and silver were hid in them. One has but to follow this
trace; and, where any corner shows a fresh breakage, there some of you
have been. One notes and notes, forward and forward, and at last comes
upon the man.”

Fitz was praised and rewarded. The friends parted.--Montan alone, the
little caravan in company. Wilhelm had settled the place they should
make for. The porter proposed a road to it; but the children had taken a
fancy for looking, by the way, at the Giant’s Castle, of which Fitz had
talked so much. Felix was curious about the large, black pillars, the
great door, the cellar, the caves, and vaults, and hoped he might
perhaps find something there,--something of even greater value than the
box.

How he came by this he had, in the interim, informed his father.
Creeping through the cleft, it appeared he had got down into an open
space pretty well lighted, and noticed in the corner of it a large iron
chest, the lid of which, though it was not locked, he could not lift,
but only raise a very little. To get into this, he had called to his
father for the staves, which he had employed partly as props under the
lid, partly as levers to heave it up, and so at length forcing his way
into the chest, had found it wholly empty, except for the little box
which was lying in one of the nooks. This toy they had shown Montan, who
agreed with them in opinion, that it should be kept unopened, and no
violence done to it; for it could not be unlocked except by a very
complicated key.

The porter declined going with the rest to the Giant’s Castle, and
proceeded down the smooth footpath by himself. The others toiled after
Fitz through moss and tangle, and at length reached the natural
colonnade, which, towering over a huge mass of fragments, rose black and
wondrous into the air. Yet, without much regarding what he saw before
his eyes, Felix instantly began inquiring for the other promised
marvels; and, as none of them was to be seen, Fitz could excuse himself
no otherwise than by declaring that these things were never visible
except on Sundays and particular festivals, and then only for a few
hours. The boys remained convinced that the pillared palace was a work
of men’s hands: Wilhelm saw well that it was a work of Nature, but he
could have wished for Montan to speak with on the subject.

They now proceeded rapidly down hill, through a wood of high, taper
larches, which, becoming more and more transparent, erelong exposed to
view the fairest spot you can imagine, lying in the clearest sunshine.

A large garden, seemingly appropriated to use, not ornament, lay richly
furnished with fruit-trees, yet open before their eyes; for the ground,
sloping, on the whole, had been regularly cut into a number of
divisions, now raised, now hollowed in manifold variety, and thus
exhibited a complex waving surface. Several dwelling-houses stood
scattered up and down, so that it seemed as if the space belonged to
several proprietors; yet Fitz assured them that one individual owned and
directed the whole. Beyond the garden stretched a boundless landscape,
beautifully cultivated and planted, in which lakes and rivers might be
distinguished in the distance.

Still descending, they had approached nearer and nearer, and were now
expecting in a few moments to be in the garden, when Wilhelm all at once
stopped short, and Fitz could not hide his roguish satisfaction; for a
yawning chasm at the foot of the mountain opened before them, and showed
on the other side a wall which had hitherto been concealed, steep enough
without, though within it was quite filled up with soil. A deep trench,
therefore, separated them from the garden, into which they were directly
looking. “We have still a good circuit to make,” said Fitz, “before we
get the road that leads in. However, I know an entrance on this side,
which is much shorter. The vaults where the hill-water in time of rain
is let through, in regular quantities, into the garden, open here: they
are high, and broad enough for one to walk along without difficulty.”
The instant Felix heard of vaults, he insisted on taking this passage
and no other. Wilhelm followed the children; and the party descended the
large steps of this covered aqueduct, which was now lying quite dry.
Down below they found themselves sometimes in light, sometimes in
darkness, according as the side-openings admitted day, or the walls and
pillars excluded it. At last they reached a pretty even space, and were
slowly proceeding, when all at once a shot went off beside them; and at
the same time two secret iron-grated doors started out, and enclosed
them on both sides. Not, indeed, the whole of them: Wilhelm and Felix
only were caught. For Fitz, the instant he heard the shot, sprang back;
and the closing grate caught nothing but his wide sleeve: he himself,
nimbly throwing off his jacket, had darted away without loss of a
moment.

The two prisoners had scarcely time to recover from their astonishment,
till they heard voices, which appeared to be slowly approaching. In a
little while some armed men with torches came forward to the grate,
looking with eager eyes what sort of capture they had made. At the same
time they asked if the prisoners would surrender peaceably. “Surrender
is not the word here,” said Wilhelm: “we are already in your power. It
is rather our part to ask, whether you will spare us? The only weapon we
have, I give up to you.” And with these words he handed his hanger
through the grate: this opened directly, and the two strangers were led
forward by the party with great composure. After a short while they
found themselves in a singular place: it was a spacious, cleanly
apartment, with many little windows at the very top of the walls; and
these, notwithstanding the thick iron gratings, admitted light enough.
Seats, sleeping-places, and whatever else is expected in a middling inn,
had been provided; and it seemed as if any one placed here could want
nothing but freedom.

Wilhelm, directly after entering, had sat down to consider his
situation: Felix, on the other hand, on recovering from his
astonishment, broke out into an incredible fury. These large walls,
these high windows, these strong doors, this seclusion, this
restriction, were entirely new to him. He looked round and round, he ran
hither and thither, stamped with his feet, wept, rattled the doors,
struck against them with his fists, nay, was even on the point of
running at them with his head, had not Wilhelm seized him, and held him
fast between his knees. “Do but look at the thing calmly, my son,” began
he; “for impatience and violence cannot help us. The mystery will clear
up; and I must be widely mistaken, or we are fallen into no wicked
hands. Read these inscriptions: ‘To the innocent, deliverance and
reparation; to the misled, compassion; and, to the guilty, avenging
justice.’ All this bespeaks to us that these establishments are works,
not of cruelty, but of necessity. Men have but too much cause to secure
themselves from men. Of ill-wishers there are many, of ill-doers not
few; and, to live fitly, well-doing will not always suffice.” Felix
still sobbed; but he had pacified himself in some degree, more by the
caresses than the words of his father. “Let this experience,” continued
Wilhelm, “which thou gainest so early and so innocently, remain a lively
testimony to thy mind, in how complete and accomplished a century thou
livest. What a journey had human nature to travel before it reached the
point of being mild, even to the guilty, merciful to the injurious,
humane to the inhuman! Doubtless they were men of godlike souls who
first taught this, who spent their lives in rendering the practice of it
possible, and recommending it to others. Of the beautiful, men are
seldom capable, oftener of the good; and how highly should we value
those who endeavor, with great sacrifices, to forward that good among
their fellows!”

Felix, in the course of this consolatory speech, had fallen quietly
asleep on his father’s bosom; and scarcely had the latter laid him down
on one of the ready-made beds, when the door opened, and a man of
prepossessing appearance stepped in. After looking kindly at Wilhelm for
some time, he began to inquire about the circumstances which had led him
by the private passage, and into this predicament. Wilhelm related the
affair as it stood, produced some papers which served to explain who he
was, and referred to the porter, who, he said, must soon arrive on the
other side, by the usual road. This being so far explained, the official
person invited his guest to follow him. Felix could not be awakened, and
his father carried him asleep from the place which had incited him to
such violent passion.

Wilhelm followed his conductor into a fair garden-apartment, where
refreshments were set down, which he was invited to partake of; while
the other went to report the state of matters to his superior. When
Felix, on awakening, perceived a little covered table, fruit, wine,
biscuit, and, at the same time, the cheerful aspect of a wide-open door,
he knew not what to make of it. He ran out, he ran back; he thought he
had been dreaming; and in a little while, with such dainty fare and such
pleasant sights, the preceding terror and all his obstruction had
vanished like an oppressive vision in the brightness of morning.

The porter had arrived; the officer, with another man of a still
friendlier aspect, brought him in; and the business now came to light,
as follows: The owner of this property, charitable in this higher sense,
that he studied to awaken all round him to activity and effort, had, for
several years, been accustomed, from his boundless young plantations, to
give out the small wood to diligent and careful cultivators, gratis; to
the negligent, for a certain price; and to such as wished to trade in
it, likewise at a moderate valuation. But these two latter classes,
also, had required their supplies gratis, as the meritorious were
treated; and, this being refused them, they had attempted stealing
trees. Their attempt succeeded in many ways. This vexed the owner the
more, as not only were the plantations plundered, but, by too early
thinning, often ruined. It had been discovered that the thieves entered
by this aqueduct: so the trap-gate had been erected in the place, with a
spring-gun, which, however, was only meant for a signal. This little boy
had, under various pretexts, often made his appearance in the garden;
and nothing was more natural than that, out of mischief and audacity, he
should lead the stranger by a road which he had formerly discovered for
other purposes. The people could have wished to get hold of him:
meanwhile, his little jacket was brought in, and put by among other
judicial seizures.

Wilhelm was now made acquainted with the owner and his people, and by
them received with the friendliest welcome. Of this family we shall say
nothing more here, as some further light on them and their concerns is
offered us by the subsequent history.


                ---------------------------------------


                             CHAPTER VIII.


                         _Wilhelm to Natalia._

    Man is of a companionable, conversing nature: his delight is
    great when he exercises faculties that have been given him, even
    though nothing further came of it. How often in society do we
    hear the complaint that one will not let the other speak; and in
    the same manner, also, we might say, that one would not let the
    other write, were not writing an employment commonly transacted
    in private and alone.

    How much people write, one could scarcely ever conjecture. I
    speak not of what is printed, though that, in itself, is
    abundant enough, but of all that, in the shape of letters and
    memorials and narratives, anecdotes, descriptions of present
    circumstances in the life of individuals, sketches, and larger
    essays, circulates in secret: of this you can form no idea, till
    you have lived for some time in a community of cultivated
    families, as I am now doing. In the sphere where I am moving at
    present, there is almost as much time employed in informing
    friends and relatives of what is transacted as was employed in
    transacting it. This observation, which for several weeks has
    been constantly forced on me, I now make with the more pleasure,
    as the writing tendency of my new friends enables me, at once
    and perfectly, to get acquainted with their characters and
    circumstances. I am trusted: a sheaf of letters is given to me,
    some quires of a travelling-journal, the confessions of some
    mind not yet in unity with itself; and thus everywhere, in a
    little while, I am at home. I know the neighboring circle, I
    know the persons whose acquaintance I am to obtain: I understand
    them better, almost, than they do themselves; seeing they are
    still implicated in their situation, while I hover lightly past
    them, ever with thy hand in mine, ever speaking with thee about
    all I see. Indeed, it is the first condition I make before
    accepting any confidence offered me, that I may impart it to
    thee. Here, accordingly, are some letters which will introduce
    thee into the circle in which, without breaking or evading my
    vow, I, for the present, revolve.


                          THE NUT-BROWN MAID.

                         _Lenardo to his Aunt._

    At last, dear aunt, after three years you receive my first
    letter, conformably to our engagement, which, in truth, was
    singular enough. I wished to see the world and mingle in it, and
    wished, during that period, to forget the home whence I had
    departed, whither I hoped to return. The whole impression of
    this home I purposed to retain, and the partial and individual
    was not to confuse me at a distance. Meanwhile the necessary
    tokens of life and welfare have, from time to time, passed to
    and fro between us. I have regularly received money, and little
    presents for my kindred have been delivered you for
    distribution. By the wares I sent, you would see how and where I
    was. By the wines, I doubt not my uncle has tasted out my
    several places of abode; then the laces, knick-knacks, steel
    wares, would indicate to my fair cousins my progress through
    Brabant, by Paris, to London; and so, on their writing-desks,
    work-boxes, tea-tables, I shall find many a symbol wherewith to
    connect the history of my journeyings. You have accompanied me
    without hearing of me, and, perhaps, may care little about
    knowing more. For me, on the other hand, it is highly desirable
    to learn, through your kindness, how it stands with the circle
    into which I am once more entering. I would, in truth, return
    from strange countries as a stranger, who, that he may not be
    unpleasant, first informs himself about the way and manner of
    the household; not fancying, that, for his fine eyes or hair, he
    shall be received there quite in his own fashion. Write to me,
    therefore, of my worthy uncle, of your fair nieces, of yourself,
    of our relations near and distant, of servants also, old and
    new. In short, let your practised pen, which for so long a time
    you have not dipped into ink for your nephew, now again tint
    paper in his favor. Your letter of news shall forthwith be my
    credential, with which I introduce myself so soon as I obtain
    it. On you, therefore, it depends, whether you will see me or
    not. We alter far less than we imagine; and circumstances, too,
    continue much as they were. Not only what has altered, but what
    has continued, what has by degrees waxed and waned, do I now
    wish instantly to recognize at my return, and so once more to
    see myself in a well-known mirror. Present my heartiest
    salutations to all our people, and believe, that, in the
    singular manner of my absence and my return, there may lie more
    true affection than is often found in constant participation and
    lively intercourse. A thousand compliments to one and all!


    _Postscript._--Neglect not, also, my dear aunt, to say a word or
    two about our dependants,--how it stands with our stewards and
    farmers. What has become of Valerina, the daughter of that
    farmer whom my uncle, with justice certainly, but also, as I
    thought, with some severity, ejected from his lands when I went
    away? You see, I still remember many a particular: I still know
    all. On the past you shall examine me when you have told me of
    the present.


                        _The Aunt to Julietta._

    At last, dear children, a letter from our three-years’
    speechless traveller. What strange beings these strange men are!
    He will have it that his wares and tokens were as good as so
    many kind words, which friend may speak or write to friend. He
    actually fancies himself our creditor, requires from _us_, in
    the first place, the performance of that service which _he_ so
    unkindly refused. What is to be done? For me, I should have met
    his wishes forthwith in a long letter, did not this headache
    signify too clearly that the present sheet can scarcely be
    filled. We all long to see him. Do you, my dears, undertake the
    business. Should I be recovered before you have done, I will
    contribute my share. Choose the persons and circumstances, as
    you like best to describe them. Divide the task. You will do it
    all far better than I. The messenger will bring me back a note
    from you.


                        _Julietta to her Aunt._

    We have read and considered, and now send you by the messenger
    our view of the matter, each in particular; having first jointly
    signified that we are not so charitable as our dear aunt to her
    ever perverse nephew. Now, when he has kept his cards hid from
    us for three years, and still keeps them hid, we, forsooth, are
    to spread ours on the table, and play an open against a secret
    game. This is not fair, and yet let it pass; for the craftiest
    is often caught, simply by his own over-anxious precautions.
    But, as to the way and manner of transacting this commission, we
    are not agreed. To write of our familiars as we think of them is
    for us, at least, a very strange problem. Commonly we do not
    think of them at all, except in this or that particular case,
    when they give us some peculiar satisfaction or vexation. At
    other times, each lets his neighbor go his way. You alone could
    manage it, dear aunt; for you have both the penetration and the
    tolerance. Hersilia, who, you know, is not difficult to kindle,
    has just, on the spur of the moment, given me a bird’s-eye view
    of the whole family in all the graces of caricature. I wish it
    stood on paper, to entice a smile from yourself in your illness,
    but not that I would have it sent. My own project is, to lay
    before him our correspondence for these three years: then let
    him read, if he have the heart; or let him come and see with his
    eyes, if he have not. Your letters to me, dear aunt, are in the
    best order, and all at your service. Hersilia dissents from this
    opinion, excuses herself with the disorder of her papers, and so
    forth, as she will tell you herself.


                        _Hersilia to her Aunt._

    I will and must be very brief, dear aunt; for the messenger is
    clownishly impatient. I reckon it an excess of generosity, and
    not at all in season, to submit our correspondence to Lenardo.
    What has he to do with knowing all the good we have said of him,
    with knowing all the ill we have said of him, and finding out
    from the latter, still more than from the former, that we like
    him? Hold him tight, I entreat you! There is something so
    precise and presumptuous in this demand, in this conduct, of
    his,--just the fashion of your young gentlemen when they return
    from foreign parts. They can never look on those who have staid
    at home as full-grown persons, like themselves. Make your
    headache an excuse. He will come, doubtless; and, if he do not
    come, we can wait a little. Perhaps his next idea may be, to
    introduce himself in some strange, secret way, to become
    acquainted with us in disguise; and who knows what more may be
    included in the plan of so deep a gentleman? How pretty and
    curious this would be! It could not fail to bring about all
    manner of embroilments and developments, far grander than any
    that could be produced by such a diplomatic entrance into his
    family as he now purposes.

    The messenger! The messenger! Bring up your old people better,
    or send young ones. This man is neither to be pacified with
    flattery nor wine. A thousand farewells!


    _Postscript for Postscript._--What does our cousin want, will
    you tell me, with his postscript of Valerina? This question of
    his has struck me doubly. She is the only person whom he
    mentions by name. The rest of us are nieces, aunts,
    stewards,--not persons, but titles. Valerina, our lawyer’s
    daughter! In truth, a pretty, fair-haired girl, that may have
    glanced in our gallant cousin’s eyes before he went away. She is
    married well and happily: this to you is no news; but to him it
    is, of course, as unknown as every thing that has occurred here.
    Forget not to inform him, in a postscript, that Valerina grew
    daily more and more beautiful, and so at last made a very good
    match. That she is the wife of a rich proprietor. That the
    lovely, fair-haired maid is married. Make it perfectly distinct
    to him. But neither is this all, dear aunt. How the man can so
    accurately remember his flaxen-headed beauty, and yet confound
    her with the daughter of that worthless farmer, with a wild
    humble-bee of a brunette, whose name was Nachodina, and who went
    away, Heaven knows whither,--this, I declare to you, remains
    entirely incomprehensible, and puzzles me quite excessively. For
    it seems as if our pretty cousin, who prides himself on his good
    memory, could change names and persons to a very strange degree.
    Perhaps he feels this obscurely himself, and would have the
    faded image refreshed by your delineation. Hold him tight, I beg
    of you! but try to learn, for our own behoof, how it does stand
    with these Valerinas and Nachodinas, and how many more Inas and
    Trinas have retained their place in his imagination, while the
    poor Ettas and Ilias have vanished. The messenger! The cursed
    messenger!


                       _The Aunt to her Nieces._

                              (DICTATED.)

    Why should we dissemble towards those we have to spend our life
    with? Lenardo, with all his peculiarities, deserves confidence.
    I send him both your letters; from these he will get a view of
    you: and the rest of us, I hope, will erelong unconsciously find
    occasion to depict ourselves before him likewise. Farewell! My
    head is very painful.


                        _Hersilia to her Aunt._

    Why should we dissemble towards those we have to spend our life
    with? Lenardo is a spoiled nephew. It is horrible in you to send
    him our letters. From these he will get no real view of us; and
    I wish, with all my heart, for opportunity to let him view me in
    some other light. You give pain to others, while you are in pain
    yourself, and blind to boot. Quick recovery to your head! Your
    heart is irrecoverable.


                        _The Aunt to Hersilia._

    Thy last note I should likewise have packed in for Lenardo, had
    I happened to continue by the purpose which my irrecoverable
    heart, my sick head, and my love of ease, suggested to me. Your
    letters are not gone. I am just parting with the young man who
    has been for some time living in our circle, who, by the
    strangest chance, has come to know us pretty well, and is,
    withal, of an intelligent and kindly nature. Him I am
    despatching. He undertakes the task with great readiness. He
    will prepare our nephew, and send or bring him. Thus can your
    aunt recollect herself in the course of a rash enterprise, and
    bend into another path. Hersilia also will take thought, and a
    friendly revocation will not long be wanting from her hand.


Wilhelm having accurately and circumstantially fulfilled this task,
Lenardo answered with a smile, “Much as I am obliged to you for what you
tell me, I must still put another question. Did not my aunt, in
conclusion, request you also to inform me of another, and, seemingly, an
unimportant, matter?”

Wilhelm thought a moment. “Yes,” said he then: “I remember. She
mentioned a lady, named Valerina. Of her I was to tell you that she is
happily wedded, and every way well.”

“You roll a stone from my heart,” replied Lenardo. “I now gladly return
home, since I need not fear that my recollection of this girl can
reproach me there.”

“It beseems not me to inquire what relation you have had to her,” said
Wilhelm: “only you may be at ease if in any way you feel concerned for
her fortunes.”

“It is the strangest relation in the world,” returned Lenardo,--“nowise
a love-matter, as you might, perhaps, conjecture. I may confide in you,
and tell it; as, indeed, there is next to nothing to be told. But what
must you think, when I assure you that this faltering in my return, this
fear of revisiting our family, these strange preparatives, and inquiries
how things looked at home, had no other object but to learn, by the way,
how it stood with this young woman?

“For you will believe,” continued he, “I am very well aware that we may
leave people whom we know without finding them, even after a
considerable time, much altered; and so I likewise expect very soon to
be quite at home with my relatives. This single being only gave me
pause: her fortune, I knew, must have changed; and, thank Heaven, it has
changed for the better.”

“You excite my curiosity,” said Wilhelm. “There must be something
singular in this.”

“I, at least, think it so,” replied Lenardo, and began his narrative as
follows:--

“To accomplish, in my youth, the grand adventure of a tour through
cultivated Europe was a fixed purpose, which I had entertained from
boyhood; but the execution of which was, as usually happens in these
things, from time to time postponed. What was at hand attracted me,
retained me; and the distant lost more and more of its charms the more I
read of it or heard it talked of. However, at last, incited by my uncle,
allured by friends who had gone forth into the world before me, I did
form the resolution, and that more rapidly than any one had been
expecting.

“My uncle, who had to afford the main requisite for my enterprise,
directly made this his chief concern. You know him, and the way he
has,--how he still rushes with his whole force on one single object, and
every thing else in the mean while must rest and be silent: by which
means, indeed, he has effected much that seemed to lie beyond the
influence of any private man. This journey came upon him, in some
degree, unawares; yet he very soon took his measures. Some buildings
which he had planned, nay, even begun, were abandoned; and, as he never
on any account meddles with his accumulated stock, he looked about him,
as a prudent financier, for other ways and means. The most obvious plan
was, to call in outstanding debts, especially remainders of rent; for
this, also, was one of his habits, that he was indulgent to debtors, so
long as he himself had, to a certain degree, no need of money. He gave
his steward the list, with orders to manage the business. Of individual
cases we learned nothing: only I heard transiently, that the farmer of
one of our estates, with whom my uncle had long exercised patience, was
at last actually to be ejected; his cautionary pledge, a scanty
supplement to the produce of this prosecution, to be retained, and the
land to be let to some other person. This man was of a religious turn,
but not, like others of his sect among us, shrewd and active withal; for
his piety and his goodness he was loved by his neighbors, but, at the
same time, censured for his weakness, as the master of a house. After
the death of his wife, a daughter, whom we usually named the Nut-brown
Maid, though already giving promise of activity and resolution, was
still too young for taking a decisive management: in short, the man went
back in his affairs; and my uncle’s indulgence had not stayed the
sinking of his fortune.

“I had my journey in my head, and could not quarrel with the means for
accomplishing it. All was ready: packing and sorting went forward; every
moment was becoming full of business. One evening I was strolling
through the park for the last time, to take leave of my familiar trees
and bushes, when all at once Valerina stepped into my way,--for such was
the girl’s name: the other was but a by-name, occasioned by her brown
complexion. She stepped into my way.”

Lenardo paused for a moment, as if considering. “How is this, then?”
said he. “Was her name really Valerina? Yes, surely,” he continued; “but
the by-name was more common. In short, the brown maid came into my path,
and pressingly entreated me to speak a good word for her father, for
herself, to my uncle. Knowing how the matter stood, and seeing clearly
that it would be difficult, nay, impossible, to do her any service at
this moment, I candidly told her so, and set before her the
blameworthiness of her father in an unfavorable light.

“She answered this with so much clearness, and, at the same time, with
so much filial mitigation and love, that quite gained me; and, had it
been my own money, I should instantly have made her happy by granting
her request. But it was my uncle’s income; these were his arrangements,
his orders: with such a temper as his, to attempt altering aught that
had been done was hopeless. From of old I had looked on a promise as in
the highest degree sacred. Whoever asked any thing of me embarrassed me.
I had so accustomed myself to refuse, that I did not even promise what I
purposed to perform. This habit came in good stead in the present
instance. Her arguments turned on individuality and affection, mine on
duty and reason; and I will not deny that at last they seemed too harsh,
even to myself. Already we had more than once repeated our topics
without convincing one another, when necessity made her more eloquent:
the inevitable ruin which she saw before her pressed tears from her
eyes. Her collected manner she entirely lost: she spoke with vivacity,
with emotion; and, as I still kept up a show of coldness and composure,
her whole soul turned itself outwards. I wished to end the scene; but
all at once she was lying at my feet, had seized my hand, kissed it, and
was looking up to me, so good, so gentle, with such supplicating
loveliness, that, in the haste of the moment, I forgot myself. Hurriedly
I said, while raising her from her kneeling posture, ‘I will do what is
possible: compose thyself, my child!’ and so turned into a side-path.
‘Do what is impossible!’ cried she after me. I now knew not what I was
saying, but answered, ‘I will,’ and hesitated. ‘Do it!’ cried she, at
once enlivened, and with a heavenly expression of hope. I waved a
salutation to her, and hastened away.

“To my uncle I did not mean to apply directly; for I knew too well that
with him it was vain to speak about the partial, when his purpose was
the whole. I inquired for the steward; he had ridden off to a distance:
visitors came in the evening, friends wishing to take leave of me. They
supped and played till far in the night. They continued next day, and
their presence effaced the image of my importunate petitioner. The
steward returned: he was busier and more overloaded than ever. All were
asking for him: he had no time to hear me. However, I did make an effort
to detain him; but scarcely had I named that pious farmer, when he
eagerly repelled the proposal. ‘For Heaven’s sake, not a word of this to
your uncle, if you would not have a quarrel with him!’ The day of my
departure was fixed: I had letters to write, guests to receive, visits
in the neighborhood to pay. My servants had been hitherto sufficient for
my wants, but were nowise adequate to forward the arrangements of a
distant journey. All lay on my own hands; and yet, when the steward
appointed me an hour in the night before my departure to settle our
money concerns, I neglected not again to solicit him for Valerina’s
father.

“‘Dear baron,’ said the unstable man, ‘how can such a thing ever come
into your head? To-day already I have had a hard piece of work with your
uncle, for the sum you need is turning out to be far higher than we
reckoned on. This is natural enough, but not the less perplexing. To the
old gentleman it is especially unwelcome, when a business seems
concluded, and yet many odds and ends are found straggling after it.
This is often the case, and I and the rest have to take the brunt of it.
As to the rigor with which the outstanding debts were to be gathered in,
he himself laid down the law to me: he is at one with himself on this
point, and it would be no easy task to move him to indulgence. Do not
try it, I beg of you! It is quite in vain.’

“I let him deter me from my attempt, but not entirely. I pressed him,
since the execution of the business depended on himself, to act with
mildness and mercy. He promised every thing, according to the fashion of
such persons, for the sake of momentary peace. He got quit of me: the
bustle, the hurry of business, increased. I was in my carriage, and had
turned my back on all home concerns.

“A keen impression is like any other wound: we do not feel it in
receiving it. Not till afterwards does it begin to smart and gangrene.
So was it with me in regard to this occurrence in the park. Whenever I
was solitary, whenever I was unemployed, that image of the entreating
maiden, with the whole accompaniment, with every tree and bush, the
place where she knelt, the side-path I took to get rid of her, the whole
scene, rose like a fresh picture before my soul. It was an
indestructible impression, which, by other images and interests, might
indeed be shaded or overhung, but never obliterated. Still, in every
quiet hour, she came before me; and, the longer it lasted, the more
painful did I feel the blame which I had incurred against my principles,
against my custom, though not expressly, only while hesitating, and for
the first time caught in such a perplexity.

“I failed not, in my earliest letters, to inquire of our steward how the
business had turned. He answered evasively. Then he engaged to explain
this point; then he wrote ambiguously; at last he became silent
altogether. Distance increased; more objects came between me and my
home; I was called to many new observations, many new sympathies; the
image faded away, the maiden herself, almost to the name. The
remembrance of her came more rarely before me; and my whim of keeping up
my intercourse with home, not by letters, but by tokens, tended
gradually to make my previous situation, with all its circumstances,
nearly vanish from my mind. Now, however, when I am again returning
home, when I am purposing to repay my family with interest what I have
so long owed it, now at last this strange repentance, strange I myself
must call it, falls on me with its whole weight. The form of the maiden
brightens up with the forms of my relatives: and I dread nothing more
deeply than to learn, that, in the misery into which I drove her, she
has sunk to ruin; for my negligence appears in my own mind an abetting
of her destruction, a furtherance of her mournful destiny. A thousand
times I have told myself that this feeling was at bottom but a weakness;
that my early adoption of the principle, never to promise, had
originated in my fear of repentance, not in any noble sentiment. And now
it seems as if Repentance, which I had fled from, meant to avenge
herself by seizing this incident, instead of hundreds, to pain me. Yet
is the picture, the imagination which torments me, so agreeable withal,
so lovely, that I like to linger over it. And, when I think of the
scene, that kiss which she imprinted on my hand still seems to burn
there.”

Lenardo was silent; and Wilhelm answered quickly and gayly, “It appears,
then, I could have done you no greater service than by that appendix to
my narrative; as we often find in the postscript the most interesting
part of the letter. In truth, I know little of Valerina, for I heard of
her only in passing: but, for certain, she is the wife of a prosperous
land-owner, and lives happily; as your aunt assured me on taking leave.”

“Good and well,” said Lenardo: “now there is nothing to detain me. You
have given me absolution: let us now to my friends, who have already
waited for me too long.” To this Wilhelm answered, “Unhappily I cannot
attend you; for a strange obligation lies on me to continue nowhere
longer than three days, and not to revisit any place in less than a
year. Pardon me, if I am not at liberty to mention the cause of this
singularity.”

“I am very sorry,” said Lenardo, “that we are to lose you so soon; that
I cannot, in my turn, do any thing for you. But, since you are already
in the way of showing me kindness, you might make me very happy if you
pleased to visit Valerina, to inform yourself accurately of her
situation, and then to let me have in writing or in speech (a place of
meeting might easily be found,) express intelligence for my complete
composure.”

This proposal was further discussed: Valerina’s place of residence had
been named to Wilhelm. He engaged to visit her: a place of meeting was
appointed, to which the baron should come, bringing Felix with him, who
in the mean while had remained with the ladies.

Lenardo and Wilhelm had proceeded on their way for some time, riding
together through pleasant fields, with abundance of conversation, when
at last they approached the highway, and found the baron’s coach in
waiting, now ready to revisit, with its owner, the spot it had left
three years before. Here the friends were to part; and Wilhelm, with a
few kindly words, took his leave, again promising the baron speedy news
of Valerina.

“Now, when I bethink me,” said Lenardo, “that it were but a small
circuit if I accompanied you, why should I not visit Valerina myself?
Why not witness with my own eyes her happy situation? You were so
friendly as to engage to be my messenger, why should you not be my
companion? For some companion I must have, some moral counsel; as we
take legal counsel to assist us, when we think ourselves inadequate to
the perplexities of a process.”

Wilhelm’s objections, that the friends at home would be anxiously
expecting the long-absent traveller, that it would produce a strange
impression if the carriage came alone, and other reasons of the like
sort, had no weight with Lenardo; and Wilhelm was obliged at last to
resolve on acting the companion to the baron, a task on which,
considering the consequences that might be apprehended, he entered with
no great alacrity.

Accordingly the servants were instructed what to say on their arrival,
and the two friends now took the road for Valerina’s house. The
neighborhood appeared rich and fertile, the true seat of agriculture.
Especially the grounds of Valerina’s husband seemed to be managed with
great skill and care. Wilhelm had leisure to survey the landscape
accurately, while Lenardo rode in silence beside him. At last the latter
said, “Another in my place would perhaps try to meet Valerina
undiscovered, for it is always a painful feeling to appear before those
whom we have injured; but I had rather front this, and bear the reproach
which I have to dread from her first look, than secure myself from it by
disguise and untruth. Untruth may bring us into embarrassment quite as
well as truth; and, when we reckon up how often the former or the latter
profits us, it really seems most prudent, once for all, to devote
ourselves to what is true. Let us go forward, therefore, with cheerful
minds: I will give my name, and introduce you as my friend and
fellow-traveller.”

They had now reached the house, and dismounted in the court. A portly
man, plainly dressed, whom you might have taken for a farmer, came out
to them, and announced himself as master of the family. Lenardo named
himself; and the landlord seemed highly delighted to see him, and obtain
his acquaintance. “What will my wife say,” cried he, “when she again
meets the nephew of her benefactor? She never tires of recounting and
reckoning up what her father owes your uncle.”

What strange thoughts rushed in rapid disorder through Lenardo’s mind!
“Does this man, who looks so honest-minded, hide his bitterness under a
friendly countenance and smooth words? Can he give his reproaches so
courteous an outside? For did not my uncle reduce that family to misery?
And can the man be ignorant of this? Or,” so thought he to himself, with
quick hope, “has the business not been so bad as thou supposest? For no
decisive intelligence has ever yet reached thee.” Such conjectures
alternated this way and that, while the landlord was ordering out his
carriage to bring home his wife, who, it appeared, was paying a visit in
the neighborhood.

“If, in the mean while, till my wife return,” said the latter, “I might
entertain you in my own way, and at the same time carry on my duties,
say you walk a few steps with me into the fields, and look about you how
I manage my husbandry; for, no doubt, to you, as a great proprietor of
land, there is nothing of more near concernment than the noble science,
the noble art, of agriculture.”

Lenardo made no objection: Wilhelm liked to gather information. The
landlord had his ground, which he possessed and ruled without
restriction, under the most perfect treatment; what he undertook was
adapted to his purpose; what he sowed and planted was always in the
right place; and he could so clearly explain his mode of procedure, and
the reasons of it, that every one comprehended him, and thought it
possible for himself to do the same,--a mistake one is apt to fall into
on looking at a master, in whose hand all moves as it should do.

The strangers expressed their satisfaction, and had nothing but praise
and approval to pronounce on every thing they saw. He received it
gratefully and kindly, and at last added, “Now, however, I must show you
my weak side, a quality discernible in every one that yields himself
exclusively to one pursuit.” He led them to his court-yard, showed them
his implements, his store of these, and, besides this, a store of all
imaginable sorts of farm-gear, with its appurtenances, kept by way of
specimen. “I am often blamed,” said he, “for going too far in this
matter; but I cannot quite blame myself. Happy is he to whom his
business itself becomes a puppet, who, at length, can play with it, and
amuse himself with what his situation makes his duty.”

The two friends were not behindhand with their questions and
examinations. Wilhelm, in particular, delighted in the general
observations which this man appeared to have a turn for making, and
failed not to answer them; while the baron, more immersed in his own
thoughts, took silent pleasure in the happiness of Valerina, which, in
this situation, he reckoned sure, yet felt underhand a certain faint
shadow of dissatisfaction, of which he could give himself no account.

The party had returned within doors, when the lady’s carriage drove up.
They hastened out to meet her; but what was Lenardo’s amazement, his
fright, when she stepped forth! This was not the person: this was no
nut-brown maid, but directly the reverse,--a fair, slim form, in truth,
but light-haired, and possessing all the charms which belonged to that
complexion.

This beauty, this grace, affrighted Lenardo. His eyes had sought the
brown maiden: now quite a different figure glanced before them. These
features, too, he recollected; her words, her manners, soon banished all
uncertainty; it was the daughter of the lawyer, a man who stood in high
favor with the uncle; for which reason also the dowry had been so
handsome, and the new pair so generously dealt with. All this, and much
more, was gayly recounted by the young wife as an introductory
salutation, and with such a joy as the surprise of an unexpected meeting
naturally gives rise to. The question, whether they could recognize each
other, was mutually put and answered: the changes in look were talked
of, which in persons of that age are found notable enough. Valerina was
at all times agreeable, but lovely in a high degree when any joyful
feeling raised her above her usual level of indifference. The company
grew talkative: the conversation became so lively that Lenardo was
enabled to compose himself and hide his confusion. Wilhelm, to whom he
had very soon given a sign of this strange incident, did his best to
help him; and Valerina’s little touch of vanity in thinking that the
baron, even before visiting his own friends, had remembered her, and
come to see her, excluded any shadow of suspicion that another purpose,
or a misconception, could be concerned in the affair.

The party kept together till a late hour, though the two friends were
longing for a confidential dialogue; which, accordingly, commenced the
moment they were left alone in their allotted chambers.

“It appears,” said Lenardo, “I am not to get rid of this secret pain. A
luckless confusion of names, I now observe, redoubles it. This
fair-haired beauty I have often seen playing with the brunette, who
could not be called a beauty; nay, I myself have often run about with
them over the fields and gardens, though so much older than they.
Neither of them made the slightest impression on me: I have but retained
the name of the one and applied it to the other. And now her who does
not concern me I find happy above measure in her own way; while the
other is cast forth, who knows whither? into the wide world.”

Next morning the friends were up almost sooner than their active
entertainers. The happiness of seeing her guests had also awakened
Valerina early. She little fancied with what feelings they came to
breakfast. Wilhelm, seeing clearly, that, without some tidings of the
nut-brown maid, Lenardo must continue in a painful state, led the
conversation to old times, to playmates, to scenes which he himself
knew, and other such recollections; so that Valerina soon quite
naturally came to speak of the nut-brown maid, and to mention her name.

No sooner did Lenardo hear the name Nachodina, than he perfectly
remembered it; but, with the name, the figure also, of that supplicant,
returned to him with such violence that Valerina’s further narrative
became quite agonizing to him, as with warm sympathy she proceeded to
describe the distrainment of the pious farmer, his submissive
resignation and departure, and how he went away, leaning on his
daughter, who carried a little bundle in her hand. Lenardo was like to
sink under the earth. Unhappily and happily, she went into a certain
circumstantiality in her details; which, while it tortured Lenardo’s
heart, enabled him, with help of his associate, to put on some
appearance of composure.

The travellers departed amid warm, sincere invitations, on the part of
the married pair, to return soon, and a faint, hollow assent on their
own part. And as a person who stands in any favor with himself takes
every thing in a favorable light; so Valerina explained Lenardo’s
silence, his visible confusion in taking leave, his hasty departure,
entirely to her own advantage, and could not, although the faithful and
loving wife of a worthy gentleman, help feeling some small satisfaction
at this re-awakening or incipient inclination, as she reckoned it, of
her former landlord.

After this strange incident, while the friends were proceeding on their
way, Lenardo thus addressed Wilhelm: “For our shipwreck with such fair
hopes, at the very entrance of the haven, I can still console myself in
some degree for the moment, and go calmly to meet my people, when I
think that Heaven has brought me you, you to whom, under your peculiar
mission, it is indifferent whither or how you direct your path. Engage
to find out Nachodina, and to give me tidings of her. If she be happy,
then am I content; if unhappy, then help her at my charges. Act without
reserve; spare, calculate nothing. I shall return home, shall endeavor
to get intelligence, and send your Felix to you by some trusty person.
Place the boy, as your intention was, where many of his equals are
placed: it is almost indifferent under what superintendence; but I am
much mistaken if, in the neighborhood, in the place where I wish you to
wait for your son and his attendant, you do not find a man that can give
you the best counsel on this point. It is he to whom I owe the training
of my youth, whom I should have liked so much to take along with me in
my travels, whom, at least, I should many a time have wished to meet in
the course of them, had he not already devoted himself to a quiet,
domestic life.”

The friends had now reached the spot where they were actually to part.
While the horses were feeding, the baron wrote a letter, which Wilhelm
took charge of, yet, for the rest, could not help communicating his
scruples to Lenardo.

“In my present situation,” said he, “I reckon it a desirable commission
to deliver a generous man from distress of mind, and, at the same time,
to free a human creature from misery, if she happen to be miserable.
Such an object one may look upon as a star, towards which one sails, not
knowing what awaits him, what he is to meet, by the way. Yet, with all
this, I must not be blind to the danger which, in every case, still
hovers over you. Were you not a man who regularly avoids engagements, I
should require a promise from you not again to see this female, who has
come to be so precious in your eyes, but to content yourself when I
announce to you that all is well with her, be it that I actually find
her happy, or am enabled to make her so. But, having neither power nor
wish to extort a promise from you, I conjure you by all you reckon dear
and sacred, for your own sake, for that of your kindred, and of me, your
new-acquired friend, to allow yourself no approximation to that lost
maiden under what pretext soever; not to require of me that I mention or
describe the place where I find her, or the neighborhood where I leave
her; but to believe my word that she is well, and be enfranchised and at
peace.”

Lenardo gave a smile, and answered, “Perform this service for me, and I
shall be grateful. What you are willing and able to do, I commit to your
own hands; and, for my self, leave me to time, to common sense, and, if
possible, to reason.”

“Pardon me,” answered Wilhelm; “but whoever knows under what strange
forms love glides into our hearts, cannot but be apprehensive on
foreseeing that a friend may come to entertain wishes, which, in his
circumstances, his station, would, of necessity, produce unhappiness and
perplexity.”

“I hope,” said Lenardo, “when I know the maiden happy, I have done with
her.”

The friends parted, each in his own direction.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER IX.


By a short and pleasant road, Wilhelm had reached the town to which his
letter was directed. He found it gay and well built; but its new aspect
showed too clearly, that, not long before, it must have suffered by a
conflagration. The address of his letter let him into the last small,
uninjured portion of the place, to a house of ancient, earnest
architecture, yet well kept, and of a tidy look. Dim windows, strangely
fashioned, indicated an exhilarating pomp of colors from within. Nor, in
fact, did the interior fail to correspond with the exterior. In clean
apartments, everywhere stood furniture, which must have served several
generations, intermixed with very little that was new. The master of the
house received our traveller kindly in a little chamber similarly fitted
up. These clocks had already struck the hour of many a birth and many a
death: every thing which met the eye reminded one that the past might,
as it were, be protracted into the present.

The stranger delivered his letter; but the landlord, without opening it,
laid it aside, and endeavored, in a cheerful conversation, immediately
to get acquainted with his guest. They soon grew confidential; and as
Wilhelm, contrary to his usual habit, let his eye wander inquisitively
over the room, the good old man said to him, “My domestic equipment
excites your attention. You here see how long a thing may last; and one
should make such observations now and then, by way of counterbalance to
so much in the world that rapidly changes, and passes away. This same
teakettle served my parents, and was a witness of our evening family
assemblages; this copper fire-screen still guards me from the fire which
these stout old tongs still help me to mend; and so it is with all
throughout. I had it in my power to bestow my care and industry on many
other things, as I did not occupy myself with changing these external
necessaries, a task which consumes so many people’s time and resources.
An affectionate attention to what we possess makes us rich, for thereby
we accumulate a treasure of remembrances connected with indifferent
things. I knew a young man who got a common pin from his love while
taking leave of her, daily fastened his breast-frill with it, and
brought back this guarded and not unemployed treasure from a long
journeying of several years. In us little men, such little things are to
be reckoned virtue.”

“Many a one, too,” answered Wilhelm, “brings back, from such long and
far travellings, a sharp pricker in his heart, which he would fain be
quit of.”

The old man seemed to know nothing of Lenardo’s situation, though in the
mean while he had opened the letter and read it; for he returned to his
former topics.

“Tenacity of our possessions,” continued he, “in many cases, gives us
the greatest energy. To this obstinacy in myself I owe the saving of my
house. When the town was on fire, some people wished to begin snatching
and saving here too. I forbade this, bolted my doors and windows and
turned out, with several neighbors, to oppose the flames. Our efforts
succeeded in preserving this summit of the town. Next morning all was
standing here as you now see it, and as it has stood for almost a
hundred years.”

“Yet you will confess,” said Wilhelm, “that no man withstands the change
which time produces.”

“That in truth!” said the other; “but he who holds out longest has still
done something.

“Yes: even beyond the limits of our being, we are able to maintain and
secure; we transmit discoveries, we hand down sentiments as well as
property; and, as the latter was my chief province, I have for a long
time exercised the strictest foresight, invented the most peculiar
precautions; yet not till lately have I succeeded in seeing my wish
fulfilled.

“Commonly the son disperses what the father has collected, collects
something different, or in a different way. Yet if we can wait for the
grandson, for the new generation, we find the same tendencies, the same
tastes, again making their appearance. And so at last, by the care of
our pedagogic friends, I have found an active youth, who, if possible,
pays more regard to old possession than even I, and has, withal, a
vehement attachment to every sort of curiosities. My decided confidence
he gained by the violent exertions with which he struggled to keep off
the fire from our dwelling. Doubly and trebly has he merited the
treasure which I mean to leave him,--nay, it is already given into his
hands; and ever since that time our store is increasing in a wonderful
way.

“Not all, however, that you see here is ours. On the contrary, as in the
hands of pawnbrokers you find many a foreign jewel, so with us, I can
show you precious articles, which people, under the most various
circumstances, have deposited with us for the sake of better keeping.”

Wilhelm recollected the beautiful box, which, at any rate, he did not
like to carry with him in his wanderings, and showed it to his landlord.
The old man viewed it with attention, gave the date when it was probably
made, and showed some similar things. Wilhelm asked him if he thought it
should be opened. The old man thought not. “I believe, indeed,” said he,
“it could be done without special harm to the casket; but, as you found
it in so singular a way, you must try your luck on it. For if you are
born lucky, and this little box is of any consequence, the key will
doubtless by and by be found, and in the very place where you are least
expecting it.”

“There have been such occurrences,” said Wilhelm.

“I have myself experienced such,” replied the old man; “and here you
behold the strangest of them. Of this ivory crucifix I have had, for
thirty years, the body with the head and feet in one place. For its own
nature, as well as for the glorious art displayed in it, I kept the
figure laid up in my most private drawer: nearly ten years ago I got the
cross belonging to it, with the inscription, and was then induced to
have the arms supplied by the best carver of our day. Far, indeed, was
this expert artist from equalling his predecessor; yet I let his work
pass, more for devout purposes than for any admiration of its
excellence.

“Now, conceive my delight! A little while ago the original, genuine arms
were sent me, as you see them here united in the loveliest harmony; and
I, charmed at so happy a coincidence, cannot help recognizing in this
crucifix the fortunes of the Christian religion, which, often enough
dismembered and scattered abroad, will ever in the end again gather
itself together at the foot of the cross.”

Wilhelm admired the figure and its strange combination. “I will follow
your counsel,” added he: “let the casket continue locked till the key of
it be found, though it should lie till the end of my life.”

“One who lives long,” said the old man, “sees much collected and much
cast asunder.”

The young partner in the house now chanced to enter, and Wilhelm
signified his purpose of intrusting the box to their keeping. A large
book was thereupon produced, the deposit inscribed in it, with many
ceremonies and stipulations; a receipt granted, which applied in words
to any bearer, but was only to be honored on the giving of a certain
token agreed upon with the owner.

So passed their hours in instructive and entertaining conversation, till
at last Felix, mounted on a gay pony, arrived in safety. A groom had
accompanied him, and was now, for some time, to attend and serve
Wilhelm. A letter from Lenardo, delivered at the same time, complained
that he could find no vestige of the nut-brown maid; and Wilhelm was
anew conjured to do his utmost in searching her out. Wilhelm imparted
the matter to his landlord. The latter smiled, and said, “We must
certainly make every exertion for our friend’s sake: perhaps I may
succeed in learning something of her. As I keep these old, primitive
household goods; so, likewise, have I kept some old, primitive friends.
You tell me that this maiden’s father was distinguished by his piety.
The pious have a more intimate connection with each other than the
wicked, though externally it may not always prosper so well. By this
means I hope to obtain some traces of what you are sent to seek. But, as
a preparative, do you now pursue the resolution of placing your Felix
among his equals, and turning him to some fixed department of activity.
Hasten with him to the great Institution. I will point out the way you
must follow, in order to find the chief, who resides now in one, now in
another, division of his province. You shall have a letter, with my best
advice and direction.”


                ---------------------------------------


                               CHAPTER X.


The pilgrims, pursuing the way pointed out to them, had, without
difficulty, reached the limits of the province, where they were to see
so many singularities. At the very entrance they found themselves in a
district of extreme fertility,--in its soft knolls, favorable to crops;
in its higher hills, to sheep-husbandry; in its wide bottoms, to
grazing. Harvest was near at hand, and all was in the richest
luxuriance; yet what most surprised our travellers was, that they
observed neither men nor women, but, in all quarters, boys and youths
engaged in preparing for a happy harvest,--nay, already making
arrangements for a merry harvest-home. Our travellers saluted several of
them, and inquired for the chief, of whose abode, however, they could
gain no intelligence. The address of their letter was, “To the Chief, or
the Three.” Of this, also, the boys could make nothing: however, they
referred the strangers to an overseer, who was just about mounting his
horse to ride off. Our friends disclosed their object to this man: the
frank liveliness of Felix seemed to please him, and so they all rode
along together.

Wilhelm had already noticed, that, in the cut and color of the young
people’s clothes, a variety prevailed, which gave the whole tiny
population a peculiar aspect: he was just about to question his
attendant on this point, when a still stranger observation forced itself
upon him; all the children, how employed soever, laid down their work,
and turned, with singular, yet diverse, gestures, towards the party
riding past them, or rather, as it was easy to infer, towards the
overseer, who was in it. The youngest laid their arms crosswise over
their breasts, and looked cheerfully up to the sky; those of middle size
held their hands on their backs, and looked smiling on the ground; the
eldest stood with a frank and spirited air; their arms stretched down,
they turned their heads to the right, and formed themselves into a line;
whereas the others kept separate, each where he chanced to be.

The riders having stopped and dismounted here, as several children, in
their various modes, were standing forth to be inspected by the
overseer, Wilhelm asked the meaning of these gestures; but Felix struck
in, and cried gayly, “What posture am I to take, then?”

“Without doubt,” said the overseer, “the first posture,--the arms over
the breast, the face earnest and cheerful towards the sky.”

Felix obeyed, but soon cried, “This is not much to my taste; I see
nothing up there: does it last long? But yes!” exclaimed he joyfully:
“yonder are a pair of falcons flying from the west to the east; that is
a good sign too.”

“As thou takest it, as thou behavest,” said the other, “now mingle among
them as they mingle.” He gave a signal; and the children left their
postures, and again betook them to work or sport as before.

“Are you at liberty,” said Wilhelm then, “to explain this sight, which
surprises me? I easily perceive that these positions, these gestures,
are salutations directed to you.”

“Just so,” replied the overseer: “salutations which, at once, indicate
in what degree of culture each of these boys is standing.”

“But can you explain to me the meaning of this gradation?” inquired
Wilhelm; “for that there is one is clear enough.”

“This belongs to a higher quarter,” said the other: “so much, however, I
may tell you, that these ceremonies are not mere grimaces; that, on the
contrary, the import of them, not the highest, but still a directing,
intelligible import, is communicated to the children; while, at the same
time, each is enjoined to retain and consider for himself whatever
explanation it has been thought meet to give him: they are not allowed
to talk of these things, either to strangers or among themselves; and
thus their instruction is modified in many ways. Besides, secrecy itself
has many advantages; for when you tell a man at once, and
straightforward, the purpose of any object, he fancies there is nothing
in it. Certain secrets, even if known to every one, men find that they
must still reverence by concealment and silence; for this works on
modesty and good morals.”

“I understand you,” answered Wilhelm: “why should not the principle
which is so necessary in material things be applied to spiritual also?
But perhaps in another point you can satisfy my curiosity. The great
variety of shape and color in these children’s clothes attracts my
notice; and yet I do not see all sorts of colors, but a few in all their
shades, from the lightest to the deepest. At the same time I observe
that by this no designation of degrees in age or merit can be intended;
for the oldest and the youngest boys may be alike, both in cut and
color, while those of similar gestures are not similar in dress.”

“On this matter, also,” said the other, “silence is prescribed to me;
but I am much mistaken, or you will not leave us without receiving all
the information you desire.”

Our party continued following the trace of the chief, which they
believed themselves to be upon. But now the strangers could not fail to
notice, with new surprise, that, the farther they advanced into the
district, a vocal melody more and more frequently sounded towards them
from the fields. Whatever the boys might be engaged with, whatever labor
they were carrying on, they accompanied it with singing; and it seemed
as if the songs were specially adapted to their various sorts of
occupation, and in similar cases everywhere the same. If there chanced
to be several children in company, they sang together in alternating
parts. Towards evening appeared dancers likewise, whose steps were
enlivened and directed by choruses. Felix struck in with them, not
altogether unsuccessfully, from horseback, as he passed; and Wilhelm
felt gratified in this amusement, which gave new life to the scene.

“Apparently,” he said to his companion, “you devote considerable care to
this branch of instruction: the accomplishment, otherwise, could not be
so widely diffused and so completely practised.”

“We do,” replied the other: “on our plan, song is the first step in
education; all the rest are connected with it, and attained by means of
it. The simplest enjoyment, as well as the simplest instruction, we
enliven and impress by song; nay, even what religious and moral
principles we lay before our children are communicated in the way of
song. Other advantages for the excitement of activity spontaneously
arise from this practice: for, in accustoming the children to write the
tones they are to utter in musical characters, and, as occasion serves,
again to seek these characters in the utterance of their own voice; and,
besides this, to subjoin the text below the notes,--they are forced to
practise hand, ear, and eye at once, whereby they acquire the art of
penmanship sooner than you would expect; and as all this, in the
long-run, is to be effected by copying precise measurements and
accurately settled numbers, they come to conceive the high value of
mensuration and arithmetic much sooner than in any other way. Among all
imaginable things, accordingly, we have selected music as the element of
our teaching; for level roads run out from music towards every side.”

Wilhelm endeavored to obtain still further information, and expressed
his surprise at hearing no instrumental music. “This is, by no means,
neglected here,” said the other, “but practised in a peculiar district,
one of the most pleasant valleys among the mountains; and there again we
have arranged it so that the different instruments shall be taught in
separate places. The discords of beginners, in particular, are banished
into certain solitudes, where they can drive no one to despair; for you
will confess, that in well-regulated civil society there is scarcely a
more melancholy suffering to be undergone than what is forced on us by
the neighborhood of an incipient player on the flute or violin.

“Our learners, out of a laudable desire to be troublesome to no one, go
forth of their own accord, for a longer or a shorter time, into the
wastes, and strive in their seclusion to attain the merit which shall
again admit them into the inhabited world. Each of them, from time to
time, is allowed to venture an attempt for admission: and the trial
seldom fails of success; for bashfulness and modesty in this, as in all
other parts of our system, we strongly endeavor to maintain and cherish.
That your son has a good voice I am glad to observe: all the rest is
managed with so much the greater ease.”

They had now reached a place where Felix was to stop and make trial of
its arrangements, till a formal reception should be granted him. From a
distance they had been saluted by a jocund sound of music: it was a game
in which the boys were, for the present, amusing themselves in their
hour of play. A general chorus mounted up; each individual of a wide
circle striking in at his time with a joyful, clear, firm tone, as the
sign was given him by the overseer. The latter more than once took the
singers by surprise, when, at a signal, he suspended the choral song,
and called on any single boy, touching him with his rod, to catch by
himself the expiring tone, and adapt to it a suitable song, fitted also
to the spirit of what had preceded. Most part showed great dexterity: a
few who failed in this feat willingly gave in their pledges without
altogether being laughed at for their ill success. Felix was child
enough to mix among them instantly, and in his new task he acquitted
himself tolerably well. The first salutation was then enjoined on him:
he directly laid his hands on his breast, looked upwards, and truly with
so roguish a countenance that it was easy to observe no secret meaning
had yet, in his mind, attached itself to this posture.

The delightful spot, his kind reception, the merry playmates, all
pleased the boy so well that he felt no very deep sorrow as his father
moved away; the departure of the pony was, perhaps, a heavier matter;
but he yielded here also, on learning that in this circle it could not
possibly be kept; and the overseer promised him, in compensation, that
he should find another horse as smart and well broken at a time when he
was not expecting it.

As the chief, it appeared, was not to be come at, the overseer turned to
Wilhelm, and said, “I must now leave you, to pursue my occupations; but
first I will bring you to the Three, who preside over our sacred things.
Your letter is addressed to them likewise, and they together represent
the chief.” Wilhelm could have wished to gain some previous knowledge of
these sacred things; but his companion answered, “The Three will,
doubtless, in return for the confidence you show in leaving us your son,
disclose to you, in their wisdom and fairness, what is most needful for
you to learn. The visible objects of reverence, which I named sacred
things, are collected in this separate circle; are mixed with nothing,
interfered with by nothing; at certain seasons of the year only are our
pupils admitted here, to be taught in their various degrees of culture
by historical and sensible means; and in these short intervals they
carry off a deep enough impression to suffice them for a time, during
the performance of their other duties.”

Wilhelm had now reached the gate of a wooded vale, surrounded with high
walls: on a certain sign the little door opened, and a man of earnest
and imposing look received our traveller. The latter found himself in a
large, beautifully umbrageous space, decked with the richest foliage,
shaded with trees and bushes of all sorts; while stately walls and
magnificent buildings were discerned only in glimpses through this
thick, natural boscage. A friendly reception from the Three, who by and
by appeared, at last turned into a general conversation, the substance
of which we now present in an abbreviated shape.

“Since you intrust your son to us,” said they, “it is fair that we admit
you to a closer view of our procedure. Of what is external you have seen
much that does not bear its meaning on its front. What part of this do
you chiefly wish to have explained?”

“Dignified yet singular gestures of salutation I have noticed, the
import of which I would gladly learn: with you, doubtless, the exterior
has a reference to the interior, and inversely; let me know what this
reference is.”

“Well-formed, healthy children,” replied the Three, “bring much into the
world along with them: Nature has given to each whatever he requires for
time and duration; to unfold this is our duty; often it unfolds itself
better of its own accord. One thing there is, however, which no child
brings into the world with him; and yet it is on this one thing that all
depends for making man in every point a man. If you can discover it
yourself, speak it out.” Wilhelm thought a little while, then shook his
head.

The Three, after a suitable pause, exclaimed, “_Reverence_!” Wilhelm
seemed to hesitate. “Reverence!” cried they a second time. “All want it,
perhaps you yourself.

“Three kinds of gestures you have seen; and we inculcate a threefold
reverence, which, when commingled and formed into one whole, attains its
highest force and effect. The first is, reverence for what is above us.
That posture, the arms crossed over the breast, the look turned joyfully
towards heaven, that is what we have enjoined on young children;
requiring from them thereby a testimony that there is a God above, who
images and reveals himself in parents, teachers, superiors. Then comes
the second, reverence for what is under us. Those hands folded over the
back, and, as it were, tied together; that down-turned, smiling
look,--announce that we are to regard the earth with attention and
cheerfulness: from the bounty of the earth we are nourished; the earth
affords unutterable joys, but disproportionate sorrows she also brings
us. Should one of our children do himself external hurt, blamably or
blamelessly; should others hurt him accidentally or purposely; should
dead, involuntary matter do him hurt,--then let him well consider it;
for such dangers will attend him all his days. But from this posture we
delay not to free our pupil the instant we become convinced that the
instruction connected with it has produced sufficient influence on him.
Then, on the contrary, we bid him gather courage, and, turning to his
comrades, range himself along with them. Now, at last, he stands forth,
frank and bold, not selfishly isolated: only in combination with his
equals does he front the world. Further we have nothing to add.”

“I quite understand it,” said Wilhelm. “Are not the mass of men so
marred and stinted because they take pleasure only in the element of
evil-wishing and evil-speaking? Whoever gives himself to this, soon
comes to be indifferent towards God, contemptuous towards the world,
spiteful towards his equals; and the true, genuine, indispensable
sentiment of self-estimation corrupts into self-conceit and presumption.
Allow me, however,” continued he, “to state one difficulty. You say that
reverence is not natural to man: now, has not the reverence or fear of
barbarous nations for violent convulsions of Nature, or other
inexplicable, mysteriously foreboding occurrences, been heretofore
regarded as the germ out of which a higher feeling, a purer sentiment,
was by degrees to be developed?”

“Fear does accord with Nature,” replied they, “but reverence does not.
Men fear a known or unknown powerful being: the strong seeks to conquer
it, the weak to avoid it; both endeavor to get quit of it, and feel
happy when, for a short season, they have put it aside, and their nature
has, in some degree, regained freedom and independence. The natural man
repeats this operation millions of times in the course of his life; from
fear he struggles to freedom; from freedom he is driven back to fear,
and so makes no advancement. To fear is easy, but grievous; to reverence
is difficult, but satisfactory. Man does not willingly submit himself to
reverence; or, rather, he never so submits himself: it is a higher
sense, which must be communicated to his nature; which only, in some
peculiarly favored individuals, unfolds itself spontaneously, who on
this account, too, have of old been looked upon as saints and gods. Here
lies the worth, here lies the business, of all true religions; whereof
there are, likewise, only three, according to the objects towards which
they direct our devotion.”

The men paused: Wilhelm reflected for a time in silence; but, feeling in
himself no pretension to unfold the meaning of these strange words, he
requested the sages to proceed with their exposition. They immediately
complied. “No religion that grounds itself on fear,” said they, “is
regarded among us. With the reverence to which a man should give
dominion in his mind, he can, in paying honor, keep his own honor: he is
not disunited with himself, as in the former case. The religion which
depends on reverence for what is above us we denominate the ethnic; it
is the religion of the nations, and the first happy deliverance from a
degrading fear: all heathen religions, as we call them, are of this
sort, whatsoever names they may bear. The second religion, which founds
itself on reverence for what is around us, we denominate the
philosophical; for the philosopher stations himself in the middle, and
must draw down to him all that is higher, and up to him all that is
lower: and only in this medium condition does he merit the title of
Wise. Here, as he surveys with clear sight his relation to his equals,
and therefore to the whole human race, his relations likewise to all
other earthly circumstances and arrangements, necessary or accidental,
he alone, in a cosmic sense, lives in truth. But now we have to speak of
the third religion, grounded on reverence for what is beneath us; this
we name the Christian, as in the Christian religion such a temper is
with most distinctness manifested: it is a last step to which mankind
were fitted and destined to attain. But what a task was it, not only to
be patient with the earth, and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a
higher birthplace, but also to recognize humility and poverty, mockery
and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death,--to
recognize these things as divine,--nay, even on sin and crime to look,
not as hinderances, but to honor and love them as furtherances of what
is holy. Of this, indeed, we find some traces in all ages: but the trace
is not the goal; and, this being now attained, the human species cannot
retrograde: and we may say, that the Christian religion, having once
appeared, cannot again vanish; having once assumed its divine shape, can
be subject to no dissolution.”

“To which of these religions do you specially adhere?” inquired Wilhelm.

“To all the three,” replied they; “for in their union they produce what
may properly be called the true religion. Out of those three reverences
springs the highest reverence,--reverence for one’s self; and those
again unfold themselves from this: so that man attains the highest
elevation of which he is capable, that of being justified in reckoning
himself the best that God and Nature have produced,--nay, of being able
to continue on this lofty eminence, without being again, by self-conceit
and presumption, drawn down from it into the vulgar level.”

“Such a confession of faith, developed in this manner, does not repulse
me,” answered Wilhelm: “it agrees with much that one hears now and then
in the course of life; only you unite what others separate.”

To this they replied, “Our confession has already been adopted, though
unconsciously, by a great part of the world.”

“How, then, and where?” said Wilhelm.

“In the creed!” exclaimed they; “for the first article is ethnic, and
belongs to all nations; the second, Christian, for those struggling with
affliction and glorified in affliction; the third, in fine, teaches an
inspired communion of saints, that is, of men in the highest degree good
and wise. And should not, therefore, the Three Divine Persons, under the
similitudes and names of which these threefold doctrines and commands
are promulgated, justly be considered as in the highest sense One?”

“I thank you,” said Wilhelm, “for having pleased to lay all this before
me in such clearness and combination, as before a grown-up person, to
whom your three modes of feeling are not altogether foreign. And now,
when I reflect that you communicate this high doctrine to your children,
in the first place as a sensible sign, then with some symbolical
accompaniment attached to it, and at last unfold to them its deepest
meaning, I cannot but warmly approve of your method.”

“Right,” answered they; “but now we must show you more, and so convince
you the better that your son is in no bad hands. This, however, may
remain for the morrow: rest and refresh yourself, that you may attend us
in the morning, as a man satisfied and unimpeded, into the interior of
our sanctuary.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER XI.


At the hand of the eldest, our friend now proceeded through a stately
portal into a round, or rather octagonal, hall, so richly decked with
pictures, that it struck him with astonishment as he entered. All this,
he easily conceived, must have a significant import; though at the
moment he saw not so clearly what it was. While about to question his
guide on this subject, the latter invited him to step forward into a
gallery, open on the one side, and stretching round a spacious, gay,
flowery garden. The wall, however, not the flowers, attracted the eyes
of the stranger: it was covered with paintings, and Wilhelm could not
walk far without observing that the Sacred Books of the Israelites had
furnished the materials for these figures.

“It is here,” said the eldest, “that we teach our first religion,--the
religion which, for the sake of brevity, I named the ethnic. The spirit
of it is to be sought for in the history of the world; its outward form,
in the events of that history. Only in the return of similar destinies
on whole nations can it properly be apprehended.”

“I observe,” said Wilhelm, “you have done the Israelites the honor to
select their history as the groundwork of this delineation; or, rather,
you have made it the leading object there.”

“As you see,” replied the eldest: “for you will remark, that on the
socles and friezes we have introduced another series of transactions and
occurrences, not so much of a synchronistic as of a symphronistic kind;
since, among all nations, we discover records of a similar import, and
grounded on the same facts. Thus you perceive here, while in the main
field of the picture, Abraham receives a visit from his gods in the form
of fair youths, Apollo, among the herdsmen of Admetus, is painted above
on the frieze. From which we may learn, that the gods, when they appear
to men, are commonly unrecognized of them.”

The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the most part, met with well-known
objects; but they were here exhibited in a livelier and more expressive
manner than he had been used to see them. On some few matters he
requested explanation, and at last could not help returning to his
former question, Why the Israelitish history had been chosen in
preference to all others?

The eldest answered, “Among all heathen religions,--for such also is the
Israelitish,--this has the most distinguished advantages, of which I
shall mention only a few. At the ethnic judgment-seat, at the
judgment-seat of the God of nations, it is not asked, Whether this is
the best, the most excellent nation, but whether it lasts, whether it
has continued. The Israelitish people never was good for much, as its
own leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a thousand times
reproachfully declared: it possesses few virtues, and most of the faults
of other nations; but in cohesion, steadfastness, valor, and, when all
this would not serve, in obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the
most perseverant nation in the world: it is, it was, and will be, to
glorify the name of Jehovah through all ages. We have set it up,
therefore, as the pattern-figure,--as the main figure, to which the
others only serve as a frame.”

“It becomes not me to dispute with you,” said Wilhelm, “since you have
instruction to impart. Open to me, therefore, the other advantages of
this people, or, rather, of its history, of its religion.”

“One chief advantage,” said the other, “is its excellent collection of
Sacred Books. These stand so happily combined together, that, even out
of the most diverse elements, the feeling of a whole still rises before
us. They are complete enough to satisfy, fragmentary enough to excite,
barbarous enough to rouse, tender enough to appease; and for how many
other contradicting merits might not these books, might not this one
book, be praised!”

The series of main figures, as well as their relations to the smaller
which above and below accompanied them, gave the guest so much to think
of, that he scarcely heard the pertinent remarks of his guide, who, by
what he said, seemed desirous rather to divert our friend’s attention
than to fix it on the paintings. Once, however, the old man said, on
some occasion, “Another advantage of the Israelitish religion I must
here mention: it has not embodied its God in any form, and so has left
us at liberty to represent him in a worthy human shape, and likewise, by
way of contrast, to designate idolatry by forms of beasts and monsters.”

Our friend had now, in his short wandering through this hall, again
brought the spirit of universal history before his mind: in regard to
the events, he had not failed to meet with something new. So likewise,
by the simultaneous presentment of the pictures, by the reflections of
his guide, many new views had risen on him; and he could not but rejoice
in thinking that his Felix was, by so dignified a visible
representation, to seize and appropriate for his whole life those great,
significant, and exemplary events, as if they had actually been present,
and transacted beside him. He came at length to regard the exhibition
altogether with the eyes of the child, and in this point of view it
perfectly contented him. Thus wandering on, they had now reached the
gloomy and perplexed periods of the history, the destruction of the city
and the temple, the murder, exile, slavery of whole masses of this
stiff-necked people. Its subsequent fortunes were delineated in a
cunning allegorical way: a real historical delineation of them would
have lain without the limits of true art.

At this point the gallery abruptly terminated in a closed door, and
Wilhelm was surprised to see himself already at the end. “In your
historical series,” said he, “I find a chasm. You have destroyed the
Temple of Jerusalem, and dispersed the people; yet you have not
introduced the divine Man who taught there shortly before, to whom,
shortly before, they would give no ear.”

“To have done this, as you require it, would have been an error. The
life of that divine Man, whom you allude to, stands in no connection
with the general history of the world in his time. It was a private
life, his teaching was a teaching for individuals. What has publicly
befallen vast masses of people, and the minor parts which compose them,
belongs to the general history of the world, to the general religion of
the world,--the religion we have named the first. What inwardly befalls
individuals belongs to the second religion, the philosophical: such a
religion was it that Christ taught and practised, so long as he went
about on earth. For this reason the external here closes, and I now open
to you the internal.”

A door went back; and they entered a similar gallery, where Wilhelm soon
recognized a corresponding series of pictures from the New Testament.
They seemed as if by another hand than the first: all was
softer,--forms, movements, accompaniments, light, and coloring.

“Here,” said the guide, after they had looked over a few pictures, “you
behold neither actions nor events, but miracles and similitudes. There
is here a new world, a new exterior, different from the former; and an
interior, which was altogether wanting there. By miracles and
similitudes a new world is opened up. Those make the common
extraordinary, these the extraordinary common.”

“You will have the goodness,” said Wilhelm, “to explain these few words
more minutely; for, by my own light, I cannot.”

“They have a natural meaning,” said the other, “though a deep one.
Examples will bring it out most easily and soonest. There is nothing
more common and customary than eating and drinking; but it is
extraordinary to transform a drink into another of more noble sort, to
multiply a portion of food that it suffice a multitude. Nothing is more
common than sickness and corporeal diseases; but to remove, to mitigate
these by spiritual or spiritual-like means, is extraordinary; and even
in this lies the wonder of the miracle, that the common and the
extraordinary, the possible and the impossible, become one. With the
similitude again, with the parable, the converse is the case; here it is
the sense, the view, the idea, that forms the high, the unattainable,
the extraordinary. When this embodies itself into common, customary,
comprehensible figure, so that it meets us as if alive, present, actual,
so that we can seize it, appropriate, retain it, live with it as with
our equal, this is a second sort of miracle, and is justly placed beside
the first sort,--nay, perhaps preferred to it. Here a living doctrine is
pronounced, a doctrine which can cause no argument: it is not an opinion
about what is right and wrong; it is right and wrong themselves, and
indisputably.”

This part of the gallery was shorter; indeed, it formed but the fourth
part of the circuit enclosing the interior court. Yet, if in the former
part you merely walked along, you here liked to linger, you here walked
to and fro. The objects were not so striking, not so varied; yet they
invited you the more to penetrate their deep, still meaning. Our two
friends, accordingly, turned round at the end of the space; Wilhelm at
the same time expressing some surprise that these delineations went no
farther than the Supper, than the scene where the Master and his
disciples part. He inquired for the remaining portion of the history.

“In all sorts of instruction,” said the eldest, “in all sorts of
communication, we are fond of separating whatever it is possible to
separate; for by this means alone can the notion of importance and
peculiar significance arise in the young mind. Actual experience of
itself mingles and mixes all things together: here, accordingly, we have
entirely disjoined that sublime Man’s life from its termination. In
life, he appears as a true philosopher,--let not the expression stagger
you,--as a wise man in the highest sense. He stands firm to his point;
he goes on his way inflexibly; and while he exalts the lower to himself,
while he makes the ignorant, the poor, the sick, partakers of his
wisdom, of his riches, of his strength, he, on the other hand, in no
wise conceals his divine origin; he dares to equal himself with
God,--nay, to declare that he himself is God. In this manner is he wont,
from youth upwards, to astound his familiar friends; of these he gains a
part to his own cause, irritates the rest against him, and shows to all
men, who are aiming at a certain elevation in doctrine and life, what
they have to look for from the world. And thus, for the noble portion of
mankind, his walk and conversation are even more instructive and
profitable than his death; for to those trials every one is called, to
this trial but a few. Now, omitting all that results from this
consideration, do but look at the touching scene of the Last Supper.
Here the wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those that are his own utterly
orphaned behind him; and, while he is careful for the good, he feeds
along with them a traitor by whom he and the better are to be
destroyed.”

With these words the eldest opened a door, and Wilhelm faltered in
surprise as he found himself again in the first hall at the entrance.
They had in the mean while, as he now saw, passed round the whole
circuit of the court. “I hoped,” said Wilhelm, “you were leading me to
the conclusion; and you take me back to the beginning.”

“For the present,” said the eldest, “I can show you nothing further:
more we do not lay before our pupils, more we do not explain to them,
than what you have now gone through. All that is external, worldly,
universal, we communicate to each from youth upwards; what is more
particularly spiritual, and conversant with the heart, to those only who
grow up with some thoughtfulness of temper; and the rest, which is
opened only once a year, cannot be imparted save to those whom we are
sending forth as finished. That last religion which arises from the
reverence of what is beneath us; that veneration of the contradictory,
the hated, the avoided,--we give each of our pupils in small portions,
by way of outfit, along with him into the world, merely that he may know
where more is to be had should such a want spring up within him. I
invite you to return hither at the end of a year, to visit our general
festival, and see how far your son is advanced: then shall you be
admitted into the sanctuary of sorrow.”

“Permit me one question,” said Wilhelm: “as you have set up the life of
this divine Man for a pattern and example, have you likewise selected
his sufferings, his death, as a model of exalted patience?”

“Undoubtedly we have,” replied the eldest. “Of this we make no secret;
but we draw a veil over those sufferings, even because we reverence them
so highly. We hold it a damnable audacity to bring forth that torturing
cross and the Holy One who suffers on it, or to expose them to the light
of the sun, which hid its face when a reckless world forced such a sight
on it, to take these mysterious secrets, in which the divine depth of
sorrow lies hid, and play with them, fondle them, trick them out, and
rest not till the most reverend of all solemnities appears vulgar and
paltry. Let so much, for the present, suffice to put your mind at peace
respecting your son, and to convince you, that, on meeting him again,
you will find him trained, more or less, in one department or another,
but at least in a proper way, and, at all events, not wavering,
perplexed, and unstable.”

Wilhelm still lingered, looking at the pictures in this entrance-hall,
and wishing to get explanation of their meaning. “This, too,” said the
eldest, “we must still owe you for a twelvemonth. The instruction which,
in the interim, we give the children, no stranger is allowed to witness:
then, however, come to us; and you will hear what our best speakers
think it serviceable to make public on these matters.”

Shortly after this conversation a knocking was heard at the little gate.
The overseer of last night announced himself; he had brought out
Wilhelm’s horse: and so our friend took leave of the Three, who, as he
set out, consigned him to the overseer with these words: “This man is
now numbered among the trusted, and thou understandest what thou hast to
tell him in answer to his questions; for, doubtless, he still wishes to
be informed on much that he has seen and heard while here: purpose and
circumstance are known to thee.”

Wilhelm had, in fact, some more questions on his mind; and these he
erelong put into words. As they rode along they were saluted by the
children as on the preceding evening; but to-day, though rarely, he now
and then observed a boy who did not pause in his work to salute the
overseer, but let him pass unheeded. Wilhelm asked the cause of this,
and what such an exception meant. His companion answered, “It is full of
meaning, for it is the highest punishment we inflict on our pupils: they
are declared unworthy to show reverence, and obliged to exhibit
themselves as rude and uncultivated natures; but they do their utmost to
get free of this situation, and in general adapt themselves with great
rapidity to any duty. Should a young creature, on the other hand,
obdurately make no attempt at return and amendment, he is then sent back
to his parents with a brief but pointed statement of his case. Whoever
cannot suit himself to the regulations must leave the district where
they are in force.”

Another circumstance excited Wilhelm’s curiosity to-day as it had done
yesterday,--the variety of color and shape apparent in the dress of the
pupils. Hereby no gradation could be indicated; for children who saluted
differently were sometimes clothed alike, and others agreeing in
salutation differed in apparel. Wilhelm inquired the reason of this
seeming contradiction. “It will be explained,” said the other, “when I
tell you, that, by this means, we endeavor to find out the children’s
several characters. With all our general strictness and regularity, we
allow in this point a certain latitude of choice. Within the limits of
our own stores of cloths and garnitures the pupils are permitted to
select what color they please; and so, likewise, within moderate limits,
in regard to shape and cut. Their procedure in these matters we
accurately note; for, by the color, we discover their turn of thinking;
by the cut, their turn of acting. However, a decisive judgment in this
is rendered difficult by one peculiar property of human nature,--by the
tendency to imitate, the inclination to unite with something. It is very
seldom that a pupil fancies any dress that has not been already there:
for most part, they select something known, something which they see
before their eyes. Yet this also we find worth observing: by such
external circumstances they declare themselves of one party or another;
they unite with this or that; and thus some general features of their
characters are indicated; we perceive whither each tends, what example
he follows.

“We have had cases where the dispositions of our children verged to
generality, where one fashion threatened to extend over all, and any
deviation from it to dwindle into the state of exception. Such a turn of
matters we endeavor softly to stop: we let our stores run out; this and
that sort of stuff, this and that sort of decoration, is no longer to be
had: we introduce something new and attractive; by bright colors, and
short, smart shape, we allure the lively; by grave shadings, by
commodious, many-folded make, the thoughtful,--and thus, by degrees,
restore the equilibrium.

“For to uniform we are altogether disinclined: it conceals the
character, and, more than any other species of distortion, withdraws the
peculiarities of children from the eye of their superiors.”

Amid this and other conversation, Wilhelm reached the border of the
province, and this at the point where, by the direction of his
antiquarian friend, he was to leave it, to pursue his next special
object.

At parting, it was now settled with the overseer, that, after the space
of a twelvemonth, Wilhelm should return, when the grand triennial
festival was to be celebrated, on which occasion all the parents were
invited, and finished pupils were sent forth into the tasks of chanceful
life. Then, too, so he was informed, he might visit at his pleasure all
the other districts, where, on peculiar principles, each branch of
education was communicated, and reduced to practice, in complete
isolation and with every furtherance.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER XII.


                         _Hersilia to Wilhelm._

    My valued, and, to speak it plainly, dear friend, you are wrong,
    and yet, as acting on your own conviction, not wrong either. So
    the nut-brown maid is found, then,--found, seen, spoken to,
    known, and acknowledged! And you tell us further, that it is
    impossible to wish this strange person, in her own way, any
    happier condition, or, in her present one, to be of any real
    advantage to her.

    And now you make it a point of conscience not to tell us where
    that wondrous being lives. This you may settle with your own
    conscience, but to us it is unconscionable. You think to calm
    Lenardo by assuring him that she is well. He had said, almost
    promised, that he would content himself with this; but what will
    not the passionate promise for others and themselves! Know,
    then, that the matter is not in the least concluded as it yet
    stands. She is happy, you tell us,--happy by her own activity
    and merit: but the youth would like to learn the How, the When,
    and the Where; and, what is worse than this, his sisters, too,
    would like to learn. Half a year is gone since your departure:
    till the end of another half-year we cannot hope to see you.
    Could not you, like a shrewd and knowing man, contrive to play
    your eternal _Rouge-et-Noir_ in our neighborhood? I have seen
    people that could make the knight skip over all the chess-board
    without ever lighting twice on one spot. You should learn this
    feat: your friends would not have to want you so long.

    But, to set my good will to you in the clearest light, I now
    tell you in confidence, that there are two most enchanting
    creatures on the road: whence I say not, nor whither; described
    they cannot be, and no eulogy will do them justice. A younger
    and an elder lady, between whom it always grieves one to make
    choice,--the former so lovely, that all must wish to be loved by
    her; the latter so attractive, that you must wish to live beside
    her, though she did not love you. I could like, with all my
    heart, to see you hemmed in for three days between these two
    splendors: on the morning of the fourth, your rigorous vow would
    stand you in excellent stead.

    By way of foretaste I send you a story, which, in some degree,
    refers to them: what of it is true or fictitious you can try to
    learn from themselves.


                           THE MAN OF FIFTY.

    The major came riding into the court of the mansion; and
    Hilaria, his niece, was already standing without, to receive him
    at the bottom of the stairs which led up to the apartments.
    Scarcely could he recognize her; for she had grown, both in
    stature and beauty. She flew to meet him: he pressed her to his
    breast with the feeling of a father.

    To the baroness, his sister, he was likewise welcome; and, as
    Hilaria hastily retired to prepare breakfast, the major said
    with a joyful air, “For this time I can come to the point at
    once, and say that our business is finished. Our brother, the
    chief marshal, has at last convinced himself that he can neither
    manage farmers nor stewards. In his lifetime he makes over the
    estates to us and our children: the annuity he bargains for is
    high, indeed, but we can still pay it; we gain something for the
    present, and for the future all. This new arrangement is to be
    completed forthwith. And, as I very soon expect my discharge, I
    can again look forward to an active life, which may secure
    decided advantages to us and ours. We shall calmly see our
    children growing up beside us; and it will depend on us, on
    them, to hasten their union.”

    “All this were well,” said the baroness, “had not I a secret to
    inform thee of, which I myself discovered first. Hilaria’s heart
    is no longer free: on her side thy son has little or nothing to
    hope for.”

    “What sayest thou?” cried the major. “Is it possible? While we
    have been taking all pains to settle economical concerns, does
    inclination play us such a trick? Tell me, love, quick, tell me,
    who is it that has fettered Hilaria’s heart? Or is it, then, so
    bad as this? Is it not, perhaps, some transient impression we
    may hope to efface again?”

    “Thou must think and guess a little first,” replied the
    baroness, and thereby heightened his impatience. It had mounted
    to the utmost pitch, when the entrance of Hilaria, with the
    servants bringing in breakfast, put a negative on any quick
    solution of the riddle.

    The major himself thought he saw the fair girl with other eyes
    than a little while before. He almost felt as if jealous of the
    happy man whose image had been able to imprint itself on a soul
    so lovely. The breakfast he could not relish; and he noticed not
    that all was ordered as he liked to have it, and as he had used
    to wish and require it.

    In this silence and stagnation Hilaria herself almost lost her
    liveliness. The mother felt embarrassed, and led her daughter to
    the harpsichord; but Hilaria’s sprightly and expressive playing
    scarcely extorted any approbation from the major. He wished the
    breakfast and the lovely girl fairly out of the way; and the
    baroness was at last obliged to resolve on breaking up, and
    proposed to her brother a walk in the garden.

    No sooner were they by themselves, than the major pressingly
    repeated his question, to which, after a pause, his sister
    answered, smiling, “If thou wouldst find the happy man whom she
    loves, thou hast not far to go: he is quite at hand; she loves
    _thee_!”

    The major stopped in astonishment, then cried, “It were a most
    unseasonable jest to trick me into such a thought, which, if
    true, would make me so embarrassed and unhappy. For, though I
    need time to recover from my amazement, I see at one glance how
    grievously our circumstances would be disturbed by so
    unlooked-for an accident. The only thing that comforts me, is my
    persuasion that attachments of this sort are apparent merely,
    that a self-deception lurks behind them, and that a good, true
    soul will undoubtedly return from such mistakes, either by its
    own strength, or at least by a little help from judicious
    friends.”

    “I am not of that opinion,” said the baroness: “by all the
    symptoms, Hilaria’s present feeling is a very serious one.”

    “A thing so unnatural I should not have expected from so natural
    a character,” replied the major.

    “So unnatural it is not, after all,” said his sister. “I myself
    recollect having, in my own youth, an attachment to a man still
    older than thou. Thou art fifty,--not so very great an age for a
    German, if, perhaps, other livelier nations do fail sooner.”

    “But how dost thou support thy conjecture?” said the major.

    “It is no conjecture, it is certainty. The details thou shalt
    learn by and by.”

    Hilaria joined them; and the major felt himself, against his
    will, a second time altered. Her presence seemed to him still
    dearer and more precious than before, her manner more
    affectionate and tender: already he began to put some faith in
    his sister’s statement. The feeling was highly delightful,
    though he neither would permit nor confess this to his mind.
    Hilaria was, in truth, peculiarly interesting: her manner
    blended in closest union a soft shyness as towards a lover, and
    a trustful frankness as towards an uncle; for she really, and
    with her whole soul, loved him. The garden lay in all the pomp
    of spring; and the major, who saw so many old trees again
    putting on their vesture, might also believe in the returning of
    his own spring. And who would not have been tempted to it, at
    the side of this most lovely maiden.

    So passed the day with them; the various household epochs were
    gone through in high cheerfulness: in the evening, after supper,
    Hilaria returned to her harpsichord; the major listened with
    other ears than in the morning: one melody winded into another,
    one song produced a second; and scarcely could midnight separate
    the little party.

    On retiring to his room, the major found every thing arranged to
    suit his old habitual conveniences: some copper-plates, even,
    which he liked to look at, had been shifted from other
    apartments; and, his eyes being at last opened, he saw himself
    attended to and flattered in the most minute particulars.

    A few hours’ sleep sufficed on this occasion: his buoyant
    spirits aroused him early. But now he soon found occasion to
    observe that a new order of things carries many inconveniences
    along with it. His old groom, who also discharged the functions
    of lackey and valet, he had not once reproved during many years,
    for all went its usual course in the most rigid order; the
    horses were dressed and the clothes brushed at the proper
    moment: but to-day the master had risen earlier, and nothing
    suited as it used to do.

    Erelong a new circumstance combined with this to ruffle him
    still further. At other times all had been right, as his servant
    had prepared it for him: now, however, on advancing to the
    glass, he found himself not at all as he wished to be. Some gray
    hairs he could not deny, and of wrinkles also there appears to
    have been a trace or two. He wiped and powdered more than usual,
    and was fain at last to let matters stand as they could. Then it
    seemed there were still creases in his coat, and still dust on
    his boots. The old groom knew not what to make of this, and was
    amazed to see so altered a master before him.

    In spite of all these hinderances, the major got down to the
    garden in good time. Hilaria, whom he hoped to find there, he
    actually found. She brought him a nosegay; and he had not the
    heart to kiss her as usual, and press her to his breast. He felt
    himself in the most delightful embarrassment, and yielded to his
    feelings without reflecting whither they might carry him.

    The baroness soon joined them and, directing her brother to a
    note which had just been brought her by a special messenger, she
    cried, “Thou wilt not guess whom this announces to us!”

    “Tell us at once, then,” said the major; and it now appeared
    that an old theatrical friend was travelling by a road not far
    off, and purposing to call for a moment. “I am anxious to see
    him again,” said the major: “he is no chicken now, and I hear he
    still plays young parts.”

    “He must be ten years older than thou,” replied the baroness.

    “He must,” said the major, “from all that I remember.”

    They had not waited long, when a lively, handsome, courteous man
    stepped forward to them. Yet the friends soon recognized each
    other, and recollections of all sorts enlivened the
    conversation. They proceeded to questions, to answers, to
    narratives: they mutually made known their present situations,
    and in a short time felt as if they had never been separated.

    Secret history informs us that this person had, in former days,
    being then a very elegant and graceful youth, the good or bad
    fortune to attract the favor of a lady of rank; that, by this
    means, he had come into perplexity and danger, out of which the
    major, at the very moment when the saddest fate seemed
    impending, had happily delivered him. From that hour he
    continued grateful to the brother as well as to the sister; for
    it was she that, by timeful warning, had originated their
    precautions.

    For a while before dinner the men were left alone. Not without
    surprise, nay, in some measure with amazement, had the major
    viewed, as a whole and in detail, the exterior condition of his
    old friend. He seemed not in the smallest altered, and it was
    not to be wondered at that he could still appear on the stage as
    an actor of youthful parts. “Thou inspectest me more strictly
    than is fair,” said he at last to the major: “I fear thou
    findest the difference between this and by-gone times but too
    great.”

    “Not at all,” replied the major: “on the contrary, it fills me
    with astonishment to find thy look fresher and younger than
    mine; though I know thou wert a firm-set man at the time when I,
    with the boldness of a callow desperado, stood by thee in
    certain straits.”

    “It is thy own fault,” replied the other: “it is the fault of
    all like thee; and, though you are not to be loudly censured for
    it, you are still to be blamed. You think only of the needful:
    you wish to be, not to seem. This is very well so long as one is
    any thing. But when, at last, being comes to recommend itself by
    seeming, and this seeming is found to be even more transient
    than the being, then every one of you discovers that he should
    not have done amiss, if, in his care for what was inward, he had
    not entirely neglected what was outward.”

    “Thou art right,” replied the major, and could scarcely suppress
    a sigh.

    “Perhaps not altogether right,” said the aged youth; “for though
    in my trade it were unpardonable if one did not try to parget up
    the outward man as long as possible, you people need to think of
    other things, which are more important and profitable.”

    “Yet there are occasions,” said the major, “when a man feels
    fresh internally, and could wish, with all his heart, that he
    were fresh externally too.”

    As the stranger could not have the slightest suspicion of the
    major’s real state of mind, he took these words in a soldierly
    sense, and copiously explained how much depended on externals in
    the art military, and how the officer who had so much attention
    to bestow on dress might apply a little also to skin and hair.

    “For example,” continued he, “it is inexcusable that your
    temples are already gray, that wrinkles are here and there
    gathering together, and that your crown threatens to grow bald.
    Now look at me, old fellow as I am! See how I have held out! And
    all this without witchcraft, and with far less pains and care
    than others take, day after day, in spoiling, or at least
    wearying, themselves.”

    The major found this accidental conversation too precious an
    affair to think of ending it soon, but he went to work softly
    and with precaution towards even an old acquaintance. “This
    opportunity, alas! I have lost,” cried he; “and it is past
    recalling now: I must even content myself as I am, and you will
    not think worse of me on that account.”

    “Lost it is not,” said the other, “were not you grave gentlemen
    so stiff and stubborn, did you not directly call one vain if he
    thinks about his person, and cast away from you the happiness of
    being in pleasant company, and pleasing there yourselves.”

    “If it is not magic,” smiled the major, “that you people use for
    keeping yourselves young, it is, at all events, a secret: or, at
    least, you have _arcana_, such as one often sees bepraised in
    newspapers; and from these you pick out the best.”

    “Joke or earnest,” said the other, “thou hast spoken truth.
    Among the many things that have been tried for giving some
    repair to the exterior, which often fails far sooner than the
    interior, there are, in fact, certain invaluable recipes, simple
    as well as compound; which, as imparted to me by brethren of the
    craft, purchased for ready money, or hit upon by chance, I have
    proved, and found effectual. By these I now hold fast and
    persevere, yet without abandoning my further researches. So much
    I may tell thee, and without exaggeration: a dressing-box I
    carry with me beyond all price! A box whose influences I could
    like to try on thee, if we chanced any time to be a fortnight
    together.”

    The thought that such a thing was possible, and that this
    possibility was held out to him so accidentally at the very
    moment of need, enlivened the spirit of the major to such a
    degree that he actually appeared much fresher and brisker
    already: at table, excited by the hope of bringing head and face
    into harmony with his heart, and by eagerness to get acquainted
    with the methods of doing so, he was quite another man; he met
    Hilaria’s graceful attentions with alacrity of soul, and even
    looked at her with a certain confidence, which, in the morning,
    he was far from feeling.

    If the dramatic stranger had contrived, by many recollections,
    stories, and happy hits, to keep up the cheerful humor once
    excited, he so much the more alarmed the major, on signifying,
    when the cloth was removed, that he must now think of setting
    forth, and continuing his journey. By every scheme in his power
    the major strove to facilitate his friend’s stay, at least for
    the night; he pressingly engaged to have horses and relays in
    readiness next morning: in a word, the healing toilet was
    absolutely not to get out of the premises, till once he had
    obtained more light on its contents and use.

    The major saw very well that here no time must be lost: he
    accordingly endeavored, soon after dinner, to take his old
    favorite aside and speak with him in private. Not having the
    heart to proceed directly to the point, he steered towards it
    from afar off, and, taking up the former conversation, signified
    that he, for his part, would willingly bestow more care on his
    exterior, were it not that people, the moment they observed a
    man making such an attempt, marked him down for vain, and so
    deducted from him, in regard to moral esteem, what they felt
    obliged to yield him in regard to sensible.

    “Do not vex me with such phrases!” said his friend: “these are
    words to which society has got accustomed without attaching any
    meaning to them, or, if we take it up more strictly, by which it
    indicates its unfriendly and spiteful nature. If thou consider
    it rightly, what, after all, is this same vanity they make so
    much ado about? Every man should feel some pleasure in himself,
    and happy he who feels it. But, if he does feel it, how can he
    help letting others notice it? How shall he hide, in the midst
    of life, that it gives him joy to be alive? If good society, and
    I mean this exclusively here, only blamed such indications when
    they became too violent; when the joy of one man over his
    existence hindered others to have joy and to show it over
    theirs,--it were good and well; and from this excess the censure
    has, in fact, originally sprung. But what are we to make of that
    strange, prim, abnegating rigor against a thing which cannot be
    avoided? Why should not a display of feeling on the part of
    others be considered innocent and tolerable, which, more or
    less, we from time to time allow ourselves? For it is the
    pleasure one has in himself, the desire to communicate this
    consciousness of his to others, that makes a man agreeable,--the
    feeling of his own grace that makes him graceful. Would to
    Heaven all men were vain! that is, were vain with clear
    perception, with moderation, and in a proper sense: we should
    then, in the cultivated world, have happy times of it. Women, it
    is told us, are vain from the very cradle; yet does it not
    become them, do they not please us the more? How can a youth
    form himself if he is not vain? An empty, hollow nature will, by
    this means, at least contrive to give itself an outward show;
    and a proper man will soon train himself from the outside
    inwards. As to my own share, I have reason to consider myself,
    in this point, a most happy man: for my trade justifies me in
    being vain; and, the vainer I am, the more satisfaction I give.
    I am praised when others are blamed, and have still, in this
    very way, the happiness and the right to gratify and charm the
    public at an age when others are constrained to retire from the
    scene, or linger on it only with disgrace.”

    The major heard with no great joy the issue of these
    reflections. The little word vanity, as he pronounced it, had
    been meant to serve as a transition for enabling him to
    introduce, with some propriety, the statement of his own wish.
    But now he was afraid, if their dialogue proceeded thus, he
    should be led still farther from his aim: so he hastened to the
    point directly.

    “For my own part,” said he, “I should by no means disincline to
    enlist under thy flag, since thou still holdest it to be in
    time, and thinkest I might yet in some degree make up for what
    is lost. Impart to me somewhat of thy tinctures, pomades, and
    balsams; and I will make a trial of them.”

    “Imparting,” said the other, “is a harder task than you suppose.
    Here, for example, it were still to small purpose that I poured
    thee out some liquors from my vials, and left the half of the
    best ingredients in my toilet: the appliance is the hardest. You
    cannot, on the instant, appropriate what is given you. How this
    and that suit together; under what circumstances, in what
    sequence, things are to be used,--all this requires practice and
    study,--nay, study and practice themselves will scarcely profit,
    if one bring not to the business a natural genius for it.”

    “Thou art now, it seems, for drawing back,” said the major.
    “Thou raisest difficulties when I would have thy truly somewhat
    fabulous assertions rendered certain. Thou hast no mind to let
    me try thy words by the test of action.”

    “By such banterings, my friend,” replied the other, “thou
    wouldst not prevail on me to gratify thy wish, if it were not
    that I entertain such affection for thee, and, indeed, first
    made the proposal myself. Besides, if we consider it, man has
    quite a peculiar pleasure in making proselytes; in bringing what
    he values in himself into view also, without himself, on others;
    causing others to enjoy what he enjoys; finding in others his
    own likeness, represented and reflected back to him. In sooth,
    if this is selfishness, it is of the most laudable and lovable
    sort,--that selfishness which has made us men and keeps us so.
    From this universal feeling, then, apart from my friendship to
    thee, I shall be happy in having such a scholar in the great
    youth-renewing art. But, as from a master it may be expected
    that he shall produce no botcher by his training, I confess
    myself a little at a loss how to set about it. I told thee
    already that neither recipes nor instructions would avail: the
    practice cannot be taught by universal rules. For thy sake, and
    from the wish to propagate my doctrine, I am ready to make any
    sacrifice. The greatest my power for the present moment I will
    now propose to thee. I shall leave my servant here,--a sort of
    waiting-man and conjurer,--who, if he does not understand
    preparing every thing, if he has not yet been initiated into all
    the mysteries, can apply my preparations perfectly, and, in the
    first stage of the attempt, will be of great use to thee, till
    once thou have worked thy way so far into the art, that I may
    reveal to thee the higher secrets also.”

    “How!” cried the major, “thou hast stages and degrees in thy art
    of making young? Thou hast secrets, even for the initiated?”

    “No doubt of it,” replied the other. “That were but a sorry art
    which could be comprehended all at once, the last point of which
    could be seen by one just entering its precincts.”

    Without loss of time the waiting-man was formally consigned to
    the major, who engaged to treat him handsomely. The baroness was
    called on for drawers, boxes, glasses, to what purpose she knew
    not; the partition of the toilet-store went forward; the friends
    kept together in a gay and sprightly mood till after nightfall.
    At moonrise, some time later, the guest took his leave,
    promising erelong to return.

    The major reached his chamber pretty much fatigued. He had risen
    early, had not spared himself throughout the day, and now hoped
    very soon to get to bed. But here, instead of one servant, he
    found two. The old groom, in his old way, rapidly undressed him;
    but now the waiting-man stepped forth, and signified, that, for
    appliances of a renovating and cosmetic nature, the peculiar
    season was night, that so their effects, assisted by a peaceful
    sleep, might be stronger and safer. The major was obliged to
    content himself, and let his head be anointed, his face painted,
    his eyebrows pencilled, and his lips tipped with salve. Besides
    all this, there were various ceremonies still required; nay, the
    very night-cap was not to be put on immediately, not till a net,
    or even a fine-leather cap, had been drawn on next the head.

    The major laid himself in bed with a sort of unpleasant feeling,
    which, however, he had no time to investigate the nature of; as
    he very soon fell asleep. But, if we might speak with his
    spirit, we should say he felt a little mummy-like, somewhat
    between a sick man and a man embalmed. Yet the sweet image of
    Hilaria, encircled with the gayest hopes, soon led him into a
    refreshing sleep.

    In the morning, at the proper hour, the groom was ready in his
    place. All that pertained to his master’s equipment lay in
    wonted order on the chairs; and the major was just on the point
    of rising, when the new attendant entered, and strongly
    protested against any such precipitation. He must rest, he must
    wait, if their enterprise were to prosper, if they were to be
    rewarded for their pains and labor. The major now learned that
    he had to rise by and by, to take a slight breakfast, and then
    go into a bath, which was already prepared for him. The
    regulations were inflexible, they required a strict observance;
    and some hours passed away under these occupations.

    The major abridged the resting-time after his bath, and thought
    to get his clothes about him: for he was by nature expeditious,
    and at present he longed to see Hilaria; but in this point also
    his new servant thwarted him, and signified, that in all cases
    he must drop the thought of being in a hurry. Whatever he did,
    it appeared, must be done leisurely and pleasurably; but the
    time of dressing was especially to be considered as a cheerful
    hour for conversation with one’s self.

    The valet’s manner of proceeding completely agreed with his
    words. But, in return, the major, when, on stepping forward to
    the glass, he saw himself trimmed out in the neatest fashion,
    really thought that he was better dressed than formerly. Without
    many words the conjurer had changed the very uniform into a
    newer cut, having spent the night in working at it. An
    apparently so quick rejuvenescence put the major in his
    liveliest mood; so that he felt himself as if renovated, both
    without and within, and hastened with impatient longing to his
    friends.

    He found his sister engaged in looking at the pedigree which she
    had caused to be hung up; the conversation last night having
    turned on some collateral relations, unmarried persons, or
    resident in foreign countries, or entirely gone out of sight,
    from all of whom the baroness and her brother had more or less
    hope of heritages for themselves or their families. They
    conversed a while on these matters, without mentioning the
    circumstance that all their economical cares and exertions had
    hitherto been solely directed to their children. By Hilaria’s
    attachment the whole of this prospect had altered, yet neither
    the major nor his sister could summon courage to mention it
    further at this moment.

    The baroness left the room: the major was standing alone before
    this laconic history of his family; Hilaria stepped in to him;
    she leaned herself on him in a kind, childlike way, looked at
    the parchment, and asked him whom of all these he had known, and
    who of them were still left and living.

    The major began his delineation with the oldest of whom any dim
    recollection remained with him from childhood. Then he proceeded
    farther; painted the characters of several fathers, the likeness
    or unlikeness of their children to them; remarked that the
    grandfather often re-appeared in the grandson; spoke, by the
    way, of the influence of certain women, wedded out of stranger
    families, and sometimes changing the character of whole
    branches. He eulogized the virtue of many an ancestor and
    relative, nor did he hide their failings. Such as had brought
    shame on their lineage he passed in silence. At length he
    reached the lowest lines. Here stood his brother, the chief
    marshal himself, and his sister, and beneath him his son with
    Hilaria at his side.

    “These two look each other straight enough in the face,” said
    the major; not adding what he thought of the matter in his
    heart.

    After a pause Hilaria answered, in a meek, small tone, and
    almost with a sigh, “Yet those, surely, are not to blame who
    look upwards.” At the same time she looked up to him with a pair
    of eyes out of which her whole love was speaking.

    “Do I understand thee rightly?” said the major, turning round to
    her.

    “I can say nothing,” answered she, with a smile, “which you do
    not know already.”

    “Thou makest me the happiest man under the sun,” cried he, and
    fell at her feet. “Wilt thou be mine?”

    “For Heaven’s sake, rise! I am thine forever.”

    The baroness entered. Though not surprised, she rather
    hesitated. “If it be wrong, sister,” said the major, “the blame
    is thine: if it be right, we will thank thee forever.”

    The baroness from youth upwards had so loved her brother that
    she preferred him to all men; and perhaps Hilaria’s attachment
    itself had, if not arisen from this sisterly partiality, at
    least been cherished by it. All three now united in one love, in
    one delight; and thus the happiest hours flew over them. Yet, at
    last, their eyes re-opened to the world around them likewise;
    and this rarely stands in unison with such emotions.

    They now again bethought them of the son. For him Hilaria had
    been destined: this he himself well knew. Directly after
    finishing the business with the chief marshal, the major had
    appointed his son to expect him in the garrison, that they might
    settle every thing together, and conduct these purposes to a
    happy issue. But now, by an unexpected occurrence, the whole
    state of matters had been thrown out of joint; the circumstances
    which before plied into one another so kindly, now seemed to be
    assuming a hostile aspect; and it was not easy to foresee what
    turn the affair would take, what temper would seize the
    individuals concerned in it.

    Meanwhile the major was obliged to resolve on visiting his son,
    to whom he had already announced himself. Not without
    reluctance, not without singular forecastings, not without pain
    at even for a short time leaving Hilaria, he at last, after much
    lingering, took the road, and, leaving groom and horses behind
    him, proceeded with his cosmetic valet, who had now become an
    indispensable appendage, towards the town where his son resided.

    Both saluted and embraced each other cordially after so long a
    separation. They had much to communicate, yet they did not just
    commence with what lay nearest their hearts. The son went into
    copious talk about his hopes of speedy advancement: in return
    for which the father gave him precise accounts of what had been
    discussed and determined between the elder members of the
    family, both in regard to fortune in general, to the individual
    estates, and every thing pertaining to them.

    The conversation was, in some degree, beginning to flag, when
    the son took heart, and said to his father, with a smile, “You
    treat me very tenderly, dear father; and I thank you for it. You
    tell me of properties and fortune, and mention not the terms
    under which, at least in part, they are to be mine: you keep
    back the name of Hilaria; you expect that I should bring it
    forth, that I should express my desire to be speedily united
    with that amiable maiden.”

    At these words the major felt in great perplexity; but as,
    partly by nature, partly by old habit, it was his way to collect
    the purpose of the man he had to treat with before stating his
    own, he now said nothing, and looked at the son with an
    ambiguous smile. “You will not guess, father, what I have to
    say,” continued the lieutenant: “I will speak it out briefly,
    and once for all. I can depend on your affection, which, amid
    such manifold care for me, has had due regard for my true
    happiness as well as my fortune. Some time or other it must be
    said: be it said, then, even now, Hilaria cannot make me happy!
    I think of Hilaria as of a lovely relative, towards whom I would
    live all my days with the friendliest feelings; but another has
    awakened my affection, another has found my heart. The
    attachment is irresistible: you will not make me miserable.”

    Not without effort did the major conceal the cheerfulness which
    was rising over his face, and, in a tone of mild seriousness,
    inquire of the son, Who the person was that had so entirely
    subdued him?--“You must see her yourself, father,” said the
    other; “for she can as little be described as comprehended. I
    have but one fear,--that you yourself will be led away by her,
    like every one that approaches her. By Heaven, it will be so;
    and I shall see you the rival of your son!”

    “But who is she?” inquired the major. “If it is not in thy power
    to delineate her personal characteristics, tell me, at least, of
    her outward circumstances: these, at least, may be described.”

    “Well, then, father,” replied the son; “and yet these outward
    circumstances, too, would be different in a different person,
    would act otherwise on another. She is a young widow, heiress of
    an old, rich man lately deceased; independent, and well meriting
    to be so; acquainted with many, loved by just as many, courted
    by just as many; yet, if I mistake not very greatly, in her
    heart wholly mine.”

    With joyful vivacity, as the father kept silence, and gave no
    sign of disapproval, the son proceeded to describe the conduct
    of the fair widow towards him; told of her all-conquering grace;
    recounted one by one her tender expressions of favor; in which
    the father truly could see nothing but the light friendliness of
    a universally courted woman, who, among so many, may indeed
    prefer some one, yet without on that account entirely deciding
    for him. Under any other circumstances he would doubtless have
    endeavored to warn a son, nay, even a friend, of the
    self-deception which might probably enough be at work here; but,
    in the present case, he himself was so anxious for his son’s
    being right, for the fair widow’s really loving him, and as soon
    as possible deciding in his favor, that he either felt no
    scruple of this sort, or banished any such from his mind,
    perhaps even only concealed it.

    “Thou placest me in great perplexity,” began the father, after
    some pause. “The whole arrangement between the surviving members
    of our family depends on the understanding that thou wed
    Hilaria. If she wed a stranger, the whole fair, careful
    combination of a fine fortune falls to the ground again; and
    thou thyself art not too well provided for. There is certainly
    another way still, but one which sounds rather strange, and by
    which thou wouldst gain very little: I, in my old days, might
    wed Hilaria,--a plan which could hardly give thee any very high
    satisfaction.”

    “The highest in the world!” exclaimed the lieutenant; “for who
    can feel a true attachment, who can enjoy or anticipate the
    happiness of love, without wishing every friend, every one whom
    he values, the like supreme felicity? You are not old, father;
    and how lovely is Hilaria! Even the transient thought of
    offering her your hand bespeaks a youthful heart, an unimpaired
    spirit. Let us take up this thought, this project, on the spot,
    and consider and investigate it thoroughly. My own happiness
    would be complete if I knew you happy: I could then rejoice in
    good earnest, that the care you had bestowed on my destiny was
    repaid on your own by so fair and high a recompense. I can now
    with confidence and frankness, and true openness of heart,
    conduct you to my fair one. You will approve of my feelings,
    since you yourself feel: you will not impede the happiness of
    your son, since you are advancing to your own happiness.”

    With these and other importunate words the lieutenant repressed
    many a scruple which his father was for introducing, left him no
    time to calculate, but hurried off with him to the fair widow,
    whom they found in a commodious and splendid house, with a
    select rather than numerous party, all engaged in cheerful
    conversation. She was one of those female souls whom no man can
    escape. With incredible address she contrived to make our major
    the hero of this evening. The rest of the party seemed to be her
    family: the major alone was her guest. His circumstances she
    already knew very well; yet she had the skill to ask about them,
    as if she were wishing, now at last, to get right information on
    the subject from himself: and so, likewise, every individual of
    the company was made to show some interest in the stranger. One
    must have known his brother, a second his estates, a third
    something else concerned with him; so that the major, in the
    midst of a lively conversation, still felt himself to be the
    centre. Moreover, he was sitting next the fair one; her eyes
    were on him, her smile was directed to him: in a word, he felt
    himself so comfortable, that he almost forgot the cause which
    had brought him. She herself scarcely ever mentioned his son,
    though the young man took a keen share in the conversation: it
    seemed as if, in her eyes, he, like all the rest, was present
    only on his father’s account.

    The guests strolled up and down the rooms, and grouped
    themselves into accidental knots. The lieutenant stepped up to
    his fair one, and asked, “What say you to my father?”

    With a smile she replied, “Methinks you might well take him as a
    pattern. Do but look how neatly he is dressed! If his manner and
    bearing are not better than his gentle son’s!” And thus she
    continued to cry up and praise the father at the son’s expense;
    awakening, by this means, a very mixed feeling of contentment
    and jealousy in the young man’s heart.

    Erelong the lieutenant came in contact with his father, and
    recounted all this to him. It made the major’s manner to his
    fair hostess so much the more friendly; and she, on her side,
    began to treat him on a more lively and trustful footing. In
    short, we may say, that, when the company broke up, the major,
    as well as the rest, already belonged to her and to her circle.

    A heavy rain prevented the guests from returning home as they
    had come. Some coaches drove up, into which the walkers arranged
    themselves: only the lieutenant, under the pretext that the
    carriage was already too crowded, let his father drive away, and
    staid behind.

    The major, on entering his apartment, felt actually confused and
    giddy in mind, uncertain of himself; as is the case with us on
    passing rapidly from one state to the opposite. The land still
    seems in motion to a man who steps from shipboard, and the light
    still quivers in the eye of him who comes at once into darkness.
    So did the major still feel himself encircled with the presence
    of that fair being. He wished still to see, to hear her, again
    to see, again to hear her: and, after some consideration, he
    forgave his son; nay, he thought him happy that he might pretend
    to the appropriation of such loveliness.

    From these feelings he was roused by the lieutenant, who, with
    lively expressions of rapture, rushed into the room, embraced
    his father, and exclaimed, “I am the happiest man in the world!”
    After several more of such preliminary phrases, the two at last
    came to an explanation. The father remarked, that the fair lady
    in conversing with him had not mentioned the son, or hinted at
    him by a single syllable. “That is just her soft, silent,
    half-concealing, half-discovering way, by which you become
    certain of your wishes, and yet can never altogether get rid of
    doubt. So was she wont to treat me hitherto; but your presence,
    father, has done wonders. I confess it, I staid behind, that I
    might see her one moment longer. I found her walking to and fro
    in her still shining rooms; for I know it is her custom, when
    the company is gone, no light must be extinguished. She walks
    alone up and down in her magic halls, when the spirits are
    dismissed which she had summoned thither. She accepted the
    pretext under cover of which I came back. She spoke with kind
    grace, though of indifferent matters. We walked to and fro
    through the open doors, along the whole suite of chambers. We
    had wandered several times to the end, into the little cabinet,
    which is lighted only by a dim lamp. If she was beautiful while
    moving under the blaze of the lustres, she was infinitely more
    so when illuminated by the soft gleam of the lamp. We had again
    reached the cabinet; and, in turning, we paused for an instant.
    I know not what it was that forced this audacity on me: I know
    not how I could venture, in the midst of the most ordinary
    conversation, all at once to seize her hand, to kiss that soft
    hand, and to press it to my heart. It was not drawn away.
    ‘Heavenly creature!’ cried I, ‘conceal thyself no longer from
    me. If in this fair heart dwells favor for the happy man who
    stands before thee, disclose it, confess it! The present is the
    best, the highest time. Banish me, or take me to thy arms!’

    “I know not what all I said, what I looked and expressed. She
    withdrew not, she resisted not, she answered not. I ventured to
    clasp her in my arms, to ask her if she would be mine. I kissed
    her with rapture; she pushed me away: ‘Well, yes, then: yes!’ or
    some such words, said she, in a faint tone, as if embarrassed. I
    retired, and cried, ‘I will send my father: he shall speak for
    me.’--‘Not a word to him of this!’ replied she, following me
    some steps. ‘Go away: forget what has happened.’”

    What the major thought we shall not attempt to unfold. He said,
    however, to his son, “What is to be done now, thinkest thou? To
    my mind the affair is, by accident, so well introduced, that we
    may now go to work a little more formally; that perhaps it were
    well if I called there to-morrow, and proposed in thy name.”

    “For Heaven’s sake, no, father!” cried the son: “it would spoil
    the whole business. That look, that tone, must be disturbed and
    deranged by no formality. It is enough, father, that your
    presence accelerates this union without your uttering a word on
    the subject. Yes, it is to you that I owe my happiness! The
    respect which my loved one entertains for you has conquered
    every scruple, and never would your son have found so good a
    moment had not his father prepared it for him.”

    These and such disclosures occupied them till far in the night.
    They mutually settled their plans: the major, simply for form’s
    sake, was to make a parting call, and then set out to arrange
    his marriage with Hilaria; the son was to forward and accelerate
    his, as he should find it possible.


                        _Hersilia’s Postscript._

    Here I break off, partly because I can write no more at present,
    but partly also to fix a thorn in your heart. Now, answer the
    question for yourself: How strangely, from all that you have
    read, must matters stand with these ladies at present! Till now
    they had no mutual relation to each other: they were strangers,
    though each seemed to have the prospect of a marriage which was
    to approximate them. And now we find them in company, but by
    themselves, without male attendance, and wandering over the
    world. What can have passed, what can be to follow? You, my
    worthy sir, will doubtless get quit of the difficulty by
    mournfully exclaiming to yourself, “These, also, are
    renunciants!” And here you are perfectly right: but expectants
    too? This I durst not discover, even if I knew it.

    To show you the way how this amiable pair may be met with on
    your wandering, I adopt a singular expedient. You herewith
    receive a little clipping of a map: when you lay this in its
    place on the full map of the country, the magnetic needle
    painted here will point with its barb to the spot whither the
    desirable are moving. This riddle is not so very hard to read:
    but I could wish, that, from time to time, you would do the like
    for us, and send a little snip of chart over hither; we should
    then, in some measure, understand to what quarter our thoughts
    were to be directed: and how glad should we be if the needle
    were at last attracted by ourselves. May all good be given you,
    and all errors forgiven!


    It is said of women, that they cannot send away a letter without
    tacking postscripts to the end of it. Whatever inferences you
    may draw from the fact, I cannot deny that this is my second
    postscript, and the place, after all, where I am to tell you the
    flower of the whole matter. This arrow-shaft, on the little
    patch of map, Hilaria herself was at the pains to draw and to
    decorate with such dainty plumage: the sharp point, however, was
    the fair widow’s work. Have a care that it do not scratch, or
    perhaps pierce you. Our bargain is, that whenever you meet, be
    this where it may, you are forthwith to present the small shred
    of paper, and so be the sooner and more heartily admitted into
    trust.


                        A WORD FROM THE EDITOR.

That a certain deficiency, perhaps discernible in the parts, certainly
discernible here and there in the whole, cannot, henceforth, be avoided,
we ourselves take courage to forewarn the reader, without fearing
thereby to thwart his enjoyment. In the present task, undertaken truly
with forethought and good heart, we still meet with all the
inconveniences which have delayed the publication of these little
volumes for twenty years. This period has altered nothing for the
better. We still find ourselves in more than one way impeded, at this or
that place threatened with one obstruction or another. For we have to
solve the uncertain problem of selecting from those most multifarious
papers what is worthiest and most important, so that it be grateful to
thinking and cultivated minds, and refresh and forward them in many a
province of life. Now, here are the journals, more or less complete,
lying before us; sometimes communicable without scruple; sometimes,
again by reason of their unimportant, and likewise of their too
important contents, seemingly unfit for insertion.

There are not even wanting sections devoted to the actual world, on
statistic, technical, and other practical external subjects. To cut
these off as incongruous, we do not determine without reluctance; as
life and inclination, knowledge and passion, strangely combining
together, go on here in the straitest union.

Then we come on sketches written with clear views and for glorious
objects, but not so consequent and deep searching that we can fully
approve of them, or suppose, that, in this new and so far advanced time,
they could be readable and influential.

So likewise we fall in with little anecdotes, destitute of connection,
difficult to arrange under heads, some of them, when closely examined,
not altogether unobjectionable. Here and there we discover more complete
narratives, several of which, though already known to the world,
nevertheless demand a place here, and at the same time require
exposition and conclusion. Of poems, also, there is no want; and yet it
is not always easy, not always possible, to decide where they should be
introduced with best regard to the preserving and assisting of their
true tone, which is but too easily disturbed and overturned. If we are
not, therefore, as we have too often done in by-gone years, again to
stop in the middle of this business, nothing will remain for us but to
impart what we possess, to give out what has been preserved. Some
chapters, accordingly, the completion of which might have been
desirable, we now offer in their first hurried form, that so the reader
may not only feel the existence of a want here, but also be informed
what this want is, and complete in his own mind whatever, partly from
the nature of the object, partly from the intervening circumstances,
cannot be presented to him perfectly completed in itself, or furnished
with all its requisite accompaniments.


                ---------------------------------------


                             CHAPTER XIII.


The proposed riddle raised some scruples in Wilhelm’s mind; yet erelong
he began to feel a still attraction in the matter, an impulse of longing
to reach that appointed line, and follow its direction: as, indeed, we
are wont to seize with eagerness any specific object that excites our
imagination, our active faculties, and to wish that we might accomplish
it and partake of it.

A child that, in asking alms of us, puts into our hand a card with five
lottery numbers written on it, we do not lightly turn away unserved; and
it depends on the moment, especially if it be shortly before the
drawing, whether we shall not, with accidentally stimulated hope, quite
against our usual custom, stake heavy shares upon these very numbers.

The wanderer now tried on a large map the little fragment which had been
sent him, and stood surprised, amazed, affrighted, as he saw the needle
pointing straight to Mignon’s native place, to the houses where she had
lived. What his peculiar feelings were, we do not find declared; but
whoever can bring back to memory the end of the _Apprenticeship_, will
in his own heart and mind, without difficulty, call forth the like.

The chief cause, however, why we meet with scantier records of this
excursion than we could have wished, may probably be this: that Wilhelm
chanced to fall in with a young, lively companion of his journey, by
means of whom it became easy to retain for himself and his friends a
vivid and strong remembrance of this pious pilgrimage without any aid of
writing. Unexpectedly he finds himself beside a painter,--one of that
class of persons whom we often see wandering about the world, and still
oftener figuring in romances and dramas, but, in this case, an
individual who showed himself at once to be really a distinguished
artist. The two very soon got acquainted, mutually communicated their
desires, projects, purposes. And now it appears that this skilful
artist, who delights in painting aquatical landscapes, and can decorate
his pieces with rich, well-imagined, well-executed additions and
accompaniments, has been passionately attracted by Mignon’s form,
destiny, and being. He has often painted her already, and is now going
forth to copy from nature the scenes where she passed her early years;
amid these to represent the dear child in happy and unhappy
circumstances and moments, and thus to make her image, which lives in
all tender hearts, present also to the sense of the eye.


The friends soon reach the Lago Maggiore: Wilhelm endeavors by degrees
to find out the places indicated. Rural palaces, spacious monasteries,
ferries and bays, capes and landings, are visited; nor are the dwellings
of courageous and kind-hearted fishermen forgotten, or the cheerfully
built villages along the shore, or the gay mansions on the neighboring
heights. All this the artist can seize, to all of it communicate, by
light and coloring, the feeling suitable for each scene; so that Wilhelm
passes his days and his hours in heart-searching emotion.

In several of the leaves stood Mignon represented on the foreground, as
she had looked and lived: Wilhelm striving by correct description to
assist the happy imagination of his friend, and reduce these general
conceptions within the stricter limits of individuality.

And thus you might see the boy-girl set forth in various attitudes and
manifold expression. Beneath the lofty portal of the splendid
country-house she is standing, thoughtfully contemplating the marble
statues in the hall. Here she rocks herself, plashing to and fro among
the waters, in the fastened boat: there she climbs the mast, and shows
herself as a fearless sailor.

But distinguished beyond all the other pictures was one which the
artist, on his journey hither, and prior to his meeting with Wilhelm,
had combined and painted with all its characteristic features. In the
heart of the rude mountains shines the graceful seeming-boy, encircled
with toppling cliffs, besprayed with cataracts, in the middle of a
motley horde. Never, perhaps, was a grim, precipitous, primeval
mountain-pass more beautifully or expressively relieved with living
figures. The party-colored, gypsy-looking group, at once rude and
fantastic, strange and common, too loose to cause fear, too singular to
awaken confidence. Stout beasts of burden are bearing along, now over
paths made of trees, now down by steps hewn in the rock, a tawdry,
chaotic heap of luggage, round which all the instruments of a deafening
music hang dangling to and fro, to affright the ear from time to time
with rude tones. Amid all this the lovely child, self-collected without
defiance, indignant without resistance, led, but not dragged. Who would
not have looked with pleasure at this singular and impressive picture?
Given in strong characters, frowned the stern obstruction of these
rock-masses, riven asunder by gloomy chasms, towered up together,
threatening to hinder all outgate, had not a bold bridge betokened the
possibility of again coming into union with the rest of the world. Nor
had the artist, with his quick feeling of fictitious truth, forgot to
indicate the entrance of a cave, which you might equally regard as the
natural laboratory of huge crystals, or as the abode of a fabulously
frightful brood of dragons.

Not without a holy fear did our friends visit the marchese’s palace. The
old man was still absent on his travels; but, in this circle also, the
two wanderers, knowing well how to apply and conduct themselves, both
towards spiritual and temporal authorities, were kindly received and
entertained.

The absence of the owner also was to Wilhelm very pleasant; for although
he could have wished to see the worthy gentleman, and would have
heartily saluted him, he felt afraid of the marchese’s thankful
generosity, and of any forced recompense of that true, loving conduct
for which he had already obtained the fairest reward.

And thus our friends went floating in gay boats from shore to shore,
cruising the lake in every direction. It was the fairest season of the
year: and they missed neither sunrise nor sunset, nor any of the
thousand shadings which the heavenly light first bounteously dispenses
over its own firmament, and from thence over lake and land; not
appearing itself in its perfect glory till imaged back from the waters.

A luxuriant vegetable world, planted by Nature, watched over and
forwarded by Art, on every side surrounded them. The first chestnut
forests they had already greeted with welcome; and now they could not
restrain a mournful smile, as, lying under the shade of cypresses, they
saw the laurel mounting up, the pomegranates reddening, orange and
citron trees unfolding themselves in blossoms, and fruit at the same
time glowing forth from the dark foliage.

Through means of his vivid associate, Wilhelm had another enjoyment
prepared for him. Our old friend had not been favored by Nature with the
eye of a painter. Susceptible of visual beauty only in the human form,
he now felt, that by the presence of a companion, alike disposed, but
trained to quite different enjoyments and activities, the surrounding
world also was opened to his sight.

By viewing, under conversational direction, the changing glories of the
region, and still more by concentrated imitation, his eyes were opened,
and his mind freed from all its once obstinate doubts. Hitherto all
copies of Italian scenery had seemed to him suspicious: the sky, he
thought, was too blue; the violet tone of those charming distances was
lovely, but untrue; and the abundant, fresh green too bright and gay;
but now he united in his inmost perceptions with his new friend, and
learned, susceptible as he was, to look at the earth with that friend’s
eyes: and, while Nature unfolded the open secret of her beauty, he could
not but feel an irresistible attraction towards Art as towards her most
fit expositor.

But his pictorial friend quite unexpectedly anticipated his wishes in
another point. The artist had already many times started some gay song,
and thus, in hours of rest, delightfully enlivened and accompanied their
movement when out in long voyages over the water. But now it happened,
that, in one of the palaces they were visiting, he found a curious,
peculiar stringed instrument,--a lute of small size, strong, well toned,
convenient, and portable: he soon contrived to tune it, and then handled
the strings so pleasantly, and so well entertained those about him,
that, like a new Orpheus, he subdued by soft harmonies the usually
rigorous and dry castellan, and kindly constrained him to lend the
instrument for a time, under the condition, that, before departing, the
singer should faithfully return it, and, in the interim, should come
back some Sunday or holiday, and again gratify them by his music.

Quite another spirit now enlivened lake and shore: boat and skiff strove
which should be nearest our friends; even freight and market barges
lingered in their neighborhood; rows of people on the beach followed
their course; when landing they were encircled by a gay-minded throng;
when departing each blessed them with a heart contented, yet full of
longing.

And now, at last, to any third party who had watched our friends, it
must have been apparent enough that their mission was, in fact,
accomplished: all scenes and localities referring to Mignon had been,
not only sketched, but partly brought into light, shade, and color,
partly in warm, mid-day hours, finished with the utmost fidelity. In
effecting this they had shifted from place to place in a peculiar way,
as Wilhelm’s vow frequently impeded them: this, however, they had now
and then contrived to evade by explaining it as valid only on land, and
on water not applicable.

Indeed, Wilhelm himself now felt that their special purpose was
attained; yet he could not deny that the wish to see Hilaria and the
fair widow must also be satisfied if he wished to leave this country
with a free mind. His friend, to whom he had imparted their story, was
no less curious, and already prided himself in the thought, that, in one
of his paintings, there was a vacant space, which, as an artist, he
might decorate with the forms of these gentle persons.

Accordingly, they now cruised to and fro, watching the points where
strangers are wont first to enter this paradise. Their hope of meeting
friends here had already been made known to the boatmen; and the search
had not lasted long when there came in sight a splendid barge, which
they instantly made chase of, and forbore not passionately to grapple
with on reaching it. The dames, in some degree alarmed at this movement,
soon recovered their composure as Wilhelm produced his little piece of
chart; and the two, without hesitation, recognized the arrow which
themselves had drawn on it. The friends were then kindly invited to come
on board the ladies’ barge, which they did without an instant’s delay.

And now let us figure to ourselves these four, as they sit together in
the daintiest apartment, the most blissful world lying round them,
looking in each other’s faces, fanned by soft airs, rocked on glittering
waves. Imagine the female pair, as we lately saw them described; the
male, as they have together for weeks been leading a wayfaring life; and
after a little reflection we behold them all in the most delightful, but
also the most dangerous situation.

For the three who have before, willingly or unwillingly, ranked
themselves in the number of renunciants, we have not the worst to fear:
the fourth, however, may, probably enough, too soon see himself admitted
into that order, like the others.

After crossing the lake several times, and pointing out the most
interesting spots, both on the shore and the islands, our two wanderers
conducted their fair friends to the place they were to pass the night
in; where a dexterous guide, selected for this voyage, had taken care to
provide all possible conveniences. Wilhelm’s vow was now a harsh but
suitable master of the ceremonies; for he and his companion had already
passed three days in this very station, and exhausted all that was
remarkable in the environs. The artist, not restrained by any vow,
begged permission to attend the dames on shore: this, however, they
declined, and so the party separated at some distance from the harbor.

Scarcely had the singer stepped into his skiff, which hastily drew back
from the beach, when he seized his lute, and gracefully began raising
that strangely plaintive song which the Venetian gondoliers send forth
in clear melody from land to sea, and from sea to land. Expert enough in
this feat, which in the present instance proceeded with peculiar
tenderness and expression, he strengthened his voice in proportion to
the increasing distance; so that on the shore you would have thought you
heard him still singing in the same place. He at last laid his lute
aside, trusting to his voice alone, and had the satisfaction to observe
that the dames, instead of retiring into their house, were pleased to
linger on the shore. He felt so inspired that he could not cease, not
even when night and remoteness had withdrawn every thing from view; till
at last his calmer friend reminded him, that, if darkness did favor his
tones, the skiff had already long passed the limits within which these
could take effect.

According to promise, the two parties again met next day on the open
lake. Flying along, they formed acquaintance with the lovely series of
prospects, now standing forth in separate distinction, then gathering
into rows, and seen behind each other, and at last fading away, as the
higher eclipsed the lower; all which, repeating itself in the waters,
affords in such excursions the most varied entertainment. Nor, in the
course of these sights, did the copies of them, from our artist’s
portfolio, fail to awaken thoughts and anticipations of what, in the
present hour, was not imparted. For all such matters the still Hilaria
seemed to have a free and fair feeling.

But, towards noon, singularity again came into play: the ladies landed
alone; the men cruised before the harbor. And now the singer endeavored
to accommodate his music to a shorter distance, where not only the
general, soft, and quickly warbling tone of desire, but likewise a
certain gay, graceful importunity might be expected to tell. And here
now and then some one or other of the songs, for which we stand indebted
to our friends in the “Apprenticeship,” would come hovering over his
strings, over his lips; but out of well-meant regard to the feelings of
his hearers, as well as to his own, he restrained himself in this
particular, and roved at large in foreign images and emotions, whereby
his performance gained in effect, and reached the ear with so much the
more insinuating blandishment. The two friends, blockading the harbor in
this way, would not have recollected the trivial concern of eating and
drinking, had not the more provident fair ones sent them over a supply
of dainty bits, to which an accompanying draught of wine had the best
possible relish.

Every separation, every stipulation, that comes in the way of our
gathering passions, sharpens instead of stifling them; and in this case,
as in others, it may be presumed that the short absence had awakened
equal longing in both parties. At all events, the dames in their gay,
dazzling gondola were very soon to be seen coming back.

This word gondola, however, let us not take up in the melancholy
Venetian meaning: here it signifies a cheerful, commodious, social bark;
which, had our little company been twice as large, would still have been
spacious enough for them.

Some days were spent in this peculiar way, between meeting and parting,
between separation and social union; but, amid the enjoyment of the most
delightful intercourse, departure and bereavement still hovered before
the agitated soul. In presence of the new friends the old came back into
the mind: were these new ones absent, each could not but admit that
already they had taken deep root in his remembrance. None but a composed
and tried spirit, like our fair widow, could in such moments have
maintained herself in complete equilibrium.

Hilaria’s heart had been too deeply wounded to admit of any new entire
impression: but as the grace of a fair scene encircles us of itself with
soothing influences; so, when the mildness of tender-hearted friends
conspires with it, there comes over sense and soul a peculiar mood of
softness, that recalls to us, as in dreaming visions, the past and the
absent, and withdraws the present, as if it were but a show, into
spiritual remoteness. Thus, alternately rocked this way and that,
attracted and repelled, approximated and removed, they wavered and
wended for several days.

Without more narrowly investigating these circumstances, the shrewd,
experienced guide imagined he observed some alteration in the calm
demeanor of his heroines; and when at last the whimsical part of their
predicament became known to him, he contrived here also to devise the
most grateful expedient. For, as our two shipmen were again conducting
the ladies to their usual place of dinner, they were met by another gay
bark, which, falling alongside of theirs, exhibited a well-covered
table, with all the cheerful invitations of a festive repast: the
friends could now wait in company the lapse of several hours, and only
night decided the customary separation.

Happily the artist and Wilhelm had, in their former voyagings,
neglected, out of a certain natural caprice, to visit the most highly
ornamented of all the islands, and had even yet never thought of showing
to their fair friends the many artificial and somewhat dilapidated
curiosities of the place, before these glorious scenes of creation were
entirely gone through. At last, however, new light rose on their minds.
They took counsel with the guide: he contrived forthwith to expedite
their voyage, and all looked on it as the most blissful they had yet
undertaken. They could now hope and expect, after so many interrupted
joys, to spend three whole heavenly days assembled together in a
sequestered abode.

And here we cannot but bestow on this guide our high commendation: he
belonged to that nimble, active, dexterous class, who, in attendance on
successive parties, often travel the same roads; perfectly acquainted
with the conveniences and inconveniences on all of them, they understand
how to use the one and evade the other, and, without leaving their own
profit out of sight, still to conduct their patrons more cheaply and
pleasantly through the country than without such aid would have been
possible.

At this time, also, a sufficient female train, belonging to our dames,
for the first time stepped forth in decided activity; and the fair widow
could now make it one of her conditions, that the friends were to remain
with her as guests, and content themselves with what she called her
moderate entertainment. In this point, too, all prospered; for the
cunning functionary had, on this occasion as on others, contrived to
make so good a use of the letters and introductions which his heroines
had brought with them, that, the owner of the place they were now about
to visit being absent, both castle and garden, kitchen included, were
thrown open for the service of the strangers,--nay, some prospect was
held out, even of the cellar. All things co-operated so harmoniously,
that our wanderers from the very first moment felt themselves as if at
home, as if born lords of this paradise.

The whole luggage of the party was now carried to the island, an
arrangement producing much convenience to all; though the chief
advantage aimed at was, that the portfolios of our artist, now for the
first time all collected together, might afford him means to exhibit in
continuous sequence to his fair hostesses the route he had followed.
This task was undertaken by all parties with delight. Not that they
proceeded in the common style of amateur and artist, mutually
eulogizing: here was a gifted man, rewarded by the most sincere and
judicious praise. But that we fall not into the suspicion of attempting,
with general phrases, to palm on credulous readers what we could not
openly show them, let us here insert the judgment of a critic, who some
years afterwards viewed with studious admiration both the pieces here in
question, and the others of a like or similar sort by the same hand.


    “He succeeds in representing the cheerful repose of
    lake-prospects, where houses in friendly approximation, imaging
    themselves in the clear wave, seem as if bathing in its depths;
    shores encircled with green hills, behind which rise forest
    mountains, and icy peaks of glaciers. The tone of coloring in
    such scenes is gay, mirthfully clear; the distances, as if
    overflowed with softening vapor, which, from watered hollows and
    river valleys, mounts up grayer and mistier, and indicates their
    windings. No less is the master’s art to be praised in views
    from valleys lying nearer the high Alpine ranges, where
    declivities slope down, luxuriantly overgrown, and fresh streams
    roll hastily along by the foot of rocks.

    “With exquisite skill, in the deep, shady trees of the
    foreground, he gives the distinctive character of the several
    species; satisfying us in the form of the whole, as in the
    structure of the branches and the details of the leaves,--no
    less so in the fresh green, with its manifold shadings, where
    soft airs appear as if fanning us with benignant breath, and the
    lights as if thereby put in motion.

    “In the middle ground his lively green tone grows fainter by
    degrees, and at last, on the more distant mountain tops, passing
    into weak violet, weds itself with the blue of the sky. But our
    artist is, above all, happy in his paintings of high Alpine
    regions; in seizing the simple greatness and stillness of their
    character; the wide pastures on the slopes, clothed with the
    freshest green, where dark, solitary firs stand forth from the
    grassy carpet; and from high cliffs foaming brooks rush down.
    Whether he relieve his pasturages with grazing cattle, or the
    narrow, winding, rocky path with mules and laden pack-horses, he
    paints all with equal truth and richness: still introduced in
    the proper place, and not in too great copiousness, they
    decorate and enliven these scenes without interrupting, without
    lessening, their peaceful solitude. The execution testifies a
    master’s hand,--easy with a few sure strokes, and yet complete.
    In his later pieces he employed glittering English, permanent
    colors on paper: these pictures, accordingly, are of
    pre-eminently blooming tone, cheerful, yet, at the same time,
    strong and sated.

    “His views of deep mountain chasms, where round and round
    nothing fronts us but dead rock; where, in the abyss,
    overspanned by its bold arch, the wild stream rages,--are,
    indeed, of less attraction than the former; yet their truth
    excites us: we admire the great effect of the whole, produced at
    so little cost, by a few expressive strokes, and masses of local
    colors.

    “With no less accuracy of character can he represent the regions
    of the topmost Alpine ranges, where neither tree nor shrub any
    more appears; but only, amid the rocky teeth and snow summits, a
    few sunny spots clothe themselves with a soft sward. Beautiful
    and balmy and inviting as he colors these spots, he has here
    wisely forborne to introduce grazing herds; for these regions
    give food only to the chamois, and a perilous employment to the
    wild-hay-men.

    “We shall not deviate from our purpose of bringing the condition
    of these waste scenes as close as possible to the conception of
    our readers, if to this word, wild-hay-man, or _Wildheuer_, we
    subjoin a short explanation. It is a name given to the poorer
    inhabitants of the upland Alpine ranges, who occupy themselves
    in making hay from such grassy spots as are inaccessible to
    cattle. For this purpose they climb, with cramps on their feet,
    the steepest and most dangerous cliffs; or from high crags let
    themselves down by ropes when this is necessary, and so reach
    these grassy patches. The grass once cut and dried to hay, they
    throw it down from the heights into the deeper valleys; where,
    being collected together, it is sold to cattle-owners, with
    whom, on account of its superior quality, it finds a ready
    market.”


These paintings, which must have gratified and attracted any eye, were
viewed by Hilaria, in particular, with great attention; and from her
observations it became clear, that, in this department, she herself was
no stranger. To the artist, least of all, did this continue secret: nor
could approval from any one have been more precious to him than from
this most graceful of all persons. Her companion, therefore, kept
silence no longer, but blamed Hilaria for not coming forward with her
own accomplishment, but lingering in this case as she always did,--now
where the question was not of being praised or blamed, but of being
instructed. A fairer opportunity, she said, might not easily occur.

And now it came to light, when she was thus forced to exhibit her
portfolios, what a talent was lying hid behind this still and most
lovely nature: the capacity had been derived from birth, and diligently
cultivated by practice. She possessed a true eye; a delicate hand, such
as women, accustomed to use it in their dressing and decorating
operations, find available in higher art. You might, doubtless, observe
unsureness in the strokes, and, in consequence, a too undecided
character in the objects: but you could not help admiring the most
faithful execution; though the whole was not seized in its happiest
effect, not grouped and adjusted with the skill of an artist. She is
afraid, you would say, of profaning her object, if she keep not
completely true to it: hence she becomes precise and stiff, and loses
herself in details.

But now, by the great, free talent, by the bold hand of the artist, she
feels rising, awakening within her, whatever genuine feeling and taste
had till now slumbered in her mind: she perceives that she has but to
take heart, and earnestly and punctually to follow some fundamental
maxims which the artist, with penetrating judgment and friendly
importunity, is repeating, and impressing on her. That sureness of
stroke comes of its own accord; she by degrees dwells less on the parts
than on the whole: and thus the fairest capability rises on a sudden to
fulfilment; as a rosebud, which in the evening we passed by unobservant,
breaks forth in the morning at sunrise before our face; and the living,
quivering movement of this lordly blossom, struggling out to the light,
seems almost visible before our eyes.

Nor did this intellectual culture remain without moral effects; for, on
a pure spirit, it produces a magic impression to be conscious of that
heartfelt thankfulness natural towards any one to whom it stands
indebted for decisive instruction. In this case it was the first glad
emotion which had risen in Hilaria’s soul for many a week. To see this
lordly world lying round her day after day, and now at once to feel the
instantly acquired, more perfect gift of representing it! What delight
in figures and tints, to be approaching nearer the Unspeakable! She felt
herself surprised as with a new youth, and could not refuse a peculiar
kindliness to the man who had procured for her such happiness.

Thus did the two sit together: you could scarcely have determined
whether he were readier in communicating secret advantages in art, or
she in seizing them and turning them to practice. The happiest rivalry,
such as too seldom rises between scholar and master, here took place.
Many a time you might observe the friend preparing with some decisive
stroke to influence her drawing; which she, on the other hand, would
gently decline, hastening to do the wished, the necessary, of her own
accord, and always to her master’s astonishment.

The fair widow, in the mean while, walked along the terraces with
Wilhelm, under cypresses and pines, now under vine, now under orange
groves, and at last could not but fulfil the faintly indicated wish of
her new friend, and disclose to him the strange entanglement by which
the two fair pilgrims, cut off from their former ties, and straitly
united to one another, had been sent forth to wander over the world.

Wilhelm, who wanted not the gift of accurately noting what he saw, took
down her narrative some time afterwards in writing: this, as he compiled
it and transmitted it by Hersilia to Natalia, we purpose by and by
communicating to our readers.

The last evening was now come; and a rising, most clear, full moon
concealed the transition from day to night. The party had assembled and
seated themselves on one of the highest terraces, to see distinct and
unimpeded, and glittering in the sheen of east and west, the peaceful
lake, hidden partly in its length, but visible over all its breadth.

Whatever in such circumstances might be talked of, it was natural once
more to repeat the hundred times repeated; to mention the beauties of
this sky, of this water, of this land, under the influences of a strong
sun and milder moon,--nay, exclusively and lyrically to recognize and
describe them.

But what none of them uttered, what each durst scarcely avow to himself,
was the deep, mournful feeling which, stronger or weaker, but with equal
truth and tenderness, was beating in every bosom. The presentiment of
parting diffused itself over present union: a gradual stagnation was
becoming almost painful.

Then at last the singer roused himself, summoned up his resolution; with
strong tones, preluding on his instrument; heedless of the former
well-meant reserve. Mignon’s figure, with the first soft song of the
gentle child, were hovering before him. Passionately hurried over the
limits, with longing touch awakening the sweetly sounding strings, he
began to raise,--


            “Dost know the land where citrons, lemons, grow,
             Gold oranges ’neath dusky foliage”....


Hersilia rose in deepest agitation, and hurried away, veiling her face:
our fair widow, with a motion of refusal, waved her hand towards the
singer; while she caught Wilhelm’s arm with the other. The perplexed and
half-unconscious youth followed Hilaria: Wilhelm, by his more
considerate guide, was led after them. And now, when they stood all four
under the high moonshine, the general emotion was no longer to be
concealed. The women threw themselves into each other’s arms; the men
embraced each other; and Luna was witness of the noblest, chastest
tears. Some recollection slowly returned: they forced themselves
asunder, silent, under strange feelings and wishes, from which hope was
already cut off. And now our artist, whom his friend dragged with him,
felt himself here under the void heaven, in the solemn, lovely hour of
night, initiated in the first stage of renunciation, which those friends
had already passed through, though they now saw themselves again in
danger of being sharply tried.

Not till late had the young men gone to rest; awakening in the early
morning, they took heart; thought themselves now strong enough for a
farewell to this paradise; devised many plans for still, without
violation of duty, at least lingering in the pleasant neighborhood.

While purposing to introduce their projects to this effect, they were
cut short by intelligence, that, with the earliest break of day, the
ladies had departed. A letter from the hand of our Queen of Hearts gave
them more precise information. You might have doubted whether sense
rather than goodness, love rather than friendship, acknowledgment of
merit rather than soft, bashful favor, was expressed in it. But, alas!
in the conclusion stood the hard request, that our two wanderers were
neither to follow their heroines, nor anywhere to seek them; nay, if
they chanced to see each other, they were faithfully to avoid meeting.

And now the paradise, as if by the touch of an enchanter’s rod, was
changed for our friends into an utter desert; and certainly they would
have smiled at themselves had they perceived at this moment how unjust
and unthankful they were on a sudden become to so fair and remarkable a
scene. No self-seeking hypochondriac could so sharply and spitefully
have rated and censured the decay of the buildings, the neglected
condition of the walls, the weathered aspect of the towers, the grassy
obstruction of the walks, the perishing of the trees, the mossiness and
mouldering of the artificial grottos, and whatever else of that sort was
to be observed, as our two travellers now did. By degrees, however, they
settled themselves as circumstances would admit: the artist carefully
packed up his work; they both set sail; Wilhelm accompanying him to the
upper quarter of the lake, where, by previous agreement, the former set
forth on his way to Natalia, to introduce her by his fair
landscape-papers into scenes which, perhaps, she might not soon have an
opportunity of viewing with her eyes. He was at the same time
commissioned to inform her confessionally of the late incident, which
had reduced him to a state such that he might be received with hearty
kindness by the confederates in the vow of renunciation, and with soft,
friendly treatment in the midst of them, be comforted if he could not be
healed.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER XIV.


In this division of our work, the exculpatory “Word from the Editor”
might have been more requisite than even in the foregoing chapter; for
there, though we had not the paintings of the master and his fair
scholar, on which all depended, to exhibit before our readers, and could
neither make the perfection of the finished artist, nor the commencing
stintedness nor rapid development of the art-loving beauty, visible to
their eyes, yet still the description might not be altogether
inefficient, and many genial and thought-exalting matters remained to be
imparted. But here, where the business in hand is a great object, which
one could have wished to see treated in the most precise manner, there
is, unhappily, too little noted down; and we cannot hope that a complete
view will be attained from our communications.

Again, it is to be observed, that in the novel, as in universal history,
we have to struggle with uncertain computations of time, and cannot
always decisively fix what has happened sooner, and what later. We shall
hold, therefore, by the surest points.


That a year must have passed since Wilhelm left the pedagogic province
is rendered certain by the circumstance that we now meet him at the
festival to which he had been invited: but as our wandering renunciants
sometimes unexpectedly dive down and vanish from our sight, and then
again emerge into view at a place where they were not looked for, it
cannot be determined with certainty what track they have followed in the
interim.

Now, however, the traveller advances from the side of the plain country
into the pedagogic province: he comes over fields and pasturages;
skirts, on the dry lea, many a little freshet; sees bushy rather than
woody hills; a free prospect on all sides, over a surface but little
undulated. On such tracks, he did not long doubt that he was in the
horse-producing region; and accordingly he failed not here and there to
observe greater or smaller herds of mares and foals. But all at once the
horizon darkens with a fierce cloud of dust, which, rapidly swelling
nearer and nearer, covers all the breadth of the space, yet at last,
rent asunder by a sharp side wind, is forced to disclose its interior
tumult.

At full gallop rushes forward a vast multitude of these noble animals,
guided and held together by mounted keepers. The monstrous hurly-burly
whirls past the wanderer: a fair boy among the keepers looks at him with
surprise, pulls in, leaps down, and embraces his father.

Now commences a questioning and answering: the boy relates that an
agricultural life had not agreed with him; the harvest-home he had,
indeed, found delightful, but the subsequent arrangements, the ploughing
and digging, by no means so. This the superiors remark, and observe at
the same time that he likes to employ himself with animals: they direct
him to the useful and necessary domestic breeds, try him as a
sequestered herdsman and keeper, and at last promote him to the more
lively equestrian occupation, where accordingly he now, himself a young
foal, has to watch over foals, and to forward their good nourishment and
training under the oversight of skilful comrades.

Father and son, following the herd by various lone-lying spacious
farm-yards, reached the town, or hamlet, near which the great annual
market was held. Here rages an incredible confusion, in which it is hard
to determine whether merchants or wares raise more dust. From all
countries, purchasers assemble here to procure animals of noble blood
and careful training: all the languages of the earth, you would fancy,
meet your ear. Amid all this hubbub, too, rises the lively sound of
powerful wind instruments: every thing bespeaks motion, vigor, and life.

The wanderer meets his overseer of last year, who presents him to the
others: he is even introduced to one of the Three, and by him, though
only in passing, paternally and expressively saluted.

Wilhelm, here again observing an example of exclusive culture and
life-leading, expresses a desire to know in what else the pupils are
practised, by way of counterpoise, that so in this wild, and, to a
certain degree, savage occupation of feeding animals, the youth may not
himself roughen into an animal. And, in answer, he is gratified to
learn, that precisely with this violent and rugged-looking occupation
the softest in the world is united,--the learning and practising of
languages.

“To this,” it was said, “we have been induced by the circumstance, that
there are youths from all quarters of the world assembled here: now, to
prevent them from uniting, as usually happens when abroad, into national
knots, and forming exclusive parties, we endeavor by a free
communication of speech to approximate them.

“Indeed, a general acquaintance with languages is here in some degree
rendered necessary; since, in our yearly market festivals, every
foreigner wishes to converse in his own tones and idiom, and, in the
course of cheapening and purchasing, to proceed with all possible
convenience. That no Babylonish confusion of tongues, however, no
corruption of speech, may arise from this practice, we employ a
different language month by month, throughout the year; according to the
maxim, that, in learning any thing, its first principles alone should be
taught by constraint.

“We look upon our scholars,” said the overseer, “as so many swimmers,
who, in the element which threatened to swallow them, feel with
astonishment that they are lighter, that it bears and carries them
forward; and so it is with every thing that man undertakes.

“However, if any one of our young men show a special inclination for
this or the other language, we neglect not, in the midst of this
tumultuous-looking life, which nevertheless offers very many quiet, idly
solitary, nay, tedious hours, to provide for his true and substantial
instruction. Our riding grammarians, among whom there are even some
pedagogues you would be surprised to discover among these bearded and
beardless centaurs. Your Felix has turned himself to Italian; and, in
the monotonous solitude of his herdsman life, you shall hear him send
forth many a dainty song with proper feeling and taste. Practical
activity and expertness are far more compatible with sufficient
intellectual culture than is generally supposed.”

Each of these districts was celebrating its peculiar festival, so the
guest was now conducted to the instrumental music department. This
tract, skirted by the level country, began from its very border to
exhibit kind and beautifully changing valleys; little trim woods; soft
brooks, by the side of which, among the sward, here and there a mossy
crag modestly stood forth. Scattered, bush-encircled dwellings you might
see on the hillsides: in soft hollows, the houses clustered nearer
together. Those gracefully separated cottages lay so far apart, that
neither tones nor mistones could be heard from one to the other.

They now approached a wide space, begirt with buildings and shady trees,
where crowded, man on man, all seemed on the stretch of expectation and
attention. Just as the stranger entered, there was sent forth from all
the instruments a grand symphony, the full, rich power and tenderness of
which he could not but admire. Opposite the spacious main orchestra was
a smaller one, which failed not to attract his notice: here stood
various younger and elder scholars; each held his instrument in
readiness without playing: these were they who as yet could not, or
durst not, join in with the whole. It was interesting to observe how
they stood, as it were, on the start; and our friend was informed that
such a festival seldom passed over without some one or other of them
suddenly developing his talent.

As, among the instrumental music, singing was now introduced, no doubt
could remain that this also was favored. To the question, What other
sort of culture was here blended in kind union with the chief
employment, our wanderer learned, in reply, that it was poetry, and of
the lyrical kind. In this matter it appeared their main concern was,
that both arts should be developed, each for itself and from itself, but
then also in contrast and combination with each other. The scholars were
first instructed in each according to its own limitations, then taught
how the two reciprocally limit, and again reciprocally free each other.

To poetical rhythm the musical artist opposes measure of tone, and
movement of tone. But here the mastery of Music over Poesy soon shows
itself; for if the latter, as is fit and necessary, keep her quantities
never so steadily in view, still for the musician few syllables are
decidedly short or long: at his pleasure he can overset the most
conscientious procedure of the rhythmer,--nay, change prose itself into
song; from which, in truth, the richest possibilities present
themselves: and the poet would soon feel himself annihilated if he could
not, on his own side, by lyrical tenderness and boldness, inspire the
musician with reverence, and, now in the softest sequence, now by the
most abrupt transitions, awaken new feelings in the mind.

The singers to be met with here are mostly poets themselves. Dancing
also is taught in its fundamental principles, that so all these
accomplishments may regularly spread themselves into every district.

The guest, on being led across the next boundary, at once perceived an
altogether different mode of building. The houses were no longer
scattered into separation, no longer in the shape of cottages: they
stood regularly united, beautiful in their exterior, spacious,
convenient, and elegant within; you here saw an unconfined, well-built,
stately town, corresponding to the scene it stood in. Here the plastic
arts, and the trades akin to them have their home; and a peculiar
silence reigns over these spaces.

The plastic artist, it is true, must still figure himself as standing in
relation to all that lives and moves among men; but his occupation is
solitary: and yet, by the strangest contradiction, there is, perhaps, no
other that so decidedly requires a living accompaniment and society.
Now, here, in that circle, is each in silence forming shapes that are
forever to engage the eyes of men: a holiday stillness reigns over the
whole scene; and did you not here and there catch the picking of
stone-hewers, and the measured stroke of carpenters, who are now busily
employed in finishing a lordly edifice, the air were unmoved by any
sound.

Our wanderer was struck, moreover, by the earnestness, the singular
rigor, with which beginners, as well as more advanced pupils, were
treated: it seemed as if no one, by his own power and judgment,
accomplished any thing, but as if a secret spirit, striving towards one
single great aim, pervaded and vivified them all. Nowhere did you
observe a scheme or sketch: every stroke was drawn with forethought. As
the wanderer inquired of his guide the reason of this peculiar
procedure, he was told, “That imagination was, in itself, a vague,
unstable power, which the whole merit of the plastic artist consisted in
more and more determining, fixing, nay, at last exalting to visible
presence.”

The necessity for sure principles in other arts was mentioned. “Would
the musician,” it was said, “permit his scholar to dash wildly over the
strings,--nay, to invent bars and intervals for himself at his own good
pleasure? Here it is palpable that nothing can be left to the caprice of
the learner: the element he is to work in is irrevocably given; the
implement he is to wield is put into his hands; nay, the very way and
manner of his using it, I mean the changing of the fingers, he finds
prescribed to him; so ordered that the one part of his hand shall give
place to the other, and each prepare the proper path for its follower:
by such determinate co-operation only can the impossible at last become
possible.

“But what chiefly vindicates the practice of strict requisitions, of
decided laws, is that genius, that native talent, is precisely the
readiest to seize them, and yield them willing obedience. It is only the
half-gifted that would wish to put his own contracted singularity in the
place of the unconditional whole, and justify his false attempts under
cover of an unconstrainable originality and independence. To this we
grant no currency: we guard our scholars from all such misconceptions,
whereby a large portion of life, nay, often the whole of life, is apt to
be perplexed and disjointed.

“With genius we love most to be concerned, for this is animated just by
that good spirit of quickly recognizing what is profitable for it.
Genius understands that Art is called Art, because it is _not_ Nature.
Genius bends itself to respect even towards what may be named
conventional; for what is this but agreeing, as the most distinguished
men have agreed, to regard the unalterable, the indispensable, as the
best? And does not such submission always turn to good account?

“Here, too, as in all our departments, to the great assistance of the
teachers, our three reverences and their signs, with some changes
suitable to the nature of the main employment, have been introduced and
inculcated.”

The wanderer, in his further survey, was surprised to observe that the
town seemed still extending; street unfolding itself from street, and so
offering the most varied prospects. The exterior of the edifices
corresponded to their destination: they were dignified and stately, not
so much magnificent as beautiful. To the nobler and more earnest
buildings in the centre of the town the more cheerful were harmoniously
appended; till, farther out, gay, decorated suburbs, in graceful style,
stretched forth into the country, and at last separated into
garden-houses.

The stranger could not fail to remark that the dwellings of the
musicians in the preceding district were by no means to be compared, in
beauty or size, with the present, which painters, statuaries, and
architects inhabited. He was told that this arose from the nature of the
thing. The musician, ever shrouded in himself, must cultivate his inmost
being, that so he may turn it outwards. The sense of the eye he may not
flatter. The eye easily corrupts the judgment of the ear, and allures
the spirit from the inward to the outward. Inversely, again, the plastic
artist has to live in the external world, and to manifest his inward
being, as it were, unconsciously, in and upon what is outward. Plastic
artists should dwell like kings and gods: how else are they to build and
decorate for kings and gods? They must at last so raise themselves above
the common that the whole mass of a people may feel itself ennobled in
and by their works.

Our friend then begged an explanation of another paradox. Why, at this
time, so festive, so enlivening, so tumultuously excited, in the other
regions, the greatest stillness prevailed here, and all labors were
continued?

“A plastic artist,” it was answered, “needs no festival. When he has
accomplished something excellent it stands, as it has long done before
his own eye, now at last before the eye of the world. In his task he
needed no repetition, no new effort, no fresh success; whereas the
musician constantly afflicts himself with all this: and to him,
therefore, the most splendid festival, in the most numerous assemblage,
should not be refused.”

“Yet, at such a season,” replied Wilhelm, “something like an exhibition
might be desirable, in which it would be pleasant to inspect and judge
the triennial progress of your best pupils.”

“In other places,” it was answered, “an exhibition may be necessary:
with us it is not. Our whole being and nature is exhibition. Look round
you at these buildings of every sort, all erected by our pupils, and
this not without plans, a hundred times talked of and meditated; for the
builder must not grope and experiment: what is to continue standing must
stand rightly, and satisfy, if not forever, yet at least for a long
space of time. If we cannot help _committing_ errors, we must _build_
none.

“With statuaries we proceed more laxly, most so of all with painters: to
both we give liberty to try this and that, each in his own way. It
stands in their power to select, in the interior or exterior
compartments of edifices in public places, some space which they may
incline to decorate. They give forth their ideas; and, if these are in
some degree to be approved of, the completion of them is permitted, and
this in two ways: either with liberty, sooner or later, to remove the
work, should it come to displease the artist; or with the condition that
what is once set up shall remain unalterable in its place. Most part
choose the first of these offers, retaining in their own hands this
power of removal; and in the performance they constantly avail
themselves of the best advice. The second case occurs seldomer; and we
then observe that the artist trusts less to himself, holds long
conferences with companions and critics, and by this means produces
works really estimable, and deserving to endure.”

After all this our traveller neglected not to ask, What other species of
instruction was combined with the main one here? and received for
answer, that it was poetry, and of the epic sort.

This to our friend must have seemed a little singular, when he heard
further that the pupils were not allowed to read or hear any finished
poems by ancient or modern poets. “We merely impart to them,” it was
said, “a series of mythuses, traditions, and legends, in the most
laconic form. And now, from the pictorial or poetic execution of these
subjects, we at once discover the peculiar productive gift of the genius
devoted to the one or the other art. Both poet and painter thus labor at
the same fountain; and each endeavors to draw off the water to his own
side to his own advantage, and attain his own required objects with it;
in which he succeeds much better than if he attempted again to fashion
something that has been fashioned already.”

The traveller himself had an opportunity of seeing how this was
accomplished: several painters were busy in a room; a gay young friend
was relating with great minuteness a very simple story; so that he
employed almost as many words as the others did pencil-strokes, to
complete the same exhibition, and round it fully off.

He was told, that, in working together, the friends were wont to carry
on much pleasant conversation; and that in this way several
improvisatori had unfolded their gifts, and succeeded in exciting great
enthusiasm for this twofold mode of representation.

Our friend now reverted his inquiries to the subject of plastic art.
“You have no exhibition,” said he, “and therefore, I suppose, give no
prize either?”

“No,” said the other, “we do not; but here, close by, we can show you
something which we reckon more useful.”

They entered a large hall, appropriately lighted from above: a wide
circle of busy artists first attracted the eye; and from the midst of
these rose a colossal group of figures, elevated with pleasing effect in
the centre of the place. Male and female forms, of gigantic power, in
violent postures, reminded one of that lordly fight between heroic
youths and Amazons, wherein hate and enmity at last issue in mutually
regretful alliance. This strikingly intertwisted piece of art presented
an equally favorable aspect from every point of its circuit. In a wide
ring round it were many artists sitting and standing, each occupied in
his own way,--the painter at his easel, the drawer at his sketch-board:
some were modelling it in full, others in bas-relief: there were even
architects engaged in planning the pedestal, on which a similar group,
when wrought in marble, was to be erected. Each individual was
proceeding by his own method in this task; painters and drawers were
bringing out the group to a plain surface, careful, however, not to
destroy its figures, but to retain as much of it as possible. In the
same manner were works in bas-relief going forward. One man only had
repeated the whole group in a miniature scale, and in certain movements
and arrangements of limbs he really seemed to have surpassed his model.

And now it came out that this man was the maker of the model; who,
before working it in marble, had here submitted his performance, not to
a critical, but to a practical trial, and by accurately observing
whatever any of his fellow-artists in his special department and way of
thought might notice, retain, or alter in the group, was purposing, in
subsequent consideration, to turn all this to his own profit: so that,
when at length the grand work stood finished in marble, though
undertaken, planned, and executed by one, it might seem to belong to
all.

The greatest silence reigned throughout this apartment also; but the
superior raised his voice, and cried, “Is there any of you, then, who,
in presence of this stationary work, can, with gifted words, so awaken
our imagination, that all we here see concreted shall again become
fluid, without losing its character, and so convince us that what our
artist has here laid hold of was indeed the worthiest?”

Called forth on all sides by name, a fair youth laid down his work, and,
as he stepped forward, began a quiet speech, seemingly intended merely
to describe the present group of figures; but erelong he cast himself
into the region of poetry, plunged into the middle of the action, and
ruled this element like a master: by degrees his representation so
swelled and mounted by lordly words and gestures, that the rigid group
seemed actually to move about its axis, and the number of its figures to
be doubled and trebled. Wilhelm stood enraptured, and at last exclaimed,
“Can we now forbear passing over into song itself, into rhythmic
melody?”

“This I should wish to deprecate,” said the overseer; “for, if our
excellent statuary will be candid, he will confess to us that our poet
scarcely pleases him; and this because their arts lie in the most
opposite regions: on the other hand, I durst bet, that here and there a
painter has not failed to appropriate some living touches from the
speech.

“A soft, kindly song, however, I could wish our friend to hear: there is
one, for instance, which you sing to an air so lovely and earnest; it
turns on art in general, and I myself never listen to it without
pleasure.”

After a pause, in which they beckoned to each other, and settled their
arrangements by signs, the following heart and spirit stirring song
resounded in stately melody from all sides:--


              “While inventing and effecting,
                 Artist by thyself continue long:
               The result art thou expecting,
                 Haste and see it in the throng.
               Here in others look, discover
                 What thy own life’s course has been;
               And thy deeds of years past over,
                 In thy fellow-man be seen.

               The devising, the uniting,
                 What and how the forms shall be,
               One thing will the other lighten,
                 And at last comes joy to thee!
               Wise and true what thou impartest,
                 Fairly shaped, and softly done:
               Thus of old the cunning artist
                 Artist-like his glory won.

               As all Nature’s thousand changes
                 But one changeless God proclaim;
               So in Art’s wide kingdoms ranges
                 One sole meaning still the same:
               This is Truth, eternal Reason,
                 Which from Beauty takes its dress,
               And, serene through time and season,
                 Stands for aye in loveliness.

               While the orator, the singer,
                 Pour their hearts in rhyme and prose,
               ’Neath the painter’s busy finger
                 Shall bloom forth Life’s cheerful rose,
               Girt with sisters, in the middle,
                 And with Autumn’s fruitage blent;
               That of life’s mysterious riddle
                 Some short glimpses may be hent.

               Thousand-fold and graceful, show thou
                 Form from forms evolving fair;
               And of man’s bright image know thou
                 That a God once tarried there:
               And, whate’er your tasks or prizes,
                 Stand as brethren one and all;
               While, like song, sweet incense rises
                 From the altar at your call.”


All this Wilhelm could not but let pass, though it must have seemed
paradoxical enough, and, had he not seen it with his eyes, might even
have appeared impossible. But now, when it was explained and pointed out
to him, openly and freely, and in fair sequence, he scarcely needed to
put any further question on the subject. However, he at last addressed
his conductor as follows: “I see here a most prudent provision made for
much that is desirable in life; but tell me further, which of your
regions exhibits a similar attention to dramatic poetry, and where could
I instruct myself in that matter? I have looked round over all your
edifices, and observed none that seemed destined for such an object.”

“In reply to this question, we must not hide from you, that, in our
whole province, there is no such edifice to be seen. The drama
presupposes the existence of an idle multitude, perhaps even of a
populace; and no such class finds harbor with us: for birds of that
feather, when they do not in spleen forsake us of their own accord, we
soon take care to conduct over the marches. Doubt not, however, that in
our Institution, so universal in its character, this point was carefully
meditated; but no region could be found for the purpose, everywhere some
important scruple came in the way. Indeed, who among our pupils could
readily determine, with pretended mirth or hypocritical sorrow, to
excite in the rest a feeling untrue in itself, and alien to the moment,
for the sake of calling forth an always dubious satisfaction? Such
juggleries we reckoned in all cases dangerous, and could not reconcile
with our earnest objects.”

“It is said, however,” answered Wilhelm, “that this far-stretching art
promotes all the rest of whatever sort.”

“Nowise,” answered the other: “it employs the rest, but spoils them. I
do not blame a player for uniting himself with a painter; but the
painter, in such society, is lost. Without any conscience, the player
will lay hold of whatever art or life presents him, and use it for his
fugitive objects, indeed, with no small profit: the painter, again, who
could wish in return to extract advantage from the theatre, will
constantly find himself a loser by it; and so also in the like case will
the musician. The combined arts appear to me like a family of sisters,
of whom the greater part were inclined to good economy, but one was
light-headed, and desirous to appropriate and squander the whole goods
and chattels of the household. The theatre is this wasteful sister: it
has an ambiguous origin, which in no case, whether as art or trade or
amusement, it can wholly conceal.”

Wilhelm cast his eyes on the ground with a deep sigh: for all that he
had enjoyed or suffered on the stage rose at once before his mind; and
he blessed the good men who were wise enough to spare their pupils such
pain, and, out of principle and conviction, to banish such errors from
their sphere.

His attendant, however, did not leave him long in these meditations, but
continued, “As it is our highest and holiest principle, that no talent,
no capacity, be misdirected, we cannot hide from ourselves, that, among
so large a number, here and there a mimical gift will sometimes
decidedly come to light; exhibiting itself in an irresistible desire to
ape the characters, forms, movements, speech, of others. This we
certainly do not encourage: but we observe our pupil strictly; and, if
he continue faithful to his nature, then we have already established an
intercourse with the great theatres of all nations; and so thither we
send any youth of tried capability, that, as the duck on the pond, so he
on the boards, may be forthwith conducted, full speed, to the future
quack-quacking, and gibble-gabbling, of his life.”

Wilhelm heard this with patience, but only with half conviction, perhaps
with some spleen: for so strangely is man tempered, that he may be
persuaded of the worthlessness of any darling object, may turn away from
it, nay, even execrate it, but yet will not see it treated in this way
by others; and perhaps the spirit of Contradiction, which dwells in all
men, never rouses itself more vehemently and stoutly than in such cases.

And the editor of these sheets may himself confess that he lets not this
strange passage through his hands without some touch of anger. Has not
he, too, in many senses, expended more life and faculty than was right
on the theatre? And would these men convince him that this has been an
unpardonable error, a fruitless toil?

But we have no time for appending, in splenetic mood, such remembrances
and after-feelings to the narrative; for our friend now finds himself
agreeably surprised, as one of the Three, and this a particularly
prepossessing one, again comes before his eyes. Kind, open meekness,
announcing the purest peace of soul, came in its refreshing effluences
along with him. Trustfully the wanderer could approach, and feel his
trust returned.

Here he now learned that the chief was at present in the sanctuary,
instructing, teaching, blessing; while the Three had separated to visit
all the regions, and everywhere, after most thorough information
obtained, and conferences with the subordinate overseers, to forward
what was in progress, to found what was newly planned, and thereby
faithfully discharge their high duty.

This same excellent person now gave him a more comprehensive view of
their internal situation and external connections; explained to him the
mutual influences of one region on another; and also by what steps,
after a longer or a shorter date, a pupil could be transferred from the
one to the other. All this harmonized completely with what he already
knew. At the same time he was much gratified by the description given of
his son, and their further plan of education met with his entire
approval.

He was now, by the assistants and overseer, invited to a miners’
festival, which was forthwith to be celebrated. The ascent of the
mountains was difficult; and Wilhelm fancied he observed that his guide
walked even slower towards evening, as if the darkness had not been
likely to obstruct their path still more. But, when deep night came
round them, this enigma was solved: our wanderer observed little flames
come glimmering and wavering forth from many dells and chasms, gradually
stretch themselves into lines, and roll over the summits of the
mountains. Much kindlier than when a volcano opens, and its belching
roar threatens whole countries with destruction, did this fair light
appear; and yet, by degrees, it glowed with new brightness; grew
stronger, broader, more continuous; glittered like a stream of stars,
soft and lovely indeed, yet spreading boldly over all the scene.

After the attendant had a little while enjoyed the surprise of his
guest,--for they could clearly enough observe each other, their faces
and forms, as well as their path, being illuminated by the light from
the distance,--he began, “You see here, in truth, a curious spectacle:
these lights which, day and night, the whole year over, gleam and work
under ground, forwarding the acquisition of concealed and scarcely
attainable treasures, these now mount and well forth from their abysses,
and gladden the upper night. Scarcely could one anywhere enjoy so brave
a review as here, where this most useful occupation, which, in its
subterranean concealment, is dispersed and hidden from the eye, rises
before us in its full completeness, and bespeaks a great secret
combination.”

Amid such speeches and thoughts they had reached the spot where these
fire-brooks poured themselves into a sea of flame surrounding a
well-lighted insular space. The wanderer placed himself in the dazzling
circle, within which glittering lights by thousands formed an imposing
contrast with the miners, ranked round it like a dark wall. Forthwith
arose the gayest music as accompaniment to becoming songs. Hollow masses
of rock came forward on machinery, and opened a resplendent interior to
the eye of the delighted spectator. Mimetic exhibitions, and whatever
else at such a moment can gratify the multitude, combined with all this
at once to excite and to satisfy a cheerful attention.

But with what astonishment was Wilhelm filled when, on being introduced
to the superiors, he observed friend Jarno in solemn, stately robes
among the number. “Not in vain,” cried Jarno, “have I changed my former
name with the more expressive title of Montan: thou findest me here
initiated in mountain and cave; and now, if questioned, I could disclose
and explain to thee much that a year ago was still a riddle to myself.”


At this point our manuscripts forsake us: of the conversation of these
friends there is nothing specified; as little can we discover the
connection of what follows next,--an incident of which in the same
bundle, in the same paper, we find brief notice: That a meeting had
taken place between our wanderer and Lothario and the abbé. Unhappily,
in this, as in so many other leaves, the date has been neglected.

Some passages, introduced rather in the way of exclamation than of
narrative, point to the high meaning of renunciation, by which alone the
first real entrance into life is conceivable. Then we come upon a map,
marked with several arrows pointing towards one another; and along with
this we find, in a certain sequence, several days of the month written
down: so that we might fancy ourselves again walking in the real world,
and moderately certain as to the next part of our friend’s route, were
it not that here also various marks and ciphers, appended in different
ways, awoke some fear that a secret meaning at the bottom of it would
forever lie hid from us.

But what drives us out of all historical composure is the strange
circumstance, that, immediately on all this, there comes in the most
improbable narration, of a sort like those tales whereby you long keep
the hearer’s curiosity on the stretch with a series of wonders, and at
last explain, That you were talking of a dream. However, we shall
communicate without change what lies before us:--


“If hitherto we had continued in the metalliferous part of the
mountains, which, externally, is soft, and by no means of a wild aspect,
I was now conducted through precipitous and scarcely passable rocks and
chasms: at last I gained the topmost summit,--a cliff, the peak of which
afforded room only for a single person, who, if he looked down from it
into the horrid depth, might see furious mountain torrents foaming
through black abysses. In the present case I looked down without
giddiness or terror, for I was light of heart; but now my attention
fixed itself on some huge crags rising opposite me, precipitous like my
own, yet offering on their summits a larger space of level. Though
parted by a monstrous chasm, the jutting masses came so near together
that I could distinctly enough, with the naked eye, observe several
persons assembled on the summit. They were, for most part, ladies, one
of whom, coming forward to the very verge, awakened in me double and
treble anxiety; as I became completely convinced that it was Natalia
herself. The danger of such an unexpected interview increased every
moment; but it grew boundless when a perspective came before my eyes,
and brought me over to her, and her over to me. There is something
magical at all times in perspectives. Were we not accustomed from youth
to look through them, we should shudder and tremble every time we put
them to our eyes. It is we who are looking, and it is not we: a being it
is whose organs are raised to a higher pitch, whose limitations are done
away, who has become entitled to stretch forth into infinitude.

“When, for example, we observe far-distant persons, by means of such an
instrument, and see them in unsuspicious thoughtlessness following their
business as if they were solitary and unwatched, we could almost feel
afraid lest they might discover us, and indignantly upbraid us for our
treacherous curiosity.

“And so likewise did I, hemmed in by a strange feeling, waver between
proximity and distance, and from instant to instant alternate between
the two.

“Those others in their turn had observed us, as a signal with a white
handkerchief put beyond a doubt. For a moment I delayed in my answer to
it, finding myself thus close beside the being whom I adored. This is
her pure, benign form: these are her taper arms, which once so helpfully
appeared before me, after unblessed sorrows and perplexities, and at
last, too, though but for moments, sympathizingly embraced me.

“I saw distinctly enough that she, too, had a perspective, and was
looking over to me; and I failed not, by such tokens as stood at my
command, to express the profession of a true and heartfelt attachment.

“And as experience teaches that remote objects, which we have once
clearly recognized through a perspective, afterwards appear, even to the
naked eye, as if standing shaped in distinct nearness, be it that more
accurate knowledge sharpens the sense, or that imagination supplies what
is wanting; so now did I see this beloved being as accurately and
distinctly as if I could have touched her, though her company continued
still irrecognizable. And as I was trampling round my narrow station,
struggling towards her the more, the abyss was like to swallow me, had
not a helpful hand laid hold of mine, and snatched me at once from my
danger and my fairest happiness.”


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER XV.


Here at last we again step on firmer ground, the localities of which we
can settle with some probability; though still here and there on our way
there occur a few uncertainties, which it is not in our power altogether
to clear up.

As Wilhelm, in order to reach any point of the line marked out by the
first arrow, had to proceed obliquely through the country, he found
himself necessitated to perform the journey on foot, leaving his luggage
to be carried after him. For this walk of his, however, he was richly
rewarded; meeting at every step, quite unexpectedly, with loveliest
tracts of scenery. They were of that sort which the last slope of a
mountain region forms in its meeting with the plain country; bushy
hills, their soft declivities employed in domestic use; all level spaces
green; nowhere aught steep, unfruitful, or unploughed to be noticed.
Erelong he reached the main valley, into which the side-waters flowed;
and this, too, was carefully cultivated, graceful when you looked over
it, with taper trees marking the bends of the river, and of the brooks
which poured into it. On looking at his map, his indicator, he observed
with surprise that the line drawn for him cut directly through this
valley; so that, in the first place, he was at least on the right road.

An old castle, in good repair, and seemingly built at different periods,
stood forth on a bushy hill, at the foot of which a gay hamlet stretched
along, with its large inn rising prominent among the other houses.
Hither he proceeded, and was received by the landlord kindly enough, yet
with an excuse that he could not be admitted, unless by the permission
of a party who had hired the whole establishment for a time; on which
account he, the landlord, was under the necessity of sending all his
guests to the older inn, which lay farther up the hamlet. After a short
conference, the man seemed to bethink himself, and said, “Indeed, there
is no one of them at home even now: but this is Saturday, and the
bailiff will not fail to be here soon; he comes every week to settle the
accounts of the last, and make arrangements for the next. Truly, there
is a fair order reigns among these men, and a pleasure in having to do
with them, though they are strict enough; for, if they yield one no
great profit, it is sure and constant.” He then desired his new guest to
amuse himself in the large upper hall, and await what further might
occur.

Here Wilhelm, on entering, found a large, clean apartment, except for
benches and tables altogether empty. So much the more was he surprised
to see a large tablet inserted above one of the doors, with these words
marked on it in golden letters, _Ubi homines sunt modi sunt_; which in
modern tongue may signify, that, where men combine in society, the way
and manner in which they like to be and to continue together is directly
established. This motto made our wanderer think: he took it as a good
omen; finding here, expressed and confirmed, a principle which he had
often, in the course of life, perceived for himself to be furthersome
and reasonable. He had not waited long when the bailiff made his
appearance; who, being forewarned by the landlord, after a short
conversation, and no very special scrutiny, admitted Wilhelm on the
following terms: To continue three days; to participate quietly in
whatever should occur; and, happen what might, to ask no questions about
the reason; and, at taking leave, to ask none about the score. All this
our traveller was obliged to comply with, the deputy not being allowed
to yield in a single point.

The bailiff was about retiring, when a sound of vocal music rolled up
the stairs: two pretty young men entered singing; and these the bailiff,
by a simple sign, gave to understand that their guest was accepted.
Without interrupting their song, they kindly saluted the stranger, and
continued their duet with the finest grace; showing clearly enough that
they were well trained, and complete masters of their art. As Wilhelm
testified the most attentive interest, they paused, and inquired, If in
his own pedestrian wanderings no song ever occurred to him, which he
went along singing by himself? “A good voice,” answered Wilhelm, “Nature
has in truth denied me: yet I often feel as if a secret Genius were
whispering some rhythmic words in my ear; so that, in walking, I move to
musical measure; fancying, at the same time, that I hear low tones
accompanying some song, which, in one way or another, has pleasantly
risen before me.”

“If you recollect such a song, write it down for us,” said they: “we
shall see if we have skill to accompany your singing-demon.” He took a
leaf from his note-book, and handed them the following lines:--


               “From the mountains to the champaign,
                  By the glens and hills along,
                Comes a rustling and a tramping,
                  Comes a motion as of song;
                And this undetermined roving
                  Brings delight, and brings good heed:
                And thy striving, be ’t with loving,
                  And thy living, be ’t in deed!”


After brief study, there arose at once a gay, marching melody, which, in
its repetition and restriction still stepping forward, hurried on the
hearer with it: he was in doubt whether this was his own tune, his
former theme, or one now for the first time so fitted to the words, that
no other movement was conceivable. The singers had for some time
pleasantly proceeded in this manner, when two stout young fellows came
in, whom, by their accoutrements, you directly recognized as masons; two
others, who followed them, being as evidently carpenters. These four,
softly laying down their tools, listened to the music, and soon struck
in with sure and decided voices; so that to the mind it seemed as if a
real wayfaring company were stepping along over hill and valley: and
Wilhelm thought he had never heard any thing so graceful, so enlivening
to heart and mind. This enjoyment, however, was to be increased yet
further, and raised to the highest pitch, by the entrance of a gigantic
figure, mounting the stairs with a hard, firm tread, which, with all his
efforts, he could scarcely moderate. A heavy-laden dorsel he directly
placed in the corner: himself he seated on a bench, which beginning to
creak under his weight, the others laughed, yet without going wrong in
their music. Wilhelm, however, was exceedingly surprised, when, with a
huge bass voice, this son of Anak joined in also. The hall quivered; and
it was to be observed, that in his part he altered the burden, and sang
it thus:--


                   “Life’s no resting, but a moving:
                    Let thy life be deed on deed!”


Further, you could very soon perceive that he was drawing down the time
to a slower step, and forcing the rest to follow him. Of this, when at
last they were satisfied and had concluded, they accused him; declaring
he had tried to set them wrong.

“Not at all!” cried he: “it is you who tried to set me wrong, to put me
out of my own step, which must be measured and sure, if I am to walk
with my loading up hill and down dale, and yet, in the end, arrive at my
appointed hour, to satisfy your wants.”

One after the other these persons now passed into an adjoining room to
the bailiff, and Wilhelm easily observed that they were occupied in
settling accounts,--a point, however, as to which he was not allowed at
present to inquire further. Two fair, lively boys in the mean while
entered, and began covering a table in all speed, moderately furnishing
it with meat and wine; and the bailiff, coming out, invited them all to
sit down along with him. The boys waited, yet forgot not their own
concern, but enjoyed their share in a standing posture. Wilhelm
recollected witnessing similar scenes during his abode among the
players; yet the present company seemed to be of a much more serious
cast, constituted, not out of sport, for show, but with a view to
important concerns of life.

The conversation of the craftsmen with the bailiff added strength to
this conviction. These four active young people, it appeared, were busy
in the neighborhood, where a violent conflagration had destroyed the
fairest village in the country; nor did Wilhelm fail to learn that the
worthy bailiff was employed in getting timber and other building
materials: all which looked the more enigmatical, as none of these
persons seemed to be resident here, but in all other points announced
themselves as transitory strangers. By way of conclusion to the meal,
St. Christopher--such was the name they gave the giant--brought out, for
good-night, a dainty glass of wine, which had before been set aside: a
gay choral song kept the party still some time together, after they were
out of sight; and then Wilhelm was at last conducted to a chamber of the
loveliest aspect and situation. The full moon, enlightening a rich
plain, was already up; and in the bosom of our wanderer it awoke
remembrances of similar scenes. The spirits of all dear friends hovered
past him: especially the image of Lenardo rose in him so vividly, that
he might have fancied the man himself was standing before his eyes. All
this had prepared him with its kind influences for nightly rest, when,
on a sudden, there arose a tone of so strange a nature, that it almost
frightened him. It sounded as from a distance, and yet seemed to be in
the house itself; for the building quivered many times, and the floors
reverberated when the sound rose to its highest pitch. Wilhelm, though
his ear was usually delicate in discriminating tones, could make nothing
of this: he compared it to the droning roar of a huge organ-pipe, which,
for sheer compass, produces no determinate note. Whether this nocturnal
terror passed away towards morning, or Wilhelm by degrees became
accustomed to the sound, and no longer heeded it, is difficult to
discover: at any rate, he fell asleep, and was in due time pleasantly
awakened by the rising sun.

Scarcely had one of the boys, who were in waiting, brought him
breakfast, when a figure entered, whom he had already noticed last night
at supper, without clearly ascertaining his quality. A well-formed,
broad-shouldered, yet nimble man, who now, by the implements which he
spread out, announced himself as barber, and forthwith prepared for
performing his much-desired office on Wilhelm. For the rest, he was
quite silent; and with a light hand he went through his task, without
once having opened his lips. Wilhelm, therefore, began, and said, “Of
your art you are completely master, and I know not that I have ever had
a softer razor on my cheeks: at the same time, however, you appear to be
a strict observer of the laws of the society.”

Roguishly smiling, laying his finger on his lips, the taciturn shaver
glided through the door. “By my sooth!” cried Wilhelm after him, “I
think you must be old Redcloak; if not himself, at least a descendant of
his: it is lucky for you that you ask no counter service of me; your
turn would have been but sorrily done.”

No sooner had this curious personage retired than the well-known bailiff
came in, inviting our friend to dinner for this day, in words which
sounded pretty strange: the BOND, so said the speaker, expressly, gave
the stranger welcome, requested his company at dinner, and took pleasure
in the hope of being more closely connected with him. Inquiries were
then made as to the guest’s health, and how he was contented with his
entertainment; to all which he could only answer in terms of
satisfaction. He would, in truth, have liked much to ask of this man, as
previously of the silent barber, some information touching the horrid
sound which throughout the night had, if not tormented, at least
discomposed him: but, mindful of his engagement, he forbore all
questions; hoping, that without importunity, from the good will of the
society, or in some other accidental way, he might be informed according
to his wishes.

Our friend now, when left alone, began to reflect on the strange person
who had sent him this invitation, and knew not well what to make of the
matter. To designate one or more superiors by a neuter noun seemed to
him a somewhat precarious mode of speech. For the rest, there was such a
stillness all round that he could not recollect of ever having passed a
stiller Sunday. He went out of doors, and, hearing a sound of bells,
walked towards the village. Mass was just over; and, among the villagers
and country people crowding out of church, he observed three
acquaintances of last night,--a mason, a carpenter, and a boy. Farther
on he met among the Protestant worshippers the other corresponding
three. How the rest managed their devotion was unknown to him; but so
much he thought himself entitled to conclude, that in this society a
full religious toleration was practised.

About mid-day, at the castle-gate, he was met by the bailiff, who then
conducted him through various halls into a large ante-chamber, and there
desired him to take a seat. Many persons passed through into an
adjoining hall. Those already known were to be seen among them; St.
Christopher himself went by: all saluted the bailiff and the stranger.
But what struck our friend most in this affair was, that the whole party
seemed to consist of artisans, all dressed in the usual fashion, though
extremely neat and clean: a few among the number you might at most,
perhaps, have reckoned of the clerk species.

No more guests now making their appearance, the bailiff led our friend
through the stately door into a spacious hall. Here a table of immense
length had been covered, past the lower end of which he was conducted
towards the head, where he saw three persons standing in a cross
direction. But what was his astonishment when he approached, and
Lenardo, scarcely yet recognized, fell upon his neck. From this surprise
he had not recovered when another person, with no less warmth and
vivacity, likewise embraced him; announcing himself as our strange
Friedrich, Natalia’s brother. The rapture of these friends diffused
itself over all present: an exclamation of joy and blessing sounded
along the whole table. But in a moment, the company being seated, all
again became silent; and the repast, served up with a certain solemnity,
was enjoyed in like manner.

Towards the conclusion of the ceremony Lenardo gave a sign: two singers
rose, and Wilhelm was exceedingly surprised to hear in this place his
yesternight’s song; which we, for the sake of what follows, shall beg
permission to insert once more:--


               “From the mountains to the champaign,
                  By the glens and hills along,
                Comes a rustling and a tramping,
                  Comes a motion as of song;
                And this undetermined roving
                  Brings delight, and brings good heed:
                And thy striving, be ’t with loving,
                  And thy living, be ’t in deed!”


Scarcely had this duet, accompanied by a chorus of agreeable number,
approached its conclusion, when two other singers on the opposite side
started up impetuously, and, with earnest vehemence, inverted rather
than continued the song; to Wilhelm’s astonishment, proceeding thus:--


                 “For the tie is snapped asunder,
                    Trust and loving hope are fled!
                  Can I tell, in fear and wonder,
                    With what dangers now bested?
                  I, cut off from friend and brother,
                    Like the widow in her woe,
                  With the one and not the other,
                    On and on, my way must go!”


The chorus, taking up this strophe, grew more and more numerous, more
and more vociferous; and yet the voice of St. Christopher, from the
bottom of the table, could still be distinctly recognized among them.
The lamentation in the end rose almost to be frightful: a spirit of
dispiritment, combining with the skilful execution of the singers,
introduced something unnatural into the whole; so that it pained our
friend, and almost made him shudder. In truth, they all seemed perfectly
of one mind, and as if lamenting their own fate on the eve of a
separation. The strange repetitions, the frequent resuscitation of a
fatiguing song, at length became dangerous in the eyes of the Bond
itself: Lenardo rose; and all instantly sat down, abruptly breaking off
their hymn. The other, with friendly words, thus began:--

“Indeed, I cannot blame you for continually recalling to your minds the
destiny which stands before us all, that so, at any hour, you may be
ready for it. If aged and life-weary men have called to their neighbors,
Think of dying! we younger and life-loving men may well keep encouraging
and reminding one another with the cheerful words, Think of wandering!
Yet, withal, of a thing which we either voluntarily undertake, or
believe ourselves constrained to, it were well to speak with
cheerfulness and moderation. You yourselves know best what, in our
situation, is fixed, and what is movable: let us enjoy the former, too,
in sprightly and gay tones; and to its success be this parting cup now
drunk!” He emptied his glass and sat down: the four singers instantly
rose, and in flowing, connected tones, thus began:--


                “Keep not standing, fixed and rooted,
                   Briskly venture, briskly roam:
                 Head and hand, where’er thou foot it,
                   And stout heart, are still at home.
                 In each land the sun does visit:
                   We are gay whate’er betide.
                 To give room for wand’ring is it
                   That the world was made so wide.”


As the chorus struck in with its repetition of these lines, Lenardo
rose, with him all the rest. His nod set the whole company into singing
movement: those at the lower end marched out, St. Christopher at their
head, in pairs through the hall; and the uplifted wanderers’ song grew
clearer and freer the farther they proceeded; producing at last a
particularly good effect when from the terraces of the castle garden you
looked down over the broad valley, in whose fulness and beauty you might
well have liked to lose yourself. While the multitude were dispersing
this way and that, according to their pleasure, Wilhelm was made
acquainted with the third superior. This was the _Amtmann_, by whose
kind influence many favors had been done the society; in particular, the
castle of his patron, the count, situated among several families of
rank, had been given up to their use so long as they might think fit to
tarry here.

Towards evening, while the friends were in a far-seeing grove, there
came a portly figure over the threshold, whom Wilhelm at once recognized
as the barber of this morning. To a low, mute bow of the man, Lenardo
answered, “You now come, as always, at the right season, and will not
delay to entertain us with your talent. I may be allowed,” continued he,
turning towards Wilhelm, “to give you some knowledge of our society, the
Bond of which I may flatter myself that I am. No one enters our circle
unless he have some talents to show, which may contribute to the use or
enjoyment of society in general. This man is an excellent surgeon; of
his skill as a beard-artist you yourself can testify: for these reasons,
he is no less welcome than necessary to us. Now, as his employment
usually brings with it a great and often burdensome garrulity, he has
engaged, for the sake of his own culture, to comply with a certain
condition; as, indeed, every one that means to live with us must agree
to constrain himself in some particular point, if the greater freedom be
left him in all other points. Accordingly, our barber has renounced the
use of his tongue, in so far as aught common or casual is to be
expressed by it: but, by this means, another gift of speech has been
unfolded in him, which acts by forethought, cunningly and pleasurably; I
mean the gift of narration.

“His life is rich in wonderful experiences, which he used to split in
pieces, babbling of them at wrong times; but which he now, constrained
by silence, repeats and arranges in his quiet thought. This also his
power of imagination now forwards, lending life and movement to past
occurrences. With no common art and skill, he can relate to us genuine
antique tales, or modern stories of the same fabulous cast; thereby, at
the right hour, affording us a most pleasant entertainment, when I loose
his tongue for him,--which I now do; giving him, at the same time, this
praise, that, in the considerable period during which I have known him,
he has never once been guilty of a repetition. I cannot but hope, that
in the present case, for love and respect to our dear guest, he will
especially distinguish himself.”

A sprightly cheerfulness spread over Redcloak’s face; and, without
delay, he began speaking as follows.


                ---------------------------------------


                              CHAPTER XVI.

                           THE NEW MELUSINA.


“Respected gentlemen! Being aware that preliminary speeches and
introductions are not much to your taste, I shall without further talk
assure you, that, in the present instance, I hope to fulfil your
commission moderately well. From me has many a true history gone forth
already, to the high and universal satisfaction of hearers; but to-day I
may assert, that I have one to tell which far surpasses the former, and
which, though it happened to me several years ago, still disquiets me in
recollecting it, nay, still gives hope of some further development.

“By way of introduction, let me confess, that I have not always so
arranged my scheme of life as to be certain of the next period in it, or
even of the next day. In my youth, I was no first-rate economist, and
often found myself in manifold perplexity. At one time I undertook a
journey, thinking to derive good profit in the course of it; but the
scale I went upon was too liberal: and after having commenced my travel
with extra-post, and then prosecuted it for a time in the diligence, I
at last found myself obliged to front the end of it on foot.


“Like a gay young blade, it had been from of old my custom, on entering
any inn, to look round for the landlady, or even the cook, and wheedle
myself into favor with her; whereby, for most part, my shot was somewhat
reduced.

“One night at dusk, as I was entering the post-house of a little town,
and purposing to set about my customary operations, there came a fair
double-seated coach with four horses rattling up to the door behind me.
I turned round, and observed in it a young lady, without maid, without
servants. I hastened to open the carriage for her, and to ask if I could
help her in any thing. On stepping out, a fair form displayed itself;
and her lovely countenance, if you looked at it narrowly, was adorned
with a slight shade of sorrow. I again asked if there was aught I could
do for her. ‘Oh, yes!’ said she, ‘if you will lift that little box
carefully, which you will find standing on the seat, and bring it in;
but I beg very much of you to carry it with all steadiness, and not to
move or shake it in the least.’ I took out the box with great care: she
shut the coach-door; we walked up-stairs together, and she told the
servants that she was to stay here for the night.

“We were now alone in the chamber: she desired me to put the box on the
table, which was standing at the wall; and as, by several of her
movements, I observed that she wished to be alone, I took my leave,
reverently but warmly kissing her hand.

“‘Order supper for us two,’ said she then: and you may well conceive
with what pleasure I executed the commission; scarcely deigning, in my
pride of heart, to cast even a side-look on landlady and menials. With
impatience I expected the moment that was to lead me back to her. Supper
was served: we took our seats opposite each other; I refreshed my heart,
for the first time during a considerable while, with a good meal, and no
less with so desirable a sight beside me: nay, it seemed as if she were
growing fairer and fairer every moment.

“Her conversation was pleasant, yet she carefully waived whatever had
reference to affection and love. The cloth was removed: I still
lingered, I tried all sorts of manœuvres to get near her, but in vain;
she kept me at my distance, by a certain dignity which I could not
withstand: nay, against my will, I had to part from her at a rather
early hour.

“After a night passed in waking or unrestfully dreaming, I rose early,
inquired whether she had ordered horses; and, learning that she had not,
I walked into the garden, saw her standing dressed at the window, and
hastened up to her. Here, as she looked so fair, and fairer than ever,
love, roguery, and audacity all at once started into motion within me: I
rushed towards her, and clasped her in my arms. ‘Angelic, irresistible
being,’ cried I, ‘pardon! but it is impossible!’--With incredible
dexterity she whisked herself out of my arms, and I had not even time to
imprint a kiss on her cheek. ‘Forbear such outbreakings of a sudden
foolish passion,’ said she, ‘if you would not scare away a happiness
which lies close beside you, but which cannot be laid hold of till after
some trials.’

“‘Ask of me what thou pleasest, angelic spirit!’ cried I, ‘but do not
drive me to despair.’ She answered, with a smile, ‘If you mean to devote
yourself to my service, hear the terms. I am come hither to visit a lady
of my friends, and with her I purpose to continue for a time: in the
mean while, I could wish that my carriage and this box were taken
forward. Will you engage with it? You have nothing to do but carefully
to lift the box into the carriage and out, to sit down beside it, and
punctually take charge that it receive no harm. When you enter an inn,
it is put upon a table, in a chamber by itself, in which you must
neither sit nor sleep. You lock the chamber-door with this key, which
will open and shut any lock, and has the peculiar property, that no lock
shut by it can be opened in the interim.’

“I looked at her; I felt strangely enough at heart; I promised to do
all, if I might hope to see her soon, and if she would seal this hope to
me with a kiss. She did so, and from that moment I had become entirely
her bondman. I was now to order horses, she said. We settled the way I
was to take, the places where I was to wait, and expect her. She at last
pressed a purse of gold into my hand, and I pressed my lips on the fair
hand that gave it me. She seemed moved at parting; and, for me, I no
longer knew what I was doing or was to do.

“On my return from giving my orders, I found the room-door locked. I
directly tried my master-key, and it performed its duty perfectly. The
door flew up: I found the chamber empty, only the box standing on the
table where I had laid it.

“The carriage drove up: I carried the box carefully down with me, and
placed it by my side. The hostess asked, ‘But where is the lady?’ A
child answered, ‘She is gone into the town.’ I nodded to the people, and
rolled off in triumph from the door which I had last night entered with
dusty gaiters. That in my hours of leisure I diligently meditated on
this adventure, counted my money, laid many schemes, and still now and
then kept glancing at the box, you will readily imagine. I posted right
forward, passed several stages without alighting, and rested not till I
had reached a considerable town, where my fair one had appointed me to
wait. Her commands had been pointedly obeyed,--the box always carried to
a separate room, and two wax candles lighted beside it; for such, also,
had been her order. I would then lock the chamber, establish myself in
my own, and take such comfort as the place afforded.

“For a while I was able to employ myself with thinking of her, but by
degrees the time began to hang heavy on my hands. I was not used to live
without companions: these I soon found, at _tables-d’hôte_, in
coffee-houses, and public places, altogether to my wish. In such a mode
of living, my money began to melt away; and one night it vanished
entirely from my purse in a fit of passionate gaming, which I had not
had the prudence to abandon. Void of money, with the appearance of a
rich man, expecting a heavy bill of charges, uncertain whether and when
my fair one would again make her appearance, I felt myself in the
deepest embarrassment. Doubly did I now long for her, and believe, that,
without her and her gold, it was quite impossible for me to live.

“After supper, which I had relished very little, being forced for this
time to consume it in solitude, I took to walking violently up and down
my room: I spoke aloud to myself, cursed my folly with horrid
execrations, threw myself on the floor, tore my hair, and indeed behaved
in the most outrageous fashion. Suddenly, in the adjoining chamber where
the box was, I heard a slight movement, and then a soft knocking at the
well-bolted door, which entered from my apartment. I gather myself,
grope for my master-key; but the door-leaves fly up of themselves, and
in the light of those burning wax candles enters my beauty. I cast
myself at her feet, kiss her robe, her hands; she raises me; I venture
not to clasp her, scarcely to look at her, but candidly and repentantly
confess to her my fault. ‘It is pardonable,’ said she: ‘only it
postpones your happiness and mine. You must now make another tour into
the world before we can meet again. Here is more money,’ continued she,
‘sufficient if you husband it with any kind of reason. But, as wine and
play have brought you into this perplexity, be on your guard in future
against wine and women, and let me hope for a glad meeting when the time
comes.’

“She retired over the threshold; the door-leaves flew together: I
knocked, I entreated; but nothing further stirred. Next morning, while
presenting his bill, the waiter smiled, and said, ‘So we have found out
at last, then, why you lock your door in so artful and incomprehensible
a way, that no master-key can open it. We supposed you must have much
money and precious ware laid up by you: but now we have seen your
treasure walking down-stairs; and, in good truth, it seemed worthy of
being well kept.’

“To this I answered nothing, but paid my reckoning, and mounted with my
box into the carriage. I again rolled forth into the world, with the
firmest resolution to be heedful in future of the warning given me by my
fair and mysterious friend. Scarcely, however, had I once more reached a
large town, when forthwith I got acquainted with certain interesting
ladies, from whom I absolutely could not tear myself away. They seemed
inclined to make me pay dear for their favor: for, while they still kept
me at a certain distance, they led me into one expense after the other;
and I, being anxious only to promote their satisfaction, once more
ceased to think of my purse, but paid and spent straightforward, as
occasion needed. But how great was my astonishment and joy, when, after
some weeks, I observed that the fulness of my store was not in the least
diminished, that my purse was still as round and crammed as ever!
Wishing to obtain more strict knowledge of this pretty quality, I set
myself down to count: I accurately marked the sum, and again proceeded
in my joyous life as before. We had no want of excursions by land, and
excursions by water; of dancing, singing, and other recreations. But now
it required small attention to observe that the purse was actually
diminishing, as if by my cursed counting I had robbed it of the property
of being uncountable. However, this gay mode of existence had been once
entered on: I could not draw back, and yet my ready money soon verged to
a close. I execrated my situation; upbraided my fair friend for having
so led me into temptation; took it as an offence that she did not again
show herself to me; renounced in my spleen all duties towards her; and
resolved to break open the box, and see if peradventure any help might
be found there. I was just about proceeding with my purpose: but I put
it off till night, that I might go through the business with full
composure; and, in the mean time, I hastened off to a banquet, for which
this was the appointed hour. Here again we got into a high key: the wine
and trumpet-sounding had flushed me not a little, when by the most
villanous luck it chanced, that, during the dessert, a former friend of
my dearest fair one, returning from a journey, entered unexpectedly,
placed himself beside her, and, without much ceremony, set about
asserting his old privileges. Hence, very soon arose ill-humor,
quarrelling, and battle: we plucked out our spits, and I was carried
home half dead of several wounds.

“The surgeon had bandaged me and gone away; it was far in the night; my
sick-nurse had fallen asleep; the door of the side-room went up; my
fair, mysterious friend came in, and sat down by me on the bed. She
asked how I was. I answered not, for I was faint and sullen. She
continued speaking with much sympathy: she rubbed my temples with a
certain balsam, whereby I felt myself rapidly and decidedly
strengthened,--so strengthened that I could now get angry and upbraid
her. In a violent speech I threw all the blame of my misfortune on her;
on the passion she had inspired me with; on her appearing and vanishing;
and the tedium, the longing, which, in such a case, I could not but
feel. I waxed more and more vehement, as if a fever had been coming on;
and I swore to her at last, that if she would not be mine, would not now
abide with me and wed me, I had no wish to live any longer: to all which
I required a peremptory answer. As she lingered and held back with her
explanation, I got altogether beside myself, and tore off my double and
triple bandages in the firmest resolution to bleed to death. But what
was my amazement when I found all my wounds healed, my skin smooth and
entire, and this fair friend in my arms!

“Henceforth we were the happiest pair in the world. We both begged
pardon of each other without either of us rightly knowing why. She now
promised to travel on along with me; and soon we were sitting side by
side in the carriage, the little box lying opposite us on the other
seat. Of this I had never spoken to her, nor did I now think of
speaking, though it lay there before our eyes: and both of us, by tacit
agreement, took charge of it, as circumstances might require; I,
however, still carrying it to and from the carriage, and busying myself,
as formerly, with the locking of the doors.

“So long as aught remained in my purse I had continued to pay; but, when
my cash went down, I signified the fact to her. ‘That is easily helped,’
said she, pointing to a couple of little pouches fixed at the top, to
the sides of the carriage. These I had often observed before, but never
turned to use. She put her hand into the one, and pulled out some gold
pieces, as from the other some coins of silver; thereby showing me the
possibility of meeting any scale of expenditure which we might choose to
adopt. And thus we journeyed on from town to town, from land to land,
contented with each other and with the world; and I fancied not that she
would again leave me, the less so that for some time she had evidently
been as loving wives wish to be, a circumstance by which our happiness
and mutual affection was increased still further. But one morning, alas!
she could not be found: and as my actual residence, without her company,
became displeasing, I again took the road with my box, tried the virtue
of the two pouches, and found it still unimpaired.

“My journey proceeded without accident. But if I had hitherto paid
little heed to the mysteries of my adventure, expecting a natural
solution of the whole, there now occurred something which threw me into
astonishment, into anxiety, nay, into fear. Being wont, in my impatience
for change of place, to hurry forward day and night, it was often my hap
to be travelling in the dark, and, when the lamps by any chance went
out, to be left in utter obscurity. Once, in the dead of such a night, I
had fallen asleep; and on awakening I observed the glimmer of a light on
the covering of my carriage. I examined this more strictly, and found
that it was issuing from the box, in which there seemed to be a chink,
as if it had been chapped by the warm and dry weather of summer, which
was now come on. My thoughts of jewels again came into my head: I
supposed there must be some carbuncle lying in the box, and this point I
forthwith set about investigating. I postured myself as well as might
be, so that my eye was in immediate contact with the chink. But how
great was my surprise when a fair apartment, well lighted, and furnished
with much taste and even costliness, met my inspection; just as if I had
been looking down through the opening of a dome into a royal saloon! A
fire was burning in the grate, and before it stood an arm-chair. I held
my breath, and continued to observe. And now there entered from the
other side of the apartment a lady with a book in her hand, whom I at
once recognized for my wife; though her figure was contracted into the
extreme of diminution. She sat down in the chair by the fire to read;
she trimmed the coals with the most dainty pair of tongs; and, in the
course of her movements, I could clearly perceive that this fairest
little creature was also in the family way. But now I was obliged to
shift my constrained posture a little; and the next moment, when I bent
down to look in again, and convince myself that it was no dream, the
light had vanished, and my eye rested on empty darkness.

“How amazed, nay, terrified, I was, you may easily conceive. I started a
thousand thoughts on this discovery, and yet in truth could think
nothing. In the midst of this I fell asleep, and on awakening I fancied
that it must have been a mere dream: yet I felt myself in some degree
estranged from my fair one; and, though I watched over the box but so
much the more carefully, I knew not whether the event of her
re-appearance in human size was a thing which I should wish or dread.

“After some time she did actually re-appear. One evening in a white robe
she came gliding in; and, as it was just then growing dusky in my room,
she seemed to me taller than when I had seen her last: and I remembered
having heard that all beings of the mermaid and gnome species increased
in stature very perceptibly at the fall of night. She flew as usual to
my arms, but I could not with right gladness press her to my obstructed
breast.

“‘My dearest,’ said she, ‘I now feel, by thy reception of me, what,
alas! I already knew too well. Thou hast seen me in the interim; thou
art acquainted with the state in which, at certain times, I find myself:
thy happiness and mine is interrupted,--nay, it stands on the brink of
being annihilated altogether. I must leave thee, and I know not whether
I shall ever see thee again.’ Her presence, the grace with which she
spoke, directly banished from my memory almost every trace of that
vision, which, indeed, had already hovered before me as little more than
a dream. I addressed her with kind vivacity, convinced her of my
passion, assured her that I was innocent, that my discovery was
accidental,--in short, I so managed it that she appeared composed, and
endeavored to compose me.

“‘Try thyself strictly,’ said she, ‘whether this discovery has not hurt
thy love; whether thou canst forget that I live in two forms beside
thee; whether the diminution of my being will not also contract thy
affection.’

“I looked at her; she was fairer than ever: and I thought within myself,
Is it so great a misfortune, after all, to have a wife who from time to
time becomes a dwarf, so that one can carry her about with him in a
casket? Were it not much worse if she became a giantess, and put her
husband in the box? My gayety of heart had returned. I would not for the
whole world have let her go. ‘Best heart,’ said I, ‘let us be and
continue ever as we have been. Could either of us wish to be better?
Enjoy thy conveniency, and I promise thee to guard the box with so much
the more faithfulness. Why should the prettiest sight I have ever seen
in my life make a bad impression on me? How happy would lovers be, could
they but procure such miniature pictures! And, after all, it was but a
picture, a little sleight-of-hand deception. Thou art trying and teasing
me, but thou shalt see how I will stand it.’

“‘The matter is more serious than thou thinkest,’ said the fair one;
‘however, I am truly glad to see thee take it so lightly; for much good
may still be awaiting us both. I will trust in thee, and for my own part
do my utmost: only promise me that thou wilt never mention this
discovery by way of reproach. Another prayer likewise I most earnestly
make to thee: Be more than ever on thy guard against wine and anger.’

“I promised what she required; I could have gone on promising to all
lengths: but she herself turned aside the conversation, and thenceforth
all proceeded in its former routine. We had no inducement to alter our
place of residence: the town was large, the society various; and the
fine season gave rise to many an excursion and garden festival.

“In all such amusements the presence of my wife was welcome, nay,
eagerly desired, by women as well as men. A kind, insinuating manner,
joined with a certain dignity of bearing, secured to her on all hands
praise and estimation. Besides, she could play beautifully on the lute,
accompanying it with her voice; and no social night could be perfect
unless crowned by the graces of this talent.

“I will be free to confess that I never cared much for music: on the
contrary, it has always rather had a disagreeable effect on me. My fair
one soon noticed this; and accordingly, when by ourselves, she never
tried to entertain me by such means: in return, however, she appeared to
indemnify herself while in society, where, indeed, she always found a
crowd of admirers.

“And now, why should I deny it? our late dialogue, in spite of my best
intentions, had by no means sufficed to settle the matter within me: on
the contrary, my temper of mind had by degrees got into the strangest
tune, almost without my being conscious of it. One night, in a large
company, this hidden grudge broke loose, and, by its consequences,
produced to myself the greatest damage.

“When I look back on it now, I, in fact, loved my beauty far less after
that unlucky discovery: I was also growing jealous of her,--a whim that
had never struck me before. This night at table, I found myself placed
very much to my mind beside my two neighbors, a couple of ladies, who,
for some time, had appeared to me very charming. Amid jesting and soft
small talk, I was not sparing of my wine; while, on the other side, a
pair of musical _dilettanti_ had got hold of my wife, and at last
contrived to lead the company into singing separately, and by way of
chorus. This put me into ill-humor. The two amateurs appeared to me
impertinent; the singing vexed me; and when, as my turn came, they even
requested a solo-strophe from me, I grew truly indignant: I emptied my
glass, and set it down again with no soft movement.

“The grace of my two fair neighbors soon pacified me, but there is an
evil nature in wrath when once it is set a-going. It went on fermenting
within me, though all things were of a kind to induce joy and
complaisance. On the contrary, I waxed more splenetic than ever when a
lute was produced, and my fair one began fingering it and singing, to
the admiration of all the rest. Unhappily a general silence was
requested. So, then, I was not even to talk any more: and these tones
were going through me like a toothache. Was it any wonder that, at last,
the smallest spark should blow up the mine?

“The songstress had just ended a song amid the loudest applauses, when
she looked over to me; and this truly with the most loving face in the
world. Unluckily, its lovingness could not penetrate so far. She
perceived that I had just gulped down a cup of wine, and was pouring out
a fresh one. With her right forefinger she beckoned to me in kind
threatening. ‘Consider that it is wine!’ said she, not louder than for
myself to hear it. ‘Water is for mermaids!’ cried I. ‘My ladies,’ said
she to my neighbors, ‘crown the cup with all your gracefulness, that it
be not too often emptied.’--‘You will not let yourself be tutored?’
whispered one of them in my ear. ‘What ails the dwarf?’ cried I, with a
more violent gesture, in which I overset the glass. ‘Ah, what you have
spilt!’ cried the paragon of women; at the same time twanging her
strings, as if to lead back the attention of the company from this
disturbance to herself. Her attempt succeeded; the more completely as
she rose to her feet, seemingly that she might play with greater
convenience, and in this attitude continued preluding.

“At sight of the red wine running over the tablecloth, I returned to
myself. I perceived the great fault I had been guilty of, and it cut me
through the very heart. Never till now had music had an effect on me:
the first verse she sang was a friendly good-night to the company, here
as they were, as they might still feel themselves together. With the
next verse they became as if scattered asunder: each felt himself
solitary, separated, no one could fancy that he was present any longer.
But what shall I say of the last verse? It was directed to me alone, the
voice of injured love bidding farewell to moroseness and caprice.

“In silence I conducted her home, foreboding no good. Scarcely, however,
had we reached our chamber, when she began to show herself exceedingly
kind and graceful,--nay, even roguish: she made me the happiest of all
men.

“Next morning, in high spirits and full of love, I said to her, ‘Thou
hast so often sung, when asked in company; as, for example, thy touching
farewell song last night. Come now, for my sake, and sing me a dainty,
gay welcome to this morning hour, that we may feel as if we were meeting
for the first time.’

“‘That I cannot do, my friend,’ said she seriously. ‘The song of last
night referred to our parting, which must now forthwith take place; for
I can only tell thee, the violation of thy promise and oath will have
the worst consequences for us both: thou hast scoffed away a great
felicity; and I, too, must renounce my dearest wishes.’

“As I now pressed and entreated her to explain herself more clearly, she
answered, ‘That, alas! I can well do; for, at all events, my continuance
with thee is over. Hear, then, what I would rather have concealed to the
latest times. The form under which thou sawest me in the box is my
natural and proper form; for I am of the race of King Eckwald, the dread
sovereign of the dwarfs, concerning whom authentic history has recorded
so much. Our people are still, as of old, laborious and busy, and
therefore easy to govern. Thou must not fancy that the dwarfs are
behindhand in their manufacturing skill. Swords which followed the foe,
when you cast them after him; invisible and mysteriously binding chains;
impenetrable shields, and such like ware, in old times,--formed their
staple produce. But now they chiefly employ themselves with articles of
convenience and ornament, in which truly they surpass all people of the
earth. I may well say, it would astonish thee to walk through our
workshops and warehouses. All this would be right and good, were it not
that with the whole nation in general, but more particularly with the
royal family, there is one peculiar circumstance connected.’

“She paused for a moment, and I again begged further light on these
wonderful secrets; which, accordingly, she forthwith proceeded to grant.

“‘It is well known,’ said she, ‘that God, so soon as he had created the
world, and the ground was dry, and the mountains were standing bright
and glorious, that God, I say, thereupon, in the very first place,
created the dwarfs, to the end that there might be reasonable beings
also, who, in their passages and chasms, might contemplate and adore his
wonders in the inward parts of the earth. It is further well known, that
this little race by degrees became uplifted in heart, and attempted to
acquire the dominion of the earth; for which reason God then created the
dragons, in order to drive back the dwarfs into their mountains. Now, as
the dragons themselves were wont to nestle in the large caverns and
clefts, and dwell there; and many of them, too, were in the habit of
spitting fire, and working much other mischief,--the poor little dwarfs
were by this means thrown into exceeding straits and distress: so that,
not knowing what in the world to do, they humbly and fervently turned to
God, and called to him in prayer, that he would vouchsafe to abolish
this unclean dragon generation. But though it consisted not with his
wisdom to destroy his own creatures, yet the heavy sufferings of the
poor dwarfs so moved his compassion, that anon he created the giants,
ordaining them to fight these dragons, and, if not root them out, at
least lessen their numbers.

“‘Now, no sooner had the giants got moderately well through with the
dragons, than their hearts also began to wax wanton: and, in their
presumption, they practised much tyranny, especially on the good little
dwarfs, who then once more in their need turned to the Lord; and he, by
the power of his hand, created the knights, who were to make war on the
giants and dragons, and to live in concord with the dwarfs. Hereby was
the work of creation completed on this side; and it is plain, that
henceforth giants and dragons, as well as knights and dwarfs, have
always maintained themselves in being. From this, my friend, it will be
clear to thee that we are of the oldest race on the earth,--a
circumstance which does us honor, but at the same time brings great
disadvantage along with it.

“‘For as there is nothing in the world that can endure forever, but all
that has once been great must become little and fade, it is our lot,
also, that, ever since the creation of the world, we have been waning,
and growing smaller,--especially the royal family, on whom, by reason of
their pure blood, this destiny presses with the heaviest force. To
remedy this evil, our wise teachers have many years ago devised the
expedient of sending forth a princess of the royal house from time to
time into the world, to wed some honorable knight, that so the dwarf
progeny may be refected, and saved from entire decay.’

“Though my fair one related these things with an air of the utmost
sincerity, I looked at her hesitatingly; for it seemed as if she meant
to palm some fable on me. As to her own dainty lineage I had not the
smallest doubt; but that she should have laid hold of me in place of a
knight occasioned some mistrust, seeing I knew myself too well to
suppose that my ancestors had come into the world by an immediate act of
creation.

“I concealed my wonder and scepticism, and asked her kindly, ‘But tell
me, my dear child, how hast thou attained this large and stately shape?
For I know few women that in richness of form can compare with
thee.’--‘Thou shalt hear,’ replied she. ‘It is a settled maxim in the
council of the dwarf kings, that this extraordinary step be forborne as
long as it possibly can; which, indeed, I cannot but say is quite
natural and proper. Perhaps they might have hesitated still longer had
not my brother, born after me, come into the world so exceedingly small
that the nurses actually lost him out of his swaddling-clothes; and no
creature yet knows whither he is gone. On this occurrence, unexampled in
the annals of dwarfdom, the sages were assembled; and, without more ado,
the resolution was taken, and I sent out in quest of a husband.’

“‘The resolution!’ exclaimed I, ‘that is all extremely well. One can
resolve, one can take his resolution; but, to give a dwarf this heavenly
shape, how did your sages manage that?’

“‘It had been provided for already,’ said she, ‘by our ancestors. In the
royal treasury lay a monstrous gold ring. I speak of it as it then
appeared to me, when I saw it in my childhood; for it was this same ring
which I have here on my finger. We now went to work as follows.

“‘I was informed of all that awaited me, and instructed what I had to do
and to forbear. A splendid palace, after the pattern of my father’s
favorite summer residence, was then got ready,--a main edifice, wings,
and whatever else you could think of. It stood at the entrance of a
large rock-cleft, which it decorated in the handsomest style. On the
appointed day our court moved thither, my parents, also, and myself. The
army paraded; and four and twenty priests, not without difficulty,
carried on a costly litter the mysterious ring. It was placed on the
threshold of the building, just within the spot where you entered. Many
ceremonies were observed; and, after a pathetic farewell, I proceeded to
my task. I stepped forward to the ring, laid my finger on it, and that
instant began perceptibly to wax in stature. In a few moments I had
reached my present size, and then I put the ring on my finger. But now,
in the twinkling of an eye, the doors, windows, gates, flapped to; the
wings drew up into the body of the edifice; instead of a palace stood a
little box beside me, which I forthwith lifted, and carried off with me,
not without a pleasant feeling in being so tall and strong. Still,
indeed, a dwarf to trees and mountains, to streams, and tracts of land,
yet a giant to grass and herbs, and, above all, to ants, from whom we
dwarfs, not being always on the best terms with them, often suffer
considerable annoyance.

“‘How it fared with me on my pilgrimage, I might tell thee at great
length. Suffice it to say I tried many, but no one save thou seemed
worthy of being honored to renovate and perpetuate the line of the
glorious Eckwald.’

“In the course of these narrations my head had now and then kept
wagging, without myself having absolutely shaken it. I put several
questions, to which I received no very satisfactory answers: on the
contrary, I learned, to my great affliction, that after what had
happened she must needs return to her parents. She had hopes still, she
said, of getting back to me: but, for the present, it was indispensably
necessary to present herself at court; as otherwise, both for her and
me, there was nothing but utter ruin. The purses would soon cease to
pay, and who knew what all would be the consequences?

“On hearing that our money would run short, I inquired no further into
consequences; I shrugged my shoulders; I was silent, and she seemed to
understand me.

“We now packed up, and got into our carriage, the box standing opposite
us; in which, however, I could still see no symptoms of a palace. In
this way we proceeded several stages. Post-money and drink-money were
readily and richly paid from the pouches to the right and left, till at
last we reached a mountainous district; and no sooner had we alighted
here than my fair one walked forward, directing me to follow her with
the box. She led me by rather steep paths to a narrow plot of green
ground, through which a clear brook now gushed in little falls, now ran
in quiet windings. She pointed to a little knoll, bade me set the box
down there, then said, ‘Farewell! Thou wilt easily find the way back;
remember me; I hope to see thee again.’

“At this moment I felt as if I could not leave her. She was just now in
one of her fine days, or, if you will, her fine hours. Alone with so
fair a being, on the greensward, among grass and flowers, girt in by
rocks, waters murmuring round you, what heart could have remained
insensible! I came forward to seize her hand, to clasp her in my arms;
but she motioned me back, threatening me, though still kindly enough,
with great danger if I did not instantly withdraw.

“‘Is there not any possibility,’ exclaimed I, ‘of my staying with thee,
of thy keeping me beside thee?’ These words I uttered with such rueful
tones and gestures, that she seemed touched by them, and after some
thought confessed to me that a continuance of our union was not entirely
impossible. Who happier than I! My importunity, which increased every
moment, compelled her at last to come out with her scheme, and inform
me, that if I, too, could resolve on becoming as little as I had once
seen her, I might still remain with her, be admitted to her house, her
kingdom, her family. The proposal was not altogether to my mind, yet at
this moment I positively could not tear myself away: so, having already
for a good while been accustomed to the marvellous, and being at all
times prone to bold enterprises, I closed with her offer, and said she
might do with me as she pleased.

“I was thereupon directed to hold out the little finger of my right
hand: she placed her own against it; then, with her left hand, she quite
softly pulled the ring from her finger, and let it run along mine. That
instant I felt a violent twinge on my finger: the ring shrunk together,
and tortured me horribly. I gave a loud cry, and caught round me for my
fair one; but she had disappeared. What state of mind I was in during
this moment, I find no words to express: so I have nothing more to say
but that I very soon, in my miniature size, found myself beside my fair
one in a wood of grass-stalks. The joy of meeting after this short yet
most strange separation, or, if you will, of this re-union without
separation, exceeds all conception. I fell on her neck: she replied to
my caresses, and the little pair was as happy as the large one.

“With some difficulty we now mounted a hill: I say difficulty, because
the sward had become for us an almost impenetrable forest. Yet at length
we reached a bare space; and how surprised was I at perceiving there a
large, bolted mass, which, erelong, I could not but recognize for the
box in the same state as when I had set it down.

“‘Go up to it, my friend,’ said she, ‘and do but knock with the ring:
thou shalt see wonders.’ I went up accordingly; and no sooner had I
rapped, than I did, in fact, witness the greatest wonder. Two wings came
jutting out; and at the same time there fell, like scales and chips,
various pieces this way and that: while doors, windows, colonnades, and
all that belongs to a complete palace, at once came into view.

“If ever you have seen one of Röntgen’s desks,--how, at one pull, a
multitude of springs and latches get in motion, and writing-board and
writing materials, letter and money compartments, all at once, or in
quick succession, start forward,--you will partly conceive how this
palace unfolded itself, into which my sweet attendant now introduced me.
In the large saloon I directly recognized the fireplace which I had
formerly seen from above, and the chair in which she had then been
sitting. And, on looking up, I actually fancied I could still see
something of the chink in the dome, through which I had peeped in. I
spare you the description of the rest: in a word, all was spacious,
splendid, and tasteful. Scarcely had I recovered from my astonishment,
when I heard afar off a sound of military music. My better half sprang
up, and with rapture announced to me the approach of his Majesty her
father. We stepped out to the threshold, and here beheld a magnificent
procession moving towards us from a considerable cleft in the rock.
Soldiers, servants, officers of state, and glittering courtiers,
followed in order. At last you observed a golden throng, and in the
midst of it the king himself. So soon as the whole procession had drawn
up before the palace, the king, with his nearest retinue, stepped
forward. His loving daughter hastened out to him, pulling me along with
her. We threw ourselves at his feet: he raised me very graciously; and,
on coming to stand before him, I perceived, that in this little world I
was still the most considerable figure. We proceeded together to the
palace, where his Majesty, in presence of his whole court, was pleased
to welcome me with a well-studied oration, in which he expressed his
surprise at finding us here, acknowledged me as his son-in-law, and
appointed the nuptial ceremony to take place on the morrow.

“A cold sweat went over me as I heard him speak of marriage; for I
dreaded this even more than music, which had, of old, appeared to me the
most hateful thing on earth. Your music-makers, I used to say, enjoy at
least the conceit of being in unison with each other, and working in
concord; for when they have tweaked and tuned long enough, grating our
ears with all manner of screeches, they believe in their hearts that the
matter is now adjusted, and one instrument accurately suited to the
other. The band-master himself is in this happy delusion; and so they
set forth joyfully, though still tearing our nerves to pieces. In the
marriage state, even this is not the case; for although it is but a
duet, and you might think two voices, or even two instruments, might in
some degree be attuned to each other, yet this happens very seldom: for
while the man gives out one tone, the wife directly takes a higher one,
and the man again a higher; and so it rises from the chamber to the
choral pitch, and farther and farther, till at last not even
wind-instruments can reach it. And now, as I loathe harmonical music, it
cannot be surprising that disharmonical should be a thing which I cannot
endure.

“Of all the festivities in which the day was spent, I shall and can not
give an account; for I paid small heed to them. The sumptuous victuals,
the generous wine, the royal amusements, I could not relish. I kept
thinking and considering what I was to do. Here, however, there was but
little to be considered. I determined, once for all, to take myself
away, and hide somewhere. Accordingly, I succeeded in reaching the chink
of a stone, where I intrenched and concealed myself as well as might be.
My first care after this was to get the unhappy ring off my finger,--an
enterprise, however, which would by no means prosper; for, on the
contrary, I felt that every pull I gave, the metal grew straiter, and
cramped me with violent pains, which again abated so soon as I desisted
from my purpose.

“Early in the morning I awoke (for my little person had slept, and very
soundly), and was just stepping out to look farther about me, when I
felt a kind of rain coming on. Through the grass, flowers, and leaves,
there fell, as it were, something like sand and grit in large
quantities; but what was my horror when the whole of it became alive,
and an innumerable host of ants rushed down on me! No sooner did they
observe me than they made an attack on all sides; and, though I defended
myself stoutly and gallantly enough, they at last so hemmed me in, so
nipped and pinched me, that I was glad to hear them calling to
surrender. I surrendered instantly and wholly, whereupon an ant of
respectable stature approached me with courtesy, nay, with reverence,
and even recommended itself to my good graces. I learned that the ants
had now become allies of my father-in-law, and by him been called out in
the present emergency, and commissioned to fetch me back. Here, then,
was little I in the hands of creatures still less. I had nothing for it
but looking forward to the marriage; nay, I must now thank Heaven if my
father-in-law were not wroth, if my fair one had not taken the sullens.

“Let me skip over the whole train of ceremonies: in a word, we were
wedded. Gayly and joyously as matters went, there were, nevertheless,
solitary hours in which you were led astray into reflection; and now
there happened to me something which had never happened before,--what,
and how, you shall learn.

“Every thing about me was completely adapted to my present form and
wants: the bottles and glasses were in a fit ratio to a little
toper,--nay, if you will, better measure in proportion than with us. In
my tiny palate the dainty tidbits tasted excellently; a kiss from the
little mouth of my spouse was still the most charming thing in nature;
and I will not deny that novelty made all these circumstances highly
agreeable. Unhappily, however, I had not forgotten my former situation.
I felt within me a scale of by-gone greatness, and it rendered me
restless and cheerless. Now, for the first time, did I understand what
the philosophers might mean by their ideal, which they say so plagues
the mind of man. I had an ideal of myself, and often in dreams I
appeared as a giant. In short, my wife, my ring, my dwarf figure, and so
many other bonds and restrictions, made me utterly unhappy; so that I
began to think seriously about obtaining my deliverance.

“Being persuaded that the whole magic lay in the ring, I resolved on
filing this asunder. From the court-jeweller, accordingly, I borrowed
some files. By good luck I was left-handed; as, indeed, throughout my
whole life I had never done aught in the right-handed way. I stood
tightly to the work: it was not small; for the golden hoop, so thin as
it appeared, had grown proportionately thicker in contracting from its
former length. All vacant hours I privately applied to this task; and at
last, the metal being nearly through, I was provident enough to step out
of doors. This was a wise measure; for all at once the golden hoop
started sharply from my finger, and my frame shot aloft with such
violence that I actually fancied I should dash against the sky; and, at
all events, I must have bolted through the dome of our palace,--nay,
perhaps, in my new awkwardness, have destroyed this summer residence
altogether.

“Here, then, was I standing again,--in truth, so much the larger, but
also, as it seemed to me, so much the more stupid and helpless. On
recovering from my stupefaction, I observed the royal strong-box lying
near me, which I found to be moderately heavy, as I lifted it, and
carried it down the footpath to the next stage, where I directly ordered
horses and set forth. By the road I soon made trial of the two
side-pouches. Instead of money, which appeared to be run out, I found a
little key: it belonged to the strong-box, in which I got some moderate
compensation. So long as this held out, I made use of the carriage: by
and by I sold it, and proceeded by the diligence. The strong-box, too, I
at length cast from me; having no hope of its ever filling again. And
thus in the end, though after a considerable circuit, I again returned
to the kitchen-hearth, to the landlady and the cook, where you were
first introduced to me.”


                ---------------------------------------


                             CHAPTER XVII.


Lenardo was overwhelmed with business, his writing-office in the
greatest activity; clerks and secretaries finding no moment’s rest:
while Wilhelm and Friedrich, strolling over field and meadow, were
entertaining each other with the most pleasant conversation.

And here, first of all, as necessarily happens between friends meeting
after some separation, the question was started, How far they had
altered in the interim? Friedrich would have it that Wilhelm was exactly
the same as before: to Wilhelm, again, it seemed that his young friend,
though no whit abated in mirth and discursiveness, was somewhat more
staid in his manner. “It were pity,” interrupted Friedrich, “if the
father of three children, the husband of an exemplary matron, had not
likewise gained a little in dignity of bearing.”

Now, also, it came to light, that all the persons whom we got acquainted
with in the “Apprenticeship” were still living and well,--nay, better
than before, being now in full and decisive activity; each, in his own
way, associated with many fellow-laborers, and striving towards the
noblest aim. Of this, however, it is not for the present permitted us to
impart any more precise information; as, in a little book like ours,
reserve and secrecy may be no unseemly qualities.

But whatever, in the course of this confidential conversation,
transpired respecting the society in which we now are, as their more
intimate relations, maxims, and objects, by little and little, came to
view, it is our duty and opportunity to disclose in this place.

“The whim of emigration,”--such was the substance of Friedrich’s talk on
this matter,--“the whim of emigration may, in straitened and painful
circumstances, very naturally lay hold of men: if particular cases
chance to be favored by a happy issue, this whim will, in the general
mind, rise to the rank of passion; as we have seen, as we still see,
and, withal, cannot deny that we, in our time, have been befooled by
such a delusion ourselves.

“Emigration takes place in the treacherous hope of an improvement in our
circumstances, and it is too often counterbalanced by a subsequent
emigration; since, go where you may, you still find yourself in a
conditional world, and, if not constrained to a new emigration, are yet
inclined in secret to cherish such a desire.

“We have, therefore, bound ourselves to renounce all emigration, and to
devote ourselves to migration. Here one does not turn his back on his
native country forever, but hopes, even after the greatest circuit, to
arrive there again, richer, wiser, cleverer, better, and whatever else
such a way of life can make him. Now, in society, all things are easier,
more certain in their accomplishment, than to an individual; in which
sense, my friend, consider what thou shalt observe here: for whatever
thou mayest see, all and every part of it is meant to forward a great,
movable connection among active and sufficient men of all classes.

“But as where men are, manners are too, I may explain thus much of our
constitution by way of preliminary: When two of our number anywhere by
accident meet, they conduct themselves towards each other according to
their rank and fashion, according to custom of handicraft or art, or by
some other such mode adapted to their mutual relations. Three meeting
together are considered as a unity, which governs itself; but, if a
fourth join them, they instantly elect the BOND, one chief and three
subjects. This Bond, however many more combine with them, can still only
be a single newly elected person; for, in the great as in the small
scale, co-regents are found to be mutually obstructive.

“Thou mayest observe that Lenardo unites, in this way, more than a
hundred active and able men,--unites, employs, calls home, sends forth;
as to-morrow, an important day with us, thou wilt perceive and
understand. Thou wilt then see the Bond dissolved, the multitude divided
into smaller societies, and the Bond multiplied; all the rest will at
the same time become clear to thee.

“But for the present I invite thee to a short bout of reading. Here,
under the shadow of these whispering trees, by the side of this
still-flowing water, let us peruse a story, this little paper which
Lenardo, from the rich treasures of his collection, has intrusted to me;
that so both of us may see thoroughly what a difference there is between
a mad pilgrimage, such as many lead in the world, and a well-meditated,
happily commenced undertaking like ours, of which I shall at this time
say no more in praise.”


The quaint, fitful, and most dainty story of “The Foolish Pilgrimess,”
with which our two friends now occupied their morning, we feel ourselves
constrained, not unreluctantly, by certain grave calculations, to
reserve for some future and better season.


                ---------------------------------------


                             CHAPTER XVIII.


Lenardo, having freed himself from business for an hour, took dinner
with his friends; and at table he began to explain to them his family
circumstances. His eldest sister was married. A rich brother-in-law, to
the great satisfaction of the uncle, had undertaken the management of
all the estates; with him Valerina’s husband was stoutly co-operating:
they were laboring on the great scale, strengthening their enterprises
by connection with distant countries and places.

Here, likewise, our oldest friends once more make their appearance:
Lothario, Werner, the abbé, are on their side proceeding in the highest
diligence; while Jarno occupies himself with mining. A general insurance
has been instituted: we discern a vast property in land; and on this
depends the existence of a large wandering society, the individual
members of which, under the condition of the greatest possible
usefulness, are recommended to all the world, are forwarded in every
undertaking, and secured against all mischances: while they again, as
scattered colonists, may be supposed to re-act on their mother country
with favorable influences.

Throughout all this we observe Lenardo recognized as the wandering Bond:
in smaller and greater combinations, he, for most part, is elected; on
him is placed the most unrestricted confidence.

So far had the disclosure, partly from Lenardo, partly from Friedrich,
proceeded without let, when both of them on a sudden became silent; each
seeming to have scruples about communicating more. After a short pause,
Wilhelm addressed them, and cried, “What new secret again suddenly
overshadows the friendliest explanation? Will you again leave me in the
lurch?”

“Not at all!” exclaimed Friedrich. “Do but hear me! He has found the
nut-brown maid, and for her sake”--

“Not for her sake,” interrupted Lenardo.

“And just for her sake!” persisted Friedrich. “Do not deceive yourself:
for her sake you are changing yourself into a lawful vagabond; as some
others of us, not, in truth, for the most praiseworthy purposes, have,
in times past, changed ourselves into lawless vagrants.”

“Let us go along calmly,” said Lenardo: “our friend here must be made
acquainted with the state of our affairs; but, in the first place, let
him have a little touch of discipline for himself. You had found the
nut-brown maid, but to me you refused the knowledge of her abode. For
this I will not blame you, but what good did it do? To discover this
secret I was passionately incited; and, notwithstanding your sagacious
caution, I at length came upon the right trace. You have seen the good
maiden yourself: her circumstances you have accurately investigated, and
yet you did not judge them rightly. It is only the loving who feels and
discovers what the beloved wishes and wants: he can read it in her from
her deepest heart. Let this at present suffice: for explanation we have
no time left to-day. To-morrow I have the hottest press of business to
front: next day we part. But for your information, composure, and
participating interest, accept this copy of a week from my journal: it
is the best legacy which I can leave you. By reading it you will not,
indeed, become wiser than you are and than I am; but let this for the
present suffice. The nearest future, or a more remote one, will arrange
and direct: that is to say, in this case, as in so many others, we know
not what is to become of us.”

By way of dessert Lenardo received a packet, at the opening of which he,
with some tokens of surprise, handed a letter to Wilhelm. “What secrets,
what speedy concerns, can sister Hersilia have with our friend? ‘To be
delivered instantly and opened privately, without the presence of any
one, friend or stranger!’ Let us give him all possible convenience,
Friedrich: let us withdraw!” Wilhelm hastily broke open the sheet, and
read,--


                         _Hersilia to Wilhelm._

    Wherever this letter may reach you, my noble friend, to a
    certainty it will find you in some nook where you are striving
    in vain to hide from yourself. By making you acquainted with my
    two fair dames, I have done you a sorry service.

    But wherever you may be lurking, and doubtless it will search
    you out, my promise is, that if, after reading this letter, you
    do not forthwith leap from your seat, and, like a pious pilgrim,
    appear in my presence without delay, I must declare you to be
    the manliest of all men; that is to say, the one most completely
    void of the finest property belonging to our sex: I mean
    curiosity, which at this moment is afflicting me in its sharpest
    concentration.

    In one word, then, your casket has now got its key: this,
    however, none but you and I are to know. How it came into my
    hands let me now tell you.

    Some days ago our man of law gets despatches from a distant
    tribunal; wherein he was asked if, at such and such a time,
    there had not been a boy prowling about our neighborhood who had
    played all manner of tricks, and at length, in a rash
    enterprise, lost his jacket.

    By the way this brat was described, no doubt remained with us
    but he was Fitz,--the gay comrade whom Felix talked so much of,
    and so often wished back to play with him.

    Now, for the present, those authorities request that said
    article of dress may be sent to them if it is still in
    existence; as the boy, at last involved in judicial
    examinations, refers to it. Of this demand our lawyer chances to
    make mention: he shows us the little frock before sending it
    off.

    Some good or evil spirit whispers me to grope the breast-pocket:
    a little, angular, prickly something comes into my hand; I, so
    timorous, ticklish, and startlish as I usually am, clinch my
    hand, clinch it, hold my peace; and the jerkin is sent away.
    Directly, of all feelings, the strangest seizes me. At the first
    stolen glance I saw, I guessed, that it was the key of your
    little box. And now came wondrous scruples of conscience, and
    all sorts of moral doubts. To discover, to give back my
    windfall, was impossible; what have those long-wigged judges to
    do with it when it may be so useful to my friend? And then,
    again, all manner of questions about right and duty begin
    lifting up their voices; but I would not let them outvote me.

    From this you perceive into what a situation my friendship for
    you has reduced me: a choice faculty develops itself all on a
    sudden for your sake; what an occurrence! May it not be
    something more than friendship that so holds the balance of my
    conscience? Between guilt and curiosity I am wonderfully
    discomposed; I have a hundred whims and stories about what may
    follow: law and judgment will not be trifled with. Hersilia, the
    careless, and, as occasion served, capricious Hersilia,
    entangled in a criminal process; for this is the scope and
    tendency of it! And what can I do but think of the friend for
    whose sake I suffer all this? I thought of you before, yet with
    pauses; but now I think of you incessantly: now when my heart
    throbs, and I think of the eighth commandment, I must turn to
    you as to the saint who has caused this sin, and will also
    procure me an absolution; thus the opening of the casket is the
    only thing that can compose me. My curiosity is growing stronger
    and doubly strong: come, and bring the casket with you. To what
    judgment-seat it properly belongs we will make out between us:
    till then let it remain between us; no one must know of it, be
    who he will.

    But now, in conclusion, look here, my friend. And tell me, what
    say you to this picture of the riddle? Does it not remind you of
    arrows with barbs? God help us! But the box must first stand
    unopened between you and me, and then, when opened, tell us
    further what we have to do. I wish there were nothing whatever
    in it; and who knows what all I wish, and what all I could tell?
    but do you look at this, and hasten so much the faster to get
    upon the road.


[Illustration: An elaborate drawing that looks something like a key.]

Friedrich returned more gay and lively than he had gone. “Good news!”
cried he: “good luck! Lenardo has received some pretty letters to
facilitate the parting: credit more than sufficient; and thou, too,
shalt have thy share in it. Fortune herself surely knows not what she is
about; for once in her time she has done wise, worthy fellows a favor.”

Hereupon he handed to his friend some clipped fragments of maps, with
directions where they were to be produced, and changed for hard cash or
bills, as he might choose. Wilhelm was obliged to accept them; though he
kept assuring his companion, that for the present he had no need of such
things. “Then, others will need them!” cried Friedrich: “constrain not
thy good feelings, and, wherever thou art, appear as a benefactor. But
now come along, let us have a look at this manuscript: it is long till
night; one tires of talking and listening, so I have begged some writing
for our entertainment. Every leaf in Lenardo’s archives is penned in the
spirit of the whole: in giving me this, he said, ‘Well, take it and read
it: our friend will acquire more confidence in our society and Bond, the
more good members he becomes acquainted with.’”

The two then retired to a cheerful spot; and Friedrich read, enlivening
with much natural energy and mirth, what he found set down for him.

                        WHO CAN THE TRAITOR BE?

“No, no!” exclaimed he, violently and hastily rushing into the chamber
allotted him, and setting down his candle,--“no! it is impossible! But
whither shall I turn? For the first time I think otherwise than he: for
the first time I feel, I wish, otherwise. O father! couldst thou but be
present invisibly, couldst thou but look through and through me, thou
wouldst see that I am still the same, still thy true, obedient,
affectionate son. Yet to say no! To contradict my father’s dearest,
long-cherished wish! How shall I disclose it? How shall I express it?
No: I cannot marry Julia! While I speak of it, I shudder. And how shall
I appear before him, tell him this, him, the good, kind father? He looks
at me with astonishment, without speaking: the prudent, clear-sighted,
gifted man can find no words. Woe is me! Ah! I know well to whom I would
confide this pain, this perplexity, who it is I would choose for my
advocate. Before all others, thou, Lucinda! And I would first tell thee
how I love thee, how I give myself to thee, and pressingly entreat thee
to speak for me, and if thou canst love me again, if thou wilt be mine,
to speak for us both.”

To explain this short, pithy monologue will require some details.

Professor N. of N. had an only boy of singular beauty, whom, till the
child’s eighth year, he had left entirely in charge of his wife. This
excellent woman had directed the hours and days of her son in living,
learning, and all good behavior. She died; and the father instantly
felt, that to prosecute this parental tutelage was impossible. In their
lifetime, all had been harmony between the parents: they had labored for
a common aim, had determined in concert what was next to be done; and
the mother had not wanted skill to execute wisely, by herself, what the
two had planned together. Double and treble was now the widower’s
anxiety; seeing, as he could not but daily see, that for the sons of
professors, even in universities, it was only by a sort of miracle that
a happy education could be expected.

In this strait he applied to his friend, the _Oberamtmann_ of R., with
whom he had already been treating of plans for a closer alliance between
their families. The _Oberamtmann_ gave him counsel and assistance: so
the son was established in one of those institutions which still
flourish in Germany, and where charge is taken of the whole man, and
body, soul, and spirit are trained with all attention.

The son was thus provided for: the father, however, felt himself very
lonely, robbed of his wife, shut out from the cheerful presence of the
boy, whom he had seen, without effort of his, growing up in such
desirable culture. But here, again, the friendship of the _Oberamtmann_
served him in good stead: the distance of their abodes vanished before
his affection, his desire for movement, for diversion of thought. In
this hospitable home the widowed man of letters found, in a family
circle, motherless like his own, two beautiful little daughters growing
up in diverse loveliness: a state of things which more and more
confirmed the fathers in their purpose, in their hope, of one day seeing
their families united in the most joyful bonds.

They lived under the sway of a mild, good prince: the meritorious
_Oberamtmann_ was certain of his post during life; and, in the
appointment of a successor, his recommendation was likely to go far. And
now, according to the wise family arrangement, sanctioned also by the
minister, Lucidor was to train himself for the important office of his
future father-in-law. This in consequence he did, from step to step.
Nothing was neglected in communicating to him all sorts of knowledge, in
developing in him all sorts of activity, which the state in any case
requires,--practice in rigorous judicial law, and also in the laxer
sort, where prudence and address find their proper field; foresight for
daily ways and means; not excluding higher and more comprehensive views,
yet all tending towards practical life, and so as with effect and
certainty to be employed in its concerns.

With such purposes had Lucidor spent his school years: by his father and
his patron he was now warned to make ready for the university. In all
departments he already showed the fairest talents; and to nature he was
further indebted for the singular happiness of inclining, out of love
for his father, out of respect for his friend, to turn his capabilities,
first from obedience, then from conviction, on that very object to which
he was directed. He was placed in a foreign university; and here, both
by his own account in his letters, and by the testimony of his teachers
and overseers, he continued walking in the path that led towards his
appointed goal. It was only objected to him, that in certain cases he
had been too impetuously brave. The father shook his head at this: the
_Oberamtmann_ nodded. Who would not have been proud of such a son?

Meanwhile the two daughters, Julia and Lucinda, were waxing in stature
and graces. Julia, the younger, waggish, lovely, unstable, highly
entertaining; the other difficult to portray, for in her sincerity and
purity she represented all that we prize most in woman. Visits were paid
and repaid: and, in the professor’s house, Julia found the most
inexhaustible amusement.

Geography, which he failed not to enliven by topography, belonged to his
province; and no sooner did Julia cast her eyes on any of the volumes,
of which a whole series from Homann’s warehouse were standing there,
than the cities, all and sundry, had to be mustered, judged, preferred,
or rejected: all havens especially obtained her favor; other towns, to
acquire even a slight approval from her, must stand forth well supplied
with steeples, domes, and minarets.

Julia’s father often left her for weeks to the care of his tried friend.
She was actually advancing in knowledge of her science; and already the
inhabited world, in its main features, in its chief points and places,
stood before her with some accuracy and distinctness. The garbs of
foreign nations attracted her peculiar attention; and often when her
foster-father asked her in jest, If among the many young, handsome men
who were passing to and fro before her window, there was not some one or
other whom she liked? she would answer, “Yes, indeed! if he do but look
odd enough.” And, as our young students are seldom behindhand in this
particular, she had often occasion to take notice of individuals among
them; they brought to her mind the costume of foreign nations: however,
she declared in the end, that, if she was to bestow her undivided
attention on any one, he must be at least a Greek, equipped in the
complete fashion of his country; on which account, also, she longed to
be at some Leipzig fair, where, as she understood, such persons were to
be seen walking the streets.

After his dry and often irksome labors, our teacher had now no happier
moments than those he spent in mirthfully instructing her; triumphing
withal, in secret, that a being so attractive, ever entertaining, ever
entertained, was in the end to be his own daughter. For the rest, the
two fathers had mutually agreed, that no hint of their purpose should be
communicated to the girls: from Lucidor, also, it was kept secret.

Thus had years passed away, as, indeed, they very lightly pass: Lucidor
presented himself completed, having stood all trials to the joy, even of
the superior overseers, who wished nothing more heartily than being
able, with a good conscience, to fulfil the hopes of old, worthy,
favored, and deserving servants.

And so the business had at length by quiet, regular steps come so far,
that Lucidor, after having demeaned himself in subordinate stations to
universal satisfaction, was now to be placed in a very advantageous
post, suitable to his wishes and merits, and lying just midway between
the university and the _Oberamtmann-ship_.

The father now spoke with his son about Julia, of whom he had hitherto
only hinted, as about his bride and wife, without any doubt or
condition; congratulating him on the happiness of having appropriated
such a jewel to himself. The professor saw in fancy his daughter-in-law
again from time to time in his house, occupied with charts, plans, and
views of cities: the son recalled to mind the gay and most lovely
creature, who, in times of childhood, had, by her rogueries as by her
kindliness, always delighted him. Lucidor was now to ride over to the
_Oberamtmann’s_, to take a closer view of the full-grown fair one, and,
for a few weeks, to surrender himself to the habitudes and familiarity
of her household. If the young people, as was to be hoped, should
speedily agree, the professor was forthwith to appear, that so a solemn
betrothment might forever secure the anticipated happiness.

Lucidor arrives, is received with the friendliest welcome: a chamber is
allotted him; he arranges himself there, and appears. And now he finds,
besides the members of the family already known to us, a grown-up
son,--misbred certainly, yet shrewd and good-natured; so that, if you
like to take him as the jesting counsellor of the party, he fitted not
ill with the rest. There belonged, moreover, to the house a very old,
but healthy and gay-hearted, man, quiet, wise, discreet; completing his
life, as it were, and here and there requiring a little help. Directly
after Lucidor, too, there had arrived another stranger, no longer young,
of an impressive aspect, dignified, thoroughly well-bred, and, by his
acquaintance with the most distant quarters of the world, extremely
entertaining. He was called Antoni.

Julia received her announced bridegroom in fit order, yet with an excess
rather than a defect of frankness: Lucinda, on the other hand, did the
honors of the house; as her sister did those of herself. So passed the
day, peculiarly agreeable to all, only to Lucidor not: he, at all times
silent, had been forced, that he might avoid sinking dumb entirely, to
employ himself in asking questions; and in this attitude no one appears
to advantage.

Throughout he had been absent-minded; for at the first glance he had
felt, not aversion or repugnance, yet estrangement, towards Julia:
Lucinda, on the contrary, attracted him; so that he trembled every time
she looked at him with her full, pure, peaceful eyes.

Thus hard bested, he reached his chamber the first night, and gave vent
to his heart in that soliloquy with which we began. But to explain this
sufficiently, to show how the violence of such an emphatic speech agrees
with what we know of him already, another little statement will be
necessary.

Lucidor was of a deep character, and for most part had something else in
his mind than what the present scene required: hence talk and social
conversation would never prosper rightly with him; he felt this, and was
wont to continue silent, except when the topic happened to be
particular, on some department which he had completely studied, and of
which, whatever he needed was at all times ready. Besides this, in his
early years at school, and later at the university, he had been deceived
in friends, and had wasted the effusions of his heart unhappily: hence
every communication of his feelings seemed to him a doubtful step, and
doubting destroys all such communication. With his father he was used to
speak only in unison: therefore his full heart poured itself out in
monologues, as soon as he was by himself.

Next morning he had summoned up his resolution; and yet he almost lost
heart and composure again, when Julia met him with still more
friendliness, gayety, and frankness than ever. She had much to
ask,--about his journey by land and journeys by water; how, when a
student, with his knapsack on his back, he had roamed and climbed
through Switzerland,--nay, crossed the Alps themselves. And now of those
fair islands on the great Southern Lake she had much to say: and then
backwards, the Rhine must be accompanied from his primary origin; at
first, through most undelicious regions, and so downwards through many
an alternation, till at length, between Maynz and Coblenz, you find it
still worth while respectfully to dismiss the old River from his last
confinement, into the wide world, into the sea.

Lucidor, in the course of this recital, felt much lightened in heart; he
narrated willingly and well: so that Julia at last exclaimed in rapture,
“It is thus that our other self should be!” At which phrase Lucidor
again felt startled and frightened, thinking he saw in it an allusion to
their future pilgrimage in common through life.

From his narrative duty, however, he was soon relieved; for the
stranger, Antoni, very speedily overshadowed all mountain streams, and
rocky banks, and rivers, whether hemmed in or left at liberty. Under his
guidance you now went forward to Genoa; Livorno lay at no great
distance; whatever was most interesting in the country you took with you
as fair spoil; Naples, too, was a place you should see before you died;
and then, in truth, remained Constantinople, which also was by no means
to be neglected. Antoni’s descriptions of the wide world carried the
imagination of every hearer along with him, though Antoni himself
introduced little fire into the subject. Julia, quite enraptured, was
still nowise satisfied: she longed for Alexandria, Cairo, and, above
all, for the pyramids; of which, by the lessons of her intended
father-in-law, she had gained some moderate knowledge.

Lucidor, next night (he had scarcely shut his door, the candle he had
not put down), exclaimed, “Now, bethink thee, then: it is growing
serious! Thou hast studied and meditated many serious things: what
avails thy law-learning if thou canst not act like a man of law? View
thyself as a delegate, forget thy own feelings, and do what it would
behoove thee to do for another. It thickens and closes round me
horribly! The stranger is plainly come for the sake of Lucinda; she
shows him the fairest, noblest social and hospitable attentions: that
little fool would run through the world with any one for any thing or
nothing. Besides, she is a wag: her interest in cities and countries is
a farce, by which she keeps us in silence. But why do I look at the
affair so perplexedly, so narrowly? Is not the _Oberamtmann_ himself the
most judicious, the clearest, the kindest mediator? Thou wilt tell him
how thou feelest and thinkest; and he will think with thee, if not
likewise feel. With thy father he has all influence. And is not the one
as well as the other his daughter? What would this Antoni the traveller
with Lucinda, who is born for home, to be happy and to make happy? Let
the wavering quicksilver fasten itself to the Wandering Jew: that will
be a right match.”

Next morning Lucidor came down with the firm purpose of speaking with
the father, and waiting on him expressly to that end, at the hour when
he knew him to be disengaged. How great was his vexation, his
perplexity, on learning that the _Oberamtmann_ had been called away on
business, and was not expected till the day after the morrow! Julia, on
this occasion, seemed to be expressly in her travelling-fit; she kept by
the world wanderer, and, with some sportive hits at domestic economy,
gave up Lucidor to Lucinda. If our friend, viewing this noble maiden
from a certain distance, and under one general impression, had already,
with his whole heart, loved her, he failed not now in this nearest
nearness to discover with double and treble vividness in detail all that
had before as a whole attracted him.

The good old friend of the family now brought himself forward in place
of the absent father: he, too, had lived, had loved, and was now, after
many hard buffetings and bruises of life, resting at last, refreshed and
cheerful, beside the friend of his youth. He enlivened the conversation,
and especially expatiated on perplexities in choice of wives; relating
several remarkable examples of explanations, both in time and too late.
Lucinda appeared in all her splendor. She admitted, that accident in all
departments of life, and so likewise in the business of marriage, often
produced the best result; yet that it was finer and prouder when one
could say he owed his happiness to himself, to the silent, calm
conviction of his heart, to a noble purpose and a quick determination.
Tears stood in Lucidor’s eyes as he applauded this sentiment: directly
afterwards the two ladies went out. The old president liked well to deal
in illustrative histories; and so the conversation expanded itself into
details of pleasant instances, which, however, touched our hero so
closely that none but a youth of as delicate manners as his could have
refrained from breaking out with his secret. He did break out so soon as
he was by himself.

“I have constrained myself!” exclaimed he: “with such perplexities I
will not vex my good father; I have forborne to speak, for I see in this
worthy old man the substitute of both fathers. To him will I speak, to
him disclose the whole: he will surely bring it about; he has already
almost spoken what I wish. Will he censure in the individual case what
he praises in general? To-morrow I visit him: I must give vent to this
oppression.”

At breakfast the old man was not present: last night he had spoken, it
appeared, too much, had sat too long, and likewise drunk a drop or two
of wine beyond his custom. Much was said in his praise: many anecdotes
were related, and precisely of such sayings and doings as brought
Lucidor to despair for not having forthwith applied to him. This
unpleasant feeling was but aggravated when he learned, that, in such
attacks of disorder, the good old man would often not make his
re-appearance for a week.

For social converse a country residence has many advantages, especially
when the owners of it have, for a course of years, been induced, as
thinking and feeling persons, to improve the natural capabilities of
their environs. Such had been the good fortune of this spot. The
_Oberamtmann_, at first unwedded, then in a long, happy marriage,
himself a man of fortune, and occupying a lucrative post, had, according
to his own judgment and perception, according to the taste of his
wife,--nay, at last according to the wishes and whims of his
children,--laid out and forwarded many larger and smaller decorations;
which, by degrees, being skilfully connected with plantations and paths,
afforded to the promenader a very beautiful, continually varying,
characteristic series of scenes. A pilgrimage through these our young
hosts now proposed to their guest; as in general we take pleasure in
showing our improvements to a stranger, that so what has become habitual
in our eyes may appear with the charm of novelty in his, and leave with
him, in permanent remembrance, its first favorable impression.

The nearest, as well as the most distant, part of the grounds was
peculiarly appropriate for modest decorations, and altogether rural
individualities. Fertile hills alternated with well-watered meadows, so
that the whole was visible from time to time without being flat; and, if
the land seemed chiefly devoted to purposes of utility, the graceful,
the attractive, was by no means excluded.

To the dwelling and office houses were united various gardens, orchards,
and green spaces; out of which you imperceptibly passed into a little
wood with a broad, clear carriage-road, winding up and down through the
midst of it. Here, in a central spot, on the most considerable
elevation, there had been a hall erected, with side-chambers entering
from it. On coming through the main door you saw, in a large mirror, the
most favorable prospect which the country afforded, and were sure to
turn round that instant, to recover yourself on the reality from the
effect of this its unexpected image; for the approach was artfully
enough contrived, and all that could excite surprise was carefully hid
till the last moment. No one entered but felt pleasurably tempted to
turn from the mirror to nature, and from nature to the mirror.

Once in motion in this fairest, brightest, longest day, our party made a
spiritual campaign of it, over and through the whole. Here the daughters
pointed out the evening-seat of their good mother, where a stately
box-tree had kept clear space all round it. A little farther on
Lucinda’s place of morning prayer was half-roguishly exhibited by Julia,
close to a little brook, between poplars and alders, with meadows
sloping down from it, and fields stretching upwards. It was
indescribably pretty. You thought you had seen such a spot everywhere,
but nowhere so impressive and so perfect in its simplicity. In return
for this the young master, also half against Julia’s will, pointed out
the tiny groves, and child’s gardens which, close by a snug-lying mill,
were now scarcely discernible: they dated from a time when Julia,
perhaps in her tenth year, had taken it into her head to become a
milleress; intending, after the decease of the two old occupants, to
assume the management herself, and choose some brave millman for her
husband.

“That was at a time,” cried Julia, “when I knew nothing of towns lying
on rivers, or even on the sea,--nothing of Genoa, of Naples, and the
like. Your worthy father, Lucidor, has converted me: of late I come
seldom hither.” She sat down with a roguish air, and on a little bench,
that was now scarcely large enough for her, under an elder-bough, which
had bent deeply towards the ground. “Fie on this cowering!” cried she,
then started up, and ran off with her gay brother.

The remaining pair kept up a rational conversation, and in these cases
reason approaches close to the borders of feeling. Wandering over
changeful, simple, natural objects, to contemplate at leisure how
cunning, scheming man contrives to gain some profit from them; how his
perception of what is laid before him, combining with the feeling of his
wants, does wonders, first in rendering the world inhabitable, then in
peopling it, and at last in over-peopling it,--all this could here be
talked of in detail. Lucinda gave account of every thing; and, modest as
she was, she could not hide that these pleasant and convenient
combinations of distant parts by roads had been her work, under the
proposal, direction, or favor of her revered mother.

But as the longest day at last bends down to evening, our party were at
last forced to think of returning: and, while devising some pleasant
circuit, the merry brother proposed that they should take the short
road; though it commanded no fine prospects, and was even in some places
more difficult to get over. “For,” cried he, “you have preached all day
about your decorations and reparations, and how you have improved and
beautified the scene for pictorial eyes and feeling hearts: let me,
also, have my turn.”

Accordingly, they now set forth over ploughed grounds, by coarse paths,
nay, sometimes picking their way by stepping-stones in boggy places;
till at last they perceived, at some distance, a pile of machinery
towering up in manifold combination. More closely examined, it turned
out to be a large apparatus for sport and games, arranged, not without
judgment, and in a certain popular spirit. Here, fixed at suitable
distances, stood a large swing-wheel, on which the ascending and the
descending riders might still sit horizontally and at their ease; other
seesaws, swing-ropes, leaping-poles, bowling and ninepins courses, and
whatever can be fancied for variedly and equally employing and diverting
a crowd of people gathered on a large common. “This,” cried he, “is my
invention, my decoration! And though my father found the money, and a
shrewd fellow the brain necessary for it, yet without me, whom you often
call a person of no judgment, money and brain would not have come
together.”

In this cheerful mood the whole four reached home by sunset. Antoni also
joined them; but the little Julia, not yet satisfied with this unresting
travel, ordered her coach, and set forth on a visit to a lady of her
friends, in utter despair at not having seen her for two days. The party
left behind began to feel embarrassed before they were aware: it was
even mentioned in words that the father’s absence distressed them. The
conversation was about to stagnate, when all at once the madcap sprang
from his seat, and in a few moments returned with a book, proposing to
read to the company. Lucinda forbore not to inquire how this notion had
occurred to him, now for the first time in a twelvemonth. “Every thing
occurs to me,” said he, “at the proper season: this is more than you can
say for yourself.” He read them a series of genuine antique tales, such
as lead man away from himself, flattering his wishes, and making him
forget all those restrictions between which, even in the happiest
moments, we are still hemmed in.

“What shall I do now?” cried Lucidor, when at last he saw himself alone.
“The hour presses on: in Antoni I have no trust; he is an utter
stranger; I know not who he is, how he comes to be here, nor what he
wants: Lucinda seems to be his object; and, if so, what can I expect of
him? Nothing remains for me but applying to Lucinda herself: she must
know of it, she before all others. This was my first feeling: why do we
stray into side-paths and subterfuges? My first thought shall be my
last, and I hope to reach my aim.”

On Saturday morning Lucidor, dressed at an early hour, was walking to
and fro in his chamber, thinking and conning over his projected address
to Lucinda, when he heard a sort of jestful contention before his door;
and the door itself directly afterwards went up. The mad younker was
shoving in a boy before him with coffee and baked ware for the guest: he
himself carried cold meats and wine. “Go thou foremost,” cried the
younker, “for the guest must be first served: I am used to serve myself.
My friend, to-day I am entering somewhat early and tumultuously: but let
us take our breakfast in peace; then we shall see what is to be done,
for of our company there is nothing to be hoped. The little one is not
yet back from her friend: they two have to pour out their hearts
together every fortnight, otherwise the poor, dear hearts would burst.
On Saturdays Lucinda is good for nothing: she balances her household
accounts for my father; she would have had me taking share in the
concern, but Heaven forbid! When I know the price of any thing, no
morsel of it can I relish. Guests are expected to-morrow; the old man
has not yet got refitted: Antoni is gone to hunt; we will do the same.”

Guns, pouches, and dogs were ready as our pair stepped down into the
court; and now they set forth over field and hill, shooting at best a
leveret or so, and perhaps here and there a poor, indifferent,
undeserving bird. Meanwhile they kept talking of domestic affairs, of
the household, and company at present assembled in it. Antoni was
mentioned, and Lucidor failed not to inquire more narrowly about him.
The gay younker, with some self-complaisance, asserted, that strange as
the man was, and much mystery as he made about himself, he, the gay
younker, had already seen through him and through him. “Without doubt,”
continued he, “Antoni is the son of a rich mercantile family, whose
large partnership concern fell to ruin at the very time when he, in the
full vigor of youth, was preparing to take a cheerful and active hand in
their great undertakings, and, withal, to share in their abundant
profits. Dashed down from the summit of his hopes, he gathered himself
together, and undertook to perform for strangers what he was no longer
in a case to perform for his relatives. And so he travelled through the
world, became thoroughly acquainted with it and its mutual traffickings;
in the mean while not forgetting his own advantage. Unwearied diligence
and tried fidelity obtained and secured for him unbounded confidence
from many. Thus in all places he acquired connections and friends: nay,
it is easy to see that his fortune is as widely scattered abroad as his
acquaintance; and, accordingly, his presence is from time to time
required in all quarters of the world.”

These things the merry younker told in a more circumstantial and simple
style, introducing many farcical observations, as if he meant to spin
out his story to full length.

“How long, for instance,” cried he, “has this Antoni been connected with
my father? They think I see nothing because I trouble myself about
nothing; but for this very reason I see it better, as I take no interest
in it. To my father he has intrusted large sums, who, again, has
deposited them securely and to advantage. It was but last night that he
gave our old dietetic friend a casket of jewels; a finer, simpler,
costlier piece of ware I never cast my eyes on: though I saw this only
with a single glance, for they make a secret of it. Most probably it is
to be consigned to the bride for her pleasure, satisfaction, and future
security. Antoni has set his heart on Lucinda! Yet, when I see them
together, I cannot think it a well-assorted match. The hop-skip would
have suited him better: I believe, too, she would take him sooner than
the elder would. Many a time I see her looking over to the old
curmudgeon, so gay and sympathetic, as if she could find in her heart to
spring into the coach with him, and fly off at full gallop.” Lucidor
collected himself; he knew not what to answer; all that he heard
obtained his internal approbation. The younker proceeded, “All along the
girl has had a perverted liking for old people: I believe, of a truth,
she would have skipped away and wedded your father as briskly as she
would his son.”

Lucidor followed his companion over stock and stone, as it pleased the
gay youth to lead him: both forgot the chase, which, at any rate, could
not be productive. They called at a farmhouse, where, being hospitably
received, the one friend entertained himself with eating, drinking, and
tattling; the other again plunged into meditations and projects for
turning this new discovery to his own profit.

From all these narrations and disclosures Lucidor had acquired so much
confidence in Antoni, that, immediately on their return, he asked for
him, and hastened into the garden where he was said to be. In vain! No
soul was to be seen anywhere. At last he entered the door of the great
hall: and strange enough the setting sun, reflected from the mirror, so
dazzled him that he could not recognize the two persons who were sitting
on the sofa; though he saw distinctly that it was a lady and a man,
which latter was that instant warmly kissing the hand of his companion.
How great, accordingly, was Lucidor’s astonishment when, on recovering
his clearness of vision, he beheld Antoni sitting by Lucinda. He was
like to sink through the ground; he stood, however, as if rooted to the
spot, till Lucinda, in the kindest, most unembarrassed manner, shifted a
little to a side, and invited him to take a seat on her right hand.
Unconsciously he obeyed her; and while she addressed him, inquiring
after his present day’s history, asking pardon for her absence on
domestic engagements, he could scarcely hear her voice. Antoni rose, and
took his leave: Lucinda, resting herself from her toil as the others
were doing, invited Lucidor to a short stroll. Walking by her side he
was silent and embarrassed: she, too, seemed ill at ease; and, had he
been in the slightest degree self-collected, her deep-drawn breathing
must have disclosed to him that she had heartfelt sighs to suppress. She
at last took her leave as they approached the house: he, on the other
hand, turned round at first slowly, then at a violent pace, to the open
country. The park was too narrow for him: he hastened through the
fields, listening only to the voice of his heart, and without eyes for
the beauties of this loveliest evening. When he found himself alone, and
his feelings were relieving their violence in a shower of tears, he
exclaimed,--

“Already in my life, but never with such fierceness, have I felt the
agony which now makes me altogether wretched,--to see the
long-wished-for happiness at length reach me, hand in hand and arm in
arm unite with me, and at the same moment announce its eternal
departure! I was sitting by her, I was walking by her, her fluttering
garment touched me; and I have lost her! Reckon it not over, torture not
thy heart with it, be silent and determine!”

He laid a prohibition on his lips: he held his peace, and planned and
meditated; stepping over field and meadow and bush, not always by the
smoothest paths. Late at night, on returning to his chamber, he gave
voice to his thoughts for a moment, and cried, “To-morrow morning I am
gone: another such day I will not front.”

And so, without undressing, he threw himself on the bed. Happy, healthy
season of youth! He was already asleep: the fatiguing motion of the day
had earned for him the sweetest rest. Out of bright morning dreams,
however, the earliest sun awoke him: this was the longest day in the
year, and for him it threatened to be too long. If the grace of the
peaceful evening star had passed over him unnoticed, he felt the
awakening beauty of the morning only to despair. The world was lying
here as glorious as ever; to his eyes it was still so, but his soul
contradicted it: all this belonged to him no longer; he had lost
Lucinda.

His travelling-bag was soon packed; this he was to leave behind him; he
left no letter with it: a verbal message in excuse of absence from
dinner, perhaps also from supper, might be left with the groom, whom, at
any rate, he must awaken. The groom, however, was awake already: Lucidor
found him in the yard, walking with large strides before the
stable-door. “You do not mean to ride?” cried the usually good-natured
man, with a tone of some spleen. “To you I may say it, but young master
is growing worse and worse. There was he driving about far and near
yesterday: you might have thought he would thank God for a Sunday to
rest in. And see if he does not come this morning before daybreak,
rummages about in the stable, and, while I am getting up, saddles and
bridles your horse, flings himself on it, and cries, ‘Do but consider
the good work I am doing! This beast keeps jogging on at a staid,
juridical trot: I must see and rouse him into a smart life-gallop.’ He
said something just so, and other strange speeches besides.”

Lucidor was doubly and trebly vexed: he liked the horse, as
corresponding to his own character, his own mode of life; it grieved him
to figure his good, sensible beast in the hands of a madcap. His plan,
too, was overturned,--his purpose of flying to a college friend with
whom he had lived in cheerful, cordial union, and in this crisis seeking
refuge beside him. His old confidence had been awakened, the intervening
miles were not counted: he had fancied himself already at the side of
his true-hearted and judicious friend, finding counsel and assuagement
from his words and looks. This prospect was now cut off, yet not
entirely, if he could venture with the fresh, pedestrian limbs which
still stood at his command to set forth towards the goal.

First of all, accordingly, he struck through the park; making for the
open country, and the road which was to lead him to his friend. Of his
direction he was not quite certain, when, looking to the left, his eye
fell upon the hermitage, which had hitherto been kept secret from
him,--a strange edifice, rising with grotesque joinery through bush and
tree; and here, to his extreme astonishment, he observed the good old
man, who for some days had been considered sick, standing in the gallery
under the Chinese roof, and looking blithely through the soft morning.
The friendliest salutation, the most pressing entreaties to come up,
Lucidor resisted with excuses and gestures of haste. Nothing but
sympathy with the good old man, who, hastening down with infirm step,
seemed every moment in danger of falling to the bottom, could induce him
to turn thither, and then suffer himself to be conducted up. With
surprise he entered the pretty little hall; it had only three windows,
turned towards the park,--a most graceful prospect: the other sides were
decorated, or, rather, covered, with hundreds of portraits, copper-plate
or painted, which were fixed in a certain order to the wall, and
separated by colored borders and interstices.

“I favor you, my friend, more than I do every one: this is the sanctuary
in which I peacefully spend my last days. Here I recover myself from all
the mistakes which society tempts me to commit: here my dietetic errors
are corrected, and my old being is again restored to equilibrium.”

Lucidor looked over the place; and, being well read in history, he
easily observed that an historical taste had presided in its
arrangement.

“Above, there, in the frieze,” said the old virtuoso, “you will find the
names of distinguished men in the primitive ages; then those of later
antiquity; yet still only their names, for how they looked would now be
difficult to discover. But here, in the main field, comes my own life
into play: here are the men whose names I used to hear mentioned in my
boyhood. For some fifty years or so the name of a distinguished man
continues in the remembrance of the people: then it vanishes, or becomes
fabulous. Though of German parentage, I was born in Holland; and, for
me, William of Orange, Stadtholder, and King of England, is the
patriarch of all common great men and heroes.

“Now, close by William, you observe Louis Fourteenth as the person
who”--How gladly would Lucidor have cut short the good old man, had it
but been permitted him, as it is to us the narrators: for the whole late
and latest history of the world seemed impending; as from the portraits
of Frederick the Great and his generals, towards which he was glancing,
was but too clearly to be gathered.

And though the kindly young man could not but respect his old friend’s
lively sympathy in these things, nor deny that some individual features
and views in this exhibitory discourse might be interesting; yet at
college he had heard the late and latest history of Europe already: and,
what a man has once heard, he fancies himself to know forever. Lucidor’s
thoughts were wandering far away: he heard not, he scarcely saw, and was
just on the point, in spite of all politeness, of flinging himself out,
and tumbling down the long, fatal stair, when a loud clapping of hands
was heard from below.

While Lucidor restrained his movement, the old man looked over through
the window; and a well-known voice resounded from beneath, “Come down,
for Heaven’s sake, out of your historic picture-gallery, old gentleman!
Conclude your fasts and humiliations, and help me to appease our young
friend, when he learns it. Lucidor’s horse I have ridden somewhat hard:
it has lost a shoe, and I was obliged to leave the beast behind me. What
will he say? He is too absurd, when one behaves absurdly.”

“Come up,” said the old man, and turned in to Lucidor. “Now what say
you?” Lucidor was silent, and the wild blade entered. The discussion of
the business lasted long: at length it was determined to despatch the
groom forthwith, that he might seek the horse, and take charge of it.

Leaving the old man, the two younkers hastened to the house; Lucidor,
not quite unwillingly, submitting to this arrangement. Come of it what
might, within these walls the sole wish of his heart was included. In
such desperate cases, we are, at any rate, cut off from the assistance
of our free will; and we feel ourselves relieved for a moment, when,
from any quarter, direction and constraint take hold of us. Yet, on
entering his chamber, he found himself in the strangest mood,--like a
man who, having just left an apartment of an inn, is forced to return to
it by the breaking of an axle.

The gay younker fell upon the travelling-bag, unpacking it all in due
order; especially selecting every article of holiday apparel, which,
though only on the travelling scale, was to be found there. He forced
Lucidor to put on fresh shoes and stockings: he dressed for him his
clustering brown locks, and decked him at all points with his best
skill. Then stepping back, and surveying our friend and his own
handiwork from head to foot, he exclaimed, “Now, then, my good fellow,
you do look like a man that has some pretensions to pretty damsels, and
serious enough, moreover, to spy about you for a bride! Wait one moment!
You shall see how I, too, can produce myself, when the hour strikes.
This knack I learned from your military officers, the girls are always
glancing at them: so I likewise have enrolled myself among a certain
soldiery; and now they look at me, too, and look again; and no soul of
them knows what to make of it. And so, from this looking and re-looking,
from this surprise and attention, a pretty enough result now and then
arises; which, though it were not lasting, is worth enjoying for the
moment.

“But come along, my friend, and do the like service for me. When you
have seen me case myself by piecemeal in my equipment, you will not say
that wit and invention have been denied me.” He now led his friend
through several long, spacious passages of the old castle. “I have quite
nestled myself here,” cried he. “Though I care not for hiding, I like to
be alone: you can do no good with other people.”

They were passing by the office-rooms just as a servant came out with a
patriarchal writing apparatus, black, massive, and complete: paper, too,
was not forgotten.

“I know what it is to be blotted here again,” cried the younker: “go thy
ways, and leave me the key. Take a look of the place, Lucidor: it will
amuse you till I am dressed. To a friend of justice, such a spot is not
odious, as to a tamer of horses.” And, with this, he pushed Lucidor into
the hall of judgment.

Lucidor felt himself directly in a well-known and friendly element: he
thought of the days when he, fixed down to business, had sat at such a
table, and, listening and writing, had trained himself to his art. Nor
did he fail to observe, that in this case an old, stately, domestic
chapel had, under the change of religious ideas, been converted to the
service of Themis. In the repositories he found some titles and acts
already familiar to him: in these very matters he had co-operated while
laboring in the capital. Opening a bundle of papers, there came into his
hands a rescript which he himself had dictated; another of which he had
been the originator. Handwriting and paper, signet and president’s
signature, every thing recalled to him that season of juridical effort,
of youthful hope. And here, when he looked round, and saw the
_Oberamtmann’s_ chair, appointed and intended for himself; so fair a
place, so dignified a circle of activity, which he was now like to cast
away and utterly lose,--all this oppressed him doubly and trebly, as the
form of Lucinda seemed to retire from him at the same time.

He turned to go out into the open air, but found himself a prisoner. His
gay friend, heedlessly or roguishly, had left the door locked. Lucidor,
however, did not long continue in this durance; for the other returned,
apologized for his oversight, and really called forth good-humor by his
singular appearance. A certain audacity of color and cut in his clothes
was softened by natural taste, as even to tattooed Indians we refuse not
a certain approbation. “To-day,” cried he, “the tedium of by-gone days
shall be made good to us. Worthy friends, merry friends, are come;
pretty girls, roguish and fond; and my father, to boot; and, wonder on
wonder! your father too. This will be a festival truly: they are all
assembled for breakfast in the parlor.”

With Lucidor, at this piece of information, it was as if he were looking
into deep fog: all the figures, known and unknown, which the words
announced to him, assumed a spectral aspect; yet his resolution, and the
consciousness of a pure heart, sustained him: and in a few seconds he
felt himself prepared for every thing. He followed his hastening friend
with a steady step, firmly determined to await the issue, be what it
might, and explain his own purposes, come what come might.

And yet, at the very threshold of the hall, he was struck with some
alarm. In a large half-circle, ranged round by the windows, he
immediately descried his father with the _Oberamtmann_, both splendidly
attired. The two sisters, Antoni, and others known and unknown, he
hurried over with a glance, which was threatening to grow dim. Half
wavering, he approached his father, who bade him welcome with the utmost
kindness, yet in a certain style of formality which scarcely invited any
trustful application. Standing before so many persons, he looked round
to find a place among them for a moment; he might have arranged himself
beside Lucinda: but Julia, contrary to the rigor of etiquette, made room
for him; so that he was forced to step to her side. Antoni continued by
Lucinda.

At this important moment Lucidor again felt as if he were a delegate;
and, steeled by his whole juridical science, he called up in his own
favor the fine maxim, That we should transact affairs delegated to us by
a stranger as if they were our own; why not our own, therefore, in the
same spirit? Well practised in official orations, he speedily ran over
what he had to say. But the company, ranged in a formal semi-circle,
seemed to outflank him. The purport of his speech he knew well: the
beginning of it he could not find. At this crisis he observed on a
table, in the corner, the large ink-glass, and several clerks sitting
round it: the _Oberamtmann_ made a movement as if to solicit attention
for a speech; Lucidor wished to anticipate him: and, at that very
moment, Julia pressed his hand. This threw him out of all
self-possession, convinced him that all was decided, all lost for him.

With the whole of these negotiations, these family alliances, with
social conventions, and rules of good manners, he had now nothing more
to do: he snatched his hand from Julia’s, and vanished so rapidly from
the room, that the company lost him unawares; and he out of doors could
not find himself again.

Shrinking from the light of day, which shone down upon him in its
highest splendor; avoiding the eyes of men; dreading search and
pursuit,--he hurried forwards, and reached the large garden-hall. Here
his knees were like to fail him: he rushed in, and threw himself,
utterly comfortless, upon the sofa beneath the mirror. Amid the polished
arrangements of society, to be caught in such unspeakable perplexity! It
dashed to and fro like waves about him and within him. His past
existence was struggling with his present: it was a frightful moment.

And so he lay for a time, with his face hid in the cushion on which last
night Lucinda’s arm had rested. Altogether sunk in his sorrow, he had
heard no footsteps approach: feeling some one touch him, he started up,
and perceived Lucinda standing by his side.

Fancying they had sent her to bring him back, had commissioned her to
lead him with fit, sisterly words into the assemblage to front his hated
doom, he exclaimed, “You they should not have sent, Lucinda; for it was
you that drove me away. I will not return. Give me, if you are capable
of any pity, procure me, convenience and means of flight. For, that you
yourself may testify how impossible it was to bring me back, listen to
the explanation of my conduct, which to you and all of them must seem
insane. Hear now the oath which I have sworn in my soul, and which I
incessantly repeat in words: with you only did I wish to live, with you
to enjoy, to employ my days, from youth to old age, in true, honorable
union. And let this be as firm and sure as aught ever sworn before the
altar,--this, which I now swear, now when I leave you, the most pitiable
of all men.”

He made a movement to glide past her, as she stood close before him; but
she caught him softly in her arms. “What is this?” exclaimed he.

“Lucidor!” cried she, “not pitiable as you think: you are mine, I am
yours; I hold you in my arms; delay not to throw your arms about me.
Your father has agreed to all: Antoni marries my sister.”

In astonishment he recoiled from her. “Can it be?” Lucinda smiled and
nodded: he drew back from her arms. “Let me view once more, at a
distance, what is to be mine so nearly, so inseparably!” He grasped her
hands: “Lucinda, are you mine?”

She answered, “Well, then, yes,” the sweetest tears in the truest eyes:
he clasped her to his breast, and threw his head behind hers; he hung
like a shipwrecked mariner on the cliffs of the coast; the ground still
shook under him. And now his enraptured eye, again opening, lighted on
the mirror. He saw her there in his arms, himself clasped in hers: he
looked down and again to the image. Such emotions accompany man
throughout his life. In the mirror, also, he beheld the landscape, which
last night had appeared to him so baleful and ominous, now lying fairer
and brighter than ever; and himself in such a posture, on such a
background! Abundant recompense for all sorrows!

“We are not alone,” said Lucinda; and scarcely had he recovered from his
rapture, when, all decked and garlanded, a company of girls and boys
came forward, carrying wreaths of flowers, and crowding the entrance of
the hall. “This is not the way,” cried Lucinda: “how prettily it was
arranged, and now it is all running into tumult!” A gay march sounded
from a distance, and the company were seen coming on by the large road
in stately procession. Lucidor hesitated to advance towards them: only
on her arm did he seem certain of his steps. She staid beside him;
expecting from moment to moment the solemn scene of meeting, of thanks
for pardon already given.

But by the capricious gods it was otherwise determined. The gay,
clanging sound of a postilion’s horn from the opposite side seemed to
throw the whole ceremony into rout. “Who can be coming?” cried Lucinda.
The thought of a strange presence was frightful to Lucidor, and the
carriage seemed entirely unknown to him. A double-seated, new,
spick-and-span new, travelling-chaise! It rolled up to the hall. A
well-dressed, handsome boy sprang down, opened the door; but no one
dismounted; the chaise was empty. The boy stepped into it: with a
dexterous touch or two he threw back the tilts; and there, in a
twinkling, stood the daintiest vehicle in readiness for the gayest
drive, before the eyes of the whole party, who were now advancing to the
spot. Antoni, outhastening the rest, led Julia to the carriage. “Try if
this machine,” said he, “will please you; if you can sit in it, and,
over the smoothest roads, roll through the world beside me: I will lead
you by no other but the smoothest; and, when a strait comes, we shall
know how to help ourselves. Over the mountains sumpters shall carry us,
and our coach also.”

“You are a dear creature!” cried Julia. The boy came forward, and, with
the quickness of a conjurer, exhibited all the conveniences, little
advantages, comforts, and celerities of the whole light edifice.

“On earth I have no thanks,” cried Julia; “but from this little moving
heaven, from this cloud, into which you raise me, I will heartily thank
you.” She had already bounded in, throwing him kind looks, and a kiss of
the hand. “For the present you come not hither; but there is another
whom I mean to take along with me in this proof-excursion,--he himself
has still a proof to undergo.” She called to Lucidor, who, just then
occupied in mute conversation with his father and father-in-law,
willingly took refuge in the light vehicle, feeling an irresistible
necessity to dissipate his thoughts in some way or other, though it were
but for a moment. He placed himself beside her: she directed the
postilion where he was to drive. Instantly they darted off, enveloped in
a cloud of dust, and vanished from the eyes of the amazed spectators.

Julia fixed herself in the corner as firmly and commodiously as she
could wish. “Now do you shift into that one, too, good brother; so that
we may look each other rightly in the face.”

_Lucidor._ You feel my confusion, my embarrassment. I am still as if in
a dream. Help me out of it.

_Julia._ Look at these gay peasants. How kindly they salute us! You have
never seen the Upper Hamlet yet, since you came hither. All good,
substantial people there, and all thoroughly devoted to me. No one of
them so rich that you cannot, by a time, do a little kind service to
him. This road, which we whirl along so smoothly, is my father’s
doing,--another of his benefits to the community.

_Lucidor._ I believe it, and willingly admit it; but what have these
external things to do with the perplexity of my internal feelings?

_Julia._ Patience a little! I will show you the riches of this world,
and the glory thereof. Here now we are at the top. Do but look how clear
the level country lies all round us, leaning against the mountains. All
these villages are much, much indebted to my father; to mother and
daughters too. The grounds of yon little hamlet are the border.

_Lucidor._ Surely you are in a very strange mood: you do not seem to be
saying what you meant to say.

_Julia._ But now look down to the left. How beautifully all this unfolds
itself! The church, with its high lindens; the _Amthaus_, with its
poplars, behind the village knoll. Here, too, are the garden and the
park.

The postilion drove faster.

_Julia._ The Hall up yonder you know. It looks almost as well here as
this scene does from it. Here, at the tree, we shall stop a moment. Now,
in this very spot our image is reflected in the large mirror: there they
see us full well, but we cannot see ourselves.--Go along, postilion!
There, some little while ago, two people, I believe, were reflected at a
shorter distance, and, if I am not exceedingly mistaken, to their great
mutual satisfaction.

Lucidor, in ill-humor, answered nothing. They went on for some time in
silence, driving very hard. “Here,” said Julia, “the bad road begins,--a
service left for you to do some day. Before we go lower, look down once
more. My mother’s box-tree rises with its royal summit over all the
rest. Thou wilt drive,” continued she, to the postilion, “down this
rough road: we shall take the footpath through the dale, and so be
sooner at the other side than thou.” In dismounting, she cried, “Well,
now, you will confess the Wandering Jew, this restless Antoni the
Traveller, can arrange his pilgrimages prettily enough for himself and
his companions. It is a very beautiful and commodious carriage.”

And with this she tripped away down hill. Lucidor followed her in deep
thought: she was sitting on a pleasant seat; it was Lucinda’s little
spot. She invited him to sit by her.

_Julia._ So now we are sitting here, and one is nothing to the other.
Thus it was destined to be. The little Quicksilver would not suit you.
Love it you could not: it was hateful to you.

Lucidor’s astonishment increased.

_Julia._ But Lucinda, indeed! She is the paragon of all perfections, and
the pretty sister was once for all cast out. I see it: the question
hovers on your lips, Who has told us all so accurately?

_Lucidor._ There is treachery in it!

_Julia._ Yes, truly! There has been a traitor at work in the matter.

_Lucidor._ Name him.

_Julia._ He is soon unmasked: You! You have the praiseworthy or
blameworthy custom of talking to yourself; and now, in the name of all,
I must confess that in turn we have overheard you.

_Lucidor_ (starting up). A sorry piece of hospitality, to lay snares for
a stranger in this way!

_Julia._ By no means. We thought not of watching you more than any
other. But you know your bed stands in the recess of the wall: on the
opposite side is another alcove, commonly employed for laying up
household articles. Hither, some days before, we had shifted our old
man’s bed, being anxious about him in his remote hermitage; and here,
the first night, you started some such passionate soliloquy, which he
next morning took his opportunity of rehearsing.

Lucidor had not the heart to interrupt her. He withdrew.

_Julia_ (rising and following him). What a service this discovery did us
all! For I will confess, if you were not positively disagreeable, the
situation which awaited me was not by any means to my mind. To be Frau
Oberamtmannin,--what a dreadful state! To have a brave, gallant husband,
who is to pass judgment on the people, and, for sheer judgment, cannot
get to justice; who can please neither high nor low, and, what is worst,
not even himself. I know what my poor mother suffered from the
incorruptibility, the inflexibility, of my father. At last, indeed, but
not till her death, a certain meekness took possession of him: he seemed
to suit himself to the world, to make a truce with those evils which
till then he had vainly striven to conquer.

_Lucidor_ (stopping short, extremely discontented with the incident,
vexed at this light mode of treating it). For the sport of an evening
this might pass, but to practise such a disgracing mystification day and
night against an unsuspicious stranger is not pardonable.

_Julia._ We are all equally deep in the crime, we all hearkened you; yet
I alone pay the penalty of eavesdropping.

_Lucidor._ All! So much the more unpardonable. And how could you look at
me, throughout the day, without blushing, whom at night you were so
contemptuously overreaching? But I see clearly with a glance that your
arrangements by day were planned to make mockery of me. A fine family!
And where was your father’s love of justice all this while?--And
Lucinda--

_Julia._ And Lucinda! What a tone was that! You meant to say, did not
you, how deeply it grieved your heart to think ill of Lucinda, to rank
her in a class with the rest of us?

_Lucidor._ I cannot understand Lucinda.

_Julia._ In other words, this pure, noble soul; this peacefully composed
nature, benevolence, goodness itself; this woman as she should
be,--unites with a light-minded company, with a freakish sister, a
spoiled brother, and certain mysterious persons. That is
incomprehensible!

_Lucidor._ Yes, indeed, it is incomprehensible!

_Julia._ Comprehend it, then! Lucinda, like the rest of us, had her
hands bound. Could you have seen her perplexity, how fain she would have
told you all, how often she was on the very eve of doing it, you would
now love her doubly and trebly, if, indeed, true love were not always
tenfold and hundred-fold of itself. I can assure you, moreover, that all
of us at length thought the joke too long.

_Lucidor._ Why did you not end it, then?

_Julia._ That, too, I must explain. No sooner had my father got
intelligence of your first monologue, and seen, as was easy to do, that
none of his children would object to such an exchange, than he
determined on visiting your father. The importance of the business gave
him much anxiety. A father alone can feel the respect which is due to a
father. “He must be informed of it in the first place,” said mine, “that
he may not in the end, when we are all agreed, be reduced to give a
forced and displeased consent. I know him well: I know how any thought,
any wish, any purpose, cleaves to him; and I have my own fears about the
issue. Julia, his maps and pictures, he has long viewed as one thing; he
has it in his eye to transport all this hither, when the young pair are
once settled here, and his old pupil cannot change her abode so readily:
on us he is to bestow his holidays; and who knows what other kind,
friendly things he has projected? He must forthwith be informed what a
trick Nature has played us, while yet nothing is declared, nothing is
determined.” And, with this, he exacted from us all the most solemn
promise that we should observe you, and, come what might, retain you
here till his return. How this return has been protracted; what art,
toil, and perseverance it has cost to gain your father’s consent,--he
himself will inform you. In short, the business is adjusted: Lucinda is
yours.

And thus had the two promenaders, sharply removing from their first
resting-place, then pausing by the way, then speaking, and walking
slowly through the green fields, at last reached the height, where
another well-levelled road received them. The carriage came whirling up:
Julia in the mean while turned her friend’s attention to a strange
sight. The whole machinery, of which her gay brother had bragged so
much, was now alive and in motion: the wheels were already heaving up
and down a multitude of people; the seesaws were flying; maypoles had
their climbers; and many a bold, artful swing and spring over the heads
of an innumerable multitude you might see ventured. The younker had set
all a-going, that so the guests, after dinner, might have a gay
spectacle awaiting them. “Thou wilt drive through the Nether Hamlet,”
cried Julia: “the people wish me well, and they shall see how well I am
off.”

The hamlet was empty: the young people had all run to the swings and
seesaws; old men and women, roused by the driver’s horn, appeared at
doors and windows; every one gave salutations and blessings, exclaiming,
“Oh, what a lovely pair!”

_Julia._ There, do you hear? We should have suited well enough together
after all: you may rue it yet.

_Lucidor._ But now, dear sister--

_Julia._ Ha! Now dear, when you are rid of me!

_Lucidor._ One single word. On you rests a heavy accusation: what did
you mean by that squeeze of the hand, when you knew and felt my dreadful
situation? A thing so radically wicked I have never met with in my life
before.

_Julia._ Thank Heaven, we are now quits; now all is pardoned: I had no
mind for _you_, that is certain; but that you had utterly and absolutely
no mind for me, this was a thing which no young woman could forgive: and
the squeeze of the hand, observe you, was for the rogue. I do confess it
was almost too roguish: and I forgive myself, because I forgive you; and
so let all be forgotten and forgiven! Here is my hand.

He took it: she cried, “Here we are again! In our park again; and so, in
a trice, we whirl through the wide world, and back too: we shall meet
again.”

They had reached the garden-hall; it seemed empty: the company, tired of
waiting, had gone out to walk. Antoni, however, and Lucinda, came forth.
Julia, stepping from the carriage, flew to her friend: she thanked him
in a cordial embrace, and restrained not the most joyful tears. The
brave man’s cheeks reddened, his features looked forth unfolded; his eye
glanced moist; and a fair, imposing youth shone through the veil.

And so both pairs moved off to join the company, with feelings which the
finest dream could not have given them.


                ---------------------------------------


                             CHAPTER LAST.


“Thus, my friends,” said Lenardo, after a short preamble, “if we survey
the most populous provinces and kingdoms of the firm earth, we observe
on all sides, that wherever an available soil appears, it is cultivated,
planted, shaped, beautified, and, in the same proportion, coveted, taken
into possession, fortified, and defended. Hereby we bring home to our
conceptions the high worth of property in land, and are obliged to
consider it as the first and best acquirement that can be allotted to
man. And if, on closer inspection, we find parental and filial love, the
union of countrymen and townsmen, and therefore the universal feeling of
patriotism, founded immediately on this same interest in the soil, we
cannot but regard that seizing and retaining of space, in the great or
the small scale, as a thing still more important and venerable. Yes,
Nature herself has so ordered it! A man born on the glebe comes by habit
to belong to it: the two grow together, and the fairest ties are spun
from their union. Who is there, then, that would spitefully disturb this
foundation-stone of all existence; that would blindly deny the worth and
dignity of such precious and peculiar gifts of Heaven?

“And yet we may assert, that if what man possesses is of great worth,
what he does and accomplishes must be of still greater. In a wide view
of things, therefore, we must look on property in land as one small part
of the possessions that have been given us. Of these the greatest and
the most precious part consists especially in what is movable, and in
what is gained by a moving life.

“Towards this quarter we younger men are peculiarly constrained to turn;
for, though we had inherited from our fathers the desire of abiding and
continuing, we find ourselves called by a thousand causes nowise to shut
our eyes against a wider out-look and survey. Let us hasten, then, to
the shore of the ocean, and convince ourselves what boundless spaces are
still lying open to activity, and confess, that, by the bare thought of
this, we are roused to new vigor.

“Yet, not to lose ourselves in these vast expanses, let us direct our
attention to the long and large surface of so many countries and
kingdoms combined together on the face of the earth. Here we behold
great tracts of land tenanted by Nomades, whose towns are movable, whose
life-supporting household goods can be transferred from place to place.
We see them in the middle of the deserts, on wide green pasturages,
lying, as it were, at anchor in their desired haven. Such movement, such
wandering, becomes a habit with them, a necessity: in the end they grow
to regard the surface of the world as if it were not bulwarked by
mountains, were not cut asunder by streams. Have we not seen the
North-east flow towards the South-west; one people driving another
before it, and lordship and property altogether changed?

“From over-populous countries, a similar calamity may again, in the
great circle of vicissitudes, occur more than once. What we have to
dread from foreigners, it may be difficult to say; but it is curious
enough, that, by our own over-population, we ourselves are thronging one
another in our own domains, and, without waiting to be driven, are
driving one another forth, passing sentence of banishment each against
his fellow.

“Here now is the place and season for giving scope in our bosoms,
without spleen or anger, to a love of movement; for unfettering that
impatient wish which excites us to change our abode. Yet whatever we may
purpose and intend, let it be accomplished, not from passion, or from
any other influence of force, but from a conviction corresponding to the
wisest judgment and deliberation.

“It has been said, and over again said, Where I am well is my country!
But this consolatory saw were better worded, Where I am useful is my
country! At home you may be useless, and the fact not instantly
observed: abroad in the world, the useless man is speedily convicted.
And now, if I say, Let each endeavor everywhere to be of use to himself
and others, this is not a precept or a counsel, but the utterance of
life itself.

“Cast a glance over the terrestrial ball, and for the present leave the
ocean out of sight: let not its hurrying fleets distract your thoughts,
but fix your eye on the firm earth, and be amazed to see how it is
overflowed with a swarming ant-tribe, jostling and crossing, and running
to and fro forever! So was it ordained of the Lord himself, when,
obstructing the Tower of Babel, he scattered the human race abroad into
all the world. Let us praise his name on this account, for the blessing
has extended to all generations.

“Observe now, and cheerfully, how the young, on every side, instantly
get into movement. As instruction is not offered them within doors, and
knocks not at their gates, they hasten forthwith to those countries and
cities whither the call of science and wisdom allures them. Here, no
sooner have they gained a rapid and scanty training, than they feel
themselves impelled to look round in the world, whether here and there
some profitable experience, applicable to their objects, may not be met
with and appropriated. Let these try their fortune! We turn from them to
those completed and distinguished men, those noble inquirers into
nature, who wittingly encounter every difficulty, every peril, that to
the world they may lay the world open, and, through the most impassable,
pave easy roads.

“But observe also, on beaten highways, how dust on dust, in long, cloudy
trains, mounts up, betokening the track of commodious, top-laden
carriages, in which the rich, the noble, and so many others, are whirled
along; whose varying purposes and dispositions Yorick has most daintily
explained to us.

“These the stout craftsman, on foot, may cheerily gaze after; for whom
his country has made it a duty to appropriate foreign skill, and not,
till this has been accomplished, to revisit his paternal hearth. In
still greater numbers do traffickers and dealers meet us on our road:
the little trader must not neglect, from time to time, to forsake his
shop, that he may visit fairs and markets, may approach the great
merchant, and increase his own small profit, by example and
participation of the boundless. But yet more restlessly do we descry
cruising on horseback, singly, on all high and by ways, that multitude
of persons whose business it is, in lawful wise, to make forcible
pretension to our purses. Samples of all sorts, prize catalogues,
invitations to purchase, pursue us into town-houses and country-houses,
and wherever we may seek refuge: diligently they assault us and surprise
us; themselves offering the opportunity, which it would have entered no
man’s mind to seek. And what shall I say of that people which, before
all others, arrogates to itself the blessing of perpetual wandering,
and, by its movable activity, contrives to overreach the resting and to
overstep the walking? Of them we must say neither ill nor good,--no
good, because our League stands on its guard against them; no ill,
because the wanderer, mindful of reciprocal advantage, is bound to treat
with friendliness whomsoever he may meet.

“But now, above all, we must mention with peculiar affection the whole
race of artists; for they, too, are thoroughly involved in this
universal movement. Does not the painter wander, with palette and easel,
from face to face? and are not his kindred laborers summoned now this
way, now that, because in all places there is something to be built and
to be fashioned? More briskly, however, paces the musician on his way:
for he peculiarly it is that for a new ear has provided new surprise,
for a fresh mind fresh astonishment. Players, too, though they now
despise the cart of Thespis, still rove about in little choirs; and
their moving world, wherever they appear, is speedily enough built up.
So likewise, individually, renouncing serious, profitable engagements,
these men delight to change place with place, according as rising
talents, combined with rising wants, furnish pretext and occasion. For
this success they commonly prepare themselves by leaving no important
stage in their native land untrodden.

“Nor let us forget to cast a glance over the professorial class: these,
too, you find in continual motion, occupying and forsaking one chair
after the other, to scatter richly abroad on every side the seeds of a
hasty culture. More assiduous, however, and of wider aim, are those
pious souls who disperse themselves through all quarters of the world to
bring salvation to their brethren. Others, on the contrary, are
pilgriming to seek salvation for themselves: they march in hosts to
consecrated, wonder-working places, there to ask and receive what was
denied their souls at home.

“And if all these sorts of men surprise us less by their wandering, as,
for most part, without wandering, the business of their life were
impossible, of those, again, who dedicate their diligence to the soil,
we should certainly expect that they, at least, were fixed. By no means!
Even without possession, occupation is conceivable; and we behold the
eager farmer forsaking the ground which for years had yielded him profit
and enjoyment: impatiently he searches after similar or greater profit,
be it far or near. Nay, the owner himself will abandon his new-grubbed
clearage so soon as, by his cultivation, he has rendered it commodious
for a less enterprising husbandman: once more he presses into the
wilderness, again makes space for himself in the forests,--in recompense
of that first toiling a double and treble space; on which also, it may
be, he thinks not to continue.

“There we shall leave him, bickering with bears and other monsters, and
turn back into the polished world, where we find the state of things no
whit more stationary. Do but view any great and regulated kingdom: the
ablest man is also the man who moves the oftenest; at the beck of his
prince, at the order of his minister, the Serviceable is transferred
from place to place. To him also our precept will apply, Everywhere
endeavor to be useful, everywhere you are at home. Yet if we observe
important statesmen leaving, though reluctantly, their high stations, we
have reason to deplore their fate; for we can neither recognize them as
emigrators, nor as migrators,--not as emigrators, because they forego a
covetable situation without any prospect of a better even seeming to
open; not as migrators, because to be useful in other places is a
fortune seldom granted them.

“For the soldier, again, a life of peculiar wandering is appointed: even
in peace, now this, now that, post is intrusted to him; to fight, at
hand or afar off, for his native country, he must keep himself
perpetually in motion, or readiness to move; and not for immediate
defence alone, but also to fulfil the remote purposes of nations and
rulers, he turns his steps towards all quarters of the world; and to few
of his craft is it given to find any resting-place. And as in the
soldier courage is his first and highest quality, so this must always be
considered as united with fidelity; and, accordingly, we find certain
nations famous for trustworthiness, called forth from their home, and
serving spiritual or temporal regents as body-guards.

“Another class of persons indispensable to governments, and also of
extreme mobility, we see in those negotiators who, despatched from court
to court, beleaguer princes and ministers, and overnet the whole
inhabited world with their invisible threads. Of these men, also, no one
is certain of his place for a moment. In peace, the ablest of them are
sent from country to country; in war, they march behind the army when
victorious, prepare the way for it when fugitive: and thus are they
appointed still to be changing place for place; on which account,
indeed, they at all times carry with them a stock of farewell cards.

“If hitherto at every step we have contrived to do ourselves some honor,
declaring, as we have done, the most distinguished portion of active men
to be our mates and fellows in destiny, there now remains for you, my
beloved friends, by way of termination, a glory higher than all the
rest, seeing you find yourselves united in brotherhood with princes,
kings, and emperors. Think first, with blessings and reverence, of the
imperial wanderer Hadrian, who on foot, at the head of his army, paced
out the circle of the world which was subject to him, and thus in very
deed took possession of it. Think then with horror of the Conqueror,
that armed wanderer, against whom no resistance availed, no wall or
bulwark could shelter armed nations. In fine, accompany with honest
sympathy those hapless exiled princes who, descending from the summit of
the height, cannot even be received into the modest guild of active
wanderers.

“And now, while we call forth and illustrate all this to one another, no
narrow despondency, no passionate perversion, can rule over us. The time
is past when people rushed forth at random into the wide world: by the
labors of scientific travellers, describing wisely and copying like
artists, we have become sufficiently acquainted with the earth to know
moderately well what is to be looked for everywhere.

“Yet, for obtaining perfect information, an individual will not suffice.
Our society is founded on the principle that each in his degree, for his
purposes, be thoroughly informed. Has any one of us some country in his
eye, towards which his wishes are tending, we endeavor to make clear to
him, in special detail, what was hovering before his imagination as a
whole: to afford each other a survey of the inhabited and inhabitable
world is a most pleasant and most profitable kind of conversation.

“Under this aspect we can look upon ourselves as members of a Union
belonging to the world. Simple and grand is the thought, easy is its
execution by understanding and strength. Unity is all-powerful; no
division, therefore, no contention, among us! Let a man learn, we say,
to figure himself as without permanent external relation: let him seek
consistency and sequence, not in circumstances, but in himself; there
will he find it; there let him cherish and nourish it. He who devotes
himself to the most needful will, in all cases, advance to his purpose
with greatest certainty: others, again, aiming at the higher, the more
delicate, require greater prudence even, in the choice of their path.
But let a man be attempting or treating what he will, he is not, as an
individual, sufficient for himself; and, to an honest mind, society
remains the highest want. All serviceable persons ought to be related
with each other; as the building proprietor looks out for an architect,
and the architect for masons and carpenters.

“How and on what principle this Union of ours has been fixed and founded
is known to all. There is no man among us who at any moment could not to
proper purpose employ his faculty of action, who is not assured that in
all places whither chance, inclination, or even passion may conduct him,
he will be received, employed, assisted,--nay, in adverse accidents, as
far as possible, refitted and indemnified.

“Two duties we have most rigorously undertaken,--first, to honor every
species of religious worship; for all of them are comprehended more or
less directly in the Creed: secondly, in like manner to respect all
forms of government, and, since every one of them induces and promotes a
calculated activity, to labor according to the wish and will of
constituted authorities, in whatever place it may be our lot to sojourn,
and for whatever time. Finally, we reckon it our duty, without pedantry
or rigor, to practise and forward decorum of manners and morals, as
required by that reverence for ourselves which arises from the three
reverences, whereto we universally profess our adherence; having all had
the joy and good fortune, some of us from youth upwards, to be initiated
likewise in the higher general wisdom taught in certain cases by those
venerable men. All this, in the solemn hour of parting, we have thought
good once more to recount, to unfold, to hear and acknowledge, as also
to seal with a trustful farewell.


                “Keep not standing, fixed and rooted,
                   Briskly venture, briskly roam:
                 Head and hand, where’er thou foot it,
                   And stout heart, are still at home.
                 In each land the sun does visit:
                   We are gay whate’er betide.
                 To give space for wand’ring is it
                   That the world was made so wide.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            THE RECREATIONS

                                   OF

                         THE GERMAN EMIGRANTS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                THE RECREATIONS OF THE GERMAN EMIGRANTS.


                ---------------------------------------


At that unhappy period, so fruitful in disasters to Germany, to Europe,
and, indeed, to the whole world, when the French army overran the
Continent, a family of distinction was compelled to forsake their
property on the first invasion, and to flee across the Rhine. They
sought to escape those calamities to which persons of noble birth were
inevitably exposed, in whom it was considered criminal to be descended
from an honorable line of ancestors, and to inherit those privileges and
possessions which the virtues or the valor of their forefathers had
bequeathed to them.

The Baroness of C----, a widow lady of middle age, distinguished for
every domestic virtue which could promote the comfort or independence of
her family, evinced, upon the occasion of this unforeseen calamity, the
most noble spirit of activity and resolute determination. Brought up
amidst a wide circle of acquaintances, and, to some extent, already
experienced in the reverses of life, she was considered perfect in her
private and domestic character, and was remarkable for the real delight
she ever felt in the active employment of her faculties. Indeed, the
great purpose of her life seemed to consist in rendering services to
others; and it is easy to suppose that her numerous friends never failed
to provide her with employment. She was summoned, at the time we speak
of, to take the lead of a little band of emigrants. Even for this duty
she was prepared; and the same solicitous though cheerful temper, which
had invariably distinguished her at home, did not forsake her in this
hour of general terror and distress. But cheerfulness was not an entire
stranger to our band of fugitives: many an unexpected incident and
strange event afforded occasion for the indulgence of mirth and
laughter, of which their easily excited minds readily took advantage.
The very flight itself was a circumstance well calculated to call out
each individual’s peculiar character in a remarkable manner. The mind of
one, for instance, was distracted by vain fear and terror; another fell
a prey to idle apprehensions; and the extravagances and deficiencies,
the weakness, irresolution, or impetuosity, which were displayed on all
sides, produced so many instances of vexation and bad temper, that the
real trouble of the whole party afforded more mirth than an actual
pleasure trip could possibly have occasioned.

As we may sometimes preserve our composure, even during the performance
of a farce, without smiling at the most positive drolleries; though we
find it impossible to restrain our laughter when any thing absurd occurs
in the representation of a tragedy,--so in this real world, the
generality of accidents of a serious nature are accompanied by
circumstances either ridiculous at the moment, or infallibly productive
of subsequent mirth.

We must observe that the baroness’s eldest daughter, Louisa, a cheerful,
lively, and, at the time of their prosperity, an imperious young lady,
had to endure an unusual degree of suffering. She is said to have been
quite overwhelmed with terror at the first alarm, and, in her
distraction and absence of mind, to have packed together the most
useless things with the greatest seriousness, and actually to have made
an offer of marriage to one of the old servants of the establishment.

She defended herself for this step with much obstinacy, and would not
allow her intended to be made a subject of ridicule. In her opinion she
suffered enough from her daily fear of the allied army, and from the
apprehension that her wished-for marriage might be delayed, or even
frustrated, by a general engagement.

Her elder brother, Frederick, who was a youth of decisive character,
executed his mother’s orders with precision and exactitude, accompanied
the procession on horseback, and discharged at times the various duties
of courier, conductor, and guide. The tutor of the baroness’s younger
son, who was a well-educated young man, accompanied her in her carriage;
whilst uncle Charles, and an elderly clergyman, who had long been an
indispensable friend of the family, followed in another vehicle, which
was also occupied by two female relations, one young, the other somewhat
advanced in years. The servants followed in an open carriage; and the
procession was closed by a heavily packed wagon, which occasionally
loitered behind.

The whole party, as may easily be supposed, had abandoned their
dwellings with great reluctance; but uncle Charles had forsaken his
residence on this side of the Rhine even more unwillingly than the
others, not that he had left his mistress behind, as one might, perhaps,
have conjectured from his youth, his figure, and the warmth of his
nature: he had rather been seduced by the brilliant phantom, which,
under the denomination of freedom, had secured so many adherents, first
in secret, then in public, and which, notwithstanding that she was to
some a harsh mistress, was all the more devotedly honored by the others.

Just as lovers are generally blinded by their passion, it did happen in
the case of uncle Charles. They pant for the possession of a single
happiness, and fancy that for this they can endure the privation of
every other blessing. Position, fortune, and all advantages, vanish into
nothing, compared with the one benefit which is to supply their place.
Parents, relatives, and friends are now looked upon as strangers. One
desire fills and absorbs their whole being, to which every thing else is
to give way.

Uncle Charles abandoned himself to the intensity of his passion, and did
not conceal it in his conversation. He thought he might express his
conviction the more freely, because he was of noble birth, and, although
the second son, yet the presumptive heir to a noble fortune. Even this
fortune, which was to be his future inheritance, was at present in the
enemy’s hands, by whom it had been shamefully wasted. But, in spite of
all this, Charles could not hate a nation which promised such advantages
to the world at large, and whose principles he approved, according to
his own admission, and the evidence of some of his associates. He
constantly disturbed the peace of the little community (seldom as they
enjoyed such a blessing) by an indiscriminate praise of every thing,
good or bad, which happened amongst the French, and by his noisy delight
at their success. By this means he irritated his companions, who felt
their own grievances doubly aggravated by the malicious triumphs of
their friend and relation.

Frederick had already been engaged in frequent disputes with him, and
latterly they had ceased to hold communication with each other. But the
baroness, by her prudent management, had secured his moderation, at
least for a time. Louisa gave him the greatest trouble, for she often
used the most unfair methods to cast a slur upon his character and
judgment. The tutor silently pronounced him right, the clergyman
silently pronounced him wrong: and the female attendants, who were
charmed with his figure and with his liberality, heard him with delight;
because, whilst they listened to his lectures, they could honorably fix
on him those loving eyes, which, until that time, had ever been modestly
bent upon the ground.

Their daily necessities, the obstacles of the journey, and their
disagreeable quarters, generally led the whole company to a
consideration of their immediate interests; and the great number of
French and German fugitives whom they constantly met, and whose conduct
and fortunes were various, often made them consider how much occasion
existed at such times for the practice of every virtue, but particularly
of liberality and forbearance.

The baroness, on one occasion, observed aloud, that nothing could show
more clearly the deficiencies of men in these virtues than the
opportunity afforded for their exercise, by occasions of general
confusion and distress. Our whole constitution, she maintained,
resembled a ship chartered in a season of tempest, to convey a countless
crowd of men, old and young, healthy and infirm, across a stormy sea;
but only in the hour of shipwreck could the capabilities of the crew be
displayed,--an emergency when even the good swimmer often perished.

Fugitives, for the most part, carry their faults and ridiculous
peculiarities along with them; and we wonder at this circumstance. But
as the English traveller never leaves his teakettle behind in any
quarter of the globe; so are the generality of mankind invariably
accompanied by their stock of proud pretensions, vanity, intolerance,
impatience, obstinacy, prejudices, and envy. Thus, the thoughtless
enjoyed this flight as they would have enjoyed a party of pleasure; and
the discontented required, even now in their moments of abject poverty,
that their every want should be supplied. How rare is the display of
that pure virtue which incites us to live and sacrifice ourselves for
others!

In the mean time, whilst numerous acquaintances were formed, which gave
occasion to reflections of this nature, the season of winter was brought
to a close. Fortune once more smiled on the German arms, the French were
again driven across the Rhine, Frankfort was relieved, and Mainz was
invested.

Trusting to the farther advance of our victorious troops, and anxious to
take possession of a part of their recovered property, the family we
speak of set out for an estate situated in one of the most beautiful
parts of the country, on the right bank of the Rhine. We can ill
describe the rapture with which they once more beheld the silver stream
flowing beneath their windows, the joy with which they took possession
of every part of their house, and hailed the sight of their well-known
furniture, their old family pictures, and of every trifle they had long
given up as totally lost; and they indulged the fondest anticipations of
finding every thing flourishing as heretofore on their side of the
Rhine.

The arrival of the baroness had scarcely been announced in the village,
when all her former acquaintances, friends, and dependants hastened to
welcome her, to recount the various vicissitudes of the last few months,
and, in more than one instance, to implore her advice and assistance.

In the midst of these interviews, she was most agreeably surprised by a
visit from the Privy Councillor S. and his family, a man who, from his
earliest youth, had followed business as a pursuit of pleasure, and who
had both merited and acquired the confidence of his sovereign. His
principles were firm, and he indulged his own peculiar notions upon many
subjects. He was precise, both in his conversation and conduct, and
required others to be so too. A dignified deportment was, in his
opinion, the highest virtue a man could possess.

His sovereign, his country, and himself had suffered much from the
invasion of the French. He had experienced the despotic character of
that nation who were perpetually boasting of justice, and had felt the
tyranny of men who always had the cry of freedom on their lips. We had
observed, however, the general consistency of character which prevailed,
and had marked how many persons witnessed, with feelings of angry
disappointment, the substitution of mere words for practice, and of
empty appearance for reality. The consequences to be expected from an
unfortunate campaign did not escape his acute penetration any more than
the results of the general maxims and opinions we have quoted, though it
must be admitted his views upon all subjects were neither cheerful nor
dispassionate.

His wife, who had been an early friend of the baroness, after the
experience of so much adversity found a perfect paradise in the arms of
her former companion. They had grown up together, had been educated
together, and had always shared each other’s confidence. The early
inclinations of their youth, their more important matrimonial interests,
their joys and cares and domestic anxieties, had always been
communicated, either personally or by correspondence, as they had for
years maintained an uninterrupted intimacy with each other; but this was
at length broken by the general troubles of the eventful times. Their
present intercourse was, for this reason, the more affectionate, and
their interviews the more frequent; and the baroness observed with
pleasure, that the intimacy of Louisa with the daughters of her friend
was daily increasing.

Unfortunately the complete enjoyment of that delightful part of the
country was often disturbed by the roar of cannon, which was heard in
the distance, sometimes loudly and sometimes indistinctly, according to
the point of the wind. Moreover, it was impossible to avoid
conversations upon political subjects, which were introduced by the
perpetual rumors of the day, and which generally disturbed the temporary
tranquillity of society; as the various ideas and opinions of all
parties were usually propounded without reserve.

And as intemperate men seldom refrain from wine or injurious food on
account of their experience of the evil consequences which such
enjoyments occasion; so, in this instance, the several members of the
society we speak of, in place of imposing restraint upon their
conversation, abandoned themselves to the irresistible impulse of vexing
each other, and thus eventually opened a channel of most disagreeable
reflections.

We can readily suppose that the privy councillor adopted the opinions of
those who advocated the old _régime_, and that Charles took the opposite
side, in expectation that the approaching changes would heal and
re-animate the old, shattered constitution of the country.

The conversation was carried on at first with some degree of moderation,
particularly as the baroness sought, by her well-timed and graceful
interruptions, to maintain the balance equal between both parties; but
when the important crisis of the conversation arrived, and the
investment of Mainz was about to change to an actual siege, and the
fears of all increased for that beautiful city and its abandoned
inhabitants, both sides asserted their opinions with unrestrained
violence.

The members of the clubs who had remained in the town were particularly
discussed; and each expressed his hope of their liberation or
punishment, according as he approved or condemned their conduct.

Amongst the latter class was the privy councillor, whose observations
were especially displeasing to Charles; as he assailed the sound
judgment of those people, and charged them with a thorough ignorance of
the world and of themselves.

“What blind dolts they must be!” he exclaimed one afternoon when the
discussion became warm, “to think that a great nation, employed in an
effort to suppress its own internal commotions, and which, in sober
moments, has no other object than its own prosperity, can look down upon
them with any sort of sympathy. Used as temporary tools, they will at
last be thrown away or utterly neglected. How grossly they err in
thinking that they will ever be admitted into the ranks of the French
nation!

“Nothing seems more ridiculous to the strong and powerful than weakness
and inefficiency setting up its pretensions to equality, wrapped in the
obscurity of its own fancies, and in the ignorance of itself, its
powers, and its qualities. And can you suppose that the great nation,
with that good fortune with which it has been hitherto favored, will be
less haughty and overbearing than any other royal conqueror?

“Many a person, who now struts about in his municipal robes and gaudy
attire, will heartily curse the masquerade when, after having helped to
oppress his countrymen, by a new and disadvantageous change of things he
finds himself at last, in his new character, despised by those in whom
he wholly confided. Indeed, it is my firm opinion, that upon the
surrender of the town, which must soon take place, those people will be
abandoned or given up to us. I hope they will then receive their reward
in that punishment they so richly deserve, according to my opinion,
which is as unprejudiced as possible.”

“Unprejudiced!” exclaimed Charles with vehemence: “I beg I may never
hear that word again. How can we so unequivocally condemn these men?
Have they not actually devoted their whole lives to the old pursuit of
serving the more favored classes of mankind? Have they not occupied the
few habitable rooms of the old mansion, and toiled diligently therein?
or, rather, have they not felt the inconvenience of the deserted part of
your state palace, by the obligation of living there in a state of
misery and oppression? Uncorrupted by frivolous pursuits, they do not
consider their own occupation to be alone noble; but in silence they
deplore the prejudice, the irregularity, the indolence and ignorance
upon which your statesmen build their foolish claims to reverence, and
in silence they pray for a more equal division of labor and enjoyment.
And who can deny that their ranks contain at least some such men of
intelligence and virtue, who, if they cannot now realize universal good,
can fortunately aid in modifying evil and in preparing for a happy
future? and, if there be such noble beings amongst them, should we not
deplore the approach of that evil hour which must destroy, perhaps
forever, their fondest anticipations?”

The privy councillor, upon this, sneered with some degree of bitterness
at certain youths who were in the habit of idealizing upon practical
subjects; whilst Charles was equally severe upon men whose thoughts were
merely formed upon antiquated precedents, and who never adopted any but
compulsory reforms.

By reciprocal contradictions of this nature, the dispute became
gradually more violent; and every topic was introduced which has for so
many years tended to dismember society. In vain did the baroness
endeavor to establish a truce, if not to make peace, between the
contending parties; and the wife of the privy councillor, who from her
estimable qualities had acquired some influence over Charles’s
disposition, interposed also to no effect, more particularly as her
husband continued to launch his poisoned shafts against youth and
inexperience, and enlarged upon the especial aptitude of children to
play with fire, a dangerous element which they were wholly unable to
control.

Charles, forgetting prudence in his anger, now declared openly that he
wished every success to the French arms, and called upon all his
countrymen to aid in putting an end to their general slavery; expressing
his conviction that their so-called enemies would protect every noble
German who should join them, would regard them and treat them as their
own countrymen, and crown them with honors, fortune, and rewards, in
place of sacrificing or leaving them in misery.

But the councillor maintained it was ridiculous to suppose that the
French would bestow a thought upon them, whether they capitulated or
not; that they would probably fall into the hands of the allies, by whom
he hoped they would all be hanged.

Charles was provoked by this speech, and expressed his wish that the
guillotine might find a rich harvest in Germany, and that no guilty head
might escape. He added some cutting observations which were aimed at the
councillor personally, and were in every sense offensive.

“I shall take leave of a society,” interrupted the latter, “in which
every thing is now slighted which once seemed worthy of respect. I
lament that I should be for the second time expelled, and now by a
fellow-countryman; but I am well aware that less pity may be expected
from this new foe than from the French themselves: and I find here a
confirmation of the old proverb, that it is better to fall into the
hands of the Turks than of renegades.”

So saying, he rose, and left the apartment. He was followed by his wife,
and a general silence ensued. The baroness expressed her displeasure in
a few words of strong import. Charles walked up and down the room. The
councillor’s wife returned in tears, and stated that her husband had
given directions for leaving, and had actually ordered the carriage. The
baroness went to pacify him; whilst the young ladies wept, and kissed
each other, distressed beyond measure that they were compelled so
suddenly and so unexpectedly to separate. The baroness returned without
succeeding in her wishes. Gradually all those troubles approached which
it is ever the lot of strangers to encounter. The sad moments of
separation and departure were bitter beyond expression. Hope vanished
with the appearance of the post-horses, and the general sorrow was
redoubled.

The carriage drove off. The baroness followed it with her eyes full of
tears. She left the window, and sat down to her embroidery-frame. The
silence, and even despair, was universal. Charles showed his sorrow by
sitting in a corner, and intently turning over the leaves of a book,
directing at intervals a melancholy look towards his aunt. At length he
rose, and took his hat, as if about to depart, but turned round on
reaching the door, and approaching his aunt he exclaimed, with a
countenance truly noble, “I have offended you, my dear aunt, I have
distressed you; but pardon my thoughtlessness: I acknowledge my fault,
and am deeply sensible of its sad consequences.”

“I forgive you,” replied the baroness: “I entertain no ill-feeling
towards you,--you are a good and noble being, but you can never repair
the injury you have done. Your error has deprived me of a friend to
whom, after a long separation, I had been restored by the accident of
our joint misfortunes, and in whose society I have forgotten much of the
misery which has pursued and threatens us. She herself, driven from her
home under most painful circumstances, and long a fugitive, after a
short repose in the society of old and beloved friends, in this
delightful spot and comfortable dwelling, is again compelled to wander
forth; and we lose the company of her husband, who, in spite of some
peculiarities, is a man of noble integrity, possessing an inexhaustible
knowledge of society and of the world, of facts and experiences which he
is ever ready to communicate with the most cheerful and delightful
willingness. Of all these enjoyments we have been deprived by your
fault, and how can you restore what we have lost?”

_Charles._ Spare me, my dear aunt. I feel deeply the weight of my fault:
cease to explain to me its evident consequences.

_Baroness._ Rather contemplate them as closely as possible. Talk not of
sparing you: only inquire how your mind may be corrected. It is not the
first time you have thus erred, nor will it be the last. Ye inexplicable
men! Cannot even misery, which brings you together under one roof, and
confines you in one narrow dwelling, induce you to practise forbearance
towards each other? Do you need any additional calamities besides those
which are perpetually bursting upon you? Consider your condition, and
act sensibly and justly towards those who, in truth, would deprive you
of nothing. Restrain your tempers from working and fermenting blindly,
like some storm or other natural phenomenon which disturbs the world.

Charles made no reply. The tutor advanced from the window, where he had
been standing, towards the baroness, and said his pupil would improve;
that this event would act as a warning, that he should test his progress
daily, that he would remember the distress the baroness had endured, and
would afford convincing evidence of the self-restraint he could
practice.

_Baroness._ How easily men deceive themselves, especially in this
particular. Authority is so delightful a word, and it sounds so noble to
promise to control ourselves. Men speak of it with pleasure, and would
persuade us that they can seriously practise the virtue. I wish I had
ever known a man capable of subduing himself in the smallest particular.
In indifferent matters they affect resolution, as if the loss occasioned
actual suffering; whilst their real desires are considered as supremely
essential, unavoidable, and indispensable. I have never known a man
capable of enduring the smallest privation.

_Tutor._ You are seldom unjust, and I have never seen you so overpowered
by anger and disappointment as at present.

_Baroness._ Well, I need not be ashamed of my anger. When I think of my
friend, who is now pursuing her journey in discomfort, weeping,
probably, at the recollection of our inhospitality, my heart burns with
indignation.

_Tutor._ In your greatest trouble, I have never seen you so agitated and
exasperated as now.

_Baroness._ A small evil, which follows closely upon a greater, can fill
the cup; though, in truth, it is no small evil to lose a friend.

_Tutor._ Be comforted, and rely upon our improvement, and that we will
do all in our power to content you.

_Baroness._ No: I shall rely upon none of you. But, for the future, I
will demand obedience from all. I will command in my own house.

“Command, certainly!” exclaimed Charles; “and you shall not have to
complain of our disobedience.”

“My severity will scarcely be very harsh,” rejoined the baroness, with a
smile, as she recovered herself: “I am not fond of commanding,
particularly democrats; but I will give you some advice, and make one
request.”

_Tutor._ Both shall we consider as laws to be strictly observed.

_Baroness._ It would be ridiculous, if I thought to impair the interest
you all take in the great events of the world,--events, the victims of
which we ourselves have become. I cannot change the opinions which exist
and are established in the mind of each of you, according to his
peculiar disposition; and it would be no less harsh than foolish to
require of you to suppress them. But I can demand this, at least, from
the circle in which I live, that those of similar sentiments shall
associate peaceably together, and converse in harmony. In your private
apartments, during your walks, and wherever else you meet, you may
communicate together at will, support your respective opinions, and
enjoy the gratification of an ardent conviction. But, my dear friends,
let us not forget how much we were accustomed to sacrifice of our own
individual opinions, for the sake of general harmony, long before these
new topics became the fashion; and, as long as the world lasts, we must
all, for the general benefit, practise some outward self-control. It is
not, therefore, for the sake of virtue, but in the name of common
politeness, that I implore you now to concede to me a favor which I
think I may safely say you have always granted to the veriest stranger.

It seems to me strange, continued the baroness, that we should have so
far forgotten ourselves. What has become of our politeness? It used to
be the custom in society to avoid topics disagreeable to others.
Protestants, in the company of Catholics, never asserted that church
ceremonies were ridiculous; and the most bigoted Catholic never
maintained, before a Protestant, that the old religion afforded the only
chance of salvation. In the presence of a mother who had lost her son,
no one displayed the deep delight he took in his children; and an
inappropriate word occasioned general embarrassment. It seemed the duty
of each to repair the accidental evil, but now the very reverse of all
this seems to be the rule. We appear to seek the opportunity of
introducing subjects calculated to give pain. Oh, my dear friends, let
us try and restore the old system! We have much to endure already; and
who knows how soon the smoke of the day, or the flames of the night, may
announce the destruction of our dwellings and of our most valued
possessions? Let us, at least, forbear to announce this intelligence
with triumph: let us cease, by our own bitter observations, to impress
our souls with calamities which it is painful enough to endure in
silence.

When your father died, was it your habit to renew my grief upon every
opportunity by a reference to the sad subject? Did you not rather avoid
all improper allusion to his memory, and seek by your love, your silent
sympathy, and your incessant attentions, to soften my sorrow and relieve
my pain? Should not we now practise the same kind forbearance, which
often brings more consolation than the offices of active friendship,
more particularly at this time, when ours is not the grief of an
individual in the midst of a happy multitude, where sorrow disappears
amid the general content, but the grief of thousands, where but few
indeed are capable of experiencing an accidental or artificial
consolation?

_Charles._ My dear aunt, you have sufficiently humiliated us: may we
take your hand in token of reconciliation?

_Baroness._ Here it is, on condition that you will obey its guidance. We
proclaim a general amnesty, which it is now barely possible to resolve
upon with sufficient speed.

The young ladies, who had all been dissolved in tears since the event we
have related, now made their appearance, but could not be persuaded to
be reconciled to Charles.

“You are welcome, children,” said the baroness, addressing them. “We
have just had a serious conversation, which, I trust, will establish
peace and harmony amongst us: perhaps it was never more important that
we should be friends, and enjoy even one brief portion of the day. Let
us make this resolution, to banish from our conversation all reference
to the mere events of the time. How long have we been deprived of all
instruction and entertaining intercourse! How long it seems, dear
Charles, since you have amused us with accounts of distant lands, with
whose productions, inhabitants, manners, and customs, you are so well
acquainted! And you,” continued the baroness, addressing the tutor, “you
have not lately instructed us in history, ancient or modern, in the
comparison of centuries or of remarkable men. And you, young ladies!
where are the pretty poems you used to bring forth from their
hiding-places for the delight of your friends? what has become of all
your free philosophic observations? Have you no more ambition to
surprise us with some wonderful mineral specimen, some unknown plant, or
remarkable insect, brought home from your walks, and affording occasion
for pleasing speculations on the mysterious connection of all the
productions of nature? Let us restore all those charming amusements by
an agreement, a resolution, a rule, to be useful, instructive, and,
above all things, companionable, towards each other; for all these
advantages we can enjoy, even in the most extreme adversity. You
promise, children.”

They promised eagerly. “And now I dismiss you,” added the baroness: “the
evening is fine, amuse yourselves as you please; and at supper-time let
us enjoy a friendly communion together, after so long an interruption.”

The company separated. Louisa alone remained with her mother. She could
not so easily forget the misfortune of losing her companion, and allowed
Charles, whom she had invited to accompany her upon a walk, to set out
alone. For some time the baroness and her daughter remained together,
when the clergyman entered, after a long absence, entirely ignorant of
what had, in the mean time, happened. Laying by his hat and stick, he
took a seat, and was about to narrate something, when Louisa, pretending
to continue a conversation with her mother, cut short his intention with
the following observations:--

“Some of our company will, I think, find the arrangement we have come to
rather disagreeable. When we lived in the country, it is true, we were
sometimes at a loss for conversation; for it did not happen so often, as
in town, that a girl could be slandered, or a young man traduced: but
still we had an alternative in describing the follies of two great
nations, in finding the Germans as absurd as the French, and in
representing first one, and then the other, as Jacobins and Radicals.
But, if these topics are forbidden, some of our society will be rendered
stupid.”

“Is this attack aimed at me, young lady?” asked the old clergyman with a
smile. “You know how ready I am to be sacrificed for the benefit of the
company. For though upon all occasions you do credit to your
instructors, and every one finds your society both amiable and
delightful, yet there is a certain little malicious spirit within you,
which, notwithstanding all your efforts, you cannot entirely subdue, and
which prompts you to take your revenge at my expense. Tell me, gracious
lady,” he continued, turning towards the baroness, “what has occurred
during my absence, and what topics have been excluded from our society?”

The baroness informed him of all that had taken place. He listened
attentively, and then observed that “this regulation would probably
enable many persons to entertain the company better than others.”

“We shall be able to endure it,” said Louisa.

“Such an arrangement,” he added, “will not be grievous to those who have
been accustomed to rely upon their own resources: on the contrary, they
will find it pleasant; since they can amuse the company with such
pursuits as they have followed in private. And do not be offended, young
lady, if I attribute to society the very existence of all newsmongers,
spies, and slanderers. For my part, I never see persons so lively and so
animated, either at a learned meeting or at a public lecture convened
for general instruction, as in a society where some piece of scandal is
introduced which reflects on the character of a neighbor. Ask yourself,
or ask others, what invests a piece of news with its greatest charm? Not
its importance, nor its influence, but its mere novelty. Nothing old is
cared for: novelty by itself excites our surprise, awakens the
imagination, gently agitates the feelings, and requires no exertion of
the reasoning powers. Every man can take the most lively interest in a
piece of news with the least trouble to himself: indeed, since a
succession of new events carries us rapidly from one circumstance to
another, nothing is more welcome to the generality of mankind than this
inducement to constant diversion, and this opportunity of venting their
spleen and malice in an agreeable and varied manner.”

“Well!” exclaimed Louisa, “you show some skill at explanation: just now
you censured individuals, at present you condemn mankind in general.”

“I do not require,” he answered, “that you should render me justice: but
this I must say, we who depend upon society must act according to its
rules; and it would be safer to provoke its resentment than its _ennui_,
by requiring it to think or reflect. We must avoid every thing that
would tend to this result, and pursue by ourselves in private whatever
would prove unpalatable to the public.”

“By yourselves in private,” said Louisa, “many a bottle of wine will, I
suppose, be drunk, and many a nap taken in the daytime.”

“I have never,” continued the old clergyman, “set much value upon my own
actions; for I know how little I have done for others: I am, however, in
possession of something which may, perhaps, afford agreeable relaxation
to this society, circumstanced as it is at present.”

“To what do you allude?” inquired the baroness.

“Rely upon it,” interrupted Louisa, “he has made some marvellous
collection of scandals.”

“You are mistaken,” replied the clergyman.

“We shall see,” answered Louisa.

“Let him continue, my dear,” said the baroness: “and do not accustom
yourself to act in a hard and unfriendly manner towards others, even in
jest; as they may take it ill. We have no need to increase our evil
habits by practising them for entertainment. Tell me, my dear friend, of
what does your collection consist? Will it conduce to our amusement?
Have you been long employed about it? Why have you never mentioned it
before?”

“I will give you an account of the whole matter,” rejoined the old
clergyman. “I have lived long in the world, and have paid much attention
to public occurrences. I have neither talent nor inclination for
chronicling great actions, and worldly affairs in general are
troublesome to me; but amongst the many private histories, true and
false, which sometimes happen in public or are related in private, there
are some which possess a greater attraction than the charm of mere
novelty, some which are calculated to improve us by their moral
application, some which display at a glance the secret springs of human
nature, and others, again, whose very absurdities are amusing. Amongst
the multitude of occurrences which attract our attention and our malice
in ordinary life, and which are as common as the individuals to whom
they relate, I have noted down a few on account of their peculiar
character, because they engaged and excited my attention and feelings;
and the very recollection of them has never failed to produce a
momentary sensation of pure and tranquil pleasure.”

“I am curious to hear,” said the baroness, “the nature of your
anecdotes, and to learn their peculiar character.”

“You may easily suppose,” replied the clergyman, “that they are not
about disputes or family matters. Such things have little interest
except for those who are engaged in them.”

_Louisa._ And what are yours about?

_Clergyman._ Why, for the most part, they treat of those emotions by
which friends become attached or disunited, happy or miserable, and by
which they are more frequently entangled than improved.

_Louisa._ Indeed! I suppose you will produce a collection of merry
adventures for our instruction and improvement. Excuse me for making
this observation, dear mamma; it seems so evident: and it is, of course,
allowable to speak the truth.

_Clergyman._ I suspect that you will not find any thing in the whole
collection which may be styled merry.

_Louisa._--And what would you consider of that description?

_Clergyman._ Scandalous dialogues or situations are my abhorrence. I
object equally that common adventures, which are unworthy of engaging
our attention, should be told with exaggerated importance: they excite
our expectations unduly, in place of giving real pleasure to the mind.
They make a mystery of that which should be wholly unveiled, or from
which we should altogether turn our eyes.

_Louisa._ I do not understand you. You will, however, relate your
stories with some degree of elegance. I hope our ears will not be
offended by any coarse adventures. You must consider us in the light of
a ladies’ seminary, and look for our thanks as your recompense.

_Clergyman._ Nothing of the sort. But, in truth, you will hear nothing
new, particularly as I have, for some time back, observed that you never
miss the perusal of certain criticisms in some of the learned reviews.

_Louisa._ You are really too bad.

_Clergyman._ You are engaged to be married, and I therefore pardon you.
But I am obliged to show that I also possess arrows which I know how to
use.

_Baroness._ I see your object plainly, but you must let her see it
likewise.

_Clergyman._ Then, I must repeat what I said at the beginning of this
conversation. But it seems you had not the politeness to pay attention.

_Louisa._ What is the use of attention or of much argument? Look at the
matter in any light, they will be scandalous stories, in some shape or
other, and nothing else.

_Clergyman._ Must I repeat, young lady, that a well-regulated mind only
perceives scandal when it reads of wickedness, arrogance, a desire to
injure, and an unwillingness to oblige? and from such spectacles he
should avert his eyes. He finds pleasure in the narration of trifling
faults and failings, and contemplates with satisfaction those points of
the story where good men contend with themselves, with their desires and
their intentions, where silly and conceited mortals are rebuked,
corrected, or deceived, and where hopes, wishes, and designs are
disturbed, interrupted, and frustrated, or unexpectedly fulfilled,
accomplished, and confirmed. But, on those scenes where accident
combines with human weakness and inefficiency, he dwells with the
greatest delight; and none of the heroes whose history he authenticates
has either blame to apprehend or praise to expect from him.

_Baroness._ Your introduction excites our wish to hear a specimen. We
have spent the greater part of our lifetime in one circle, and have
never experienced any thing worthy to find a place in such a collection.

_Clergyman._ Much undoubtedly depends upon the observer, and upon the
peculiar view he takes of occurrences. But I will not deny that I have
made large extracts from old books and traditions. Perhaps you will have
no objection to see some of your old friends with new faces. And this
gives me a privilege of which I must not be deprived,--that none of my
tales shall be doubted.

_Louisa._ But we are not to be prevented from recognizing our friends
and acquaintances, or, if we please, from expounding the enigma.

_Clergyman._ Certainly not. But you will allow me, under such
circumstances, to produce an old folio, to prove that the identical
occurrence happened, and was made matter of record, some centuries ago.
And I must be permitted to smile, when some narration is pronounced to
be an old fable, though it may have taken place amongst ourselves,
without our being able to recognize the characters.

_Louisa._ We shall never begin. Had we not better declare a truce for
this evening; and do you commence a story at once, by way of specimen?

_Clergyman._ Permit me, in this instance, to be guilty of disobedience.
The entertainment is intended for the whole assembled company. We must
not deprive them of it; and I must premise beforehand, that whatever I
have to say possesses no value in itself. But when my audience, after
some serious occupation, wishes for a brief repose, and, already sated
with good things, desires the addition of a light dessert, then I shall
be ready, and only hope that what I shall provide may not prove
unpalatable.

_Baroness._ In that case, we had better postpone the amusement till
to-morrow.

_Louisa._ I am beyond measure curious to know what it will be.

_Clergyman._ You must not be so, young lady; for great expectations are
seldom satisfied.

That same evening, after dinner, the baroness retired early to her
apartment; whilst the rest of the company remained together, and
discussed the many reports which were current, and the various incidents
which had happened. As is generally the case in such circumstances, few
of them knew what to doubt or what to believe.

The old clergyman had his remedy for such an emergency. “I propose,”
said he, “as the most convenient plan, that we all believe implicitly
whatever we find pleasant, and that we reject, without ceremony,
whatever we find unpleasant, and that we admit to be true what can be
so.”

It was then remarked by some one, that men generally acted in this way;
and, after some desultory conversation, they commented upon that strange
propensity of our nature to believe in the marvellous. They talked of
romances and visions: and, when the old clergyman had promised at a
future time to relate some interesting anecdotes upon these subjects,
Louisa exclaimed, “It will be extremely good of you, and you will merit
our gratitude, by telling us a story of that description now; for we are
all in the proper humor for it: we shall pay attention and be thankful.”
Without needing further entreaties, the old clergyman commenced at once,
as follows:--

“During my residence in Naples, an event happened which attracted
universal attention, and with regard to which public opinion varied
exceedingly. Some persons maintained that the circumstance had actually
occurred; whilst others asserted, that, though true in general, it was
founded upon a gross deceit. The latter class of persons were at further
variance amongst themselves: they could not agree who was the deceiver.
Others held it to be far from clear that spiritual natures were
incapable of influencing the elements and human bodies, and maintained
that we were not justified in pronouncing every marvellous occurrence to
be a fraud or a delusion. But now to the facts themselves.

“At the time I speak of, a singer named Antonelli was the favorite of
the Neapolitan public. In the bloom of youth, beauty, and talents, she
was deficient in none of those enchantments by which women can allure
and captivate, and render a certain class of their favorites happy. She
was not insensible to the charms of love and flattery; but, naturally
temperate and sensible, she knew how to enjoy the delights of both,
without losing that self-respect which was so essential to her
happiness. The young, the distinguished, and the rich, flocked to her in
crowds; but she admitted few to her friendship: and, if she pursued her
own inclination in the choice of her admirers, she evinced, upon all
occasions, so firm and resolute a character, that she attached every
person to her. I had an opportunity of observing her upon one occasion,
in consequence of my close intimacy with one of her especial favorites.

“Some years had elapsed: her friends were numerous; and amongst the
number were many foolish, simple, and fickle personages. It was her
opinion that a lover who, in a certain sense, is every thing to woman,
generally proves deficient in those very emergencies when she most needs
his assistance; as, for example, in the difficulties of life, in
domestic necessities, and upon the occurrence of sudden disasters. In
such times she maintained that his own self-love often proved absolutely
prejudicial to his mistress, and his advice became positively dangerous.

“Her former attachments were insufficient to satisfy her soul. The void
required to be filled. She wished for a friend; and scarcely had she
felt this want, when she found, amongst those who sought her favors, a
youth upon whom she bestowed her confidence, of which in every respect
he seemed worthy.

“He was a native of Genoa, and had taken up his residence in Naples, to
transact the mercantile business of a firm to which he belonged. His
natural talents had been improved by a most excellent education. His
knowledge was extensive, his mind and body were sound and active, and
his general conduct might serve as a model; and in his attention to
others he ever seemed forgetful of himself. He was imbued with the
commercial spirit for which his native town was distinguished. All his
speculations were upon a large scale. His condition, however, was none
of the happiest. The firm had entered into some unfortunate
transactions, and became entangled in ruinous law-suits. Time only
increased the difficulties; and the anxiety he endured gave him an air
of melancholy, which was not unbecoming, and made Antonelli still more
desirous of his acquaintance, from the idea that he stood in need of a
friend.

“Until now he had only seen Antonelli in public: but, at his first
request, she granted him access to her house; even urging him to visit
her, a favor which he did not fail to accept.

“She lost no time in communicating to him her confidence and her wishes.
He was no less surprised than delighted at her proposals. She implored
him earnestly to be her friend, but to make no pretensions to the
privileges of a lover. She made him acquainted with some embarrassments
in which she had become involved, and his great experience enabled him
to offer advice and assistance for her speedy release. In return for
this confidence, he unfolded to her his own situation: and, whilst she
endeavored to cheer and console him, many new plans occurred to him,
which he had not thought of before; and she thus appeared to be his
adviser: and a reciprocal friendship, founded on the highest regard and
respect, was established between them.

“Unfortunately, we do not always consider the practicability of the
obligations we incur. He had promised to be her friend, and to make no
pretensions to the privileges of a lover. But he could not deny that
those who came to see her as such were not only unwelcome to, but were
detested by, him; and it was extremely painful to him when she meant to
amuse him with the description of their various characters.

“It soon happened, fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, that her heart
was again free. This was a source of extreme delight to our young
friend, who lost no time in entreating that the vacant place might be
allotted to him. With some reluctance she listened to his proposals. ‘I
fear,’ she said, ‘that, in making this concession, I shall lose my
friend.’ Her anticipation was correct; for scarcely had he for a short
time filled this double character, when he found her temper change. As
her friend he had been content with her respect; as a lover he demanded
her affection; and, as an intelligent and accomplished man, constant
entertainment. But this was more than Antonelli expected. She was
unwilling to make an entire sacrifice of herself, and had no wish to
surrender her absolute liberty to any one. She soon adopted ingenious
expedients for curtailing the length of his visits, for avoiding his
presence, and for making him sensible that she would not consent to
forego her independence for any consideration.

“This discovery was to him a source of the greatest misery; and,
unfortunately, the calamity did not come alone. His domestic affairs
became more and more involved; and he found reason for reproaching
himself with having always considered his income as inexhaustible, and
with having neglected his business in order to engage in foreign travel,
and to make a greater figure in the world than he was entitled to do,
from the advantages of his birth and income. The law-suits, from which
he expected so much, were tardy and expensive. They took him frequently
to Palermo; and, upon the occasion of his last journey thither,
Antonelli adopted means to change the nature of her establishment, for
the purpose of becoming gradually disengaged from him. On his return he
found her in another residence, at some distance from his; and he saw
that the Marquis of S., who at that time exercised great influence in
the world of fashion, had unreserved admission to her house. He was
greatly affected by this discovery, which brought on a serious illness.
Upon hearing this sad intelligence, Antonelli hastened to him, attended
him; and, as she was fully aware that his purse was but scantily
supplied, she left a large sum of money, which supplied his necessities
for a considerable time.

“In consequence of his efforts to restrain her freedom, he had fallen
considerably in her estimation. As her attachment diminished, her
suspicions increased; and she at length began to think that a person who
had managed his own affairs so badly was not entitled to a high
character for good sense. But he was unaware of the great change which
had taken place in her feelings towards him; and he attributed her
anxiety for his recovery, and the constancy of her attentions which
induced her to spend whole days at his bedside, rather to her love for
him than to compassion for his sufferings; and he hoped, upon his
recovery, to find himself once more re-instated in her favor.

“But he was grievously mistaken. With his restoration to health and
strength, all semblance of affection disappeared; and he now seemed as
odious in her eyes as he had formerly proved agreeable. In addition to
this, his temper had unconsciously become soured and unbearable. He
attributed to others all the blame of his own misfortunes, and justified
himself fully from their evil consequences. He considered himself an
injured and persecuted invalid, and looked for a complete recompense for
all his troubles in the devoted affection of his mistress.

“With these exalted expectations he visited Antonelli immediately upon
his recovery. He would be satisfied with nothing short of her entire
affection, the dismissal of all her other friends and acquaintances, her
complete retirement from the stage, and her devoting herself to him
alone. She demonstrated the impossibility of complying with these
requests, at first in a playful, and afterwards in a more serious, tone.
At length she communicated to him the sad intelligence that their
connection must end. He left her, and never returned.

“For several years afterwards he lived in a retired manner, in the house
of a pious old lady, who had a small independence. At this period he
gained his first law-suit, and was soon afterwards successful in
another; but this change of fortune came too late: his health was
undermined, and the joy of his existence had vanished. A slight accident
brought on a relapse, and the physician announced to him his approaching
death. He heard his fate without a murmur, and merely expressed a wish
to see his beautiful friend once more. He sent his servant to her,--the
same messenger who, in happier days, had brought him many a delightful
answer. He entreated an interview: she refused. He sent a second time,
and implored her to consent: she was still inexorable. At length, at
midnight, he sent a third time. She was embarrassed, and communicated
her situation to me; as I had been invited, along with the marquis and
some other friends, to spend the evening at her house. I advised her,
indeed begged of her, to show some last attentions to her friend. She
appeared undecided at first, but, after a short reflection, made up her
mind, and dismissed the servant with a refusal. He did not return.

“After supper we were all engaged in social conversation, and general
animation and hilarity prevailed. Suddenly, a little after midnight, a
piercing shriek of bitter, painful lamentation was heard. We rose from
the table, looked at each other, and wondered what this strange event
could mean. The sound seemed to come from the middle of the room in
which we were assembled, and die away near the walls. The marquis rushed
to the window; whilst we endeavored to support Antonelli, who had
fainted. By degrees she regained consciousness. She had scarcely opened
her eyes when the jealous and passionate marquis loaded her with the
bitterest reproaches. ‘If you choose to have these mysterious
understandings with your friends,’ said he, ‘at least let them be of a
less fearful nature.’ She replied, with her wonted presence of mind,
‘that, as she had always enjoyed the right of seeing her friends
whenever she pleased, she would scarcely select such appalling sounds as
they had just heard, to indicate approaching happiness.’

“And, in truth, the cry had in it something unspeakably appalling. The
long-continued scream of anguish dwelt upon our ears, and made our very
limbs tremble. Antonelli was pale, motionless, and in a continual faint.
We sat with her for half the night, but we heard nothing further. On the
following night, the same company, who had met together not quite so
cheerful as usual, though with a reasonable supply of courage, about the
same hour of midnight heard the same identical loud and appalling
shriek.

“We had, in the mean time, wearied our imaginations in framing
conjectures as to the cause of the cry, and whence it could proceed. But
why should I weary you? Whenever Antonelli supped at home, at the
self-same hour the same shriek was heard, sometimes louder and sometimes
fainter. It was spoken of all over Naples. The mystery excited universal
attention. The police were called out. Spies were placed in every
direction, to detect the cause of the mystery. To persons in the street,
the shriek appeared to come from the open air; whilst in the house it
seemed to proceed from the very room in which Antonelli was sitting.
When she supped abroad nothing whatsoever occurred; but, as often as she
supped at home, the horrid shriek was invariably heard.

“But her absence from home did not upon all occasions protect her from
this fearful visitation. Her many personal recommendations secured her a
welcome reception in the most distinguished families. Being a pleasant
companion, she was everywhere well received; and it had lately become
her custom, in order to escape the fearful visitation we have described,
to spend her evenings from home.

“One evening a gentleman of great respectability, owing to his age and
position, accompanied her to her house in his carriage. When she was
taking leave of him at the door, a loud shriek was heard, which seemed
to come from between them; and the gentleman, who, like many others, had
often heard of this mysterious occurrence, was lifted into his carriage
more like a corpse than a living person.

“Upon another occasion a young singer, to whom she was partial, drove
through the town with her in the evening, to visit a friend. He likewise
had frequently heard of the wonderful phenomenon we have related, and,
with the spirits of a light-hearted youth, had expressed his doubts of
its reality. They spoke of the circumstance. ‘I wish extremely,’ said
he, ‘that I could hear the voice of your invisible companion; call
him,--perhaps he will come: we are two, and need not fear him.’ From
thoughtlessness, or indifference to danger, I know not which, she called
the spirit: and instantly the piercing shriek issued, as it were, from
the middle of the carriage; three times it was heard, and then died away
gradually. Arrived at the house of their friend, both were found
insensible in the carriage: with difficulty they recovered their senses
sufficiently to relate what had happened.

“It was some time before Antonelli completely recovered. Her health
became impaired by the constantly recurring fright she sustained: but
when, at length, her fearful visitor appeared to intend that she should
enjoy some repose, she began to hope for a complete cessation of this
annoyance; but this expectation was premature.

“At the end of the carnival, accompanied by a young female acquaintance
and a servant, she set out upon an excursion of pleasure. It was her
intention to visit a friend in the country. Night came on before she
reached her destination: an accident happened to the carriage; and she
was necessitated to take refuge in a small country inn, and to put up
with the indifferent accommodation it afforded.

“Her companion had already gone to bed; and the servant, having arranged
the night-light, was about to retire, when her mistress observed
jestingly, ‘I think we are at the end of the world: it is a dreadful
night; I wonder whether he can find us out?’ That very instant the
shriek was heard more piercing and louder than ever. Her companion was
terrified beyond expression, sprang from her bed, rushed down-stairs,
and alarmed the whole house. No one that night closed an eye. It was,
however, the last time the shriek was heard. But the unwelcome visitor
soon found another more frightful mode of indicating his presence.

“He was quiet for a short time, when one evening, at the accustomed
hour, as Antonelli sat with her companions at table, a shot from a gun,
or from a heavily loaded pistol, was fired in at the window. Every one
heard the report, every one saw the flash; but, upon the closest
inspection, the window was found not to have sustained the slightest
injury. But the circumstance seemed to every one of the most alarming
importance, and all thought that an attempt had been made upon
Antonelli’s life. The police were called, and the neighboring house was
searched; but, as nothing suspicious was found, guards were placed in it
next day from top to bottom. Her own dwelling was carefully examined,
and spies were even dispersed about the streets.

“But all this precaution was useless. For three months in succession, at
the very same hour, the shot was fired through the same window, without
the slightest injury to the glass; and, what was especially remarkable,
this always took place exactly one hour before midnight: although in
Naples time is counted after the Italian fashion, and the term midnight
is never used.

“But custom at length reconciled all parties to this occurrence, as it
had done to the previous one; and the ghost began to lose credit by
reason of his very harmless tricks. The shot ceased to alarm the
company, or even to interrupt their conversation.

“One sultry evening, the day having been very hot, Antonelli opened the
window, without thinking of the hour, and went with the marquis out upon
the balcony. They had scarcely been in the air a couple of minutes when
the shot exploded between them, and drove them back into the house,
where for some time they lay apparently lifeless on the floor. When they
recovered, each felt the pain of a violent blow upon the cheek, one on
the right side, the other on the left; but, as no further injury was
apparent, the singularity of the circumstance was merely the occasion of
a few jocular observations.

“From this time the shot was not repeated in the house; and Antonelli
thought she was at last completely delivered from her invisible
tormentor, when one evening, upon making a little excursion with a
friend, she was terrified beyond measure by a most unexpected incident.
Her way lay through the Chiaja, where her Genoese friend had formerly
lived. It was bright moonlight. A lady who sat near her asked, ‘Is not
that the house in which Signor ---- died?’--‘As well as I can recollect,
it is one of those two,’ answered Antonelli. The words were scarcely
uttered when the shot was fired from one of the two houses, and
penetrated the carriage. The driver thought he was wounded, and drove
forward with all possible speed. Arrived at their destination, the two
ladies were lifted from the carriage, as though they were dead.

“But this was the last alarm of that kind. The unseen foe now changed
his plan; and one evening, shortly afterwards, a loud clapping of hands
was heard before the window. As a popular singer and favorite actress,
she was more familiar with sounds of this description. They did not
inspire terror, and might have proceeded, perhaps, from one of her
numerous admirers. She paid no attention to them. Her friends, however,
were more watchful, and distributed their guards as before. They
continued to hear the noise, but saw nobody, and began to indulge a hope
that the unaccountable mystery would soon completely end.

“After a short time it became changed in character, and assumed the form
of agreeable sounds. They were not, strictly speaking, melodious, but
exceedingly sweet and pleasing. To an accurate observer they seemed to
proceed from the corner of the street, to float about in the empty space
before Antonelli’s window, and there to die away in the most soft and
delightful manner. It seemed as if some heavenly spirit wished, by means
of a beautiful prelude, to draw attention to a lovely melody which he
designed to play. But these sounds also ceased at length, and were heard
no more after this wonderful occurrence had lasted for about a year and
a half.”

The clergyman pausing for a few moments, the entire company began to
express their opinions, and their doubts about the truth of the tale.

The narrator answered that the story had to be true, if it were to be
interesting, as a manufactured tale could possess but little merit. Some
one here observed that he thought it singular no one had inquired about
Antonelli’s deceased friend, or the circumstances of his death; as
perhaps some light might by this means have been thrown upon the whole
affair.

“But this was done,” replied the clergyman: “I was myself curious
enough, immediately after the first mysterious occurrence, to go to the
house under the pretext of visiting the lady who had attended him in his
last moments with a mother’s care. She informed me that the deceased had
been passionately attached to Antonelli; that, during the last hours of
his existence, he had spoken of nothing but her; that at one time he
addressed her as an adorable angel, and at another as little better than
a demon.

“When his sickness became desperate, his whole thoughts were fixed on
seeing her once more before his death, perhaps in the hope of obtaining
from her an expression of affection, of pity, of attachment, or of love.
Her unwillingness to see him afflicted him exceedingly, and her last
decisive refusal hastened his death. In despair he cried out, ‘No! it
shall not avail her. She avoids me; but, after my death, she shall have
no rest from me.’ In a paroxysm of this kind he expired; and only too
late do we learn, that the dead can keep their word on the other side of
the grave.”

The company began once more to express their opinions about the story.
At length Fritz observed, “I have a suspicion; but I shall not tell it
till I have thought over all the circumstances again, and put my
combinations to the proof.”

Being somewhat strongly pressed, he endeavored to avoid giving an
answer, by requesting that he might be allowed to relate an anecdote,
which, though it might not equal the preceding one in interest, was of
the same character, inasmuch as it could not be explained with any
certainty.

“A gallant nobleman,” he commenced, “who inhabited an ancient castle,
and was the father of a large family, had taken into his protection an
orphan girl, who, when she attained the age of fourteen years, was
employed in attending the mistress of the house in duties immediately
about her person. She gave complete satisfaction, and her whole ambition
seemed to consist in a wish to evince her gratitude to her benefactor by
attention and fidelity. She possessed various charms, both of mind and
person, and was not without suitors. But none of these proposals seemed
likely to conduce to her happiness, and the girl herself did not show
the least inclination to change her condition.

“On a sudden it happened, that as she went through the house, intent
upon her various duties, she heard sounds of knocking, which came from
about and beneath her. At first this seemed accidental; but as the
knocking never ceased, and beat almost in unison with her footsteps, she
became alarmed, and scarcely left the room of her mistress, where alone
she found she could enjoy security.

“These sounds were heard by every one who accompanied her or who stood
near her. At first the subject was treated as a jest, but at length it
was regarded in a more serious light. The master of the house, who was
of a cheerful disposition, now took the matter in hand. The knocking was
never heard when the maiden remained motionless, and, when she walked,
was perceived, not so evidently when she put her foot to the ground as
when she raised it to advance another step. But the sounds were often
irregular, and they were observed to be more than usually loud when the
maiden went transversely across a certain large apartment in the castle.

“The old nobleman, one day having workmen in the house, caused the
flooring to be suddenly raised behind the maiden, when the knocking
sounds were at the loudest. Nothing, however, was found but a couple of
rats, who, disturbed by the search, gave occasion to a chase, and to
considerable uproar in the house.

“Provoked by this circumstance and by the disappointment, the nobleman
determined upon adopting strong measures. He took down his large whip
from the wall, and swore that he would flog the maiden to death if he
heard the knocking any more. From this time forth she could go through
the house without the slightest molestation, and the knocking was never
heard again.”

“Whereby,” observed Louisa sagaciously, “we may conclude that the young
maiden was her own ghost, and practised this joke, and played the fool
with the family, to indulge some whim of her own.”

“Not at all,” answered Fritz; “for those who ascribed the mysterious
occurrence to a ghost, believed that the maiden’s guardian angel wished
her to leave the house, but was anxious also to protect her from injury.
Others took another view, and maintained that one of the girl’s lovers
had the cleverness to occasion these sounds in order to drive her out of
the house into his arms. But, be this as it may, the poor child became
quite ill in consequence, and was reduced to a melancholy spectre;
though she had formerly been the most cheerful and lively and merry
person in the whole establishment. But such a change in personal
appearance can be explained in more ways than one.

“It is a pity,” observed Fritz, “that these occurrences are not always
more particularly examined, and that, in judging of events which so much
interest us, we are obliged to hesitate between different appearances,
because the circumstances under which they happen have not all been
observed.”

“True,” replied the old clergyman; “but it is so extremely difficult to
make this examination at the very moment when any thing of the kind
happens, and to take every precaution that nothing shall escape in which
deceit or fraud may be concealed. Can we, for example, detect a conjurer
so easily, though we are perfectly conscious that he is deluding us?”

He had scarcely finished this observation, when a loud report was
suddenly heard in one corner of the apartment. Every one leaped up;
whilst Charles said jokingly, “Surely the noise does not proceed from
some dying lover.”

He would willingly have recalled the expression; for Louisa became
suddenly pale, and stammered forth that she felt apprehension about the
safety of her intended.

Fritz, to divert her attention, took up the light, and went towards a
reading-desk which stood in a corner of the apartment. The semicircular
top of the desk was split through; this, then, was the cause of the
report they had heard: but it immediately occurred to them, that the
reading-desk was of the best workmanship, and had occupied the very same
spot for years; and therefore they were all astonished that it should be
so suddenly split asunder. It had even been praised more than once as a
very model piece of furniture; and how, therefore, could this accident
have occurred, without even the slightest change having taken place in
the temperature?

“Quick!” said Charles, “let us settle this point at once by examining
the barometer.” The quicksilver maintained the same point it had held
for some days. And even the thermometer had not fallen more than could
be reconciled with the difference of the temperature between day and
night. “It is a pity that we have not an hygrometer at hand,” he
exclaimed, “the very instrument that would be most serviceable!”

“It seems,” said the old clergyman, “that the most valuable instrument
always fails when we are engaged in supernatural inquiries.” They were
interrupted in their reflections by the entry of a servant, who
announced that a great fire was visible in the heavens; though no one
could say whether it were raging in the town or in the neighborhood.

The circumstances we have just related made the whole party more
susceptible of terror, and they were therefore much agitated by the
news. Fritz hastened up to the belvedere of the house; where a map of
the adjacent country was suspended, by means of which he was enabled,
even at night, to point out with tolerable accuracy the various
positions of the surrounding places. The rest of the party remained
together, not without some fear and anxiety.

Fritz announced, upon his return, that he had no good news to tell. “The
fire does not seem to be in the town, but upon the property of our aunt.
I am well acquainted,” said he, “with the locality, and believe I am not
mistaken.” Each one lamented the destruction of the fine building, and
calculated the loss. “A strange thought has just occurred to me,” said
Fritz, “which may quiet our minds as to the mystery of the reading-desk.
Consider how long it is since we heard the report.” They counted the
minutes, and thought it had occurred about half-past twelve.

“Now, you will probably laugh,” continued Fritz, “when I tell you my
conjecture. You know that our mother, a good many years ago, made our
aunt a present of a reading-desk, in every respect similar to this one.
They were both finished with the greatest care, by the same workman, at
the same time, and cut out of one piece of wood. Both have lasted well
until now: and I will lay a wager, that, at this very instant, the
second reading-desk is actually burning at the house of my aunt; and its
twin brother here is afflicted at the disaster. To-morrow I will set out
and investigate this singular fact as thoroughly as I am able.”

Whether Frederick really entertained the above opinion, or whether his
wish to tranquillize his sister suggested the idea, we are unable to
decide: they, however, seized the opportunity to speak of many
undeniable sympathies, and ended by discovering that a sympathy actually
existed between pieces of timber formed from one tree, and pronounced it
probable that the same sympathy subsisted between pieces of work
completed by the same hand. They agreed that these things resembled
natural phenomena fully as much as other things which were often
adduced, and which although quite evident, are incapable of explanation.
“And, in my opinion,” added Charles, “every phenomenon, as well as every
fact, is peculiarly interesting for its own sake. Whoever explains it,
or connects it with other circumstances, only makes a jest of it, or
deludes us: this is done, for example, by the natural philosopher and
the historian. But an unconnected fact or event is interesting, not
because it is explicable or probable, but because it is true. When at
midnight the flames consumed your aunt’s reading-desk, the extraordinary
splitting of ours, at the very same time, was a palpable fact, however
explicable or connected with other things it may be.”

Though night was by this time far advanced, none of the company felt any
inclination to retire; and Charles, in his turn, asked permission to
tell a story, which, though equally interesting, might seem perhaps more
natural and explicable than the previous ones. “Marshal Bassompierre,”
he said, “relates it in his Memoirs; and I may be permitted to tell it
in his name.

“I had remarked for five or six months, that, whenever I crossed the
little bridge (for at that time the Pont Neuf had not been built), a
very handsome shopkeeper, over the door of whose establishment was
painted the sign of ‘The Two Angels,’ always saluted me with a low and
respectful bow, and followed me with her eyes as far as she could see
me. This conduct surprised me extremely; but I always directed my looks
to her, and saluted her in return. I rode on one occasion from
Fontainebleau to Paris; and, when I had arrived at the little bridge,
she appeared at the door of her shop, and said, ‘Your servant, sir!’ I
returned the salute; and, as I looked back from time to time, I observed
that she was, as usual, leaning forward, to keep me in view as long as
possible.

“My servant was following with a postilion, as I wished to send some
letters back to some ladies in Fontainebleau the same day. I ordered the
servant to alight, to go to the pretty shopkeeper, and to tell her from
me, that I had noticed her wish to speak to me, and that, if she desired
my acquaintance, I would visit her whenever she wished. She answered
that I could have sent her no more delightful news, that she would meet
me whenever I should appoint, on condition that she might be allowed to
pass a night under the same roof with me. I accepted the proposal, and
asked the servant to find a place where I might appoint an assignation.
He said he would lead me to a friend’s house, but advised me, as fever
was then very prevalent, to provide myself with my own house-linen. When
evening came, I went to the appointed house, where I found a very
beautiful young woman awaiting my arrival. She was attired in a charming
head-dress, and wore the finest linens. Her tiny feet were adorned with
slippers, worked in gold and silk; and her person was covered with a
loose mantle of the softest satin texture. Suffice it to say, that I
never saw a more charming person. In the morning I asked when I could
see her again; as it was then Thursday night, and it was not my
intention to leave the town before the following Sunday.

“She replied that she was more anxious for a fresh appointment than I
could be, but that it would be impracticable unless I could postpone my
departure; as I could only see her on Sunday night. To this I made some
difficulty, which caused her to complain that I was tired of her, and
therefore wished to set out on Sunday; ‘but,’ she added, ‘you will soon
think of me again, and will be glad to forfeit a day in order to pass a
night with me.’

“I was easily persuaded. I promised to stay during Sunday, and to meet
her in the evening at the same place. She answered me as follows: ‘I am
quite aware, that on your account I have come to a house of ill-repute;
but I have done this in obedience to an irresistible desire to enjoy
your society. But so great an indiscretion cannot be repeated. I shall
excite the jealousy of my husband, though one might risk even that for
the satisfaction of an irresistible passion. For your sake I have come
to this house, which has been made respectable by your presence. But, if
you desire to see me again, you must meet me at the residence of my
aunt.’

“She described the house with great particularity, and then added, ‘I
shall expect you at ten o’clock. From that time till midnight the door
shall be open. You will find a small entrance, through which you must
advance; as my aunt’s door is at the farther end. You will then see a
flight of stairs opposite to you. They lead to the first floor, and
there I shall be expecting you with open arms.’

“I made all my arrangements. I sent away my things, dismissed my
servants, and waited impatiently the arrival of Sunday night, when I was
to see my charming companion once more. At ten o’clock I was at the
appointed place. I found the door she had described, close shut, and
observed lights in the house, which seemed every now and then to blaze
up into a flame. I knocked impatiently in order to announce my arrival,
and was immediately saluted by the hoarse voice of a man inquiring what
I wanted. I retired disappointed, and paced restlessly up and down the
street. At length I returned to the house, and found the door then wide
open. I hurried through the passage, and ascended the stairs. Judge of
my astonishment at finding the room occupied by two men, who were
employed in burning a mattress and some bed-clothes; while I saw before
me two naked corpses stretched upon the floor. I hastened away
instantly, and, in rushing down stairs, knocked against two men carrying
a coffin, who asked me angrily what I wanted. I drew my sword to protect
myself, and finally reached my home in a state of the greatest
excitement. I swallowed half a dozen glasses of wine, as a preservative
against the fever, and on the following day continued my journey.

“All the inquiries I afterwards instituted to discover who this woman
was were in vain. I even visited the shop where ‘The Two Angels’ were
painted, but the new-comers could not inform who their predecessors had
been. The chief character in this adventure was doubtless a person from
the lower orders; but I can assure you, that, but for the disagreeable
_finale_, it would have proved one of the most delightful incidents that
has ever happened to me, and that I never think of my charming heroine
without feelings of the warmest affection.”

Charles observed, upon the conclusion of the anecdote, that the mystery
which enveloped the story was not easily explained. The woman might
either have died of the fever, or have kept away from the house on
account of the infection.

“But, if she were alive,” answered Charles, “she would have met her
lover in the street; as no fear could, under the circumstances, have
kept her from him. I fear,” he added, “that her corpse was stretched on
the floor.”

“Oh! no more of this,” said Louisa: “this story is too frightful. What a
night we shall pass, if we retire with our imaginations full of these
pictures!”

“I recollect an anecdote,” interrupted Charles, “which is of a more
cheerful description, and which the same Bassompierre relates of some of
his ancestors.

“A very beautiful woman, who loved one of her relations passionately,
visited him every Monday at his country-house, where they spent much
time together; his wife believing in the mean while that her husband was
engaged on a hunting-party. Two years uninterruptedly had passed in this
way, when, the wife’s suspicions being roused, she stole one morning to
the country-house, and found her husband asleep with his companion.
Being unwilling or afraid to disturb them, she untied her veil, threw it
over the feet of the sleeping couple, and retired. When the lady awoke,
and observed the veil, she uttered a piercing cry, and with loud
lamentations complained that she would now never be able to see her
lover again. She then took leave of him, having first given him three
presents,--a small fruit-basket, a ring, and a goblet, being a present
for each of his three daughters, and desired him to take great care of
them. They were accepted with thanks, and the children of these three
daughters believe that they are indebted to their respective gifts for
whatever good fortune has attended them.”

“This somewhat resembles the story of the beautiful Melusina, and
such-like fairy-tales,” observed Louisa.

“But there is just such a tradition in our family,” said Frederick, “and
we have possession of a similar talisman.”

“What do you mean?” asked Charles.

“That is a secret,” replied the former. “It can be told to no one but
the eldest son, and that during the lifetime of his father; and he is
then to hold the charm.”

“Are you the present possessor?” inquired Louisa.

“I have told too much already,” answered Frederick, as he lighted his
candle, previous to retiring.

The family had assembled for breakfast according to their usual custom,
and the baroness afterwards took her seat at her embroidery-frame. After
a short silence the clergyman observed, with a slight smile, “It is
seldom indeed that singers, poets, or story-tellers, who enter into an
agreement to amuse a company, do it at the right time: they often
require pressing, when they should begin voluntarily; whilst, on the
other hand, they are frequently eager and urgent to commence at a time
when the entertainment could be dispensed with. I hope, however, to
prove an exception to this custom; and I shall be glad to know whether
it will prove agreeable to you that I should relate a story.”

“Particularly so,” answered the baroness; “and I feel sure that I
express the general opinion. But, if it is your intention to relate an
anecdote as a specimen, I will tell you for what sort of story I have no
inclination.

“I take no pleasure in stories which, like the Arabian Nights, connect
one tale with another, and so confound the interest of both; where the
narrator finds himself compelled to excite our attention by
interruptions, and, instead of satisfying us by detailing a course of
consecutive adventures, seeks to attract us by rare and often unworthy
artifices. I cannot but censure the attempt of converting stories, which
should possess the unity of a poem, into unmeaning puzzles, which only
have the effect of vitiating our taste. I leave you to choose your own
subjects; but I hope you will pay a little attention to the style, since
it must be remembered that we are members of good society. Commence with
some narrative in which but few persons are concerned or few events
described, in which the plot is good and natural, though possessing as
much action and contrivance as is necessary, which shall not prove dull,
nor be confined to one spot, but in which the action shall not progress
too rapidly. Let your characters be pleasing, and, if not perfect, at
least good,--not extravagant, but interesting and amiable. Let your
story be amusing in the narration, in order, that, when concluded, we
may remember it with pleasure.”

“If I were not well acquainted with you, gracious lady,” said the
clergyman, “I should be of opinion that it is your wish, by thus
explaining how much you require of me, to bring my wares into disrepute
before I have exposed them for sale. I see how difficult it will be to
reach your standard of excellence. Even now,” he continued, after a
short pause, “you compel me to postpone the tale I had intended to
relate till another time; and I fear I shall commit a mistake in
extemporizing an anecdote for which I have always felt some
partiality:--

“In a seacoast town in Italy once lived a merchant, who from his youth
had been distinguished for activity and industry. He was, in addition, a
first-rate sailor, and had amassed considerable wealth by trading to
Alexandria, where he was accustomed to purchase or exchange merchandise,
which he afterwards either brought home or forwarded to the northern
parts of Europe. His fortune increased from year to year. Business was
his greatest pleasure, and he found no time for the indulgence of
extravagant dissipation.

“His life was employed in active pursuits of this nature till he was
fifty years old; and he had been, during all this time, a total stranger
to those social pleasures with which luxurious citizens are accustomed
to diversify their lives. Even the charms of the fair sex had never
excited his attention, notwithstanding the attractions of his
countrywomen. His knowledge of them was confined to their love for
ornaments and jewellery, a taste of which he never failed to take proper
advantage.

“He was surprised, therefore, at the change which took place in his
disposition, when, after a long voyage, his richly laden ship entered
the port of his native town, upon the occurrence of a great festival in
which the children of the place took a prominent part. The youths and
maidens had attended the church in their gayest attire, and had joined
in the sacred processions. They afterwards mingled through the town in
separate companies, or dispersed through the country in search of
amusements; or they assembled in the large square, engaging in various
active pursuits, and exhibiting feats of skill and dexterity, for which
small prizes were bestowed.

“The merchant was much pleased with all he saw. But after he had for
some time observed the happiness of the children, and the delight of
their parents, and witnessed so many persons in the full enjoyment of
present bliss and the indulgence of the fondest hopes, he could not help
reflecting upon the wretchedness of his own condition. His own solitary
home began for the first time to be to him a cause of distress, and he
thus gave vent to his melancholy thoughts:--

“‘Unhappy being that I am! Why are my eyes opened so late? Why, in my
old age, do I first become acquainted with those blessings which alone
can insure the happiness of mankind? What toil have I endured! What
labors I have borne! And what have they done for me? ’Tis true my
cellars are filled with merchandise, my chests with valuable metals, and
my caskets with jewellery and precious stones; but these treasures can
neither console nor satisfy my heart. The more I have the more I want:
one coin requires another, and one diamond wishes for its fellow. I am
not the master of my riches: they command me in imperious tone. ‘Go and
get more!’ they exclaim. Gold delights in gold, and jewels in their
fellows. They have ruled me all my life; and now I find, too late, that
they possess no real value. Now, when age approaches, I begin for the
first time to reflect, and to complain that I enjoy none of the
treasures I possess, and that no one will enjoy them after me. Have I
ever used them to adorn the person of a beloved wife, to provide a
marriage-portion for a daughter? Have I ever by their means enabled a
son to win and to dower the maiden of his heart? Never! None of these
treasures have ever enriched me or mine; and what I have collected with
so much toil some stranger, after my death, will thoughtlessly
dissipate.

“‘Oh! with what different feelings will those happy parents whom I see
around me assemble their children this evening, praise their address,
and encourage them to virtue! What joy have I beheld beaming from their
eyes, and what hopes from the happiness of their beloved offspring! And
must I ever be a stranger to hope? Am I grown gray? Is it not enough to
see my error before the final evening of my days arrives? No: in my ripe
years it is not foolish to dream of love. I will enrich a fair maiden
with my wealth, and make her happy. And, should my house ever become
blessed with children, those late fruits will render me happy, instead
of proving a plague and a torment; as they often do to those who too
early receive such gifts from Heaven.’

“Thus communing with himself he silently formed his determination. He
then called two of his intimate companions, and opened his mind to them.
They were ever ready to aid him in all emergencies, and were not wanting
upon the present occasion. They hastened, therefore, into the town, to
make inquiries after the fairest and most beautiful maidens; for they
knew their master was a man who, whatever goods he might wish to
acquire, would never be satisfied with any but the best. He was himself
active, went about, inquired, saw, and listened, and soon found what he
sought in the person of a young maiden about sixteen years of age,
accomplished and well educated. Her person and disposition pleased him,
and gave him every hope of happiness. In fact, at this time no maiden in
the whole town was more admired for her beauty.

“After a short delay, during which the most perfect independence of his
intended bride, not only during his own life, but after his decease, was
secured, the nuptial ceremony was performed with great pomp and triumph;
and from that day the merchant felt himself, for the first time in his
life, in actual possession and enjoyment of his riches. His rarest and
most costly silks were devoted to the adornment of his bride, and his
diamonds gleamed more brilliantly upon the neck and amid the tresses of
his love than they had ever shone in his caskets; and his rings acquired
an inexpressible value from the beauty of the hand by which they were
adorned. And thus he felt that he was not only as wealthy as before, but
even wealthier; and all he possessed acquired a new value from being
shared with her he loved. The happy couple spent a year together in the
most perfect contentment, and he seemed to experience a real joy in
having exchanged his active and wandering course of life, for the calm
content of domestic bliss. But he could not so easily divest himself of
his nature, and found that a habit acquired in early youth, though it
may for a time be interrupted, can never be completely laid aside.

“After some time the sight of some of his old companions, when they had
safely brought their ships into harbor after a long and perilous voyage,
excited anew the love of his former pursuits; and he began now, even in
the company of his bride, to experience sensations of restlessness and
discontent. These feelings increased daily, and were gradually converted
into so intense a longing for his old course of life, that at last he
became positively miserable; and a serious illness was the result.

“‘What will now become of me?’ he asked himself. ‘I learn too late the
folly of entering in old age upon a new system of life. How can we
separate ourselves from our thoughts and our habits? What have I done?
Once I possessed the perfect freedom which a bird enjoys in open air,
and now I am imprisoned in a dwelling with all my wealth and jewels and
my beauteous wife. I thought thus to win contentment and enjoy my
riches, but I feel that I lose every thing so long as I cannot increase
my stores. Unjustly are men considered fools who add to their wealth by
ceaseless activity, for activity itself is happiness; and riches
themselves are valueless in comparison with the delight of the toil by
which they are acquired. I am wretched from idleness, sick from
inactivity; and, if I do not determine upon some other course, I may
soon bid farewell to life.

“‘I know, however, how much I risk in separating from a young and lovely
wife. I know how unjust it is to win the affections of a charming
maiden, and, after a brief possession, to abandon her to the wearisome
society of her own desires and emotions. I know, even now, how many vain
and frivolous youths display their conceited persons before my windows.
I know that in church, and in the public promenades, they seek to
attract the notice and engage the attention of my wife. What may not
take place, then, if I absent myself? Can I hope for the intervention of
some miracle to save her from her almost inevitable fate? It were vain
to expect that at her age and with her warm affections she can withstand
the seductions of love. If I depart, I know that upon my return I shall
have lost the attachment of my wife, and that she will have forfeited
her fidelity, and tarnished the honor of my house.’

“These reflections and doubts, to which he for some time had become a
prey, embittered his condition tenfold. His wife, no less than his
relations and friends, sympathized deeply with him, without being able
to comprehend the cause of his illness. At length he sought relief from
his own thoughts, and thus communed with himself: ‘Fool! to distress
myself so much about the protection of a wife whom, if my illness
continues, I must leave behind me for the enjoyment of another. Is it
not better to preserve my life, even though in the effort I risk the
loss of the greatest treasure a woman can possess? How many find their
very presence ineffectual to preserve this treasure, and patiently
endure a privation they cannot prevent! Why cannot you summon up courage
to be independent of so precarious a blessing, since upon this
resolution your very existence depends?’

“He felt invigorated by these thoughts, and forthwith summoned together
his former crew. He instructed them to charter a vessel without delay,
to load it, and hold themselves ready to set sail with the first
favorable wind. He then unburdened himself to his wife in the following
terms:--

“‘Be not astonished at any commotion you may shortly observe in our
house, but conclude thence that I am making preparations for a journey.
Be not overcome with grief when I inform you that I am once more bent
upon a sea-voyage. The love I bear you is still unchanged, and will
doubtless remain so during my life. I am sensible of the bliss I have
enjoyed in your society, and should feel it still more powerfully, but
for the silent censures of idleness and inactivity with which my
conscience reproves me. My old disposition returns, and my former habits
are still alive. Let me once more visit the markets of Alexandria, to
which I shall repair with the greater joy, because I can there procure
for you the richest merchandise and most valuable treasures. I leave you
in possession of all my fortune and of all my goods: make use of them
without restraint, and enjoy yourself in the company of your relatives
and friends. The period of our separation will pass by, and we shall
meet again with joy.’

“Dissolved in tears, his loving wife assured him, with the most tender
endearments, that during his absence she would never be able to enjoy
one happy moment, and entreated him, since she wished neither to control
nor to detain him, that she might, at least, share his affectionate
thoughts during the sad time of their separation.

“He then gave some general directions on business and household matters,
and added, after a short pause, ‘I have something to say, which lies
like a burden upon my heart; and you must permit me to utter it: I only
implore you earnestly not to misinterpret my meaning, but in my anxiety
for you to discern my love.’

“‘I can guess your thoughts,’ interrupted his wife: ‘you are suspicious
of me, I know; and, after the fashion of men, you always rail at the
universal weakness of our sex. I am, it is true, young, and of a
cheerful disposition; and you fear lest, in your absence, I be found
inconstant and unfaithful. I do not find fault with your suspicions; it
is the habit of your sex: but if I know my own heart, I may assure you
that I am not so susceptible of impressions as to be induced lightly to
stray from the paths of love and duty, through which I have hitherto
journeyed. Fear not: you shall find your wife as true and faithful on
your return as you have ever found her hitherto, when you have come to
her arms at evening after a short absence.’

“‘I believe the truth of the sentiments you utter,’ added the husband,
‘and I beseech you to be constant to them. But let us conceive the
possibility of the worst. Why should we shrink from it? You know
yourself how the beauty of your person attracts the admiration of all
our young fellow-citizens. During my absence they will be more attentive
to you than ever. They will redouble their efforts to attract and please
you. The image of your husband will not prove as effective as his
presence in banishing them from my doors and from your heart. I know you
are a noble being; but the blandishments of love are powerful, and
oftentimes overcome the firmest resolutions. Interrupt me not. Your very
thoughts of me during my absence may inflame your passions. I may, for
some time, continue to be the object of your dearest wishes; but who can
foretell what opportunities may occur, and allow a stranger to enjoy
those privileges which were destined for me? Be not impatient, I beseech
you, but hear me out.

“‘Should that time arrive, the possibility of which you deny, and which
I am by no means anxious to hasten, in which you feel that you need
society, and can no longer defer the requirements of love, then make me
one promise. Permit no thoughtless youth to supplant me, whatever may be
the attractions of his person; for such lovers are more dangerous to the
honor than to the virtue of a woman. Incited rather by vanity than by
love, they seek the general favors of the sex, and are ever ready to
transfer their transitory affections. If you wish for the society of a
friend, look out for one who is worthy of the name, whose modesty and
discretion understands the art of exalting the joys of love by the
virtue of secrecy.’

“His beautiful wife could suppress her agony no longer, and the tears
which she had till now restrained flowed in copious torrents from her
eyes. ‘Whatever may be your opinion of me,’ she cried, after a
passionate embrace, ‘nothing can be at this hour farther from my
thoughts than the crime you seem to consider, as it were, inevitable. If
such an idea ever suggests itself to my imagination, may the earth in
that instant open, and swallow me up, and forever vanish all hope of
that joy which promises a blessed immortality! Banish this mistrust from
your bosom, and let me enjoy the full and delightful hope of seeing you
again return to these arms.’

“Having left untried no effort to comfort and console his wife, he set
sail the next day. His voyage was prosperous, and he soon arrived in
Alexandria.

“In the mean time our heroine lived in the tranquil enjoyment of a large
fortune, in possession of every luxury; though, with the exception of
her relatives and immediate friends, no person was admitted to her
society. The business of her absent husband was discharged by
trustworthy servants; and she inhabited a large mansion, in whose
splendid rooms she was able to enjoy the daily pleasure of recalling the
remembrance of his love.

“But, notwithstanding her quiet and retired mode of life, the young
gallants of the town did not long remain inactive. They frequented the
street, passed incessantly before her windows, and in the evening sought
to attract her attention by means of music and serenades. The pretty
prisoner, although she at first found these attentions troublesome and
annoying, gradually became reconciled to the vexation; and, when the
long evenings arrived, she began to consider the serenades in the light
of an agreeable entertainment, and could scarcely suppress an occasional
sigh, which, strictly speaking, belonged to her absent husband.

“But her unknown admirers, instead of gradually wearying in their
attentions, as she had once expected, became more assiduous in their
devotion. She began, at last, to recognize the oft-repeated instruments
and voices, to grow familiar with the melodies, and to feel curious to
know the names of her most constant serenaders. She might innocently
indulge so harmless a curiosity. She now peeped occasionally through her
curtains and half-closed shutters, to notice the pedestrians, and to
observe more particularly the youths whose eyes were constantly directed
towards her windows. They were invariably handsome, and fashionably
dressed; but their manner and whole deportment were unmistakably marked
by frivolity and vanity. They seemed more desirous of making themselves
remarkable by directing their attention to the house of so beautiful a
woman, than of displaying towards her a feeling of peculiar respect.

“‘Really,’ the lady would sometimes say to herself in a tone of
raillery, ‘really my husband showed a deal of penetration. The condition
under which he allowed me to enjoy the privilege of a lover excludes all
those who care in the least for me, or to whom I am likely to take a
fancy. He seems to have well understood that prudence, modesty, and
silence are qualities which belong to demure old age, when men can value
the understanding, but are incapable of awakening the fancy or exciting
the desires. I am pretty sure, at least, that, amongst the youths who
lay perpetual siege to my mansion, there is not one entitled to my
confidence; and those who might lay some claim to that virtue fall
lamentably short in other attractions.’

“Supported by these reflections, she allowed herself to take daily more
and more pleasure in the music and in the attentions of her young
admirers; till at length, unperceived by herself, there gradually sprung
up in her bosom a restless desire, which she struggled to resist when it
was already too late. Solitude and idleness, combined with comfort and
luxury, gave birth to an unruly passion long before its thoughtless
victim had any suspicion of her danger.

“Amongst the numerous endowments of her husband, she now saw ample
reason to admire his profound knowledge of the world and of mankind, and
his thorough acquaintance with woman’s heart. She now perceived that
that had occurred, the possibility of which she had formerly so
strenuously denied, and acknowledged his wisdom in preaching the
necessity of prudence and caution. But what could these virtues avail,
where pitiless chance seemed to be in conspiracy with her own
unaccountable passions? How could she select one from a crowd of
strangers? and was she permitted, in case of disappointment, to make a
second choice?

“Innumerable thoughts of this nature increased the perplexity of our
solitary heroine. In vain she sought recreation, and tried to forget
herself. Her mind was perpetually excited by agreeable objects, and her
imagination thus became impressed with the most delightful pictures of
fancied happiness.

“In this state of mind, she was informed one day by a relation, amongst
other pieces of news, that a young lawyer who had just finished his
studies at Bologna had lately arrived in his native town. His talents
were the topic of general admiration and encomium. His universal
knowledge was accompanied by a modesty and reserve very uncommon in
youth, and his personal attractions were of a high order. In his office
of procurator he had already won, not only the confidence of the public,
but the respect of the judges. He had daily business to transact at the
court-house, so great was the increase of his professional practice.

“Our heroine could not hear the talents of this youth so generally
extolled, without feeling a wish to become acquainted with him,
accompanied by a secret hope that he might prove a person upon whom, in
conformity with the permission of her husband, she might bestow her
heart. She soon learned that he passed her dwelling daily, on his way to
the court-house; and she carefully watched for the hour when the lawyers
were accustomed to assemble for the discharge of business. With beating
heart she at length saw him pass; and if his handsome figure and
youthful attractions, on the one hand, excited her admiration, his
apparent reserve and modesty, on the other, gave her much reason for
doubt and anxiety. For several days she watched him silently, till at
length she was no longer able to resist her desire to attract his
attention. She dressed with care, went out upon the balcony, and marked
his approach with feelings of suspense. But she grew troubled, and,
indeed, felt ashamed, when she saw him pass, in contemplative mood, with
thoughtful steps and downcast eyes, pursuing his quiet way, without
deigning to bestow the slightest notice upon her. Vainly did she
endeavor thus to win his attention for several successive days. In the
same undeviating course he continued to pass by, without raising his
eyes, or looking to the right or to the left. But, the more she observed
him, the more did he appear to be the very one she needed. Her wish to
know him now grew stronger, and at length became irresistible. What! she
thought within herself: when my noble, sensible husband actually foresaw
the extremity to which his absence would reduce me, when his keen
perception knew that I could not live without a friend, must I droop and
pine away at the very time when fortune provides me with one whom not
only my own heart, but even my husband, would choose, and in whose
society I should be able to enjoy the delights of love in inviolable
secrecy? Fool should I be, to miss such an opportunity; fool, to resist
the powerful impulses of love!

“With such reflections did she endeavor to decide upon some fixed
course, and she did not long remain a prey to uncertainty. It happened
with her, as it usually does with every one who is conquered by a
passion, that she looked without apprehension upon all such trifling
objections as shame, fear, timidity, and duty, and came at length to the
bold resolution of sending her servant-maid to the young lawyer at any
risk, and inviting him to visit her.

“The servant found him in the company of several friends, and delivered
her message punctually in the terms in which she had been instructed.
The procurator was not at all surprised at the invitation. He had known
the merchant previously, was aware of his absence at present, and
presumed that the lady required the aid of his professional services
about some important matter of business. He promised the servant,
therefore, that he would wait upon her mistress without delay. The
latter heard with unspeakable joy, that she would soon be allowed an
opportunity of seeing and speaking to her beloved. She prepared
carefully for his reception, and had her rooms arranged with the utmost
elegance. Orange-leaves and flowers were strewn around in profusion, and
the most costly furniture was displayed for the occasion. And thus the
brief intervening time hastened by, which would otherwise have been
unbearable.

“Who can describe the emotion with which she witnessed his arrival, or
her agitation upon inviting him to take a seat at her side? She
hesitated how to address him now that he had arrived, and found a
difficulty in remembering what she had to say. He sat still and silent.
At length she took courage and addressed him, not without some visible
perplexity.

“‘I understand, sir, that you are but lately returned to your native
city; and I learn that you are universally admired as a talented and
incomparable man. I am ready to bestow my utmost confidence upon you, in
a matter of extraordinary importance, but which, upon reflection, would
seem adapted rather for the ear of the confessor than that of the
lawyer. I have been for some years married to a husband who is both rich
and honorable, and who, as long as we have lived together, has never
ceased to tenderly love me, and of whom I should not have a single word
of complaint to utter, if an irresistible desire for travel and trade
had not torn him, for some time, from my arms.

“‘Being a sensible and just man, he no doubt felt conscious of the
injury his absence must necessarily inflict upon me. He knew that a
young wife cannot be preserved like jewellery and pearls. He knew that
she resembles a garden, full of the choicest fruits, which would be
lost, not only to him, but to every one else, if the door were kept
locked for years. For this reason, he addressed me in serious but
friendly tones before his departure, and assured me, that he knew I
should not be able to live without the society of a friend, and
therefore not only permitted, but made me promise, that I would, in a
free and unrestrained manner, follow the inclination which I should soon
find springing up within my heart.’

“She paused for a moment; but an eloquent look, which the young lawyer
directed towards her, encouraged her to proceed.

“‘One only condition was imposed upon me by my indulgent husband. He
recommended me to use the most extreme caution, and impressed upon me
strongly the necessity of choosing a steady, prudent, silent, and
confidential friend. But you will excuse my continuing,--excuse the
embarrassment with which I must confess how I have been attracted by
your numerous accomplishments, and divine from the confidence I have
reposed in you the nature of my hopes and wishes.’

“The worthy young lawyer was silent for a short time, and then replied,
in a thoughtful tone, ‘I am deeply indebted for the high mark of
confidence with which you both honor and delight me. I wish to convince
you that I am not unworthy of your favor. But let me first answer you in
a professional capacity: and I must confess my admiration for your
husband, who so clearly saw the nature of the injustice he committed
against you; for there can be no doubt of this,--that a husband who
leaves his young wife, in order to visit distant countries, must be
viewed in the light of a man who relinquishes a valuable treasure, to
which, by his own conduct, he abandons all manner of claim. And as the
first finder may then lawfully take possession, so I hold it to be
natural and just, that a young woman, under the circumstances you
describe, should bestow her affections and herself, without scruple,
upon any friend who may prove worthy of her confidence.

“‘But particularly when the husband, as in this case, conscious of the
injustice he himself commits, expressly allows his forsaken wife a
privilege, of which he could not deprive her, it must be clear that he
can suffer no wrong from an action to which he has given his own
consent.

“‘Wherefore if you,’ continued the young lawyer, with quite a different
look and the most lively emphasis, and the most affectionate pressure of
the hand, ‘if you select me for your servant, you enrich me with a
happiness, of which, till now, I could have formed no conception. And be
assured,’ he added, while at the same time he warmly kissed her hand,
‘that you could not have found a more true, loving, prudent, and devoted
servant.’

“This declaration tranquillized the agitated feelings of our tender
heroine. She at once expressed her love without reserve. She pressed his
hand, drew him nearer to her, and reclined her head upon his shoulder.
They had remained but a short time in this position, when he tried to
disengage himself gently, and expressed himself thus, not without
emotion: ‘Did ever happy mortal find himself in such embarrassment? I am
compelled to leave you, and to do violence to myself in the very moment
when I might surrender myself to the most divine enchantment. I cannot
now partake the bliss which is prepared for me, and I earnestly pray
that a temporary postponement may not altogether frustrate my fondest
hopes.’

“She inquired hastily the cause of this strange speech.

“‘When I was in Bologna,’ he replied, ‘and had just completed my
studies, preparing to enter upon the practice of my profession, I was
seized with a dangerous illness, from which it appeared, that, even if I
should escape with my life, my bodily and mental faculties must sustain
irreparable injury. Reduced to despair, and tortured by the pangs of
disease, I made a solemn vow to the Virgin, that, should I recover, I
would persist for one whole year in practising the strictest fast and
abstinence from enjoyment of every description. For ten months I have
already adhered to my vow: and, considering the wonderful favor I have
enjoyed, the time has not passed wearily; and I have not found it
difficult to abstain from many accustomed pleasures. But the two months
which still remain will now seem an eternity; since, till their
expiration, I am forbidden to partake a happiness whose delights are
inconceivable. And, though you may think the time long, do not, I
beseech you, withdraw the favor you have so bountifully bestowed upon
me.’

“Not much consoled by this announcement, she felt a little more
encouraged when her friend added, after a few minutes’ reflection, ‘I
scarcely dare to make a proposal, and suggest a plan, which may,
perhaps, release me a little earlier from my vow. If I could only find
some one as firm and resolute as myself in keeping a promise, and who
would divide with me the time that still remains, I should then be the
sooner free; and nothing could impede our enjoyment. Are you willing, my
sweet friend, to assist in hastening our happiness by removing one-half
of the obstacle which opposes us? I can only share my vow with one upon
whom I can depend with full confidence. And it is severe,--nothing but
bread and water twice a day, and at night a few hours’ repose on a hard
bed; and, notwithstanding my incessant professional occupation, I must
devote many hours to prayer. If I am obliged to attend a party, I am not
thereby released from my duty; and I must avoid the enjoyment of every
dainty. If you can resolve to pass one month in the observance of these
rules, you will find yourself the sooner in possession of your friend’s
society, which you will relish the more from the consciousness of having
deserved it by your praiseworthy resolution.’

“The beautiful lady was sorry to hear of the difficulty she had to
encounter; but the very presence of her beloved so increased her
attachment, that no trial which would insure the possession of so
valuable a prize appeared to her too difficult. She therefore assured
him, in the most affectionate manner, of her readiness to share the
responsibility of his vow, and addressed him thus: ‘My sweet friend! the
miracle through which you have recovered your health is to me an event
of so much value and importance, that it is not only my duty, but my
joy, to partake the vow by which you are still bound. I am delighted to
offer so strong a proof of my sincerity. I will imitate your example in
the strictest manner; and, until you discharge me from my obligation, no
consideration shall induce me to stray from the path you point out to
me.’

“The young lawyer once more repeated the conditions under which he was
willing to transfer to her the obligation of one-half of his vow, and
then took his leave, with the assurance that he would soon visit her
again, to inquire after her constancy and resolution. And she was then
obliged to witness his departure, without receiving so much as one kiss,
or pressure of the hand, and scarcely with a look of ordinary
recognition. She found some degree of happy relief in the strange
employment which the performance of her new duties imposed upon her, for
she had much to do in the preparation for her unaccustomed course of
life. In the first place, she removed all the beautiful exotics and
flowers which had been procured to grace the reception of her beloved.
Then a hard mattress was substituted for her downy bed, to which she
retired in the evening, after having scarcely satisfied her hunger with
a frugal meal of bread and water. The following morning found her busily
employed in plain work, and in making a certain amount of wearing
apparel for the poor inmates of the town hospital. During this new
occupation she entertained her fancy by dwelling upon the image of her
dear friend, and indulging the hope of future happiness; and these
thoughts reconciled her to the greatest privations and to the humblest
fare.

“At the end of the first week the roses began to fade from her beautiful
cheeks, her person to fall away, and her strength to become weak and
languid; but a visit from her friend imparted new animation and
fortitude. He encouraged her to persist in her resolution, by the
example of his own perseverance, and by showing her the approaching
certainty of uninterrupted happiness. His visit was brief, but he
promised to return soon.

“With cheerful resignation she continued her new and strict course of
life, but her strength soon declined so much that the most severe
illness could scarcely have reduced her to such extreme weakness. Her
friend, whose visit was repeated at the end of the week, sympathized
with her condition, but comforted her by an assurance that one-half the
period of her trial was already over. But the severe fasting, continual
praying, and incessant work, became every day more unbearable; and her
excessive abstemiousness threatened to ruin the health of one who had
been accustomed to a life of the greatest luxury. At length she found a
difficulty in walking, and was compelled, notwithstanding the sultriness
of the season, to wrap herself up in the warmest clothing, to preserve
even an ordinary degree of heat; till finally she was obliged to take to
her bed.

“It would be difficult to describe the course of her reflections when
she reflected on her condition and on this strange occurrence, and it is
impossible to imagine her distress when ten tedious days wearily passed
without the appearance of the friend for whose sake she had consented to
make this unheard-of sacrifice. But those hours of trouble sufficed to
recall her to reason, and she formed her resolution. Her friend visited
her after the lapse of some few days more; and seating himself at her
bedside, upon the very sofa which he had occupied when she made her
first declaration of love to him, he encouraged and implored her, in the
most tender and affectionate tones, to persist for a short time longer:
but she interrupted him with a sweet smile, and assured him that she
needed no persuasion to continue, for a few days, the performance of a
vow which she knew full well had been appointed for her advantage. ‘I
am, as yet, too feeble,’ she said, ‘to express my thanks to you as I
could wish. You have saved me from myself. You have restored me to
myself; and I confess, that from this moment I am indebted to you for my
existence. My husband was, indeed, gifted with prudence and good sense,
and well knew the nature of woman’s heart. And he was, moreover, just
enough not to condemn a passion which he saw might spring up within my
bosom, through his own fault; and he was generous enough to make
allowance for the weakness of my nature. But you, sir, are truly
virtuous and good. You have taught me that we possess within us an
antidote equivalent to the force of our passions; that we are capable of
renouncing luxuries to which we have been accustomed, and of suppressing
our strongest inclinations. You have taught me this lesson by means of
hope and of delusion. Neither is any longer necessary: you have made me
acquainted with the existence of that ever-living conscience, which, in
peaceful silence, dwells within our souls, and never ceases with gentle
admonitions to remind us of its presence, till its sway becomes
irresistibly acknowledged. And now farewell. May your influence over
others be as effective as it has been over me. Do not confine your
labors to the task of unravelling legal perplexities, but show mankind,
by your own gentle guidance and example, that within every bosom the
germ of hidden virtue lies concealed. Esteem and fame will be your
reward; and, far better than any statesman or hero, you will earn the
glorious title of father of your country.’”

“We must all extol the character of your young lawyer,” said the
baroness, at the conclusion of the clergyman’s tale: “polished, wise,
interesting, and instructive, I wish every preceptor were like him, who
undertakes to restrain or recall youth from the path of error. I think
such a tale is peculiarly entitled to be styled a moral anecdote. Relate
some more of the same nature, and your audience will have ample reason
to be thankful.”

_Clergyman._ I am delighted that my tale has earned your approbation,
but I am sorry you wish to hear more of such moral anecdotes; for, to
say the truth, this is the first and last of the kind.

_Louisa._ It certainly does not do you much credit, to say that your
best collection only furnishes a single specimen.

_Clergyman._ You have not understood me. It is not the only moral tale I
can relate; but they all bear so close a resemblance, that each would
seem only to repeat the original.

_Louisa._ Really, you should give up your paradoxical style, which so
much obscures your conversation, and express yourself more clearly.

_Clergyman._ With pleasure, then. No anecdote deserves to be called
moral which does not prove that man possesses within himself that power
to subdue his inclinations which may be called out by the persuasion of
another. My story teaches this doctrine, and no moral tale can teach
otherwise.

_Louisa._ Then, in order to act morally, I must act contrary to my
inclinations?

_Clergyman._ Undoubtedly.

_Louisa._ Even when they are good?

_Clergyman._ No inclinations are abstractedly good, but only so as far
as they effect good.

_Louisa._ Suppose I have an inclination for benevolence?

_Clergyman._ Then, you should subdue your inclination for benevolence if
you find that it ruins your domestic happiness.

_Louisa._ Suppose I felt an irresistible impulse to gratitude?

_Clergyman._ It is wisely ordained that gratitude can never be an
impulse. But if it were, it would be better to prove ungrateful than to
commit a crime in order to oblige your benefactor.

_Louisa._ Then, there may be a thousand moral stories?

_Clergyman._ Yes, in your sense. But none of them would read a lesson
different from the one our lawyer taught, and in this sense there can be
but one story of the kind: you are right, however, if you mean that the
incidents can be various.

_Louisa._ If you had expressed your meaning more precisely at first, we
should not have disagreed.

_Clergyman._ And we should have had no conversation. Errors and
misunderstandings are the springs of action, of life, and of amusement.

_Louisa._ I cannot agree with you. Suppose a brave man saves another at
the risk of his own life: is that not a moral action?

_Clergyman._ Not according to my mode of thinking. But, suppose a
cowardly man were to overcome his fears and do the same, that would be a
moral action.

_Baroness._ I wish, my dear friend, you would give us some examples, and
convince Louisa of the truth of your theory. Certainly, a mind disposed
to good must delight us when we become acquainted with it. Nothing in
the world can be more pleasing than a mind under the guidance of reason
and conscience. If you know a tale upon such a subject, we should like
to hear it. I am fond of stories which illustrate a doctrine. They give
a better explanation of one’s meaning than dry words can do.

_Clergyman._ I certainly can relate some anecdotes of that kind, for I
have paid some attention to those qualities of the human mind.

_Louisa._ I would just make one observation. I must confess I do not
like stories which oblige us to travel, in imagination, to foreign
lands. Why must every adventure take place in Italy, in Sicily, or in
the East? Are Naples, Palermo, and Smyrna the only places where any
thing interesting can happen? One may transpose the scene of our
fairy-tales to Ormus and Samarcand for the purpose of perplexing the
imagination; but, if you would instruct the understanding or the heart,
do it by means of domestic stories,--family portraits,--in which we
shall recognize our own likeness; and our hearts will more readily
sympathize with sorrow.

_Clergyman._ You shall be gratified. But there is something peculiar,
too, about family stories. They bear a strong resemblance to each other;
and, besides, we daily see every incident and situation of which they
are capable fully worked out upon the stage. However, I am willing to
make the attempt, and shall relate a story, with some of the incidents
of which you are already familiar; and it will only prove interesting so
far as it is an exact representation of the picture in your own minds.

“We may often observe in families, that the children inherit, not only
the personal appearance, but even the mental qualities, of their
parents; and it sometimes happens that one child combines the
dispositions of both father and mother in a peculiar and remarkable
manner.

“A youth, whom I may name Ferdinand, was a strong instance of this fact.
In his appearance he resembled both parents, and one could distinguish
in his mind the separate disposition of each. He possessed the gay,
thoughtless manner of his father, in his strong desire to enjoy the
present moment, and, in most cases, to prefer himself to others; but he
also inherited the tranquil and reflective mind of his mother, no less
than her love for honesty and justice, and a willingness, like her,
perpetually to sacrifice himself for the advantage of others. To explain
his contradictory conduct upon many occasions, his companions were often
reduced to the necessity of believing that he had two souls. I must pass
by many adventures which happened in his youth, and shall content myself
with relating one anecdote, which not only explains his character fully,
but forms a remarkable epoch in his life.

“His youth was passed in every species of enjoyment. His parents were
affluent, and brought up their children extravagantly. If the father
indulged in unreasonable expenditure, either in company, at the
gaming-table, or in other dissipations, it was the habit of the mother
to restrain her own, and the household expenses, so as to supply the
deficiency; though she never allowed an appearance of want to be
observed. Her husband was fortunate in his business; he was successful
in several hazardous speculations he had undertaken: and, as he was fond
of society, he had the happiness to form many pleasant and advantageous
connections.

“The children of a family usually copy those members of the household
who seem to enjoy their lives most. They see in the example of a father
who follows such a course, a model worthy of imitation; and, as they are
seldom slow in obeying their inclinations, their wishes and desires
often increase very much in disproportion to their means of enjoyment.
Obstacles to their gratification soon arise: each new addition to the
family forms a new claim upon the capabilities of the parents, who
frequently surrender their own pleasures for the sake of their children;
and, by common consent, a more simple and less expensive mode of living
is adopted.

“Ferdinand grew up with a consciousness of the disagreeable truth, that
he was often deprived of many luxuries which his more fortunate
companions enjoyed. It distressed him to appear inferior to any of them
in the richness of his apparel, or the liberality of his expenditure. He
wished to resemble his father, whose example was daily before him, and
who appeared to him a twofold model,--first, as a parent, in whose favor
a son is usually prejudiced; and, secondly, as a man who led a pleasant
and luxurious life, and was, therefore, apparently loved and esteemed by
a numerous acquaintance. It is easy to suppose that all this occasioned
great vexation to his mother; but in this way Ferdinand grew up, with
his wants daily increasing, until at length, when he had attained his
eighteenth year, his requirements and wishes were sadly out of
proportion to his condition.

“He had hitherto avoided contracting debts; for this vice his mother had
impressed him with the greatest abhorrence: and, in order to win his
confidence, she had, in numerous instances, exerted herself to gratify
his desires, and relieve him from occasional embarrassments. But it
happened, unfortunately, that she was now compelled to practise the most
rigid economy in her household expenditure, and this at a time when his
wants, from many causes, had increased. He had commenced to enter more
generally into society, tried to win the affections of a very attractive
girl, and to rival and even surpass his companions in the elegance of
his attire. His mother, being unable any longer to satisfy his demands,
appealed to his duty and filial affection so as to induce him to
restrain his expenses. He admitted the justice of her expostulations,
but, being unable to follow her advice, was soon reduced to a state of
the greatest mental embarrassment.

“Without forfeiting the object of his dearest wishes, he found it
impossible to change his mode of life. From his boyhood he had been
addicted to his present pursuits, and could alter no iota of his habits
or practices without running the risk of losing an old friend, a
desirable companion, or, what was worse, abandoning the society of his
dearest love.

“His attachment became stronger; as the love which was bestowed upon him
not only flattered his vanity, but complimented his understanding.

“It was something to be preferred to a host of suitors by a handsome and
agreeable girl, who was acknowledged to be the richest heiress in the
city. He boasted of the preference with which he was regarded, and she
also seemed proud of the delightful bondage in which she was held. It
now became indispensable that he should be in constant attendance upon
her, that he should devote his time and money to her service, and afford
perpetual proofs of the value he set upon her affection. All these
inevitable results of his attachment occasioned Ferdinand more expense
than he would otherwise have incurred. His ladylove (who was named
Ottilia) had been intrusted by her parents to the care of an aunt, and
no exertions had been spared to introduce her to society under the most
favorable circumstances. Ferdinand exhausted every resource to furnish
her with the enjoyments of society, into all of which she entered with
the greatest delight, and of which she herself proved one of the
greatest attractions.

“No situation could certainly be more wretched than that to which
Ferdinand was now reduced. His mother, whom he sincerely loved and
respected, had pointed out to him the necessity of embarking in duties
very different from those which he had hitherto practised: she could no
longer assist him in a pecuniary way. He felt a horror at the debts
which were daily becoming more burdensome to him, and he saw before him
the difficult task of reconciling his impoverished condition with his
anxiety to appear rich and practise generosity. No mind could be a prey
to greater unhappiness.

“His mind was now forcibly impressed with thoughts which had formerly
only indistinctly suggested themselves to his imagination. Certain
unpleasant reflections became to him the source of great unhappiness. He
had once looked upon his father as a model: he now began to regard him
as a rival. What the son wished to enjoy, the parent actually possessed;
and the latter felt none of the anxieties or grievances wherewith the
former was tortured. Ferdinand, however, was in full possession of every
comfort of life; but he envied his father the luxuries which he enjoyed,
and with which he thought he might very well dispense. But the latter
was of a different opinion. He was one of those beings whose desires are
wholly insatiable, and who, for their own gratification, subject their
family and dependants to the greatest privations. His son received from
him a certain pecuniary allowance, but a regular account of his
expenditure was strictly exacted.

“The eye of the envious is sharpened by restrictions, and dependants are
never more censorious than when the commands of superiors are at
variance with their practice. Thus Ferdinand came to watch strictly the
conduct of his father, particularly upon points which concerned his
expenditure. He listened attentively when it was rumored that his father
had lost heavily at the gambling-table, and expressed great
dissatisfaction at any unwonted extravagance which he might indulge. ‘Is
it not astonishing?’ he would say to himself, ‘that, whilst parents
revel in every luxury that can spring from the possession of a property
which they accidentally enjoy, they can debar their children of those
reasonable pleasures which their season of youth most urgently requires?
And by what right do they act thus? How have they acquired this
privilege? Does it not arise from mere chance? and can that be a right
which is the result of accident? If my grandfather, who loved me as his
own son, were still alive, I should be better provided for. He would not
see me in want of common necessaries, those things, I mean, which we
have had from our birth. He would no more let me want, than he would
approve my father’s extravagance. Had he lived longer, had he known how
worthy his grandchild would prove to inherit a fortune, he would have
provided in his will for my earlier independence. I have heard that his
death was unexpected, that he had intended to make a will; and I am
probably indebted to mere chance for the postponement of my enjoying a
fortune, which, if my father continue his present course, will probably
be lost to me forever.’

“With such discontented thoughts did Ferdinand often perplex himself in
those hours of solitude and unhappiness, in which he was prevented, by
the want of money, from joining his companions upon some agreeable party
of pleasure. Then it was that he discussed those dangerous questions of
right and property, and considered how far individuals are bound by laws
to which they have given no consent, or whether they may lawfully burst
through the restraints of society. But all these were mere pecuniary
sophistries; for every article of value which he formerly possessed had
gradually disappeared, and his daily wants had now far outgrown his
allowance.

“He soon became silent and reserved; and, at such times, even his
respect for his mother disappeared, as she could afford him no
assistance: and he began to entertain a hatred for his father, who,
according to his sentiments, was perpetually in his way.

“Just at this period he made a discovery, which increased his
discontent. He learned that his father was not only an irregular, but an
improvident, manager of his household. He observed that he often took
money hastily from his desk, without entering it in his account-book,
and that he was afterwards perplexed with private calculations, and
annoyed at his inability to balance his accounts. More than once did
Ferdinand notice this; and his father’s carelessness was the more
galling to him, as it often occurred at times when he himself was
suffering severely from the want of money.

“Whilst he was in this state of mind, an unlucky accident happened,
which afforded an opportunity for the commission of a crime, to which he
had long felt himself impelled by a secret and ungovernable impulse.

“His father had desired him to examine and arrange a collection of old
letters. One Sunday, when he was alone, he set to work in a room which
contained his father’s writing-desk, and in which his money was usually
kept. The box of letters was heavy; and, in the act of lifting it from
the ground, he pushed unintentionally against the desk, when the latter
suddenly flew open. The rolls of money lay temptingly displayed before
him. Without allowing time for a moment’s reflection, he took a roll of
gold from that part of the desk where he thought his father kept a
supply of money for his own occasional wants. He shut the desk again,
and repeated the experiment of opening it. He once more succeeded, and
saw that he could now command the treasure as completely as if he had
possessed the key.

“He soon plunged once more into all those dissipations which he had
lately been obliged to renounce. He became more constant than ever in
his attentions to Ottilia, and more passionate in the pursuit of
pleasure. Even his former graceful animation was converted into a
species of excitement, which, though it was far from unbecoming, was
deficient in that kind attention to others which is so agreeable.

“Opportunity is to passion what a spark is to gunpowder, and those
desires which we gratify contrary to the dictates of conscience always
rule with the most ungovernable power. Ferdinand’s own convictions
loudly condemned his conduct, but he endeavored to justify himself by
specious arguments; and though his manner became in appearance more free
and unrestrained than before, he was in reality a captive to the
influence of his evil inclinations.

“Just at this time the wearing of extravagant trifles came into fashion.
Ottilia was fond of personal ornaments, and Ferdinand endeavored to
discover a mode of gratifying her taste without apprising her where her
supply of presents came from. Her suspicions fell upon an old uncle, and
Ferdinand’s gratification was indescribable at observing the
satisfaction of his mistress and the course of her mistaken suspicions.
But, unfortunately for his peace of mind, he was now obliged to have
frequent recourse to his father’s desk, in order to gratify Ottilia’s
fancy and his own inclinations; and he pursued this course now the more
boldly, as he had lately observed that his father grew more and more
careless about entering in his account-book the sums he himself
required.

“The time now arrived for Ottilia’s return to her parents. The young
couple were overpowered with grief at the prospect of their separation,
and one circumstance added to their sorrow. Ottilia had accidentally
learned that the presents we have spoken of had come from Ferdinand: she
questioned him, and he confessed the truth with feelings of evident
sorrow. She insisted upon returning them, and this occasioned him the
bitterest anguish. He declared his determination not to live without
her, prayed that she would preserve him her attachment, and implored
that she would not refuse her hand as soon as he should have provided an
establishment. She loved him, was moved at his entreaties, promised what
he wished, and sealed her vow with the warmest embraces and a thousand
passionate kisses.

“After her departure Ferdinand was reduced to sad solitude. The company
in which he had found delight pleased him no more, she being absent.
From the mere force of habit he mingled with his former associates, and
had recourse to his father’s desk to supply those expenses which in
reality he felt but slight inclination to indulge. He was now frequently
alone, and his natural good disposition began to obtain the mastery over
him. In moments of calm reflection he felt astonished how he could have
listened to that deceitful sophistry about justice and right, and his
claim to the goods of others; and he wondered at his approval of those
evil arguments by which he had been led to justify his dishonest
conduct. But in the mean time, before these correct ideas of truth and
uprightness produced a practical effect upon his conduct, he yielded
more than once to the temptation of supplying his wants, in extreme
cases, from his father’s treasury. This plan, however, was now adopted
with more reluctance; and he seemed to be under the irresistible impulse
of an evil spirit.

“At length he took courage, and formed the resolution of rendering a
repetition of the practice impossible, by informing his father of the
facility with which his desk could be opened. He took his measures
cautiously; and once, in the presence of his father, he carried the box
of letters we have mentioned into the room, pretended to stumble
accidentally against the desk, and astonished his father by causing it
to spring open. They examined the lock without delay, and found that it
had become almost useless from age. It was at once repaired, and
Ferdinand soon enjoyed a return of his peace of mind when he saw his
father’s rolls of money once more in safe custody.

“But he was not content with this. He formed the resolution of restoring
the money which he had abstracted. He commenced the most economical
course of life for this purpose, with a view of saving from his
allowance all that could possibly be spared from the merest necessities.
It is true that this was but little; but it appeared much, as it was the
commencement of a system of restitution: and there will always be a
wonderful difference between the last guinea borrowed and the first
guinea saved. He had pursued this upright course for but a short time,
when his father determined to settle him in business. His intention was
to form a connection with a manufactory at some distance from his
residence. The design was to establish a company in a part of the
country where labor and provisions were cheap, to appoint an agent, and
extend the business as widely as possible by means of money and credit.
It was determined that Ferdinand should inquire into the practicability
of the scheme, and forward a circumstantial report of his proceedings.
His father furnished him with money for his journey, but placed a
moderate limit upon his expenditure. The supply was, however, sufficient
for his wants; and Ferdinand had no reason to complain of a deficiency.

“Ferdinand used the utmost economy also upon his journey, and found upon
the closest calculation that he could live upon one-third of his
allowance, by practising strict restraint. He was now anxious to find
means of gradually saving a certain sum, and it soon presented itself;
for opportunity comes indifferently to the good and to the bad, and
favors all parties alike. In the neighborhood which he designed to
visit, he found things more to his advantage than had been expected. No
new habits of expense had as yet been introduced. A moderate capital
alone had been invested in business, and the manufacturers were
satisfied with small profits. Ferdinand soon saw, that with a large
capital, and the advantages of a new system, by purchasing the raw
material by wholesale, and erecting machinery under the guidance of
experienced workmen, large and solid advantages might be secured.

“The prospect of a life of activity gave him the greatest delight. The
image of his beloved Ottilia was ever before him; and the charming and
picturesque character of the country made him anxiously wish that his
father might be induced to establish him in this spot, commit the
conduct of the new manufactory to him, and thus afford him the means of
attaining independence. His attention to business was secured by the
demands of his own personal interests. He now found an opportunity, for
the first time in his life, for the exercise of his understanding and
judgment, and for exerting his other mental powers. Not only the
beautiful neighborhood, but his business and occupation, were full of
attractions for him: they acted as balm and cordial to his wounded
heart, whenever he recalled the painful remembrance of his father’s
house, in which, influenced by a species of insanity, he had acted in a
manner which now seemed to him in the highest degree criminal.

“His constant companion was a friend of his family,--a person of strong
mind, but delicate health, who had first conceived the project of
founding this establishment. He instructed Ferdinand in all his own
views and projects, and seemed to take great pleasure in the thorough
harmony of mind which existed between them. This latter personage led a
simple and retired life, partly from choice, and partly because his
health required it. He had no family of his own. His household
establishment was conducted by a niece, who he intended should inherit
his fortune; and it was his wish to see her united to a person of active
and enterprising disposition, who, by means of capital and persevering
industry, might carry on the business which his infirm health and want
of means disqualified him from conducting. His first interview with
Ferdinand suggested that he had found the man he wanted; and he was the
more strongly confirmed in this opinion, upon observing his fondness for
business, and his attachment to the place. His niece became aware of his
intentions, and seemed to approve of them. She was a young and
interesting girl, of sweet and engaging disposition. Her care of her
uncle’s establishment had imparted to her mind the valuable qualities of
activity and decision, whilst her attention to his health had softened
down these traits by a proper union of gentleness and affection. It
would have been difficult to find a person better calculated to make a
husband happy.

“But Ferdinand’s mind was engrossed with the thoughts of Ottilia’s love:
he saw no attractions in the charms of this country beauty; or, at
least, his admiration was circumscribed by the wish, that, if ever
Ottilia settled down as his wife in this part of the country, she might
have such a person for her assistant and housekeeper. But he was free
and unrestrained in his intercourse with the young lady, he valued her
more as he came to know her better, and his conduct became more
respectful and attentive; and both she and her uncle soon put their own
interpretations upon his behavior.

“Ferdinand had in the mean time made all the requisite inquiries about
his father’s business. The uncle’s suggestions had enabled him to form
certain projects which, with his usual thoughtlessness, he made the
subject of conversation. He had more than once uttered certain gallant
speeches when conversing with the niece, until her uncle and herself
fancied that he actually indulged intentions which gave them both
unfeigned satisfaction. To Ferdinand’s great joy, he had learned that he
could not only derive great advantage from his father’s plan, but that
another favorable project would enable him to make restitution of the
money he had withdrawn, and the recollection of which pressed like a
heavy burden upon his conscience. He communicated his intentions to his
friend, who tendered, not only his cordial congratulations, but every
possible assistance to carry out his views. He even proposed to furnish
his young friend with the necessary merchandise upon credit, a part of
which offer was thankfully accepted; some portion of the goods being
paid for with what money Ferdinand had saved from his travelling
expenses, and a short credit being taken for the remainder.

“It would be difficult to describe the joy with which Ferdinand prepared
for his return home. There can be no greater delight than is experienced
by a man who, by his own unaided resources, frees himself from the
consequences of error. Heaven looks down with satisfaction upon such a
spectacle; and we cannot deny the force of the seeming paradox which
assures us that there is more joy before God over one returning sinner,
than over ninety-nine just.

“But, unfortunately, neither the good resolutions nor the repentance and
improvement of Ferdinand could remove the evil consequences of his
crime, which were destined once more to disturb and agitate his mind
with the most painful reflections. The storm had gathered during his
absence, and it was destined to burst over his head upon his return.

“We have already had occasion to observe, that Ferdinand’s father was
most irregular in his habits; but his business was under the
superintendence of a clever manager. He had not himself missed the money
which had been abstracted by his son, with the exception of one roll of
foreign money, which he had won from a stranger at play. This he had
missed, and the circumstance seemed to him unaccountable. He was
afterwards somewhat surprised to perceive that several rolls of ducats
could not be found, money which he had some time before lent to a
friend, but which he knew had been repaid. He was aware of the previous
insecurity of his desk, and felt, therefore, convinced that he had been
robbed. This feeling rendered him extremely unhappy. His suspicions fell
upon every one. In anger and exasperation, he related the circumstance
to his wife. The entire household was thereupon strictly examined, and
neither servants nor children were allowed to escape. The good wife
exerted herself to tranquillize her husband: she represented the
discredit which a mere report of this circumstance would bring upon the
family; that no one would sympathize in their misfortune, further than
to humiliate them with their compassion; that neither he nor she could
expect to escape the tongue of scandal; that strange observations would
be made if the thief should remain undiscovered; and she suggested, that
perhaps, if they continued silent, they might recover their lost money
without reducing the wretched criminal to a state of misery for life. In
this manner she prevailed upon her husband to remain quiet, and to
investigate the affair in silence.

“But the discovery was unfortunately soon made. Ottilia’s aunt had, of
course, been informed of the engagement of the young couple. She had
heard of the presents her niece had received. The attachment was not
approved by her, and she had only maintained silence in consequence of
her niece’s absence. She would have consented to her marrying Ferdinand,
but she did not like uncertainty on such a subject; and as she knew that
he was shortly to return, and her niece was expected daily, she
determined to inform the parents of the state of things, to inquire
their opinion, to ask whether Ferdinand was to have a settlement, and if
they would consent to the marriage.

“The mother was not a little astonished at this information, and she was
shocked at hearing of the presents which Ferdinand had made to Ottilia.
But she concealed her surprise; and, requesting the aunt to allow her
some time to confer with her husband, she expressed her own concurrence
in the intended marriage, and her expectation that her son would be
advantageously provided for.

“The aunt took her leave, but Ferdinand’s mother did not deem it
advisable to communicate the circumstance to her husband. She now had to
undertake the sad duty of discovering whether Ferdinand had purchased
Ottilia’s presents with the stolen money. She went straight to the
shopkeeper who dealt in such goods, made some general inquiries, and
said at last, ‘that he ought not to overcharge her, particularly as her
son, who had bought some similar articles, had procured them from him at
a more reasonable charge.’ This the tradesman denied, producing the
account, and further observing that he had even added something for the
exchange; as Ferdinand had paid for the goods partly in foreign money.
He specified the exact nature of the coin; and, to her inexpressible
grief, it was the very same which had been stolen from her husband. She
left the shop with sorrowful heart. Ferdinand’s crime was but too
evident. The sum her husband had lost was large, and she saw in all its
force the extent of the crime and its evil results. But she had prudence
enough to conceal her discovery. She waited for the return of her son,
with feelings of mingled fear and anxiety. Although she wished for an
explanation, she dreaded the consequences of a further inquiry.

“At length he arrived in the highest spirits. He expected the greatest
praise from the manner in which he transacted his business, and was the
bearer of a sum of money sufficient to make compensation for what he had
criminally abstracted. His father heard his statement with pleasure, but
did not manifest so much delight as the son expected. His late losses
had irritated his temper; and he was the more distressed, because he had
some large payments to make at the moment. Ferdinand felt hurt at his
father’s depression of mind, and his own peace was further disturbed by
the sight of every thing around him: the very room in which he was, the
furniture, and the sight of the fatal desk, those silent witnesses of
his crime, spoke loudly to his guilty conscience. His satisfaction was
at an end. He shrunk within himself, and felt like a culprit.

“After a few days’ delay he was about to distract his attention from
these thoughts by examining the merchandise he had ordered, when his
mother, finding him alone, reproached him with his fault in a tone of
affectionate earnestness, which did not allow the smallest opportunity
for prevarication. He was overcome with grief. He threw himself at her
feet, imploring her forgiveness, acknowledging his crime, and protesting
that nothing but his affection for Ottilia had misled him: he assured
her, in conclusion, that it was the only offence of the kind of which he
had ever been guilty. He related the circumstances of his bitter
repentance, of his having acquainted his father with the insecurity of
his desk, and finally informed her how, by personal privations and a
fortunate speculation, he was in a condition to make restitution.

“His mother heard him calmly, but insisted on knowing how he had
disposed of so much money; as the presents would account but for a small
part of the sum that was missing. She produced, to his dismay, an
account of what his father had missed; but he denied having taken, even
so much silver: the missing gold he solemnly protested he had never
touched. His mother became exasperated at this denial. She rebuked him
his attempting to deceive her, and that at a moment when he laid claim
to the virtue of repentance; asserting that if he could be guilty in one
respect, she must doubt his innocence in another. She suggested that he
might perhaps have accomplices amongst his dissipated companions, that
perhaps the business he had carried on was transacted with the stolen
money, and that probably he would have confessed nothing if his crime
had not been accidentally discovered. She threatened him with the anger
of his father, with judicial punishment, with her highest displeasure;
but nothing affected him more than his learning that his projected
marriage with Ottilia had been already spoken of. She left him in the
most wretched condition. His real crime had been discovered, and he was
suspected of even greater guilt. How could he ever persuade his parents
that he had not stolen the gold? He dreaded the public exposure which
was likely to result from his father’s irritable temper, and he now had
time to compare his present wretched condition with the happiness he
might have attained. All his prospects of an active life and of a
marriage with Ottilia were at an end. He saw his utter wretchedness,
abandoned, a fugitive in foreign lands, exposed to every species of
misfortune.

“But these reflections were not the worst evil he had to encounter;
though they bewildered his mind, wounded his pride, and crushed his
affections. His most severe pangs arose from the thought, that his
honest resolution, his noble intention to repair the past, was
suspected, repudiated, and denied. And, even if these thoughts gave
birth to a feeling resembling despair, he could not deny that he had
deserved his fate; and to this conviction must be added his knowledge of
the fatal truth, that one crime is sufficient to destroy the character
forever. Such meditations, and the apprehension that his firmest
resolutions of amendment might be looked upon as insincere, made life
itself a burden.

“In this moment of abandonment he appealed to Heaven for assistance. He
sank upon his knees, and, moistening the ground with tears of
contrition, implored help from his divine Maker. His prayer was worthy
of being heard. Man, throwing off his load of crimes, has a claim upon
Heaven. He who has exhausted every effort of his own may, as a last
resource, appeal to God. He was for some time engaged in earnest prayer,
when the door opened, and some one entered his apartment. It was his
mother, who approached him with a cheerful look, saw his agitation, and
addressed him with consoling words. ‘How happy I am,’ she said, ‘to find
that I may credit your assertions, and regard your sorrow as sincere!
The missing sum of gold has been found: your father, when he received it
from his friend, handed it to his secretary, who forgot the circumstance
amid the numerous transactions of the day. And, with respect to the
silver, you are also right; as the amount taken is less than I had
supposed. Unable to conceal my joy, I promised your father to replace
the missing sum if he would consent to forbear making any further
inquiry.’

“Ferdinand’s joy was indescribable. He completed at once his business
arrangements, gave his mother the promised money, and in addition
replaced the amount which his father had lost through his own
irregularity. He became gradually more cheerful and happy, but the whole
circumstance produced a serious impression upon his mind. He became
convinced that every man has power to accomplish good, and that our
divine Maker will infallibly extend to him his assistance in the hour of
trial,--a truth which he himself had learned from late experience. He
now unfolded to his father his plan of establishing himself in the
neighborhood from which he had lately returned. He fully explained the
nature of the intended business. His father consented to his proposals,
and his mother at a proper time related to her husband the attachment of
Ferdinand to Ottilia. He was delighted at the prospect of having so
charming a daughter-in-law, and felt additional pleasure at the idea of
being able to establish his son without the necessity of incurring much
expense.”


“I like this story,” said Louisa, when the old clergyman had finished
his tale; “and though the incidents are taken from low life, yet the
tone is sufficiently elevated to prove agreeable. And it seems to me,
that if we examine ourselves, or observe others, we shall find that men
are seldom influenced by their own reflections, either to pursue or to
abandon a certain course, but are generally impelled by extraneous
circumstances.”

“I wish for my part,” said Charles, “that we were not obliged to deny
ourselves any thing, and that we had no knowledge of those blessings
which we are not allowed to possess. But unfortunately we walk in an
orchard where, though all the trees are loaded with fruit, we are
compelled to leave them untouched, to satisfy ourselves with the
enjoyment of the shade, and forego the greatest indulgence.”

“Now,” said Louisa to the clergyman, “let us hear the rest of the
story.”

_Clergyman._ It is finished.

_Louisa._ The _dénoûment_ may be finished, but we should like to hear
the end.

_Clergyman._ Your distinction is just; and, since you seem interested in
the fate of my friend, I will tell you briefly what happened to him.

“Relieved from the oppressive weight of so dreadful a crime, and
enjoying some degree of satisfaction at his own conduct, his thoughts
were now directed to his future happiness; and he expected with anxiety
the return of Ottilia, that he might explain his position, and perform
the promise he had given her. She came, accompanied by her parents. He
hastened to meet her, and found her more beautiful than ever. He waited
with impatience for an opportunity of speaking to her alone, and of
unfolding all his future projects. The moment arrived; and with a heart
full of tenderness and love he spoke of his hopes, of his expectations
of happiness, and of his wish to share it with her. But what was his
surprise and astonishment when he found that she heard his announcement
with indifference and even with contempt, and indulged in unpleasant
jokes about the hermitage prepared for their reception, and the interest
they would excite by enacting the characters of shepherd and shepherdess
in a pastoral abode.

“Her behavior occasioned bitter reflections. He was hurt and grieved at
her indifference. She had been unjust to him, and he now began to
observe faults in her conduct which had previously escaped his
attention. In addition, it required no very keen perception to remark
that a cousin, who had accompanied her, had made an impression upon her,
and won a large portion of her affections.

“But Ferdinand soon perceived the necessity of struggling with this new
source of sorrow; and, as victory had attended his exertions in one
instance, he hoped to be successful upon a second occasion. He saw
Ottilia frequently, and determined to observe her closely. His conduct
towards her was attentive and affectionate, and her deportment was of a
similar nature; but her attractions had become diminished for him: he
soon found that her professions were not cordial or sincere, and that
she could be affectionate and cold, attractive and repulsive, charming
and disagreeable, according to the mere whim of the moment. He gradually
became indifferent to her, and at length resolved to break the last link
of their connection.

“But this was more difficult than he had anticipated. He found her one
day alone, and took courage to remind her of their engagement, and of
those happy moments in which, under the influence of the most delightful
feelings, they had discoursed with joyful anticipations of their future
happiness. She was in a tender mood, and he began to hope that he might
perhaps have been deceived in the estimate he had lately formed of her.
He thereupon began to describe his worldly prospects, and the probable
success of his intended establishment. She expressed her satisfaction,
accompanied, however, with regret that their union must on this account
be postponed still longer. She gave him to understand that she had not
the least wish to leave the pleasures of a city life, but expressed her
hopes that he might be able, after some years’ active industry in the
country, to return home, and become a citizen of consequence. She gave
him, moreover, to understand that she expected he would play a more
respectable and honest part in life than his father.

“Ferdinand saw plainly that he could expect no happiness from such a
union, and yet he felt the difficulty of wholly disengaging himself. In
this state of mind he would probably have parted from her in uncertainty
about the future, had he not been finally influenced by the conduct of
Ottilia’s cousin, towards whom he thought she displayed too much
tenderness. Ferdinand, thereupon, wrote a letter assuring her that it
was still in her power to make him happy, but that it could not be
advisable to encourage indefinite hopes, or to enter into engagements
for an uncertain future.

“He trusted that this letter would produce a favorable answer; but he
received a reply which his heart deplored, but which his judgment
approved. She released him from his promise, without rejecting his love,
and adverted to her own feelings in the same ambiguous manner. She was
still bound by the sense of her letter, but free by its literal meaning.
But why should I delay communicating the inevitable result? Ferdinand
hastened back to the peaceful abode he had left, and formed his
determination at once. He became attentive and diligent in business, and
was encouraged in this course by the affections of the kind being of
whom we have already spoken, and the exertions of her uncle to employ
every means in his power to render them happy. I knew him afterwards,
when he was surrounded by a numerous and prosperous family. He related
his own story to me himself; and, as it often happens with individuals
whose early life has been marked by some uncommon accident, his own
adventures had become so indelibly impressed upon his mind, that they
exerted a deep influence on his conduct. Even as a man and as a father,
he constantly denied himself the enjoyment of many gratifications in
order not to forget the practice of self-restraint; and the whole course
of his children’s education was founded upon this principle, that they
must accustom themselves to a frequent denial of their most ardent
desires.

“I once had an opportunity of witnessing an instance of the system he
adopted. One of his children was about to eat something at table, of
which he was particularly fond. His father forbade it, apparently
without reason. To my astonishment, the child obeyed with the utmost
cheerfulness; and dinner proceeded as if nothing had occurred. And, in
this manner, even the eldest members of the family often allowed a
tempting dish of fruit or some other dainty to pass them untasted. But,
notwithstanding this, a general freedom reigned in his house; and there
was at times a sufficient display, both of good and bad conduct. But
Ferdinand was for the most part indifferent to what occurred, and
allowed an almost unrestrained license. At times, however, when a
certain week came about, orders were given for precise punctuality, the
clocks were regulated to the second, every member of the family received
his orders for the day, business and pleasure had their turn, and no one
dared to be a single second in arrear. I could detain you for hours in
describing his conversation and remarks on this extraordinary system of
education. He was accustomed to jest with me upon my vows as a Catholic
priest, and maintained that every man should make a vow to practise
self-restraint, as well as to require obedience from others; but he
observed that the exercise of these vows, in place of being perpetually
demanded, was suitable only for certain occasions.”

The baroness observed, that she thought Ferdinand was perfectly right;
and she compared the authority of a parent to the executive power in a
kingdom, which being weak, the legislative authority can be of little
avail.

At this moment Louisa rushed hastily to the window, having heard
Frederick ride past. She ran to meet him, and accompanied him into the
parlor. He seemed cheerful, notwithstanding his just having come from a
scene of trouble and distress. In place of entering into a detailed
description of the fire which had seized the house of his aunt, he
assured the company that he had established beyond doubt the fact that
the desk there had been burned at the very same time when theirs had
been split asunder in so strange a manner.

He stated, that, when the fire approached the room where the desk was,
one of the servants saved a clock which stood upon it; that, in carrying
it out, some accident had happened to the works, and it had stopped at
half-past eleven; and thus the coincidence of time was placed beyond all
question. The baroness smiled; and the tutor observed, that, although
two things might agree in some particulars, we were not therefore
justified in inferring their mutual dependence. But Louisa took pleasure
in believing the connection of these two circumstances, particularly as
she had received intelligence that her intended was quite well; and, as
to the rest of the company, they gave full scope to the flight of their
imagination.

Charles inquired of the clergyman whether he knew a fairy-tale. “The
imagination,” he observed, “is a divine gift; but I do not like to see
it employed about the actualities of life. The airy forms to which it
gives birth are delightful to contemplate, if we view them as beings of
a peculiar order; but, connected with truth, they become prodigies, and
are disapproved by our reason and judgment. The imagination,” he
continued, “should not deal in facts, nor be employed to establish
facts. Its proper province is art; and there its influence should be
like that of music, which awakens our emotions, and makes us forget the
cause by which they are called forth.”

“Continue,” said the old clergyman, “and explain still further your view
of the proper attributes of imaginative works. Another property is
essential to their enjoyment,--that the exercise of imagination should
be voluntary. It can effect nothing by compulsion: it must wait for the
moment of inspiration. Without design, and without any settled course,
it soars aloft upon its own pinions, and, as it is borne forward, leaves
a trace of its wonderful and devious course. But you must allow me to
take my accustomed walk, that I may awaken in my soul the sweet fancies
which, in former years, were accustomed to enchant me. I promise to
relate a fairy-tale this evening that will amuse you all.”

They at once consented, particularly as they all hoped in the mean time
to hear the news of which Frederick was the bearer.


                ---------------------------------------


                             A FAIRY TALE.


Wearied with the labors of the day, an old Ferryman lay asleep in his
hut, on the bank of a wide river, which the late heavy rains had swollen
to an unprecedented height. In the middle of the night he was awakened
by a loud cry: he listened; it was the call of some travellers who
wished to be ferried over.

Upon opening the door, he was surprised to see two Will-o’-the-wisps
dancing round his boat, which was still secured to its moorings.
Speaking with human voices, they assured him that they were in the
greatest possible hurry, and wished to be carried instantly to the other
side of the river. Without losing a moment, the old Ferryman pushed off,
and rowed across with his usual dexterity. During the passage the
strangers whispered together in an unknown language, and several times
burst into loud laughter; whilst they amused themselves with dancing
upon the sides and seats of the boat, and cutting fantastic capers at
the bottom.

“The boat reels,” cried the old man; “and, if you continue so restless,
it may upset. Sit down, you Will-o’-the-wisps.”

They burst into loud laughter at this command, ridiculed the boatman,
and became more troublesome than ever. But he bore their annoyance
patiently, and they soon reached the opposite bank of the river.

“Here is something for your trouble,” said the passengers, shaking
themselves, when a number of glittering gold pieces fell into the boat.
“What are you doing?” cried the old man: “some misfortune will happen
should a single piece of gold fall into the water. The river, which has
a strong antipathy to gold, would become fearfully agitated, and swallow
both me and my boat. Who can say even what might happen to yourselves? I
pray you take back your gold.”

“We can take nothing back which we have once shaken from our persons,”
answered one of them.

“Then, I shall be compelled,” replied the old boatman, as he stooped,
and collected the gold in his cap, “to take it to the shore and bury
it.”

The Will-o’-the-wisps had in the mean time leaped out of the boat, upon
which the old man cried, “Pay me my fare.”

“The man who refuses gold must work for nothing,” answered the
Will-o’-the-wisps.

“My payment must consist of fruits of the earth,” rejoined the Ferryman.

“Fruits of the earth? We despise them: they are not food for us.”

“But you shall not depart,” replied the Ferryman, “till you have given
me three cauliflowers, three artichokes, and three large onions.”

The Will-o’-the-wisps were in the act of running away, with a laugh,
when they felt themselves in some inexplicable manner fixed to the
earth: they had never experienced so strange a sensation. They then
promised to pay the demand without delay, upon which the Ferryman
released them, and instantly pushed off with his boat.

He was already far away, when they called after him, “Old man! listen:
we have forgotten something important;” but he heard them not, and
continued his course. When he had reached a point lower down, on the
same side of the river, he came to some rocks which the water was unable
to reach, and proceeded to bury the dangerous gold. Observing a deep
cleft which opened between two rocks, he threw the gold into it, and
returned to his dwelling. This cleft was inhabited by a beautiful green
Dragon, who was awakened from her sleep by the sound of the falling
money. At the very first appearance of the glittering pieces, she
devoured them greedily, then searched about carefully in hopes of
finding such other coins as might have fallen accidentally amongst the
briers, or between the fissures of the rocks.

The Dragon immediately felt overpowered with the most delightful
sensations, and perceived with joy that she became suddenly shining and
transparent. She had been long aware that this change was possible; but,
entertaining some doubt whether the brilliance would continue, she felt
impelled by curiosity to leave her dwelling, and ascertain, if possible,
to whom she was indebted for the beautiful gold. She found no one; but
she became lost in admiration of herself, and of the brilliant light
which illumined her path through the thick underwood, and shed its rays
over the surrounding green. The leaves of the trees glittered like
emeralds, and the flowers shone with glorious hues. In vain did she
penetrate the solitary wilderness; but hope dawned when she reached the
plains, and observed at a distance a light resembling her own. “Have I
at last discovered my fellow?” she exclaimed, and hastened to the spot.
She found no obstacle from bog or morass; for though the dry meadow and
the high rock were her dearest habitations, and though she loved to feed
upon the spicy root, and to quench her thirst with the crystal dew, and
with fresh water from the spring, yet, for the sake of her beloved gold
and of her glorious light, she was willing to encounter every privation.

Wearied and exhausted, she reached at length the confines of a wide
morass, where our two Will-o’-the-wisps were amusing themselves in
playing fantastic antics. She made towards them, and, saluting them,
expressed her delight at being able to claim relationship with such
charming personages. The lights played around her, skipped from side to
side, and laughed about in their own peculiar fashion. “Dear aunt!” they
exclaimed, “what does it signify, even though you are of horizontal
form? we are related at least through brilliancy. But look how well a
tall, slender figure becomes us gentry of the vertical shape;” and, so
saying, both the lights compressed their breadth together, and shot up
into a thin and pointed line. “Do not be offended, dear friend,” they
continued; “but what family can boast of a privilege like ours? Since
the first Will-o’-the-wisp was created, none of our race have ever been
obliged to sit down or to take repose.”

But all this time the feelings of the Dragon in the presence of her
relations were any thing but pleasant: for, exalt her head as high as
she would, she was compelled to stoop to earth again when she wished to
advance; and, though she was proud of the brilliancy which she shed
round her own dark abode, she felt her light gradually diminish in the
presence of her relatives, and began to fear that it might finally be
extinguished.

In her perplexity she hastily inquired whether the gentlemen could
inform her whence the shining gold had come, which had lately fallen
into the cleft of the rocks hard by; as in her opinion it was a precious
shower from heaven. The Will-o’-the-wisps immediately shook themselves
(at the same time laughing loudly), and a deluge of gold pieces at once
flowed around. The Dragon devoured them greedily. “We hope you like
them, dear aunt,” shouted the shining Will-o’-the-wisps; “we can supply
you with any quantity:” and they shook themselves with such copious
effect, that the Dragon found it difficult to swallow the bright
dainties with sufficient speed. Her brilliancy increased as the gold
disappeared, till at length she shone with inconceivable radiance; while
in the same proportion the Will-o’-the-wisps grew thin and tapering,
without, however, losing the smallest iota of their cheerful humor.

“I am under eternal obligations to you,” said the Dragon, pausing to
breathe from her voracious meal: “ask of me what you please; I will give
you any thing you demand.”

“A bargain!” answered the Will-o’-the-wisp: “tell us, then, where the
beautiful Lily dwells. Lead us to her palace and gardens without delay:
we die of impatience to cast ourselves at her feet.”

“You ask a favor,” replied the Dragon, with a deep sigh, “which it is
not in my power so quickly to bestow. The beautiful Lily lives,
unfortunately, on the opposite bank of the river. We cannot cross over
on this stormy night.”

“Cruel river, which separates us from the object of our desires! But
cannot we call back the old Ferryman?” said they.

“Your wish is vain,” answered the Dragon: “for, even were you to meet
him on this bank, he would refuse to take you; as, though he can convey
passengers to this side of the stream, he can carry no one back.”

“Bad news, indeed! but are there no other means of crossing the river?”

“There are, but not at this moment: I myself can take you over at
mid-day.”

“That is an hour,” replied the Will-o’-the-wisps, “when we do not
usually travel.”

“Then, you had better postpone your intention till evening, when you may
cross in the Giant’s shadow.”

“How is that managed?” they inquired.

“The Giant,” replied the Dragon, “who lives hard by, is powerless with
his body: his hands are incapable of raising even a straw, his shoulders
can bear no burden; but his shadow accomplishes all for him. For this
reason he is most powerful at sunrise and at sunset. At the hour of
evening the Giant will approach the river softly; and, if you place
yourself upon his shadow, it will carry you over. Meet me at mid-day, at
the corner of the wood, where the trees hang over the river, when I
myself will take you across, and introduce you to the beautiful Lily.
Should you, however, shrink from the noonday heat, your only alternative
is to apply to the Giant, when evening casts its shadows around; and he
will no doubt prove obliging.”

With a graceful salutation the young gentlemen took their leave; and the
Dragon rejoiced at their departure, partly that she might indulge her
feelings of pleasure at her own light, and partly that she might satisfy
a curiosity by which she had long been tormented.

In the clefts of the rocks where she dwelt, she had lately made a
wonderful discovery; for, although she had been obliged to crawl through
these chasms in darkness, she had learned to distinguish every object by
feeling. The productions of Nature, which she was accustomed everywhere
to encounter, were all of an irregular kind. At one time she wound her
way amongst the points of enormous crystals, at another she was for a
moment impeded by the veins of solid silver, and many were the precious
stones which her light discovered to her. But, to her great
astonishment, she had encountered in a rock, which was securely closed
on all sides, objects which betrayed the plastic hand of man. Smooth
walls, which she was unable to ascend; sharp, regular angles, tapering
columns; and, what was even more wonderful, human figures, round which
she had often entwined herself, and which appeared to her to be formed
of brass or of polished marble. She was now anxious to behold all these
objects with her eyes, and to confirm, by her own observation, what she
had hitherto but suspected. She now thought herself capable of
illumining with her own light these wonderful subterranean caverns, and
indulged the hope of becoming thoroughly acquainted with these
astonishing mysteries. She delayed not, and quickly found the opening
through which she was accustomed to penetrate into the sanctuary.

Arrived at the place, she looked round with wonder; and though her
brilliancy was unable to light the entire cavern, yet many of the
objects were sufficiently distinct. With astonishment and awe, she
raised her eyes to an illumined niche, in which stood the statue of a
venerable King, of pure gold. In size the statue was colossal, but the
figure was rather that of a little than of a great man. His well-turned
limbs were covered with a simple robe, and his head was encircled by an
oaken garland.

Scarcely had the Dragon beheld this venerable form, when the King found
utterance, and said, “How comest thou hither?”

“Through the cleft,” answered the Dragon, “in which the gold abides.”

“What is nobler than gold?” asked the King.

“Light,” replied the Dragon.

“And what is more vivid than light?” continued the Monarch.

“Speech,” said the Serpent.

During this conversation the Dragon had looked stealthily around, and
observed another noble statue in an adjoining niche. A silver King sat
there enthroned, of figure tall and slender: his limbs were enveloped in
an embroidered mantle; his crown and sceptre were adorned with precious
stones; his countenance wore the serene dignity of pride; and he seemed
about to speak, when a dark vein, which ran through the marble of the
wall, suddenly became brilliant, and cast a soft light through the whole
temple. This light discovered a third King, whose mighty form was cast
in brass: he leaned upon a massive club, his head was crowned with
laurels; and his proportions resembled a rock rather than a human being.

The Dragon felt a desire to approach a fourth King, who stood before her
at a distance; but the wall suddenly opened, the illumined vein flashed
like lightning, and became as suddenly extinguished.

A man of middle stature now approached. He was clad in the garb of a
peasant: in his hand he bore a lamp, the flame of which it was
delightful to behold, and which lightened the entire dwelling, without
leaving the trace of a shadow.

“Why dost thou come, since we have already light?” asked the Golden
King.

“You know that I can shed no ray on what is dark,” replied the old man.

“Will my kingdom end?” inquired the Silver Monarch.

“Late or never,” answered the other.

The Brazen King then asked, with voice of thunder, “When shall I arise?”

“Soon,” was the reply.

“With whom shall I be united?” continued the former.

“With thine elder brother,” answered the latter.

“And what will become of the youngest?”

“He will repose.”

“I am not weary,” interrupted the fourth King, with a deep but faltering
voice.

During this conversation the Dragon had wound her way softly through the
temple, surveyed every thing which it contained, and approached the
niche in which the fourth King stood. He leaned against a pillar, and
his handsome countenance bore traces of melancholy. It was difficult to
distinguish the metal of which the statue was composed. It resembled a
mixture of the three metals of which his brothers were formed, but it
seemed as if the materials had not thoroughly blended; as the veins of
gold and silver crossed each other irregularly through the brazen mass,
and destroyed the effect of the whole.

The Golden King now asked, “How many secrets dost thou know?”

“Three,” was the reply.

“And which is the most important?” inquired the Silver King.

“The revealed,” answered the old man.

“Wilt thou explain it to us?” asked the Brazen King.

“When I have learned the fourth,” was the response.

“I care not,” murmured he of the strange compound.

“I know the fourth,” interrupted the Dragon, approaching the old man,
and whispering in his ear.

“The time is come,” exclaimed the latter, with tremendous voice. The
sounds echoed through the temple; the statues rang again: and in the
same instant the old man disappeared towards the west, and the Dragon
towards the east; and both pierced instantly through the impediments of
the rock.

Every passage through which the old man bent his course became
immediately filled with gold; for the lamp which he carried possessed
the wonderful property of converting stones into gold, wood into silver,
and dead animals into jewels. But, in order to produce this effect, it
was necessary that no other light should be near. In the presence of
another light the lamp merely emitted a soft illumination, which,
however, gave joy to every living thing.

The old man returned to his hut on the brow of the hill, and found his
wife in the greatest sorrow. She was seated at the fire, her eyes filled
with tears; and she refused all consolation.

“What a misfortune,” she exclaimed, “that I allowed you to leave home
to-day!”

“What has happened?” answered the old man, very quietly.

“You were scarcely gone,” replied she with sobs, “before two rude
travellers came to the door: unfortunately I admitted them; as they
seemed good, worthy people. They were attired like flames, and might
have passed for Will-o’-the-wisps; but they had scarcely entered the
house before they commenced their flatteries, and became at length so
importunate that I blush to recollect their conduct.”

“Well,” said the old man, smiling, “the gentlemen were only amusing
themselves; and, at your age, you should have considered it as the
display of ordinary politeness.”

“My age!” rejoined the old woman. “Will you forever remind me of my age?
how old am I, then? And ordinary politeness! But I can tell you
something: look round at the walls of our hut: you will now be able to
see the old stones, which have been concealed for more than a hundred
years. These visitors extracted all the gold more quickly than I can
tell you, and they assured me that it was of capital flavor. When they
had completely cleared the walls, they grew cheerful; and, in a few
minutes, their persons became tall, broad, and shining. They thereupon
again commenced their tricks, and repeated their flatteries, calling me
a queen. They shook themselves, and immediately a profusion of gold
pieces fell on all sides. You may see some of them still glittering on
the floor; but a calamity soon occurred. Our dog Mops swallowed some of
them; and, see! he lies dead in the chimney-corner. Poor animal! his
death afflicts me. I did not observe it till they had departed,
otherwise I should not have promised to pay the Ferryman the debt they
owed him.”

“How much do they owe?” inquired the old man.

“Three cauliflowers,” answered his wife, “three artichokes, and three
onions. I have promised to take them to the river at break of day.”

“You had better oblige them,” said the old man, “and they may perhaps
serve us in time of need.”

“I know not if they will keep their word,” said she, “but they promised
and vowed to serve us.”

The fire had, in the mean time, died away; but the old man covered the
cinders with ashes, put away the shining gold pieces, and lighted his
lamp afresh. In the glorious illumination the walls became covered with
gold, and Mops was transformed into the most beautiful onyx that was
ever beheld. The variety of color which glittered through the costly gem
produced a splendid effect.

“Take your basket,” said the old man, “and place the onyx in it. Then
collect the three cauliflowers, the three artichokes, and the three
onions, lay them together, and carry them to the river. The Dragon will
bear you across at mid-day: then visit the beautiful Lily; her touch
will give life to the onyx, as her touch gives death to every living
thing; and it will be to her an affectionate friend. Tell her not to
mourn; that her deliverance is nigh; that she must consider a great
misfortune as her greatest blessing, for the time is come.”

The old woman prepared her basket, and set forth at break of day. The
rising sun shone brightly over the river, which gleamed in the far
distance. The old woman journeyed slowly on, for the weight of the
basket oppressed her; but it did not arise from the onyx. Nothing
lifeless proved a burden; for, when the basket contained dead things, it
rose aloft, and floated over her head. But a fresh vegetable, or the
smallest living creature, induced fatigue. She had toiled along for some
distance, when she started, and suddenly stood still; for she had nearly
placed her foot upon the shadow of the Giant, which was advancing
towards her from the plain. Her eye now perceived his monstrous bulk: he
had just bathed in the river, and was coming out of the water. She knew
not how to avoid him. He saw her, saluted her jestingly, and thrust the
hand of his shadow into her basket. With dexterity he stole a
cauliflower, an artichoke, and an onion, and raised them to his mouth.
He then proceeded on his course up the stream, and left the woman alone.

She considered whether it would not be better to return, and supply the
missing vegetables from her own garden; and, lost in these reflections,
she went on her way until she arrived at the bank of the river. She sat
down, and awaited for a long time the arrival of the Ferryman. He
appeared at length, having in his boat a traveller whose air was
mysterious. A handsome youth, of noble aspect, stepped on shore.

“What have you brought with you?” said the old man.

“The vegetables,” replied the woman, “which the Will-o’-the-wisps owe
you;” pointing to the contents of her basket.

But when he found that there were but two of each kind, he became angry,
and refused to take them.

The woman implored him to relent, assuring him that she could not then
return home; as she had found her burden heavy, and she had still a long
way to go. But he was obstinate, maintaining that the decision did not
depend upon him.

“I am obliged to collect my gains for nine hours,” said he, “and I can
keep nothing for myself till I have paid a third part to the river.”

At length, after much contention, he told her there was still a remedy.

“If you give security to the river, and acknowledge your debt, I will
take the six articles; though such a course is not devoid of danger.

“But, if I keep my word, I incur no risk,” she said earnestly.

“Not the least,” he replied. “Thrust your hand into the river, and
promise that within four and twenty hours you will pay the debt.”

The old woman complied, but shuddered as she observed that her hand, on
drawing it out of the water, had become as black as a coal. She scolded
angrily; exclaiming that her hands had always been most beautiful, and
that, notwithstanding her hard work, she had ever kept them white and
delicate. She gazed at her hand with the greatest alarm, and exclaimed,
“This is still worse: it has shrunk, and is already much smaller than
the other!”

“It only appears so now,” said the Ferryman; “but, if you break your
word, it will be so in reality. Your hand will in that case grow
smaller, and finally disappear; though you will still preserve the use
of it.”

“I would rather,” she replied, “lose it altogether, and that my
misfortune should be concealed. But no matter, I will keep my word, to
escape this black disgrace, and avoid so much anxiety.” Whereupon she
took her basket, which rose aloft, and floated freely over her head. She
hastened after the youth, who was walking thoughtfully along the bank.
His noble figure and peculiar attire had made a deep impression upon her
mind.

His breast was covered with a shining cuirass, whose transparency
permitted the motions of his graceful form to be seen. From his
shoulders hung a purple mantle, and his auburn locks waved in beautiful
curls round his uncovered head. His noble countenance and his
well-turned feet were exposed to the burning rays of the sun. Thus did
he journey patiently over the hot sand, which, “true to one sorrow, he
trod without feeling.”

The garrulous old woman sought to engage him in conversation; but he
heeded her not, or answered briefly, until, notwithstanding his beauty,
she became weary, and took leave of him, saying, “You are too slow for
me, sir; and I cannot lose my time, as I am anxious to cross the river,
with the assistance of the Green Dragon, and to present the beautiful
Lily with my husband’s handsome present.” So saying, she left him
speedily, upon which the youth took heart, and followed her without
delay.

“You are going to the beautiful Lily!” he exclaimed: “if so, our way
lies together. What present are you taking her?”

“Sir,” answered the woman, “it is not fair that you should so earnestly
inquire after my secrets, when you paid so little attention to my
questions. But, if you will relate your history to me, I will tell you
all about my present.”

They made the bargain: the woman told her story, including the account
of the dog, and allowed him to view the beautiful onyx.

He lifted the beautiful precious stone from the basket, and took Mops,
who seemed to slumber softly, in his arms.

“Fortunate animal!” he exclaimed: “you will be touched by her soft
hands, and restored to life, in place of fleeing from her contact, like
all other living things, to escape an evil doom. But, alas! what words
are these? Is it not a sadder and more fearful fate to be annihilated by
her presence than to die by her hand? Behold me, thus young, what a
melancholy destiny is mine! This armor, which I have borne with glory in
the battle-broil; this purple, which I have earned by the wisdom of my
government,--have been converted by Fate, the one into an unceasing
burden, the other into an empty honor. Crown, sceptre, and sword are
worthless. I am now as naked and destitute as every other son of clay.
For such is the spell of her beautiful blue eyes, that they waste the
vigor of every living creature; and those whom the contact of her hand
does not destroy are reduced to the condition of breathing shadows.”

Thus he lamented long, but without satisfying the curiosity of the old
woman, who sought information respecting both his mental and his bodily
sufferings. She learned neither the name of his father nor his kingdom.
He stroked the rigid Mops, to whom the beams of the sun and the caresses
of the youth had imparted warmth. He inquired earnestly about the man
with the lamp, about the effect of the mysterious light, and seemed to
expect thence great relief from his deep sorrow.

So discoursing, they observed at a distance the majestic arch of the
bridge, which stretched from one bank of the river to the other, and
shone splendidly in the beams of the sun. Both were astonished at the
sight, as they had never before seen it so resplendent.

“What!” cried the Prince, “was it not sufficiently beautiful before,
with its decorations of jasper and opal? Can we now dare to pass over
it, constructed as it is of emerald and chrysolite of varied beauty?”

Neither had any idea of the change which the Dragon had undergone; for
in truth it was the Dragon, whose custom it was at mid-day to arch her
form across the stream, and assume the appearance of a beauteous bridge,
which travellers crossed with silent reverence.

Scarcely had they reached the opposite bank, when the bridge began to
sway from side to side, and gradually sank to the level of the water;
while the Green Dragon assumed her accustomed shape, and followed the
travellers to the shore. The latter thanked her for her condescension in
allowing them a passage across the stream; observing, at the same time,
that there were evidently more persons present than were actually
visible. They heard a light whispering, which the Dragon answered with a
similar sound. They listened, and heard the following words: “We will
first make our observations unperceived in the park of the beautiful
Lily, and look for you, when the shadows of evening fall, to introduce
us to such perfect beauty. You will find us on the bank of the great
lake.”

“Agreed,” answered the Dragon; and a hissing sound died away in the air.

Our three travellers further consulted with what regard to precedence
they should appear before the beautiful Lily; for, let her visitors be
never so numerous, they must enter and depart singly if they wished to
escape bitter suffering.

The woman, carrying in the basket the transformed dog, came first to the
garden, and sought an interview with her benefactress. She was easily
found, as she was then singing to the accompaniment of her harp. The
sweet tones showed themselves first in the form of circles upon the
bosom of the calm lake; and then, like a soft breeze, they imparted
motion to the grass and to the tremulous leaves. She was seated in a
secluded nook beneath the shade of trees, and at the first glance
enchanted the eyes, the ear, and the heart of the old woman, who
advanced towards her with rapture, and protested that since their last
meeting she had become more beautiful than ever. Even from a distance
she saluted the charming maiden in these words: “What joy to be in your
presence! What a heaven surrounds you! What a spell proceeds from your
lyre, which, encircled by your soft arms, and influenced by the pressure
of your gentle bosom and slender fingers, utters such entrancing melody!
Thrice happy the blessed youth who could claim so great a favor!”

So saying, she approached nearer. The beautiful Lily raised her eyes,
let her hands drop, and said, “Do not distress me with your untimely
praise: it makes me feel even more unhappy. And see! here is my
beautiful canary dead at my feet, which used to accompany my songs so
sweetly: he was accustomed to sit upon my harp, and was carefully
instructed to avoid my touch. This morning, when, refreshed by sleep, I
tuned a pleasant melody, the little warbler sang with increased harmony,
when suddenly a hawk soared above us. My little bird sought refuge in my
bosom, and at that instant I felt the last gasp of his expiring breath.
It is true that the hawk, struck by my instantaneous glance, fell
lifeless into the stream; but what avails this penalty to me?--my
darling is dead, and his grave will but add to the number of the weeping
willows in my garden.”

“Take courage, beautiful Lily,” interrupted the old woman, whilst at the
same moment she wiped away a tear which the narration of the sorrowful
maiden had brought to her eye,--“take courage, and learn from my
experience to moderate your grief. Great misfortune is often the
harbinger of intense joy. For the time approaches: but in truth,”
continued she, “‘the web of life is of a mingled yarn.’ See my hand, how
black it has grown; and, in truth, it has become much diminished in
size: I must be speedy, before it be reduced to nothing. Why did I
promise favors to the Will-o’-the-wisps, or meet the Giant, or dip my
hand into the river? Can you oblige me with a cauliflower, an artichoke,
or an onion? I shall take them to the river, and then my hand will
become so white that it will almost equal the lustre of your own.”

“Cauliflowers and onions abound, but artichokes cannot be procured. My
garden produces neither flowers nor fruit; but every twig I plant upon
the grave of any thing I love bursts into leaf at once, and grows a
goodly tree. Thus, beneath my eye, alas! have grown these clustering
trees and copses. These tall pines, these shadowing cypresses, these
mighty oaks, these overhanging beeches, were once small twigs planted by
my hand, as sad memorials, in an ungenial soil.”

The old woman paid but little attention to this speech, but was employed
in watching her hand, which in the presence of the beautiful Lily became
every instant of a darker hue, and grew gradually less. She was about to
take her basket and depart, when she felt that she had forgotten the
most important of her duties. She took the transformed dog in her arms,
and laid him upon the grass, not far from the beautiful Lily. “My
husband,” she said, “sends you this present. You know that your touch
can impart life to this precious stone. The good and faithful animal
will be a joy to you, and the grief his loss causes me will be
alleviated by the thought that he is yours.”

The beautiful Lily looked at the pretty creature with delight, and
rapture beamed from her eyes. “Many things combine to inspire me with
hope; but, alas! is it not a delusion of our nature to expect that joy
is near when grief is at the worst?”


       “Ah! what avail these omens all so fair?
        My sweet bird’s death, my friend’s hands blackly dyed,
        And Mops transformed into a jewel rare,
        Sent by the Lamp our faltering steps to guide.

        Far from mankind and every joy I prize,
        To grief and sorrow I am still allied:
        When from the river will the temple rise?
        When will the bridge span it from side to side?”


The old woman waited with impatience for the conclusion of the song,
which the beautiful Lily had accompanied with her harp, entrancing the
ears of every listener. She was about to say farewell, when the arrival
of the Dragon compelled her to remain. She had heard the last words of
the song, and on this account spoke words of encouragement to the
beautiful Lily. “The prophecy of the bridge is fulfilled!” she
exclaimed: “this good woman will bear witness how splendidly the arch
now appears. Formerly of untransparent jasper, which only reflected the
light upon the sides, it is now converted into precious jewels of
transparent hue. No beryl is so bright, and no emerald so splendid.”

“I congratulate you thereupon,” said the Lily, “but pardon me if I doubt
whether the prediction is fulfilled. Only foot-passengers can as yet
cross the arch of your bridge; and it has been foretold that horses and
carriages, travellers of all descriptions, shall pass and repass in
mingled multitudes. Is prediction silent with respect to the mighty
pillars which are to ascend from the river?”

The old woman, whose eyes were fixed immovably upon her hand,
interrupted this speech, and bade farewell.

“Wait for one moment,” said the beautiful Lily, “and take my poor
canary-bird with you. Implore the Lamp to convert him into a topaz; and
I will then re-animate him with my touch, and he and your good Mops will
then be my greatest consolation. But make what speed you can; for with
sunset decay will have commenced its withering influence, marring the
beauty of its delicate form.”

The old woman enveloped the little corpse in some soft young leaves,
placed it in the basket, and hastened from the spot.

“Notwithstanding what you say,” continued the Dragon, resuming the
interrupted conversation, “the temple is built.”

“But it does not yet stand upon the river,” replied the beautiful Lily.

“It rests still in the bowels of the earth,” continued the Dragon. “I
have seen the Kings, and spoken to them.”

“And when will they awake?” inquired the Lily.

The Dragon answered, “I heard the mighty voice resound through the
temple, announcing that the hour was come.”

A ray of joy beamed from the countenance of the beautiful Lily as she
exclaimed, “Do I hear those words for the second time to-day? When will
the hour arrive in which I shall hear them for the third time?”

She rose, and immediately a beautiful maiden came from the wood, and
relieved her of her harp. She was followed by another, who took the
ivory chair upon which the beautiful Lily had been seated, folded it
together, and carried it away, together with the silver-tissued cushion.
The third maiden, who bore in her hand a fan inlaid with pearls,
approached to tender her services if they should be needed. These three
maidens were lovely beyond description, though they were compelled to
acknowledge that their charms fell far short of those of their beautiful
mistress.

The beautiful Lily had, in the mean time, surveyed the marvellous Mops
with a look of pleasure. She leaned over him, and touched him. He
instantly leaped up, looked round joyously, bounded with delight,
hastened to his benefactress, and caressed her tenderly. She took him in
her arms, and pressed him to her bosom. “Cold though thou art,” she
said, “and endued with only half a life, yet art thou welcome to me. I
will love thee fondly, play with thee sportively, kiss thee softly, and
press thee to my heart.” She let him go a little from her, called him
back, chased him away again, and played with him so joyously and
innocently, that no one could help sympathizing in her delight and
taking part in her pleasure, as they had before shared her sorrow and
her woe.

But this happiness and this pleasant pastime were interrupted by the
arrival of the melancholy youth. His walk and appearance were as we have
before described; but he seemed overcome by the heat of the day, and the
presence of his beloved had rendered him perceptibly paler. He bore the
hawk upon his wrist, where it sat with drooping wing as tranquil as a
dove.

“It is not well,” exclaimed the Lily, “that you should vex my eyes with
that odious bird, which has only this day murdered my little favorite.”

“Blame not the luckless bird,” exclaimed the youth: “rather condemn
yourself and fate, and let me find an associate in this companion of my
grief.”

Mops, in the mean time, was incessant in his caresses; and the Lily
responded to his affection with the most gentle tokens of love. She
clapped her hands to drive him away, and then sportively pursued to win
him back. She caught him in her arms as he tried to escape, and chased
him from her when he sought to nestle in her lap. The youth looked on in
silence and in sorrow; but when at length she took him in her arms, and
pressed him to her snowy breast, and kissed him with her heavenly lips,
he lost all patience, and exclaimed in the depth of his despair, “And
must I, whom a sad destiny compels to live in your presence, and yet to
be separated from you, perhaps forever,--must I, who for you have
forfeited every thing, even my own being,--must I look on and behold
this ‘defect of nature’ gain your notice, win your love, and enjoy the
paradise of your embrace? Must I continue to wander and measure my
solitary way along the banks of this stream? No! a spark of my former
spirit still burns within my bosom. Oh that it would for the last time
mount into a flame! If stones may repose within your bosom, then let me
be converted to a stone; and, if your touch can kill, I am content to
receive my death at your hands.”

He became violently excited; the hawk flew from his wrist; he rushed
towards the beautiful Lily; she extended her arms to forbid his
approach, and touched him undesignedly. His consciousness immediately
forsook him, and with dismay she felt the beautiful burden lean for
support upon her breast. She started back with a scream, and the fair
youth sank lifeless from her arms to the earth.

The deed was done. The sweet Lily stood motionless, and gazed intently
on the breathless corpse. Her heart ceased to beat, and her eyes were
bedewed with tears. In vain did Mops seek to win her attention: the
whole world had died out with her lost friend. Her dumb despair sought
no help, for help was now in vain.

But the Dragon became immediately more active. Her mind seemed occupied
with thoughts of rescue; and, in truth, her mysterious movements
prevented the immediate consequence of this dire misfortune. She wound
her serpentine form in a wide circle round the spot where the body lay,
seized the end of her tail between her teeth, and remained motionless.

In a few moments one of the servants of the beautiful Lily approached,
carrying the ivory chair, and with friendly entreaties compelled her
mistress to be seated. Then came a second, bearing a flame-colored veil,
with which she rather adorned than covered the head of the Lily. A third
maiden offered her the harp; and scarcely had she struck the chords, and
awakened their delicious tones, when the first maiden returned, having
in her hands a circular mirror of lustrous brightness, placed herself
opposite the Lily, intercepted her looks, and reflected the most
enchanting countenance which nature could fashion. Her sorrow added
lustre to her beauty, the veil heightened her charms, the harp lent her
a new grace; and, though it was impossible not to hope that her sad fate
might soon undergo a change, one could almost wish that that lovely and
enchanting vision might last forever.

Silently gazing upon the mirror, she drew melting tones of music from
her harp; but her sorrow appeared to increase, and the chords responded
to her melancholy mood. Once or twice she opened her lips to sing, but
her voice refused utterance; whereupon her grief found refuge in tears.
Her two attendants supported her in their arms, and the harp fell from
her hands; but the watchful attention of her handmaid caught it, and
laid it aside.

“Who will fetch the man with the lamp?” whispered the Dragon in low but
audible voice. The maidens looked at each other, and the Lily’s tears
fell faster.

At this instant the old woman with the basket returned breathless with
agitation. “I am lost and crippled for life!” she exclaimed. “Look! my
hand is nearly withered. Neither the Ferryman nor the Giant would set me
across the river, because I am indebted to the stream. In vain did I
tempt them with a hundred cauliflowers and a hundred onions: they insist
upon the stipulated three, and not an artichoke can be found in this
neighborhood.”

“Forget your distress,” said the Dragon, “and give your assistance here:
perhaps you will be relieved at the same time. Hasten, and find out the
Will-o’-the-wisps; for, though you cannot see them by daylight, you may,
perhaps, hear their laughter and their motions. If you make good speed,
the Giant may yet transport you across the river, and you may find the
man with the lamp and send him hither.”

The old woman made as much haste as possible, and the Dragon showed as
much impatience for her return as the Lily. But, sad to say, the golden
rays of the setting sun were shedding their last beams upon the highest
tops of the trees, and lengthening the mountain shadows over lake and
meadow. The motions of the Dragon showed increased impatience, and the
Lily was dissolved in tears.

In this moment of distress the Dragon looked anxiously round: she feared
every instant that the sun would set, and that decay would penetrate
within the magic circle, and exert its fell influence upon the corpse of
the beautiful youth. She looked into the heavens, and caught sight of
the purple wings and breast of the hawk, which were illumined by the
last rays of the sun. Her restlessness betrayed her joy at the good
omen; and she was not deceived, for instantly afterwards she saw the man
with the lamp sliding across the lake as if he had skates on his feet.

The Dragon did not alter her position; but the Lily, rising from her
seat, exclaimed, “What good spirit has sent you thus opportunely when
you are so much longed for and required?”

“The Spirit of my Lamp impels me,” replied the old man, “and the hawk
conducts me hither. The lamp flickers when I am needed; and I
immediately look to the heavens for a sign, when some bird or meteor
points the way I should go. Be tranquil, beautiful maiden: I know not if
I can help you; one alone can do but little, but he can avail who in the
proper hour unites his strength with others. We must wait and hope.”
Then turning to the Dragon, he said, “Keep your circle closed;” and,
seating himself upon a hillock at his side, he shed a light upon the
corpse of the youth. “Now bring the little canary-bird,” he continued,
“and lay it also within the circle.”

The maiden took the little creature from the basket, and followed the
directions of the old man.

The sun had set in the mean time; and, as the shades of evening closed
around, not only the Dragon and the Lamp cast their customary light, but
the veil of the Lily was illumined with a soft brilliancy, and caused
her pale cheeks and her white robe to beam like the dawn of morning, and
clothed her with inexpressible grace. They gazed at each other with
silent emotions: anxiety and sorrow were softened by hope of approaching
happiness.

To the delight of all, the old woman appeared with the lively
Will-o’-the-wisps, who must have led a prodigal life of late, for they
looked wonderfully thin, but behaved all the more politely to the
princess and the other young ladies. With an air of confidence, and much
force of expression, they discoursed upon ordinary topics, and were much
struck by the charm which the shining veil shed over the beautiful Lily
and her companions. The young ladies cast down their eyes with modest
looks, and their beauty was heightened by the praise it called forth.
Every one was happy and contented, not excepting even the old woman.
Notwithstanding the assurance of her husband that her hand would not
continue to wither whilst the Lamp shone upon it, she continued to
assert, that, if things went on thus, it would disappear entirely before
midnight.

The old man with the lamp had listened attentively to the speech of the
Will-o’-the-wisps, and was charmed to observe that the beautiful Lily
was pleased and flattered with their compliments. Midnight had actually
come before they were aware. The old man looked up to the stars, and
spoke thus: “We are met at a fortunate hour: let each fulfil his office,
let each discharge his duty; and a general happiness will alleviate one
individual trouble, as a universal sorrow destroys particular joys.”

After these observations a mysterious murmur arose; for every one
present spoke for himself, and mentioned what he had to do: the three
maidens alone were silent. One had fallen asleep near the harp, the
other beside the fan, and the third leaning against the ivory chair: and
no one could blame them; for, in truth, it was late. The
Will-o’-the-wisps, after paying some trivial compliments to the other
ladies, including even the attendants, attached themselves finally to
the Lily, by whose beauty they were attracted.

“Take the mirror,” said the old man to the hawk, “and illumine the fair
sleepers with the first beams of the sun, and rouse them from their
slumbers by the light reflected from heaven.”

The Dragon now began to move: she broke up the circle, and in long
windings moved slowly to the river. The Will-o’-the-wisps followed her
in solemn procession, and they might have been mistaken for the most
serious personages. The old woman and her husband took up the basket,
the soft light of which had hitherto been scarcely observed; but it now
became clearer and more brilliant. They laid the body of the youth
within it, with the canary-bird reposing upon his breast, upon which the
basket raised itself into the air, and floated over the head of the old
woman; and she followed the steps of the Will-o’-the-wisps. The
beautiful Lily, taking Mops in her arms, walked after the old woman; and
the man with the lamp closed the procession.

The whole neighborhood was brilliantly illuminated with all these
various lights. They all observed with astonishment, on approaching the
river, that it was spanned by a majestic arch, whereby the benevolent
Dragon had prepared them a lustrous passage across. The transparent
jewels of which the bridge was composed were objects of no less
astonishment by day than was their wondrous brilliancy by night. The
clear arch above cut sharply against the dark sky; whilst vivid rays of
light beneath shone against the key-stone, revealing the firm pliability
of the structure. The procession moved slowly over; and the Ferryman,
who witnessed the proceeding from his hut, surveyed the brilliant arch
with awe, no less than the wondrous lights as they journeyed across it.

As soon as they had reached the opposite bank, the bridge began to
contract as usual, and sink to the surface of the water. The Dragon made
her way to the shore, and the basket descended to the ground. The Dragon
now once more assumed a circular shape; and the old man, bowing before
her, asked what she had determined to do.

“To sacrifice myself before I am made a sacrifice: only promise me that
you will leave no stone on the land.”

The old man promised, and then addressed the beautiful Lily thus: “Touch
the Dragon with your left hand, and your lover with your right.”

The beautiful Lily knelt down, and laid her hands upon the Dragon and
the corpse. In an instant the latter became endued with life: he moved,
and then sat upright. The Lily wished to embrace him; but the old man
held her back, and assisted the youth whilst he led him beyond the
limits of the circle.

The youth stood erect, the little canary fluttered upon his shoulder,
but his mind was not yet restored. His eyes were open; but he saw, at
least he appeared to look on, every thing with indifference. Scarcely
was the wonder at this circumstance appeased, when the change which the
Dragon had undergone excited attention. Her beautiful and slender form
was converted into thousands and thousands of precious stones. The old
woman, in the effort to seize her basket, had struck unintentionally
against her, after which nothing more was seen of the figure of the
Dragon. Only a heap of brilliant jewels lay in the grass. The old man
immediately set to work to collect them into his basket, a task in which
he was assisted by his wife. They both then carried the basket to an
elevated spot on the bank, when he cast the entire contents into the
stream, not, however, without the opposition of his wife and of the
beautiful Lily, who would willingly have appropriated a portion of the
treasure to themselves. The jewels gleamed in the rippling waters like
brilliant stars, and were carried away by the stream; and none can say
whether they disappeared in the distance or sank to the bottom.

“Young gentlemen,” then said the old man respectfully to the
Will-o’-the-wisps, “I will now point out your path, and lead the way;
and you will render us the greatest service by opening the doors of the
temple through which we must enter, and which you alone can unlock.”

The Will-o’-the-wisps bowed politely, and took their post in the rear.
The man with the lamp advanced first into the rocks, which opened of
their own accord; the youth followed with apparent indifference; with
silent uncertainty the beautiful Lily lingered slowly behind; the old
woman, unwilling to be left alone, followed after, stretching out her
hand that it might receive the rays of her husband’s lamp; the
procession was closed by the Will-o’-the-wisps, and their bright flames
nodded and blended with each other as if they were engaged in active
conversation. They had not gone far before they came to a large brazen
gate which was fastened by a golden lock. The old man thereupon sought
the assistance of the Will-o’-the-wisps, who did not want to be
entreated, but at once introduced their pointed flames into the lock,
when the wards yielded to their influence. The brass resounded as the
doors flew wide asunder, and displayed the venerable statues of the
kings illuminated by the advancing lights. Each individual in turn bowed
to the reverend potentates with respect, and the Will-o’-the-wisps were
prodigal of their lambent salutations.

After a short pause the Golden King asked, “Whence do you come?”

“From the world,” answered the old man.

“And whither are you going?” inquired the Silver King.

“Back to the world,” was the answer.

“And what do you wish with us?” asked the Brazen King.

“To accompany you,” responded the old man.

The fourth king was about to speak, when the golden statue thus
addressed the Will-o’-the-wisps, who had advanced towards him: “Depart
from me. My gold is not for you.”

They then turned towards the Silver King, and his apparel assumed the
golden hue of their yellow flames. “You are welcome,” he said, “but I
cannot feed you. Satisfy yourselves elsewhere, and then bring me your
light.”

They departed; and, stealing unobserved past the Brazen King, they
attached themselves to the King composed of various metals.

“Who will rule the world?” inquired the latter in inarticulate tones.

“He who stands erect,” answered the old man.

“That is I,” replied the King.

“Then it will be revealed,” said the old man, “for the time is come.”

The beautiful Lily fell upon his neck, and kissed him tenderly. “Kind
father,” she said, “a thousand thanks for allowing me to hear this
comforting word for the third time:” and, so saying, she felt compelled
to grasp the old man’s arm; for the earth began to tremble beneath them:
the old woman and the youth clung to each other, whilst the pliant
Will-o’-the-wisps felt not the slightest inconvenience.

It was evident that the whole temple was in motion; and, like a ship
which pursues its quiet way from the harbor when the anchor is raised,
the depths of the earth seemed to open before it, whilst it clove its
way through. It encountered no obstacle, no rock opposed its progress.
Presently a very fine rain penetrated through the cupola. The old man
continued to support the beautiful Lily, and whispered, “We are now
under the river, and shall soon attain the goal.” Presently they thought
the motion ceased; but they were deceived, the temple still moved
onwards. A strange sound was now heard above them: beams and broken
rafters burst in disjointed fragments through the opening of the cupola.
The Lily and the old woman retreated in alarm: the man with the lamp
stood by the youth, and encouraged him to remain. The Ferryman’s little
hut had been ploughed from the ground by the advance of the temple, and,
in its gradual fall, buried the youth and the old man.

The women screamed in alarm, and the temple shook like a vessel which
strikes upon a hidden rock. Anxiously the women wandered round the hut
in darkness: the doors were shut, and no one answered their knocking.
They continued to knock more loudly, when at last the wood began to ring
with sounds: the magic power of the lamp, which was enclosed within the
hut, changed it into silver, and presently its very form was altered;
for the noble metal, refusing to assume the form of planks, posts, and
rafters, was converted into a glorious building of artistic workmanship:
it seemed as if a smaller temple had grown up within the large one, or
at least an altar worthy of its beauty.

The noble youth ascended a staircase in the interior, whilst the man
with the lamp shed light upon his way; and another figure lent him
support, clad in a short white garment, and holding in his hand a silver
rudder: it was easy to recognize the Ferryman, the former inhabitant of
the transformed hut.

The beautiful Lily ascended the outward steps which led from the temple
to the altar, but was compelled to remain separated from her lover. The
old woman, whose hand continued to grow smaller whilst the light of the
lamp was obscured, exclaimed, “Am I still doomed to be unhappy amid so
many miracles? will no miracle restore my hand?”

Her husband pointed to the open door, exclaiming, “See, the day dawns!
hasten, and bathe in the river!”

“What advice!” she answered: “shall I not become wholly black, and
dissolve into nothing? for I have not yet discharged my debt.”

“Be silent,” said the old man, “and follow me: all debts are wiped
away.”

The old woman obeyed, and in the same instant the light of the rising
sun shone upon the circle of the cupola. Then the old man, advancing
between the youth and the maiden, exclaimed with a loud voice, “Three
things have sway upon the earth,--Wisdom, Appearance, and Power.”

At the sound of the first word the Golden King arose; at the sound of
the second, the Silver King; and the Brazen King had risen at the sound
of the third, when the fourth suddenly sunk awkwardly to the earth. The
Will-o’-the-wisps, who had been busily employed upon him till this
moment, now retreated: though paled by the light of the morning, they
seemed in good condition, and sufficiently brilliant; for they had with
much dexterity extracted the gold from the veins of the colossal statue
with their sharp-pointed tongues. The irregular spaces which were thus
displayed remained for some time exposed, and the figure preserved its
previous form; but when at length the most secret veins of gold had been
extracted, the statue suddenly fell with a crash, and formed a mass of
shapeless ruins.

The man with the lamp conducted the youth, whose eye was still fixed
upon vacancy, from the altar towards the Brazen King. At the foot of the
mighty monarch lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The youth bound it to his
side. “Take the weapon in your left hand, and keep the right hand free,”
exclaimed the King.

They then advanced to the Silver Monarch, who bent his sceptre towards
the youth; the latter seized it with his left hand: and the King
addressed him in soft accents, “Feed my sheep.”

When they reached the statue of the Golden King, with paternal
benediction the latter pressed the oaken garland on the head of the
youth, and said, “Acknowledge the highest.”

The old man had, during this proceeding, watched the youth attentively.
After he had girded on the sword, his breast heaved, his arm was firmer,
and his step more erect; and, after he had touched the sceptre, his
sense of power appeared to soften, and at the same time, by an
inexpressible charm, to become more mighty; but, when his waving locks
were adorned with the oaken garland, his countenance became animated,
his soul beamed from his eye; and the first word he uttered was “Lily!”

“Dear Lily!” he exclaimed, as he hastened to ascend the silver stairs,
for she had observed his progress from the altar where she stood,--“dear
Lily, what can man desire more blessed than the innocence and the sweet
affection which your love brings me? O my friend!” he continued, turning
to the old man, and pointing to the three sacred statues, “secure and
glorious is the kingdom of our fathers; but you have forgotten to
enumerate that fourth power, which exercises an earlier, more universal,
and certain rule over the world,--the power of love.”

With these words he flung his arms round the neck of the beautiful
maiden: she had cast aside her veil, and her cheeks were tinged with a
blush of the sweetest and most inexpressible beauty.

The old man now observed, with a smile, “Love does not rule, but
controls; and that is better.”

During all this delight and enchantment, no one had observed that the
sun was now high in heaven; and through the open gates of the temple
most unexpected objects were perceived. An empty space, of large
dimensions, was surrounded by pillars, and terminated by a long and
splendid bridge, whose many arches stretched across the river. On each
side was a footpath, wide and convenient for passengers, of whom many
thousands were busily employed in crossing over: the wide road in the
centre was crowded with flocks and herds, and horsemen and carriages;
and all streamed over without impeding each other’s progress. All were
in raptures at the union of convenience and beauty; and the new king and
his spouse were as much charmed with the animation and activity of this
great concourse as they were with their own reciprocal love.

“Honor the Dragon,” said the man with the lamp: “to her you are indebted
for life, and your people for the bridge whereby these neighboring
shores are animated and connected. Those shining precious stones which
still float by are the remains of her self-sacrifice, and form the
foundation-stones of this glorious bridge, upon which she has erected
herself to subsist forever.”

The approach of four beautiful maidens, who advanced to the door of the
temple, prevented any inquiry into this wonderful mystery. Three of them
were recognized as the attendants of the beautiful Lily, by the harp,
the fan, and the ivory chair; but the fourth, though more beautiful than
the other three, was a stranger. She, however, played with the others
with sisterly sportiveness, ran with them through the temple, and
ascended the silver stairs.

“Thou dearest of creatures!” said the man with the lamp, addressing the
beautiful Lily, “you will surely believe me for the future. Happy for
thee, and every other creature, who shall bathe this morning in the
waters of the river!”

The old woman, who had been transformed into a beautiful young girl, and
of whose former appearance no trace remained, embraced the man with the
lamp with tender caresses, which he returned with affection.

“If I am too old for you,” he said with a smile, “you may to-day select
another bridegroom; for no tie can henceforth be considered binding
which is not this day renewed.”

“But are you not aware that you also have become young?” she inquired.

“I am delighted to hear it,” he replied. “If I appear to you to be a
gallant youth, I take your hand anew, and hope for a thousand years of
happiness.”

The Queen welcomed her new friend, and advanced with her and the rest of
her companions to the altar: whilst the King, supported by the two men,
pointed to the bridge, and surveyed with wonder the crowd of passengers;
but his joy was soon overshadowed by observing an object which gave him
pain. The Giant, who had just awakened from his morning sleep, stumbled
over the bridge, and gave rise to the greatest confusion. He was, as
usual, but half awake, and had risen with the intention of bathing in
the neighboring cove; but he stumbled instead upon firm land, and found
himself feeling his way upon the broad highway of the bridge. And,
whilst he went clumsily along in the midst of men and animals, his
presence, though a matter of astonishment to all, was felt by none; but
when the sun shone in his eyes, and he raised his hand to shade them,
the shadow of his enormous fist fell amongst the crowd with such
careless violence, that both men and animals huddled together in
promiscuous confusion, and either sustained personal injury, or ran the
risk of being driven into the water.

The King, observing this calamity, with an involuntary movement placed
his hand upon his sword, but, upon reflection, turned his eyes on his
sceptre, and then on the lamp and the rudder of his companions.

“I guess your thought,” said the man with the lamp, “but we are
powerless against this monster: be tranquil; he injures for the last
time, and happily his shadow is turned from us.”

In the mean time the Giant had approached, and, overpowered with
astonishment at what he saw, let his hands sink down: he became
powerless for injury, and, gazing with surprise, entered the court-yard.

He was moving straight towards the door of the temple, when he felt
himself suddenly held fast to the earth. He stood like a colossal pillar
constructed of red, shining stones; and his shadow indicated the hours,
which were marked in a circle on the ground, not, however, in figures,
but in noble and significant effigies.

The King was not a little delighted to see the shadow of the monster
rendered harmless; and the Queen was not less astonished, as she
advanced from the altar with her maidens, all adorned with the greatest
magnificence, to observe the strange wonder which almost covered the
whole prospect from the temple to the bridge.

In the mean time the people had crowded after the Giant, and,
surrounding him as he stood still, had observed his transformation with
the utmost awe. They thence bent their steps towards the temple, of the
existence of which they now seemed to be for the first time aware, and
thronged the doorways.

The hawk was now observed aloft, towering over the building, and
carrying the mirror, with which he caught the light of the sun, and
turned the rays upon the multifarious group which stood around the
altar. The King, the Queen, and their attendants, illumined by heavenly
light, appeared beneath the dim arches of the temple: their subjects
fell prostrate before them. When they had recovered, and risen again,
the King and his attendants had descended to the altar, in order to
reach his palace by a less obstructed path; and the people dispersed
through the temple to satisfy their curiosity. They beheld with
astonishment the three kings, who stood erect, and were all the more
anxious to know what could be concealed behind the curtain in the fourth
niche; since, whatever kindness might have prompted the deed, a
thoughtful discretion had extended a costly covering over the ruins of
the fallen king, which no eye cared to penetrate, and no profane hand
dared to uplift.

There was no end to the astonishment and wonder of the people, and the
dense throng would have been crushed in the temple if their attention
had not been attracted once more to the court without.

To their great surprise, a shower of gold pieces fell as if from the
air, resounding upon the marble pavement, and caused a contest and
commotion amongst the passers-by. Several times this wonder was repeated
in different places, at some distance from each other. It is not
difficult to infer that this feat was the work of the retreating
Will-o’-the-wisps, who, having extracted the gold from the limbs of the
mutilated King, dispersed it abroad in this joyous manner. The covetous
crowd continued their contentions for some time longer, pressing hither
and thither, and inflicting wounds upon each other, till the shower of
gold pieces ceased to fall. The multitude at length dispersed gradually,
each one pursuing his own course; and the bridge, to this day, continues
to swarm with travellers; and the temple is the most frequented in the
world.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          BURT’S HOME LIBRARY.


                ---------------------------------------


[Illustration: line drawing of a book]

Comprising two hundred and fifty titles of standard works, embracing
fiction, essays, poetry, history, travel, etc., selected from the
world’s best literature, written by authors of world-wide reputation.
Printed from large type, on good paper, and bound in handsome cloth
binding, uniform with this volume, Price, 75 cents per copy.


 =Adam Bede.= By George Eliot.

 =Æsop’s Fables.=

 =Alhambra, The.= By Washington Irving.

 =Alice Lorraine.= By R. D. Blackmore.

 =All Sorts and Conditions of Men.= By Besant and Rice.

 =Andersen’s Fairy Tales.=

 =Arabian Nights Entertainments.=

 =Armadale.= By Wilkie Collins.

 =Armorel of Lyonesse.= By Walter Besant.

 =Auld Licht Idylls.= By James M. Barrie.

 =Aunt Diana.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.=

 =Averil.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Bacon’s Essays.= By Francis Bacon.

 =Barbara Heathcote’s Trial.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Barnaby Rudge.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Berber, The.= By W. S. Mayo.

 =Betrothed, The.= By Allessandro Manzoni.

 =Bleak House.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Bondman, The.= By Hall Caine.

 =Bride of the Nile, The.= By George Ebers.

 =Burgomaster’s Wife, The.= By George Ebers.

 =Cast up by the Sea.= By Sir Samuel Baker.

 =Caxtons, The.= By Bulwer-Lytton.

 =Charles Auchester.= By E. Berger.

 =Charles O’Malley.= By Charles Lever.

 =Children of the Abbey.= By Regina Maria Roche.

 =Children of Gibeon.= By Walter Besant.

 =Child’s History of England.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Christmas Stories.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Cloister and the Hearth.= By Charles Reade.

 =Confessions of an Opium-Eater.= By Thomas De Quincey.

 =Consuelo.= By George Sand.

 =Corinne.= By Madame De Stael.

 =Countess of Rudolstadt.= By George Sand.

 =Cousin Pons.= By Honore de Balzac.

 =Cranford.= By Mrs. Gaskell.

 =Crown of Wild Olive, The.= By John Ruskin.

 =Daniel Deronda.= By George Eliot.

 =Daughter of an Empress, The.= By Louisa Muhlbach.

 =Daughter of Heth, A.= By Wm. Black.

 =David Copperfield.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Deemster, The.= By Hall Caine.

 =Deerslayer, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Dombey & Son.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Donal Grant.= By George Macdonald.

 =Donald Ross of Heimra.= By William Black.

 =Donovan.= By Edna Lyall.

 =Dream Life.= By Ik. Marvel.

 =East Lynne.= By Mrs. Henry Wood.

 =Egoist, The.= By George Meredith.

 =Egyptian Princess, An.= By George Ebers.

 =Eight Years Wandering in Ceylon.= By Sir Samuel Baker.

 =Emerson’s Essays.= By Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 =Emperor, The.= By George Ebers.

 =Essays of Elia.= By Charles Lamb.

 =Esther.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Far from the Madding Crowd.= By Thos. Hardy.

 =Felix Holt.= By George Eliot.

 =Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.= By E. S. Creasy.

 =File No. 113.= By Emile Gaboriau.

 =First Violin.= By Jessie Fothergill.

 =For Faith and Freedom.= By Walter Besant.

 =Frederick the Great, and His Court.= By Louisa Muhlbach.

 =French Revolution.= By Thomas Carlyle.

 =From the Earth to the Moon.= By Jules Verne.

 =Goethe and Schiller.= By Louisa Muhlbach.

 =Gold Bug, The, and Other Tales.= by Edgar A. Poe.

 =Gold Elsie.= By E. Marlitt.

 =Great Expectations.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Great Taboo, The.= By Grant Allen.

 =Great Treason, A.= By Mary Hoppus.

 =Green Mountain Boys, The.= By D. P. Thompson.

 =Grimm’s Household Tales.= By the Brothers Grimm.

 =Grimm’s Popular Tales.= By the Brothers Grimm.

 =Gulliver’s Travels.= By Dean Swift.

 =Handy Andy.= By Samuel Lover.

 =Hardy Norseman, A.= By Edna Lyall.

 =Harold.= By Bulwer-Lytton.

 =Harry Lorrequer.= By Charles Lever.

 =Heir of Redclyffe.= By Charlotte M. Yonge.

 =Henry Esmond.= By William M. Thackeray.

 =Her Dearest Foe.= By Mrs. Alexander.

 =Heriot’s Choice.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Heroes and Hero Worship.= By Thomas Carlyle.

 =History of Pendennis.= By William M. Thackeray.

 =House of the Seven Gables.= By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 =How to be Happy Though Married.=

 =Hunchback of Notre Dame.= By Victor Hugo.

 =Hypatia.= By Charles Kingsley.

 =Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.= By Jerome K. Jerome.

 =In Far Lochaber.= By William Black.

 =In the Golden Days.= By Edna Lyall.

 =In the Heart of the Storm.= By Maxwell Grey.

 =It is Never Too Late to Mend.= By Charles Reade.

 =Ivanhoe.= By Sir Walter Scott.

 =Jack’s Courtship.= by W. Clark Russell

 =Jane Eyre.= By Charlotte Bronte.

 =John Halifax, Gentleman.= By Miss Muloch.

 =Kenilworth.= By Sir Walter Scott.

 =Kit and Kitty.= By R. D. Blackmore.

 =Kith and Kin.= By Jessie Fothergill.

 =Knickerbocker’s History of New York.= By Washington Irving.

 =Knight Errant.= By Edna Lyall.

 =L’Abbe Constantin.= By Ludovic-Halevy.

 =Lamplighter, The.= By Maria S. Cummins.

 =Last Days of Pompeii.= By Bulwer-Lytton.

 =Last of the Barons.= By Bulwer-Lytton.

 =Last of the Mohicans.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Light of Asia, The.= By Sir Edwin Arnold.

 =Little Dorrit.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Lorna Doone.= By R. D. Blackmore.

 =Louise de la Valliere.= By Alexandre Dumas.

 =Lover or Friend?= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Lucile.= By Owen Meredith.

 =Maid of Sker.= By R. D. Blackmore.

 =Man and Wife.= By Wilkie Collins.

 =Man in the Iron Mask.= By Alexandre Dumas.

 =Martin Chuzzlewit.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Mary St. John.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Master of Ballantrae, The.= By R. L. Stevenson.

 =Master of the Ceremonies, The.= By G. M. Fenn.

 =Masterman Ready.= By Captain Marryat.

 =Merle’s Crusade.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Micah Clarke.= By A. Conan Doyle.

 =Michael Strogoff.= By Jules Verne.

 =Middlemarch.= By George Eliot.

 =Midshipman Easy.= By Captain Marryat.

 =Mill on the Floss.= By George Eliot.

 =Molly Bawn.= By The Duchess.

 =Moonstone, The.= By Wilkie Collins.

 =Mosses from an Old Manse.= By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 =Mysterious Island, The.= By Jules Verne.

 =Natural Law in the Spiritual World.= By Henry Drummond.

 =Nellie’s Memories.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Newcomes, The.= By William M. Thackeray.

 =Nicholas Nickleby.= By Charles Dickens.

 =No Name.= By Wilkie Collins.

 =Not Like Other Girls.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Old Curiosity Shop.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Old Ma’m’selle’s Secret.= By E. Marlitt.

 =Old Myddelton’s Money.= By Mary Cecil Hay.

 =Oliver Twist.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Only the Governess.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =On the Heights.= By Berthold Auerbac.

 =Our Bessie.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Our Mutual Friend.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Pair of Blue Eyes, A.= By Thomas Hardy.

 =Past and Present.= By Thomas Carlyle.

 =Pathfinder, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Pere Goriot.= By Honore de Balzac.

 =Phantom Rickshaw, The.= By Rudyard Kipling.

 =Phra, the Phœnician.= By Edwin L. Arnold.

 =Picciola.= By X. B. Saintine.

 =Pickwick Papers.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Pilgrim’s Progress.= By John Bunyan.

 =Pilot, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Pioneers, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Prairie, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Pride and Prejudice.= By Jane Austen.

 =Prime Minister, The.= By Anthony Trollope.

 =Princess of Thule, A.= By Wm. Black.

 =Professor, The.= By Charlotte Bronte.

 =Put Yourself in His Place.= By Charles Reade.

 =Queen Hortense.= By Louisa Muhlbach.

 =Queenie’s Whim.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Ralph the Heir.= By Anthony Trollope.

 =Red Rover.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Reproach of Annesley.= By Maxwell Grey.

 =Reveries of a Bachelor.= By Ik. Marvel.

 =Rhoda Fleming.= By George Meredith.

 =Ride to Khiva, A.= By Captain Fred Burnaby.

 =Rienzi.= By Bulwer-Lytton.

 =Robinson Crusoe.= By Daniel Defoe.

 =Rob Roy.= By Sir Walter Scott.

 =Romance of a Poor Young Man.= By Octave Feuillet.

 =Romance of Two Worlds.= By Marie Corelli.

 =Romola.= By George Eliot.

 =Rory O’More.= By Samuel Lover.

 =Sartor Resartus.= By Thomas Carlyle.

 =Scarlet Letter, The.= By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 =Scottish Chiefs.= By Jane Porter.

 =Search for Basil Lyndhurst.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Second Wife, The.= By E. Marlitt.

 =Self-Help.= By Samuel Smiles.

 =Sense and Sensibility.= By Jane Austen.

 =Sesame and Lilies.= By John Ruskin.

 =Shadow of the Sword.= By Robert Buchanan.

 =Shirley.= By Charlotte Bronte.

 =Silas Marner.= By George Eliot.

 =Silence of Dean Maitland.= By Maxwell Grey.

 =Sketch-Book, The.= By Washington Irving.

 =Social Departure, A.= By Sara Jeannette Duncan.

 =Soldiers Three, etc.= By Rudyard Kipling.

 =Springhaven.= By R. D. Blackmore.

 =Spy, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =St. Katharine’s by the Tower.= By Walter Besant.

 =Story of an African Farm.= By Olive Schreiner.

 =Swiss Family Robinson.= By Jean Rudolph Wyss.

 =Tale of Two Cities.= By Charles Dickens.

 =Talisman, The.= By Sir Walter Scott.

 =Tartarin of Tarascon.= By Alphonse Daudet.

 =Tempest Tossed.= By Theodore Tilton.

 =Ten Years Later.= By Alexandre Dumas.

 =Terrible Temptation, A.= By Charles Reade.

 =Thaddeus of Warsaw.= By Jane Porter.

 =Thelma.= By Marie Corelli.

 =Three Guardsmen.= By Alexandre Dumas.

 =Three Men in a Boat.= By Jerome K. Jerome.

 =Tom Brown at Oxford.= By Thomas Hughes.

 =Tom Brown’s School Days.= By Thomas Hughes.

 =Tom Burke of “Ours.”= By Charles Lever.

 =Tour of the World in Eighty Days, A.= By Jules Verne.

 =Treasure Island.= By Robert Louis Stevenson.

 =Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.= By Jules Verne.

 =Twenty Years After.= By Alexandre Dumas.

 =Twice Told Tales.= By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 =Two Admirals.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Two Chiefs of Dunboy.= By James A. Froude.

 =Two on a Tower.= By Thomas Hardy.

 =Two Years Before the Mast.= By R. H. Dana, Jr.

 =Uarda.= By George Ebers.

 =Uncle Max.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Uncle Tom’s Cabin.= By Harriet Beecher Stowe.

 =Undine and Other Tales.= By De la Motte Fouque.

 =Vanity Fair.= By William M. Thackeray.

 =Vicar of Wakefield.= By Oliver Goldsmith.

 =Villette.= By Charlotte Bronte.

 =Virginians, The.= By William M. Thackeray.

 =Vicomte de Bragelonne.= By Alexandre Dumas.

 =Vivian Grey.= By Benjamin Disraeli.

 =Water Witch, The.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Waverly.= By Sir Walter Scott.

 =Wee Wifie.= By Rosa N. Carey.

 =Westward Ho!= By Charles Kingsley.

 =We Two.= By Edna Lyall.

 =What’s Mine’s Mine.= By George Macdonald.

 =When a Man’s Single.= By J. M. Barrie.

 =White Company, The.= By A. Conan Doyle.

 =Wide, Wide World.= By Susan Warner.

 =Widow Lerouge, The.= By Emilie Gaboriau.

 =Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.= By Goethe (Carlyle).

 =Wing-and-Wing.= By James Fenimore Cooper.

 =Woman in White, The.= By Wilkie Collins.

 =Won by Waiting.= By Edna Lyall.

 =Wooing O’t.= By Mrs. Alexander.

 =World Went Very Well Then, The.= By Walter Besant.

 =Wormwood.= By Marie Corelli.

 =Wreck of the Grosvenor, The.= By W. Clark Russell.

 =Zenobia.= By William Ware.

                ---------------------------------------

_For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of
price by the publisher, =A. L. BURT, New York=._

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       THE ALGER SERIES for BOYS


                      =Uniform with This Volume.=

This series affords wholesome reading for boys and girls, and all the
volumes are extremely interesting.--_Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette._


 =JOE’S LUCK; or, A Brave Boy’s Adventure in California.= By HORATIO
   ALGER, JR.

 =JULIAN MORTIMER; or, A Brave Boy’s Struggles for Home and Fortune.= By
   HARRY CASTLEMON.

 =ADRIFT IN THE WILDS; or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys.= By
   EDWARD S. ELLIS.

 =FRANK FOWLER, THE CASH BOY.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =GUY HARRIS, THE RUNAWAY.= By HARRY CASTLEMON.

 =THE SLATE-PICKER; A Story of a Boy’s Life in the Coal Mines.= By HARRY
   PRENTICE.

 =TOM TEMPLE’S CAREER.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =TOM, THE READY; or, Up from the Lowest.= By RANDOLPH HILL.

 =THE CASTAWAYS; or, On the Florida Reefs.= By JAMES OTIS.

 =CAPTAIN KIDD’S GOLD. The True Story of an Adventurous Sailor Boy.= By
   JAMES FRANKLIN FITTS.

 =TOM THATCHER’S FORTUNE.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =LOST IN THE CANON. The Story of Sam Willett’s Adventures on the Great
   Colorado of the West.= By ALFRED R. CALHOUN.

 =A YOUNG HERO; or, Fighting to Win.= By EDWARD S. ELLIS.

 =THE ERRAND BOY; or, How Phil Brent Won Success.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =THE ISLAND TREASURE; or, Harry Darrel’s Fortune.= By FRANK H.
   CONVERSE.

 =A RUNAWAY BRIG; or, An Accidental Cruise.= By JAMES OTIS.

 =A JAUNT THROUGH JAVA. The Story of a Journey to the Sacred Mountain by
   Two American Boys.= By E. S. ELLIS.

 =CAPTURED BY APES; or, How Philip Garland Became King of Apeland.= By
   HARRY PRENTICE.

 =TOM THE BOOT-BLACK; or, The Road to Success.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =ROY GILBERT’S SEARCH. A Tale of the Great Lakes.= By WILLIAM P.
   CHIPMAN.

 =THE TREASURE-FINDERS. A Boy’s Adventures in Nicaragua.= By JAMES OTIS.

 =BUDD BOYD’S TRIUMPH; or, The Boy Firm of Fox Island.= By WILLIAM P.
   CHIPMAN.

 =TONY, THE HERO; or, A Brave Boy’s Adventures with a ramp.= By HORATIO
   ALGER, JR.

 =CAPTURED BY ZULUS. A Story of Trapping in Africa.= By HARRY PRENTICE.

 =THE TRAIN BOY.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =DAN THE NEWSBOY.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

 =SEARCH FOR THE SILVER CITY. A Story of Adventure in Yucatan.= By JAMES
   OTIS.

 =THE BOY CRUISERS; or, Paddling in Florida.= By ST. GEORGE RATHBORNE

                ---------------------------------------

_=The above stories are printed on extra paper, and bound in Handsome
Cloth Binding, in all respects uniform with this volume, at $1.00 per
copy.=_

                ---------------------------------------

_For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of
price, by the publisher, =A. L. BURT, 66 Reade St., New York=._

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                     THE FIRESIDE SERIES FOR GIRLS.


[Illustration: line drawing of a book]

                        =Uniform Cloth Binding.=

A carefully selected series of books for girls written by authors of
acknowledged reputation. The stories are deeply interesting in
themselves, and have a moral charm that emanates from the principal
characters; they teach without preaching, are of lively interest
throughout, and will win the hearts of all girl readers.


 =Esther.= By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =A World of Girls: The Story of a School.= By L. T. MEADE. Illustrated.
   Price, $1.00.

 =The Heir of Redclyffe.= By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. Illustrated. Price,
   $1.00.

 =The Story of a Short Life.= By JULIANA HORATIO EWING. Illustrated.
   Price, $1.00.

 =A Sweet Girl Graduate.= By L. T. MEADE. Illustrated. Price, 1.00.

 =Our Bessie.= By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls.= By JULIANA HORATIO EWING.
   Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest.= By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. Illustrated.
   Price, $1.00.

 =Giannetta: A Girl’s Story of Herself.= By ROSA MULHOLLAND.
   Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Jan of the Windmill: A Story of the Plains.= By JULIANA HORATIO WING.
   Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Averil.= By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through a Looking-Glass.= Two volumes in
   one. By LEWIS CARROLL. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Merle’s Crusade.= By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Girl Neighbors; or, The Old Fashion and the New.= By SARAH TYTLER.
   Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =Polly: A New Fashioned Girl.= By L. T. MEADE. Illustrated. Price,
   $1.00.

 =Aunt Diana.= By ROSA N. CAREY. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby.= By CHARLES KINGSLEY.
   Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =At the Back of the North Wind.= By GEORGE MACDONALD. Illustrated.
   Price, $1.00.

 =The Chaplet of Pearls; or, The White and Black Ribaumont.= By
   CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

 =The Days of Bruce: A Story of Scottish History.= By GRACE AGUILAR.
   Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

                ---------------------------------------

_For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on the receipt
of price by the publisher, =A. L. BURT, New York=._

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                      Useful and Practical Books.


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a multitude of sources, presenting in a convenient form a mass of
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authorities. Edited by ROBERT THORNE, M.A. 500 pages. Cloth, 12mo, price
$1.00.

“In this book the casual reader will be rejoiced to meet many a subject
he has searched the encyclopedia for in vain. The information is
clearly, fully and yet concisely given.”--_Springfield Republican._


=A Cyclopedia of Natural History.= Comprising descriptions of Animal
Life: Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Batrachians and Fishes. Their Structure,
Habits and Distribution. For popular use. By CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M. D.
620 pages. 500 illustrations. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

“The author has shown great skill in condensing his abundant material,
while the illustrations are useful in illustrating the information
furnished in the text.”--_Times, Troy._


=The National Standard Encyclopedia.= A Dictionary of Literature, the
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pertaining to questions of Agriculture, Anatomy, Architecture,
Biography, Botany, Chemistry, Engineering, Geography, Geology, History,
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best Authorities. Complete in one volume of 700 pages, with over 1,000
illustrations. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.


=Law Without Lawyers.= A compendium of Business and Domestic Law, for
popular use. By HENRY B. COREY, LL.B., member of New York Bar. Cloth,
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“The volume before us is a very convenient manual for every-day use,
containing a general summary of the law as applied to ordinary business
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of legal documents.”--_Troy Times._


=Dr. Danelson’s Counselor, with Recipes.= A trusty guide for the family.
An illustrated book of 720 pages, treating Physiology, Hygiene,
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Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

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practical in the application of its counsels. It can but be a helper in
homes following its directions.”--_Rev. J. V. Ferguson, Pastor M. E.
Church, Mohawk, N. Y._


=The National Standard History of the United States.= A complete and
concise account of the growth and development of the Nation, from its
discovery to the present time. By EVERIT BROWN. 600 pages. Illustrated.
Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

In this most interesting book our country’s history is told from the
discovery of America down to the election of Benjamin Harrison as
President of the United States.

=A Dictionary of American Politics.= Comprising accounts of Political
Parties, Measures and Men; Explanations of the Constitution; Divisions
and Practical Workings of the Government, together with Political
Phrases, Familiar Names of Persons and Places, Noteworthy Sayings, etc.,
etc. By EVERIT BROWN and ALBERT STRAUSS. 565 pages. Cloth, 12mo, price
$1.00. Paper, 50 cents.

SENATOR JOHN SHERMAN says: “I have to acknowledge the receipt of a copy
of your ‘Dictionary of American Politics.’ I have looked over it, and
find it a very excellent book of reference, which every American family
ought to have.”


=Boys’ Useful Pastimes.= Pleasant and profitable amusement for spare
hours in the use of tools. By PROF. ROBERT GRIFFITH, A. M. 300
illustrations. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

“The author has devised a happy plan for diverting the surplus energy of
the boy from frivolous or mischievous channels into activities that
interest him, while at the same time they train him to mechanical and
artistic skill and better adapt him for success in life.”--_Boston
Journal._


=What Every One Should Know.= A cyclopedia of Practical Information,
containing complete directions for making and doing over 5,000 things
necessary in business, the trades, the shop, the home, the farm, and the
kitchen, giving in plain language recipes, prescriptions, medicines,
manufacturing processes, trade secrets, chemical preparations,
mechanical appliances, aid to injured, business information, law, home
decorations, art work, fancy work, agriculture, fruit culture,
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our daily wants. By S. H. BURT. 516 pages. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

“A mass of information in a handy form, easy of access whenever occasion
demands.”--_Inter-Ocean, Chicago._


=Readers’ Reference Hand-Book.= Comprising “A HANDY CLASSICAL AND
MYTHOLOGICAL DICTIONARY” of brief and concise explanations of ancient
mythological, historical and geographical allusions commonly met with in
literature and art, also “FAMOUS PEOPLE OF ALL AGES,” a manual of
condensed biographies of the most notable men and women who ever lived.
By H. C. FAULKNER and W. H. VAN ORDEN. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

“This book will serve a useful purpose to many readers, and will save
time lost in consulting dictionaries of larger scope.”--_The Churchman._


=Writers’ Reference Hand-Book.= Comprising a manual of the “ART OF
CORRESPONDENCE,” with correct forms for letters of a commercial, social
and ceremonial nature, and with copious explanatory matter. Also “A
HANDY DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS,” with which are combined the words
opposite in meaning. Prepared to facilitate fluency and exactness in
writing. By JENNIE TAYLOR WANDLE and H. C. FAULKNER. Cloth, 12mo, price
$1.00.

“Crowded full and even running over with proper and effective words must
be the writer who will not occasionally find this work of great
convenience and assistance to him.”--_The Delineator._


=Etiquette, Health and Beauty.= Comprising “THE USAGES OF THE BEST
SOCIETY,” a manual of social etiquette, and “TALKS WITH HOMELY GIRLS ON
HEALTH AND BEAUTY,” containing chapters upon the general care of the
health, and the preservation and cultivation of beauty in the
complexion, hands, etc. By FRANCES STEVENS and FRANCES M. SMITH. Cloth,
12mo, price $1.00.

“It is a handy volume to be lying on the table for reference.”--_Zion’s
Herald, Boston._


=The National Standard Dictionary.= A pronouncing lexicon of the English
Language, containing 40,000 words, and illustrated with 700 wood-cuts,
to which is added an appendix of useful and valuable information. 600
pages. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00.

“A convenient and useful book. Clear in typography, convenient in size.
It contains copious definitions, syllabic divisions, the accentuation
and pronunciation of each word, and an appendix of reference matter of
nearly 100 pages is added, making it the best cheap dictionary we have
ever seen.”--_Courier-Journal, Louisville._


=The Usages of the Best Society.= A manual of social etiquette. By
FRANCES STEVENS. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents.

“Will be found useful by all who wish to obtain instruction on matters
relating to social usage and society.”--_Demorest’s Magazine._


=A Handy Dictionary of Synonyms=, with which are combined the words
opposite in meaning. For the use of those who would speak or write the
English language fluently and correctly. By H. C. FAULKNER. Cloth, 16mo,
price 50 cents.

“Will be found of great value to those who are not experienced in speech
or with pen.”--_Brooklyn Eagle._


=Talks With Homely Girls on Health and Beauty.= Their Preservation and
Cultivation. By FRANCES M. SMITH. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents.

“She recommends no practices which are not in accord with hygienic laws,
so that her book is really a valuable little guide.”--_Peterson’s
Magazine._


=A Handy Classical and Mythological Dictionary.= For popular use, with
70 illustrations. By H. C. FAULKNER. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents.

“It is often convenient to have a small book at hand in order to find
out the meaning of the classical allusions of the day, when it is
troublesome and cumbersome to consult a larger work. This tasteful
volume fills the desired purpose. It explains the allusions,
pronounces the hard names, and pictures many of the mythological
heroes.”--_Providence Journal._


=Famous People of All Ages.= Who they were, when they lived, and why
they are famous. By W. H. VAN ORDEN. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents.

“An excellent hand-book, giving in a compact form biographies of the
persons in whom the student and writer would naturally take most
interest.”--_New York Tribune._


=Friendly Chats With Girls.= A series of talks on manners, duty,
behavior and social customs. Containing sensible advice and counsel on a
great variety of important matters which girls should know. By MRS. M.
A. KIDDER. Illustrated. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents.

“Every girl that reads and understands this little book will be all the
wiser and prettier for it, and she will learn that excellent secret that
true beauty comes from within, and is not for sale at the dressmaker’s
or the apothecary’s.”--_Boston Beacon._


=The Art of Letter Writing.= A manual of polite correspondence,
containing the correct forms for all letters of a commercial, social, or
ceremonial nature, with copious explanatory chapters on arrangement,
grammatical forms, punctuation, etc., etc. By JENNIE TAYLOR WANDLE.
Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents.

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stimulate ambition, and it is a much better sign for a person who has
had few school advantages to be seen consulting an authoritative volume
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with all his ignorance clinging around him.”--_N. Y. Telegram._


=Ladies’ Fancy Work.= New Revised Edition, giving designs and plain
directions for all kinds of Fancy Needle-Work. Edited by JENNY JUNE. 700
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Mrs. Croly [Jenny June], whose work here, as elsewhere, is as careful
and thorough as she has taught us to expect. They will be invaluable to
all needle-workers, and deserve the success they will most undoubtedly
obtain.”--_Mrs. Helen Campbell._


=Knitting and Crochet.= A guide to the use of the Needle and the Hook.
Edited by JENNY JUNE. 200 illustrations. Paper cover, price 50 cents.

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mothers, who can gain much important information from these books to aid
in decorating their homes and to trim their clothing tastefully.”--_Mrs.
Henry Ward Beecher._


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work. Edited by JENNY JUNE. 200 illustrations, Paper cover, price 50
cents.

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Knitting and Crochet the best manuals on those subjects that I have ever
seen. They are charming reading, us well as useful guides to housewife
and needle-woman.”--_Marion Harland._


=Letters and Monograms.= For marking on Silk, Linen and other fabrics,
for individuals and household use. Edited by JENNY JUNE. 1,000
illustrations. Paper cover, price 50 cents.

“I am greatly pleased with the Manuals of Art Needle-Work so charmingly
edited by Mrs. Croly [Jenny June]. Mrs. Croly’s manuals will reveal
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and holding fast to the truths in nature, ‘patterns’ will come of
themselves to fit the uses intended. Embroidery, however, is a real
enjoyment to me, and I am glad to aid all efforts to popularize such
work.”--_Mrs. Gen. Fremont._

                ---------------------------------------

_For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of
price, by the publisher, =A. L. BURT, 66 Reade Street, New York=._

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          Transcriber’s Notes


This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text and =equals signs=
to indicate boldface text. New original cover art included with this
eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized changes from the
original text:

 • p. 9: Changed “iuquire” to “inquire” in phrase “caused him to inquire
   concerning objects which, but for this, he would have passed without
   notice.”
 • p. 9: Added comma after phrase “Felix still never shut the door
   behind him.”
 • p. 26: Added semicolon after phrase “A love for you, my friend, was
   already keen and powerful in her little heart.”
 • p. 43: Added comma before phrase “Well, my friend, how it is with
   you?”
 • p. 43: Added period after phrase “upon the sofa, where he had first
   found Natalia.”
 • p. 62: Added period after phrase “now appeared to him another piece
   of artifice.”
 • p. 78: Changed “herelf” to “herself” in phrase “begging of her to be
   careful of herself and of her child.”
 • p. 78: Added period after phrase “as a sort of sin against nature, as
   a sort of incest.”
 • p. 93: Changed “clappling” to “clapping” in phrase “clapping both his
   hands upon his eyes.”
 • p. 98: Changed “answerd” to “answered” in phrase “I know not the
   worth of a kingdom, answered Wilhelm.”
 • p. 110: Added period after phrase “So she, too, is Mary! said Wilhelm
   inwardly.”
 • p. 144: Changed “loing” to “lying” in phrase “all at once she was
   lying at my feet, had seized my hand, kissed it, and was looking up
   to me.”
 • p. 145: Changed “imporunate” to “importunate” in phrase “their
   presence effaced the image of my importunate petitioner.”
 • p. 146: Added period after phrase “at last he became silent
   altogether.”
 • p. 155: Added period after phrase “Wilhelm admired the figure and its
   strange combination.”
 • p. 159: Changed “measurement sand” to “measurements and” in phrase
   “by copying precise measurements and accurately settled numbers.”
 • p. 176: Changed “harpischord” to “harpsichord” in phrase “in the
   evening, after supper, Hilaria returned to her harpsichord.”
 • p. 201: Removed closing quotation mark after phrase “a perilous
   employment to the wild-hay-men.”
 • p. 209: Moved comma from before to after “music” in phrase “As, among
   the instrumental music, singing was now introduced.”
 • p. 210: Changed “moveover” to “moreover” in phrase “Our wanderer was
   struck, moreover, by the earnestness.”
 • p. 241: Added opening quotation mark before phrase “Next morning, in
   high spirits and full of love.”
 • p. 262: Changed “afterward sthe” to “afterwards the” in phrase
   “directly afterwards the two ladies went out.”
 • p. 265: Removed comma in phrase “But as the longest day at last bends
   down to evening.”
 • p. 266: Added closing quotation mark after phrase “Antoni is gone to
   hunt; we will do the same.”
 • p. 281: Changed “women” to “woman” in phrase “this was a thing which
   no young woman could forgive.”
 • p. 298: Added period after phrase “they pray for a more equal
   division of labor and enjoyment.”
 • p. 298: Added closing quotation mark after phrase “that evil hour
   which must destroy, perhaps forever, their fondest anticipations.”
 • p. 357: Changed “hopd” to “hoped” in phrase “he hoped to be
   successful upon a second occasion.”
 • p. 309: Added closing quotation mark after phrase “we shall pay
   attention and be thankful.”
 • p. 360: Added closing quotation mark after phrase “I promise to
   relate a fairy-tale this evening that will amuse you all.”
 • p. 367: Added period after phrase “answered the old man, very
   quietly.”
 • p. 382: Added closing quotation mark after phrase “allowing me to
   hear this comforting word for the third time.”
 • p. 382: Changed “though” to “through” in phrase “beams and broken
   rafters burst in disjointed fragments through the opening of the
   cupola.”
 • Advertisements: Changed “Willliam” to “William” in listing for “The
   Virginians.”
 • Advertisements: Changed “Nicarauga” to “Nicaragua” in listing for
   “The Treasure-Finders.”

A number of missing periods, commas and decimal points were also
supplied in the advertisements at the back of the book.



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